Top 10 Ringwraith Profile Rankings - Centaur Edition

Hey Reader!

As I was looking at army lists for this year's TMAT Grand Tournament, I took some time to just look over the named wraith profiles again (as it's been a little while since I've looked at any beyond the Witch-King), and I realized that there are some that I really like, and some that I really, really don't like. So as I sat on my couch, and having not used wraiths nearly as much as the rest of the admins, I thought, "Why not: how about we rank these for the fun of it, and see how off we are from he real wraith players," :P

So here you go! I've named this "Centaur Edition" because the other admins may disagree (again: out of all the admins, by far I run these the least), but as a quick note before we begin, here's what I'm ranking them on:

• We are not ranking Dol Goldur Ringwraiths, mostly because 1) none of them can be mounted, so I feel like there are dramatic disadvantages from a combat perspective for these wraiths that are hard to overcome, and 2) because the whole, "We have 2 wounds, but we might come back from the dead" side of things complicates calculations for resilience, so I figure we can do a separate ranking for those in the future if you're interested (as my favorite of those is probably last on most people's lists).
• We will consider the typical considerations (resilience, combat effectiveness, casting capabilities), but we will also look at efficiency: does the wraith offer options that are an effective/efficient use of their resources? Does their ability synergize well with what they are built to do? Because wraiths can look good on paper, but then find they are only good for 3-4 turns because they burn through Will Points too quickly.
• We will not be looking at cost - they are all more or less the same cost, and inasmuch as they are not, it just means more investment if you want the benefits. So yes, that probably gives the Witch-King the biggest boost, but that's fine for this ranking.

And before you tell me, "Centaur, (fill in the blank) wraith is actually great because I played them once and won a match because (insert ability that totally worked and did good stuff for you)," yes: that does happen. That is valid, and I'm glad it worked for you! But I'm judging these based on how likely I think they will be in general to provide you with success, not on one-off exceptional performances. 

And with that, let's get to the rankings!

#10: The Tainted

All photos courtesy of GamesWorkshop;
links to the products in the Conclusion

In the bottom spot we have The Tainted. This does not mean he's not a good hero - he can actually be clutch in specific circumstances. But as far as wraiths go, his abilities are very niche, and are hard to lean into with your army. You can run him as part of Mordor or Angmar, and in both cases you have a familiar story: low Courage on a lot of models that are probably near him. This gives you an interesting conundrum with his first ability, Miasmic Presence: you can spend a Will Point to prevent all warriors - friend and foe alike - from benefitting from a hero's Stand Fast or heroic actions.

Now this can be very useful: armies that rely on Stand Fasts to keep their armies in line could find themselves losing a lot of models, especially since this pairs well with the Harbinger of Evil special rule which inflicts a -1 to the Couage of enemies within 12" of him (thematically, Arnor is a great example of this). Similarly this is a great way to shut down the potential for 5-6 models all surrounding one weak model and then a hero calling Heroic Combat.

But therein lies the rub: his abilities may or may not come in useful during the game at all. If your opponent is running a high Defense army that doesn't lose many models (most dwarven armies, potentially elven armies, and depending on which army you're running, all-mounted Rohan can drop your numbers very quickly without losing many people in return thanks to their higher Fight Value), they may never need to use a Stand Fast, at which point your ability doesn't come into play. 

And if you do break them and you are also broken (which is possible), you run into the uncomfortable position of having to weigh whether they are more likely to run than your troops, which, when you're running C2 orcs, is unlikely unless you're up against Arnor or another orc faction.

Similarly, yes, it can help to shut down the ability of warriors to benefit from heroic actions, but this also cuts both ways (and with Angmar's lower Might pool, getting your heroic actions to work on as many models as possible is important), and there's also the issue of the timing: you have to pop the Will Point before the start of the Move Phase (which makes sense, as Stand Fasts happen during the Move Phase), but the ability only prevents warriors within 6" of him from participating in heroic actions. This means that if you have 5-6 models (say, 2 heroes and 3-4 warriors) participating in a Heroic Combat, but only the heroes and maybe 1 warrior are within 6" of the Tainted, the heroes and the other warriors that are beyond 6" of The Tainted still act normally. 

So positioning becomes far more critical thanks to that 6" radius, which seems big on paper, until you remember that The Tainted is not a great combat hero (unless mounted on a fell beast), so do you want him out front? Or is he behind your lines waiting for an opportunity to fight (but thereby also reducing the effective range of his ability)? Lots of things to juggle, which makes this ability harder to use effectively than any other wraith.

He has a second special ability, Seeping Decay, whcih allows him to deal a wound to models that charge him on the roll of a 6. This could be a useful special rule, as it both allows you to deal wounds before a fight begins, and that means that tying him down isn't as simple as throwing a single warrior against him and moving on. And depending on the Defense of the model (D7+), you might be wounding on a 6 or worse anyway, so it being on a 6 isn't so horrible.

On the other hand, there are limitations to this. First, it's a roll of a 6, so it's already not likely to happen more than once or twice in a given game, so don't plan on it happening. Second, and perhaps more critical depending on which army you're fighting, this doesn't apply to spirit models, so if you're charged by a wide range of models from the Dol Goldur army, the Dead of Dunharrow, other ringwraiths, and a wide range of models from Angmar, your rule doesn't come up at all.

So he's not bad - he's just the only wraith on this list that can hurt your own army and whose rules may not come up at all in the game, so he comes in at #10.

#9: Generic Ringwraith

Similar to The Tainted, this is actually a really good profile: sure, limited Fate Points and only 1 Wound (like all the other wraiths), but this is a fantastic hero choice for Barad-Dur, Mordor, or the Riders in Black legendary legion. It gets access to Heroic March, is highly customizeable, and as a primarily support hero is quite survivable for that role.

But you can also mount it on a fell beast, making it a decent attacker who can jump lines to hit softer targets, so even as a support hero he's quite multi-faceted. And with the ability to choose how many Might, Will, and Fate you want (beyond the 7 Will you start with), you can take this guy for as little as 55pts (I'd generally forego that), but easily under the 120pt starting cost of most of the other models on this list. So in that respect, very useful to fit into your force.

But as I mentioned we aren't grading on cost, and the lack of unique special rules or abilities is what holds this profile back. While it's a good supporting model, there are far better support wraiths in this list, and while it does get access to March (which is very rare on spirit models in general), the limited Might Points that the wraith has and the attractiveness of channeling spells holds this profile back.

#8: The Undying

This one is a tricky one - on the one hand, this is the most survivable(ish) wraith in the group, as he could have 17 Fate Points. On the other hand, the more Will he spends for Fate Points, the less he has for casting, and the less he has to attempt to regain Will Points.

He rates above the other two because he is harder to remove by a lot, so he's not going to disappear with lots of resources still in the tank. His high Will Store also means he can cast a lot of spells, he can regenerate his Will, and if push comes to shove he's not half bad in combat on a fell beast. But his Will is being pulled in so many directions (Casting + Fate Rolls + Regenerating his own Will, not to mention possible fighting) it's hard to run him efficiently, and relatively easy to disrupt him.

Also, I don't like his special rule: back in the old edition this guy was bonkers (but then again all of the wraiths were bonkers, as none of their special abilities required you to spend Will to trigger them), but now he has to spend 1 Will Point to get the chance to regain Will if someone else spends Will Points. Now this is great when paired with Kardush the Firecaller (who can reliably cast each turn), other shamans (who can at least boost you once), and other wraiths, but 1) it only results in a net gain in Will if you have 2 other casts every time you use it (3 if you plan to cast with 1 Will Point yourself that turn), 2) they have to be close to you, 3) they can't botch the roll, and 4) I'm not sure on this, but if the spell is resisted then you might not get the Will Point either.

So perhaps with only one exception, I think this wraith requires the most list building and tactical maneuvering requirements, and that's not bad, but it means that his usefulness will be limited by those aspects (also, maelstrom can really mess you up).

I'll also note in passing before we move on that this is the only wraith with the Stun special strike (which could reduce a target to 1 Attack at F1 on the subsequent turn), which is really cool, and situationally useful, and might be worth attempting if you saved points by taking him on a horse (because otherwise you might as well just crush him with a fell beast), but that's not enough to push him up in the rankings. But since it's easily forgotten, don't forget: you have a staff, not a sword, so you can stun people.

