Nemesis: How to Fight Against Castellans of Dol Guldur

Good morning gamers,

This is our last post in this series (for now) and while we've focused on the main players in the Last Alliance over the past six weeks (and the world's scariest Ruffian hero), we're turning our attention to units I have come to HATE fighting: Castellans of Dol Guldur. My use of these units is limited to the Rise of the Necromancer LL, but Rythbyrt really likes to use these guys in Dark Powers of Dol Guldur lists - and my oh my are these guys a pain to deal with! Many people don't like these guys, but they're a hidden gem and if you see them on the other side of the table, you'll want to know how to deal with them. So let's take a look and see what these guys bring to the table and then how we can beat them . . .

What Makes Castellans of Dol Guldur So Hated?

Castellans are one of the most underrated heroes in MESBG (hence why they showed up in our In Defense Of series). To start with, they've got all the stats you want in a generic hero, including F5, S5, and 2 Attacks. This is better than most generic heroes, but certainly LOOKS sub-par when compared to your average beater hero (though S5 is hard to top without a +1 To Wound). As Rythbyrt pointed out in his article defending Castellans, these guys are basically higher-Courage Half-Trolls, who really need to be fielded in large numbers in order to be effective - and they're most effective when they all have Morgul Blades, since any 1 Fate hero is going to be leery of engaging if he's not confident he can win the fight.

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

They're also cheap - at 40-45pts (depending on whether they have the Morgul Blade or not), they're about the same cost as your average unnamed Orc hero but punch a LOT harder than Orc heroes do (very few can get to S5 and none get to F5). They're Minor heroes instead of Fortitude heroes, so they can't lead as many troops as other units can, but they rarely need to lead anyone (and a small hit-squad of guys is perfectly fine escorts for them).

One of the best ways to use Castellans (since they can't lead a lot of guys) is to use them as "one-drop" warbands to give your opponent very little information about where your troops are going to be, which gives you an incredible deployment advantage once your real warbands start deploying. In a scenario like Contest of Champions, you can start by deploying Castellans near the center of the board (near your army leader, you know, for safe-keeping), then deploy your other warbands to be able to wrap-and-trap your opponent's army. In scenarios like Lords of Battle or any scenario from Pool 2, you can deploy a handful of Castellans, know exactly where your opponent's units are, and then focus on aligning your remaining forces to overwhelm one side of the enemy. It's nasty . . .

If Castellans just had a good offensive profile and were cheap, they wouldn't be good - but these guys also refuse to die. D6 is good enough for most units and 1 Wound doesn't look particularly good, but with 12 Will points that are used for participating in combats, staying alive, and can be used as Fate points, it's very difficult to clear these guys in one go, even for the strongest of heroes. When I've fielded these guys, I usually set aside 6 Will to use as Fate points, 5 Will for participating in fights, and 1 Will to stay alive - and of course, you have to adjust this if the Castellans are being beat up, if they're not losing fights/taking damage, or if your opponent brought magical powers that need resisting (Castellans are usually okay "just taking it," but they can also be very useful at stopping area of effect magical powers like Wrath of Bruinen or Tremor from going off).

Having access to 6-9 Fate points (reasonably speaking) makes these guys unmatched by most units at stalling out big heroes for a turn or two - and when you think of these guys as 45-point roadblocks that can stall out heroes that are WAY more expensive than they are, their utility on the board isn't hard to see. And, of course, if a big hero flubs his roll against one of these guys, he could have a Morgul Blade to deal with . . . yeesh.

If we look at the rest of their profile, these guys have Terror that is usually paired with Harbinger of Evil (from a Nazgul of Dol Guldur or the Necromancer in either a Dark Powers of Dol Guldur list or the Rise of the Necromancer Legendary Legion), which makes tying these guys down a non-given for most foes. Yes, there are some units that are really good at passing Terror tests - and some units cheat with special rules to make up for bad Courage - but if you didn't plan on Terror, these guys can get you really fast.

While Castellans are great front-line troops (very durable and hit hard), they're also great siege engine scatter targets. If you have a Castellan within 3" (sometimes 6") of all your other units, you have PLENTY of chances to save the wound that's coming from a ballista or a catapult. While no one wants to get on the "cascading failure train" when rolling for Fate saves, these guys can survive a series of failed rolls better than basically everyone else in the game. And if you planned to kill a bunch of guys with your siege engines, these guys can keep your unit count high as you approach (and these guys can be fielded with some pretty scary friends).

