In Defense Of: Moria Blackshield Captains

Good morning gamers,

Last week I tried to give a passionate defense of Mordor Trolls (and who knows if I succeeded in making them look good), but today we're turning to yet another unloved model: the Moria Blackshield Captain. Moria has lots of great heroes, ranging from powerful monsters (like the Balrog and the Watcher in the Water) to puny-but-cheap/functional heroes, like Moria Blackshield Shamans and Durburz. Among the host of options available to Moria is a model that looks really cool but . . . well, just falls shy of the mark for most people - which is a shame, because he's actually really good. Join me today as we walk through what's so great about the Moria Blackshield Captain . . . but first, we gotta talk about the critiques this guy gets (in general, the comments are fair critiques) . . .

Why NOT To Take Moria Blackshield Captains

If the Moria Blackshield Captain were the only generic Captain option for Moria, that would be one thing, but Moria has two generic heroes who can lead 12 troops and have Heroic March: Moria Blackshield Captains and Moria Goblin Captains. Without any additional gear, the Blackshield Captain costs 10pts more and has +1 Defense (which is mitigated if the Moria Goblin Captain takes a shield - which not everyone does), has +1 Courage (bringing him up to C4 innately and C5 if there's a drum around), and gains the Hatred (Dwarf) special rule (+1 To Wound against Dwarves - which can be awesome, more on this later).

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

One of these boosts is free - but the benefits of all of these boosts are highly situational. Being D6 is generally a good thing for a hero (many warriors will wound you on 6s - as will most shooting attacks), but it isn't very good if you're up against another hero, who probably wounds you on 5s (if not 4s if he gets +1 To Wound). Being C4 is also good - but only marginally better than being C3 (and if C4 is good enough, than a Moria Goblin Captain within range of a Moria Goblin Drum is going to be C4 as well). Furthermore, both of these hero options can automatically pass any Courage tests they need to take if they're within 6" of a Moria Goblin Shaman who has cast Fury or if they are within 12" of the Balrog . . . so the Courage thing might be moot.

The most situational of these boosts is definitely the Hatred (Dwarf) rule, which is great if there are a) Dwarves actually on the table, and b) they are the kind of Dwarves that a F3 hero can actually beat. There are ways for a Moria Blackshield Captain's Fight Value to go up, but he has no Heroic Strike in his profile (honestly, I wouldn't mind if he traded March for Strike and be more like a Knight of the White Tower from the Minas Tirith list), so if you're going to be on-par or worse than the Fight Value of a Dwarf (all of which are at least F4), you're going to need to be very mindful of your positioning.

But the starting Fight Value of 3 is a problem against more than just Dwarves - in most situations, purchasing a hero (even a generic one) means you should have a higher Fight Value than the basic troops the enemy has (unless your core units are basic and your opponent's units are elite), and one would think that a hero who is clearly designed for chopping up the enemy would have a good Fight Value to go with it . . . well this guy does not. This guy just doesn't seem to have anything going for him . . . but it gets worse . . .

A final reason why most players favor the Moria Goblin Captain over the Moria Blackshield Captains is because of their war gear. The Goblin Captain begins with a one-handed sword and can take a shield (which not everyone does) or an Orc bow (which basically nobody does), while the Moria Blackshield Captain starts with a two-handed sword and has no one-handed option available to him. Yes, he must always fight two-handed. We'll talk about this more later, but for many players, the requirement to fight two-handed makes this hero (and certain other heroes, like Grimbold and Balin the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor) just not as good as other hero options that don't have to suffer a dueling penalty.

So are the nay-sayers right? Is this guy doomed to be the only member of the Blackshield blister to not have a reason to grace the table (assuming you like the mobile nature of the Blackshield Drum and are okay with paying extra for substitute drummers or just not having substitutes around)? I don't think so - I actually like having this guy on the table. Here's why . . .

