Well, I've broken my every-other-week Thursday cycle again - hopefully you don't mind. This weekend, we'll be having our Spring Zephyr tournament, where we'll have small armies, short games, and lots of chances for redemption. It'll be grand - but as is always the case, there were a lot of armies clamouring for my attention. Today we'll walk through the various lists I considered running - and what list I finally landed on. Let's start with . . .
Honorable Mention: The Kingdom of Khazad-Dum
There's nothing in this game I love more than using an army of Dwarves (except maybe one with a Balrog) and Khazad-Dum is a great choice at lower points levels. At 350 points, I was able to get a 19 model army with a Dwarf King, a King's Champion, and a mix of Dwarf Warriors and Rangers to fill out the ranks. Nothing fancy here:
- Dwarf King
- 5 Dwarf Warriors with Dwarf bows
- 4 Dwarf Rangers with throwing axes
- King's Champion
- INDEPENDENT: 2 Heralds
- 6 Dwarf Warriors with shields
It's the "nothing fancy" bit that made me not take this list - I'm sure it would have done well, but it's also very boring to play. With this being a teach-new-players-to-play event, I didn't want to show up with a grind list of Dwarves, so these guys get to stay in box. I was surprised that my dishonorable mention even fit in the points level . . .
Dishonorable Mention: The Serpent Horde
So . . . it's a Mumak with Rappelling Lines and some guys in it . . . which would be very hard at this points level to stop with magic or archery. I have no doubt that winning certain scenarios would be hard - and that winning other scenarios would be easy:
- Haradrim Commander with War Mumak of Harad with Rappelling Lines [ARMY LEADER]
- 5 Haradrim Warriors
- 5 Haradrim Warriors with bows
But this is not a good gateway army - no new player is going to look at a Mumak and say, "Yeah, let's go fight that." So, he's staying in the box as well. This leads us to our first actual list . .
Candidate #5: Rohan - Fellowship Convenient Alliance
Centaur has done book-accurate Helm's Deep lists before, but this is a first for me. Eomer and Gimli retreat to the caves of the Deep in the book, so I made an all-shooting list with 16 models that reflects their stand at the caves (though Eomer was smart and grabbed a horse):
- Eomer on horse with shield and throwing spears
- 4 Warriors of Rohan with bows
- 6 Warriors of Rohan with shields and throwing spears
- 4 Rohan Royal Guards with throwing spears
- CONVENIENT ALLY - The Fellowship: Gimli, Son of Gloin
The list is very skirmishy, but doesn't really have the time to skirmish. The time constraints require an aggressive game play that is just too swingy with this list for my liking. Still, I liked it (and will have more thoughts on this list in a future post).
Candidate #4: Lurtz's Scouts LL
A better skirmish list is one that can skip shooting and just engage - and a really fun way to do that is with Lurtz's Scouts. Lurtz is a good hero who gets outclassed as the points level increases, but at 350, you can get a big horde of Uruks to help him out:
- Lurtz with shield
- 4 Uruk-Hai Marauders
- 4 Uruk-Hai Marauders with shields
- 5 Uruk-Hai Marauders with Uruk-Hai bows
- Mauhur
- 3 Uruk-Hai Marauders
- 4 Uruk-Hai Marauders with shields
- 3 Uruk-Hai Marauders with Uruk-Hai bows
This list has an impressive 25 models and was a strong contender for my choice, but then my son expressed an interest in running it, so I backed off. This led me back to Helm's Deep and another Legendary Legion . . .
Candidate #3: The Defenders of Helm's Deep LL
At last year's 300-point Winter Whirlwind tournament, an attendee brought a Theoden/Haldir version of this list - and it did okay. This list has Legolas and has lots of Elf bow shots, 8 supporting models, and some cheap Rohan infantry to form the front-line:
- Theoden, King of Rohan with heavy armor and shield
- 6 Warriors of Rohan with shields
- 1 Warrior of Rohan with throwing spears and shield
- 4 Galadhrim Warriors with Elf bows and spears
- Legolas Greenleaf with armor
- 4 Warriors of Rohan with shields
- 1 Warrior of Rohan with throwing spears and shield
- 2 Galadhrim Warriors with Elf bows and spears
20 models is pretty good - and with a few of those as supporting models, you're in a pretty good place if you have a shieldwall match up! While I could get good shooting in on most of the scenarios, this army depends on the spearmen being with the melee units - and with a lot of objective scenarios and not a lot of time on the clock, I just didn't think I would be able to score VPs and still shoot. Maybe next time guys. To get lots of shooting while still getting to the objectives, the better list turned out to be . . .
