Tiberius: Today's list is the first of the TMAT team's lists and per the usual, Centaur is the first of us to submit his list (well, list and article - I was still writing my article, but the list was definitely chosen already). Centaur has chosen his list from our recent THRO 2023 tournament - one that I had the "privilege" of playing against . . .
- Boromir, Captain of the White Tower on horse with the Banner of Minas Tirith and shield [AL]
- 7 Osgiliath Veterans with shields
- 8 Osgiliath Veterans with shields and spears
- Faramir, Captain of Gondor with heavy armor and bow
- 3 Osgiliath Veterans with shields
- 3 Osgiliath Veterans with shields and spears
- 8 Rangers of Gondor with spears
- Beregond, Guard of the Citadel
- 6 Citadel Guard with longbows
- Ingold, Warden of the Rammas Echor
- 1 Warrior of Minas Tirith with shield, spear, and banner
- 4 Knights of Minas Tirith with shields
- 2 Rangers of Gondor with spears
- Siege veteran with Gondor Battlecry Trebuchet
- 2 crew
- Siege veteran with Gondor Battlecry Trebuchet
- 2 crew
1000 points, 50 models, 11 bows hitting on a 3+ AND 7 longbows hitting on a 4+ AND 2 trebuchets hitting on a 4+, 30 D6+ models, 5 cavalry, 14 Might
Centaur: I was told this was a siege tournament, and I love trebuchets, so I decided upfront I'd run a trebuchet-heavy list. At one point I had three in the list, but I dropped it to two, because I found I only had like 30ish guys running around beyond the trebs, and that felt unwise. So I dropped it down to two. But I really love how this list plays, because it's a multi-threat list that has good synergy with each other.
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| A pic of Centaur's ODF in action at TMAT's THRO 2023 tournament |
Minas Tirith is a very resilient, and thus forgiving, army: lots of D6+ options, both for infantry and mounted troops, and when you add trebuchets to the list you get really good damage output alongside your heroes, which covers over the fact that your infantry are all S3 and don't tend to contribute as much to the damage total. The trebs provide you with reliable threats against big enemy heroes and monsters, and encourages them to hide behind terrain, which is advantageous for us. But the other thing they do is that they allow you to hang back, soften up for 20 minutes, and force them to take you where you're more defensible, because you have plenty of range, easy access to line of sight thanks to doing Volley Fire, and the weapon itself is pretty resilient, so bringing it to its knees is not easy to do.
So with this list, you've got Boromir and Faramir lined up to deal damage, plus Ingold and Beregond to provide supporting assistance along the lines. And then you have a solid wall of 15 "Heavy Infantry" who are F4 D6 around Faramir and F5 D6 around Boromir, and have that sweet, sweet C5 for getting into Terror models (which I correctly assessed would be all over the place in this tournament). Tack on 4 knights for harassing the flanks, 10 rangers to spear support, some Citadel Guard to give a mix of S3 archery to keep the enemy honest if they chose to skimp on D6 in favor of D5, and a bannerman just to provide a second banner bubble further down the line, and you're golden. Each threat helps each other: whittle away at range, force them up toward us, then hit them with a solid F5 line with plenty of banner support to win the day.
So this is a classic "Centaur-Special" Underdog list: I don't think most people would run this list, and inasmuch as they do, I think they'd run it differently (Warriors of Minas Tirith instead of Osgiliath Veterans, more Rangers instead of Citadel Guard, etc.). But I think I can win with this list, and I pulled a win against a solid Mordor-Easterlings list and a draw against the Balrog. And I'd say that's not half bad, :P
Tiberius: As the person who got over 30 models SQUASHED by trebuchets while approaching with his Balrog (and a dead siege tower - don't forget about the siege tower), I can say this is a very strong list indeed (and I was very happy to get a draw at the very last minute!). One treb doesn't seem that dangerous, but two trebs (especially if they're both hitting for consecutive turns) can be absolutely crushing (quite literally). Thanks, Centaur, for the list - and we hope you enjoyed reading about it! We'll be back in two days - until next time, happy hobbying!
This is undeniably a pretty gnarly shooting list, and I've played enough against 'unconventional' Gondor lists to know they're still generally made up of solid units. I do wonder whether a few aspects of it could be tweaked without losing its core or unconventional nature though.
ReplyDeleteThe first one that jumps out is the Osgiliath Veterans with shield/spear v Fountain Court without shields. You'd lose the ability to shield and C4, but you gain unconditional F4 and Bodyguard, both of which seem like pretty massive steps up. Plus you could always give them a shield for D7, but that's obviously extra points. This seems like the most clearcut upgrade possible here, and I'm not sure it really impacts the theme when you already have Citadel Guards. The frontline of those warbands could also become basic Warriors of Minas Tirith pretty easily (they've already got F4 spears behind them), but there you are at least losing something in the trade.
The other more controversial swap would be Faramir for Hurin on horse. I want to like Faramir, and extra Will/a bow is nice, but Hurin hits vastly harder, gives you a really useful way of protecting VPs, and still costs less. Hurin basically gives you a second combat threat for less than you're already paying, and it's hard to see what Faramir is really bringing that Hurin wouldn't be. Even downgrading to Madril would save you 40 points and fill fundamentally the same role, which is hard to go past.
Obviously Faramir is necessary for the Osgiliath veterans, but again there's a bit of a 'good money after bad' problem there.
This list is honestly really scary, but I do think I'd be a lot more scared with some fairly minor tweaks that don't alter the list's fundamentals at all
Centaur can weigh in, but I will predict that the choice of Faramir and the OsVets has more to do with Centaur loving the idea of OsVets than anything else. :-)
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