The New Age Is Begun: The Army of Lake-town

Good morning gamers,

One of our readers asked when we'd do the Army of Lake-town - and I mentioned that I needed to do Thorin's Company first. This post closes out "Dwarf month" and it features . . . exactly four Dwarves. It also has one Elf and that makes it an interesting bridge into the month of May, which will be Elf month. Yes, we're reviewing the Army of Lake-town today - an army that used to be super powerful in the last edition and now really does need to lean into the non-Lake-town elements of the list (which, if we're honest, was always the strength of the Army of Lake-town last edition - see our Bare Necessities post for more on that, which did cover adding in Gwaihir, but not from the Misty Mountains list so he didn't have to be your army leader).

Army of Lake-town: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

This list has all of the old profiles that you'd expect - the Master of Lake-town, Alfrid, Braga, and Lake-town Guard Captains for your conventional heroes, Lake-town Guard as your only warrior option, and then Alfrid, Bard, and Bard's kids as "the rest of it." This edition, however, we have the guests of Bard's home as well - Tauriel, Kili, Fili, Oin, and Bofur (though notably . . . not Legolas . . . I guess he didn't stay long enough?). These additional heroes are the only way to "ally in" non-Lake-town bodies, which is good because Lake-town has always had fine-not-great profiles that you can buy on a budget to make space for something really strong (and something that's usually better than Bard).

Army List Bonuses

This list has some of the standard rules constraints for mixed-list armies - your Lake-town Guard can only be led by Lake-town Heroes and Bard's Family can be included either in Bard's warband or in Tauriel's warband. Tauriel's warband can also take the Dwarves, which could be useful if you know maelstrom might be a thing.

There are four special rules that help the army out a bit - the Master can give one of his Will points at the end of his activation to Braga if he's within 3" of the Master, which is useful for triggering one of Braga's special rules, but the Master does want Will points for himself as well so this is not necessarily a valuable rule. Like last edition, Bard and his kids can't affect the other Lake-town heroes with their Heroic Actions - nothing new and honestly, I don't see this as a problem rule for reasons we'll see in the profile discussion below. Tauriel not only gets the option to take Dwarves in her warband, but she also gets +1 To Wound when making Strikes while within 3" of a friendly Dwarf who is Engaged in Combat - perfect for getting more damage out of her Heroic Combats (and part of a growing trend to increase the lethality of non-mountable heroes). Finally, your Dwarf models reroll failed To Wound rolls when making shooting or melee attacks - this is clutch and super good for increasing the damage output of Kili, Fili, and Bofur.

All in all, the rules are fine - some localized buffs that really do incentivize taking Tauriel and the Dwarves, but perhaps at the cost of some old staples. Let's see how the profiles have changed (some of this will be familiar from the last post).

Profile Adjustments

The list of models today is slightly less than last time - but let's review how these heroes have changed this edition:

