Fantasy Fellowship Deep-Dive: Optimizing Your Characters, Part 4

Good morning gamers,

In our fourth and almost-final post in this mini-series, we're covering who are the "best" characters to fill your Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimil slots in Fantasy Fellowships. Obviously, you should run the models you like - and there's nothing wrong with picking whoever you want - but we're going to look today at the models I think are the most optimized to perform well against the opponents we're actually going to face in Fantasy Fellowships. These three characters have to do a lot of the killing work - and they're almost always going to be together. As a result, there are going to be options for who takes what slot, but only minor situations where the hero you choose for one slot will be better than an option in another slot. Let's start off with Legolas and Gimli.

The Helpers - Scoring Criteria

As we discussed last time when we looked at the Boromir character, the Legolas and Gimli characters need to be pretty competent fighters - they're going to have to fight Wargs, Goblins, and Uruk-Hai Scouts, of course, but they also need to be able to fight Warg Riders, Uruk-Hai Warriors/Berserkers, and Morannon Orcs. While you can rely on your Boromir character to "just handle the grunts," your Legolas and Gimli characters probably need to be capable of handling the bigger foes on the board as well (a Wild Warg Chieftain, a Cave Troll, the Balrog, and a Mordor Troll Chieftain - all of whom cause Terror and are properly big). As such, there's going to be some overlap with our requirements for the Boromir character, but our bar is going to be higher because we're not mostly fighting F2-3 foes.

Dueling Profile

The dueling requirements are going to be stricter this time, since we know that the Legolas and Gimli characters will need to face a lot more Uruk-Hai than the Boromir character does - and boy is the Deeping Wall scenario harrowing! As such, we're going to require that models reach a minimum of F5 and 3 Attacks if they want full marks, have F5 with 2 Attacks OR F4 with 3+ Attacks in order to get half marks, and give limited value to models who are F1-4 with 1-2 Attacks. We want beaters in these spots, so we need to be able to beat things - no F4/2A heroes for us in these slots please!

• Utility score of 1: F5+/3+ Attacks
  
• Utility score of 0.5: F5+/2 Attacks OR F4/3+ Attacks
  
• Utility score of 0.1: F1-4/1-2 Attacks
  

Wounding Profile

This is very similar to the wounding rule we covered last time for our Doomed Companion - we want to be at least S4 (whether that's "actually S4" or S2-3 with +1 To Wound) so that we can wound most of the Goblins we'll face and all of the Wargs we'll face on a 4+. It's also valuable to be S5, but not that much more than it is to be S4 (since only a handful of models will be D5 - admittedly, this includes a good chunk of the Uruk-Hai and Morannon Orcs we'll be facing). If possible, we want to be S6 or above (or effectively so once you factor in bonuses To Wound), but we'll take being S4-5 (acceptable) and give minimal points to those who are S1-3.

• Utility score of 1: Effective S6+
  
• Utility score of 0.5: Effective S4-5
  
• Utility score of 0.1: Effective S1-3

Heroic Strike or Defense

It's no secret - it's good to have the option for either Heroic Strike or Heroic Defense in Fantasy Fellowships. Since we're only requiring F5 in our dueling stats, having access to Strike means you can edge-out the Fight Value of Uruk-Hai Captains or Wild Warg Chieftains (F5) or best the Fight Value of bigger things (like F6 Cave Trolls, F7 Troll Chieftains - who can also Strike - or F10 Balrogs). Sometimes, however, you don't want to take a chance on a Strike (either because you're surrounded by grunts with a lower Fight Value than you or because it's a F10 Balrog and you don't know if you can tie his Fight Value), so you'd rather have the option for Heroic Defense. In this category, we're going to reward models for having both heroic actions with full marks, half marks will be awarded to models with only one of these options, and limited value will be given to models who have neither (since there are situations where boosting your roll is better than calling a desperate heroic).

• Utility score of 1: Both Heroic Strike and Heroic Defense
  
• Utility score of 0.5: Either Heroic Strike or Heroic Defense
  
• Utility score of 0.1: Neither Heroic Strike nor Heroic Defense
  

Heroic March or Speed or a Good Shoot Value

In the Amon Hen Scenario (and the Escape from Dwarrowdelf scenario), it helps a TON to be able to call a Heroic March. Speed is everything - and as someone who punted on Heroic March this past year, I can tell you that these two scenarios more than anything else just about killed me. March is really good, but so is just being faster than normal - any model that can close the distance with the enemy quickly is going to be a good model in my book - if you can race ahead and engage the enemy to clear a path for your friends early, then do that by all means (and score lots of points in my metrics)!

But March isn't everything - your Legolas character is going to get the Bow of the Galadhrim, which means a good shoot value will pay off if you can have a friend nearby. A model with a 3+ Shoot Value has a roughly 89% chance of hitting with that reroll and a model with a 4+ Shoot Value has a 75% chance of hitting - that's pretty good! As such, I wanted to reward models for having good shoot values if they didn't have Heroic March or above-average speed. I will say that I MAY have wanted to be a bit more strict with this (full marks if you can shoot multiple times/2+ shoot value, half marks if you have a 3+ shoot value, limited value if you have a 4+ shoot value), but I suspect the only changes we would see is a slight drop in scores for Dwarves who have a 4+ Shoot Value (basically all of them), a slight drop for Elves in general, and possibly a boost for a handful of models. I'm not overly torn-up about the final rankings, so I'm going to leave it - critique my model if you must.

• Utility score of 1: Heroic March with 3+ Might OR 9" Move or more OR a 2+/3+ shoot value
  
• Utility score of 0.5: Heroic March with 1-2 Might OR 7-8" Move OR a 4+ shoot value
  
• Utility score of 0.1: No Heroic March or a 5+/6+ shoot value
  

Pass Courage Tests

It's simple - there's usually one model on the board in a mission featuring Legolas and Gimli that causes Terror. Passing Courage tests isn't going to be a big part of any game, but we want models to be able to reliably pass Courage tests so that we don't have heroes stall out. The metric we're using is the exact same one we've been using throughout this mini-series - full marks for auto-passing Courage tests and otherwise your probability of passing a Courage test with a -1 modifier.

• Utility score of 1: auto-pass Courage tests
• Otherwise: probability of passing a courage test with a -1 penalty

I decided to apply some weights to this one - I allocated 60% of the final score to the dueling and wounding categories (30% each) and then assigned 10% of the final score to the courage category, 15% of the final score to whether the hero had Strike/Defense flexibility, and 15% of the final score to whether the hero had March or a good shoot value. Here's how it shook out!

Top 10 Helpers

Because of the way the groupings worked out, we're actually going to look at the top 15 models for reasons you'll see in a minute . . .

Tied for #12: Thrain, Thorin III Stonehelm, Helm Hammerhand, and Elendil

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Three of these participants are clearly heavy-hitters - Thrain is F6/3A with S4 and +1 To Wound, which gave him excellent combat marks. Elendil is very similar with F7/3A and S5 with +1 To Wound. Helm Hammerhand isn't quite at Elendil's level, but is still plenty good for the metric we're using (F5/3A with S5 and +1 To Wound). All of these guys are getting full marks in both combat categories, which is why the competition for the Top 10 was so steep (these guys are ranked 12th through 15th)!

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Lord of the Rings Supplement

Where we see some differences between these four characters is in the other three categories - Elendil has both Strike and Defense (full marks for flexibility), but only has a 4+ Shoot value (half-marks as your Legolas character), and is "only" Courage 6 (0.833 probability of passing a courage test with a -1 penalty). Thrain and Helm have exactly the same scores as Elendil, so there's a clear tie between them all because of how we valued Fight Value (you only needed to be F5 to do fine here).

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

The surprise contestant is Thorin III Stonehelm, who managed to get the same scores as the others because he has a hand-and-a-half pick. He's F6/3A (like a lot of Dwarves are), he's got the flexibility of being able to call Heroic Strike or Heroic Defense (and it could be free on a 5+), he's got a 4+ Shoot Value (half-marks as Legolas), and he's Courage 6. If you decided not to two-hand with him, he'd get a wounding score of 0.5 and would fall out of the top rankings, but because you can choose to two-hand, he scores the same as the guys who can two-hand without penalty.

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Now I'm on record for saying that the ability to fight two-handed with the penalty isn't a problem - and for more on this, read a recent article in our In Defense Of series. In Fantasy Fellowships in particular, it can be risky to two-hand since any Might points you spend in one mission might not be available to you in the next mission. However, if you're in a scenario where you need to kill something that's big (like the Balrog or a Cave Troll) and you're working with someone else, you can two-hand with one character to make sure you get the damage in - and I think there's something to be said about being able to do this when you need to vs. not having the option at all. As a result, Thorin III probably takes slot #15 in this list of characters, but I think he's worth keeping in the top rankings.

All of these guys ended with a final utility score of 4.5415 (that's a 4.5 out of 5!) - now for a guy who edged out everyone else below him by the faintest of blond hairs . . .