Candidate #2: Rohan
Apparently, I have had Rohan on my mind. :-) This list abandons the numerical focus of the other two lists and instead goes for the mostly all-cavalry focus that makes Rohan great. I could have upgraded the Riders of Rohan to mounted Royal Guards and run the Riders of Theoden Legion, but I wanted the extra body:
- Theoden, King of Rohan on armored horse with heavy armor and shield [ARMY LEADER]
- 5 Riders of Rohan
- Gamling, Captain of Rohan on horse with the Royal Standard of Rohan
- 4 Riders of Rohan
- 1 Warrior of Rohan with shield and throwing spears
Up until the moment I submitted my list, I kept coming back to this one. I ran Rohan at the last event and frankly, I wasn't sure that the infinite Might in this list was going to be appreciated. The list itself doesn't look scary - but all the warriors shoot, we can move quickly if we want to, and our numbers are good (for being mostly cavalry). I looked into turning the Warrior of Rohan into throwing spears/Royal Guard upgrades, as well as turning Gamling into various heroes (Erkenbrand and Dernhelm, in particular - and running Theoden as the only hero with 15 Riders of Rohan/Rohan Royal Guards), but while this list was fun to play, it was facing off against a very strong contender . . .
Candidate #1 and Tiberius's List: Minas Tirith
I don't know that there's ever been a points level where I have felt better about bringing Denethor than this one. I have a horde of guys (my maximum of 29 models) and plenty of F4 or D6 and spears everywhere. With objective missions being a thing, I feel pretty good at being able to contest my opponents in most games:
- Denethor, Steward of Gondor [ARMY LEADER]
- 4 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
- 2 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears
- 1 Warrior of Minas Tirith with shield, spear, and banner
- 1 Knight of Minas Tirith with shield
- 3 Rangers of Gondor
- 4 Citadel Guard
- Madril, Captain of Ithilien
- 6 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
- 6 Rangers of Gondor with spears
This is a proper spam list that has forsaken only one thing: a powerful hero. I have a lot of guys - and not a lot of answers to big heroes - but I can be where I want to be and hopefully that will be enough. In the end, I thought this list was better than the 16-model Men of the West list I briefly looked at, so there's that. :-) I also explored getting an extra Knight or two at Rythbyrt's and Centaur's suggestions, but I couldn't get the points to work out without having to purchase a bunch of models - so I left it with one mounted model.
I think it'll be fine - the list can have a 13-file F4 shieldwall if it needs it (three F4 Rangers of Gondor will be in the front rank supported by the Warriors of Minas Tirith with spears/banner; ten Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields will be around them supported by F4 Citadel Guard/Rangers of Gondor with spears), so if we face another shieldwall list, I'm feeling confident that the FV we have will be fine - and we can probably wrap-and-trap to make up for being S3 all around.
Conclusion
I'm excited for the event and I hope the players who come have a good time. I'll see if I can get an update out after the event with how things went - until next time, happy hobbying!
Having played against several of these, all of them were fun to play against, but I do think the Mumak would have been hard for newer players to deal with. It's a low Might force that has a very small footprint on the field unless it drops very light troops out of the Howdah, but for newer players this could be very, very hard to handle.
ReplyDeleteReally looking forward to seeing how it goes! Should be fun this weekend!
Speaking as a permanently newer player, not in a gaming group and goes to probably 1 event per year, getting to see the cooler niche stuff at tournaments is really fun.
DeleteI'd love to come against a Mumak, no idea what to do sure but it's such a cinematic model.
Obviously for learning the game it's probably best to play with and against more 'normal' stuff but getting to see the more niche stuff from long term players long standing collections is really fun.
At my one event last year I had a fantastic time getting run over by a far harad camel list.
Good to know - and while Rythbyrt didn't end up bringing it, I got to play a practice game where my Minas Tirith list got run over by camels . . . it's a thing. :-)
DeleteI would actually like to see a Nemesis post/battle report vs camel lists
DeleteOf course we don't mind an extra post! It is always fun to see the lists you have been trying out.
ReplyDeleteI think if you would have wanted to stick with Isengard or Rohan, Helms and Sharkus legion would have been strong contenders aswell, but I think your final choice is better for giving newer players a chance at winning the game, although I would have gone with Cirion and Madril for some more might and the option to strike.
ReplyDeleteWe have a guy who's bringing Helm - and boy does he hit like a truck! The biggest issue with Helm (soft critique) is that he doesn't have March and with four of the five scenarios requiring you to get somewhere, you need a Captain too. The Helm list at our event hits 16 models with a shield Captain and mounted Helm, but it's all cheap Warriors of Rohan after that. I personally would opt for Theodred's Guard over Helm's Guard at this points level - Theodred is a ton cheaper and is still really strong.
DeleteCirion is a great hero - though like most Gondor heroes, the S4 limit still slows his killing power. Strike and Might in general would be great, but I opted for more guys to get traps instead - that's generally how my Minas Tirith lists kill stuff.
Always love the listbuilding articles, and I think the final list is one of the stronger options canvassed (a bit behind Lurtz' Scouts, but there were obviously other considerations there). That's certainly a lot of models for 350 points, although I do wonder whether dropping a model to get the extra Knights and make sure all your Rangers could be spear supporting would have been worthwhile. They're currently a very squishy segment of an otherwise-durable line, and I think having one less model would be worthwhile to avoid that concern
ReplyDeleteThe main limitation for the Rangers with spears is . . . I only have 6. :-) I could have borrowed a few and swapped some of my Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears or Citadel Guards for Rangers with spears (and then had a full front line of Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields), but wherever my banner was fighting, I'd have F3 only - unless he was backing up a hero. Given the armies that registered (I'm one of 4-5 lists out of 10 with predominantly F4 - joined by Lurtz's Scouts, a Morgul Knight/Black Numenoreans spam, a pure Isengard list, and wherever Helm is in the Helm's Guard list), we'll see if relying on F4 works out.
DeleteThe lack of models is obviously a totally legitimate answer, it's all that's holding me back from adding more Trackers into my Mordor lists! I do think the lack of F4 on the banner is solveable by just attaching a paper/thin cardboard flag to a Ranger with spear, or having the banner spear support Madril in games where he's on the frontline. Alternatively, you could just rely on your numbers and assume that you can probably get the banner spear supporting a fight where you've also got another spear support for F4, as I imagine you'll be ahead of most lists with 29 models
DeleteAs it turned out, my banner spear supported Madril a lot. :-)
DeleteYou could swap Madril for Beregond and Damrod to hit 30 model count. It's not without sacrifice though...
ReplyDeleteTrue - I don't know if I said this in the article, but we're playing one scenario for each pool except Pool 6 (because it can be really predictable when the points levels are low). Since maelstrom is on the table, I kinda need Madril to make sure Denethor doesn't arrive in a bad place.
DeleteHunter Orcs are always worth considering at low points. At 350, you can get:
ReplyDeleteNarzug [LEADER]
Fimbul w/ Fell Warg
1 Hunter Orc w/ Bow, Banner
1 Hunter Orc w/ Fell Warg, 2-Handed Pick
11 Hunter Orcs w/ Bows
2 Hunter Orcs w/ 2-Handed Pick
7 Hunter Orcs
2 Fell Wargs
26 Models at 350pts, with 14 bows is pretty scary. You also have a banner, and arguably the best warrior brawler profile in the game.
This is a solid list - and love the addition of the two-handed picks! One of my nephews ran a Hunter Orc spam with an alliance between Azog's Hunters and the Dark Powers of Dol Guldur (getting some Nazgul support instead of Narzug) - we pulled a draw in Destroy the Supplies.
Delete