5 Reflections on Fantasy Fellowships (Centaur Edition)

Hey Reader!

So Tiberius and I just finished up Fantasy Fellowships, and I thought I'd take a few minutes to reflect on some of the mistakes I made with my fellowship, things that are useful (if not essential) to success in Fantasy Fellowships when building a fellowship, and a few final thoughts on scenario design that I'd adjust.

1.  Don't Skimp on Your Wizard

The nine companion slots are not created equal: skimping on, say, the Fated Companion, is not as big a deal because you don't actually use that slot very much in the campaign. And the wizard slot is one of those slots you shouldn't slouch on either, because there's a loooooot that rides on that character.

The fact that it's the primary defender on Atop the Walls and the linchpin in The Bridge of Khazad Dum (more on that scenario later) aside for a moment, the wizard slot is one of the few reliable positions for providing support for your Fellowship, and especially stat recovery (which is a huge issue in Fantasy Fellowships, as you don't always automatically reset your stats at the start of each scenario).

I used Gildor (proxied by my wood elf warrior, as I don't own Gildor but look forward to picking him up soon), and he's a decent fighter with 2 Attacks and F6 S4, and with 4 Will Points and a 3+ Immobilize, he's not a horrible caster. But he's not a great caster for this spot, as he has limited utility, limited survivability (D4 with 2 Wound 1 Fate is not good), and a limited number of Will Points.

While Gildor placed decently in Tiberius's ranking of eligible characters, I think you should aim for someone higher than him. He won't provide the critical punch you need in beat-down fights like Balin's Tomb and Warg Attack, he will struggle to complete mission objectives when he is the focal character, and he can be wiped out in a single round, and I'm not a fan of any of those things, :P So while I loved using him, and he's still a top five caster in my mind, if I was doing Fantasy Fellowships again, I'd probably opt to invest more in this slot - probably my boy Elrond if I'm honest.

2.  Farmer Maggot is the Bomb-Diggetty

I've said this since 2012 when I first bought this guy: Farmer Maggot is a BEAST. I took him as my Boon Companion (as did Tiberius), and I think that is the right call 9 times out of 10. Being able to bring four bodies (three dogs + the Giga-Chad himself) + your Ringbearer, possibly also Gollum, means you have a lot of bodies when you run the Ringbearer missions, which helps IMMENSELY with completing your mission objectives. Plus his access to S3 with a Piercing Strike on 2 Attacks with a two-handed weapon means you can be effectively S6, so cleaving through D8 Ringwraiths, D6 orcs, and D6 trolls is pretty easy. So offensively he's excellent.

Also the whole Courage 5 (and adding this to your dogs while Maggot is alive) solves a lot of the Terror issues you're likely to have throughout the campaign, with 2 Will to fix a particularly low roll if that should come up. So from a "I can hold enemies down so that the Frodo character can get away" perspective, Maggot is exceptional.

And at only 45pts, you're well costed for this position. It's hard to trim points in this slot while still being useful. As a Shire player I thought about taking Farmer Tolman Cotton (so that all hobbits can reroll 1s to duel within 3"), Holfoot Bracegirdle (for S3 with free two-handing all time, so 1 Attack with effective S5 instead of 2 Attacks at effective S6 with a -1 to duel for Maggot), and Baldo Tulpenny (for reliable wounds at range, as my army concept started as a heavy shooting army), but I'm glad I went with Maggot. He came in clutch in so many scenarios, and I think he's the only real auto-include in Fantasy Fellowships. Maggot for your "Sam" slot (you could place him in the Merry/Pippin slots, but I think he's best accompanying your Ringbearer).

3.  Archery Is Overrated

Archery in general in MESBG is very fickle, which I suspect is a feature, not a flaw, as it's designed to keep "gun line" armies from dominating the game (though some have argued that Poison-heavy Serpent Horde, Assault on Helm's Deep, and Assault on Lothlorien do gun line strategies very effectively in the game, and fair enough). That being said, quality archery can be quite effective, and you have access to that in Fantasy Fellowships.

The issue is more about deployment than mechanics: there are a lot of scenarios where fielding a host of archers doesn't actually help you. Early on, the "Sentry Missions" cause any ranged attacks to alert the wraiths to your presence, which heavily discourages archery when there's a small number of foes. By the time you reach Balin's Tomb you deploy really close up, so you don't really get chances to shoot, and when you do you're actually giving bodies to your opponent to deploy in the trapdoors (unless your archers stand on them, which is what I did). And by time you reach the end of the campaign you have a combination of needing to run models to specific places (which complicates the whole "shoot and scoot" thing) and a large volume of enemies and/or never-ending streams of enemies, so less than a half dozen shots on a given turn won't really do much to blunt the enemy's fighting power.