Tied for #10: Glorfindel, Lord of the West and Treebeard

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Lord of the Rings Supplement

Glorfindel does some flip-flopping from the last group, but basically pulled a Thorin III to edge them out. He gets full marks for his dueling score (F7/3A with a reroll from Lord of the West) and because he CAN choose to two-hand (like Thorin III - but with less risk because of that reroll), he gets full marks for wounding since he's got S4 and +1 To Wound. While the previous set of characters had both Strike and Defense but only 4+ shoot values, Glorfindel only has Heroic Strike but has a 3+ Shoot Value. As a result, it all comes down to Courage and Glorfindel's Courage 7 (0.917 probability of passing with a -1 penalty) narrowly edged them out. Glorfindel's final utility score is 4.5835 (or 0.04 higher than the others), which is to say that if you prefer the other guys to Glorfindel, they'll do just fine.

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Lord of the Rings Supplement

Tied with Glorfindel is Treebeard, who is basically like Elendil, but Courage 7 - he's crushing the dueling and wounding requirements (with F8/3A and S8), he's got both Strike and Defense, he's got a 4+ shoot value without any extra speed or March, and he's Courage 7 (like Glorfindel). If I had to choose between paying 185pts for Elendil in Fantasy Fellowships or 190pts for Treebeard, I'd be very conflicted - like Glorfindel, I think you could choose Treebeard or anyone from the previous set and be just as happy. Treebeard is D8 with 3 Wounds/3 Fate, which you can only get from the previously seen characters with Thrain, but even in the resilience department, you've still got a good option (Dwarf heroes are really good for their cost).

Okay, we had two groupings of models so far - now it's time for another big grouping of models that tied for sixth . . .

Tied for #6: Beorn, Grimbeorn, Durin, and "Young" Dain Ironfoot

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Oh look, it's two big monsters and two big Dwarves! Beorn and Grimbeorn are (for the sake of our model) the same as Treebeard EXCEPT that they are Fearless. Their F7-8 with 3 Attacks at S8 is an absolute crusher and with Fearless, they are our first models to get full marks for the Courage stat. They both have Strike and Defense for combat flexibility and they both have 8" move, which . . . doesn't actually help them score any better because they happen to also have a 4+ shoot value, but seeing as how that extra movement is likely to get them into combat faster, I think it would be fine to pass on the shooting in order to just get into combat.

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Lord of the Rings Supplement

Durin has a similar tale - he's F6/3A (and a reroll) with S4 and +1 To Wound without penalties, he's Fearless, and he has both Strike and Defense. He's the typical slow Dwarf, but with a 4+ shoot value, he comes in at half-marks. Having said this so many times, I'm tempted to think that the 4+ shoot value shouldn't have been weighted quite as highly as it is, but we're going to leave it - I think Durin would be a fine choice as either Legolas or Gimli so long as the guy running next to him has March.

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Speaking of March - Dain is our first hero to have Heroic March and 3 Might points to score full marks for speed (instead of just having a 3+ shoot value)! He's got a better-than-Thrain combat profile (F6/3A with S5 and +1 To Wound without penalties) and is Fearless like Durin/Beorn/Grimbeorn to get full marks there. Like Glorfindel, he's got the max marks for speed (not shooting - he's the first candidate that's much better as your Gimli character rather than your Legolas character), but he doesn't have Heroic Defense, so he only gets half-marks there. If you have the option of paying 120pts for Thrain or 140pts for Dain, I think I'd pick Dain every time - but both are excellent (and if you wanted to run them together, you'd have a pair that is truly terrifying to fight against).

All four of these characters ended with a utility score of 4.625, which is less than 0.1 better than the guys who tied for 11th - like our Doomed spot last time, this one was also very close! So if we have four Fearless heroes tying for sixth place, who could possibly be above them? Well, models that are fast and are basically Fearless . . . which would be . . .

Tied for #4: Aragorn, King Elessar and Gwaihir

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Lord of the Rings Supplement

I was surprised that Elessar wasn't the best, but his tie for fourth is simple: he's "only" Courage 6. Like all the heroes we've talked about so far (except for Glorfindel and Thorin III), Aragorn absolutely crushed the dueling and wounding requirements with F6/3A and Anduril to wound on 4s (which puts him somewhere between S5 and S9 . . . S6+ didn't seem like a hard ask here). He's got both Strike and Defense and has Heroic March and a free Might point each turn to get full marks in both of these categories. That left us with just his courage rating - and with Courage 6, he gets a 0.833 for a final utility score of 4.9165 (or roughly 0.08 points off perfection). While his 6" counts-as-a-banner bonus didn't help him score higher this time, he's clearly an excellent choice for someone in your Fellowship (if you can afford the 225pt price tag).

