Good morning gamers,
Tiberius: Merry Christmas to all! I hope you've been enjoying this series - it's always great when content creators from across the international community contribute to a project like this (and I feel very blessed that anyone out there who generates good content wants to even be involved with our work here)! Today's "Christmas list" comes to you from . . . me! I've hinted at this list several times this year and it has got to be one of the most FUN lists I've ever played - and it's a throw-back to the way I originally built my Kingdom of Moria lists for MESBG (which was actually the "Erebor" list in the LOTR SBG days). So stroll with me down memory lane as we look at the most awesome Dwarf list I ever made (while most of the posts in this series have been short . . . this article will only be short compared to some of my other work . . . and maybe Rythbyrt's article)!
Oh, and I'm going to cheat and provide multiple lists, but they nest together, okay?
The Evolution of a Crazy Impossible Alliance
It's no secret - I'm a huge fan of the Kingdom of Moria: the heroes are excellent (Balin, King's Champions, and Dwarf Kings are/can be all budget F6/D8+ combat heroes - and two of them give you Heroic March, which is always nice to have as an option), the warriors are excellent (their core troops are 9pts each with 1 piece of gear, while their elite units get stronger and more expensive), and as a whole, they're incredibly forgiving as a faction. You can also splurge on two plastic boxes of core troops (two boxes of Dwarf Warriors, two boxes of Dwarf Rangers, or a box of each like I did), the Balin/Floi pack, and a King's Champion pack (with an optional Dwarf King pack, if you can find it), and you can get started with the army quickly and easily.
No matter how competitive you want to be, this is a great starting foundation for MESBG - good, resilient heroes and solid, resilient troops. What more could you want . . . besides cavalry . . . and spears . . . and maybe some magic . . . yeah, there's some to be desired in this list, but hey, you gotta give something, right?
Like most new players to the game, I stuck to pure lists for a while - I mean, I was slowly collecting models and we were playing at low points levels, so allying just wasn't on my mind at the time. I allied Gandalf into some Wood Elf lists (before getting Galadriel), and I allied Legolas into everything (including Dwarf lists), but I eventually got around to looking at the profile for Radagast the Brown . . . and boy did I have a crazy idea.
You see, back in the day, you were able to do "volley fire" with 10+ bows of the same type, so if you had 10 Dwarf Warriors with Dwarf bows, you could shoot at targets that were within 18" normally and at models that were 18-36" away from you by hitting on a 6. The trick was, only one model in your army needed to be able to see the target . . . and Radagast could (and still can) "see" everyone thanks to the Master of Birds special rule.
Oh, and he could also give your Dwarves Terror, which was awesome. Since you could run 1 hero with any number of warriors back then (with a 50-model limit if you were playing at/below 500pts, like we were), the list was basically Radagast (no Sebastian back then), Balin (more or less how he is now - but cheaper and he gave no priority rerolls), a few Dwarf Rangers with throwing axes or bows (slightly more expensive then), and as many Dwarf Warriors as I could pack in with the rest of the points (10 with Dwarf bows, certainly). Around 2011, the 31-model, 500-point list looked like this (especially if you were a poor guy like me and converted 2 of your Dwarf Warriors with two-handed weapons into Dwarf Warriors with Dwarf bows so you wouldn't have to buy a whole other box to have a volley team):
- Radagast the Brown
- Balin the Dwarf
- 8 Dwarf Warriors with shields
- 6 Dwarf Warriors with two-handed axes
- 1 Dwarf Ranger
- 1 Dwarf Ranger with two-handed axe
- 3 Dwarf Rangers with throwing axes
- 10 Dwarf Warriors with Dwarf bows
Fast forward about a year and we got the "warband" books and now I needed to bring 1 hero per 12 warriors . . . even with a bump up to 600pts for most of our events, I suddenly didn't have the space for Radagast in my lists, so I leaned harder into the pure faction of Durin's Folk and less into the allied realm (you can check out an example list here . . . and boy am I surprised how much of that article can still be applied to today's game . . .).
Fast forward about five years more (and a bunch of Hobbit armies later) and suddenly the current version of MESBG launched and with some new people in our group jumping into the action, I was invigorated to try out a bunch of lists - and while my bearded fellows were still near and dear to my heart, their style of play just wasn't as exciting as it once was . . . they felt like they were lacking ways of dealing with big heroes and threats that didn't involve sacrificing a big hero in return.
About the middle of this year, after our Grand Tournament was over and Barrow-Wights were off my mind, I started playing the siege scenarios in prep for THRO 2023 - which was super fun and I'm really glad we did it. A lot of players in my group have been asking for a big points level so they can bring all the fun toys (and boy were there some new lists at that event!). With 1000 points, I was iterating through a bunch of list ideas, and I kept coming back to my beloved Dwarves, looking for inspiration. Then, out of the blue, I was like, "I could use this tournament as a way to try making Floi work - there's bound to be something big that I want to shut down, right?" I may have already had Floi on the brain since I was writing Nemesis articles at the time - he shows up a lot in that series, if you haven't been following it . . .
So I sat down and I built a pretty good Kingdom of Moria list that came in at just under 700 points - it looked like this:
- Balin the Dwarf, King of Moria [AL]
- 6 Dwarf Warriors with shields
- 6 Dwarf Rangers with bows
- 6 Dwarf Rangers with throwing axes
- Floi Stonehand (instead of a Dwarf King)
- 6 Dwarf Warriors with shields
- 6 Dwarf Warriors with Dwarf bows
- King's Champion
- 2 Heralds
- 8 Dwarf Warriors with shields
- 1 Dwarf Warrior with Dwarf bow
- 1 Dwarf Ranger with bow
This is usually the part of list building where I just start piling in more Dwarf heroes/bodies, but I didn't want to do that this time. My model count was pretty good (I hit the maximum possible 45 models with only 685pts), but I wanted a) a way to deal with big threats that didn't involve a 5" move infantry model, and b) a stronger army leader who wouldn't suffer a wound or die from a random event. If possible, it would be great if these models also worked well with Floi, so to answer these problems, I turned to Radagast the Brown with Sebastian (for fun/survivability if he gets charged). This brought me to 840 points . . . not bad . . .
. . . but we were still missing something: Will regeneration. Floi is great, but he's best if there are a lot of combat heroes who can help him get Will back by killing things (3 Will on him only goes so far). All Khazad-Dum heroes exchange the Khazad-Dum keyword for the Moria keyword by bringing Balin along, so any Dwarf hero from that list will have the right keyword - but they still have to kill hero and monster models to give Floi Will . . . and I wasn't confident that I wanted to be dependent on my Dwarf heroes getting into contact with and killing enemy heroes.
I've played enough Fantasy Fellowship missions now to know that there are really only three ways to get Will points on your units: Tom Bombadil (who you can't take in Fantasy Fellowships), Gandalf the Grey (who would cost me at least 1 Dwarf Warrior and probably 2-3), and Bombur the Dwarf (who is a Hero of Fortitude in either of the lists that he's in). Because the Kingdom of Moria is Impossible Allies with everyone, bringing Bombur along would mean that I'd need a Hero of Valour or Legend to come with him - and with Balin already in my list, that meant bringing along Dwalin the Dwarf (not too expensive, hits very hard, but also not very resilient), Dain Ironfoot if I was bringing Champ-Bombur (which would WAY blow my budget), or Thorin (who is actually quite affordable in either of his forms). With 160pts to work with, I had just enough points for Thorin's Company Bombur (45pts) and Thorin's Company Thorin with Orcrist and the Oakenshield (115pts) - 1000 points exactly! Here's the final list:
- Balin the Dwarf, King of Moria
- 6 Dwarf Warriors with shields
- 6 Dwarf Rangers with bows
- 6 Dwarf Rangers with throwing axes
- Floi Stonehand
- 6 Dwarf Warriors with shields
- 6 Dwarf Warriors with Dwarf bows
- King's Champion
- 2 Heralds
- 8 Dwarf Warriors with shields
- 1 Dwarf Warrior with Dwarf bow
- 1 Dwarf Ranger with bow
- IMPOSSIBLE ALLY - Radagast's Alliance: Radagast the Brown with Sebastian [ARMY LEADER]
- IMPOSSIBLE ALLY - Thorin's Company: Thorin Oakenshield with Orcrist and the Oakenshield
- Bombur the Dwarf
1000 points, 48 models, 7 Dwarf bows hitting on a 4+ AND 7 bows hitting on a 3+ AND 6 throwing axes hitting on a 3+, 33 D6+ models, no fast models but 3 Might for Heroic March (doesn't affect 3 of our models), 14 Might
I know this post has already gone on too long, but let me break this down a bit: I decided to take Radagast from Radagast's Alliance so he would become a Hero of Legend and so could be my army leader. With 3 Wounds/3 Fate and NO reason to be anywhere close to the enemy, I felt like leader wounds would be pretty hard to get - especially since he's on foot and has Stalk Unseen active. If I had to defend the walls of a town, I would drop Radagast, 3 Dwarf Rangers with throwing axes, and 2 Dwarf Rangers with bows from the list - which would still leave me with 42 models to defend the walls . . . most of whom are D7-8.
Into my army leader void would step Thorin, who is also a 3 Wound/3 Fate Hero of Legend and BOY can he be difficult to charge with Terror [Orcs, Goblins, Uruk-Hai]! With the ability to fight two-handed if he needs to crack through something, access to Strike or Defense with an Elven-made weapon (or doubling his dueling dice with a single Strike if he wins), and dealing multiple wounds to Orcs, Goblins, and Uruk-Hai, this guy is crazy good at killing stuff - and stands as a good alternative to the other Kingdom of Moria hero options.
And of course, he brings along Bombur, who can stand next to Floi, Radagast, or Balin (who is happily sitting as our third-string hitter behind Thorin and the King's Champion - and gives us 3-Might-and-Strike/March) to regrow their Will. Radagast will be getting Aura of Dismay up early (we hope) and will want more Will before the mid-game when Nature's Wrath will be very helpful (or Panic Steed, Immobilize, or Renew), Balin will want Will if we're rerolling priority rolls, and Floi, of course, will be trying to turn off special rules. I expect Bombur will be very busy indeed.
Oh, and the list has 40 Dwarf Warriors or Dwarf Rangers in it. Did I mention them at all? 20 F4/D7 units who can fight normally if they're within one of two banner radiuses or defend by shielding if they aren't within banner range - and if they can get one-on-one fights, they can absolutely tear through anything the enemy has (especially if they risk a Piercing Strike against someone who isn't F4). 14 bows (7 with S2, 7 with S3) and 6 throwing axes are also very good and can really set the tone for our opponent's engagement. Yes, I built this list to play the siege scenarios, but expect to see some variant of this list playing normal Matched Play games in the near future (though I don't think I'll be able to get everything I want in it).
The only downside to this list is that it's an Impossible Alliance, so calling Heroic Moves is tricky (if I call a Heroic Move with Balin, Radagast/Thorin/Bombur won't be affected - and Heroic Moves with Radagast are basically not going to be worth it EXCEPT to cast before being charged). Still, if we've got a channelled Aura of Dismay up (which I did in every practice game - 12" Terror for all friendly units is pretty sweet), not going first is just fine. The banners from the King's Champion don't affect Thorin, so I kept him away from the Champion and with whatever parts of the army were working to stop someone else . . . which was again, fine.
Separate break points were also fine, since my opponent would need to kill Radagast (which a Mumak did once, but no one else managed it in practice), both Thorin and Bombur (which never happened - even against a Mumak), or 23+ Moria Dwarves (which never happened either). While you can break if half of your overall models die, the interesting thing about this list is that one of those three break conditions needs to be met for that to happen too, so functionally, breaking this list is quite hard if Radagast and Bombur are safe . . . assuming a slew of D6-7 Dwarves don't die, but then we have bigger problems.
This post was long, but hopefully you enjoyed it. From all of us here at TMAT, have a wonderful Christmas and until next time, happy hobbying!
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