Thematic List Challenge: The Deeping Wall of Helm's Deep, Part 2

Good morning gamers,

Last week, we looked at how you could run a historical or convenient alliance between the Fellowship (or the Halls of Thranduil) with Lothlorien in order to bring the defense of the Deeping Wall of Helm's Deep to life from the silver screen. Today, we're back in Helm's Deep, but this time, we're going to try to find a thematic but competitive list that showcases the defense of the Deeping Wall based on the participants who are there from the BOOK. Let's dig into the theme of this list . . .

The Theme

We've rejected all the Elves and we're digging in hard into what Rohan has, as well as getting some heavy-hitting heroes from the Fellowship to flesh out the list. The defense of the Deeping Wall in the book is a great drama, with speeches by Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Eomer about their hard fight - as well as a lot of talking about their weapons and kill counts. Some of this made its way into the films, but most of it is strictly in the books.

Because we're focusing on one part of the battle for Helm's Deep, there are going to be some models that were clearly AT Helm's Deep who are going to be absent from this list - but we also have a lot more to work with than we did last time. I theorized running a list from this thematic army back in March for our Spring Zephyr tournament and it's been fun to run thematic lists like this one throughout the year (even though I ended up not running any of them). Let's look at the models that we're going to constrain ourselves to . . .

The Models

These are the models that we're going to have available for list building:

• Eomer with horse, shield, and throwing spears
• Gamling, Captain of Rohan with horse and the Royal Standard of Rohan
• In The Two Towers, a man called Gamling is referred to as an "old man, the leader of those that watched the Dike", which would put him in the Deeping Wall. He begins the fight in the Hornburg, but leads some of the men of the Westfold to save the horses that were being kept in the Deep. He then joins Eomer and Gimli in the caves, so in the book, he's actually a Deeping Wall guy.
• Aragorn - Strider with horse, armor, Elven Cloak, and Anduril
  
• Legolas Greenleaf with horse, armor, and Elven Cloak
  
• Gimli, Son of Gloin with Elven Cloak
  
• Captain of Rohan with horse, shield, heavy armor, throwing spears, and bow
  
• Warriors of Rohan with shield, throwing spears, bow, and banner
  
• Rohan Royal Guards with horses, throwing spears, and banner
• Rohan Outriders with horses
  

The models we have available come from several passages from The Tower Towers, Book III, Chapter 7:

Quickly Eomer set his men in readiness. The king and the men of his household were in the Hornburg, and there also were many of the Westfold-men. But on the Deeping Wall and its tower, and behind it, Eomer arrayed most of the strength that he had, for here the defence seemed more doubtful, if the assault were determined and in great force. The horses were led far up the Deep under such guard as could be spared.

* * *

Suddenly from the Dike yells and screams, and the fierce battle-cries of men broke out. Flaming brands appeared over the brink and clustered thickly at the breach. Then they scattered and vanished. Men came galloping back over the field and up the ramp to the gate of the Hornburg. The rearguard of the Westfolders had been driven in.

'The enemy is at hand!' they said. 'We loosed every arrow that we had, and filled the Dike with Orcs. But it will not halt them long. Already they are scaling the bank at many points, thick as marching ants. But we have taught them not to carry torches.'

* * *

Then at last an answer came: a storm of arrows met them, and a hail of stones. They wavered, broke, and fled back; and then charged again, broke and charged again; and each time, like the incoming sea, they halted at a higher point. Again trumpets rang, and a press of roaring men leaped forth. They held their great shields above them like a roof, while in their midst they bore two trunks of mighty trees. Behind them orc-archers crowded, sending a hail of darts against the bowmen on the walls. They gained the gates. The trees, swung by strong arms, smote the timbers with a rending boom. If any man fell, crushed by a stone hurtling from above, two others sprang to take his place. Again and again the great rams swung and crashed.

* * *

The men of Rohan grew weary. All their arrows were spent, and every shaft was shot; their swords were notched, and their shields were riven. Three times Aragorn and Eomer rallied them, and three times Anduril flamed in a desperate charge that drove the enemy from the wall.

* * *

Over the wall and under the wall the last assault came sweeping like a dark wave upon a hill of sand. The defence was swept away. Some of the Riders were driven back, further and further into the Deep, falling and fighting as they gave way, step by step, towards the caves. Others cut their way back towards the citadel.

