Top 10 Most Improved Evil Profiles in the Armies of Middle Earth Book

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We're here at last: the last of the Top 10 posts in our Most Improved profiles series, today looking at the Armies of Middle Earth book for the Forces of Evil. Now that we know all the armies that someone can be fielded in, potential models that they can pair with, and special rules, we're set to rank the top ten most improved models for the Forces of Evil in the Armies of Middle Earth book.

As we did in the top ten most improved profiles for the Forces of Good, a few caveats before we look at the list: 

• We're ranking the most improved profiles in The Armies of Middle Earth book, so we won't be looking at profiles beyond that book.
• We're ranking the top ten most improved profiles for the Forces of Evil in the book, so only evil profiles will be considered here.
• We're ranking the most improved profiles, not the strongest profiles: just because a model is strong or powerful doesn't mean it will appear in this ranking, because if they're basically the same as they were last edition, they won't be much improved. 
• The "Most Improved" means that the profile had to exist last edition, which is not really an issue with this book, but again it's something we're looking for in this ranking series.
• There were more profiles than this list can hold, so yes, I couldn't include all of the ones that I thought were interesting/useful. There will be some honorable mentions, but suffice it to say, if you really thought that someone should have made the list and didn't, there's a good chance that they were considered and just didn't break the top ten.

And so with that, let's look at some cool profiles!

Honorable Mention: Druzhag the Beastcaller

Druzhag has always been a useful shaman - one of the most common named shamans you would see at a tournament, and his ability to turn a lowly Wild Warg or spider into a behemoth is a highly effective use of points. And he remains that: Enrage Beast is still really good, and that's still mostly why you're taking him.

But he picked up some new tricks: first, he picked up Writhing Vines, so he can create difficult woodland terrain, potentially after cavalry have already committed to a charge (so goodbye the vast majority of charge bonuses!), or potentially before they've charged, causing their movement to be quartered within its range (which is a great way to prevent charges in the first place, which Moria needs).

The second thing he picked up is that if he suffers a wound, before rolling Fate, he can roll a D6: on a 2+ the wound can be passed off to a beast within 2" of him. This is key: removing Druzhag was a huge priority last edition, and effectively caging him (and thus passing on firepower to maintain a protective bubble around him) was critical to getting the most value out of him. But now, after hits have successfully resolved as wounds (which means probably not all of the potential wounds that could have been dealt), you have a chance to pass those wounds off to wild wargs or spiders that you don't need/care about as much as your shaman. And on a D4 base (that can still roll for Fate if you roll a 1), that's really, really good.

What keeps him from getting to the Top 10 is that most of what you're taking him for he still does: he still has Enrage Beast, he can still give his Courage Value (6+, and now his Intelligence of 6+ as well) to beasts near him, and he's still pretty cheap for how much firepower you can get for that cost, and the fact that the enemy doesn't know which beast you're going to enrage until you cast the spell complicates a lot of the planning side of matchups for your opponent (spoken from experience). So the changes to him are good, but not as dramatic as the changes we've seen elsewhere in the book. Plus Fury was really good last edition, so shamans have taken a step back in many respects by comparison to last edition, so he's starting a bit further back in the pack.

Honorable Mention: Mordor Orc Shamans

Similarly Mordor Orc Shamans picked up some useful boosts: with access now to Curse on a 4+ the shaman can reliably cast this twice per game: once with 2 Will Points, and once as a channeled spell using his Might Point (as that guarantees it's off on a 6). And while Curse may not sound like much (target loses a Fate Point), if you think of it like a Chill Soul spell from Sauron (target suffers 1 wound) that was successfully blocked by Fate, for WAY less than Sauron, it's not that bad. And since he's available in lists that involve Morgul Blades, this one small change is actually really, really good.

But let's be honest: the profile has niche applicability as a support caster to help other expensive pieces, which is why most competitive lists for Mordor-style armies are going to leave him at home, so while I like the change and look forward to trying it out, I don't think it makes the top ten.

#10: Isengard Troll

Monsters in general got a bump this edition, and the Isengard Troll - probably the least taken troll of them all, as it was featured in no legendary legions and was competing with cheap yet effective uruks for a spot in a Vanilla Isengard list - definitely went up in perceived value (even if people still prefer to take several uruks over a troll).

Beyond the bonuses that monsters got to wound spear supports for models they slay in base contact with them, the Isengard Troll picked up a 4th Wound (always nice when you're sitting on a hefty D8 already) and Dominant 3, and with a Courage of 6+ in an army sporting Saruman shenanigans, this troll is also a reliable Terror-charging model, which Isengard didn't always have native to profiles.

It's not a major change (and with the 60mm base size increase, he's taking up more real estate now), but if you were planning to build/paint/field one of these, I gotta say: the value add is pretty nice now!

#9: Black Numenorean Marshals / Morgul Knights / Warriors

Going to lump these profiles together because they got a nice bump that's worth noting, even though their Fight Value basically stayed the same (which, I think, is not good for them by comparison to, say, Minas Tirith infantry / cavalry that fight in a similar fashion). Just like last edition they still all sport Terror (and in a post-Fury world that's really nice), but they picked up an additional bonus: if a model fails a Terror test to charge them, they can't shoot/cast magic for the rest of the turn (which is awesome, considering that Terror testing to charge is the first thing you need to do before doing anything else, including standing up if prone), and if they are involved in a heroic combat for whatever reason (it's a niche set of cases where it comes up that you test to charge a model, fail, and get to be in combat with someone as part of a heroic combat from your side, but it can exist, mostly if they fail to charge as part of a Heroic Move) they don't get to move again as part of that heroic combat.

It's a small boost, but it is nice: it can really mess up the enemy's plans, especially if the plan was to attempt a charge with an archer to lock someone down, and if they fail at least they can still help with archery later in the turn, as now that's not available.

The benefit of enemies not casting for the rest of the turn would be better if spellcasters in the game had lower Courage: since the ideal failed attempts for this would be people like Gandalf, Elrond, Saruman, Sauron - really good casters that rarely fail Courage tests - this part of the ability only really works if you are able to chain this ability with Drain Courage elsewhere in the list. Good news: Mordor has access to quite a few of those (Nine that you know quite well in fact!), but it's a lot of investment to make it work, and that's why it rates so low on this list.

#8: Ted Sandyman

Ted went up in cost by +10pts (30pts now instead of 20pts), but he picked up two very useful changes that are well worth the cost (and let's be honest: we had the points lying around in Sharkey's Rogues lists, so this doesn't hurt us). First, he's up to 2 Wounds now, so he's harder to pop (which, when you're in an army full of D3, is really, really nice). But second, and more importantly, hobbits within 3" of him gain +1 to wound, which means you gain effective S4 in a Sharkey's Rogues list.

Now, for those of you who have never played with/against a Sharkey's Rogues army (which I suspect is most people: the combo of a high model count army + only metal models + trash stats + subpar heroes means a lot of people don't collect them, and I get that), all you need to know is THIS IS HUGE: the most critical issue for Sharkey's Rogues, to some extent even above their poor Defense stats, is that when they win a fight (which is not often, as they don't have spears, so they're relying on wrapping and trapping) they can't wound D6 enemies, so they get cut to shreds without doing much in return. It's a whole thing.

Effective S4 helps to solve this issue, because you can throw the hobbits and Ted around a flank, add some S4 to a fight, and have a better chance of dealing the 1 Wound you need to remove a model. And now that he's slightly more survivable, he's more likely to last longer on that flank.

Is he better than Lotho? No (in a world where you don't have shamans helping out Courage 2 models, Lotho providing the Courage side of Fury with a single Will Point each turn is really, really good), but he's far more improved from last edition than Lotho, as he was basically just, "you get access to 12 hobbit militia for 4pts/model, in case you need more numbers than your 5pts/model guys that you already had access to," so it's nice that he has more of a niche now.

#7: Mordor Siege Bow

I know what you're saying: "Centaur, I'm not seeing a dramatic change to...anything with this siege weapon. Why is it almost in the top five on this list?!?!?" It's insidious, but there's one small change to this profile that makes a world of difference, and moves it from my list of "profiles I'd never take, even though I love siege weapons and artillery in general" to, "Okay we'll need to look into getting a model or two for a Mordor force."

And that tiny change is that it now has a Shoot Value of 4+ instead of 5+. For no added points, it's just better at shooting, and for a siege weapon with an auto-kill ability (which it's always had, it's just that it didn't mean much if you never hit more than once per game), that's a big deal. It's still a super cheap siege weapon by siege standards, but it's far more likely to do something on the battlefield, which increases its utility to you.

