2023 Hobby Bingo: Tiberius's Board

Good morning gamers,

Well, 2023 has been a year - and it's been full of hobby fun! With Fantasy Fellowships, the Minas Tirith board, several tournaments, and lots and lots and LOTS of Morannon Orcs, there's been a lot to keep me busy during my off nights. I haven't officially done the hobby bingo challenge before, though I've always looked at the boards and thought, "I should do that." Well, this year, I said, "Darn it, we're gonna do it this year" - and I am proud to say that it turned out pretty well. Let's have a look!

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Row #1: Lots of New Models (and some movies and a tournament)

Our first square in the first row requires us to start a new army, and for me this year, that was easy: Corsairs of Umbar! Throwing weapons are my thing and these guys have them everywhere. I also had these models sitting around for a while, so I don't have all the guys I painted shown here because . . . well, I need a guy for another bingo box:

Box two is easy - watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Yes, I watch the extended cuts every year at least once, usually while I'm working on batch painting something or working on a terrain project. It took me longer than usual to watch them this year, since I had to catch up on a bunch of Star Wars shows, but I finished watching the extended editions of The Fellowship of the Ring on June 28th, The Two Towers on August 14th, and The Return of the King on September 9th.

Box three was checked off on June 24th when I attended our annual Grand Tournament - I got last place with a Quest of the Ringbearer Angmar army (you can read about my process of picking that list here and some thoughts on the scoring system - and a brief overview of my games - here).

Box 4 requires scenic bases for one of my armies and I decided to showcase my basing style for my Erebor Dwarves, as shown on Ori. The bases were done by painting white through a dryer sheet, then washing in black, then spot-highlighting in black, and then making piles of gold and emeralds from green glitter, PVA glue, and gold paint:

Finally, I needed to finish a Good army of at least 600 points. Because of the way Hobby Bingo works, I wanted to have a list that "just" reached 600pts (because I need elements of this project to cover multiple boxes, and you can't double-count a model) and since I spent quite a bit of time this year converting up Grim Hammers, Warriors of Erebor, and Thorin's Company heads into a War of the Ring era Erebor Reclaimed list, I figured I'd grab over 600 points from them. You can see here Thorin III Stonehelm, Dwalin, Bifur, Bofur, Nori, Dori, Gloin, and 7 converted Iron Hills Dwarves with shields and spears:

MESBG Christmas Lists, List #11: The Kingdom of Moria . . . and Friends?

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. 

Fantasy Fellowships: Campaign Recap

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

725 points, 3 thrown stones hitting on a 3+, 4 D6+ models, no fast models, 19+ Might

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. 

MESBG Christmas List #10: Erebor Reclaimed

Good morning gamers,

Tiberius: Our Christmas list today is provided to you by my son, Gorgoroth. While preparing for our 1000-point siege THRO tournament, Gorgoroth tried MANY different lists, ranging from the Return of the King Legendary Legion (that list was scary) to an Azog's Legion spam list (featuring the big man himself, of course). After testing a lot of things, Gorgoroth decided that he wanted elite units (at least F4) and resilient units (preferably D8). So naturally, as I was converting up Warriors of Erebor to be Iron Hills Dwarves to support War of the Ring era Dain, my son was like, "Hey, those guys can be D8, right?" And I was like, " . . . yeah . . ." And he was like, "Well, can I try them out?" And I was like ". . . yeah . . ." And he basically never looked back. So . . . here's Gorgoroth to tell you all about his new favorite army.

Gorgoroth: First off, I'd like to point out that Dain (old) is an awesome dude and I love him. He has great hitting and staying power as far as I'm concerned, plus, he looks supercool. But he isn't the only guy I need to talk to you about. I also like Gloin the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor. Now, comparing him to Dwalin (champion version), he is not too much worse and costs a lot less, so I run him a lot more than Mr. Dwalin and he still kills everything. 

And now I have Bifur. He is used for heroic moves and for his 12 model capacity. Now everyone knows three heroes is not an army so I saw this and took 40 dudes in the army for numbers. and they killed everything (did you notice I love the Ctrl-B button?). Anyway, I had like 200 points left so I went "Huh this would look so darn awesome if only I had some speed . . . I took the armies of the hobbit book . . . page 30 . . . Huh! Goat Riders! So I took 6 riders (with war spears, obviously) plus a captain 'cause turns out they can totally have goats (which, in my book is labeled as awesomeness). So then I found myself at 1000 points and I said "yeah, let's do this!" And we did it!!!!!!