When you read the book, it's pretty clear that Eomer brings his men from Edoras to defend the Deeping Wall (they get some help from the Westfold men under the command of Gamling, but it's mostly Eomer's Eored). They also have horses, so while my last post stuck to the infantry-only scheme, we're allowing horses this time (which is good, since that's kind of Rohan's thing, but also not AS good as normal, because the convenient alliance will remove the army bonus).

Since Eomer is the only Hero of Valour/Legend in the Rohan contingent, he's required in this list if you want to bring Aragorn, Legolas, and/or Gimli . . . which you do. Very much so. Gamling is a pretty good shout too, since he's got a banner (valuable) that restores Might points (also valuable) and doesn't cost THAT much more than one of the Hunters and can lead troops (which is awesome). We also have Captains because they're useful and generic - we could have gone with a King's Huntsman, but they're not directly referenced in the drama.

For warriors, we have members of Eomer's guard (Royal Guards), the vanguard who retreat to the Hornburg from the Dike (Outriders), and the backbone of most Rohan armies: Warriors of Rohan and Riders of Rohan. This gives us the option, if we want to, to have an all-mounted contingent, which would be very Rohan of us.

We're NOT going to run an all-cavalry army, though - I've run Aragorn with Rohan Cavalry before and it certainly works, but your numbers are already so capped, that throwing in a 180-point hero (or a 220-point hero if you take Anduril) is just knee-capping to your model count. As such, we're going to give ourselves the option for cavalry, but we won't be going hard-core into it.

The Distinctives

If you're going to have a mixed-arms Rohan army, you need to compare it to two Legendary Legions: Theodred's Guard and Helm's Guard. In both of these lists, you can take an infantry spam or a cavalry spam or a mix of the two and there are unique special rules that are added to make them good (most notably for the warriors in the list are the Sworn Protector/+1 FV on the charge for cavalry in the Theodred's Guard Legion, the +1 Fight Value near Helm in the Helm's Guard Legion, and the ability to use throwing spears as standard spears in both Legions).

Both Legions also have very limited hero options, but have access to most of the warriors that Rohan normally has - Warriors of Rohan, Riders of Rohan, and Rohan Royal Guards are the backbones of both Legions with the heroes kind of filling in the corners. While the Riders of Eomer and the Riders of Theoden have to be all-mounted, both of these lists tend towards having a few cavalry and mostly infantry (especially since the throwing spears in both lists can be used for both skirmishing and supporting a shieldwall).

This convenient alliance is similarly restricted in the heroes it can bring, though it's picking up three heroes who are punchier than what you'll find in Rohan. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are some of the best man-sized combatants that Good has to offer in the Third Age and all of them can take ranged weapons to allow them to participate in dealing damage from afar. And this leads us to our first emphasis with this list: we want all of our models to be able to shoot. Back before the MESBG revamp, I thought the only real advantage that Rohan had over other factions was that everyone could shoot - your Riders of Rohan came with bows (that in the warband books didn't count towards your bow limit), your infantry could take throwing spears, and most of the heroes have ranged options as well. Since we don't have the ability to use our throwing spears as standard spears, we won't be able to do the "shieldwall" thing that Theodred's or Helm's Legions can do, but we can still shoot a lot - and more so because we have access to Legolas instead of King's Huntsmen (oh yeah, I didn't allow for King's Huntsmen in this thematic list).

We're also going to focus more on infantry instead of cavalry. Without Theoden in the list, Riders of Rohan and Rohan Royal Guards aren't as powerful - in Theodred's Guard and to a lesser extent Helm's Guard, both of these units can still get +1 Fight Value (both treat Theodred as Theoden in Theodred's Guard, while all friendly Rohan Warrior models can get +1 Fight Value when they're within 6" of Helm in any list that features Helm). This list . . . isn't going to have that. F4 Rohan Royal Guard on foot with throwing spears are still good value and Warriors of Rohan aren't THAT expensive, so fielding them allows us to bulk out our numbers a bit. If you have the points, getting some Rohan Outriders on foot (or as we call them here at TMAT, "outwalkers") is good, but I wouldn't drop any models to reduce your archery difficulty by 1.

Because this is a convenient alliance, we need to take Eomer, so our general rule is this: Eomer's going to take a horse - because he needs it. I have played a LOT of games with the Men of the West Legendary Legion and I can't give Eomer a horse in that list. He's perfectly fine for a 105pt hero in that list (pretty cheap for a Hero of Valour), but his ability to kill things is highly dependent on rolling well since he's only got 3 wounding dice and S4 against non-trapped models. As a second-fiddle unit to Aragorn, he's fine - but if I could give him a horse in that list, I would.

Like the Men of the West Legion, we have some heroes who can't bring warriors to the fight - which means that unless we're okay with low numbers (which D4-5 Rohan infantry usually aren't okay with), we can't have all of the Three Hunters. There's probably a points level where we could have Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli and not feel like we were lacking numbers, but my general rule is to have 1 Rohan hero (Eomer, then Gamling, then a Captain) for every 1 Fellowship member - this allows us to play with a full warband under Eomer's command with either Legolas or Gimli at around 350 points, then add in Gamling and Aragorn at around 700 points, then add in a Captain and the other Hunter at around 1000 points. After that . . . the list fails to scale (it's just more Captains and warriors). Naturally, you could throw the Three Hunters and get Eomer's whole warband into a 600 point list, but we'd be running fewer than 20 models . . . and I'm just not sure this style of play would hold up with a low model count.

Okay, let's get into some lists!

Example Lists

The 350-point variant that I tested out before our Spring Zephyr tournament went with the thematic pairing of Eomer and Gimli, who were apparently defending the caves of the Deep with Gamling, so naturally, I've chosen those three heroes for our 500 point list and then fleshed out the two Rohan warbands with guys:

• Eomer, Marshal of the Riddermark on horse with shield and throwing spears [ARMY LEADER]
• 1 Warrior of Rohan with shield and throwing spears
• 3 Warriors of Rohan with bows
  
• 5 Rohan Royal Guards with throwing spears
• Gamling, Captain of Rohan on horse with the Royal Standard of Rohan
• 6 Warriors of Rohan with shields and throwing spears
  
• 3 Warriors of Rohan with bows
  
• CONVENIENT ALLY - The Fellowship: Gimli, Son of Gloin

This army has three heroes at 500 points - and a whopping 9 Might in it (and probably more than that with the banner)! Yes, the model count isn't great (only 21 models), but everyone except Gamling can shoot and we've got two mounted heroes for speed if we need it (one of whom has March). Gimli is a grenade hero who can be thrown in wherever we want (like he does in the book) and our heroes either have Strike or March/Defense, which gives us lots of options. We also have a small corps of elite troops (Rohan Royal Guards) to supplement our Warriors of Rohan (with both throwing spears and bows). I could have upgraded all of the Warriors of Rohan with bows to Outriders, but that would have required downgrading two of Royal Guards to Warriors of Rohan - and I rather like the mix of them.

As we scale up to 700 points, we can dump Gimli for Aragorn (with Anduril) and bulk out our numbers:

• Eomer, Marshal of the Riddermark on horse with throwing spears and shield [ARMY LEADER]
• 1 Warrior of Rohan with bow
• 5 Warriors of Rohan with shields and throwing spears 
• 5 Rohan Outriders
• 4 Rohan Royal Guards with throwing spears
• Gamling, Captian of Rohan on horse with the Royal Standard of Rohan
• 9 Warriors of Rohan with shields and throwing spears
• 3 Rohan Outriders 
• CONVENIENT ALLY - The Fellowship: Aragorn - Strider on horse with Anduril, bow, and armor
  

Anduril! Guthwine for the Mark! Once again, I've gone for only heroes with horses and everyone except for Gamling can shoot. We hit our desired 30 models at 700 points (which is a bit on the low side, but not bad if you've invested heavily in heroes and shooting, like we have here). Aragorn gives us a second March option should we be in a scenario where we're split up (Maelstrom scenarios and Divide and Conquer), while our infantry are a mix of foot archers and throwing spear models, which allows us to skirmish better than many lists and hopefully bring a model disparity down to size.

Conclusion

I'm not sure that this list is going to be as competitive as an almost-everyone-can-shoot list from Theodred's Guard or Helm's Guard, but I think the bones of the list are good. At 700 points, I feel better about having Aragorn in my list than either Helm or Theodred, despite what these heroes do for you - Aragorn is far more durable than Theodred and while he doesn't get free Heroic Combats AND Mighty Hero, the base F6, the Elven-made weapon, the similar wounding roll difficulty, and the extra Fate points (with Horselord) make Aragorn a really solid choice. Oh, and he's not our army leader, so we can be a bit more forward with him than we can with Helm. What's more, you could lose games with this list and still feel great because the heroes you have are fun and they've got tricks upon tricks available to them. This isn't a competitive reason to play the list, but it's a good reason.

If you liked this list (or had other ideas), let us know in the comments below! Next week, we're headed to the White City of Minas Tirith to see what kind of thematic list the Return of the King film has for there. Until next time, happy hobbying!