I love the week leading up to an event - lists are in (usually), spreadsheets are being made, rules are being reviewed, and final practice games are being run. It's always a good time - and I love it all. As is usually the case, there's never one list that has taken my attention during the lead up to an event, so I culled the many thoughts to five lists . . . and those are the ones I will be sharing with you today.
Pick #5: The Garrison of Ithilien
I had a blast with this list - it gets slightly more than 50% shooting thanks to the heroes in it and it has a very healthy model count of 32. I tested several variants of this list, including one that pushed 40 models but didn't have Smeagol and Sam in it. At the end of the day, the biggest limitation on this list is that its only answers to big heroes is its volume of S2 archery and Frodo with the Ring - and I wanted more options:
I still think this list has potential and I really liked the shooting. That did become a bit of the theme of these lists and as a long-time proponent of shooting-heavy lists, perhaps it's not a surprise that I also looked at . . .
This list doesn't get quite as much shooting as the previous list, but it's got 14 Elf bow shots, 1 Dwarf bow shot, 2 sling shots, and possibly 2 throwing weapon shots each turn - which means it might get more shots than the last list! Unlike in the last edition, you can get March in this list - but it's on Thorin and it will only affect the Dwarf hit squad:
This list has a lot going on - Kili and Fili can get banner-like rerolls by swapping places once or twice, Thorin has Orcrist and the Oakenshield, Bofur has Steadfast to shut down nasty spells and special rules (a pretty broad array of rules, actually), and Ori has his annoying sling and resource regen. And we have Gloin, Legolas, and the Elves to kill things - don't forget that. The mobility of this list isn't as good as in other lists, but it hits hard and has answers for a lot of things. I was a bit concerned about the model count, though. As such, I also looked at . . .
Pick #3: The Defenders of Erebor
Dwarves are awesome and Dale has longbows - put 'em together and you can get a surprising number of bodies and some pretty epic heroes:
The Captain is the actual star of the list - he's our source of March and may even copy other heroics. This list needs speed and while a Dale Captain is cheaper, you can't take them with bows anymore - and if you have the option for a melee Dale Captain or an Iron Hills Captain to support your battleline . . . to me, the choice is obvious. This list was a really strong contender, but I got the most reps in with the next two lists and boy do they do the mobility thing better than all these other lists. Also , I don't know that having Dain/Brand is better than Thorin/Bard - jury's out on that one.
But as fun as playing this list was, may I present the list I actually wanted to take . . .
Pick #2: Harad
I want everyone to know that I tried really hard to make this work - and I think this list is incredibly strong in the format that we're playing. There aren't a lot of models to move each turn, the footprint of your army at the start is just the Mumaks, and you have a banner and a General that will be very hard to kill. There's only 8 bows, but there's a lot of threat:
I think a war horn instead of a banner could be better some of the time - the banner might be worth VPs, but the boosted Courage and sneaky Dominant 2 can be super good too. I don't think I can get both in the list at this points level, so I went with the banner (but at 700pts . . . ).
I will say this: I only broke while playing this list once - and it was the only game where I lost both Mumaks. The list lives and dies based on using two models well and since my meta has a good chance of having Castellans, I opted for another really fun list that I think gives me more options . . .
Pick #1 and Tournament List: Ride Out
When I set out to write the Ride Out army list review last year, I did not foresee liking it as much as I do - this is an underrated list and allows you to do something from last edition that you can't do anymore: take a durable version of mounted Aragorn with your Rohan lists. Yes, you get access to Aragorn in other Rohan lists, but this is the mounted version that has armor - and I happened to hit 20 models in an all-cav army:
I considered leaving Gamling with his banner at home, but that 6" radius and improved survivability is really good (even if you never get Might back). Aragorn and Theoden hit hard and I have plenty of guys to ride with them and play the objectives. This list is a really fun list to use and I think it's also quite competitive - and it shoots more than any of the other lists I looked at for this tournament. All in all, a very Tiberius list. :-)
Conclusion
Our tournament is this weekend - hopefully everyone can make it and have a good time. If this train of thought was interesting to you, let us know in the comments below! Until next time, happy hobbying!
No comments:
Post a Comment