• Master of Lake-town has seen a lot of change since the MESBG revamp in 2018. He's 70pts now and has a very poor combat profile (F3/S3/1A), but does give you a very reliable hide-in-the-third-rank General (though a bit squishy with D4/2 Wounds/2 Fate). He needs to be kind of near the action to give +1 Fight Value/banner rule to the Lake-town combat units (not Bard) and to allow those same units to either reroll all failed To Wound rolls (Braga) or rerolling 1s To Wound (Lake-town Guards/Captains). The biggest limitation of this guy is that his utility is largely tied to both spending Will points and having Will points left - and with only 4 in his store and the only reliable way to get them back is standing in base contact with an objective marker (which may or may not be on the board), you have to be very judicious with his Will store and need to be particularly careful of magical powers that do damage. Last edition, he was often stapled to Alfrid, but I'm not sure you want him anymore . . .
• Alfrid is 30pts and used to be able to reliably dump 2-3 Might into a friendly Lake-town hero at the start of the game (or during the game for some players) by spending his Will points to create Might points. Alfrid's Dubious Counsel rule was really good in the last edition because it was predictable - spend a Will point, get a not-1 and the target Lake-town hero (like Bard or one of his daughters) gets a Might point. If you do get a 1, then the target lost a Might point (hence why targeting a daughter who doesn't start with Might) and Alfrid gets a Might point. With the revamp, Alfrid has a Might point to start with, but his Dubious Counsel bonuses are far more varied (and often not as useful as a Might point). Half of the bonuses help combat heroes - on a 3, the target rerolls 1s (which is really for Bard/combat guys who are not near the Master), on a 4 you get Fearless, and on a 5 you get +1 Fight Value. The result of a 6 is universally useful (getting a Might point back is always good) and the result of a 2 is situationally useful in that getting Will back would be good for the Master or Braga if he's fighting off magic attacks. A 1 still does a Might-point-trade, but I think that's fine. I will note that Alfrid can modify the roll by spending Will . . . but since there's no way for him to get Will points back, one could think that he's able to give a Might point back to someone on a 4+ . . . but if that's all he's bringing, I don't think he's worth it. Personally, I'd leave Alfrid at home - his reliability is far too low to make him a meaningful add to the list.
• Bard the Bowman has always been really expensive for a D4-5 hero. In this list, he can't take armor, so he's D4 - and for 130pts, you can get 3-4 Dwarves for Bard (depending on whether you think he needs his kids or the Windlance). Bard's still a great shooter with 1-3 shots with a S4 Great Bow and Swift Shot (no scoot-and-shoot penalty) - and if you take his kids, he passes all Courage test while they're alive (and as they did last edition, he becomes F6 and can declare free Heroic Combats to save them while he's near them). He also gains a banner-like reroll near them, which is nice. Bard's got a lot of cool rules, but he's a HUGE tax (either costing you the same amount as the Dwarves in this list or costing the same as a full warband of Lake-town Guards led by a Lake-town Guard Captain. I know Bard is great, but I don't think he's worth that trade. I will note that this is the only list where you can take Bard with his Great Bow or the Windlance . . . so that's something we'll talk about later, but I don't think his shooting is enough to justify getting him in a list.
• Bard's Family is now a single choice, which is good for Bain, since he was a hard inclusion last edition. The girls are great if you have Bard - they help give him good stats and it's hard for them to actually be in trouble if you stay near a friendly warband. You have the option to take them with Tauriel, but I wouldn't - they don't give her anything and for 60pts, you can get a Lake-town Guard Captain and a Lake-town Guard with a spear or bow - those two guys are going to do more than Bain (F3/S3/2A near his sisters?) or the girls, who aren't lending any rules to anyone other than Bard.
• Kili is still 50pts and has D5/light armor (so D6 against shooting attacks) and 2 Fate now. Besides that . . . he's basically what he used to be. Combat Synergy is better now, as any flip-flopping of position between Fili and Kili gives them a banner-like reroll AND they can be within 1" of each other instead of in base contact. All in all, a great profile (and he has the option to shoot with a decent shooting profile).
• Fili is similarly still 50pts and still has a nearly identical profile to Kili (Heroic Strength over Heroic Accuracy, throwing weapons instead of a Dwarf bow). He still has "hand weapons" of an unspecified number, so functionally he also has weapon master - which has been and still is cool but mostly irrelevant. If you're interested in taking one of these guys, you should probably take them both - and for 100pts, they're a good bargain.
• Braga, Captain of the Guard is probably your third choice of hero in this list (after the Master and Tauriel) - he's your named March hero (though he only has 2 Might now), he gives Lake-town Guards/Captains Dominant (2), and deals a surprising amount of damage with the option to flex into Heroic Defense. He did lose the "free heroic action on a 4+ if near the Master" rule that he had last edition, which is a shame. While he does have March, I think the option for Heroic Defense (and an unreliable amount of buffed Might from Alfrid) means you probably don't want him to be your only March Captain. I think you also want . . .
• Lake-town Guard Captains are your generic March option and since you don't have any cavalry models (and Braga got downgraded to 2 Might), you probably want to have at least one of these guys in your army. For 45pts, the cost of a Captain, Braga, and the Master is only 175pts, which means you can easily get three full warbands for under 500pts. I don't know that you NEED full warbands, but if you want them, they're yours - and if fielded alongside Tauriel, Kili, and Fili, you can easily get a 650-700pt army with a good amount of models.
• Oin is 50pts now (up 5 from last edition) and gained a Will point and a special rule. His Healing Herbs rule still requires you to be in base contact (though it's at any point in your move) - healing is rare in SBG, so while there were no changes to how this rule works, it's still a good rule to have. Additionally, Reading the Portents hasn't really changed much - Oin can spend his 5 Will points to provide a banner-like reroll and can do so as many times as he wants during a round, so long as he has the Will to spend. He also got a new rule (Hearing Trumpet), which gives him a pseudo-Master-of-Battle-(5+), but if he gets a natural 1, he has to spend a Will point or can't move for the turn . . . which is fine, I think. It's important to note that the banner-like reroll and the healing is only available to his fellow Dwarves - not any of the Lake-town models or . . .
• Tauriel is the primary character you want to bring in this list - she's way cheaper than Bard (less than half of the cost of Bard and his kids), her Blade Mistress rule has always made her fantastic into a mobs of people, she gets +1 To Wound when near a Dwarf hero (who are bargain fighters in this list), and she's got a shooting option if you want to sit back and wait for your opponent to engage. She's fantastic and really is only missing either a mount or free Heroic Combats to be a top-tier hero. Take her all the time - without Bard's kids, of course. She also picked up Expert Shot and Sharpshooter this edition, which makes her a much better ranged threat, which is nice.
• Bofur got some stock-increase when the ruling on how Steadfast "works" came out a few FAQs ago. For 45pts, he has a pretty average profile for Thorin's Company (2 Might/1 Will/2 Fate), and with D5/light armor, he's reasonably defensible for costing what he does. He's got a mattock (two-handed weapon with the old Bash special strike), but mostly you're bringing him so that you can turn off those nasty special rules and magical powers that target your Thorin's Company models - turning off rules like Monstrous Charge, Terror, or Harbinger of Evil (to say nothing of any number of magical powers) is HUGE when you're relying on heroes like Kili or Fili to clear out troops. It's important to note that while this rule might keep Kili and Fili going, it will do nothing for the majority of your army, especially Tauriel.
• Lake-town Guard are 7pts base now and boy do they not feel worth it. They're Warriors of Rohan with -1 Courage for +1 point (if equipped with a bow, which is the closest points comparison we can make). Rerolling 1s near the Master of Lake-town is fine, but definitely not worth paying 1pt/model. The points cost seems to include getting Dominant (2) from Braga and/or getting +1 Fight Value from the Master of Lake-town - if you're taking both of these guys, they're probably fine, but golly do they seem a bit expensive for 7-8pts/model.