Here's my list:

• Dain Ironfoot, King Under the Mountain [AL]
• 8 Iron Hills Dwarves
• 9 Iron Hills Dwarves with spears
• Gloin the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor
• 5 Iron Hills Dwarves
• 6 Iron Hills Dwarves with spears
• Iron Hills Captain on war goat
• 4 Iron Hills Dwarves
• 6 Iron Hills Goat Riders
• Bifur the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor
• 6 Iron Hills Dwarves
• 6 Iron Hills Dwarves with spears

1000 points, 54 models, 1 thrown stone hitting on a 3+, 54 D6+ models, no fast models but 2 Might for Heroic March, 10 Might

Tiberius: I'm not sure that much else needs to be said - it was awesome. At THRO 2023, Gorgoroth's list was one of two undefeated lists, narrowly beating my Balrog list as the attacker in the burn-the-village scenario and keeping Dronak's spider spam list from burning a bunch of buildings as well (though he would have been good defending the walls too, since he would have just dropped his mounted contingent). Dwarves hurt and they're hard to kill - especially when there are fifty of them. We'll be back soon - until next time, happy hobbying!

MESBG Christmas Lists, List #9: The Serpent Horde . . . and Friends?

Good morning gamers,

Tiberius: I hope you have some time on your hands, because today's Christmas list is LONG! Yep, it's our resident Armies of MESBG writer Rythbyrt and he has a write up on one of the weirdest lists I've ever faced. Take it away, mate!

Rythbryt: If you’ve been following the blog for any amount of time, you know that two things are true anytime there’s a tournament: (1) I take forever to write my lists, and (2) I like a lot of threats in my armies (aka, lots of heroes or hero-like models). So when Tiberius sent around the info for TMAT’s annual Grand Tournament this past Spring, I went into the bunker for a number of weeks. And after thinking about Rangers, Castellans, and Khazad-Dum dwarves, here's what emerged from the mire!

Suladan [Army Leader]

• 4 Haradrim Warriors with spears
• 5 Haradrim Warriors with bows and spears
• 5 Watchers of Karna with Twin Blades

Mouth of Sauron

• 9 Black Numenoreans

Mahud King on war camel with shield and war spear

• 3 Mahud Raiders with war spears
• 5 Half Trolls

623/623, 34 models (breaks at 18 casualties, quartered at 8 remaining/26 casualties)

This is but a taste of our full grandeur!

Photo credit: Me!

I'd never played a list quite like this before, but I've used most of the pieces at various times in "friendly" games, so I mostly knew how they were likely to perform. The list tries to strike a balance between "tough to engage" and "hard-hitting"... and I think it mostly succeeded. :-P 

MESBG Christmas Lists, List #8: Isengard

Good morning gamers,

Tiberius: Today's Christmas list comes to us from our very own Red Jacket, who has his army from the 2023 TMAT Grand Tournament. I had the "pleasure" of playing against this list and boy is it good at what it does. Take it away, mate!

Red Jacket: This year, for our TMAT grand tournament in the spring, I ran an Assault on Helms Deep Legendary Legion list. I find this legion to be both interesting, and enjoyable to play. The legion itself has a few quirks, strongly incentivizing the use of siege weapons, allowing for quasi-spam tactics with Fight 4, Defense 6 troops which is basically unheard of, and permitting an Uruk-based army to really rely on shooting.

My list was 623 points (600+the year of the tournament, 2023) and is outlined below:

• Uruk-Hai Commander with shield
• 4 Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields
• 7 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes
• 1 Uruk-Hai Warrior with pike and banner
• 4 Uruk-Hai Berserkers
• Uruk-Hai Captain with two-handed sword
• 2 Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields
• 2 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes
• 8 Uruk-Hai Warriors with crossbows
• 2 Uruk-Hai Berserkers
• Uruk-Hai Siege Veteran with Isengard Assault Ballista
• 1 crew
• 1 crew with pike
• Uruk-Hai Siege Veteran with Isengard Assault Ballista
• 1 crew
• 1 crew with pike

623 points, 38 models, 8 crossbows hitting on a 4+ AND 2 ballistas hitting on a 4+ (and rerolling 1s), 8 D6+ models, no fast models but 4 Might for Heroic March, 4 Might

Check out Red Jacket's work on Instagram!

MESBG Christmas Lists, List #7: The Army of Dunland Legendary Legion

Good morning gamers,

Tiberius: This week, we've seen Christmas lists from Mitchell and Markus Hammond from the Durin Show - what better way to wrap up the week than to have Matt Hammond, the third member of the Durin Show, send in a list he enjoyed using this year! What do you have for us today, Matt?

Matt: I like lists that center around heroes. Special abilities and rules that accompany most of these characters add flavor, and the potential to enjoy strategic ploys that make the army unique to your playstyle. As a result, most of my MESBG games take on a “Warriors hold the line while the big fellas do the work” kind of approach. Let’s talk about a new army that I have been playing with that completely changes that dynamic.

Vikings... uh, I mean the Army of Dunland.

I picked up this army on an impulse (I am prone to those). On the surface, low fight, low defense, high strength, and high numbers make it look not too dissimilar to playing other trending toward horde lists. However, it is the heroes and the elite troops that make this army so much fun to play and make it very different than most Middle-Earth armies. 

MESBG Christmas Lists, List #6: Lurtz's Scouts Legendary Legion

Good morning gamers,

Tiberius: It's a Hammond brother double play! If you missed the Christmas list from Mitchell Hammond a few days ago, you can find it here. Today, it's Markus Hammond from the Durin Show at bat - and he's brought one of my favorite Legendary Legions!

Markus: After reading my brother’s blog post, I am beginning to see a pattern: Hammond’s gravitate towards armies or list ideas that have been written off by the larger community. I’m not sure what that says about us, but I know it creates a lot of good fun! 

The army I’ve most enjoyed playing the past 18 months has been Lurtz’s Scouts legendary legion. When the army first dropped, I heard lots of social media (and local) commentary about how it was only good at 400-500 pts, or was the neglected sibling when compared to Ugluk’s Scouts because animosity was “that much better”. Being a big fan of Isengard, and because the attack on Amon Hen is one of my favorite scenes from the movies, I instantly bought as many old metal Uruk Hai scouts off eBay as I could find and built 900 pts of scouts. 

MESBG Christmas Lists, List #5: The Fell Beings of Mirkwood

Good morning gamers,

Tiberius: As someone who has a tight bond (and runs a podcast) with his brothers, I absolutely love seeing other brothers share a strong bond (and if they also run a podcast, even better!). Naturally, I'm therefore a huge fan of the Durin Show - and the amazing chemistry that the Hammond brothers have on that channel. If you haven't checked out their stuff yet, you should - see the links on the sidebar for both their podbean and YouTube channels. Today's list comes from one of the hosts of the Durin Show, Mitchell Hammond, who has made quite a splash on the West Coast of the US with the Fell Beings of Mirkwood Legendary Legion. Mitchell, what do you have for us today?

Mitchell: I have been playing a lot of Fell Beings of Mirkwood Legendary Legion this year. I built the list after I was a guest on the Into the West podcast when they said this particular Legendary Legion was only meme tier. After building and painting it, I have taken the list to five events this year including Adepticon and Clash on the Coast. While I built it at first as a challenge to prove it was not meme tier, I have secretly found it to be one of the most fun armies I have ever played.

For example, the Legendary Legion bonuses are great! Gaining Hatred (Elf), specifically with bats, spiders and heroes, really pays off when you see an Elf army. However, I've found that the rule that comes into play most often is giving Woodland Creature to the entire army. In my experience, most boards at an event have some sort of woodland terrain, so having Orcs moving 6-12" through woods can completely catch your opponent off guard.

Fantasy Fellowships: The Erebor Reunion, Part 7

Good morning gamers,

I know we're in the middle of a "Christmas List" series, but hey, I can turn a Fantasy Fellowship game into a Christmas List! For many players, these aren't the models you'd want if you ran a Minas Tirith/Rohan alliance, but my love for the Men of the West Legendary Legion has given me TONS of practice with these models! Here's the almost-legit, original participants list, clocking in at a very impressive 1352 points:

• Aragorn, King Elessar [ARMY LEADER]
• 8 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
• 8 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears
• Gandalf the White
• INDEPENDENT: Peregrin, Guard of the Citadel
• 8 Warriors of Minas Tirith with bows
• 1 Warrior of Minas Tirith with banner
• CONVENIENT ALLY - The Fellowship: Legolas Greenleaf
• Gimli, Son of Gloin
• Frodo Baggins
• Samwise Gamgee with Sting (this would need to be on Frodo if you did this in Matched Play, of course)
• CONVENIENT ALLY - Rohan: Eomer, Marshal of the Riddermark
• INDEPENDENT: Meriadoc, Knight of the Mark with shield
• 8 Warriors of Rohan with shields
• 8 Warriors of Rohan with shields and throwing spears
• 8 Warriors of Rohan with bows
• 1 Warrior of Rohan with banner

Besides Eomer having 11 more guys than he should, this is actually a legal list for Matched Play - though where is Legolas's armor and Eomer's shield? I mean, Eomer almost NEVER has a shield in Fantasy Fellowships - what's up with that? Anyway, the participants from my Fantasy Fellowship are nearly the same, except that I paid 15 more points for Dwalin instead of Legolas, 10 fewer points for Gloin instead of Gimli, 20 more points for Bifur instead of Pippin, 15 more points for Bofur instead of Merry, and (wait for it) 135 fewer points for Nori instead of Aragorn . . . that's roughly a 100pt reduction on the original participants.

Of course, Nori now has Anduril (so it's really a 60pt reduction overall) - and thanks to having Weapon Master, he'll be wounding on 3s every turn with no penalty for fighting two-handed and D7 (no shield bonus because I'll be two-handing). With 3 Attacks and the equivalent of Lord of the West (reroll one dueling die and one wounding die), I feel that Nori will FINALLY be able to keep up with Dwalin and Gloin in the wounding department (especially after the last showing - he did NOT do well in the Docks of Harlond scenario). Okay, let's kick off the last scenario in this Fellowship's journey!

The End of All Things

This scenario takes place on two boards: a four-by-four board and a two-by-two board. The bigger board was provided by Rythbyrt and the smaller board has shown up in several battle reports in this series. The terrain is intentionally sparse on the bigger one.

MESBG Christmas Lists, List #4: Minas Tirith

Good morning gamers,

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.

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!

MESBG Christmas Lists, List #3: Angmar

Good morning gamers,

Tiberius: Our Christmas list today is from long-time friend of the blog and Aussie-tournament-winning phenomenon Sharbie from the Against All Odds blog (watch for updates from him in the side-bar or just follow his blog). Sharbie's been playing with a lot of nasty things on the table over the past year (mostly of the big, high-powered monster variety) and today he brings us a list featuring Angmar and the dreaded glass-cannon Gûlavhar - whatcha got for us today, Sharbie?

• The Witch-King of Angmar on horse with the Crown of Morgul and 3M/12W/2F [AL]
• 6 Angmar Orc Warriors with shields
• 6 Angmar Orc Warriors with spears
• 1 Angmar Orc Warrior with Orc bow
• 1 Dead Marsh Spectre
• 1 Wild Warg
• Gûlavhar, the Terror of Arnor
• 6 Angmar Orc Warriors with shields
• 5 Angmar Orc Warriors with spears
• 1 Angmar Orc Warrior with spear and banner
• 1 Angmar Warg Rider with throwing spears
• 1 Dead Marsh Spectre
• Barrow-Wight
• 5 Angmar Orc Warriors with shields
• 5 Angmar Orc Warriors with spears
• 1 Wild Warg
• Orc Captain on Warg
• 1 Wild Warg
• 1 Angmar Warg Rider with shield

750 points, 46 models, 1 Orc bow hitting on a 5+ AND 1 throwing spear hitting on a 5+, 2 D6+ models, 4 cavalry + 1 flyer + 3 fast infantry, 8 Might

Check out Sharbie's articles on Gûlavhar at the end of the post!

Sharbie: This list is hardly unique or original: variants of it have won many a tournament, and it's mostly a particular spin on a standard recipe. However, I wanted to showcase it anyway for three reasons. First, it's been easily my most successful tournament list. I've won a lot of games and several events with variants of it, and it deserves some credit for those.

MESBG Christmas Lists, List #2: Isengard

Good morning gamers,

Tiberius: One of my favorite blogs to read (both when they post new things and when I need inspiration from their older content) is the Drawn Combat blog - those guys over there are amazing and I've really enjoyed their "500 under 50" series, as well as the lovely conversion work they do. If you haven't found their blog yet - you should read what they have (it's all awesome) and if possible, attend their Valourbowl tournaments that they run (proceeds go to charity). It is my great pleasure to share with you today a list from Drawn Combat's Dan Stu - take it away, Dan!

Dan: My favourite list from this year was the list I took to Harry Parkhill’s ‘Lord of the Imps’ 805pt tournament in Lincoln. It was my second time attending, and I’ll be sure to go back again next year.

The tournament brings a particular list-building quirk; at the end of the first day, your army’s leader dies along with their warband, to be replaced your nominated Lieutenant who becomes the leader for day 2. This leaves a points gap which can be filled by adding in warbands or warriors. The format shakes things up and encourages a strong emphasis on theme, with lots of people – myself included – bringing armies they’d never normally consider.

MESBG Christmas Lists, List #1: The Host of the Dragon Emperor . . . Revamped?

Good morning gamers,

Tiberius: We're doing something special for Christmas this year - I reached out to people across the international SBG community, and asked them to pass along a "Christmas list" that they ran this year and what they liked about it. The gentleman who is providing our first list needs no introduction (but I'm giving him one anyway): if you've interacted at all with the SBG podcasting community or spent any time at all on the GBHL Facebook page or their website, you know the name Harry Parkhill. Yes, it's the Ent, the myth, the Legend himself, bringing us a very fun take on a very dominant list in SBG right now - take it away, Harry!

Harry: On the first day of advent, SBG game to me . . . "an army of Red and Gold a-gleam . . ."

It was March when I took my Dragon Emperor on his last outing before retirement. Clearly the fearsome general is an imposing sight on the tabletop, regularly reaching top tables and winning tournaments for the formerly pitiful Easterlings. The poor souls in Red and Gold had been unloved by so many for so long but the arrival of Rutabi, Brorgir, Acolytes and the Emperor changed that for certain.

Nemesis: How to Fight Against the Goblin King

Good morning gamers,

Today is our last post (for now) in this series on how-to-fight-against-those-models-that-are-not-fun-to-fight-against. Our contestant today is a model that I have never used, but have had to face many, many1 times: the Goblin King. Yes, it's the dreaded monster from Goblin-town and all his lovely entourage! While this post will be focusing primarily on the Goblin King himself, there will also be thoughts on the other models that are in his list, since their presence make him MUCH more difficult to deal with. Let's get into the discussion of one of the nastiest profiles around!

What Makes the Goblin King So Hated?

There's a lot to unpack with this guy, but it's probably best to start off with his combat profile. The Goblin King has a pretty mediocre stat line compared to most monsters, but it's a lot of the numbers you want - Fight 6 with Strength 5/3 Attacks is incredibly good for most heroes in the game, and with 3-Might-and-Strike, you're at least on-par with other heroes. This is made even better by his two-handed pick and the Burly special rule, which allows him to be S5-6 with +1 To Wound - at effectively S7-8, he's doing as well or better than most monsters in the game!

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Many of the monsters who rival him (The Balrog, Smaug, Dragons, the Watcher in the Water, Cave Drakes) have really big bases, but the Goblin King has a 40mm base (on par with Buhrdur, Sauron, and Cave Trolls - the Troll guys are envious of this guy's profile and Sauron is . . . really expensive in comparison). This gives him incredible mobility, especially since he's got the Relentless Advance rule, that allows him to move through his own models and squish/potentially squish them to get where he wants.

The greatest critique of the Goblin King can be based on his defensive stats, but even here, he cheats: he's "only D5" with 3 Wounds/1 Fate, but thanks to his Blubbery Mass rule, any wound he takes that isn't caused by a magical power or an Elven-made weapon can be saved on a 3+ BEFORE he has to spend his Fate point. While there are models out there with 6+ saves (the Bears in their Legion, Durin, Fury/Oblivious to Pain) and even one model who can give out a 5+ save (Malbeth the Seer), getting a 3+ save is not only BETTER than having infinite Fate points, but is only comparable to Thror with the Arkenstone (which will save once on a 3+ and can save multiple times on a 4+) and Goroth's "Look Out, Sir!" rule that allows him to bounce a wound onto a friendly model nearby . . . which is good for Goroth, but not great from his friends. Yep, when it comes to shrugging off punishment, there's no one who does it better than the Goblin King.