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Lord of the Rings Supplement

Gwaihir required some assumption making to score this high. Using only his base stats, Gwaihir only has 2 Attacks, which would limit his dueling score to 0.5 (and if everything else remained the same, he'd have a final score of 4.1665 and tie for 20th with double-bladed Thranduil, Isildur, Champ-Gloin, King Balin, Boromir of Gondor, Beechbone, and Aragorn - Strider without Anduril - which is good company, but not all of these guys appear to be Gwaihir-level company). If Gwaihir is on the charge, however, Monstrous Charge will give him +1 Attack, so he'll be a F8/3A hero, which gives him full marks for dueling (and he'll jump up ~15 places to tie with Aragorn, King Elessar). If you average out the scores (which would assume an even chance of getting the charge and not getting the charge), Gwaihir gets a utility score of 4.5415, which would put him in a five-way tie with the guys who landed in 12th place (Thrain, Thorin III, Helm, and Elendil). I honestly didn't know what to do with this guy.

But then it hit me: if you're going to put Gwaihir in your Fellowship, you're probably going to be calling Heroic Moves with him a LOT because there's very little in Fantasy Fellowships that's going to be F8 or above - and nothing can even get to/above F8 in the Moria Sequence except the Balrog. Once out of Moria, Lurtz has a chance of getting to/above F8 in the Amon Hen scenario, but even that isn't a guarantee. There are no models in the Warg Attack or Helm's Deep scenarios who can call a Heroic Strike and no one in the Docks of Harlond can call a Strike either. While the Uber-Troll-Chieftain at the Black Gate could Strike against Gwaihir, it's literally that guy, possibly Lurtz, and the Balrog - that's it. I think it quite likely that you could spend all of Gwaihir's Might calling Heroic Moves (which will benefit him alone, unless you have a wizard around) - and so I decided to only count his maximum score that assumes he's on the charge. If you disagree with me, you may happily relegate him to the company of Thrain or Thranduil.

As for the other stats, he was always going to get full marks for wounding (S6 is great), he's Courage 6 (pretty good), he has both Strike and Defense (awesome - though it's questionable if he needs either), and he's got a 12" Fly move (awesome for speed). In practice, having Gwaihir in your Legolas or Gimli spot mostly means you're leaving your friend behind (unless he's fast), but you'd be able to get into the action quickly and if your friend had the Bow of the Galadhrim, you could choose to let him advance slowly and shoot instead of racing ahead (having your Sam character start near-ish to them so he could be your friendly model within 3" to get the reroll for the Bow of the Galadhrim).

Okay, but if these guys didn't get the top slot, who edged them out? Well, a three-way tie between models with good shoot values and lots of heroic action flexibility . . .

Tied for #1: Gil-Galad, Elrond, and Celeborn

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Lord of the Rings Supplement

These guys are on top because of their 3+ Shoot Values and Courage 7 - that's it. And yet, we have a Glorfindel/Thorin III dilemma here again for two of these characters. Gil-Galad is pretty straight-forward - he's got F9/3A with Lord of the West and S4 and +1 To Wound from Aiglos, so the full marks for the two combat categories is simple. Courage 7 isn't the same as being Fearless, but it's almost the same (0.917) and he's got both Strike and Defense for heroic flexibility. That 3+ shoot value gives him full marks for the March or Shooting category, which means he's an excellent Legolas choice (where the shoot value will actually matter) - and if he's riding out with Theoden at Helm's Deep, those Uruks had better beware.

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Lord of the Rings Supplement

Elrond and Celeborn, however, require a really big assumption to make it this high - they've got a good dueling profile (F6/3A with Lord of the West), Courage 7, both Strike and Defense, and 3+ shoot values. However, they're only S4 . . . with hand-and-a-half swords. Is it truly fair for them to share top-spot with Gil-Galad? Once again, I have to say yes - because their Lord of the West abilities are going to give them a roughly 50% chance of getting a natural 6 as their highest value in a duel (reduced to a 5-high if they two-hand). If each is fighting two dice on the other side, the opposing models only have a 30% chance of getting a natural 6 - and with banners being scarce in most missions, enemy warriors are going to need those natural rolls in order to challenge them. Roughly 26% of the time, a two-dice foe will tie the 5-high, which means Elrond or Celeborn will win by having the higher Fight Value. If the foe doesn't roll a 5- or a 6-high, Elrond or Celeborn win straight-away. Two-handing does get a bit dicey if your opponent starts rolling as many dice as you, but if you're concerned that Elrond or Celeborn is going to lose and take damage (which D6-7 with 3 Wounds/3 Fate is pretty hard to wound if they aren't trapped), you can just choose to one-hand it - if they're fighting D4 foes, they're wounding on 4s anyway.

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Lord of the Rings Supplement

The exception to the fear that Elrond has to two-hand is if he finds himself up against the Balrog. Since the Balrog is a spirit model, Elrond's sword Hadhafang gets +1 To Wound against him - so when he's fighting the Balrog, he'll be wounding on a 5/3+ (which is actually better than being S6). If he two-hands, he'll be wounding on a 4/2+ . . . which is just kind of sick . . . Celeborn can't do this, but he can kind of do better than it if he Heroic Channels Enchanted Blades on himself (to give himself +1 To Wound and rerolling all failed To Wound rolls . . . though it does require a Might point for channelling).

All that to say, if you're looking for anyone to be good candidates for your Legolas or Gimli slots, consider taking any of the 15 profiles we just looked at (with special attention paid to Dain and Elessar, since they have March). Okay, now for the big event . . . and a lot of familiar faces . . .

The King - Scoring Criteria

Our standard for Legolas and Gimli made being F5 okay - and in most situations, your supporting heroes just have to be better than Uruk-Hai. However, we need to have a big character to handle those really big foes - and we're going to delegate that responsibility to the Aragorn slot. Additionally, I've found it to be quite helpful to have a banner in your Fellowship - and if Aragorn isn't in your Fellowship, your Aragorn character is going to receive Anduril, so it would be good if the hero would benefit greatly from Anduril as well. Let's see what we're looking for in this profile that can tackle the biggest nasties on the block . . .

Dueling Profile

Since we don't get a rest point in Moria, it would be good if we had a hero who was higher than F5 to deal with the Wild Warg Chieftain without using a Heroic Strike. Similarly, your Aragorn character will be at Weathertop, so being above F5 is great for dealing with Ringwraiths (though you do have a rest point immediately afterwards, so you don't have to save your resources). As a result, our greatest desire is to have at least 3 Attacks and be at least Fight 6. There is value in being Fight 6 with fewer attacks, as well as being Fight 5 with lots of Attacks, so we're giving part-way credit for models that have at least Fight 6 and less than 3 Attacks OR who have Fight 5 and 3 or more Attacks. Finally, we give some minor benefit to models that have F5 and 1-2 Attacks OR who are F4 with any number of Attacks (since you'll still be able to handle the Goblins, Wargs, and Orcs, but will have mixed success against Uruk-Hai - and basically no chance of success against the heroes and monsters in the mix). No credit is being given to models that are Fight 1-3 - this isn't the right slot for those kinds of heroes.

• Utility score of 1: F6+/3+ Attacks
  
• Utility score of 0.5: F6+/1-2 Attacks OR F5/3+ Attacks
  
• Utility score of 0.1: F4/3+ Attacks OR 5/1-2 Attacks
• Utility score of 0: F1-3
  

Wounding Profile

While we know most of the foes we'll be facing live in the D4-6 range, there are going to be big heroes who reach D7 (3 Uruk-Hai Captains with shields, 4 Morannon Orc Captains with shields), D8 (Ringwraiths, Mordor Troll Chieftain), and D9 (The Balrog). As such, while being S4 is probably a good idea (and S5 is even better), you really want to be effectively S6 in order to be a good candidate for the Aragorn slot (so you can wound Ringwraiths at Weathertop, the Mordor Troll Chieftain in the End of All Things, and the Balrog in the Bridge of Khazad-Dum on at least 5s). This is the exact same criteria we had for the last group.

• Utility score of 1: Effective S6+
  
• Utility score of 0.5: Effective S5
  
• Utility score of 0.1: Effective S4
• Utility score of 0: Effective S1-3
  

Passing Courage Tests

Yep, this is still a requirement - and even more so if you're the heavy-hitter who needs to deal with the Ringwraiths on Weathertop, the Balrog in Moria, and the Mordor Troll Chieftain at the Black Gate. In most of these situations, you're going to have a -1 penalty, so it's best if you are Fearless OR have a really high Courage rating to start with. Ergo, we'll be using the same test we've been employing in the previous posts in this series.

• Utility score of 1: auto-pass Courage tests
  
• Otherwise: probability of passing a courage test with a -1 penalty
  

Heroic Strike or Heroic Combats

There are two things our big heroes need to be able to do: take on things that fight better than they do naturally and smash through grunts. As such, we want our heroes to be able to call lots of Heroic Combats (to deal with grunts) and be able to call Heroic Strike to challenge the biggest of the baddies (Defense could be good, but we don't want to stall out the enemy, per se). As such, we're awarding full marks to the heroes who get free Heroic Strikes/Combats OR have more than 3 Might so they can call lots of them. Partial credit is awarded to heroes with 3-Might-and-Strike (common and perfectly functional place to be), limited credit for heroes with 1-2 Might and Heroic Strike (more of a pinch-hit role), and no credit to heroes without Heroic Strike (you have your places in other slots, but not this one).

• Utility score of 1: free Heroic Strike/Combat OR 4+ Might and Heroic Strike
  
• Utility score of 0.5: 3 Might and Heroic Strike
  
• Utility score of 0.1: 1-2 Might with Heroic Strike
• Utility score of 0: no Heroic Strike
  

Other Boosts

There are other things that are good to have - a banner rule (either personal or affecting others), anti-magic rules, or the ability to two-hand without penalty (via Burly or something similar) so you can wield Anduril two-handed without a penalty at the Black Gate. These rules are bonus add and not nearly as important as the dueling, wounding, or heroic categories - but they should be used as a discriminant for how well heroes meet our needs relative to heroes who fight at about the same level.

• Utility score of 1: at least two of banner rules, anti-magic rules, and the ability to ignore two-handed penalties
  
• Utility score of 0.5: one of banner rules, anti-magic rules, or the ability to ignore two-handed penalties
  
• Utility score of 0.1: none of these abilities
  

I decided to apply a weighting here - 30% of the final score will be affected by the dueling score, 30% will be from the wounding score, 20% will be from the Strike/Combat category, and 10% each will come from the Courage and other bonuses scores. With all this blather out of the way, let's see who made the final list!

Top 10 King Characters

We're actually going to look at the top 15 characters again, because there were a lot of ties in the top 10 slots.

Tied for #14: Isildur and Gloin the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Lord of the Rings Supplement

With an overall utility score of 4.1665 (out of 5!), we have two powerful heroes, Isildur and Gloin. While Isildur isn't as good here as he would be if he were a Ringbearer, he's still got a great profile - F6/3A (full credit for dueling), Strength 5 with a hand-and-a-half sword (so his full-score here is predicated on him opting to two-hand if he needs to be S6, which is likely to only be necessary against Ringwraiths, D6 Uruk-Hai, and maybe the Balrog), he's Courage 6 (pretty good, but as we saw in the previous set, not necessarily good enough if all other categories are equal), he has 3-Might-and-Strike (pretty good, but no free heroics and "only 3 Might"), and he's got Resistant to Magic (thanks to the Blood of Numenor special rule and always being within 6" of himself).

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Gloin is a more traditional puncher - he's also F6/3A but he's got Weapon Master (no two-hander penalty) and S4 with a two-handed axe (so he is effectively S6-7, depending on whether he wants to use Piercing Strike) - and he rerolls 1s To Wound to boot! I've used him in my Gimli slot all year and BOY is this guy a powerful piece. Like Isildur, he's C6 with 3-Might-and-Strike, but he's got the Weapon Master special rule to ignore the penalties of two-handing instead of Resistant to Magic. While this certainly makes him a more reliable killing machine, I do question how well he'll do against the Ringwraiths at Weathertop unless he's got some help from your four Hobbit characters. I had Nori in the Aragorn slot this year and his 1 Will was a liability (unless the Ringwraiths were charged by your other characters). Still, it's undeniable that Gloin will be killing a lot of Orcs, Goblins, Wargs, and Uruk-Hai - and I'm glad he made it this high on the list.

But if you're going to outclass one of the most cost-effective Dwarves and one of the few S5 men in the game, you probably need to be an Elf, which leads us to . . .

Tied for #12: Gil-Galad and Elrond

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Lord of the Rings Supplement

Yes, it's two of the Rivendell Lords of the West here to steal the 12th and 13th slots in our ranking. With an overall utility score of 4.2085 (just 0.42 higher than the last two models), these guys are Courage 7 and hit as hard. Gil-Galad is the best direct comparison to Gloin, since he's F9/3A, S4 with +1 To Wound from Aiglos (effective S6), Courage 7 (instead of Courage 6), and has 3-Might-and-Strike with personal rerolls from Lord of the West (which gets him half-credit for the "Other" category). If you want someone who's going to have unmodified dueling dice and gets to S6, this is your guy.

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Lord of the Rings Supplement

But as we've already discussed today, Lord of the West makes heroes like Elrond pretty reliable against grunts even if they suffer the two-handing penalty. As such, Elrond shares this spot with Gil-Galad today, with F6/3 Attacks, S4 with the option to get +1 To Wound, Courage 7, 3-Might-and-Strike, and Lord of the West. If he's not your wizard option, he'd be great as either your Legolas, Gimli, or Aragorn options (and provides some niche casting support).

As we get into the Top 10, we move on to a five-way tie for seventh place, which brings back to us a bunch of familiar faces and one new entry . . .

Tied for #7: Beorn, Grimbeorn, Durin, Champion-Dwalin, and Celeborn (with sword and probably heavy armor)

This group is really simple to score: they've all got killer combat profiles, they're all Fearless (or can be Fearless), they've all got 3-Might-and-Strike, and they have one other boost. With an overall utility score of 4.25, these guys are only marginally better than Gil-Galad or Elrond, but we're splitting hairs today - there are a TON of good profiles for your Three Hunter slots!

Our first stop is the bears - Beorn and Grimbeorn are F7-8 with 3 Attacks and S8 in bear form (though S5 with +1 To Wound in man form would have also given them top marks for wounding in man form). Fearless solves a multitude of woes and with 3-Might-and-Strike and Resistant to Magic, I think these guys can be a better option for you than Gloin or Isildur (though at 200pts each, they're pretty cost-prohibitive).

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Durin and Dwalin are doing the same thing - they're F6/3A with S4-5 and +1 To Wound (Dwalin can Piercing Strike up to S6 if needed and have 4 Attacks if he wants) and both Dwarves are Fearless with 3-Might-and-Strike. Durin gets a personal banner rule from his axe (unimaginatively called, "Durin's Axe") to score something on the "other" category, while Dwalin has not one but TWO rules that allow him to ignore the penalty for wielding his two-handed axe (Burly and Weapon Master). Both of these heroes are more vulnerable to magic, but with 2-3 Will each and lots of hitting power, they should be able to stand up to the five Mightless Ringwraiths in the Weathertop scenario and the Mouth of Sauron in the End of All Things scenario.

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Lord of the Rings Supplement

Celeborn is the surprise appearance here - like Elrond, he's got F6/3A with S4 and the option to two-hand for full combat stats. He's also got Lord of the West for his "other" score and 3-Might-and-Strike for his heroics score. Where he passed the other two is that he has the Aura of Command magical power, which can make him (and all friendly models within 6" of him) automatically pass their Courage tests - Fearless on everyone! Yep, Courage doesn't matter that much in-game once you're above C5, but when you're trying to find distinctions between models, not having to test for Courage is better than having to test - and Celeborn is still a good combatant. I realized after I finalized the rankings that Aura of Command would TECHNICALLY put Celeborn above Elrond and Gil-Galad in the last assessment . . . but that seemed anathema to me. :-)

Okay, enough with Elves and their fancy get-around-things rules - let's get back to some straight-up killing guys (and our first entries with free heroic actions) . . .

Tied for #4: Thorin III Stonehelm, King Thorin, and Aragorn - Strider (with Anduril)

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

In a three-way tie for fourth, we have three heroes who either have or can have free Heroic Combats (or Strikes for two of them). Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain always has free Heroic Combats and my son has gotten some great work out of him this past year in Fantasy Fellowships (in his Legolas spot, not as Aragorn). With F6/3A and the option to two-hand with Orcrist from S4, Thorin can keep the beat down on most warriors that he faces. With free Heroic Combats giving him full marks in the heroics category and Courage 6, Thorin's ticking off a lot of boxes . . . except the "other boosts" one.

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Similarly, Thorin III Stonehelm has a great combat profile (F6/3A with S4 and the option to two-hand, along with C6) and his Cool-headed rule gives him a 33% chance that any heroic he calls is free (and he can change it after the opponent calls a heroic action if he wants to). Like Thorin, he has nothing in the "other category" . . .

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Lord of the Rings Supplement

Aragorn wouldn't rank this high if he didn't have Anduril, but since Centaur has proven this year that having Anduril pays for itself very quickly, I couldn't in all honesty rank him without it (not for his own slot - I did leave Anduril off in the Legolas/Gimli comparison earlier). With F6/3A and wounding everyone on 4s (backed by Mighty Hero for a free point of Might each turn), it's really just the Courage 6 and nothing in the "other" category that's holding this boy down! These guys all scored the same with a final utility score of 4.4165 (0.1665 higher than the last batch), showing just how much that jump to "1" in the heroics category matters (compared to the benefits of Fearless).

But these guys all missed the podium - to get there, you really need that "other" category to have something in it, so we turn our attention to a familiar face . . .

Rank #3: Glorfindel, Lord of the West

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Lord of the Rings Supplement

Yep, Glorfindel does it again - that Courage 7 put him JUST above the other guys and he slides into third place. With an overall utility score of 4.4585, Glorfindel gives you everything you want in a combat hero (if you're willing to two-hand), he's got good magic resilience (Fortify Spirit innately), a personal banner-like reroll (Lord of the West), and 3-Might-and-Strike. He's also likely to be immune to monster Brutal Power Attacks if he takes the Armor of Gondolin, not that it factored into our analysis today.

If you're going to be better than Glorfindel, then you need to do better on the heroics, and for that we have . . .

Rank #2: Aragorn, King Elessar

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Lord of the Rings Supplement

It shouldn't be surprising that Aragorn is a great choice for his own slot - and this Aragorn is slightly better at meeting the goals we wanted than his Ranger variant because he has a 6" banner rule. Like Boromir's banner and Halbarad's banner, this is one of very few 6" banners that affects all people and when put on a very strong offensive profile (definitely better than Halbarad's profile, often about the same as Boromir's profile), it's not hard for Elessar to show his quality on the board. 

Like almost everyone we've viewed in this post, he's F6/3A, but he also starts with Anduril (so he can wound anyone on 4s starting at Weathertop - and 3s if he two-hands), he's Courage 6 (pretty good), and he's got Mighty Hero for that free Heroic Strike/Combat that gives him full marks for his heroics score. His banner bonus also gives him half-credit for the "other" category - though having Weapon Master or Resistant to Magic would have helped him score higher. Still, with an overall utility score of 4.6665, he narrowly edged out Glorfindel, which I feel is more than fair.

But if Elessar didn't take the top spot, who on earth could have done it? Well, he's gotta have free heroic actions (probably Combats) and be able to put the beat-down on everyone he faces - and for that, there is only one answer . . .

Rank #1: Elendil, High King of Gondor and Arnor

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Lord of the Rings Supplement

If anyone is going to beat Elessar for the top slot, it's going to be his grandsire Elendil. There are some caveats that go into this ranking, however - unquestionably, he gets full marks for his dueling score (F7/3A) and his wounding score (S5 with a free +1 To Wound from Narsil). He's also got Courage 6 for a 0.833 rating (which is good, even though it could be better). Where things get dicey is how you approach the other two categories.

Elendil scores at least half-credit on both because he has 3-Might-and-Strike and Fortify Spirit for magical resilience. He also has Narsil, which gives him free Heroic Combats (boosting the Strike/Combat stat to full) and allows him to ignore the two-handed penalty while wielding Narsil thanks to the Masterforged keyword (boosting the other category to full). Both of these are, of course, tied to using that sword to do your killing damage instead of using Anduril (and wounding on a 3+). 

The tricky thing about it - and why I opted to allow Elendil to score full marks on both of these categories - is that he doesn't really NEED Anduril. Yes, wounding on 4s (or 3s if you have the ability to ignore two-handed penalties) is great, but Elendil . . . already wounds D6-7 models on 4s - and he already wounds D4-5 models on 3s! In essence, he already has Anduril (so he satisfies the need to two-hand for free to get to the 3+ to Wound) and he also gets free Heroic Combats (which is what we want).

If you want to be less generous, he can easily lose the credit for two-handing without penalty (several other characters have masterforged weapons - like Durin - and didn't get credit for it because they'd eventually WANT to wield Anduril). If you do this, he'll tie with the Thorins and Strider in third place. As it is, I've opted to be generous and give him an overall utility score of 4.9165 (only held back by being C6). This is only 0.75 utility points higher than his son at 14th or 15th place, so . . . any of the guys we've looked at today would be a good pick for this slot.

Conclusion

Whew - we've talked about a lot of men, Elves, Dwarves, and monsters today - and any mix of them could do really well as your heroes! While we've finished covering the "best" heroes for all nine Fellowship slots, we're not quite done yet. Next time, we'll turn to the eight sample Fantasy Fellowship lists that were provided in the Quest of the Ringbearer book, and while it's clear that many of them leaned harder into theme than utility, we'll seek to apply this analytic metric to identifying whose Fellowship is the "most likely" to succeed based on how optimized their units are for the jobs they need to do. Critique the analytic model if you must (either how it was made or how it's being applied), but we're applying it anyway next time - and until then, happy hobbying!

Helper Chart - click to view in full screen mode!

King Chart - click to view in full screen mode!