Hey Reader!
We're back, looking at more legendary legions, and today we're looking at Buhrdur's Horde from the Rise of Angmar supplement. This is one of those flavorful "creature legions" from the Rise of Angmar book, and while Tiberius did a great job of looking at the wolves/wargs list, today we're looking at the trolls/wargs version, led by none other but the big man himself (and my personal favorite leader for Angmar): Buhrdur!
Part 1: What Do You Need?
Of course, if you want to maximize the effectiveness of Buhrdur, you should also take at least one Hill Troll, as that gives him the reroll of a dueling dice as long as he's only fighting infantry (and no monsters), so your effective tax is 185pts. But truth be told, that's pretty low for a legendary legion, especially since you're getting two F6 monsters out of the deal.
Part 2: What Do You Get?
Legion Bonuses
Buhrdur's Horde has three special rules, and they're all really good (if a bit situational at times). The first is Masters of Terrain, I love because it's simple and all-inclusive: "Friendly models gain the Woodland Creature and Mountain Dweller special rules."
This is awesome for two reasons. First, they remembered that Mountain Dweller is a thing! That makes it easier to run through rocky terrain, so it's more all-encompassing of difficult terrain than just Woodland Creature, but also because it allows you to reroll failed Jump, Leap, and Climb tests, and while those may not come up very often, you'd be surprised how many low stone walls, edges of ruins, and fallen trees are on boards. It's always nice when you get a chance at a reroll to get your guys where they need to be, and I love that this legion's theme of exceptional bushcraft is so easily woven in.
But second I'm just so glad that this applies to all friendly models. Looking at how some legendary legions only give bonuses to one part of the army makes it so easy to accidentally play something wrong, and I don't want to cheat by accident because I didn't realize that only part of my army gets a bonus. This helps us to avoid this.
The second special rule is A Fearsome Foe, which gives Buhrdur Blood and Glory (so free Might Point every time he slays a hero or monster), and once he slays a hero he becomes Fearless for the rest of the game. Both of these are excellent: Buhrdur is your sole source of Heroic Strike in the force, so being able to keep him charged up with Might Points is very useful. And in an army that struggles with a low Courage Value, having at least one Fearless model - who is also a reliable slayer - is very nice.
The third and final special rule is Ambushers, and this one is good, but can also be a trap in a few situations. Buhrdur's warband doesn't start on the table at the start of the game: instead, after both sides have finished their Move Phase on Turn 3, he appears with his warband either from any board edge, or in an area terrain (wood, building, rock outcropping, etc.) where someone could reasonably hide.
Much like the Goblin Mercenaries and one Shire warband in the Defenders of the Shire legendary legion, this is not purely limited to Maelstrom missions. It's nice that it happens with maelstrom missions (as rolling poorly for maelstrom can be disastrous), but it applies to any mission, as the decision to deploy him in ambush is not an optional choice: you must deploy his warband in this way. This can be good: it can lead to your army leader popping up behind the enemy lines, and you can draw your enemy in only to take them from the rear with the sudden arrival of a power hero.
But it can also be bad: if the board doesn't have a lot of buildings, woods, etc., it can lead to either 1) forcing your 6" move power hero to foot slog it across the board to your enemy, or 2) allows your enemy to easily predict which piece of area terrain they will arrive in. And since you have to be able to fit the whole warband in the terrain without breaking control zones, you can easily deny some of the area terrain as a possible deployment option by sticking one guy in the middle of it to create a large area of the terrain that can't be used to deploy the warband, effectively removing it as an option.
So this rule - like all the others - is good: it opens up a lot of options, and causes your opponent to play differently. But all of these are pretty niche as well: there are boards, scenarios, and opposing armies that may limit the effectiveness of these special rules.
Part 3: Why Take This Legion Over "Normal" Allied Forces?
In this section we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of taking the legion over and against the Vanilla Faction, and the theme of the list is going to mean that a lot of the cool tricks and toys you associate with Angmar will not be available to you in this legion. So expect to see a lot of that in our assessment below, though I think this legion has a surprising number of upsides that may not immediately meet the eye when you read through it.
Weakness #1: Loss of Spirit Models
Much like our discussion of the Army of Carn Dum legendary legion, Angmar is most well know for its spirit models and the control/negation abilities they have: the Witch-King of Angmar, the Dwimmerlaik, and the Tainted (who boast the wraith spell suite, which is very good, plus the latter two have special rules that can really throw a wrench into enemy plans), Gulhavar the Terror of Arnor (a regenerating vampire who is an absolute (and literal) beast in combat), Shades (for negating enemy archery with the release of this book - gone are the days of reducing duel rolls, which is probably for the best), Barrow Wights (because nothing is scarier than having a paralyzed army leader), and Dead Marsh Spectres (for making banners and key spear supports run away, or sending the random dude holding an heirloom or retrieved item running toward your men). And this is huge: there's a lot of magic and firepower being left on the table by not having any of this.