That's a fun list of units - let's see what this list does well (and where it lags behind a little)!

Army of Lake-town: Strengths and Weaknesses

This list retains Lake-town's greatest strength from the last edition: the ability to bring a lot of average-stat models to support one or two strong pieces, regardless of the points level. While you can't get Gwaihir or Galadriel/Lady of Light in the list anymore, you can get Tauriel and <your choice of Dwarf> for about the same cost as either of them. Theoretically Bard is on the list too (more on him in the next section), but regardless of who you have as your "hitting piece," you should be able to get 30 models with the Master and Braga and 27 warriors for 7-8pts each (this should cost you less than 350pts). Lake-town used to be able to do this a bit better when Alfrid was better (he's always been pretty cheap) and the Lake-town guys cost 5pts/model without gear (ah, those were the days) but this is still fine in the current game.

That said, the list has pretty average stats, and most importantly, it has pretty average Defense. The Dwarves of Thorin's Company don't feel like they're lacking that much in the armor department compared to everyone else (being D5 in melee and D6 against bows for all but Oin), but that's not a good sign for the rest of the list! We should be happy that the Lake-town Guard have full armor instead of light armor (like the Lake-town Militia have), but D4 isn't great and D3-5 on their heroes isn't great either (Sigrid and Tilda are only D2!). This army doesn't have access to Blinding Light anymore, so you'll need to decide how best to get across the board and into the enemy without it . . . and I'm not excited about those chances unless you REALLY up your numbers (hence why I think Bard stays home).

The list does power up Tauriel and the Dwarves - Tauriel becomes a real blender in this list and there's no prohibition on them benefiting from Lake-town heroics (or that the Lake-town heroics wouldn't work on them), so they can March up with the rest of the army and then lead the charge into the enemy (rerolling all failed To Wounds for the Dwarves and getting +1 To Wound for Tauriel). This list seems to work a lot like the Road to Rivendell list in that you have a lot of power locked into a handful of units - but unlike that list, you can also have a lot of guys to sit on objectives and give you space to work.

That said, this isn't the best selection of Dwarves that we could have from Thorin's Company. I know, thematically these are the only four Dwarves who were still in town, I get it - but Thorin's Company was welcomed and outfitted by the men of the Lake - would it be so bad to have them and Bilbo as options in the list? Would it really? We'll be talking more about Thorin's Company next time, but understand that while Kili and Fili are great for their cost, this list would benefit from having combat heroes more akin to the Gwaihirs and Galadriels of old - and they don't have them.

Finally, this list has a lot of synergies in it - but you'll need to manage your resources carefully. I don't know if this is more of a positive or a negative, but it certainly has elements of both. On the one hand, being able to make 7-8pt models F4 with a banner for several turns is a steal for 70pts on the Master - and that battle line can remain F4 with banner support if they're guarding an objective marker all game long. At the same time, if your opponent targets the Master with magic (no more Sap Will - that one used to be REALLY bad into him!) that needs to be resisted or he does, you're going to see those synergies disappear. Furthermore, if the Master runs out of Will, Braga will lose some of his rules. If Braga gets targeted by magic and runs out of Will, then he'll lose ALL of his rules. All in all, it's a pretty delicate house of cards that you're building - but if you can keep your Will up, you're probably in a good place.

Army of Lake-town: Strategies for the Tabletop

Let's start off the strategy section by talking about Bard. As I mentioned in the profile discussion above, this is the only list where Bard can take a Great Bow or the Windlance - and oddly enough, this is the one list where everyone seems to not work with Bard very well! You could opt for Bard instead of Tauriel and a Dwarf - Bard might do more damage with shooting, but only marginally more than a 2-shot Tauriel and a 1-shot Kili with S3 arrows and sometimes he won't get 3 shots on target. Bard is a bit pricey with the Windlance, but he does give you an option for shooting into dangerous pieces with it. While I'm a huge fan of shooting, I think the shooting capabilities for Bard just aren't reliable enough to justify leaving an entire warband at home or skipping on Tauriel and Kili (who, if viewed like Bard as "I can shoot, but I can also fight" pieces, I think the two of them together are certainly a better investment). So yes . . . shooting Bard just doesn't seem worth it to me - but if you think I'm wrong, tell me why in the comments. :)

As for the rest of the army, I highly recommend using some kind of Pac-Man/Millenium Falcon formation or Bow-Tie formation to March your army up the board. Resource management with this list is paramount and you don't want to be burning Might on Marches in multiple places. These formations tuck your March hero deep into your ranks so you can maximize the area available for Marching models, as well as keeps them safe from enemy archery (the bow-tie does this less effectively, but that formation is designed around mobility, so that's to be expected). An all-infantry list that has average-to-low Defense needs to be able to boogie quickly and efficiently - use something like the formations above to do that!

I'd also recommend keeping Tauriel and the Dwarves together at all times (so Tauriel gets better and so the Dwarves don't get caught in the open), but also make sure at least one warband of Lake-town guys are near them. You don't need the Master near them, per se, but you definitely want some bodies making sure that Tauriel and the Dwarves get the matchups they want, not the ones your opponent wants. If your opponent uses the 2-4-8 principle I laid out in a math post a while ago, overwhelming the Dwarves will not be hard (he only needs 4-8 dice with a lower Fight Value to beat them more than half the time). The 2-4-8 principle only goes up to how to beat your opponent when he's rolling 1-3 dice with the higher Fight Value because you get to 20 dice (I think? Might be higher than that) if he's rolling four . . . like Tauriel does. In instances like that, you're not trying to have better odds outright - you're hoping and praying that there's a flub on the part of the good hero. This explains why Aragorn, Glorfindel, and Gwaihir win so much when they charge - it's statistically very likely that they're going to get a good highest dice score!

I wouldn't keep the Master near Tauriel and the Dwarves all the time - you're going to need to maximize his real estate to make room for Lake-town guys who can benefit from his banner reroll. Yes, you could have a spearman supporting Tauriel, Kili, Fili, or Bofur to give a reroll to their fight, but only the Lake-town dice will be affected, so while it's good, it's not the same as a full reroll in the fight. If you find that you have to find in two places, having one Captain warband assisting Tauriel and the Dwarves while the Master and Braga hold the other location seems like a decent split of resources. Fight together when you can (and if you can kill heroes near the Master, you can get him some Will back!), but know who needs to be with whom if you find that you have to split up. Since the Master will have a limited clock in most scenarios for buffing the Lake-town guys, you want as many of them around to benefit as possible - so just keep that in mind. 

Finally, remind your opponent about the Master's Price of Green special rule. Your opponent has to pick one of his models who can try to bribe the Master during the game - that's not optional! If you find out late in the game that your opponent didn't pick someone at the start of the game, there isn't going to be an easy way to figure out what your opponent would have done at the start of the game . . . and potentially losing the Master means VPs in most scenarios. Do yourself and your opponent a favor and just remind them that there's a rule that needs to be handled . . . and then keep the Master safe-ish. :)

Okay, let's tackle some lists!

Sample Lists

At 500pts, we have the five minimum heroes that we want - the Master, Braga, a Lake-town Guard Captain, Tauriel, and a Dwarf to trigger Tauriel's killing-mode rule. I've opted for Kili because he brings a Dwarf bow, but if you don't want Vengeful Fury to trigger, you could take Fili instead. Ideally, we'd have both brothers in the list to make them a bit more reliable in combat, but I think this is fine:

Scaling up to 650pts, we can get to nearly 40 models with a healthy company of Dwarves and the same Lake-town heroes:

I think anything above 650pts doesn't feel great with this list, but we can get to 46 models at 750 by basically adding another Lake-town Guard Captain warband . . . and once you reach that point, you've probably reached the end of the line:

Conclusion

I have to be honest, I haven't collected this list and I'm less interested in it this edition than I was last edition. The lack of the alliance matrix certainly contributes to that, but also I think this list has a very narrow band of points levels where it doesn't feel like it's doing the copy-paste things that some other lists have to do. All in all, I hope someone out there likes it - it looks really cool - but I'm going to stick to the Rangers of Mirkwood if I want Tauriel to work alongside Thorin's Company. Speaking of which, next week we're kicking off Elf month with the Rangers of Mirkwood! This army list has changed a lot (it has access to March now, for one thing - but it's pretty restrictive) and I think it's better this edition than it was last edition. Find out what changed and how to make this list work next time - and until then, happy hobbying!