Unexpected Military Formations: The Irolas "Shieldwall"

Good morning gamers,

Editor's Note: anytime you play a game for a while, double check your work - to get the speed you want in the list below, you need to run a Captain of Minas Tirith with or without Irolas (as Irolas doesn't have March anymore). What's provided below is still accurate if you have both in your list - consider swapping out for Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears if you leave Irolas at home.

We had a reader reach out to us via Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/tmatsbg) and ask us about a doubles tournament he's headed to and for some advice on a Defenders of the Pelennor list. I sent several suggestions to support an Army of the Dead contingent led by Aragorn (for his doubles partner), but I recommended taking the following warband from Minas Tirith:

The event is, apparently 800pts, which means there's 400pts up for grab for each player - and this warband comes in at just under half of one of the lists, so there's plenty of room to expend (especially in the Defenders of the Pelennor list!). After presenting this idea, however, I was asked "how do you play it?" And instead of trying to use words to describe why you'd want to use this for doubles and how this formation works, I decided to just turn it into a post with pictures. :) I still have to convert 2 Numenoreans into Citadel Guard to have the models, so ignore the two Numenor guys standing in for Citadel Guard in the pictures below.

Why Run This Formation?

To understand why this is a good warband for doubles games, we need to understand how doubles deployment/scoring works in the six scenarios we had in the previous edition (yes, I know the new Matched Play Guide is out, but I don't have a copy yet and I don't think those scenarios are going to change very much). Previously, the rule for doubles (and I assume it will still be true in the new edition) is that speed is king. Most of the time, both allied forces will deploy in separate parts of the board, usually with 24" to cross to get to the other person's army (sometimes more, sometimes less). This means that two armies that have foot-slog across the board at 4-6" speed are unlikely to meet up and if your opponent has two fast armies, they can both engage one force, beat it to a pulp, and then about-face and take on the other force. This . . . is a recipe for disaster.

If you're not going to run all-cavalry, then you want Heroic March in your list - and Irolas has Heroic March. He doesn't have 3 Might anymore, but he's got 2 Might and if he's pushing up a wall of infantry - possibly in tandem with a Captain of Minas Tirith and MORE infantry - then he's doing his job and making sure your units arrive alive.

If you're going to run a shieldwall in doubles, it has to function on its own - there's one scenario where one allied force arrives in maelstrom, which means having two warbands that would need to arrive together could mean you're short on Might. That's bad - so any shieldwall you have should try to fit in a single warband so if you are randomly assigned the maelstrom position (because you didn't get to choose who did it in the last edition), you can at least arrive wherever you're assigned and function as you want to. This warband has 6 front-line F4/D6-7 guys backed by 6 F4/D5-with-spear guys, which means it doesn't really need anything in it. You could also run 7 shields/5 spears so you'd have two guys to cap off the lines, but as we'll see in a moment, you probably want as many spears in there as possible.

Finally, if you're going to run a shieldwall in doubles, it helps if your shieldwall can butcher the enemy quickly. Since speed is king, you don't really WANT to get locked into a slow grind with another player in case you need to redeploy quickly to assist your friend (or crush one side of the enemy before the other side can reinforce). Shieldwalls with bonuses To Wound or that wound against Courage are great for this, since they can usually avoid the benefits of your opponent paying for D6 and getting wounded on 6s. Irolas grants the Citadel Guard a +1 To Wound modifier if they're within 3" of him - so if he sits in either the third rank or in the center of the formation, he'd be granting +1 To Wound to all of the back-line models - pretty slick, huh?

There's probably more I could say - having Bodyguard units in case you have to charge Terror units, having a cheap formation so you can have something smashy, some cavalry (probably from Rohan in Defenders of the Pelennor), or a host of more infantry (probably from Minas Tirith) - but I'll stop waxing about this particular warband for now. Let's get into how to use it.

How Do You Use This Formation?

What I want to do in this section is to highlight in each of the six doubles scenarios (previous edition) how you'd want to deploy this warband, making assumptions about where your friend will be so you can get to that position quickly.

In Scenario 1 (No Escape), the worst position you can have is starting 6" away from a board edge with your buddy 18" away from you on the center line. Between you will be one opposing contingent, while the other opposing contingent deploys behind your friend. The first army to sandwich and reposition one side of the enemy usually wins. In this situation, we want to run a Pac-Man/Millenium Falcon formation to March our guys up quickly - 9" move when there's only a 12" no-man's-land between us and our opponent's first deployment zone means we should be able to engage on Turn 2 if our buddy starts as far up as possible. We'll know where the enemy is because the center guys deploy first.

In Scenario 2 (Total Conquest) we will either deploy on the board or we'll maelstrom onto the board. Maelstrom is tricky to talk about deployment strategies since we may not have much choice in the matter, so the image above assumes that we're deployed within 6" of the center on one half of the board and our friend will be maelstroming on. If we have to maelstrom deploy, we want to pick a point on a board edge where we can advance quickly to our friend. That means . . . whatever path is fastest to the middle!

We're deployed here with enough room for Irolas to back up if he needs it, but he's also within 3" of all of the Citadel Guard so anyone who rams into our front rank will get +1 To Wound spears supporting. If you have more troops than this, they can either extend your battle line or prepare to wrap the enemy/engage whoever maelstroms on.

Scenario 3 (Take and Hold) is a table corners deployment (12" from a corner), so you and your friend should discuss which of the two enemy forces you want to vector towards. Once again, Irolas is out in front but has everyone close enough to March them towards the enemy. There should be roughly a 24-26" gap between you and your opponent's force, so one March (maybe two) should be enough to intercept - and if the other opposing contingent isn't fast, both you and your friend will be on the opposite side of the board, which might take a LONG time to reach you.

Don't forget to reach the middle - you want to crush one force on your way there (which means some of Irolas's guys - or maybe Irolas's whole warband - may need to advance to the center and stake it out). Ultimately, you want to jump on whoever you think will get to the center fastest and engage them while the other guys is slowly making his way there.

Scenario 4 (Clash of Champions) is the only scenario where you and your friend can start together . . . so start together. :)

In Scenario 5 (Cornered), the "worst" deployment zone you can get within 3" of any table edge, but the 6'x4' layout in the image is misleading. Your buddy will deploy within 6" of the center of the table and there will be a 6" no-man's-land between him and the entire enemy contingent's deployment zone. However, THAT deployment zone goes out 6" more, so there's only a 3" gap or so between your deployment zone and your opponent's deployment zone. Because the guy on the outside of the board deploys last, you'll know where your opponent is and might have a 3" gap between you and his deployment spot. 

You might not need to March here - if you get to move first, there's a chance that you can deploy where you can engage a second or third-rank model depending on how the deployment worked out, but if you most second, definitely call a March so you're well on the heels of your opponent as they prepare to engage!

Finally, in Scenario 6 (Duel of Wits) we have quarters deployment (not within 12" of the center of the board), so we want to have our shieldwall deployed on our boundary line, picking one contingent to gang up on with our buddy. Like the corners-deployment scenario (Take and Hold), we want to pick the faster side to squish so the other side has to slog its way up. Ideally, we determine who we're ganging up on with our friend and pick those heroes to kill (since we're trying to kill them anyway). Then if we can, we want to get our guys within 6" of the center.

The last thing I'll mention is that this is less than 200pts of our army - in most doubles situations, you'll have more than this! Whether that means you have a Captain of Minas Tirith, a few more tin cans, and some Knights of Minas Tirith, Legolas/Gimli and some Warriors of the Dead, or Theoden leading some Riders of Rohan/Rohan Royal Guards (if Aragorn is in your ally's army, you'll want Theoden to proc the Arise, Riders of Rohan rule), you'll have more options than just the 13 models we looked at here. Obviously there will be some counter-play that's required once your opponent deploys and what he deploys, but hopefully this gives you the basics of how to think about running this formation (which I think is SUPER strong for both doubles and Matched Play lists for the Defenders of the Pelennor, Minas Tirith, and Atop the Walls army lists).

Conclusion

If none of this was useful, I'm sorry. If you found this useful (and hopefully my reader does!), then drop us a comment below or like us on Facebook! If you have questions about list building or how to use certain units/formations, let us know that too and who knows, you might get your own post dedicated to your question! Until next time, happy hobbying!