There's also a dearth of flexibility if you want to heavily invest in archery. Most of the best archers for Forces of Good are fragile chasses (D4 and D5 for the most part if you want 2-3 shots at S3+, with Drar and Haldir being the notable exceptions, but even with them you're looking at 2 wounds and 1 Fate, so losing a fight could be lethal), and with 1-2 Attacks in close combat for all of them except Bard the Bowman (and a few archers that fire once per turn like Thranduil, Tauriel, and the Twin Sons of Elrond), it's a tough fight when you're probably outnumbered in every scenario.

So while having some archery is good, I wouldn't build your list around it. I did this with my force (taking the Twin Sons of Elrond, Aragorn/Strider with a bow, and Halbarad in my force), and it didn't pay off. Not in the slightest. Save yourself some points, take a sniper if you want one, but otherwise plan on going heavier into melee prowess, or putting more points into your spellcaster (like I mentioned above).

4.  Banners are Critical

You are going to be down on the numbers in almost every fight, and when that happens, may I recommend bringing a banner to help you improve a low roll without spending Might. Naturally the best banners don't inflict the -1 penalty, and for heroes that's actually basically all of the banner options you have (as you can't take Frodo of the Nine Fingers, if I recall correctly, and he's unarmed so he gets a -1 penalty).

And the game actually gives you access to a lot of banners/banner effects. Halbarad, Elessar, and Boromir Captain of the White Tower all give you access to infinite 6" banner effects (as there are no Blackshield Shamans in Fantasy Fellowships to break your gear), and Mayor Will Whitfoot gives your hobbits a limited 6" banner effect as well (not a bad choice for a "Sam Slot" if you have a good fighting Ringbearer like Young Bilbo, but probably better in your "Merry Slot" for helping the four companions at the start).

And then of course there's other heroes with banner effects like Gamling (if you run a lot of Rohan heroes), Duinhir, Thorin King Under the Mountain (if you run a lot of Hobbit-era dwarves), etc., but they're more niche. But hey - if you need to save some points and still want a banner, this might be an option. As mentioned earlier I took Halbarad, and I found that having a 6" Fearless banner was very helpful on many occasions, and I really loved having those rerolls. Holding the Deeping Wall got a lot easier when you could post a 6" banner nearby and affect every fight near the breaching point.

5.  The Bridge of Khazad Dum Is Messed Up

On the whole I loved all of the scenarios - Atop the Walls and Osgiliath stand out as being particularly well-designed, and while I may have a few gripes with some of the early missions (the sentry rules for the Nazgul can make it hard for the Nazgul to play the scenario at all, and even more so the Dead Marsh Spectres doing random movement in the Dead Marsh later on), none stand out more to me than the Bridge of Khazad Dum scenario as needing a change. According to the rules, if you slay the Balrog and every other model on the board, if you don't destroy the bridge (which means you have to have a spellcaster with at least 5-6 Will, possibly more depending on how well you roll), you cannot win. 

And I kind of understand why; breaking the bridge slows down the goblins following you, but last I checked the breaking of the bridge was more about stopping Durin's Bane, not about stopping the hosts of Moria. And ultimately it didn't: the goblins pursue them all the way to Lorien, where even Haldir and his men come across a few bands of them on their patrol. So I don't like these victory conditions: I think they should be adjusted, both for game play purposes (as a lot of fellowships will walk into it with no way to win) and for thematic purposes (the books and movies disagree as to what "victory" or a "draw" should look like).

And this brings us back to the issue of skimping on your wizard slot: you can't really afford to skimp on your wizard because if you do, you're literally throwing this scenario. And since not winning reduces your ability to recover lost stats, the loss of specific missions could cause issues - possibly even catastrophic issues - down the line.

So I'd make a slight change to the victory conditions: Good wins if they can destroy the bridge or slay the Balrog, Evil wins normally, and it's a Draw if the wizard and the Balrog are both slain (aka, the way it works out in the story).

Conclusion

Fantasy Fellowships was so fun, and I'm so glad that the Middle Earth team gave us this way to play the game in Quest of the Ringbearer. I've really enjoyed getting to try out new heroes, reconnect with old ones, and try out some of the narrative scenarios that I've glanced over but never played. And a huge thank you to Tiberius for being my partner in this, as I had a lot of fun playing with him (and tapping his far more vast knowledge of profiles and scenario objectives, because I'm ADHD and often forget specific things, :P ). Until next time, you know where to find me,

Watching the stars,

Centaur

"(Your teacher) is a human...and is therefore blinkered and fettered by the limitations of your kind." ~ Firenze, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix