First Impressions: Mordor, Part I

Good morning gamers,

Back in 2014, the "warband supplements" were released that broke up the armies that were in the "Legions of Middle-Earth" supplement into five different sets of units: the Kingdoms of Men (Minas Tirith, Rohan, Arnor, and Numenor), the Free Peoples (Elves, Dwarves, Ents, Eagles, Woses, and Hobbits), The Fallen Realms (Isengard, Rhun, Harad, Umbar, and Khand), Moria and Angmar (surprisingly this had Moria and Angmar in it . . . who woulda thunk it), and Mordor (which was really Mordor and Barad-Dur).

With these supplements, you could run lists from various army lists and it introduced the idea that a "warband" was composed of one or more heroes and up to twelve warriors (fewer if the hero leading the warband had a brother or a friend with him). Some heroes were independent heroes and couldn't lead anyone - but this was a major departure from the Legions of Middle-Earth supplement, where each allied contingent just needed one hero for any number of warriors (there were maximum model counts based on your points level, but a LOT of lists were just "one hero plus a boat load of guys").

These supplements didn't change a lot of the actual profiles (and integrated profiles that could be found in random supplements instead of the Legions book or the One Rulebook), but they did change the way you built armies . . . and it was the first time that it was made patently clear that "Mordor" had so many profiles in it, that it got its own book. Yes, the primary factions of Minas Tirith, Rohan, and Isengard have always had a lot of profiles to choose from (and this has only become more true as time has passed), but Mordor has always been the big dog when it comes to choice - and for that reason, getting started with Mordor has always been a bit of a tough thing because you're bombarded with options.

In the current version of MESBG, there are currently eight army lists from Mordor (which accounts for nearly 40% of the Evil army lists in the Armies of the Lord of the Rings supplement) - and one of those army lists features Easterlings and Haradrim to make things interesting. Within these army lists are a host of profiles, some of which get the rinse-and-repeat across multiple lists, but many of the hero options are unique to one or two lists. Instead of trying to slap our way through a BUNCH of profiles, I thought it prudent to split up what was once a massive tome and focus today on just the Orc and Uruk-Hai profiles. In our next post, we'll go through the scary stuff (mostly monsters and spirit models . . . oh, and Easterlings). Let's begin with the "lowly Orcs" who show up in basically every Mordor list . . .

Orc Profiles: How Have They "Changed?"

We begin with the newly-imagined Gothmog profile, which benefits from having an absolutely GORGEOUS new model and was a unit I was toying around with a lot in the previous edition. In this edition, he's available as a Hero of Legend in the Army of Gothmog (where he is required and will be your General) and a Hero of Valour in the Legions of Mordor (where he isn't required and might not be your General, if you've taken the Witch-King, at least one Ringwraith, or the Mumak War Leader). Gothmog got a 10pt reduction, but with his Warg getting a 10pt increase, he comes in with Warg and shield at the same cost he used to be: 145 points. Honestly . . . I don't think the Warg is worth taking anymore.

Photo Credit: Giphy

In the previous edition, the Warg was a cheap way to make a so-so combat profile on Gothmog (F5/S4/3A with 3-Might-and-Strike), but in the current edition, he's a lot less of a combat entity (F5/S4/2A with 3-Might-no-Strike). While the Warg would get you 1 extra Attack, I think Gothmog is slotting into a position where he wants his fights to be very, VERY well managed - and being able to squirm easily through an infantry block seems to be a great way to go (at least to me).

Gothmog retained Heroic Defense and has Master of Battle (2+) - a reduction from the "full Master of Battle" that he's had since the profile's inception - and retained his two auric profiles that grant Hatred (Men) near him and rerolling all failed to Wounds for Orcs near him (or not near him if you're taking him in the Army of Gothmog). For 125pts, Gothmog with a shield provides you with a decent Might battery (and pretty reliable free heroics from Master of Battle) on a survivable chassis (3 Wounds/1 Fate at Defense 7) - perfect for being a "good" Orc General. There are probably better generals out there, but Gothmog is either on the high-end of fine or the low-end of good in my book (particularly because he isn't competing with much in the lists that he's in . . . hooray for new list building schemas?!?!?!).

Guritz also saw some changes - he picked up a new special rule that Morannon units gained in this edition (End the Race of Men), which gives him +1 Fight Value when fighting Men. Being F4 base isn't great, but being F5 is pretty good against men (who have an abundance of F4-5) - you're really just losing the Fight Value competition to Elves and pretty big heroes (not bad for a cheap hero). Like a lot of lesser heroes, Guritz went down to 2 Might points instead of 3, but picked up an extra Will point, which is certainly less useful but is also welcome on a hero with a 7+ Courage value and who might be targeted by magic late in the game to turn off a Stand Fast. At 65 points, he's pretty expensive, but still gives you a slight advantage when deploying in maelstrom, so that's nice. He's also potentially quite good at wounding things near Gothmog, since he can choose to fight one-handed or two-handed and will get +1 To Wound against Men and will reroll all failed To Wounds on one round against anyone. He's not a great hero anymore, but like Gothmog, he isn't competing against much.

Guritz's most common competitor is Gothmog's Enforcer (who still doesn't have a name) - and with this guy still costing 55pts, I don't think there's much of a competition. He's still only got 1 Might (and 3 Will that can be used by Gothmog to call Heroic Moves/Marches, which can be useful in the early game and if you lose priority and want to move first - and any of these heroics can be measured from the Enforcer if that's a better option). You still have to be within 3" of Gothmog for this to matter, but if this guy is considered as a 4-Might hero to augment a 3+ Might hero, he might appear to be a steal.

And yet, he's got a very, very sad profile. F4 is on the lower end of "fine" for heroes (since a lot of warriors moved up to F4, especially men) and he didn't pick up the End the Race of Men keyword that Guritz did. He's only S4, despite being a Morannon Orc hero (like Guritz). He's not going to stall much with 1 Might point and Heroic Defense and he's not going to shred much in combat despite being roughly the same cost as both Guritz and generic Morannon Orc Captains (who we'll look at next) - I'm sorry, but for me, there's still not a place for this guy.

Morannon Orc Captains were defended by me in the previous edition as fine hero models - and in the current edition, they're awesome! These guys are available in four of the Mordor lists (Army of Gothmog, Legions of Mordor, the Black Gate, and Minas Morgul - where they arguably don't have a place). For 55pts base, it's probably best to give these guys a shield so they can be D7 and defend by shielding against heroes to stall them out. They picked up the End the Race of Men keyword, which makes them F5/S5 against Men and with Heroic March to provide some auric support to the team, these guys are great for burning through enemy resources so Gothmog/the Mouth of Sauron doesn't get run over (or chopping through troops in managed fights).

The last of our named Orc heroes is Gorbag and he's only available in the Cirith Ungol army list. He went up by 5pts and can't take the shield anymore, but he's base F5 now (instead of having to be Outnumbered to be F5), he still gets +1 Attack when he's Outnumbered, and he picked up a new special rule (Adaptive Fighter) that allows him to  force a model to back away in a chosen direction, including off a ledge. While this probably won't come up very often, it's a great "ribbon rule" and makes the profile feel a bit more cool. Because you get to choose the Back Away direction, this can also be used subtly to trap important models, so even if you're not shoving someone into the void, don't sleep on the tactical uses of 1" moving in a specific direction.

There are three other generic Orc hero profiles available to Mordor: Orc Captains, Orc Taskmasters, and Orc Drummers. The changes to these guys have been minimal - Orc Captains have to take shields and they can't take Wargs but are otherwise their cheery, normal, nasty selves. They remain a great choice in Barad-Dur lists (as a Cheap Fortitude hero with Heroic March), they get some extra oomph for their offensive power in the Minas Morgul list (more on that in a later post but #BladesOfTheDeadOnCheapDudes), and are one of the few choices you have in the Cirith Ungol list (great for getting spears/bodies into your list). At 45 points, these guys are excellent, though they've been left behind a bit (like Mordor Orc Warriors have) with the Fight Value increase for many of the Good factions.

Orc Taskmasters saw a small price drop and now sit at 45 points (same as Orc Captains) and are available in the Minas Morgul, Cirith Ungol, and Black Gate lists. Unlike Mordor Orc Captains, they don't get Blades of the Dead in the Minas Morgul list, so for me, they're not good in Minas Morgul, they're probably a good option in a Cirith Ungol list (saving Might points in that list is solid), and might be taken in a Black Gate list . . . possibly . . . there's a lot of good hero options in that list and two of them are required. The profile is pretty meh and if you want to be able to defend by Shielding against someone big, the Orc Captain is probably still the better pick.

Orc Drummers saw the most change - these guys are only available in the Minas Morgul army list (which is likely to have quite a few Orcs in it) and the Cirith Ungol army list (which might have half of its forces as Orcs). Orc Drummers changed from giving a 3-5" boost to movement that was declared after heroics and prevented all affected models from being able to charge enemy models (regardless of whether they wanted the extra movement or not) to giving a free Heroic March (but with a larger area of effect). This changes quite a bit.

This is good in several ways - most notably that you can time the order in which you move models so that units that would be affected by the drum in the previous edition can charge before they are affected by the Heroic March, but also because it simplifies the rule set a bit. The biggest drawback of the change is that your infantry can't surge forward an extra 6" if they've been affected by both a War Drum and a Heroic March, but hey, 9" is still pretty good. While I'm not sure that this guy is the go-to choice in either list for making sure you have access to Heroic March, he's certainly a cheap option for March on at least some of your troops, which frees up the limited Might points on your Orc Captains to be used for fighting or calling Heroic Moves - both are useful.

There are three Orc warrior profiles: Mordor Orc Warriors have basically not changed - the largest shift for these guys from the previous edition is that weapon special strikes are no longer a thing (so it doesn't matter if these guys have picks, swords, or maces if you got the old metal guys) and your wargear options are a lot more confined. Rythbyrt has advocated for several Orc Warrior weapon builds in the past, most notably no-extra-gear and spear-and-shield combos. I've been a big fan of spear-shield-banner combos as well as Orc-bow-and-spear combos (we really like spears on our Orcs, apparently) and all of these options are out. Unless you take "just a shield," Orc Warriors are going to be D4, which is what they always were - and sometimes being D4 and D5 is all the same - but the fact that roughly 33-50% of your Orcs are going to be D5 and the rest will be D4 can be a huge limitation.

Warg Riders didn't really see changes to their wargear options, but they did get a whole section of the recent FAQ about what your dismount is if you lose your Warg out from under you or hop off it (see our article on the FAQ for what this is). Otherwise, these guys are the same as they've always been - cheap, efficient cavalry that aren't very courageous, but also don't pay extra for needless stats. They are also only available in Barad-Dur lists . . . so I guess the biggest change for them is that most Mordor lists can't take these cheap, efficient cavalry (but the one that can REALLY needs efficiency in its units).

Our final warrior is the lowly Morannon Orc, who went up by 1pt and got the End the Race of Men special rule that boosts them to F4 against Men. Morannons were some of the most points efficient units in the game and at first blush, this change has brought them down a peg against anything that isn't a Man and has at least kept them where they were against any factions that have Men in them. Having F4 on a stick was always something Mordor lacked and now they have it . . . if the enemy army list has Men in it.

But perhaps the biggest boon for Morannons this edition is that they're base S4 - they always have been, but with Piercing Strike out of the picture, getting grunts who are S4 is actually quite hard. Back when we got started in SBG here at TMAT (before special strikes were a thing), a lot of us were leaning almost exclusively into D6+ lists because forcing your opponent to get 6s with their warriors to wound you was pretty good - and forcing some heroes to get 5s was also pretty good. We're back in that meta - and if your opponent went for F4/D6 to be "average Fight/above average Defense", the Morannons might be fine. If he went with F5/D6 and doesn't have Men, then you are paying +1pt/model for a special rule that doesn't work, but your opponent has paid at least 1pt/model for the F5 when F4 would have been just fine. I don't think a Morannon shieldwall wants to run into Iron Hills Dwarves in a fair fight, but these guys are also a shade cheaper than the Dwarves are now, so maybe . . . just maybe . . . that's not a terrible matchup (but I still wouldn't try it).

These guys are available in four army lists (the Army of Gothmog, Legions of Mordor, Minas Morgul, and the Black Gate) - and in three of those (not Minas Morgul), they're definitely the workhorse unit . . . good thing they're a pretty good unit.

Uruk-Hai Profiles: How Have They "Changed?"

Before we get into the profiles, I wanted to make a quick note about the biggest change for these three profiles: you can only get Mordor Uruk-Hai models in the Cirith Ungol army list. At the end of the last edition, I was having a really great time with a "pure Mordor soup list" that featured the Witch-King (usually on Fell Beast), Shagrat, a Morannon Orc Captain, a Drummer Troll, and a host of Morannon Orcs and Mordor Uruk-Hai (33% of my list was Mordor Uruk-Hai with Orc bows, 50% of my list was Morannon Orcs with spears/optionally shields, 17% of my list was Morannon Orcs with shields/nothing). The list could get some pretty solid numbers and featured F4/S4 front-line guys and S4 spearmen behind - excellent for chopping through those D4-6 shieldwalls and it could move INCREDIBLY fast.

That kind of list . . . can't be run anymore for several reasons. First off, Mordor Uruk-Hai lost their options to take extra gear besides two-handed weapons. For free, they gained a new special rule (Cleaving Blow) that allows them to deal 2 wounds to their target if a) they get a natural 6 To Wound, and b) the wound is not prevented by Fate. This means two things: first, it only matters if you're facing multi-wound models, which for the most part is going to mean heroes or monsters - both of which are quite likely to have F5 or higher. Admittedly, you might get lucky and fight Crebain or a Hobbit/Goblin hero (those Hobbit heroes are stacked with Fate now, so even THEY are probably not going to proc this rule).

The second thing about this rule is that it would appear to incentivize your Uruk-Hai to actually fight multi-wound models, but because most multi-wound models are likely to be higher than F4, you're actually better off just ramming an Orc into them and using your Uruk-Hai to fight other stuff - you know, like the grunts that are probably at/below F4. Yes, there may be times when you need to tie a hero down or swarm them to get a trap, but in general, Mordor Uruk-Hai have a statline that heavily disincentivizes fighting most multi-wound models. So yeah, it's a cool rule - and it was free, so it's fine if we have it.

Besides the reduction in their wargear options and the rule that probably doesn't matter, Mordor Uruk-Hai are still just as good as they always were: F4, S4, and C3 are welcome in a world without Piercing Strike, though the loss of the shield for most players (and the loss of the Orc bow for me) will be greatly missed. Still, for 8-9 points, these guys are still sporting solid profiles and are pretty efficient (not paying for high Defense like Morannons, but instead paying for F4 against every foe and C3 to get into Terror walls slightly more reliably).

Mordor Uruk-Hai Captains are still 55pts base and can optionally take a two-handed mace (but no shield anymore) for 5pts. They are also unchanged, except for the (free!) addition of the Cleaving Blow special rule. With only Heroic March to compete for their 2 Might points, you might consider throwing these guys against a multi-wound model, especially if Gorbag is in the same fight (as you can trigger Animosity with him for potentially +2 To Wound from two-handing with the Uruk-Hai Captain). If Cleaving Blow triggered on all wounds, I'd definitely recommend this - but since it doesn't, I'd also recommend that these guys attempt to use Cleaving Blow seldom in a game and focus instead on pounding the snot out of the enemy warriors.

Finally, we have Shagrat - he's 110 points base now and lost access to that fancy shield and heavy armor he's had for the past few editions (which puts him at D5 . . . pretty different than he was). He also swapped out Blood and Glory for General Hunter, so he can only get Might back for killing the enemy General . . . you might do this after he's lost some resources (or if he's caught in a web), but Shagrat still isn't the kind of hero who wants to go into a full-stat Balrog, Aragorn, or Azog.

In trade for these changes (can I safely say nerfs?), he got promoted to F6, still has 3s in all the right places (Attacks, Wounds, Might, Will, Fate), got the Cleaving Blow rule that the other Uruk-Hai profiles got (he might actually use it), got Heroic Strength to complement Heroic Challenge/Strike (Challenge got a LOT better for him in this edition!), and a new special rule that doesn't matter yet, but that allows him not only take an objective marker from a friend, but also allows him to carry multiple objectives (we didn't have any scenarios like that in the previous edition . . . something new is brewing). This, like Cleaving Blow, is a nice ribbon rule - but not something you can proc right now (and won't be applicable in all scenarios).

Shagrat might be a little pricey for what he does, but paired with Shelob (who we'll look at next time), Gorbag (see his notes earlier in this article), and the veritable horde they can lead, I'm thinking he's in a pretty good place still (though admittedly, he can't knock Infantry prone if he charges and he's much easier to kill with archery and mounted heroes than he was last edition).

Conclusion

So yeah, that's the "orc kind" from Mordor! We'll go into these profiles a bit more when we deep-dive into the various Mordor army lists, but let us know what you think of the changes to these profiles. Next time, we're looking at the men, spirits, and monsters of Mordor - and we'll add those men of Rhun to the pile while we're at it. Until next time, happy hobbying!