Finally, Castellans have a very unique position in the Rise of the Necromancer LL. While the traditional make-up you'll see in this Legion is the Necromancer and a bunch of Nazgul of Dol Guldur, Castellans provide something that the Nazgul simply do not: staying power. Any big hero can charge into a Nazgul of Dol Guldur, smack them once, and remove them from the board - and if the Necromancer's force is reduced to a quarter in a scenario that ends when one side is quartered, they count as casualties and the game ends. This . . . isn't great (usually). Castellans . . . yeah, they don't die easy. If you have a clutch of these guys to provide some staying power (6 of them with Morgul Blades will "only" cost you 270 points - that's 520 points with the Necromancer), you will still have room for a few Nazgul of Dol Guldur to provide you with Might points and traveling shenanigans (or more hitting power) so you can manipulate the game and win.

Castellans are nasty - but there are a few tricks you can use to beat them. Let's see what those are . . .

How Do You Fight Back Against Castellans of Dol Guldur?

Earlier this year, I wrote an article on how to counter Elendil - and I'll be honest, I found countering him to be quite difficult. I find myself again in a difficult position trying to counter Castellans because, as it turns out, there isn't a long list of tricks you can use to beat these guys. That's . . . kind of why they were picked for this series, after all. If you plan to counter Castellans, the first "must" that you need is a way to deal with Terror tests. If possible, that's going to be some way to get Fearless, either with Fearless itself, or with a similar special rule (like Bodyguard or Sworn Protector) or a magical power (like Aura of Command or Fury). Castellans are good units, but their only non-Impossible alliance caster that can help them is the Necromancer of Dol Guldur, so if you have Bodyguard on a hero who's not near the Necromancer or have a hero with an auric spell that can resist a cast or two from the Necromancer (or if the Necromancer was left at home), you can at least engage these guys, which is always going to be the first step to victory.

Our second trick is to have mounted heroes (or models with S6+ and Monstrous Charge), ideally that have at least S4 with +1 To Wound or S6+. These kinds of heroes will be able to double their wounds against a Castellan AND will wound on at least 4s - and sometimes 3s! 6-9 Fate points is pretty good, but they're only supposed to stop 3-5 wounds, so if you can get 6-8 wounding dice, you have a good shot of clearing out most of their Will if not ALL of their Will and so kill them off. Most heroes are going to wound these guys on 5s - and honestly, that's not very scary for them - but if you can clear the 5s boundary and get to 4s with lots of dice . . . yeah, the Castellan's going to be a bit concerned.

Finally, there's at least a theory that you could rely on F5+ warriors who have D6+ (at least in the front line). Easterlings, Minas Tirith/Fiefdoms, and Elves can all get F5 on D6 troops pretty easily (usually D5 for pure Fiefdoms if you use Axemen of Lossarnach instead of Foot Knights, but D6 if they ally with Minas Tirith or Rohan in the front line). This approach tries to win half the fights (the Castellan probably has 3-4 dice with a spearman and a banner, while the others have access to pikes/banners or spears/banners with Elven-made weapons to get similar dice pools) and force the Castellans (and maybe their spear support) to wound on 5s while wounding the Castellans back with lots of dice on 6s (or occasionally 5s). This isn't a great trade, but assuming there are 4-8 Castellans on the board, you're probably only losing 2-3 models each round, so the attrition isn't bad.

But this highlights an important note: I don't think "Suicide Bobs" are great against Castellans. If your plan of dealing with these guys is to charge them with one guy and then throw your weight elsewhere, you're quite likely to feed the Castellans 3-5 kills each round, which isn't sustainable for most armies. A super-horde might be able to do it, but most super-hordes struggle to get good enough Courage to charge Castellans in the first place. Try it if you want, but I can tell you that my attempts to Suicide Bob these guys hasn't worked out well.

Now lest you think that anything I wrote above is going to be "easy," think again - Castellans can be in many places and so you're going to need multiple threats to deal with them. With this in mind, let's look for specific models that can help us beat Castellans . . .

Tiberius's Top 5 Models To Counter Castellans of Dol Guldur

Our journey begins with our honorable and dishonorable mentions - both of which have worked for me in the past to deal with Castellans (but never Rythbyrt's . . . though I assume they would work just fine even with his excellent command of them).

Honorable Mention: Uruk-Hai Demolition Teams

My son wanted to try out the Rise of the Necromancer Legion once and I was trying out a "very tame" variant of the Assault Upon Helm's Deep Legion. My son's Castellans tore through a bunch of Uruk-Hai and as they were approaching some more, a Demolition Team raced forward, got within 2" of three of them, detonated with one of the siege crew with flaming brands (thanks to Fury), and promptly killed one of the Castellans and reduced the other two to 1-2 Will points each . . . both were dead on the next turn. It turns out that automatic wounds, along with fair-to-slightly-poor Fate save rolling will end up crippling Castellans.

While this certainly works, any Castellan player is going to see that bomb and either say, "Well, someone's gotta bit the dust, so I might as well try to tank it with Castellans" OR the player will say, "Yeah, my Castellans are going to go somewhere else." Chasing Castellans with one of these is risky - and usually involves some collateral damage . . . and EVEN if it goes off perfectly, those Castellans might STILL be standing at the end of it (unless you deal close to 10 wounds with a cataclysmic explosion).

While this will certainly work, it is likely to work . . . once. Maybe twice (if you invested 160-164 points in two demolition teams). If your two demo charges do most of the work of killing 4-6 Castellans, it was probably worth it - but when you consider that you're likely to lose some of your own guys too (unless you get lucky, like I did, and get to place the charge AFTER a Castellan walks towards it and BEFORE the Castellans are charging), the points work out to be about even. As such, I couldn't put these guys in the list proper.

And now for everyone's least favorite unit - and someone who has shown up in almost every single post in this year's run of Nemesis posts . . .

Dishonorable Mention: Floi Stonehand and a Kingdom of Moria brawler hero (or a Dwarf Ballista)

Yup, it's Floi again. Castellans are really great - when they can spend their Will points as Fate points. If they can't, they become like Nazgul of Dol Guldur - one-hit-wonders who are only D6. Since Floi regains Will points if an enemy hero (which Castellans are) or monster (which Castellans are not) are killed by a Moria Dwarf model (so you probably have Balin in your army), he can turn off one Castellan's Will-as-Fate rule (Will of the Necromancer) and if you can shoot that Castellan on that turn or slay it in close combat with a King's Champion, Balin, or Gimli (though even a Dwarf King, Dwarf Shieldbearer, or Dwarf Captain is pretty likely to get a single wound on 5s through - though the Captain and Shieldbearer will have tied Fight Values), then Floi gets his Will point back and can do it again . . . and again . . . and again . . . until they're all dead. Oh, and if you get a Heroic Combat off of one of these guys, you might also clear out their supporting spearman or trash some of the warrior buddies nearby.

This is a great (and fool-proof) strategy for dealing with ONE Castellan each turn - if you try to Combat into another Castellan, those Dwarf heroes are going to blunt off the second guy (unless they're getting a trap in and they've got the help of a Khazad Guard or another big hero). This approach is solid, but it'll be slow. As such, the dishonorable slot goes to Floi and we begin our actual list with . . .

Pick #5: D6 Elves (optionally with F6 supporting models)

Elves begin at F5 with Elven-made weapons (assuming they're not backing up an allied unit, like a Warrior of Numenor, Iron Hills Dwarves, Lake-town Militia, or Warriors of Rohan), which means that an even number of dice being thrown by each side will slightly favor Elves in the match-up. If you can get F6 Elves in the fight (King's Guard for Rivendell, Palace Guards within 3" of Thranduil, or Guards of the Galadhrim Court), your odds go up a bit, but with the exception of the Elves near Thranduil with his army bonus, these guys are going to wound on 6s only. Being D6 will make it harder for the Castellans to chop through you (D4-5 are wounded on 4s, while D6-7 are wounded on 5s), but it's still going to be a slog. Elves aren't cheap, but it's usually not that hard to get an engaged model and a supporting model (possibly within range of a banner) to keep a Castellan from doing anything.

From experience, however, that front guy MUST be D6 - D4-5 Elves just don't last (the Castellan alone has a 75% chance of killing the Elf if he wins) and D3 Elves just get shredded by these guys . . . it's not pretty. Other F5 factions CAN try this stunt as well (as we talked about in the previous section), but without the Elven-made weapon boost (and without a +1 To Wound boost), it's unlikely that these guys are going to crack through a Castellan - they're very much just trying to limit the number of losses they're taking. If you want to remove these guys a bit more easily, I'd recommend . . .

Pick #4: Ringwraiths en masse

Sap Will is a nasty spell - and honestly, most Castellans are likely to let the spell go through (or use their free Will point from Resistant to Magic if they're fielded in the Rise of the Necromancer Legion) and just lose D3 Will points from the spell if they're targeted successfully by it. However, each time they lose Will, they're also reducing how many times they can fight and how many Wounds they can take - and that's a win. If you only have one Ringwraith casting, you're unlikely to make much head-way against a group of 4-8 Castellans.

However, if you have 4-8 Ringwraiths - the upper end of that is probably only reached in the Black Riders Legendary Legion - you can drill through a Castellan's reserves pretty quickly, making them a very vulnerable piece to a charging hero or even a block of warriors. With a 12" range on this spell, you might even be able to skirmish a little with it, softening up two or possibly three Castellans before you have to fight. If nearly half the Castellans are walking around on 1-3 Will points, they won't do the one thing they really need to do: stay in play. Unless you have better archery targets, a weakened Castellan is also a great target for your archery - especially if all the other options are D6 chaps (like Gundabad Orcs) - but if there are D4 options, I'd let the Castellans get in a turn or two of fun before they poof out of existence.

This strategy won't do you any good if you're playing with a Forces of Good list, so I would recommend something like . . .

Pick #3: Basically Everything in the Riders of Theoden LL (or a normal Rohan list)

Rohan has a lot of cheap F5 mounted heroes - and while I'd prefer them to be F6, you can't actually get spammable F6 mounted heroes in any list - period. F5 heroes with a free Heroic Strike on one turn, however, are QUITE likely to run over a Castellan - and if you are able to pair up your heroes so that two are working on the same Castellan (which is possible, but not likely to happen), then you could certainly have one hero declare a Strike and the other declare a Combat to hopefully clear one Castellan and then smash into some other units (and possibly another Castellan with the Striking hero). The Riders of Theoden are a good list - and if they can arrive to the fight with their horses beneath them, they're very dangerous for Castellans.

While you can't declare Heroic Strikes for free with a normal Rohan list, you do get access to heroes like Theodred (who can wound Castellans on 5s rerolling all failed To Wound rolls) and Erkenbrand (who helps with your Courage if you brought non-Rohan-Royal-Guards), as well as a host of mounted allies who can help you (such as Hurin the Tall, Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth, or Captains of Dol Amorth - who might be considered spammable F6 mounted heroes in that any who are within 3" of Imrahil become F6). The Riders of Theoden are good, but you can make an alliance option work as well.

If you're playing as Evil, you MIGHT be able to get away with some damage from a Khandish King on Chariot (two S4 impact hits followed by a Heroic Strike from F5 and 8 wounding dice) or Mahud Kings (one S4 impact hit followed by Heroic Strike from F5 and 8 wounding dice), but both of these heroes are incredibly vulnerable to Morgul Blades - though that's not a critique that most Rohan heroes are immune to.

These kinds of heroes are pretty good options for dealing with Castellans - though not without risk. If you'd like to "just ignore them," your best bet is probably to rely on . . .

Pick #2: Warriors of the Dead with shields (and some Dwarf units)

I mean, for 15 points a pop, you can get three of these guys, which gives you three rounds of shielding and only being wounded on 6s if you lose. D8 covers a multitude of sins and if your plan is to gang up on all the C2-3 other stuff that are coming with the Castellans (or the Nazgul of Dol Guldur/the Necromancer in the Legion), throwing one of these guys into a Castellan, defending by shielding, and then hoping the Castellan (and any spear-supporting Gundabad Orc) don't get a 6 To Wound is pretty decent. The King of the Dead probably shouldn't go up against these guys - just use your warriors.

If you can trap one of these guys, though, going for a kill is a pretty good shout, since the King of the Dead will probably have Harbinger and that will allow the warriors to wound on 5s. 5s isn't great, but it's also not bad - most of the units we've looked at so far are settling for 5s (Captains of Rohan on the charge with Piercing Strike, Hurin, Imrahil, and the Captains of Dol Amroth can all get to 4s). If you want to blunt these guys, I think Warriors of the Dead are your best option.

You can get other units that are D8-9, namely Iron Hills Dwarves in shieldwall, Vault Wardens, and Gundabad/Isengard Trolls. Frankly, I think the Castellan welcomes the Troll because a single 6 from a Morgul Blade will pay for himself and several of his buddies, but dealing with 11-12pt D8 Iron Hills Dwarves while they're in shieldwall is a nightmare for Castellans - and dealing with a 25-point Vault Warden team honestly isn't any worse. While Dwarves can be the answer for stalling out Castellans, you probably need to perform supporting attacks in order to retain Shieldwall on your Iron Hills Dwarves (without Shieldwall, you're wounded on 5s), so both of these options are going to be more expensive and ultimately more offensive-focused than the Warrior of the Dead spam.

But our top spot was always going to go to the few models who can both take a hit from a Castellan and also threaten to kill them in one go - and these heroes are . . .

Pick #1: F6+/D6+ monsters with Monstrous Charge OR mounted heroes who can wound these guys on a 3+ (specifically Dragons, Gwaihir, Aragorn with Anduril on horse, and Azog on the White Warg)

Let's get this out of the way - there were a TON of monsters who were never going to make this list. Many Evil monsters have 0-1 Fate points (like Gulavhar, Shelob, the Watcher in the Water, the Spider Queen, Cave Drakes, and all War Beasts) - and while these heroes can hit a Castellan like a stack of bricks, they also need to win or they're probably gone. Castellans will pay whatever price they must to win against these kinds of heroes - and honestly, I think the threat of losing a big monster in a single swing just isn't worth it. Dragons can be D7 (or D9) with 3 Fate points, which makes them pretty good options for Evil - and can even limit their exposure to damage by casting Transfix on a Castellan if they took Wyrmtongue. Still, with Survival Instinct and not-great-Courage, it's a toss-up whether these guys will actually be able to deal with Castellans (or whether they'll lose a fight and be sent flying away - or dying straight-out).

If you're looking for resilient monsters who can deal a ton of damage, Gwaihir is pretty much where it's at. With a base Strength of 6, he will be rolling 6 wounding dice on the charge and wounding on 4s, but he could also declare a Heroic Strength and wound on 3s on the roll of a 3+. Dealing 3-4 wounds is pretty good - and if he has help from an ally, there's a decent chance that a Castellan gets cleared out by Gwaihir in a single shot.

When it comes to man-sized heroes, there aren't many who can get to an effective S6+, at least F6, can take a mount, and have at least D6 - Aragorn with Anduril (either Strider or Elessar), Young Dain, Champ Dwalin, Elendil, Isildur, Bolg, and Azog. Young Dain is incredibly tough and hits very hard, while Champ Dwalin hits potentially harder but with only 2 Wounds/2 Fate. Elendil and Bolg are both S5 with +1 To Wound, but with only 1 Fate each, I'm not sure you want to risk your centerpiece against Castellans until the Morgul Blades disappear.

We talked about Isildur recently - he'd be able to wound on 4s if he two-hands, and if he keeps his mount and foregoes putting on the Ring (generally a good idea against a model with the Will of Evil, like Castellans have), he can get 8 dice and average 4 wounds each time he wins. He'll need to do this with a dueling penalty, but with F6 base, at least he doesn't need to Strike. Dain and Isildur are both good options if you were already planning to run them.

But I think Aragorn and Azog are really where it's at - because with the exception of Dwalin, these are the only guys in the game who can knock Castellans over and wound them on 3s. Aragorn will have to do it by two-handing with Anduril, but honestly, you probably don't want to call a Heroic Combat against these guys - and you don't need to Strike against them either. Unless you spent your free Will point from Mighty Hero on a Heroic Move, Aragorn is probably okay with two-handing and boosting his roll (or one of his wounding rolls). If you wound on 3s, you have a very good chance of dealing 4-6 wounds to these guys, which pushes the limits of what a Castellan can take (and opens up the opportunity for you to one-turn flash-kill a Castellan). Aragorn mounted with Anduril is nasty . . .

