The Road to the TMAT GT 2024 - Tiberius's List

Good morning gamers,

There wasn't a lot of time between the Spring Zephyr tournament and the GT this year, so I streamlined my list testing - a lot. I probably came up with over a dozen 750-pt lists that I wanted to try, but with time of the essence and wanting to get more than one game in before the tournament with my list, I basically focused on two archetypes and just played with those lists. As such, this post is going to be . . . pretty boring if you're looking for list variety. But the lists were fun - and I really enjoyed playing with them. Let's see what I almost took!

Honorable Mention: The Men of the West LL

It's no secret, I'm in the camp of the Men of the West heart and soul. With a player in the UK winning a GBHL90 event (not super competitive but not fluffy either), there were two list builds for the Men of the West that I was keen to try. The one that was least like the lists I've run before (and more like the list that won the event) was one I wanted to have a shot at - and it features the Twins, who I'd need to borrow but have also struggled to kill at previous tournaments:

• Aragorn, King Elessar [ARMY LEADER]
• 1 Warrior of Minas Tirith with shield
• 3 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears 
• 10 Warriors of Minas Tirith with bows
• Eomer, Marshal of the Riddermark with shield
• 15 Warriors of Rohan with shields and spears
• Elladan and Elrohir with heavy armor

750 points, 33 models, 10 bows hitting on a 4+ AND 15 throwing spears hitting on a 4+, 8 D6+ models, no fast models but Heroic March and Mighty Hero, 12+ Might

This list is not as D6-heavy as the GBHL winning list, but it shoots a lot - 10 standard bows and 15 throwing weapons. It's not as many bows as I could have had if I'd left the twins at home (throw in a Captain of Rohan with shield and throwing spears leading a bunch more guys with throwing spears and shields to allow everyone in Aragorn's warband to have bows and you have a nearly all-shooting list with TONS of models, admittedly at D5 with no supporting attacks), but it's still a lot - and we have four hammer heroes in our list (who are pretty good at killing stuff for being infantry). The heroes would all be more devastating if we had taken horses, but we can't do that in the Legion and we can't ally the twins in without bringing one of those really expensive Heroes of Valour/Legend from Rivendell, so we would be getting sub-par heroes if we did an alliance (probably Hurin and upgrading some Rohan models to cavalry).

In the end, I didn't have time to practice with this list, but rest assured, I'll be tinkering with it during the rest of the year! Okay, now on to some familiar faces in our dishonorable slot . . .

Dishonorable Mention: The Serpent Horde 

For our 350-point event about a month ago, I had a single Mumak list in this slot and for this tournament, I wanted to practice with a double Mumak list (which was basically copy/paste the 350 list, add Tusk Weapons to each Mumak, and grab an extra bowman and some spears for my vanilla troops). The list has exactly five profiles to remember and starts with a two model footprint . . . boy would this have been fun to run:

• Haradrim Commander on War Mumak of Harad with Tusk Weapons and Rappelling Lines [ARMY LEADER]
• 4 Haradrim Warriors
• 6 Haradrim Warriors with bows
• Haradrim Commander on War Mumak of Harad with Tusk Weapons and Rappelling Lines
• 3 Haradrim Warriors
• 3 Haradrim Warriors with spears
• 5 Haradrim Warriors with bows

750 points, 26 models, 11 bows hitting on a 4+, 2 D6+ models (the Mumaks), 2 war beasts, 4 Might

I should say, this would have been fun to run . . . if the terrain on the boards wasn't that dense. The thing about a double Mumak list is that your opponent is automatically going to haggle with you over what you can move through/past and what you can't - and rightly so, because more so than in any other kind of list, it really does matter. I didn't want to do that this time around, so I've left this list on the side. However, I have played with two Mumaks before (once) and it was very, very fun. I feel like there's some untapped potential here that I want to try out more during the rest of the year and some of next year.

Okay, time for five variants of two lists that I really doubled-down on for this event - we'll start with . . .

Candidate #5: The Defenders of Erebor LL

I warned my son early on that he shouldn't get attached to my Erebor Reclaimed models because there was a good chance that I'd be running them at the GT. With my Iron Hills Dwarf conversions taking up a good chunk of last year's hobby time and getting the Dale contingent and the 3D printed crossbow Dwarves painted up during the first few months of this year, I've had this Legion on the brain a lot. I also really like the Legion and haven't taken it to an event before. I got in a practice game against one of my nephew's nasty Spider-heavy builds and it did pretty well:

• Thorin III Stonehelm [ARMY LEADER]
• 5 Iron Hills Dwarves
• 1 Iron Hills Dwarf with mattock
• 6 Iron Hills Dwarves with spears
• Bard II, Prince of Dale
• 7 Warriors of Dale with Esgaroth bows
• 4 Warriors of Dale with spears and shields
• Captain of Dale with Esgaroth bow
• 5 Warriors of Dale with Esgaroth bows
• Bifur the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor
• 5 Iron Hills Dwarves
• 1 Iron Hills Dwarf with mattock
• 4 Iron Hills Dwarves with spears
• 2 Iron Hills Dwarves with crossbows

750 points, 44 models, 12 Esgaroth bows hitting on a 4+ AND 2 crossbows hitting on a 4+ AND 1 thrown stone hitting on a 3+, 27 D6+ models, no fast models but 2 Might and Heroic March, 10+ Might

That's a lot of models - and about half of them are D6+! But therein also lay its greatest weakness: about half the list was D4-5 - and that meant that focusing on the Dale contingent could lead to us breaking. While fielding an army that could be broken is perfectly fine (this will be a recurring theme when discussing the rest of the lists in this post), fielding an army with a few so-so heroes that can also break isn't that great. So, I decided to leave this variation of the Legion at home and instead tried out . . .

Candidate #4: The Defenders of Erebor LL 

Okay, so basically this is the same list as the previous one, but we've dropped 3 models in order to upgrade our Captain of Dale into an Iron Hills Captain on foot with mattock (because mattocks) and upgrading some of the Dale warriors into Iron Hills Dwarves - the list only suffers slightly from its drop in numbers, but is otherwise a VERY hard-hitting army:

• Thorin III Stonehelm [ARMY LEADER]
• 5 Iron Hills Dwarves
• 1 Iron Hills Dwarf with mattock
• 6 Iron Hills Dwarves with spears
• Bard II, Prince of Dale
• 10 Warriors of Dale with Esgaroth bows
• 3 Warriors of Dale with spears and shields
• Bifur the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor
• 3 Iron Hills Dwarves with crossbows
• Iron Hills Captain with mattock
• 4 Iron Hills Dwarves
• 5 Iron Hills Dwarves with spears

750 points, 41 models, 10 Esgaroth bows hitting on a 4+ AND 3 crossbows hitting on a 4+ AND 1 thrown stone hitting on a 3+, 28 D6+ models, no fast models but 2 Might and Heroic March, 10+ Might

This list gives me a Master of Battle (5+) to augment with Bifur's free Heroic Moves (if he can get the axe-head out - which I've almost always been able to do in practice) and the free Heroic Combats from both of the big heroes if the other is trapped. The list is pretty resilient with a greater ratio of higher Defense troops, even though the actual number of high Defense troops has only risen by 1 model. The list is still pretty dependent on the Dale guys being in the list, so there's still some vulnerability there.

I think this is the best Defenders of Erebor LL list I've written to date (and might actually be the best list in this article), but it was no match for the utter craziness of an Impossible Alliance idea that I was toying around with last year. Our first iteration of it is . . .

Candidate #3: The Kingdom of Khazad-Dum + Thorin's Company Impossible Alliance 

If you want the full evolution of this idea, you have to check out my Christmas post from last year. Suffice it to say I've been writing a lot of Nemesis articles during the past 18 months that have featured Floi Stonehand as a tool to deal with a lot of the nastiest units in the game . . . and I wanted to find an unconventional way of getting him more Will points. So, our first list is a Dwarf spam that impossibly allies the Kingdom of Khazad-Dum (led by a Dwarf King with Floi in the list - because that's allowed) and Thorin's Company (who can give you bonus Will points and priority rerolls for under 100pts):

• Dwarf King with throwing axes
• 1 Dwarf Warrior
• 1 Dwarf Warrior with Dwarf bow
• 3 Khazad Guards
• 4 Iron Guards with weapon-swapped axes
• 6 Dwarf Rangers with throwing axes
• Floi Stonehand
• 4 Dwarf Warriors with shields
• 2 Dwarf Warriors with Dwarf bows
• 6 Dwarf Rangers with bows
• King's Champion
• INDEPENDENT: 2 Heralds
• 4 Dwarf Warriors with shields
• 4 Dwarf Warriors with Dwarf bows
• 2 Khazad Guards
• Balin the Dwarf [ARMY LEADER]
• Bombur the Dwarf

750 points, 44 models, 6 bows hitting on a 3+ AND 7 Dwarf bows hitting on a 4+ AND 6 throwing axes hitting on a 3+ AND 5 throwing axes hitting on a 4+, 30 D6+ models, no fast models but 2 Might and Heroic March (will not affect Balin/Bombur), 8 Might

The impossible alliance doesn't affect this list much - Balin, Bombur, and Floi are going to make a skirmish triangle where they're all in base contact and try to stay that way for as long as possible (or more as a group together). This version of Balin isn't a great fighter and Bombur is a good road-block hero for one or two turns, so there isn't much incentive for them to get into combat (and I'll be vetoing Contest of Champions in Pool 4 unless my opponent does it for me). With Floi and Balin able to get Will points back from Bombur, we can keep the tactical play high while the Dwarf King and King's Champion deal with the enemy. I also have a lot of elite Dwarf units (5 Khazad Guards and 4 Iron Guard with weapon-swapped axes) and a very impressive amount of shooting (12 bows/11 throwing axes), but that's standard Khazad-Dum list building for me.

The problem with this list is . . . none of the heroes are actually all that scary. Sure, a King's Champion can carve through ranks as well as the next guy and a Dwarf King isn't bad at all, but we have no mounted heroes to dice up the enemy quickly and we're really just relying on our warriors grinding away at the enemy with two of our heroes adding some extra damage where they can. It would play a lot like the Minas Tirith list I ran at the Spring Zephyr tournament, which was fun, but ultimately struggled when facing lists with a dedicated killing hero or two (and elite warriors that can survive the grind). I expect to run into armies with big heroes at this event and I just don't like the chances of this build surviving. 

Additionally, unless you take Balin the Dwarf, King of Moria in your list (which makes it a Kingdom of Moria list instead of a Kingdom of Khazad-Dum list), the only hero with the Moria Dwarf keywords is Floi, so his only means of regaining Will points is if he himself kills an enemy hero/monster (unlikely) or getting Will points back from Bombur (which happens about half the time). If you want to maximize on Floi, this is probably not the best way to do that. So instead, let's level up some of the heroes with the following idea . . .

Candidate #2: The Kingdom of Moria + Thorin's Company Impossible Alliance 

This list has 8 fewer models and still has the Bombur/Floi/Balin trick, but we've basically traded out the Dwarf King and Balin for mega-Balin and we've picked up Thorin (who is a much more resilient army leader than we had before). Balin, Floi, and a King's Champion (as well as all the other Dwarves in the Moria side of the list) all have the Moria keyword, which is excellent and gives us two good killing heroes to get Will points back on Floi (in addition to Bombur's 4+ roll). We've lost the specialty warriors - retaining only 2 Khazad Guards - but the list still hits pretty hard and losing Thorin to a cheeky wound or a flying hero is a lot less likely than in our previous list:

• Balin the Dwarf, King of Moria
• 7 Dwarf Warriors with shields
• 6 Dwarf Rangers with throwing axes
• Floi Stonehand
• 5 Dwarf Rangers with bows
• King's Champion
• INDEPENDENT: 2 Heralds
• 4 Dwarf Warriors with shields
• 5 Dwarf Warriors with Dwarf bows
• 2 Khazad Guards
• Thorin Oakenshield with Orcrist and the Oakenshield [ARMY LEADER]
• Bombur the Dwarf

750 points, 36 models, 5 bows hitting on a 3+ AND 5 Dwarf bows hitting on a 4+ AND 6 throwing axes hitting on a 3+, 24 D6+ models, no fast models but 3 Might and Heroic March (does not affect Thorin/Bombur), 11 Might

This list is bananas and SO much fun to play. While I miss having Radagast (who shows up in the 1000-point variant of this list), this list brings a lot of what I like about Dwarves to the table in a way that's new and fun and exciting. Thorin is now a 3 Wound/3 Fate hero instead of a 2 Wound/2 Fate hero (Balin in the last list), so I'm less worried about a stray arrow or a dedicated siege engine/magic caster chipping off the army leader VPs. I have had to learn to make Traps with him, though - and I two-hand with the penalty a lot to make sure things die. While I'm not opposed to playing Contest of Champions with this list, I have definitively concluded that Thorin can't beat Azog in Contest of Champions with this list (though it was close).

However, Thorin can struggle to kill things - and Dwarf lists need their heroes to kill things. So . . . I ended up going with a slightly different take on this list and looked at allying . . .

Candidate #1 and Tiberius's List: The Kingdom of Moria + Erebor Reclaimed Impossible Alliance  

This is basically the same list as we just had, but we've got King Thorin and Champ Bombur with -4 models. All factions are Impossible allies with the Moria Expedition, so it doesn't matter which Armies of the Hobbit Dwarf list we choose. With killing power being our primary goal, King Thorin not only does a lot of work for us with his free Heroic Combats, but he's also the punchiest army leader you'll see in the post (well, he's probably not as good as Elessar - and the Mumak that the Haradrim Commander is riding isn't the army leader, so that doesn't count). 

• Balin the Dwarf, King of Moria
• 1 Dwarf Warrior
• 4 Dwarf Warriors with shields
• 6 Dwarf Rangers with throwing axes
• Floi Stonehand
• 4 Dwarf Rangers with bows
• King's Champion
• INDEPENDENT: 2 Heralds
• 2 Dwarf Warriors with shields
• 5 Dwarf Warriors with Dwarf bows
• 3 Khazad Guards
• Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain on war goat with Orcrist [ARMY LEADER]
• Bombur the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor

750 points, 32 models, 5 bows hitting on a 3+ AND 5 Dwarf bows hitting on a 4+ AND 6 throwing axes hitting on a 3+, 22 D6+ models, 1 cavalry and 3 Might and Heroic March (does not affect Thorin/Bombur), 11+ Might

This list is down just 4 models from the previous list, but our hero corps has gotten better, we've got roughly two-thirds of our army in the D6+ camp, lots of ways to get Will back on Floi, and free Heroic Combats with an Elven-made hand-and-a-half sword on Thorin. I mean, this is a pretty good list, I feel . . .

. . . it's also small - and that means it's easier to break us than the other lists we've seen. Thorin and Bombur OR 16 of the Moria Dwarves need to die in order for us to break early, but 16 is quite doable for S4 lists. That being said, I think this list has a lot going for it and if Floi can turn off important enemy rules for us (like, I don't know, Fly? Bonus To Wound rules? Terror?), I think we're in good shape.

Conclusion

So yes, we have a tournament coming up this weekend - and I'm going to be running my Kingdom of Moria soup list that I didn't get to run at last Fall's THRO tournament (and it makes me very happy). Not sure how it will do, but I feel like the bones are good and we'll see how generous the pairings are at the end of the day. If you have thoughts on this list (or have ideas for other lists that should have been considered), let us know in the comments below! Until next time, happy hobbying!