Fantasy Fellowship Deep Dive, Part 7

Good morning gamers,

There's only one scenario left in Fantasy Fellowships: The End of All Things. This scenario is nuts: it's massive, it takes all day to play, and it has a lot of rules. It's also weird because . . . the part of the board that has virtually all the models on it doesn't matter that much - and both players have a lot to think about on one board and a lot less to think about on the other. So, let's unwrap this mega scenario and see what's important for our Fellowship members as they finish their journey together!

Part 7: The End of All Things 

With the exception of Boromir (which I feel was a missed opportunity), we've got everyone - Frodo and Sam haven't had a rest point since Ithilien and everyone else is coming off the bench fully rested - but boy do we have our work cut out for us! Here's who we have to work with: 

• All eight remaining Fellowship members 
• Eomer (no extra gear) 
• 25 Warriors of Minas Tirith (standard war gear and a banner guy) 
• 25 Warriors of Rohan (standard war gear and a banner guy) 

Opposing us are the following models - many of them we've fought in the previous part: 

• Mordor Troll Chieftain (new kid on the block) 
• The Mouth of Sauron on armored horse (another new kid) 
• Gollum (NOT Smeagol, but basically the same profile) 
• 3 Morannon Orc Captains with shields 
• 50 Morannon Orcs (48 with standard gear and two banner guys) 

Oddly enough, there are actually MORE Good models at the start of the game than evil models - but as is usually the case, Evil gets to bring back its Mordor Orc models that are killed (Morannons and Morannon Orc Captains), so you'll be outnumbered eventually.

Fantasy Fellowship Deep-Dive: Ranking Sample Fellowships

Good morning gamers,

We've spent the previous four posts in this deep-dive analyzing which models have been ranked the "best" for each of the different roles of the Fellowship in Fantasy Fellowships. One of the things I liked the most about the Quest of the Ringbearer supplement was seeing the example Fantasy Fellowships at the back of the book from the design team. Naturally, I figured it would be good to wrap up this discussion of Fantasy Fellowships by viewing those sample lists (which were released before everyone started playing Fantasy Fellowships - and before the release of the models that were introduced in Defence of the North) and "ranking" them based on how their selected models did in my analytic model.

A quick note: some of these Fellowships were formed with specific themes in mind - they were not made to be optimized. Fantasy Fellowships don't need to be optimized at all (my Fellowship worked pretty well, but I didn't optimize it very much - heck, I could have fit 25 more points in it without dropping Sting/the Mithril Coat from my initial Fellowship!), but this ranking is intended to view how well these Fellowships are optimized (even if optimization wasn't in the creator's mind) according to the analytic model I built as a means of comparing what the creator wanted to use and what is actually required of the unit. With fun and much charity in mind, let's dig into it!

Contestant #1: Rob Alderman

• Ringbearer: Young Bilbo (#2, 2.433)
• Companion: Balin the Dwarf (#14, 1.933)
• Friends: The Master of Lake-town and Alfrid (#16/27, 2.517/1.917)
• Wizard: Radagast the Brown [with Sebastian?] (#1, 3.5)
• King: Beorn (#7, 4.25)
• Shooter: Tauriel (#28, 3.7915)
• Fighter: Gloin the Dwarf (#44, 3.4165)
• Doomed: Kili the Dwarf (#51, 3.322)

We're not told which character plays Merry or Pippin, so I'm going to assume that Alfrid will be taking the Merry slot (since the Master will be slightly better in the Minas Tirith scenarios, seeing as how Alfrid can't give anyone Might and only has 1 Attack). Radagast and Bilbo are excellent choices and Kili (like many characters) scored pretty well as a Boromir character (though his numerical ranking doesn't reflect this). Balin is useful, though I do question how two 1A characters will fare late in the campaign.

The choice of Beorn (who is great in the Aragorn slot - whether he can change forms or not), Tauriel (who isn't a better archer than many of her competitors but is excellent in scenarios where you'll be outnumbered), and Gloin (both versions of him are good) are excellent, netting Rob a good final utility score of 27.08. When I dropped these guys into my spreadsheet builder, I noticed that Rob has only spent 745 of his total 750pts, so I assumed that he started Radagast with Sebastian instead of starting Bilbo with Sting. This is a great Fellowship to start with and, assuming Bilbo and Balin don't get eaten by Shelob, I think this Fellowship has a good shot at making it to the end.

Nemesis: How to Fight Against Mumakil

Good morning gamers,

One of the great things about collecting the models I need for the Quest of the Ringbearer sourcebook is that I "need" to buy not one but TWO Mumaks. After having gotten a second-hand Mumak from Centaur (a kingly gift, indeed), I decided to play around with them this year. Our gaming group has actually had a Mumak or two in the mix for a while, but they rarely show up on the table - and the fear of them showing up is often enough to get into the heads of even the most veteran players. So what can you do against such beasts if you see them (especially if there's more than one of them on the table)? Well, these things might not be viewed as competitive options, but they certainly do pose problems to unprepared players - so join us today as we walk through why these things can be deadly (and how to beat them). Let's dig in!

What Makes Mumaks So Hated?

For a refresher on what Mumaks do, you should check out our article from earlier this year on how War Beasts work - it was informative for me to write and hopefully will be informative for you to read. It's no secret - the most dangerous thing about a Mumak is that it Tramples. The Trample rule for Mumaks in particular is nasty - at least three Strength 9 hits to everyone it comes into contact with! If you pay 20pts for the Tusk Weapon upgrade (or have the Mumak War Leader, who begins with the Tusk Weapons upgrade), you increase this to four Strength 9 hits - which may seem like overkill, but it's surprising just how many times not getting that elusive 3+ crops up. 

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Since both the rider and the mount take these hits if it's a cavalry model, it's not hard for most heroes in the game to be killed or very much crippled after a Mumak runs into them. There are some monsters who are less worried about being outright killed (like Sauron, the Balrog, or Smaug), but even THESE guys don't want to be battered by a Mumak over multiple turns - and if it's the Mumak War Leader doing the trampling in the Grand Army of the South Legion, he's quite likely against these specific monsters to be able to call a free Heroic Strike . . . that may not be a guarantee of tying/beating their Fight Values, but it's certainly possible for that Mumak to be higher than F5.

The second complicating factor of Mumaks is that the Mumak itself and its howdah are listed as Siege Targets. Great Beasts of Gorgoroth have been clarified to be battlefield targets, so any siege weapon that can get a direct hit on them and scores a single wound will kill it in one go - OUCH! Mumaks . . . not so much. A 10-wound Mumak will require 10 wounds in order for it to die (for most siege engines this is an expected 22.5-60 turns, depending on the siege weapon being used - the Minas Tirith Bolt Thrower is the only one that can do it in less than 10 turns, but it also has the shortest possible range) - most siege engines aren't going to have that kind of time on their hands. While siege targets aren't harder for normal bows to wound, any D7-8 target (depending on whether the Mumak has the Tough Hide upgrade or not) is going to be hard to bring down with shooting - and if it's good shooting, you can't target the darn thing once it's Engaged with a friendly unit.

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

Nemesis: How to Fight Against Legolas

Good morning gamers,

We're back to the Forces of Good and this time, we're looking at one of the first heroes I used in the game (and a hero who remains one of my favorites to put on the board): Legolas Greenleaf. Legolas has two profiles in the game (one for the Fellowship and a "slightly better" profile in the Halls of Thranduil - more on this later) and appears in SIX Legendary Legions (the Grey Company, the Return of the King, the Men of the West, the Breaking of the Fellowship, the Defenders of Helm's Deep, and the Rangers of Mirkwood) - and with the Halls of Thranduil being Historical or Convenient allies with basically everything in the game (a Halls of Thranduil list without Thranduil will be Impossible Allies with Grimbeorn and his squad of Beornings . . . why?!?!?!?!), it's not hard to see Legolas at an event or on the other side of the table, regardless of your points level.

The famed archer who was epic in the Lord of the Rings films and defied all natural laws in the Hobbit films is easily the best archer in the game (though I ranked the Bolt Thrower higher when we did our Sniper podcast) and knowing how to beat him is something every general should know. What makes this guy such a powerful piece, such a great leader for an allied contingent, and so annoying in certain scenarios? Well, let's take a look at this Elf among Elves and find out . . .

What Makes Legolas So Hated?

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community 

It should come as no surprise that Legolas is most dangerous when he's shooting. Shooting has been critiqued by various crowds in MESBG as contributing to a negative play experience, mostly because your opponent has no say about it once he's done moving his models. There's no opposed dueling roll, there's no resist test, and there's no armor save (for most units - some units grant saves of various kinds and heroes might have Fate points) - once you're done moving models, the other guy gets to shoot at you . . . and you have to take it. Legolas does this better than any other model, since his Deadly Shot special rule allows him to either perform three shots hitting on his normal Shoot Value (3+ if he hasn't moved, 4+ if he's moved up to half his max movement) OR perform a single shot that hits on a 2+ and ignores all modifiers (to include the move-and-shoot penalty, negative modifiers like Blinding Light, in-the-way rolls, and even the rule that prevents a Good model from shooting into a friendly combat). Yes, Legolas can do the shooting thing all the time.

While getting 3 shots each turn would appear to be his most deadly quality (and I've killed 2-3 models in a single turn plenty of times with him), it's the second part of his Deadly Shot rule that gives most competitive players pause. Usually, if you have an important support piece that you don't want to lose (a Goblin Scribe, a Dead Marsh Spectre, or a low-Defense/low-Wound army leader), you just tuck them behind 3-4 guys or a wall/rock and you're feeling pretty good about them not getting hit from enemy archers. But if Legolas can see the model, he can hit the model on a 2+ - even if he's moved that turn! Furthermore, if Legolas wants to hit the MOUNT of a big hero, he can choose which part of the model to target with the 2+ To Hit and if he's willing to spend Might to make it work, there are very few mounts in the game that can survive for long when Legolas is on the other side of the board. This is particularly true for any of the multitude of heroes who lacks Horse Lord and has no way to prevent wounds on their mounts. Oh, and Blinding Light won't make that mount any more safe . . . it's annoying.

Fantasy Fellowships: The Erebor Reunion, Part 6c

Good morning gamers,

There are some scenarios that feel like they're horribly weighted towards one side (Good or Evil). There are some scenarios that look downright impossible to win for one side. There are some scenarios where you look at the scenario rules and just say, "Yeah, I just gotta kill everything and I'll finish the scenario objectives later." We've seen a bunch of these scenarios in Fantasy Fellowships . . . and this is going to be another one. :) The technical win conditions for the Docks of Harlond scenario is to get your Aragorn character and either your Legolas or Gimli character off the Evil player's board edge . . . but we can do this really easily by just killing everyone. And so, this scenario is yet another example of the best scenarios in Fantasy Fellowships: line up the enemy and smash them! Let's get into our last Pelennor scenario - and get back to the beater heroes in my Fellowship!

The Docks of Harlond

The plan here is simple: because we don't have Heroic March in our Fellowship, we're just here to kill lots of guys. The Orcs don't respawn in this scenario, so it's 40 of them against 30 of us - and we have FAR better heroes (and way more points) than they do! So yeah, we're just gonna kill things - and if they're running away from the back board edge and don't want to engage, we'll have Nori and Dwalin (because he's a diva and I can't trust him) run for the gate . . . because why not . . .

I don't have 20 Warriors of the Dead (with no extra gear!) or 6 Riders of the Dead, so I used my 10 Warriors of the Dead, 10 Nazgul of Dol Guldur/Castellan proxies, and my 6 Ponies of Equestria. To make this post a bit more interesting, I'll make some random comments about how well the ponies do.

Turn 1-3: Priority Good, Good, Good 

Good automatically starts with priority in most scenario missions and I won the priority roll on rounds two and three, so I advanced with my guys while Centaur held on the center for a turn and then retreated towards the more restricted deployment of the Rammos Echor gate . . . here are some pics:

The army of the Dunharrow advances towards the enemy, with the ponies driving up the right flank

We continue to press forward as the Orcs begin to fall back - the ponies stayed outside of 12" (so they couldn't be charged) . . .

The infantry continue to advance as the Morannons back up towards the gate - the ponies once again stay outside of 12" to avoid being charged on Turn 4 . . .