#7: The Knight of Umbar

Okay full confession: I want to like this guy more, because his abilities are cool. He only loses Will for being in a fight if he loses the fight (which is awesome), and he gets to mimic the Fight Value, Attacks, and Strength of his opponent (before resolving heroic actions like Strike and Strength I'm pretty sure, but don't quote me on that because I don't run wraiths). This can be really useful, as it allows him to become a F6 S4 3A model relatively frequently, for example, instead of being F5 S4 1A model (which is what you're paying points for). 

So why is he in the bottom half? Several reasons. First, your opponent could just throw Khazad Guards or someone else at you where copying stats doesn't actually help (or throw 6 ruffians at you with atrocious stats but a good chance of getting a 6 to win a fight), and there are quite a few of these in many armies where he'll fail to wound them and they stand a decent chance of hurting him. Second, you copy the stats of an enemy but you don't copy the elven-made weapon or other special rules of the weapon (like Anduril's ability to wound every model on a 4+ or better regardless of Defense Value), so you can still stand at a loss even if you copy their stats.

But third, and this is often underappreciated, the "benefits" of this wraith can be easily copied for almost any other wraith by just taking them on a fell beast. By taking a fell beast, your Attacks go up to 2 (3 on the charge, even against cavalry) already, so whatever you're copying is probably within 1 standard deviation of your baseline stats. Your Strength goes up to 6 (probably higher than what you're copying from your opponent), and you double your wounding dice when charging, which is good for making those wound rolls count.

So when you consider that any wraith can take a fell beast, how useful is the Knight of Umbar after factoring that in? Like sure, it's useful that you don't have to spend 50pts for it, but at the end of the day it means any wraith can (more or less) copy this ability while also getting their own buffs (or saving a ton of points in the case of a generic ringwraith).

And the Knight of Umbar actually gimps his own ability, as The Armor of the Sundered Land really encourages you to be fighting with this guy (combined with his Combat Mimicry), but if you want to be fighting with him pretty much every turn, why wouldn't you be taking him on a fell beast as well to maximize his damage potential? Which means how many times are you going to fight someone and find you're not copying their stats at all?

His abilities have great internal synergies, and he's a potential monster in close combat, there's no doubt (even more so if you mount him on a literal monster). And he places higher than the others because he doesn't have as much of a resource issue as many of the other wraiths because he doesn't have to spend as many Will Points (probably) in combat. But while on paper this is a really good ability, it's highly situational, and that lands him in the bottom half.

#6: The Dark Marshal

This will probably surprise you because not only does the Dark Marshal have a really good profile, but long-time viewers of the blog know that Centaur lives by three principles: Archers are swordsmen, Shields save lives, and Always bring a banner.

So it may surprise you that rounding out the bottom half is a F6 (that's right: higher Fight Value than the Witch-King) wraith that can become a 6" banner (and one of the few reliable 6" banners that the Forces of Evil get). And it hurts me to put him this low, because if just one word was changed in his special rule he'd be like top three on this list. But the reason he's so low is three-fold.

First, his banner only affects warriors, so other wraiths near him, orc heroes like Shagrat, and monster heroes like Shelob, all require other banners to help them. That's a hefty tax to pay when you're already passing over other wraith options to take "the banner wraith."

Second, his resource management keeps him from the top places, and is the primary thing holding him back. Because he's F6 with the ability to be mounted on a fell beast, he's highly encouraged to fight a lot, so that will drain his Will Store. Because he has access to the wraith suite of spells, you're probably going to get a lot of value out of casting spells with him (even if only 1 Will Point to cast Transfix), so that's going to eat into your Will Store. Then there's spending 1 Will Point in the Fight Phase to become a (restricted) 6" banner, so that's cutting into your Will Store. And when all totaled up, even assuming your opponent doesn't have Sap Will, you're looking at 4 turns (maybe 5 if you pick and choose when to cast spells) of highly effective usage before he's tapped, because he's doing so much for you. While the Knight of Umbar (and another wraith we'll talk about soon) can focus almost exclusively on fighting, and thus stretch out their use of Will Points, and The Undying and another wraith we'll discuss shortly can focus their Will Points almost purely on support roles, you're missing out on something that you paid points for if you slot the Dark Marshal into one of those roles, and that is not resource efficient (which is part of the ranking).

And finally, he runs into an issue with placement. If you take him on foot, he's not likely to have the right positioning to avoid being taken on by swift moving heroes on horseback, which could cost you your wraith (not to mention the diameter of his banner is smaller, as it extends out 6" from the edge of his base). If you take him on horseback he's not only easier to shoot out (which is a problem, as he's only 2 Fate and 1 Wound, albeit past D8 with an In the Way for the horse and hopefully your front ranks), his ability to do damage in close combat is actually not that great as he's looking at 4 dice wounding with S4 at best. So the ideal choice for him from a combat perspective as well as to extend the range of the banner effect, is to take him on a fell beast.

But this also presents an issue for placement: the biggest advantage of flying monsters is that you can jump lines to target softer targets, wrap enemy lines, and trap models, but by doing so you're also reducing the effective radius of your banner effect by taking your base away from your lines. So on the one hand, you want to have a flying monster. On the other hand, you don't necessarily want him up in the front.

And you can make this work - Rythbryt is very good at this, and has used the Dark Marshal to great effect many times - but it takes a lot more skill and it does cut into what he can do, so I don't have a problem placing him at #6 on this list.

#5: The Dwimmerlaik

I know, I know, I can hear you all now: "What gives, Centaur? Like, we know you run Angmar and not Mordor, so of course you'd put an Angmar wraith in the top half, but seriously man? This is one of the worst wraiths in the game!?!?!?"

I disagree - hear me out.

First off, it's true: a 0 Might wraith who only has a two-handed sword is not for the faint of heart, so if you don't want to take your life into your hands, by all means pass on this guy - I won't think less of you, ;) But seriously, there are lot of ways to make up for these limitations, and the Dwimmerlaik actually does them pretty well.

First and foremost, this guy has 16 Will Points, which means he can cast and fight quite a bit more than the rest of the pack (which normally flit between 12-14 Will Points, and in the case of generic wraiths often a good bit less than 12-14 Will Points; only The Undying and potentially the Witch-King have higher Will Stores than him). So from a "how many turns can I do my thing" perspective, he will likely last longer than most of the wraiths on this list.

Second, when you take a fell beast with this guy, you get several advantages. First, if you're rolling 2-3 dice with a two-handed weapon at S6, suddenly this guy is a true monster. He's wounding D7 dwarves and D8 ents on 4s. He's wounding the Balrog of Moria and Sauron himself on 5s. That's crazy! And so long as you put other people in his fight, Transfix them with himself or another wraith, pop the ability of a Shade nearby to also inflict a -1 to your opponent's rolls, or the ideal situation of Paralyzing the target with a barrow wight, you can take his weaknesses and turn them into strengths. So from a fighting perspective, let's be clear: this is arguably the strongest wraith of them all in terms of removal, unless the Knight of Umbar is fighting Treebeard, Beorn, Smaug, or the Balrog.

Third, you only spend his Will Point as a reaction to an opponent within 6" spending a resource, so there's no wasting his Will Store through preemptive using of an ability, which is really nice. If other wraiths spend a Will Point to gain their ability (like the Shadow Lord, who we'll look at later), they might find themselves in a situation where they don't actually get to use it, as they might scare the opponent into not taking a course of action (like by just not shooting at your models in the Pall of Darkness). But this one is insidious: if you want to reduce his Will Store, you have to 1) spend your own resources, and 2) be prepared to potentially spend more to make them work. That...is not an easy ask for any army.

And I know what you'll say: spending a Will Point to roll a 4+ to make your opponent spend more Might/Will/Fate doesn't work very often, but I have two issues with this line of thinking. First, we roll 4+ attempts all the time (Fate Saves being the biggest one, roll offs being another), and I don't see too many people saying, "Eh, don't invest in characters with lots of Fate Points: they never work." So there. 

But second, and more importantly, here's the thing that makes him so good: it's not that his ability actually works, it's that it might work. So when a 2-Might enemy hero is considering calling a Heroic Move, do they potentially want to be out of Might for the rest of the game? Is it that important to call one? Especially if they are counter-calling one of yours? Does Aragorn get more conservative with his free Might Point? Do Azog and Gothmog suddenly get more conservative with their Master of Battle abilities? 

The trickledown effect from the fact that he could spend 1 Will to force out more of your resources, and that it's not an opposed roll, so there's nothing your opponent can do about it, is a powerful ability in the psychological aspect of the game, and that is not something you can map out with math. 

So while I won't put him any higher than 5th (and considered placing him below the Dark Marshal), I do think he's much maligned by people who aren't truly seeing the full impact of what he does on the table. So I'm going to put him - just barely - in the top half, if for no other reason than to make a point. :P

#4: Khamul, the Black Easterling

It hurts a bit to put Khamul here for several reasons. First, he's the first wraith I ever owned, and I love the guy: he'll always have a soft place in my heart for that reason. Second, he's the only wraith other than the Witch-King who has Heroic Strike, and since he starts at F5* he's not half bad at Striking.

Second, from a resource management perspective he's one of the best: he's actually +1 difficulty to cast over most other wraiths, so you're heavily slotted toward just slaying things and only using spells lightly, which extends your Will Store. But more than that, he can regain 1 lost Will Point for every wound that he deals to an enemy, which is awesome. So while other wraiths can be effective for a pretty long while, Khamul is one of the few who could actually be fighting every single turn of the game if you place him in positions to wound models every turn.

And third, you can do that rather effectively through his special ability: spend 1 Will Point to increase his Fight Value, Strength, or Attacks by 1. I think the most effective thing to do is to boost his Fight Value to 6 (which, again, helps him with Heroic Strike), and then mount him on a Fell Beast and he's sitting pretty on F6 S6 with 2-3 Attacks, knocking most people prone if he charged and won the fight, which is awesome. I don't think his special rule would restore Will to him if you use Brutal Power Attacks, but I could be wrong. I'd play it safe and just strike normally, but you do you.

But what holds him back is his limited versatility: because his best spellcasting options are like a 3+ Drain Courage (which at that point may not be worth it?) and a 4+ Transfix (which could be worth it, but highly unpredictable on 1 Will Point), he's a very one-dimensional wraith, so I don't want to place him too high on the list. But if you need a steady beatstick with wings, this guy is fabulous.

#3: The Betrayer

The Betrayer is fantastic (and fittingly in the top three) for several reasons. First his ability is easy to take advantage of when run with The Serpent Horde, so maximizing his ability is not hard, and most people take him because they plan to do this, so from an efficiency standpoint, it's hard to match The Betrayer for the value you are getting on all of those poison rerolls. 

Second he has Bane of Kings, so especially if you mount him on a fell beast, he can slay for days. I just talked about how Khamul and The Dwimmerlaik can reliably slay things: they have nothing on this guy, who gets to reroll every failed wounding roll he makes.

And I think in the all-around, this is probably the strongest profile: great support options that maximize the effectiveness of your team, great killing potential, while still having good spellcasting potential. The one drawback that he has, which we've talked about with other wraiths, is he is easily strapped for resources: if you run him in The Serpent Horde to maximize his poison rerolls, they don't have a lot of support heroes (even shamans) to hold down power heroes, so The Betrayer may need to be casting Transfix/Compel to do that, which costs Will Points. And unlike wraiths like The Knight of Umbar and Khamul, you can't grind out enemy forces for nearly as long as they can because you can't regenerate Will Points (or slow your expenditure of them, in the case of the Knight of Umbar).

So he's awesome - definitely consider picking him up. But I don't think he's the strongest choice.

#2: The Shadow Lord

The Shadow Lord is one of those wraiths that fits neatly into a specific role: prevent enemy archery from butchering critical targets (and a good critical mass of your forces if you maneuver them correctly), and provide supporting magic from the back. He does not have particularly great combat ability (beyond what you could get from a fell beast), and this is one of the few wraiths where you might actually get better value out of him by mounting him on a horse instead of a fell beast, as you can still get a larger base to increase the diameter of the Pall of Darkness while still being able to take advantage of multiple In the Ways from orcs in front of you.

