Top 5 Profile Changes - Fellowship Edition

Good morning gamers,

Do you remember where you were when you first watched The Fellowship of the Ring? Do you remember when you first read The Lord of the Rings? I was a tween when I started reading Fellowship and about seven months later (yes, it took me a while - I'm sure I'm not the only person with that story) to finish it and watch the first film of the trilogy in the summer of 2002. I remember madly reading The Two Towers so I could see it in theatres with my dad and brothers and I remember going to the theatre with them and a bunch of friends on opening night to see The Return of the King on December 17, 2003. It was . . . incredible.

Today we're wrapping up this four-part series on wish-listing for updates to beloved characters in beloved lists that just don't seem like they're quite hitting the mark and we're ending where it all started for me (thanks to the Mines of Moria starter set - and the books and films, of course): the Fellowship of the Ring. This is THE best collection of heroes in Middle-Earth - or at least, it's supposed to be. I mean, they got nine first-round draft picks from all the free people of Middle-Earth and so clearly, the units they chose should be the best . . . obviously.

Okay, so this is a balanced game and there are probably a dozen profiles that could romp all over these guys, but in general, the bones of the list are good - Aragorn is great (especially with Anduril), Legolas is great (especially if he can shoot all day), Gimli is great (especially if something really big doesn't come his way), Boromir is amazing (especially if he can just fight low-Courage models), and Gandalf has a ton of tricks he can employ. But . . .

. . . I can't help but feel like the other half of the roster lets them down a little - and there are elements of the "big five" that could use some tidying up as well. Since this faction more than any other has a high visibility for new players in MESBG, it's good if the profiles here are done right. So, without further ado, let's clean up some profiles! We'll start with an easy one . . .

Profile #1: Aragorn - Strider

Fact: there's not much to change about this profile. Aragorn has all the stats you'd expect from an excellent man-sized model and with a free Might point each turn from Mighty Hero, he's easy for any player to pick up and use. However, there's one glaring issue with this profile: Aragorn - Strider's sword should be a hand-and-a-half sword.

If you need convincing that it should be able to be wielded two-handed, let me commend our House Rules page - you can find all the photos there that will prove my point. What I'd like to focus on here is why this is a necessary change. There are only three arguments I've heard for why Aragorn's sword should stay as a one-handed sword: a) he can take Anduril, so if you want him to do damage, just buy Anduril, b) fighting two-handed without a special rule that avoid the penalty is bad and shouldn't be done, and c) there are so many other things that need fixing in the game, so why bring this up.

The third complaint avoids the issue entirely - and while I see the reasoning behind it, it's not like we only get 20 fixes during each FAQ, so while it may be true that this is near the bottom of the totem pole of changes that would make a meaningful difference for most players (let's fix how interactions with barriers work first, eh?), that doesn't mean it can't be given a minute of effort in order to make a meaningful change to some players. 

The second concern is also very understandable, but once again it's irrelevant because just because two-handing might be risky, it doesn't mean that Aragorn should be precluded from taking that risk. As it stands right now, the rules prevent Aragorn's controlling player from having any agency on whether that sword is used one-handed or two-handed - the player has to choose the more reliable method of winning the fight with the certain limitation of capping the damage output. Whether you think two-handing with the penalty is good or not (I think it's fine - see my previous work for more on this), I'm just saying that should be a choice by the player, not a pre-made decision by the design team.

The first concern is real and does require an extensive discussion. Yes, if you buy Anduril, you're not going to be two-handing with this sword - not unless Anduril is targeted by Shatter and you can't use it anymore. While I'm happy to agree that anyone who buys Anduril won't need this profile improvement, there are several issues with this line of reasoning. The first and foremost argument is that in two Legendary Legions (the Breaking of the Fellowship and the Defenders of Helm's Deep), taking Anduril on Aragorn is just not an option. Those Aragorns have to kill things with one-handed weapons (just the sword in the Helm's Deep one and your choice of a sword or an Elven-made Dagger in the Breaking one). The fact that Aragorn in the Breaking of the Fellowship Legion has no incentive for using his sword instead of his dagger feels really weird to me - if one was one-handed and gave him the Elven-made keyword and could deal D3 wounds to Uruk-Hai, while the other was hand-and-a-half and could do damage more reliably to other units . . . I mean, that's a pretty good trade space to be in. From experience playing with Aragorn in both Legions, I can tell you there are also times when I'd like the option to two-hand - especially if my opponent threw a D7-8 warrior in my face. Wounding on 6s with Aragorn isn't good - and with a high base Fight Value, he's still pretty likely to win the fight with a -1 penalty (especially if he hasn't used his free Might point with Mighty Hero). 

As a quick tangent, some have argued with me on Facebook that Mighty Hero makes it so you can basically two-hand if you want to since you can boost one die for free each turn - but I have NEVER found a player who decided that his best use of a free Might point when Aragorn is locked in combat with something is to boost a wounding roll . . . I mean, no one does that. If he's at risk of having the lower Fight Value, he's calling a Strike and so won't be boosting his dueling roll for free. If he's fighting 1-2 guys with reasonably low Defense, he's probably calling a free Heroic Combat (it doesn't really matter if he wins but doesn't kill them all). If he's fighting more models than he can kill, he's probably saving it to boost his die roll - and ONLY in a case where this has happened, and he gets a 6 on his dueling roll will he think about boosting a wounding roll. And of course, there are many situations where the free Might point has been spent on a Heroic Move. All in all, we can't assume that Aragorn has a free Might point for boosting his wounding roll larking about or even that he has Anduril - there are very clear cases where that's not going to be true.

Second, while basically every other version of Aragorn can buy Anduril (in two Legions he gets Anduril for free), buying Anduril is expensive - and you can get part-way to Anduril's goodness if you just have the option to two-hand. Anduril is an Elven-made weapon and that cannot be replicated by Aragorn's ranger sword, but Anduril wounds all things on 4s if wielded one-handed and on 3s if wielded two-handed. This is generally going to be better than the sword will ever do, but if you're facing D3-4 foes (pretty common), a hand-and-a-half ranger sword will do the exact same damage as Anduril. Against D5-6 foes (also common), a hand-and-a-half ranger sword could two-hand with a penalty to do as well as Anduril does one-handed and only slightly worse than Anduril does if Anduril is wielded two-handed. If you can get most of the damage output for 40pts less, I think there are some lists where you might consider that - especially those with another big hitter that you're going to rely on cracking through big nasties with (like if you brought Gwaihir with you).

Third - and I think the most compelling reason - regardless of whether you think Anduril is a necessary investment for Aragorn or not, Aragorn wields his ranger sword two-handed in the films. He just does. And hand-and-a-half swords are a thing in the game - so if they're a thing in the game, why not allow him to have a hand-and-a-half sword? Come on - it seems pretty reasonable. So yes, of all the things I would change, I'd change that. Okay, I'm gonna get off my soap box and talk about another hero that I love . . .

Profile #2: Boromir of Gondor

Yes, we haven't gotten to the Hobbits yet - patience, grasshopper! Boromir is a great character in the films and I know a lot of players really like the Minas Tirith version. He's punchy and he's resilient and he helps his buddies fight better - all good things in a hero. Boromir's fellowship version isn't as good as his banner-waving counterpart in Minas Tirith, but he's still good - though he too could benefit from a hand-and-a-half sword (but we won't start that up again). What I'd like to see from him, however, is the more dynamic "savior mode" that we see at the end of the Fellowship of the Ring - and we happen to have a great example of how that might work if you look at the Survivors of Lake-town. I think Boromir would be better if he had the following rule:

They Took The Little Ones! PASSIVE - Boromir of Gondor receives a bonus of +1 to his Fight Value if he is within 6" of either Meriadoc Brandybuck or Peregrin Took (taken from this army list). If Boromir of Gondor is within 6" of both Meriadoc and Peregrin, he receives a bonus of +1 to his Fight Value and may call a Heroic Combat each turn without spending Might.

Obviously, Boromir's cost would probably need to go up a little to factor in a new rule, but this would allow both versions of Boromir to be F7 if they wanted to be - and it would encourage Boromir to actually protect Merry and Pippin, which is a big part of his role at Amon Hen. It also encourages you to "not just take Boromir" to put in a list - like Bard is rarely purchased without Sigrid and Tilda, so also Boromir would likely have one if not both of the vulnerable Hobbits in tow in a list. I think this would be great - and if I was new to the game, I'd see this rule and be like, "yeah, I see what they're trying to do here."

From a game mechanic perspective, giving Boromir free Heroic Combats also does another thing: it frees up Boromir's Might a little bit so he can use it for boosting dueling/wounding rolls (mainly the wounding rolls, since he might win the duel by default - and golly would be too much to ask for a hand-and-a-half sword on this guy?) and more importantly, his Might could be borrowed by Merry and Pippin's For the Shire! rule without feeling like it was being "wasted" keeping them alive. All in all, this seems like a good change to me.

Okay, that brings us nicely to not one but two models that need some tweaking.

Profile #3: Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took

While this is technically two models, it's really one profile because while they have different names, their stats and rules are all the same. While I'd love to shred this profile and start afresh, making each of them different and interesting, I'm going to leave the "twinning thing" alone and propose that they get the following rule - also to reflect stuff they do at Amon Hen:

A Fine Hit ACTIVE - A model with this special rule may reroll failed To Hit rolls when throwing stones. Additionally, if a model with this special rule rolls a natural 6 when rolling To Hit, do not take any In The Way tests, and do not roll To Wound. His target automatically suffers a single Wound.

Did you see these guys chucking rocks at the Uruks at Amon Hen? They're clonking people out left and right! When you try to do that against D4-5 Uruk-Hai in MESBG, however . . . yeah, it just doesn't work that well. Or, perhaps they were borrowing all of Boromir's Might at that point, which would explain his inevitable demise . . . I don't know. Either way, Merry and Pippin do a lot of rock-throwing in the films and they're not very good at it in the game. Since the Fellowship is a cagey list of heroes that needs to be able to pick off attacking units before they get swarmed, having two more models that can do slightly more damage before the enemy arrives is a big boon. 

The rule is shamelessly ripped off of Baldo Tulpenny's Champion Stone Skipper rule - and while Baldo costs 30pts more than either of these guys, he's got +1 Wound/Might/Will/Fate, access to traps, and can lead up to 12 Hobbits in his warband . . . maybe Merry and Pippin would need to be 15pts each instead of 10pts each, but I think this would be a great change for them (and not crowd out Baldo since they're in different lists). It might mean other versions of Merry and Pippin would need to be updated too, but I don't know. It would also be really useful in a Fangorn army, since Merry and Pippin can be taken with Treebeard - all in all, I think this is a good change.

Okay, off to fix another Hobbit - and this one is arguably the most important change of them all . . .

Profile #4: Samwise Gamgee

I could provide you with a list of all the 40-point heroes in the game and if I did, you'd probably be shocked at the variance between combat profiles. Orc/Goblin heroes are going to be sporting F3-4/S4/2A combat profiles alongside a not-very-impressive D4-6/2 Wound/1 Fate defensive profiles. All in all, it's about what you expect to see for someone under 50pts. And then you have Sam (and several other Hobbit heroes - like Baldo Tulpenny): Sam - my favorite character in the whole series - has a very unimpressive F3/S2/1A combat profile and D3/2 Wound/2 Fate defensive profile . . . and the only trade he gets for those low stats is 2 Will points (+1 over the competition), Courage 6 (very impressive - but that's not the equivalent of the other stats he's losing), and a series of situationally good special rules (like Resistant to Magic and free Heroic Combats to get into Frodo's fight).

I've been using the Breaking of the Fellowship Legion a bunch since it was released in 2019 and I've been playing with Sam in Fellowship lists since I got started with the game in 2010 and throughout all the games I've played, Sam is little better than a speed-bump and a 2-Might battery for Heroic Moves (so Aragorn doesn't have to spend his free Might point to call those). It's really sad - and if he doesn't have help in his Heroic Combats, he usually loses them because being F3/1A really limits your ability to win fights (with or without a banner reroll) and only being S2 makes it very hard to kill things.

So how do we fix this? We don't - we give him yet another way to contribute to his team, but not in a killing kind of way. Now my original plan was to do something like this:

I Think I'm Getting the Hang of This! ACTIVE - Samwise Gamgee may choose to use the Stun Special Strike, just as if he were using a club.

We've already had it teased in a Warhammer Community article that Sam is getting a special rule for his frying pan - but we've also had it teased that special strikes are going away (and presumably weapon-swapping with them). It is possible - however unlikely - that individuals will get to do things that special strikes currently do (like Stunning people) without having "special strikes" in the game. I think having it on Sam would be really interesting and give him a very unique place in the game.

But why do this in the first place? Because Fellowship lists (and Rangers of Ithilien lists) are constantly having to deal with nasty monsters and big heroes that they're going to struggle to kill - especially if Aragorn doesn't have Anduril (or if you don't have any big heroes in your list, such as in the Rangers of Ithilien LL). When that happens, you want to Stun the enemy hero so that next turn, they have a really gimpy combat profile. While you can technically do this right now with Gandalf the Grey, that means Gandalf isn't slashing through something with Glamdring (a S5 Elven-made hand-and-a-half sword - hey wait, why does HE get a hand-and-a-half sword and Aragorn and Boromir don't?!?!?!?!). If Sam is hopping into a fight with the help of someone big and thumps a big nasty on the head, the next turn gets easy - and Sam might be able to just keep whomping the poor fool turn after turn after turn . . . see, utility, no?

It's also incredibly thematic - this feels good and right to be able to do (and it carves out a place for Sam in the list that he's currently missing, since his combat profile is the exact same as Merry or Pippin's, except that he has 2 Might baked into his profile). I don't think Sam needs to see a price increase from this change - the rule is basically a rip-off of the Beefy special rule from Bombur, but with Stun instead of Bash - and just gives Sam another way to contribute to the team. Okay, one last profile to fix . . .

Profile #5: Frodo Baggins (and perhaps other Ringbearers outside of the Fellowship)

The Fellowship begins with Frodo and Sam, so I felt it right to end our wish-listing with Frodo and Sam. Frodo's profile is a bit pricey for what it brings to the table - like Sam, you can find plenty of 60-pt profiles that are better than a F3/S2/1A hero with D3/2 Wounds/3 Fate (well, maybe not the Fate part of things - but the rest of it can be matched or bettered easily). The reason Frodo is so expensive is simple: he has the Ring. Or should I say, he might have the Ring. 

Since this is my last entry in this post, I'm going to go against what I have been doing and propose not one change but two changes - one that's thematic and one that's more practical (and I'm going to go a bit further and propose changes that will incidentally affect several other profiles besides Frodo's profile). The first change is simple: drop Frodo's base point cost by 20pts and make the Ring a 20-point upgrade.

If you're using the Rangers of Ithilien or Breaking of the Fellowship list, congratulations, Frodo has the Ring and your points calculations don't change. However, if you're looking for a more thematic list where Frodo doesn't want to use the Ring, you can leave it out and not spend as much on him. As a 40-point hero, Frodo would stomp a bit on Sam's profile with +1 Will/+1 Fate, but he'd also lack Sam's special rules that give him a free Heroic Combat each turn and potentially the ability to Stun models (if my previous recommendation was implemented). He'd also have Heroic Defense instead of Heroic Strike/Strength, but with both having 2 Might points, that's probably all lost in the noise.

But I think the bigger thing is that making the One Ring optional should be factored into the other Ringbearer profiles - except Sauron. If Isildur, any version of Bilbo, Frodo, or Gollum wanted to skip over the One Ring, they should be able to do so. For Isildur, this might mean the difference between showing up in a list with Elendil or being left at home in favor of an Elf hero or a Numenorean Captain. Gollum is probably always paying for the Ring, but a 20-point Old Bilbo in Rivendell might choose to omit it - and thematic lists with a 40-point Young Bilbo and the Dwarves of Thorin's Company might like the option to leave the Ring at home (for the feel of the list or just to make the points work). I'm just saying - it's an option.

But I think the second change is the more likely change to occur: make Sting give its bearer Hatred (Spider). This is the kind of rule that Centaur loves and honestly that you could add to a profile and not adjust its points value. Yes, this will make any Sting-wielder (Fellowship Frodo, Shire Sam, and all three Bilbo profiles) proficient killers of Spider heroes (wounding most of them on 4s and Shelob on 5s), but it also has no effect on most of the armies in the game. If you can use it, great - but most of the time, you just feel like the dagger has an under-utilized potential that is fine to live without. Making Sting more expensive would be a mistake (I loved that in the MESBG revamp, Sting became a 5pt upgrade instead of the 15pt upgrade that it was before - I never bought it back then!) - adding this as a ribbon rule is, I think, good for the game and the profile as a whole.

Conclusion

So that's it - my changes for the Fellowship! Personally, I'm pretty excited for the new edition and curious to see what the future holds (though I'm wary on weighing in fully before we see more about how list building is going to work - if they get rid of the alliance matrix and take away my Floi lists, I'm gonna be a bit bummed). Hopefully you enjoyed this discussion and if you have thoughts on these profile changes - or other ones that I missed - let us know in the comments! Until next time, happy hobbying!