And while yes, Buhrdur's Horde does have some magic (and cheap: shamans are very cheap), there's a reason you're more likely to see a wraith, possibly multiple barrow wights, a shade, Gulhavar, and several spectres before you see an orc shaman in an Angmar list: they provide objectively better support to your force, and in the case of the cheaper units like wights and spectres, with far better value than what you get from a shaman.
So while I do love this legion, and look forward to trying it out, I'm honest: you are losing a lot by not having a single spirit model in the force. This is fun, this is flavorful, so I wouldn't change that, but there should clear reasons for leaving all of these profiles on the shelf.
Strength #1: Highly Mobile Force
This is huge: not only does every model in your force - including cavalry - gain Woodland Creature and Mountain Dweller, if your force includes at least one hill troll (which you should always do - more on that later), you can select a piece of difficult terrain (non-water) that your entire force treats as open ground for the entire game. That means:
- Your troops in general can move through it faster, which is always nice,
- Your cavalry units not only move at full speed (instead of 1/4 speed),
- Your cavalry units maintain their cavalry bonuses: +1 Attack and knocking enemies prone if only fighting infantry
- Monster Brutal Power Attacks like Barge are more effective, as you're not halving your movement when moving through this location
- It spreads out the enemy, as they can't "anchor their line" against the difficult terrain to slow down or prevent traps: they have to extend into or beyond the edge of the terrain, which they might not treat as open ground (depending on the faction you're up against and what kind of terrain it is)
So there's a lot going on here to make your force highly mobile: cavalry that could potentially be given a Heroic March going 15" in a single turn through woodland terrain or mountainous terrain would be crazy difficult to catch for anyone, including fliers, especially when it's likely they would have stopped far short of that distance had they not had this special rule. So if you are playing a cross-the-board scenario or recovery scenario, this is a great benefit that cannot be overstated.
Weakness #2: Low Courage
With most models having a Courage of 2-3 in this force and no access to a shaman with Fury, it's not surprising that we'd need to discuss the Courage issue. Charging Terror models is unreliable with this force, especially if you there is a Harbinger of Evil or Ancient Evil special rule nearby.
This becomes an issue because, with limited ranged options (just orc captains, orc warriors, warg riders, and trolls hurling rocks) with sub-par Shoot Values, this means you have to get into melee to even the odds and winnow down your foes, and if you face a Terror army, this could mean a lot of your guys are rooted in place not helping in a fight and/or clogging the avenues of attack to engage the enemy by other models that did pass their Courage Tests to charge.
Does every army run Terror in large numbers? No. Is it pretty common at the top tables of a tournament? Yes, pretty consistently across the board. So it will come up with some frequency, so be aware that this is a drawback of the legion.
Now it's worth noting that as soon as Buhrdur slays an enemy hero (could be a 1 Wound hero like Beregond or a Dunedain, or it could be a big one like Azog or Aragorn - all the same to him) he gains Fearless. And he starts with a decent Courage (4), so getting him into fights is relatively easy once he gets going. But beyond him, it's hard to get reliable charges in against Terror models.
Strength #2: Enhanced Maelstrom Deployment
We talked in the first strength of the legion how their mobility is really good (helping you in two pools of scenarios). Another advantage that this legion has is in Pool 1's maelstrom scenarios: Buhrdur and his warband gain a special deployment bonus where they don't come on the board until Turn 3. When they do, they can either come on from any board edge (so no need to worry about a die roll causing you to come in on a side that is out of the fight and/or surrounded by enemies: you effectively automatically get a "6" for the maelstrom deployment) or from within a building, wood, rock outcropping, etc., that could hide the warband (standard rules for this kind of deployment apply: you can't appear within a control zone, have to fit the whole warband in the area terrain, etc.).
So this does two things for you. First, it means that in those Pool 1 scenarios, yes: you won't start with Buhrdur on the board at first, and that's not great, but it's probably more useful to have him appear somewhere near the center of the board in most of those, and this allows him to do that after you've seen where the enemy is moving their forces and whether it's a good idea to put his unit in that piece of area terrain.
But the second thing it does is it helps in other pools where leader kills are being tracked. You are the one army (as far as I can tell) that doesn't need to put your leader in the center in Contest of Champions, and that is HUGE. The fact that you can deploy your army super far back, let the enemy come to you, and then on Turn 3 pop your leader behind enemy lines and start winnowing down the enemy (while scoring points) from both sides is crazy good.
So it's not just a bonus to Pool 1: it's also useful for things like Lords of Battle, Contest of Champions, and other "kill as many as possible" missions.
Weakness #3: Low Defense
The list all-around has minimal defense on all fronts: most models are D4-5 (Buhrdur, Hill Trolls, and the Angmar Orc Captain can get to D6, but they're the only ones), and the traditional Angmar options to protect you from archery (Shade), enemy magic (wraiths), and massed enemies backed up by spears and banners (spectres, plus the army special rule that gave Terror to your orcs when they were near a spirit model) aren't available to you.
So just realize upfront that this is a low Defense army: you are very, very likely to suffer wounds with this force, so you need to make plans accordingly. This is not unique to this legendary legion - in fact, a lot of legendary legions have a "D5 High for Warrior Options" in them, so you're in good company. But it does mean you need to have a plan for this, otherwise you're going to find yourself being surrounded and removed very, very quickly.
Strength #3: Regaining Might
Buhrdur natively has access to Heroic Challenge, which means he technically has a way to get Might back. Is this is a great way to do it? Not really. Is it technically possible (and thus worth mentioning in our write-up)? Yes, and it is likely to get even better come the new edition.
But in this legion he also gains Blood and Glory, so every time he slays a monster or hero he gains 1 Might Point (which can take him above his maximum). And that means if he were to be in a Heroic Challenge with a Valour/Legend hero and slay them, he'd gain Might both for Blood and Glory and for the Heroic Challenge.
Having a F6 Heroic Strike Monster in your army is crazy, but it's even crazier if you can regain Might Points to trigger that Heroic Strike in future duels as needed.
Strength #4: Rerolls
This means your F6 monster with 3 Attacks and S6 are rocking two rerolls when near a banner, so getting a horrific roll with that F6 is very, very low. You are unlikely to have every dice be below a 4, and quite likely to get a 5-6 as your high roll. And that makes removing models very likely, which you will need to stay competitive in your matches.
Part 4: Legendary Legion Improvements
There are two changes I'd recommend for this legion, as a means of making sure that every model in the force can perform a useful function and give you a good reason for taking them. In this case, since we're losing access to dramatic amounts of magic, Terror across the front line, and still have the Courage weakness of Angmar, I think this presents a unique opportunity to retool some of the profiles to make them more effective while working in conjunction with other assets.
My first recommended special rule is:
The Fang of Angmar: Angmar Orc Shamans borrow the blood of allies to fuel their corrupted magic, making them more effective so long as they have friends nearby. At the start of its move, an Angmar Orc Shaman may select an ally within 2" of it: the model suffers a S3 hit. After resolving the hit, the shaman gains 1 Point of Will. This may take him over his starting Will Store.
This makes the Angmar Orc Shaman more attractive: it gives you a source of endless(ish) magic, and with the limited spell suite of the orc shaman (and the lack of Fury still), I don't think this is overpowered. But being able to keep something like, say, Wither always on tap, you can power down enemy heroes to keep your main lines alive, which I think is a useful ability.
The second rule helps to round out one of the big weaknesses of Angmar, since we're inviting new weaknesses with this army:
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| Courtesy GamesWorkshop |
Instead of a battlefield-wide Courage boost like you see in Azog's Legion or from Erkenbrand, this requires your raiding parties to stick together. Plus with Buhrdur not arriving until Turn 3, and possibly separated from the army, it's a bit harder to get this to trigger if you send Buhrdur off somewhere sneaky, as he'll only be aiding his own warband (which is probably going to be pretty small - more on that later).
But it helps to fix one of the main issues with Angmar: how do you keep your army raiding in the presence of Terror, which is what the army is supposed to be. It's not perfect at doing that, but it goes a long way to make you more reliable.
Part 5: Army Strategies and Tactics
As we talk about strategies, we'll look at each option available to you and how that changes what you do. Starting out with Buhrdur, the big man himself, he is a force of nature to be reckoned with in this legion. You can't feed him small heroes, and it's dangerous to send in multiple heroes of varying qualities to try to win a duel against him, because if he does pull out the win, he can get Might back very easily. Captain-style models with 2 Wounds and 1 Fate could easily be removed in a single turn, not to mention those 1 Wound and 1 Fate heroes like Rangers of the North, Beregond, Anborn, etc.
Second, you should keep Buhrdur's warband on the smaller side. I probably wouldn't go over 7-8 models, as you don't know what the terrain is, and the larger the warband is, the less places the warband can special deploy. I'd also escort him almost exclusively with orcs to keep the warband footprint as small as possible for the same reason. Anything that keeps Buhrdur from a walking trip on the battlefield is very good.
Third, in terms of usage, you need Buhrdur in combat as quickly and as often as possible. This is one of your few slayer models, and as much as possible you need him to be in combat with heroes and monsters (but ideally squishy heroes). Warriors can be handled by other tools in the list, but you need to be removing models quickly with this army, so get him in as soon as possible.
Next, let's look at Angmar Orc Captains: the tl;dr behind these guys is you need at least one in every force you run. Heroic March and Heroic Move calling aside, this is your only mounted combat hero, and getting that knockdown against infantry will help you contribute to the slaying count for the turn, which you need. I'd always take him as a 55pt Captain on a warg with a shield (I think you're wasting the points on the orc bow), and I'd use him for strategic heroic actions and charging into flanks.
The Angmar Orc Shaman probably isn't worth taking without the recommended change above. He's not a great mounted hero for damage capability, he's not likely to do much against a serious threat (any hero with 3 Will is likely to shut down his magic, and any hero with less Will is likely not worth the opportunity cost of taking the shaman), and he can't lead a large warband to pad your numbers. So unless he gets an upgrade and a useful niche in the army, I'd pass.
The Wild Warg Chieftain rounds out our list of heroes, and I'd take at least 1 of these guys in your army. These guys are fast, relatively cheap for their offensive stats, and are a serious threat to warrior models (and lesser heroes). Sure, they'll die to the likes of Imrahil, Gothmog, and other serious heroes, but against most of the enemy army these guys are a real terror. Use them to throw into the enemy ranks, beat them back, and remove a few models each turn.
As we move into the warrior choices, you have the Angmar Orc Warrior, who is usually the backbone of an army, but in this case I'm not sure you'll need many of them. Your average orc warrior is 6-7pts, and a wild warg is 7pts/model, so they're not that much cheaper than other options that you have, and that means you're trading mobility and higher Strength for slightly more survivability and a smaller footprint. Other than that, they're very similar. So I think you definitely take them in Buhrdur's warband, and possibly a few others to hold objectives, but on the whole, you don't need a lot of these guys (which is weird to say, but I think that's the right call in general). More on that later.
The Angmar Warg Rider is very useful: quick, has the capacity for ranged combat (not sure I'd run too many that way, but for the skirmish-minded people out there like Tiberius and Rythbryt - and just people who win for games than me - it does fill that role for you), and when charging into enemy ranks will help to remove infantry faster than your infantry options. You can also take a banner on these guys, and while I generally don't recommend putting 37-38pts on a fragile D5 chassis, if you know that you're running a fast army that intends to cover a lot of ground quickly, it could be very useful to have a banner on one of these warg riders. So just mentioning it so that you know it's a possibility.
The Hill Troll is an auto-include for this list, both because at 75pts they are very good at slaying things, but also because they give their Hill Troll Intelligence special rule (reroll 1 dice when duelling non-monster infantry, which stacks with a banner reroll) to Buhrdur, and anything we can do to help the big man is a good thing. I'd recommend generally taking 2-4 of these guys in each list, but that's also mostly because, for those who know me and the lists I run, I generally follow the Rule of Three: if you want monsters to work reliably, you probably need at least three of them. A lot of armies will have 1 character with Transfix, and some armies may have two Big Beater Heroes who can hold down a troll. So if you need to keep the machine moving, you should probably have at least three: Buhrdur + 2 hill trolls.
The thing is, though, that since each of these hill trolls get a potential reroll in addition to a banner reroll, you're also looking at a more reliable win for these trolls over most models in the game, so stacking up on these guys is not a bad idea either. At higher points levels having 4-6 of these guys could actually be really good for getting through enemy lines, as they're unlikely to have large numbers of Strike heroes or wizards, and that means you can reliably get into fights, win, and remove models.
And finally (but certainly not least) we have the lowly Wild Warg. Now normally people would recommend taking a handful of these for quickly getting to objectives, getting around flanks, etc. And that is true: you do want them to fill those roles. But there's not a lot of reason not to just load up on these guys in this legion: not only is this thematic (as this is the "creatures from the mountains" legion for Angmar), but at only roughly +1pt or similar cost to an Angmar Orc Warrior, you're not hurting your numbers by taking them, and they fill a similar role for you. Sure, they can't rank up as easily as orc warriors (base size is larger, they don't have spears, etc.), but this is a raider army: their added speed means you can whip around enemy lines to pull off spearmen, you can tie down enemies in one place while your army crushes other parts of the line, and even just leaving them unengaged with control zones and a 40mm base makes it hard for enemies to wrap around you.
So personally I'd load up on these guys: take a number of them and keep them moving fast and hard to push and corral the enemy, and then crash the enemy with your trolls and cavalry. And with Woodland Creature and Mountain Dweller stock standard on all of these guys, there are few situations where these wild wargs won't be moving 10", so wrapping around enemy lines and getting to enemy casters, banners, and spear supports is pretty easy to do.
Part 6: Army Showcase
As is tradition, we'll give you a sample 500pt list and a sample 700pt list of what you can get with this force. At 500 I'd focus on firepower and speed: you don't need support from the shaman, and you need to maximize the high-offense models in the list so that you can wipe out enemy threats before they can crush through your fragile D5-6 force. So here's what I'd do at 500pts:
Warband 1
Buhrdur, Troll Chieftain (Army Leader): 110pts
1 Angmar Orc Warrior with Banner, Spear, and Shield: 32pts
3 Angmar Orc Warriors with Shields: 18pts
2 Angmar Oc Warriors with Shields and Spears: 14pts
Warband 2
Angmar Orc Captain with Warg and Shield: 55pts
4 Angmar Warg Riders with Shields: 48pts
8 Wild Wargs: 56pts
Warband 3
Wild Warg Chieftain: 80pts
1 Hill Troll: 75pts
2 Angmar Orc Warriors with Orc Bows: 12pts
TOTAL: 500pts, 24 models, 7 Might
At 24 models it's a bit small, but not that bad: you can save points by switching out the Wild Warg Chieftain for another captain (and that gives you enough for another 4 models or a banner, so you can easily hit 30 models if you want), but it packs a TON of firepower. With 5 mounted models, 14 models with 10" move, and two monsters, there's a lot of threats to deal with here. It also has two bowmen for camping on an objective, just in case that comes up in a match.
At 700pts you can really get going: add more firepower, more numbers, and really push hard into the raider aspect of the list:
Warband 1
Buhrdur, Troll Chieftain (Army Leader): 110pts
1 Angmar Orc Warrior with Banner, Spear, and Shield: 32pts
3 Angmar Orc Warriors with Shields: 18pts
2 Angmar Oc Warriors with Shields and Spears: 14pts
Warband 2
Angmar Orc Captain with Warg and Shield: 55pts
4 Angmar Warg Riders with Shields: 48pts
8 Wild Wargs: 56pts
Warband 3
Wild Warg Chieftain: 80pts
2 Hill Trolls: 150pts
1 Angmar Orc Warrior with Banner, Spear, and Shield: 32pts
2 Angmar Orc Warriors with Orc Bows: 12pts
Warband 4
Angmar Orc Captain with Warg and Shield: 55pts
2 Wild Wargs: 14pts
4 Angmar Orc Warriors with Shields: 24pts
TOTAL: 700pts, 33 models, 9 Might
Now we have two Heroic March/Move heroes, three monsters (plus a Wild Warg Chieftain, which is not technically a monster but feels like one), more speed, more numbers, and a second banner to help the rest of the force that is not near Buhrdur (you can drop this for 4 more orcs, but personally I like the banner more; similarly you can drop some warg riders to add more numbers, but I do like the idea of having a larger cavalry contingent for neutralizing enemy cavalry charges and running over unsupported infantry).
And for being a D4-5 list on the whole, this actually has a good bit of punch to it: most of the army is S4-6, you have a few spears sported around to help win fights where you need them, and while you can't spear support the wargs or cavalry, if you think of a banner reroll as being effectively a spear supporting attack to win the duel (but not to wound) on all fights within 3" of the banner, there are ways to get that effective second dice in a fight to help the wargs win their fights.
Army Summary
Is this legion going to become the new meta? Probably not - Black Numenoreans supported by Haradrim are going to RAKE this legion, and they're already strong in the meta. I don't even think it's stronger than your average Vanilla Angmar army. But, with a bit of good positioning and clever usage, I think this legion can perform. So if you love the look of the new models, go and grab some, and give this legion a try!
Watching the stars,
Centaur
"I watch the stars, for it is mine to watch, as it is yours, Badger, to remember." ~ Glenstorm, Prince Caspian
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