. . . but not as nasty as Azog mounted on the White Warg. Azog can wound these guys on no worse than 3s because of his I Am the Master rule and if he's charging on the White Warg, he'll be getting 8 wounding dice against the Castellan. With 6 Might points between him and his Warg, you can afford to boost a few rolls from 2s to 3s if you want to see a Castellan dead. If Azog is taken from the Pits of Dol Guldur Legion, he will add to this free Heroic Combats, which means he can trash a Castellan (roll your wounding dice in pairs and decide if you're going to boost before you roll the next pair), race into ANOTHER Castellan, and trash a second guy in a single go. Yeah, Azog is nasty too . . .

I must reiterate that none of these heroes want to be in a prolonged fight against Castellans for very long. If Azog burns through his actual Might too quickly, he's one botched roll from losing the White Warg (who will be insta-killed after 2-3 wounds from Morgul Blades, depending on how many Fate points want to be used to save the Warg). Aragorn and Dain are tough nuts to crack - but 3 Wounds/3 Fate will go away in a prolonged fight. These heroes want to clean up the Castellans quickly - or knock them over and then leave them for a grunt or two to deal with on the following turn.

Okay, let's wrap this discussion up and talk about some lists!

Sample Lists

Rythbyrt sent me the following list, which is an example of a Castellan-spam list that he prefers at 700 points - you'll see five Castellans (all with Morgul Blades, of course), the Witch-King as the army leader (though you can really choose any Nazgul of Dol Guldur for this role), an allied contingent of Hunter Orcs/Fell Wargs led by Fimbul, and a side of Goblin Mercenaries from the third element of the Evil trifecta from the Armies of the Hobbit:

• Nazgul of Dol Guldur (The Witch-King of Angmar) [ARMY LEADER]
• 6 Gundabad Orc Warriors with shields and spears
• 1 Gundabad Orc Warrior with shield, spear, and banner
• 4 Fell Wargs
  
• Castellan of Dol Guldur with Morgul Blade
• Castellan of Dol Guldur with Morgul Blade
• Castellan of Dol Guldur with Morgul Blade
• Castellan of Dol Guldur with Morgul Blade
• Castellan of Dol Guldur with Morgul Blade
• HISTORICAL ALLY - Azog's Hunters: Fimbul the Hunter on Fell Warg
• 3 Hunter Orcs
• 4 Hunter Orcs with Orc bows
• 2 Hunter Orcs on Fell Wargs with Orc bows
• 3 Fell Wargs
  
• HISTORICAL ALLY - Azog's Legion: Goblin Mercenary Captain
• 9 Goblin Mercenaries

This list has a whopping 40 models in it and TONS of fast options (with the 7 Fell Wargs and 2 mounted Hunter Orcs - not to mention the sudden arrival of 10 Goblin Mercenaries). The actual shieldwall is small but durable, with the Gundabad Orcs able to support either the 2A Hunter Orcs or the 2A Castellans - it's a frightening prospect. With 8 Might across three of the heroes, this army needs to be careful about how it spends its Might, but it probably doesn't need to March much, given its speed and shenanigans.

Our first stop for countering this list is the Riders of Theoden, which allows us to get good heroes who can ram into the Castellans on our big "Death!" charge, call free Strikes to get the higher Fight Value, and take a bunch chunk of their firepower away from them. Moving second is the key on this round, as the list we're building against has cavalry options that could try to counter-charge us and remove our bonus attack/knock down rules. I've opted for the RRG-spam approach instead of mixing it up with my beloved Riders of Rohan - but if you'd like to add an extra model, you can downgrade a few RRGs to get one.

• Theoden, King of Rohan with everything [ARMY LEADER]
• 2 Rohan Royal Guards on horses with throwing spears
  
• Eomer, Marshal of the Riddermark with everything
• 2 Rohan Royal Guards on horses with throwing spears
  
• Dernhelm with everything
• 3 Riders of Rohan
  
• Gamling, Captain of Rohan with everything
• 2 Rohan Royal Guards on horses with throwing spears
  
• Deorwine, Chief of the King's Knights with everything
• 3 Rohan Royal Guards on horses with throwing spears
  

700 points, 18 models, 3 bows hitting on a 4+ AND 11 throwing spears hitting on a 4+, 13 D6+ models, 17 cavalry and 6 Might for Heroic March, 15+ Might

My biggest critique of this list is not that it has poor numbers (all-cav armies usually do), but rather that we have to Strike to beat the Fight Value of the Castellans - and that the heroes are all S4-5 and will wound on 5s. We can get similar wounding abilities by leaning into Thranduil and Palace Guard in a Mirkwood list - and get some of that mounted hero/Fearless action by also including Dain:

• Dain Ironfoot, Lord of the Iron Hills on war boar [ARMY LEADER]
• 8 Iron Hills Dwarves
• 8 Iron Hills Dwarves with spears
• Thranduil, King of the Woodland Realm with extra sword and heavy armor
• 6 Mirkwood Elves with shields
• 3 Mirkwood Elves with Elf bows
• 3 Mirkwood Elves with Elf bows and Elven Glaives
• 6 Palace Guards with shields and spears
  

700 points, 36 models, 6 Elf bows hitting on a 3+, 30 D6+ models, 1 cavalry and 3 Might for Heroic March, 6 Might

Two hammering heroes (one of them LITERALLY hammering people) and your choice of tackling a high Defense Fearless anvil or a F6 shieldwall with +1 To Wound . . . I mean, what's the right choice? I could have dropped a few models to get a banner - and a few more models to get Terror on the Elven block - but I decided to try to get close to 40 models and max warbands instead. Thranduil also has no mount - that could be rectified too, but we'd be hard-pressed to reach 30 models if we tried to add all three of these things. Our final list features Aragorn, King Elessar and Gwaihir - a combo that certainly can't go wrong (and has proven lethal in our community in the past):

• Aragorn, King Elessar on armored horse [ARMY LEADER?]
• 8 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
• 6 Rangers of Gondor with spears
• 4 Guards of the Fountain Court with shields
  
• Malbung, Ranger of Ithilien
  
• 3 Rangers of Gondor with spears
• 2 Guards of the Fountain Court with shields
• 1 Knight of Minas Tirith with shield
  
• Minas Tirith Siege Veteran with Avenger Bolt Thrower
• 2 Crew
  
• CONVENIENT ALLY - The Misty Mountains: Gwaihir [ARMY LEADER?]
  

700 points, 30 models, 9 bows hitting on a 3+ AND 1 bolt thrower, 17 D6+ models, 2 cavalry and 1 flyer and Mighty Hero for Heroic March, 8 Might

This list is based on a list that Rythbyrt took to one of our GTs INSTEAD of his Castellan spam list - and my poor Men of the West hit it in the first round and availed themselves as well as they could. The list has a surprising amount of tricks with two beater heroes, a bolt thrower that can be repositioned easily by Gwaihir (which is really in the list to counter the not-Castellan things, though it can try to drill through a Castellan's Will store if it wants to), plenty of archery, and a solid line of D6-7 troops to try to beat back the Hunter Orcs/Gundabads with F4 (the Warriors of Minas Tirith will need the Rangers or Guards of the Fountain Court to back them up) or stall out a Castellan (hopefully). 

Courage is kind of a problem (C3 on most of our troops), but we do have 6 Guards of the Fountain Court with Bodyguard and a C6 Aragorn/C6 Gwaihir. There are even more tricks that one could glean from this list, but needless to say, this list is a potent threat for any army that's relying on Castellans to walk up and engage with someone . . . it's a really strong list.

Conclusion

I love this series - it's really fun to look for new and inventive ways to deal with tough models. We had a few requests for a few more posts on various units - we'll get to those later in the year. Our post next week will be a Centaur special, but the following week kicks off a new series, which will be running for most of the spring and summer. In it, I'll be breaking down every scenario in the Matched Play Guide and walking through how to approach them . . . because, after writing articles for thirteen years on this blog, we've never actually covered how to win the game (except at a high level in the Bare Necessities series, and even that was incomplete). Between each pool of scenarios, we'll also have another new series (or other articles that Centaur and Rythbyrt write as lightning strikes) - but more on that later. Until next time, happy hobbying!