Why TO take Moria Blackshield Captains

I'm going to begin with the critique about having to fight two-handed first because I think it will frame the discussion that's coming really well. The defense here boils down to one thing: fighting two-handed is okay . . . if you have lots of dice. I won't go into the math here - I've already done that - but believe me when I say that in all the years I've played SBG, I've become more and more convinced that two-handing just gets a bad wrap from players in the community. I roll plenty of 1s and 2s with dice that are two-handing - and most of the time when I roll that badly, I'm losing that fight whether I two-handed or not. That's just the game we play. I've been using a few heroes who either can fight two-handed with a penalty or have to fight two-handed with a penalty lately - these heroes include:

• 3-Attack Uber-Uruk-Hai Captain from the Assault Upon Helm's Deep list (if you give him and use a two-handed weapon, which I do)
• 2-Attack Bofur the Dwarf from Thorin's Company (for the first half of my Fantasy Fellowship journey last year, he had to fight two-handed - then he got a shiny dagger from Galadriel and I basically didn't two-hand anymore with him)
• 3-Attack Khamul the Easterling, Nazgul of Dol Guldur (who is AWESOME in the Rise of the Necromancer Legion, no matter what anyone else says)
• 3-Attack Thorin III Stonehelm from the War of the Ring era Erebor Reclaimed list (who has a hand-and-a-half pick)
• 3-Attack Thorin Oakenshield (from Thorin's Company - though this also applies to Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain from Erebor Reclaimed) fighting two-handed with Orcrist

Do you know what the best thing is about fighting two-handed? The more difficult part of the fight (the wounding roll) becomes much easier - and so long as your opponent doesn't get a 6, you don't really NEED to get a 6 yourself if your Fight Value is good (and sometimes you don't even need a good Fight Value)! All you have to do is out-dice the other guy (and it helps if your Fight Value is higher too).

Moria Blackshield Captains don't have great Fight Value innately, but it's not hard for them to roll a lot of dice. If they have a spear-supporter (+1 Attack with no penalty to its highest roll) and are within range of a drum (1 reroll on any Goblin die that's been rolled), suddenly you have four base dice (roughly 50% chance of getting a natural 6 on at least one of those dice and a roughly 80% chance of getting a 5+ on at least one of those dice), which is good enough to beat anyone who gets a 1-3 and depending on which die gets what roll, it may even be enough to beat a 4 or 5 high - REGARDLESS of the enemy Fight Value in play.

Furthermore, the penalty of fighting two-handed is pretty easily remedied if you save your Might for boosting your dueling rolls. If you plan to call Heroic Combats with these heroes, think again - you want them to save their Might to boost their rolls so that a) they can win what would have been a narrow loss to a grunt, or b) force an enemy hero to either burn Might themselves OR face the added pain that comes from fighting two-handed. Moria Blackshield Captains may not look great on paper, but S4 with +1 To Wound while fighting two-handed is enough to make even a D8 hero concerned.

But it gets even better if that hero is also a Dwarf! Since Hatred (+1 To Wound) stacks with the bonus you get from fighting two-handed (+1 To Wound), a Moria Blackshield Captain is a credible threat to any Dwarf, since he'll wound D7-8 Dwarves on 4s (which is basically everyone), D9 Dwarves on a 4/2+ (Durin, Thror, Vault Warden Foe Shields, and situationally King's Champions and Iron Hills Captains in shieldwall), and those rare D5-6 Dwarves on 3s (Floi, Vault Warden Foe Spears, Dwarf Rangers, Iron Guard, and Dwarf Warriors/Iron Hills Dwarves without shields) - sheesh, they make it look easy. Lest you think this is limited to Dwarves, this guy can wound any D7-8 model on 5s, any D5-6 model on 4s, and any D3-4 model on 3s JUST with the two-handed weapon - and for only 45pts, this guy looks like a dangerous chap if he can just win his duel.

Of course, to actually wound these targets, they need to win the duel - and for this, there are several strategies they can employ. The first, of course, is to have a Drum nearby and a spear-supporter in their fight. We've already talked about this above, so I won't elaborate more. The second thing they can do is have a Bat Swarm handy, who not only brings more dice to the fight, but also halves the Fight Value of whoever is fighting the Blackshield Captain (rounding down). This means that your opponents will need to reach F8 to be better than your base F3 - and will need to reach F10 to be better than F4, which you can reach by a) keeping the Moria army bonus and fighting a model who is trapped, b) fighting within 3" of Groblog on a turn when he gets a 4+ on his Mithril Crown roll, or c) fighting within 6" of the Balrog in the Depths of Moria Legendary Legion. Any one of these conditions will lead to your Captain being F4 - which is good enough to force basically every hero in the game with Heroic Strike to call a Heroic Strike against you if there's a Bat in the fight . . . yes, they need to Strike against a Blackshield Captain instead of whatever big nasty is in your list (be it a Balrog, Dragon, or the Watcher in the Water) . . .

But it gets better - because if you run a pure Moria list, you can have Groblog AND the Moria army bonus, which means your opponents will have to reach F10 just to TIE your Fight Value, not beat it - and if you have a 40mm base flying model engaged in the same fight, your opponent can be trapped quite easily! To get this maneuver to work, you'll need to have your Blackshield Captain fighting models who are capping off the enemy battle lines or who have drifted away from their shieldwall - don't try to rush into the center of a shieldwall UNLESS you can get someone onto the other side of the fight. Since you won't be calling a Heroic Combat with this guy, you might be able to Combat someone else around in order to force the trap. These guys will be capped at F4 in the Balrog Legion, but you'll have a Balrog with you, so the Heroic-Combat-To-Hurl on the previous turn thing is probably guaranteed to happen if you're patient with the approach.

Viewing the offensive profile of the Blackshield Captain in this list highlights something really cool about this guy: in many respects, he's basically a weaker-but-cheaper Cave Troll! F6 he is not, but with a little help, he doesn't need to be. S6 with +1 To Wound he is not - unless he's fighting Dwarves, in which case he functionally is! 3 Attacks without a dueling penalty is way better than 2 Attacks with a dueling penalty, but a drum and a spearman can sort that right out. C4 might not be that much better than C3, but C5 (Captain + Drum) is definitely good. While Cave Trolls are awesome, they can't lead warbands - and if you only have the money for one Cave Troll and want two, you might want to look at having one of these guys lead your Cave Troll into battle and work close by as his "little brother in crime." This is my go-to when fielding this guy - have a Cave Troll around to distract all the aggro while this guy deals punishment to people.

If you're concerned about having the -1 penalty to your dueling roll, there are a few different things you can do to mitigate its impact (besides just throwing more dice in his fight). The first thing you can do, of course, is save all your Might for boosting dueling rolls. Back when I got started playing MESBG, this was one of the few things you could actually use Might for - there were only three heroic actions (Move, Shoot, and Combat) and so if you weren't going to be calling any of those, you could boost your dueling/shooting rolls, your wounding rolls, your Fate saves, your Courage tests, and maybe a casting/resisting roll if you had magic or if your opponent did. That was it (basically). With MESBG the way it is now, it often feels like a waste to have a hero whose best use of Might is to "win the dueling roll," but I gotta say, Moria usually has other pieces that can do the other things for you - having one guy whose job is to just win fights and make sure whoever's on the other side doesn't walk away from the encounter is just fine.

Your second option is to pair a Moria Blackshield Captain with a Moria Blackshield Shaman (or two) - the mere presence of these guys on a battlefield can scare off heroes with only 1 weapon and limited Will points from coming anywhere close to someone who can deal them a nasty blow. While there are certainly Dwarf heroes who aren't afraid of becoming unarmed (either because they have an endless supply of weapons or because they have rules that say they never count as being unarmed), there are MANY heroes across ALL the factions who have a single weapon - and if they have it Shattered, they'll be suffering a -1 penalty as well. When cast against warriors (who generally can't resist spells and probably only have one weapon on them), this can soften up a part of the enemy battle line for the Captain to cut a quick hole through - especially if he's got a spearman/drum supporting him. If you think Shattering the weapons of warriors is beneath a Blackshield Shaman, you could always go the Tremor route too - fighting a prone foe is also good for a Blackshield Captain.

Finally, you can always say, "eh, it's just a 45-point Captain - he doesn't need to perform like <pick your favorite more expensive hero>." At the end of the day, how much can you really expect a sub-50-point hero to do? If he kills 3-4 warriors on one flank, will he have done his share? If the Balrog is tanking all of the big units of the enemy and all that's left in front of this guy and his Cave Troll friend are warriors, can they have done their part if they just take care of a single warband? I think so . . .

The last thing I wanted to cover is using a Moria Blackshield Captain as your army leader. If you're running pure Moria, you have quite the array of Heroes of Fortitude - and they can all bring different things to the table. Druzhag can make Spiders and Bats hit harder (and if you're willing to risk their immediate death, he can even make a Wild/Fell Warg pretty beastly), Ashrak can upgrade spiders to be really powerful wounding machines, Moria Goblin Captains can call Heroic Marches (they're your real option for March in the list), and Moria Blackshield Captains can deal good damage (if they can win the fight). Groblog would appear to be the best choice for your army leader, but he tends to want to be near the action so his Mithril Crown rule can help bolster the Fight Value of your Goblins (especially those who are fighting in a battle line and are unlikely to be fighting against trapped opponents) and that can mean he's exposed. 

Instead of putting Groblog in that role, put a Blackshield Captain there - he can afford to wait to get into the action until some Might on the other side has been spent, his resilience is as good as Groblog's (and arguably better than the others), and if you have to count his kills, you'll get far more out of him than any of those other guys. Additionally, Groblog can hang out WITH the Captain to bolster his Fight Value and potentially lend a Heroic Strike (and two penalty-free dice) to the same fight. For 45pts, I think you can fit this guy into any pure Moria list you're building. Let's take a look at some lists to wrap this up . . .

Making It Work

Our first stop is a 500pt pure Moria list with the Watcher in the Water - the Watcher and Cave Drakes are monster heroes who can't be your army leader, which means you can do the Fortitude spam thing and get a bunch of models with some hitting power from someone who isn't worth victory points. While some players swear up and down by Cave Drakes, I like the surprise and tactical play (or should I say tentacle play?) that you can get from the Watcher. For more on how this works, you should actually check out Sharbie's blog - this is his weird-looking-baby, after all (though I doubt heavily that he'd ever run this list . . . challenge issued, though):

• Groblog
• 5 Moria Goblin Warriors with shields
• 5 Moria Goblin Warriors with spears
• Moria Blackshield Captain [ARMY LEADER]
• 4 Moria Goblin Warriors with shields
• 5 Moria Goblin Warriors with spears
• 1 Bat Swarm
  
• Moria Goblin Captain
• 4 Moria Goblin Warriors with shields
• 4 Moria Goblin Warriors with spears
• Watcher in the Water
  

500pts, 32 models, D6 tentacles hitting on a 3+, 3 D6+ models, no fast models but 2-4 Might for Heroic March, 8 Might points

Our second stop is the Depths of Moria Legendary Legion - and this happens to be a no-Shaman variant, which relies on the Balrog and a bunch of Prowlers to do the heavy-hitting, while the Blackshield Captain and the vanilla Captain handle the flanks around the Balrog. With most of the enemy's focus being directed against the Balrog and his F4 two-handing cronies, it's easy for this guy to get ignored and get in some damage in more manageable fights.

• The Balrog [ARMY LEADER]
• 8 Moria Goblin Prowlers
• 8 Moria Goblin Warriors with spears
• Moria Goblin Captain
• 2 Moria Goblin Prowlers
• 2 Moria Goblin Warriors with spears
• 6 Moria Goblin Warriors with Orc bows
• 2 Moria Goblin Drummers with Moria Goblin Drum
  
• Moria Blackshield Captain
• 4 Moria Goblin Warriors with shields
• 5 Moria Goblin Warriors with spears
  

700pts, 40 models, 6 Orc bows hitting on a 5+ AND 10 throwing daggers hitting on a 4+, 12 D6+ models, 1 cavalry and 5 Might for Heroic March, 7 Might points

Conclusion

If you don't like models that need to two-hand, I can understand if you're not convinced - but if you're a Moria player and you happen to have one of these guys lying around, I'd highly recommend you give him a try. Manage your expectations, use him where he'll be able to get good matchups, and for goodness sake, have a spearman nearby to help him out. 

In our next article, we'll be hopping over to the Iron Hills and Erebor and taking a look at a piece of wargear that basically everyone says is worthless (especially my fellow admin, Rythbyrt): Mattocks. While there are clearly situations where this is not a good choice for your war gear, I think these things have a place - even if they should function like the Pick-hammers that Grim Hammers carry. Find out what's to like about these things next time - and until then, happy hobbying!