First Impressions: The Kingdoms of Men, Part III

Hey Reader!

Welcome back! We're back reviewing more of the armies from the new edition, and today we're looking at the profiles for Arnor (including the new ones that came in the Rise of Angmar) and the 4 profiles for the Army of Dale that are in the Armies of the Hobbit book.

I have reason to believe that there will be more profiles for Dale coming in the Armies of Middle Earth book (Knights of Dale, Windlances, and who knows: maybe something new? We'll see), so this is not a holistic look at Dale (very probably). Arnor is likely present in its totality, so this is likely our full review of your options for Arnor. We'll start with Dale, and then we'll do a deeper study of Arnor.

Dale Overview: How Have They Changed?

There have been several changes to Dale - some of them are pretty small, but some of them are pretty big, completely changing how you use a specific profile.

King Brand and Bard II have to wait for the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement before they can be used again, along with Knights of Dale. So we'll cruise past those.

And Warriors of Dale haven't really changed: still a F4 warrior, still has a great Shoot Value, and still has access to those S3 longbows, so you can get "elven archery for cheaper" because you're not paying for F5 and better Courage. You also get Hatred (Dragon) which...if you find yourself fighting a dragon it's nice to get a bonus to your wounding roll, especially when you're looking at S3 (in close combat or at range with an Esgaroth Bow). But when you're starting at S3, and you're looking to wound something that's like D9, it's not a major boon: you're still headhunting a hard roll.

Now, that being said, if someone were to take a D7 Dragon with Moria, for example (assuming a profile similar to what we saw in the last edition), that would be 5s to wound, which means if you have reason to believe you'll be facing a Dale army (not unreasonable, as Dale has performed pretty well so far in the new edition tournament scene), taking an upgrade to improve the Defense of your dragon may be a really, really good idea. Because wounding it on 5s could be very bad for your health. Just a thing to think about.

On the topic, we have the Windlance: a personal favorite of mine (not surprising: I like siege weapons and artillery in games), and the fact that it's only 70pts now (so -5pts from last edition) is really nice. It also picked up Piercing Shot (fling the target back D3" and people it passes over suffer S5 hits, while adding hits to the original target), so it's finally in the group of "siege engines that can wound more than one target a turn"! Hooray! :P

On the whole I really like the changes: it's S10 now, the crew has Hatred (Dragon), so even better at wounding dragons (probably 2-3s to wound, which is great), and it's still Accurate, so it doesn't scatter as far. There is a change worth noting, though: there's no option to add additional crew, so keeping this manned, especially in a maelstrom scenario, can be very hard to do. So deploy it so that there are In the Ways against shooting, and try to cage it from enemy assault, because losing crew on a 2-man small siege engine this is going to hurt a lot. But otherwise, it's awesome: totally worth taking two in most lists to provide good board control and reliable damage (which Dale needs, as it lacks cavalry and substantial damage potential in close combat).

The big change, though, is the update to Girion, and if you've seen anyone talking about Dale you've probably heard about this change. In the last edition, pre-Defence of the North, Dale was very much a "Gun Line" army: their best hero - Girion - relied on either a Windlance or a Greatbow (most people took the Greatbow, and I agree: it's a really good choice), their captains can take longbows, and their best trait was their cheap shooting power.

But with the new change, since Girion doesn't use a Greatbow in the movies, Girion has lost his Greatbow: he's armed with a sword (hand weapon) and can take the Windlance (bringing him from 80pts up to 130pts), but that means he doesn't get the Greatbow with potentially multiple shots anymore.

Is this a big loss? I think so - it takes Girion from being a cheap means of reliable ranged fire support to being a very expensive means of taking a siege weapon with a good bit of Might. It doesn't mean you can't win with him - a Girion-led Dale force won Into the West 2025, but that was 1) a 450-pt tournament, where one-shotting a major hero or monster could be huge for winning the game, 2) I don't recall seeing any of the boards, so I don't know how dense or open they were, and 3) I don't know what scenarios were being played, and all of these contribute to it. I simply suggest that having the option for a cheap Girion with a Greatbow might be easier to work with and perhaps better at winning certain games against certain armies than being locked into "Sword or Windlance" as your only two choices.

Now in his defense, Girion went up to 3 Attacks base, so his 2 Attacks in close combat have been improved (which I think was needed). And he does have Hatred (Dragon), so he's better at wounding dragons, and when paired with his +1 on the Scatter Roll when shooting at monsters he won't hit your own guys (which is nie), but...I dunno, still strikes me as a really niche set of bonuses? Like monsters will be more common in this edition thanks to the reworking on trolls and the love given to Ents and eagles, but I dunno - it still feels like it's a lot of points to spend, considering that for 140pts you can get two windlances (which might be better than 1 windlance with 3 Might Points).

Now to be fair, Girion is well worth his 80pt base cost even without taking the Windlance: between the 12" Stand Fast (which he had previously) and allowing friendly Dale models to reroll 1s to wound within 3" of him (which helps with an issue Dale has, which is pillow fighting in close combat), he's only gone up in value since the last edition (as he basically gains his extra Attack and these rules for only like 5pts, which is not bad). But it would be nice to have the option for something less costly than a Windlance. That's all.

Arnor: How Have They Changed?

It wasn't that long ago that we reviewed the new Arnor releases, and in general they are the same as we saw in the Rise of Angmar supplement. But there are some changes, some of which I think are dramatic.

First, Arvedui is still 80pts, is still the required army leader for the force, and is basically the same except that he drops to 2 Wounds + 1 Fate instead of being 3 Wounds. This means the whole list is capped at 2 Wounds, and all but Aranarth have 1 Fate Point (who gets a whopping 2 Fate Points!). So your survivability with your heroes is bad with Arnor: the captains can all get to D7, but the rest are D6 or lower, and if you start taking wounds it won't be long before you're gone.

Second, Malbeth the Seer went up to 80pts (+10pts), and is exactly as you remember him, except that now he added Foresight of the Eldar (the ability to gain D6 Foresight Points, just like Elrond) in his base profile as a passive ability. Which is pretty cool: I like this change, and I think it will work out well for our upcoming alliance matrix ideas. So stand by for more on that in the future!

Third, Aranarth is still 80pts, and he's still...a hard one to choose in an Arnor or Battle of Fornost list, because he gets 2 shots, but with a S2 bow, so not likely to do much for you, he has cool special rules, but they require you to take 25pt Rangers of the North to use them, and he has Heroic Strike, but he's Striking up (which is now a D3 roll) from F5, so he's only likely to get to F6-7, which is not great. So for 80pts, I think you an do a lot better (you can take 1 Aranarth, or you can take 9-10 Rangers of Arnor for the same cost - your choice).

Fourth, Argadir is still 85pts (again, these guys just came out, so I don't think it's surprising that they're basically the same a Rise of Angmar), and you get everything you like out of him: Captain-y things with some much-needed punch by being mounted with a war spear. Not much to see here: an auto-include in my book for any force above 300pts.

As we round out the named characters, we look at the two generic hero choices: Captains of Arnor and Rangers of the North. Captains of Arnor are now 60pts (up +5pts), and has the shield (so no more bow option for Captains of Arnor, which I think is fine since honestly they weren't worth taking with a bow before anyway), but is otherwise the same with a 6+ Intelligence.

Meanwhile, Rangers of the North are 25pts (technically down -5pts), but this is because really the Ranger of the North is a reskin of the old Dunedain profile: now you can pay +5pts for armor, can still add a spear for +1pt, but is otherwise unchanged from the old profile (including not having F5...one of the profiles that probably should have been revisited for the new edition regarding the Fight Value rebalance imo). But otherwise it's exactly the same as before, with a good Intelligence score (6+).

...or are they? When we look at the legendary legions (all three in the free PDF can take Rangers of the North), there's a glaring omission from all of them: in none of them do you get the +1 Attack if you are not mounted (which the new Ranger of the North profile cannot take, so it should be present all the time). So until the Armies of Middle Earth army book drops (assuming it's in there), all Rangers of the North have 1 Attack. Which...for a 25pt hero with only 1 Wound at D4 means these guys are probably not being taken unless you're running Arathorn's Stand, and you're probably not fielding Arathorn's Stand because you'll be low on the model count and low on survivability, which is a recipe for danger. So, not a fan of this option, which sucks because the Rangers are a top three favorite faction of mine.

As we move to the warrior profiles, there are only three, and they are largely unchanged. Warriors of Arnor are still F4 S3 D6 for 8pts, all of which is fine (as they have a low Courage), but they still pay 25pts for a banner when they, unlike any other army option, lose their spear and shield. Now most forces have you pay for the shield and/or spear separately from the profile, and then you can add the banner for 25pts having not paid the points for those equipment pieces. In this case you've already paid for 2pts of upgrades in the base profile, and then paying 25pts on top of that for the banner. I suspect there's a reason why they left this at 25pts (more on that below), but personally I'd drop the cost of this banner to 23pts. 

And finally we have Rangers of Arnor: these are exactly what we're used to, except that they added two new options: a war horn for +25pts (by the way, I'm glad to see these down from 30pts in the old edition, and they do more now), and a banner for +25pts. This could be a great way to get a banner into the list: buy the Blackroot Vale Commanders, and you're golden. Plus you don't lose the bow, so you're till contributing as the lines prepare to close, which is not true for most banners.

Conclusion

On the whole, I think this is a good start - it's fine as-is, though I think there are still some changes I would make and profiles I'd add back in (I'd love to see Knights of Dale be something more; the spear bonus is interesting, but being charged makes it so that you end up leaving a static line of them and your opponent just runs around them, so it doesn't work as well as you'd think it should), but a lot of this is spurred by the fact that you don't have an alliance matrix: lacking cavalry with Dale is fine if you can bring, say, Iron Hills Goat Riders, for example. But in lieu of an alliance matrix, having viable options is necessary to make these stand their own on the table.

But those are my thoughts - did you disagree? Any other changes you would make? Let us know below!

Watching the stars,

Centaur

"Trivial hurts, tiny human accidents," said Firenze, as his hooves thudded over the mossy floor.  "These are no more significant than the scurrying of ants to the wide universe, and are unaffected by planetary movements." ~ Firenze, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix