First Impressions: The Free Peoples, Part I

Good morning gamers,

Editor's Note: We got two comments last week asking for new edition content - and Rohan has answered with about 4500 words! We're rotating back to posts on every other Thursday this week, so we'll be covering the articles for the previous edition on Thursdays (along with our one-off articles) and new edition stuff on Mondays. We hope you enjoy it! ~Tiberius

We have a new edition - and instead of plowing through each of the army lists one by one for the next year and a half (and likely two-and-a-half years once we get the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement and the Legacies document), we determined that we should do a series of "first impressions" like we did back in 2018/2019 when the MESBG revamp came out. While that series looked at the new profiles and army lists together, the purpose of this series is strictly on profile changes and will only hint slightly at the army lists in which the models can be fielded. There's a lot to take in with the new edition, so we're going to start by looking at some models that have made their way into most of the army lists from the Armies of the Lord of the Rings supplement: the Fellowship of the Ring (and their Bree friends . . . and Smeagol).

Photo Credit: Garrettzecker.com

This post is really a revisited version (sort of) of a three-part series I did on the Fellowship back in September 2019 (on their Tactical Units, Power Units, and Hobbit units), which was a revisit of an even older series back in July 2012 (both of which you can find in our "Tactics Revisited" section on our Tactics page), where I documented the things I was finding about the Fellowship from having played with them A LOT in the preceding two years (I got started with them, after all). We won't be going through army lists or talking extensively about tactics with them - we'll be saving those for army list-specific posts - but we will be talking about how these guys have changed in the new edition and whether the changes make them more or less appealing choices than they were before (with the understanding that how you fit them into your lists is now less free-form than it used to be).

The Three Hunters: How Have They Changed?

Our first stop is Gimli, who is still 100 points and basically hasn't changed. Like, at all. He picked up an extra Fate point (so he's 3M/2W/3F - and joins a very elite group of Dwarf heroes who actually have 3 Fate points), but is otherwise the same bludgeoning stick that he used to be. While I'm glad his points cost didn't go up at all, I was kind of hoping that he'd get some improvements or a points drop, especially since his two Hunter buddies got some sweet new kit for (spoiler alert) no points increase whatsoever. 

Gimli shows up in both of the "Fellowship" lists (Moria and Amon Hen/Lothlorien), as well as a few thematic mashup lists (the Defenders of Helm's Deep, the Return of the King, and the Men of the West), but in all of these lists, he's supporting a bunch of other big-hitters, which means that for me, he's very much still in the position of "I'll take him if I have the points." Admittedly, in the main Fellowship list (and possibly in the Breaking of the Fellowship list), you might not have a choice but to run Gimli, but in the other lists, you need to make a dedicated choice to take him - and I kind of wish the decision paradigm was better (there's one list where he do cool things while mounted on the same horse as Legolas, but we'll dig into how good this is when we get to reviewing that army list). Still, in an edition where Piercing Strike isn't a thing, a Defense 8 hero with 2 Wounds/3 Fate is going to be tough to crack - and if you can get him into the melee quickly, he'll be devastating.

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Aragorn (Strider) - who is no longer "Aragorn - Strider" - got more buffs than Gimli, mostly in the form of Resistant to Magic, the Ring of Barahir (gives him a natural-6 cancellation of a magical power that hits him after he attempts a resist test - which we'll get at least one die for thanks to Resistant to Magic), an improvement to F7, and a hand-and-a-half weapon instead of a hand weapon. As someone who has been badgering GW for YEARS to get this change (and even made an image collage on his blog about it - and had a polite-but-firm Facebook discussion with GW legend Nick Bayton about why having the option to two-hand was in fact better than a free Might point each turn with Mighty Hero), I think this is one of the finest changes that was made in this edition of the game. Aragorn's horse got more expensive and a fancy name, but Brego can keep Aragorn from being knocked Prone on a natural 6 (are you catching a theme here?). This is super neat if it works but also doesn't make the mount cost more, which is good. Oh, and his base cost didn't change despite having four rules/stat improvements . . . that's sweet.

"Other than that," the profile remains unchanged and Aragorn remains one of the best Heroic March heroes in the game (and with the improvement to F7 and the reduction of Heroic Strike to only a D3 Fight Value improvement), he remains one of the best Heroic Strike heroes in the game too (and one of the best Heroic Defense heroes in the game if he's got Anduril . . . which admittedly is rare given the new way that list building works).

Legolas got the most love in this edition and GOLLY is he a bargain. To properly understand how good he is requires the context of each army list that he's in (and the benefits he gets from each), but here are the highlights: for no additional cost (get used to this theme, by the way), Legolas modified his "Final Count, 42" rule to boost his To Wound rolls instead of his To Hit rolls when Gimli is outscoring him - something he desperately needed - and split out the pass-all-in-the-ways part of his Deadly Shot into its own rule (Pinpoint Shot) that now only works against models engaged in Combat with your friends (including himself). This requires a normal To Hit roll, but all of the other in-the-way stuff is ignored . . . which means Legolas is still a great model for getting Frodo or some other unfortunate soul out of a bad spot, but doesn't allow him to auto-hit enemy banner carriers or army leaders like he used to. Also, he doesn't ignore rules like Blinding Light anymore, so . . . there's that.

His Deadly Shot rule changed a LOT - it still allows him to shoot three times each turn (if he's not using Pinpoint Shot) and these shots can still be made even if he's been charged . . . and he can target models who have charged him, but apparently not models that have charged friendly figures (you need Pinpoint Shot for that). Still, the days of tying down Legolas and keeping him from shooting by charging a single model into him are over - Legolas can still shoot at those guys sitting on an objective if he's been charged and can even try to shoot the guy that charged him . . . pretty crazy. Oh, and the rule removes the scoot-and-shoot penalty if he's Infantry . . . and he got a 2+ Shoot Value instead of a 3+ shoot value, so it seems likely to me that he will at least have the opportunity to kill a LOT of things.

Besides the Shoot Value improvement, Legolas picked up the Sharpshooter keyword, which basically allows you to pick which part of a model you want to shoot at (e.g. I want to shoot out that D4 horse instead of the D7 rider on top of it) instead of having to do a random roll to see which one you hit. This was previously part of the Deadly Shot single-arrow option, but now lots of people have it (and that's not a bad thing in my book). As I said before, there are even MORE changes to Legolas once you get into the list-specific details, but let's just agree for now that Legolas has come out from surgery very, VERY much improved from where he was. No Knife Fighters special rule though . . .

These three guys often show up together in lists (two exceptions) and honestly for 360 points, you could do a lot worse than field these three guys. Let's take a look at the other "big folk" from the Fellowship and see how they've come out after the new rules redesign . . .

Gandalf and Boromir: How Have They Changed?

Gandalf is still 170 points and his profile changed A LOT (though not on paper). Unlike the change most of us suspected of all Wizards treating their Attack stat as their remaining Wounds, Gandalf got the decent buff to 2 Attacks, which puts him solidly in the "decent fighter" category on foot (albeit very expensive to be "decent") and the "good fighter" category when mounted (though the lists where he can take a mount are few and far between). Gandalf picked up Heroic Defense, which is a good anti-Balrog option now that his F5 can't get to F10. Gandalf's Cart isn't more expensive than it used to be and got a better selection of rocketry (and you can shoot off two of them each turn in the only list where you can take the cart). All in all, not a lot of changes, right?

Well, sort of - don't be hasty. The largest changes came to the way his spell suite worked: previously, Gandalf had three groupings for his spells - the ones he could cast reliably ever game (Blinding Light, Terrifying Aura, and Immobilize), the ones he could cast with a so-so reliability, but it didn't matter if they went off or not (Strengthen Will, sometimes Protection of the Valar/Sorcerous Blast), and the ones that were not reliable to cast but had to go off if he used them (Command, Protection of the Valar against magic-spam lists, Sorcerous Blast against critical targets). Oh, and then there's Collapse Rocks, which was inferior to Sorcerous Blast in every way.

Gandalf has been reimagined a bit - for starters, some of his spells have completely changed. Blinding Light doesn't stay up just by channelling it anymore, Strengthen Will (again) can't bring you above your starting Will store value, and Protection of the Valar can't become a bubble of magic protection by channelling it (which admittedly was a niche use for it, but a powerful one when it mattered). Gandalf also lost access to Command, Immobilized was re-termed Transfix (common change in this edition - I think for the best), picked up Foil Magic on a 5+ difficulty, and basically ALL of his spells become harder to cast (Protection of the Valar is now on a 3+ instead of a 4+, while Collapse Rocks/Sorcerous Blast remained a 5+ difficulty - and thank goodness for that). 

With no spells cast on a 2+, Gandalf's reliability of casting spells has gone down a bit unless he throws two dice at a spell or unless he declares a Heroic Channelling, which now makes them cast on a 6 after spending a single Will point (aka, using the Staff of Power). 1 Might for a Sorcerous Blast that goes off on a 6 seems like a worthwhile investment to me, but it does mean that Gandalf is still heavily dependent on using his Might points for casting spells (he won't need to channel Blinding Light to keep it up all game anymore, but he also might need to spend 2 Might points to keep it up for two turns . . . the trades you have to make now).

But it's not all doom-and-gloom for Gandalf: he can still cast Strengthen Will on himself every other turn in an attempt to slow down his reduction of Will, which remains something that no other Wizard can do. He can still cast Transfix to neutralize an enemy power hero on a 4+, which is harder than it used to be, but still a useful skill. Terrifying Aura is still worth getting up early - and with Blinding Light being less permanent might happen on the first turn of the game. Foil Magic and Protection of the Valar provide interesting counter-magic options and since magic for everyone seems to be harder to cast, being able to make units untargetable or remove the effects of a magical power that was cast has value.

Finally, Sorcerous Blast was always hard to cast - but now you can cast it three times per game incredibly reliably for the low-low cost of your free Will point and a Might point . . . and if you have Bill in your list, you might just get your Might point back. All in all, not a terrible change, though I do think you include him only at high points levels as the beater heroes are all really, really good. Speaking of good beater heroes . . .

I am on record for saying that you should always take Gimli over Boromir - and I'll stand by that as true for every list where you could field both in the previous edition. In the current edition, however, Boromir has come out of the fire perhaps only behind Aragorn and Legolas as the most improved Fellowship profile - and I think I'd put him as a Top-3 pick in any of the Fellowship lists where you have 8+ Fellowship members at your disposal.

Where to start with Boromir? How about (you guessed it) his base cost didn't increase at all. For 95pts base (100pts with the shield, which you should always take), Boromir is F7 and picked up a new special rule (Protect the Little Ones) that gives him the Fearless special rule and the ability to re-roll all failed To Wound rolls when making Strikes while within 3" of a friendly Hobbit model. While I didn't get a hand-and-a-half weapon for Boromir like I asked for, I'll take re-rolling all failed To Wound rolls instead. If you keep him near a Hobbit (Frodo is probably in your list, Sam might be in your list, Merry and possibly Pippin will probably be in your list if you have 10-20pts left and nothing to spend them on), Boromir hits pretty hard.

Boromir's Horn of Gondor got a boost too - the special ability of automatically winning the duel if your opponent fails a Courage Test remains, but now the Horn is a War horn. War horns changed a bit in the current edition - the Courage boost only affects a 24" radius around the bearer instead of the entire battlefield . . . though admittedly, on a 48" x 48" table, a 24" radius is practically the same as battlefield wide, but also a War horn gives the bearer the Dominant (2) keyword, so Boromir will count as two models near an objective instead of just one - which is something the Fellowship could really use! Since your army general picks up Dominant (3), this means a 9-model Fellowship list that's entering Moria can count as 12 models instead of the usual 9 . . . not gonna offset a horde list on its own, but it could be used to give yourself a situational advantage. The courage boost from the Horn doesn't matter that much since the Fellowship portion of the lists with Boromir of Gondor in them also have Fearless, but we'll tackle that when we get to the army list reviews.

Boromir still has his weaknesses - he can still be felled by arrows and didn't pick up any special rules to counter magic, but he's good and well worth the 100pts you pay for him. All in all, very welcome changes all around.

The Five (yes, five) Hobbits: How Have They Changed?

Frodo, like Gimli, saw very few changes - his cost dropped by 5pts, which is not as much as I had hoped he'd drop, but any points drop would have been nice. The One Ring doesn't work quite like it used to (more on that in its own post later this year), but it's still plenty good and with Heroic Strike only increasing your Fight Value by D3, the Ring is certainly still a tool for keeping Frodo alive. Oh, and he can take Sting and the Mithril Coat for 20pts if he wants to.

Unlike Gandalf and Boromir (who show up in very few lists) and Legolas/Gimli (at least one of whom is almost always escorting Aragorn), Frodo shows up in quite a few lists and each list changes the way that he's contributing to the team. In most of them, the presence of the Ring is enough to justify his base cost of 55pts, though for 5pts more, getting Sting isn't a terrible option. I, however, have been questioning the need for the Mithril Coat in most builds - but we'll talk about that more when we get to the army list discussions (and in one list, you don't have a choice about what gear you take). Suffice it to say that Frodo is still pretty expensive, but he's also going to bring special rules to the party that greatly mitigates the perceived "expense" of taking him.

Sam in the previous edition felt a little underwhelming for being a 40-point hero - and instead of dropping his cost and keeping his profile weak, the design team decided to take my favorite character from the Lord of the Rings and turn him into a proper Captain-level profile. 2 Attacks, the retention of Heroic Strike, a Frying Pan "special strike" that allows him to prevent a non-Monster model from moving on the next turn on a 4+ - all while (you guessed it) retaining his old cost . . . I mean, there's probably a place for Sam in most Fellowship lists . . .

. . . unless you don't have space. Back in the old edition, I constantly felt like Sam was the last profile I picked when making a Breaking of the Fellowship list (and I really only took him if I had no other way to use the points). With all of the changes to the "big five" (four of which you probably want if you're trying to field "The Fellowship"), the bonuses you still get from Frodo, and the possible addition of a beloved pony, you're easily knocking on 600pts before you throw Sam into the mix. If you're playing at 650, you're beginning to ask the question if Gimli and Bill are better than Gandalf - and if you answer no, you're probably bringing Sam because you have to. If you decide that Gandalf is the better deal, then Sam is staying home. 'Simple as that.

Merry and Pippin will once again be talked about together because they are effectively still the same profile. I LOVED that Pippin's profile has a slightly worse Intelligence stat than Merry's (and everyone else's in the Fellowship, except Bill's - he's tied with Bill), but otherwise they still have "twin profiles". For no additional cost (see, I told you to get used to it), both guys picked up an extra Fate point . . . if this seems a bit like Gimli deja vu, you'd be right. They can still borrow Boromir's Might points if he's in the list, so that's a good thing, but there are some other boosts (not immediately obvious) about these two little Hobbits that they received in the new edition. To understand what these are requires delving into army lists, so be sure to tune in when we go through those (sorry for the cliff-hanger, but I promise it's only a little mind-blowing).

Finally, we have Smeagol - this guy is only available in the Garrison of Ithilien army list and frankly won't be much of a concern for most of your Fellowship list building. In the previous edition, his only real inclusion in an army list was in the Rangers of Ithilien LL, where he, Frodo, and Sam eventually became required units. Now, the Garrison of Ithilien army list allows you to take the three Hobbits, but you aren't required to (which will make some people rejoice). The army list was knocked down a bit from where the Rangers of Ithilien used to be (they have fewer Ranger heroes and a 50% bow limit - which will make other people rejoice, more on this when we cover the army list in the future), but provides an interesting benefit to including Smeagol in the list.

Besides army list-specific reasons, Smeagol still provides a solid combat profile for a below-average cost - like everyone else in the Fellowship list, Smeagol is punching above his weight. Hist stats are mostly the same - his Couraged dropped to a 7+ (nee Courage 3) from what would now be a 6+ (nee Courage 4), but his "Serve the Master of the Precious" rule now boosts his Courage to a 5+ while near Frodo instead of governing how he can be included in Fellowship lists. He also picked up a new rule that allows himself (and Sam and Frodo if they're nearby) to treat all difficult terrain as open ground. This has exactly one list of applicability, but the universal movement is great.

Bree-Folk: How Have They Changed?

Our final three characters are available as a set and are all found in Bree. Bill the Pony can be brought in two army lists (The Fellowship and the Road to Rivendell - we'll see if he can be brought in a Scouring of the Shire list when the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement gets released) and saw some nice changes in this edition of the game.

You're tired of reading this, but for no additional cost, Bill's Official Meals special rule now affects all Fellowship models, which means that he's a 3" banner for everyone in the Fellowship list and for pretty much everyone in the Road to Rivendell list (not Arwen and "the Gatekeeper" - more on this cryptic title shortly). The Hobbits were the only ones who used to benefit from this rule - and they still benefit greatly from it now - but Legolas and Gandalf have always wanted to have a banner larking around (and a two-handing Gimli won't mind it either), so having Bill in the list is nice. For 25pts, he's a steal for this boost alone.

Bill's other rules remained the same (he can now benefit from any Fellowship model's Stand Fast, instead of just those of Hobbits) - and while we could all imagine bigger and better rules coming from him, perhaps one of the best changes for this guy is that Piercing Strike is not a thing anymore. A D4 model isn't that resilient - but he won't always be wounded on 4s. With decent resilience to assault, I rather like Bill and think that for 25pts, you could do a lot worse.

Barliman Butterbur saw some changes too - his rule that allowed him to benefit from Bill's rules is gone (since he picked up the Fellowship keyword and is included automatically in Bill's rules) and his Barliman Butterbur, At Your Service rule only works on Fellowship models (but still heals them on a 4+). Since he can get Will points back (still) from Bill, Barliman isn't a bad option for keeping wounds on an already fragile list. He also has 2 Might now, so he's a little better at Heroic-Defense-stalling a big hero for a few turns (something his army list might need).

Barli picked up a new rule (Well Fed and Ready to Fight) that gives Fellowship models within 6" of Barliman the Dominant (2) special rule, which means Barliman (since it doesn't say "other" Fellowship models) and any other Fellowship guys you take with him (which will be most everyone available in your list) will count as 2 models instead of 1 when contesting objectives. Like the changes for War horns discussed above, this is a great way for a hero-heavy list (like Barliman appears in) to fight above its weight in control-based scenarios. Would it have been too much to allow Barli to bring a few Hobbit Militia in his warband to reflect the staff he keeps at the inn? Perhaps in this sourcebook - but I have hopes for a ret-con'd profile in the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement (time will tell if my hope is in vain, but hey, much of what I've been hoping for over the past few years is all coming true, so hope I shall). The bonuses won't apply to Arwen or the Gatekeeper, but those Hobbits are suddenly looking pretty strong. Speaking of the Gatekeeper . . .

There must have been an issue with calling "the Gatekeeper of Bree" "Harry Goatleaf" in the film-only version of the Lord of the Rings sourcebooks because Harry Goatleaf has gone and lost his name, leaving only his title of Gatekeeper behind. Unlike Barli and Bill, "not-Harry" (as I shall refer to him for the rest of the article) saw a lot of changes - which is good, he needed them.

For starters, the changes to the profile have nothing to do with his stats - those are all the same. His Gatekeeper rule functions much as it used to, allowing not-Harry to root an enemy non-Monster in place on a 3+ by spending 1 Will point, but now it can't be modified with Might (so that's a downgrade). This setback is offset by his new special rule, A Light in the Dark, which forces enemy models who can charge Harry to have to charge Harry while his lantern is on. By just looking at his rule, his light is still always on and always illuminates the area within 6" of him, but as we'll see when we dig into the Road to Rivendell army list, there are some interesting rules that were given to that list to mitigate not-Harry's biggest weakness.

All told, Bill is great, Barli is fine, not-Harry is . . . the guy you take if you have nothing left to buy. :)

Conclusion

And that's about half of the profiles for the Free Peoples - we'll tackle the other half in a later post, but let us know what you think (and if I missed anything NOT related to army list-specific rules)! We're excited about the new edition and will have more of these articles breaking down the new profile changes at a high level before we delve into the army lists. Until next time, happy hobbying!