First Impressions: The Kingdoms of Men, Part I

Good morning gamers,

Editor's Note: This post has been edited based on a comment that was made below - changes are in red.

Today kicks off a study on the Kingdoms of Men from the Armies of the Lord of the Rings book and we're covering two small factions today: the Dead of Dunharrow (who show up in the Return of the King army list and the Defenders of the Pelennor army list) and Numenor (who show up in the titular Numenor army list, the Last Alliance army list, and potentially in the Realms of Men army list). These two factions, I think, got some of the best changes in the new edition and both appear to be very good for new players of the game to sink their teeth into. Let's take a look at how these guys have changed from the old edition and what's to like about them.

Dunharrow: How Have They Changed?

This faction has had four profiles since the release of Gondor at War: the King of the Dead (unique hero), Heralds of the Dead (generic heroes, sorta like Captain models, but not quite), Warriors of the Dead (infantry dudes), and Riders of the Dead (cavalry dudes). There were some small changes and some large changes to each of these profiles.

Photo Credit: Tenor.com

All of these profiles have access to Terror, Blades of the Dead, and Spectral Walk. Though the text for Blades of the Dead has changed, the effective use of it is still the same: you wound against the opposing unit's Courage (10 - the roll difficulty) instead of their Defense value. In an age where S3 models can't use Piercing Strike to wound a D8 Dead of Dunharrow model on a 6+ instead of a 6/4+, the fact that these guys can still carve through people with relative ease is a good thing (and a huge draw for new players who want their guys to stay on the table and clear out their opponent's models).

Spectral Walk got a more generous ignore-terrain list, which is good since water features are not often seen because of the complications that arise when water of various depths is on boards. How much this impacts the unit differs from board to board, but the expansion of this to include woodland or rocky terrain certainly makes it more meaningful - and particularly so for a predominantly melee army that's going to need to catch pesky archers in order to deal with them.

With these general changes in mind, we'll start off with the King of the Dead: with an unchanged price of 100 points, the King of the Dead lost his Harbinger of Evil special rule that he used to get from both the Dead of Dunharrow army bonus as well as the Return of the King LL and in return got the promotion to F6, 3 Wounds, an effective increase to what was Courage 7 (now a 3+ Courage value), and an improved Move Value of 8". I gotta say, paired with the more expansive terrain maneuverability that Spectral Walk provides and the age-old combo of Blades of the Dead and Drain Soul, the only real limitation to this character is his 1 Might point and the general expense of the list that he's in. Yes, our next profile will help alleviate the Might limitation some, but golly this guy is STILL only 100 points and well worth the second-hitter spot next to Aragorn in the Return of the King Legion.

Heralds of the Dead might still struggle to find a place in lists, as they're still F4 (which is both more common for warriors and less common for heroes), no Might of their own (but the ability for the King of the Dead to spend their Will points to declare Heroic Actions), and a penant that gives Resistant to Magic instead of being a real banner (my, that would have been helpful). Still, they always have shields (so 5pts in savings), they have 8" move as well, they're S4 and wound against Courage Values, and they come in a bit cheaper than Legolas and Gimli (which is better than costing the same and being worse . . . but I'm still not sure that they're worth it).

Warriors of the Dead saw some really good boosts - they didn't go up in price, got a boost to 8" move (same as the others - are you sensing a theme here?), and retained what used to be Courage 6 so they can reliably charge enemy Terror units (while requiring Terror checks to charge them back) or holding rear objectives (though Centaur will always rue the day he trusted to C6 to keep an objective with these guys). Yep, these guys are pretty solid units for their cost.

Riders of the Dead went up by 1pt (25pts now) and got a similar treatment - they have 8" move (but will use the now-12" move on their steeds while mounted - incredible!), and remain the only mounted units in the list. While their improvements aren't nearly on the same scale as that of the infantry, the boost to 12" move gives them a LOT of options in scenarios like Reconnoitre, where they can escort a hero (say, Aragorn), charge into the same combat, Heroic Combat towards the enemy board edge, then race ahead on the following turn at a speed that will outpace most units in the game. It's pretty crazy and VERY helpful for a no-shooting, mostly-infantry army.

The army list will be reviewed at a later date, but with these four profiles and Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli, this is a list to watch (it always has been, but it certainly is now). It's also pretty easy to collect . . . if you're willing to wait for the models to be available in the webstore again. 

The models are also expensive in-game and unlike Sharbie and my preferred way to run Dunharrow (pure with lots of guys and leaderless warbands OR allied with Elessar and lots of guys and potentially leaderless warbands), we appear at the moment to be locked into just the Return of the King army list with these guys we are locked into running these guys in the Return of the King army list OR running them in the Defenders of the Pelennor army list, which might give us some very interesting alliance options or the ability to run a pure Dunharrow list (but with lots of Heralds of the Dead). Aragorn is great in this edition (and is available in both lists), but I gotta say that losing 10 warriors to get him does make me groan a little (still).

Numenor: How Have They Changed?

On to Numenor - and really Isildur, who is responsible for making the Dead of Dunharrow what they are (ah, the two lists are related - did you catch that?). This list has had four profiles from time in memoriam and they've still got four profiles. Let's see what's happened to these guys . . .

Photo Credit: Steam, surprisingly enough

Elendil is 175 points base (10pts cheaper) and has lost his ability to take a horse or a shield. He's still got a punchy profile (promoted to F8 with access to Heroic Strike - not all of the F8-9 models were as lucky - and has the free +1 To Wound from Narsil and S5 to pack a real punch), though the loss of maneuverability from the horse (and the bonus Attack and doubling of dice by knocking people over) will definitely be missed. His stats are otherwise basically what they were - he traded Fortify Spirit for Resistant to Magic, but everything else is the same.

I have struggled to put Elendil in Numenor lists for a while - and I'm a little afraid that will still be true. I tried him the other day in a pure Numenor list and he really struggled to perform (more on that later in the week). I like the free Heroic Combats from Narsil and it's perfectly clear to me that whatever he gets into he has a chance of clawing through, but the reliability that came from being able to Feint with a high base Fight Value and reroll 1s when you were wounding on 3s or 4s is gone now (you'll still wound on 3s or 4s, just not rerolling 1s unless you have an Elven spear support in The Last Alliance list - more on that in the future). In general, I'm thinking I'm going to retain my previous preference for . . .

Isildur might have been the greatest winner of the new edition (maybe behind Legolas - possibly others, but I think Isildur and Legolas got HUGE improvements over everyone else) - went up by 10pts to 130pts base (horse went up by 10pts too), lost access to his shield, got the upgrade to F7 like Aragorn and Boromir (well-deserved, I feel), still has the option of one-handing or two-handing, and he got the fancy epithet, "Prince of Numenor" (which he's needed for a long time - also well-deserved). 

The changes to the One Ring (which we'll do a deep-dive on sometime in the future - golly, we've got a lot to write about) hurt a lot of Ringbearers, but Isildur came out as the greatest of the non-Saurons, since he's going to have the highest Fight Value of anyone in his fight unless that person starts at F7+ and has Strike (since you half FV before Striking now). The only way that Isildur can lose this amazing boost is if he's joined by friends . . . so just don't do that.

Even without the Ring on, Isildur is a powerhouse and VERY good at crashing through enemy lines (mounted heroes do that pretty well - but particularly those that are F7/S5/4A on the charge). There is now a special rule (The Shards of Narsil) that allows Isildur, if fielded with his dad (no Ring, but you have Elendil in your army), to pick up the Shards of Narsil if Elendil dies. This becomes a hand weapon with +1 To Wound, which will always be better than two-handing with his normal sword. I feel like there's a case for running both father and son now, but you could also just run Isildur with . . .

Captains of Numenor - these guys REALLY took a hit with the losses to their wargear, but they also got some HUGE boosts that, frankly, I was both relieved that they got and very shocked that they got. For starters, they got the long-deserved increase to S5 to match the named guys and to make them better than the Warriors of Numenor (who are super good - more on them shortly). They also got the boost to F6, which paired with the S5 boost justifies the increase in cost to 70pts. They're stuck at D6 with armor and shield, but since you probably want these guys cracking through warriors, I feel like F6/S5/D6 is right where you want to be in order to maximize your efficiency - and that's what you get from these guys. Oh, and you can field two of them for less than the cost of a mounted Isildur and two of them with a few warriors for the cost of Elendil. There's probably a case for fielding 200pt-full warbands of these guys instead of running any of the named heroes in a standard Numenor list, but I think Isildur (and maybe Elendil) bring enough to the table to justify their inclusion (plus they get a special rule in the Numenor army list).

Warriors of Numenor are basically what they always were - they went up by 1pt each, but they picked up F5 . . . and when paired with S4, these guys have become SUPER deadly. They are a bit of a glass cannon force, as they're stuck in D4-5, but this also keeps them in the 10-11pts each range, which means they're Uruk-Hai expensive, but have better FV than Uruks (something I didn't realize until I was crushing one of my sons . . . sorry, kid - I didn't know). There's no banner available for these guys anymore, but they got a free promotion from bows to longbows (so that's a S3 24" bow now - that's good) and while I'll be sad that they can't take bows and spears anymore, they make a solid first rank against S4 units and a solid second rank behind anything (themselves or Elves, depending on how you field them). With S4 disappearing from most lists, these guys are not afraid of a little D6 shieldwall action - especially since F5 left many of the infantry blocks that used to love shieldwall formations. The only real downside to these guys is the lack of a banner - that's not a bad place to be.

As a long-time Numenor player, it's a good time to play Numenor - and if you want to get in on the game, there's usually buckets of these guys floating around on eBay . . . if you just convert some swords into spears, you'll have a pretty decent army.

Conclusion

So yeah - watch out for those Numenor and Dunharrow profiles (they'll get ya!). I really like the changes that went into these units, but I'm not entirely certain that the changes to Numenor were properly tested. Time will tell if these guys are not as good as I think, but I'll say after one test game that I feel like the promotion of all warriors to F5 and all heroes to F6+ might be a bit strong for what they're paying. Isildur, a Captain, and 39 dudes (18 shields, 20 shields/spears, 1 longbow) comes in at 700pts and yes, there's no banner for VPs, but I'm not sure you need it. 42 models at 700 points? Admittedly, that's a low Defense army, but I feel like it's pretty strong. Dunharrow isn't going to be able to spam models like that, but they can clear 30 at 700 points with Aragorn and the King of the Dead - and that army is going to wreck face when it arrives.

If you have thoughts on these two factions and the changes that came out of the new books, let us know in the comments below. Until next time, happy hobbying!