But perhaps where he ironically shines is in the realm of resource efficiency. The Shadow Lord can cast a lot because he probably won't need to pop his Pall of Darkness ability more than 3-4 times in a given game. Once the front lines start closing, archery is far less likely to occur, so he's only spending that 1 Will Point per turn for a few turns in the game (compared to the Betrayer and the Dark Marshal, for example, who could be effectively using their abilities 6+ times per game), and once that's done, you can just use him for 1-die casts if you want to, stretching out his effectiveness for a while.

Furthermore, his Pall of Darkness doesn't hurt you in scenarios like Clash by Moonlight because it doesn't create light like the Blinding Light spell does, which is awesome. So from a tactical standpoint, this is probably the best version of this ability on any hero in the game, channeled exhaustion remaining spells notwithstanding.

Add onto this that against some armies (Goblin Town) you may not need to use his ability at all, and suddenly you've just saved yourself a lot of potential Will Points to spend on casting. So even when his special rule is gimped by your opponent's list building, you're not out of an incredibly useful profile because it just gives him more ammo for casting.

But when it comes to resource management, combat effectiveness, resiliency, and overall utility, no one compares to...

#1: The Witch-King of Angmar

The Witch-King is interesting because he doesn't per se have a special ability: what he has is gear, and those gear choices give him quite a few unique abilities that dramatically improve his effectiveness, combat capability, and resource management. First and foremost, we can't talk about his gear without discussing the Crown of Morgul, which does two things that are crazy good on a wraith. First, it increases his base Attacks stat to 3 instead of 1, which means if you put him on a fell beast and charge someone, you're looking at probably 4 Attacks, which is more than anyone else, taking advantage of that sweet S6 on the fell beast, and knocking everyone down for 8 dice to wound. That's crazy good.

But it also allows him to reroll a die when casting a spell, which means he can afford to basically do 1-die casts the whole game, and he's actually pretty likely to get them off as long as he's not spamming Sap Will and Black Dart all day long. But even if he did, he'd be far more likely to get them off as 1-2 die casts instead of 2-3 die casts than any other wraith on this list, which could have dramatic impacts on the scoring for the game. So just purely based on resource efficiency, the Witch-King is saving resources all over the place purely by taking the crown (and I'd take that pretty much every time).

We could talk about the flail, but just suffice it to say for now I don't like it, I don't think you need to take it to get to the top-rated position, but if you do take it you can potentially do a lot of damage. I just wouldn't.

But another critical advantage he has comes down to his raw resources: he's the only wraith with access to 3 Might, 3 Fate, and a whopping 20 Will!!! That's an insanely high amount of raw actions you can take with this guy, even before factoring in the fact that you're saving dice on casts while still getting them off reliably.

And as the only Hero of Legend, he's also opening you up to take more models (which is good, as this guy on a fell beast is easily 200pts), auto-passing the first Courage Test he has to make to keep your men from breaking (which is a useful support ability), and giving you a reliable baseline for damage potential every single turn for scenarios like Contest of Champions, he provides far more than just a spellcasting, damage-dealing chassis.

So all told, the Witch-King has it all: great damage, great mobility, and great spellcasting. So without looking at cost (because obviously a full-stats Witch-King is by far the most expensive wraith in the list), I think he's the #1 pick.

Conclusion

Now it's interesting to note that if you're looking at the ratings here, the best set to pick up from the GW store (other than the Witch-King set or Mordor Battlehost) is the Ringwraiths of the Fallen Realms (Average Ranking of 4th Place), then the Ringwraiths of the Lost Kingdoms (Average of 5th Place), and then the Ringwraiths of Angmar (Average of 7th Place, though this number ties the Lost Kingdoms set if you include the Witch-King of...Angmar...who is not in the set...oh well).

But based on what armies you run and what you want out of a wraith, don't just run the models at the top of the list: having a banner that can double as a solid fighter is really useful. Having a spellcaster who can pump out solid spells every turn alongside other spellcasters is really nice. Having a utility spellcaster who can also provide you with Heroic March is not bad. So play around with them, figure out what style you want, and just know that The Tainted is the wor--I'm kidding! :P

Watching the stars,

Centaur

"I set myself against what is lurking in this forest, Bane - yes, with humans alongside me if I must." ~ Firenze, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone