Good morning gamers,
Well, my Quest of the Ringbearer adventure is over - at least for this year (we're already in talks about when we'll do next season). The Fellowship I took was big on theme and performed pretty well, but I thought it might be nice to recap its greatest strengths and its worst struggles (and since we're doing Christmas lists right now, here's the list):
- Old Bilbo Baggins with Sting and the Mithril coat as Frodo
- Farmer Maggot as Sam (with Grip, Fang, and Wolf)
- Bofur the Dwarf as Merry
- Bifur the Dwarf as Pippin
- Gandalf the Grey as himself
- Nori the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor as Aragorn
- Dwalin the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor as Legolas
- Gloin the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor as Gimli
- Dori the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor as Boromir
Strength #1: Lots of F4+ 2A+ models with D5-8
Running Thorin's Company models in my Merry/Pippin slots made most of my army F4 or more with 2+ Attacks - and when you're facing Goblins, Wargs, and Uruk-Hai, that pays dividends. When we lost fights, we had D3 on a few models (Maggot and his dogs), D5 on a few models (Bilbo, Bifur, Bofur, and Gandalf), but D8 on the others (Dwalin, Gloin, Nori, and Dori). This usually meant that the damage suffered wasn't going to be much, but there were several missions (Balin's Tomb and Escape from Dwarrowdelf in particular) where we lost duels due to whiffing our rolls and good rolling on the other side that we could have lost the game if we'd suffered one more wound! Defense 8 pays dividends - and it's super hard to get unless you're spamming Dwarves. Still, in most of the scenarios, I wasn't that worried - D8 is very forgiving against a single foe.
Weakness #1: No March and mostly 5" Movement
Our lack of speed was an issue throughout - especially in the Escape from Dwarrowdelf scenario, which went on far longer (and was much closer) than Centaur or Gorgoroth's attempts. Lack of speed meant we needed to rely more on our high Defense, which proved to be problematic in that scenario especially, where there are Goblins taking pot-shots at you and they only have to get lucky once to see your 2-Wound-1-Fate heroes teeter on the brink of death. It also provided problematic in the Amon Hen scenario, where Nori had to defend Bilbo for a while on his own while Dwalin and Gloin tromped towards them.
Strength #2: Lots of To Wound Bonuses
The Champs I took are beefy dudes who hit hard - Dwalin is S5 with the option to Piercing Strike up to S6 with either his Burly two-handed axe (3 Attacks with +1 To Wound) or two hand axes (4 Attacks). Gloin is S4 with Piercing Strike and a Weapon Mastered two-handed axe (3 Attacks with +1 To Wound) and rerolls on any 1s he gets. Dori wasn't in the Fellowship for long, but he's a lot like Gloin in the wounding department (3 Attacks at S4 with +1 To Wound) but has the option to Bash with a free +1 to his score instead of using Piercing Strike.
But the rest of the Fellowship had some hitters too - Maggot is a beast for effectively 25pts with 2 Attacks at S3 with the option for Piercing Strike and +1 To Wound. When paired with someone else to help win the fight (or fighting a lone grunt), this guy is a cheap killing machine. Bofur was also a surprise choice for me - 2 Attacks at S4 with the option for Piercing Strike and +1 To Wound is also good for 45pts. Both of these guys suffer the dueling penalty for two-handing, so I was a bit pleased with the option to forego the two-handed weapon on select occasions after Bofir got his shiny dagger from Galadriel and Maggot got Sting.
Two other heroes could get +1 To Wound, but I often ignored it. Bifur has a boar spear which can be exactly like Bofur's two-handed Mattock, but could also be used as a one-handed spear. I exclusively went with the dagger on this guy after I got it. Gandalf the Grey has Glamdring, which can be used one-handed or two-handed with 1 Attack at S5. I didn't like two-handing with him unless he had help, but once in his White form (2 Attacks), I was good with two-handing.
That made Bilbo and Maggot's dogs the only models who didn't have the option to two-hand . . . which in turn made them my go-to models to help Bofur and Maggot (and Gandalf on occasion) out. It worked really well - and I'll stand by what I've said before, two-handing is good and worth doing . . . if you can get your match-ups managed well.
Weakness #2: No Banner (and only one combat reroll)
Not being able to fix a bad roll with anything other than Might is a pain - it's a real pain. Only three of my models had 3 Might (Gandalf, Dwalin, and Gloin), which meant I was always strapped for resources. Nori got a reroll, which was nice, but that's only going to help one person in their attempts to win. Simply put, a banner would have been nice.
Strength #3: 12 Models In My Fellowship
More models means better matchup management (I know, I can be alliterative when I want to be) - and just by taking Maggot, I got three extra bodies. It's hard to argue with what he brings to the table - good hitting power, extra guys, low points investment. But those extra models didn't just "give me more guys" - it gave me three 8" move models who would recover from death on a 2+ at the end of the mission. They were as disposable as any model in your Fantasy Fellowship can be, but being dogs, they were also rarely casualties (except in Balin's Tomb - that one hurt). I also was able to end the End of All Things scenario early because Bilbo fell prone and the dogs carried him quickly up the slope of Mount Doom - invaluable guys, those dogs.
Weakness #3: No Free Heroic Combats
Movement is a thing - and free Heroic Combats are free movement and extra hitting power. By not taking King Thorin (which I did have the points for, but theme was a thing), all of my Heroic Combats had to come at the cost of Might - and Might points in Fantasy Fellowships are often more precious than in Matched Play games, since a Might point spent today may not be there for use tomorrow. Free Combats would have been awesome - and after watching Centaur get free Combats with Strider and Gorgoroth getting free Combats with Elessar and King Thorin, I can tell you that I felt a bit short-handed with my awesome Dwarf dudes (as fun as they were). I'll certainly be thinking about this next time.
Strength #4: THEME!
At the end of the day, I didn't care how optimized my Fellowship was - this is an army I love, I worked hard to collect the models I needed for the conversions I needed, and playing with them was fun and entertaining (though their diva moments were absolutely frustrating). I don't think Old Bilbo is the best Ringbearer, but he's a great thematic choice. Gandalf the Grey might be the worst of the three wizards, but he gives you the ability to regrow those Will points without having to roll for them in a later mission, which is nice. I lost a lot of points when Dori exited the campaign - and I played the entire thing 25pts down - but none of that mattered: I had my boys, the Erebor Reunion, and I was happy.
Top 5 Recommended Changes to Fantasy Fellowships
When you spend the better part of a year playing through narrative scenarios, you learn things - in particular, what should be changed in the scenarios or the campaign rules for a better gameplay experience. While I have a full list of improvements on the Quest of the Ringbearer tab, I'll limit my thoughts to five improvements here.
Change #1: Give those Wraiths Horses (or 1 Might/Fate)
The Buckleberry Ferry scenario is . . . really not that hard if you don't have four Hobbits. I mean, even with four Hobbits, it's not that hard - mostly because the Ringwraiths are infantry. They have no Might to win fights, they have no Fate to save wounds, they each have 1 Attack, they start as sentries so you don't even have full control over them, and they can't move very quickly once they're under the control of the Evil players. The scenario can be challenging if you play with the original participants, but it's not that challenging in Fantasy Fellowships.
But all of that changes if they have horses. Yes, the horse makes it so they might stumble further away from the Hobbits while operating as sentries, but they can also close ground better, they can have 2 Attacks if allowed to charge, and they can make 4 strikes To Wound (two pairs of two Attacks, to be strictly correct) if they win - YIKES! Suddenly, there's something on the line for losing - and all you have to do is give the Ringwraiths horses. Oh, and it's more thematic this way, which is the point of Fantasy Fellowships, right?
You can't have horses on Weathertop (theme coming into play again), but a lot of the same critiques are present here as well. Yes, there aren't any sentry rules, but unless they spam Black Darts against the Ringbearer (and they actually succeed in casting the spell AND wounding with the spell), it's quite likely that they'll struggle to kill the Ringbearer with 1 Attack each and only 7-10 Will points. If each of the Ringwraiths had a Fate point and a Might point, all of that changes and you can actually make a game of it! Perhaps this would be too much with the original participants, but I think in Fantasy Fellowships, it would be fine. I do think that for this scenario, you'd probably want to view this as playing on "hard mode" . . . and any Smeagol-led Fellowship is in serious trouble . . .
Change #2: Breaking That Bridge
The Bridge of Khazad-Dum scenario is fun - there's a Balrog in it, there's a bunch of cheap Goblins in it (who don't come back), and it's the last time you get to use your full Fellowship together . . . but if you can't break the bridge (either because your wizard got killed OR because your wizard only has a limited amount of Will points and you can't get them back), you lose. The end. Doesn't matter if there are no Goblins or fire-coated demons left - you lose. Sigh . . .
I think not breaking the bridge should be a draw - it's hard to do and some Fellowships might not have an answer to it. In fact, both Centaur and I lost the scenario because a) my Gandalf got whipped by the Balrog and squished (with Blinding Light up, I might add) and b) his Gildor couldn't get the bridge to collapse. Taking someone like Bombur to give you Will regrowth would have helped Centaur get out of his mess, but if you don't know to take Bombur (or take a wizard with infinite Will), you can spend the entire game trying to keep your army together, only to find out that it doesn't matter. That should be changed . . .
Change #3: Those Spectres And Their Marshes
Do you know what made us laugh? Dead Marsh Spectres, who literally live in marshes, treat marsh terrain as difficult terrain. Oh, and they have to start IN the marshes, so their sentry movement has them plodding around in difficult terrain and it takes them forever to get out of it . . . um . . . that shouldn't be, right? I mean, Warriors of the Dead treat water as open terrain and they run across water one time in the films and they get a rule for it . . . where is the justice in this world? It's pretty clear to me - Dead Marsh Spectres should treat marsh terrain as open ground. Okay, let's move on . . .
Change #4: Give Those Boys a Rest
Rest points are a critical part to Fantasy Fellowships - it makes each game you play a choice between "I have a rest point after this, so let's burn through all our resources" or "I don't have a rest point for two more missions, so I should probably conserve my resources a bit." It's a great part of the campaign structure and what I think makes playing the scenarios more fun than just doing them as a one-off event (that, and you get some agency in which models you want to play with, which is awesome).
But do you know what bothers me? Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli get a rest in Lothlorien and then they have to do the Amon Hen mission and the Warg Attack mission before they get a rest point at Helm's Deep, and then they have to do two fights against Uruk-Hai (one for Gimli), and instead of stopping in at Edoras to rest . . . they DON'T get a rest point before they arrive at the Docks of Harlond. Seriously? Merry is the only person who gets to take a rest at Edoras? I mean, what are Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli doing while they're there - star-gazing? I mean, there's definitely some of that going on, but come on - Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli should get a rest point at Edoras (especially since one could argue that Gimli doesn't get a chance to regain stats after the Ride Out scenario, which means whatever he can regain after The Deeping Wall is Breached is what you have for the Docks of Harlond). I just feel like that isn't right . . . but I've saved the best change for last.
Change #5: Let Him Continue if He Doesn't Die
This is the biggest one for me - the fact that Boromir dies regardless of his living or dying in the Ambush at Amon Hen scenario is great for following the actual storyline, but we're already messing with the timeline and it disincentivizes investing in that slot. I took Dori for thematic reasons, Centaur had Elrohir in his slot because he wanted four big Grey Company heroes in his list, but I think Gorgoroth got it right: take someone super cheap (Fellowship Merry in his case) because you're losing him after five missions.
The change I would make is simple: starting with the Ambush at Amon Hen scenario, the character in your Boromir slot will not roll to recover after the scenario ends if that character was removed as a casualty. If that character survives the Ambush at Amon Hen scenario, he will join the scenario participants for the Atop the Walls, Denethor's Madness, and The End of All Things scenarios (Boromir was going to Gondor, after all). This makes it so your Boromir character could go all the way to the end, but any death is permanent. I also think going straight to Gondor (and Minas Tirith specifically) is better than going to Rohan - I could hear the argument, though, for him also being in the Osgiliath mission.
Bonus change: Give Eomer a shield in all of his scenarios
Seriously, why does Eomer only get a shield in the Ride of the Rohirrim scenario? All of the other scenarios with him are from War in Rohan or Quest of the Ringbearer - both of which were during or after the release of the new Eomer model . . . it's preposterous, I say . . .
Conclusion
So what next? While this Fellowship gave me a lot of joy to run and a lot of incentives to convert up some awesome heroes, I expect my next Fellowship will be fixing some of the weaknesses I had (namely not having March, not having free Heroic Combats, and having no banner). After doing the "optimized math" series, I'm inclined to think that the lineup will look like this . . .
- Young Bilbo Baggins as Frodo
- Bifur the Dwarf as Sam
- Bofur the Dwarf as Merry
- Bombur the Dwarf as Pippin
- Arwen Undomiel as Gandalf
- Elendil, High King of Gondor and Arnor as Aragorn
- Aragorn - Strider with armor as Legolas
- Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain as Gimli
- Hamfast "Gaffer" Gamgee as Boromir
I still don't have a banner (I could have had one if I went with Halbarad instead of Thorin - or if I went with Elessar and downgraded Bilbo/Bofur/Gaffer into Smeagol/Holfoot/Pippin), but I have Heroic March on Strider, I have a great set of starting heroes (Bilbo and the three cousins), and I have at least two - but possibly THREE - free Heroic Combats a turn, which seems like it would work really well. Oh, and with one of those guys being F7/S5 with +1 To Wound, I think Cave Trolls and Wild Warg Chieftains won't be a big threat. With Aragorn in my Legolas slot, I can have my March in the far corner of Amon Hen and he'll get upgraded to the Elessar profile once we hit the Black Gate (the wording for the Black Gate bonus doesn't require him to be in your Aragorn slot, which is nice).
Arwen is the weak link (she was the lowest ranked of the wizards in an analytic model I made), but hopefully if I have enough big heroes zipping around killing things, it won't matter that she's only got 1 Attack - and if she can get off a Wrath of Bruinen or two to knock models to the ground, she can keep the weaker units from being able to be wounded. The Gaffer was a last-minute choice - and I might trade him out for someone else - but I really enjoyed painting the model (and his accompanying potted plants) and I had 30 points left over . . . so I took him. I might call a late-game audible and use Bill the Pony instead for stat regrowth on Aragorn and a banner for Bilbo, but we'll see.
What a journey this has been - and for those of you who followed our Fantasy Fellowship campaign this year, I'm glad you were with us! We have something special cooked up for next year, so we hope our scenario play was enjoyable for you - until next time, happy hobbying!
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