And like all siege weapons a big part of the benefits of a siege weapon isn't the damage: it's the potential to damage, and that changes how your opponent plays the game. There's a lot of board control and psychological warfare that these guys create, and before this edition the actual threat from this weapon was close to nothing. Now the odds are good that it can do something, and that means people need to plan as if it will hit. And that's fantastic.

#6: Sharkey (Worm hasn't changed)

It probably won't surprise you that one of the armies in the previous edition that had really bad heroes is surprisingly better this edition, because the bar that was set for them improving was pretty low. Sharkey is one of those characters: he was a decent caster (both his spells were cast on a 2+, but with only 4 Will and no free Will Point he was nowhere close to as good as the other versions of himself, and was basically a glorified shaman), but he was also one of the best heroes in his army, and when you're a glorified shaman and you're one of the best...that's just not good.

Well this edition he's still basically just a glorified shaman, but he's more glorified in more ways than one without a points increase. First, he now has 2 Might Points instead of 1, which is big because for as many heroes as this list has (and the point cost for them being pretty low) you don't actually get a lot of Might, so having more where you want/need it is really good. 

Second he picked up Compel (and only on a 3+, which is not bad!), which is a huge win for Sharkey's Rogues. Being able to pull people away from objectives, get critical models out of a battle line, move banners away from troops they need to help, move the end model away from his post to make it easier to wrap the enemy - there's a lot of places for this to come in handy, and with 2 Might to heroically channel this, resisting it will require a 6, which is really, really good.

Add onto this that a 6 on a duel roll doesn't give him the two-hander -1 penalty, and there's less automatically passing Courage tests running around this edition to gimp his potential S4 hit against people who wound him, and he's more useful all-around in ways that he wasn't before. Huge fan (well, inasmuch as there are any huge fans for Sharkey's Rogues).

#5: The Dragon Emperor

I know what you're thinking: "Wait, how can he have improved beyond where he was last edition? He was already a banner, a Fight Value bonus, a real beater in combat, access to an elven-made weapon with a really good Fight Value - like how can he get better?!?!?" Well, in a few ways, if you can believe it, and for no additional cost!

First off, he now has Dominant X, where X = the number of wounds on the palanquin, though the fact that he's also the army leader means you can't actually go too low on this Dominant, so while it's technically a scaling bonus it does have a nice floor.

Second, Easterlings within 6" of him and Line of Sight (so doesn't work if they're behind a wall but still in range, for example) can reroll 1s to wound, which is a very powerful bonus considering how likely you are to 1) win a fight, 2) be fighting a solid D5-6 battle line, and 3) need to grind your way through to objectives to score big numbers of points, and this is a small way to help you toward all of those objectives.

He was a beast last edition, he's still a beast now. Though arguably the beast of all beasts as regards this profile is still that fourth Black Dragon carrying the palanquin who makes sure it still moves full speed until he dies, which still boggles my mind (but we're not here to dwell on changes we'd make to profiles).

#4: Cave Drake

Cave drakes haven't changed in cost, but they picked up several really nice bonuses this edition. Beyond the fact that they're monsters and all that this gives them in this edition, they picked up some nice bonuses in addition to their new army list, Dragons of the North. First, he has Dominant 4, and his Cornered Beast allows him to perform a S4 hit against every model that engaged him in combat following a fight where he was trapped and lost the duel.

Now this doesn't sound like much, except that thanks to the Dragon's Hoard army special rule every time a drake slays a model in combat - which includes this lashing out against enemies - you get to roll a D6, and on a 6 you pick up some gold. And with bonuses including rerolling a wounding roll (great for fixing those pesky 1s to wound), rerolling a dueling dice (great for when you have a high Fight Value and 4 Attacks), Fearless, and potentially extra Victory Points, it's really nice that even losing a fight can get you extra firepower later.

Furthermore, since the Dragon's Hoard rule merely says that you have to slay them in combat, you can do this by performing strikes normally, or by using Brutal Power Attacks. There aren't many that allow you to attack more than one model, but if you really need Wounds back, it's nice that you have a chance to cough up some gold from the corpse while you're at it.

In the previous Vanilla Moria list these guys didn't have that much of a place, but now that F7 is harder to get to with the changes to Heroic Strike and he has a chance to slay a lot more models in combat to gain extra bonuses, this profile is now in a really good place.

#3: Bill Ferny

Now we did a whole April Fools Day post last year on Bill Ferny as part of our Nemesis series, so it won't surprise anyone when I tell you that there's not many things you'd have to do to this profile to make it markedly improved from last edition: he was overcosted, underpowered, and in a number of situations his special rule was completely useless. But this edition, he's looking far more attractive (well, for a Breeland rogue).

First, for no extra cost, he's up to 2 Attacks, so he's better than your average ruffian when it comes to fighting, which is really nice when the bar is so low. He also went up to Strength 4 and Defense 4 (instead of 3 and 3), which is also really nice for making him not feel like just another ruffian. 

These on its own would make him a reasonable choice in the army, but he adds another bonus: instead of inflicting a -1 to the Reinforcements roll for a unit (which, again, is situational), he now gets to choose a hero at the start of the game (after deployment, so you'll know if they're on the same side of the battlefield as him, which is nice!) from the enemy force: while Bill is within 12" of that hero (which is a really far distance if you're picking a melee hero, so you can keep Bill safe), anytime that hero calls a Heroic Action, Bill rolls a D6: on a 1-2 the Heroic Action is cancelled and the hero regains their Might Point. They can call another Heroic Action, but it can't be the same one, which is nice.

Now on its face this doesn't sound that great: only a 33% chance it happens, it's only one hero in the enemy force, and it's not like they lose their Might Point. So why is this so good (because this is phenomenally good for Sharkey's Rogues)?

Because in most phases, against a Sharkey's Rogues army, there's only one heroic move that makes sense to call each phase. If you can't call a Heroic Combat (to chew through the lines), a Heroic Strike and Heroic Strength are not necessary: you're fighting F2-4 models who are D3-4, so you don't need those, and they're S3-4, so Heroic Defence isn't that great either since they're probably wounding on 6s or worse anyways. Heroic Shoot is the only one you'd need to call in the Shoot Phase, so not calling it is effectively removing your ability to call heroic actions with that hero in the Shoot Phase.

The only case where this doesn't always work is in the Move Phase, as Heroic Moves and Heroic Marches can both be useful, but they do different things: moving faster than a 4-6" Move army (no paddywagon yet officially for Sharkey's Rogues in the game, sadly) is not hard to do, so Heroic March is already kind of "meh" unless you really want to make sure they can't catch you on a lucky Heroic Move rolloff, and if you were planning to call a Heroic Move and it gets cancelled it's likely that you wanted to charge things instead of moving fast, so Heroic March doesn't really fix the problem.

So while in theory people can call a different heroic action, in reality they can't - at least, they can't get something useful against this specific army. And that's a huge bonus that doesn't cost him a resource: every time they call something (which also makes this really useful against people with free Might Points) and are within 12" of Bill, there's a chance it won't work.

I love this change - makes him useful, makes him unique, big fan (again, inasmuch as anyone is a big fan of Sharkey's Rogues).

#2: Buhrdur, Hill Troll Chieftain

This guy changed a lot from last edition, all in good ways (and wasn't taken hardly ever because he was overshadowed - quite literally - by the Witchking and Gulhavar). For only +15pts (130pts now, which is not much) he's now F7 (which is harder to get to), S7 (so effectively he gets the benefit of Piercing Strike with his old pick but with no Defence reduction), and D7, which on its own is worth 15pts easily. But it only gets better from there.

First, he's now sporting 3 Will instead of 1, making him a bit more resilient against magic. He picked up Brutish Cunning like his hill troll brothers, giving him a reroll in a duel that can stack with a banner reroll, and already he's looking beastly in a fight (and from experience, he is).

But he also got an update on an old rule that is really, really good: instead of his old rule that allowed him, when he killed the enemy army leader, to become a 6" banner for one turn, now he becomes a 3" banner for the rest of the game, and when he kills three heroes and/or monsters, he becomes a 6" banner for the rest of the game.

That's phenomenally good: far better than he was last edition, while still having useful things like General Hunter. And some of this was also present in Rise of Angmar, but if you can believe it, they also made some improvements from that book.

In the Buhrdur's Horde legendary legion, one of the biggest drawbacks in that legion is that he was forced to ambush: you didn't get a choice, so you were playing down your big man (and his warband) for the first two turns. But now in his army list the all-important word "may" appears, so you have a choice on whether or not to ambush with him and his warband. And that's really, really nice.

He plays a lot like the old Buhrdur, but far better, and well prepared to lead his force in a new era (well, inasmuch as any Angmar army can play against a Terror-heavy force, but that's a carry-over from last edition too).

#1: Dragons

I pitched a hard defense for dragons as part of our In Defense Of series years ago, and I stand by all of that from last edition: sure, they probably costed the same amount as the Balrog, and they weren't F10, and they couldn't reach out with a whip to pull you into combat with them, but you know what: I still felt like a 12" Move flying monster with Monstrous Charge and access to Might was better.

But realistically how many people actually ran dragons competitively, right?!?!? Moria was always dominated by the Balrog (or far cheaper goblin heroes), and dragons were mostly a thing of legend. But in the first few months of their return to the game, dragons are BACK IN BLACK, and doing well in the game, so I don't have a problem placing them here, because they have earned this spot.

To start off, they got a 50pt decrease with no reduction in stats/rules: they just dropped to where they probably should have been costed before. But in addition the stats improved: dragons are now F8 (which is really good), Dominant 5 (which is really nice for controlling objectives), and the only tradeoff is that you can't Heroic Strike anymore (which I think is fine: you don't really need it) and you gain Large Target, which, considering the army you're in, doesn't matter that much.

Their upgrades are still 50pts each, which is steep for basically all of them, but all of them have a place and all of them are good (which, I contend, last edition was not true of every upgrade), especially when a dragon is now only 250-300pts (possibly 350, as we'll note below) with 1-2 upgrades.

Fly and Tough Hide haven't changed: still a great way to get added movement (and is an auto-include in my book for every dragon, as I noted years ago in the article), and a great way to make sure wounding you is hard (and thus triggering Survival Instinct is hard), and you get 9 Wounds, which is a LOT of wounds.

Breathe Fire got a tiny rules change, but it makes a world of difference: it doesn't cost a Will Point anymore. So now you can breathe fire every turn if you want with a 2+ Shoot Value (3+ if you move), all of which is good, without cutting into your Will Store for resisting magic and/or passing Survival Instinct Tests, which is also good.

Wyrm Magic still works the same as it always did (free Will Point at the start of the turn, access to spells, but you can technically spend that Will Point to resist magic and/or pass Courage Tests, so it has other options to keep you in the fight and at full power), your casting is really good (3+ for both Compel and Transfix), and you gain Foil Magic on a 4+, so a great way to keep spells from being effective against your force.

And we added a new upgrade, Superior Intellect: the dragon automatically passes all Intelligence checks (which was a 5+ already, so it's not like you were that likely to fail, but you might, so that's nice, especially if you want to use the Hurl brutal power attack), and whenever you spend a Might Point you can roll a D6: on a 4+ the Might Point is free and you don't reduce your store. That's really nice for helping to extend your Might Points, though I do wonder how necessary this is considering you're paying 50pts for basically this ability alone, and I'm not sure it makes that much value back. But as I experiment with it more, time will tell.

And of course this isn't it for dragons: thanks to army special rules they can collect gold (gaining the bonuses we noted above for drakes), your army leader dragon can take 3 upgrades instead of 2 (which is really nice, though admittedly expensive), and the only trade is that your dragons have to have different upgrades, so you can't stack the same upgrades on everyone. But since you're not likely to be playing much higher than 800pts, let's be honest: how many loadouts do you need? I feel like a Wings + Tough Hide, Wings + Fire, and Wings + Magic (which would already be 900pts) would be plenty enough, so purely based on the cost of dragons and the likely points level you're playing at, you won't actually run into this restriction being a big deal, as there's a lot of really useful abilities to choose from.

And as far as improvements go, I don't think it's even close: dragons went from being something most people passed over to being a serious contender for hobby money, and that's why I placed them first.

Conclusion

I did feel bad not including any of the Corsair models on this list, only including one Easterling model, not talking up the Moria Goblin Prowler (which I know everyone really loves), but in my mind they didn't change that much from last edition: they're mostly what we love and come to expect from those profiles. But did I miss any? Did I rank some of the Sharkey's Rogues guys too high? Let us know down below! And don't forget about that thing we talked about, ;)

Watching the stars,

Centaur

"Lie back on the floor," said Firenze in a calm voice, "and observe the heavens.  Here is written, for those who can see, the fortune of our races." ~ Firenze, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix