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Hey Reader!
We're back with another shire-centric list!!! This is what I knew you DEFINITELY WANTED!!!
And after looking at orc lists recently, I'm not going to lie: it's so freeing to see cheap, horrible, waistcoated infantry again. Never fails to bring me joy.
Today we're looking at the Battle of Greenfields list: the niche part of Shire history where Bandobras "Bullroarer" Took led the hobbits of the Shire to a victory over Golfimbul and his orcs of the north.
Battle of Greenfields: Changes for 2025
Profile Selection
This list didn't technically exist last edition; you could take Bullroarer as part of a Shire list, and if you did you couldn't take any other named heroes (so all of the hobbit heroes), but it was very common to team in people like Gandalf and Rangers, so there were options.
Now it's a full-fledged army list, complete with its own army special rules. So let's dive into those first, and see if it's worth the trade.
Army List Bonuses
There are three army bonuses tied to this list, all of which are useful. First, we have The Bullroarer, where Bandobras gets to declare Heroic Combats for free. This is exactly the same thing Golfimbul gains in his army list, and it's useful because, as a F4 hero with 2 Attacks (3 on the charge against infantry thanks to the horse), he has a reasonable chance of winning fights against warriors, and while he's only S3 (which is high for a hobbit), if he gets a natural 6 to Wound, and it's not blocked by Fate, it deals 2 wounds instead. So he's not bad as a unit removal tool.
Second, Defend the Shire gives all friendly hobbit warriors within 3" of Bandobras Dominant (2), making it even easier to hold objectives, even if you're being cut down. This is something Shire needs to think about: yes, you can stack a lot of bodies on an objective, but if you get pushed on that objective, you'll lost models really, really quickly. So the fact that each of your guys near one objective counts as two, on top of the bodies you already have, is really sweet for keeping you in the fight.
Third, They're Dangerous Folk, Wandering the Wilds gives your Rangers 2 Attacks instead of 1. Now, here at TMAT we've been pretty vocal about how Rangers are underpowered for cost in their current form, and the fact that basically every list gives you 2 Attacks on these makes me think that they should just start with 2 Attacks. But I'll stop complaining: the 2 Attacks makes these guy an excellent attack tool to sprinkle into your lines, which you need.
And finally, The Bounders gives your hobbits (so not your Rangers: this is important) the ability to reroll to-hit rolls of 1 when shooting while wholly within your deployment zone. Now it's worth noting that there are scenarios where your deployment zone is half the map, and there are scenarios where it's closer to 25% of the map, and there are maelstrom missions where you have no deployment zone. So this one scales in effectiveness, but it is a nice bonus to have, since you need to be able to winnow down enemy units, and being able to make your hit chance over 75% (instead of around 66%) helps provide the volume that you need to sneak wounds through.
Now personally I'd take the Alliance Matrix (or heck, even just Gandalf, especially new Gandalf with his firework cart) over this set of bonuses, but hey, it's a start. They are useful, and they do help to cover multiple bases (save one, which we'll discuss), so it is a start.
Profile Adjustments
There have only been a few changes since the last edition for this list, but not many:
- Bullroarer is now 50pts (up from 40pts, which is basically him just paying the extra +10pts for the horse), but he gained a few key benefits. First, he is now F4, which is higher than the F3 from last edition (and is needed, since the list of F4 warriors increased this edition), and he now does 2 wounds when he rolls a natural 6 to wound if it's not blocked with Fate, so his damage output went up a bit (if charging an infantry model, he'll have 6 dice to wound, which is an average of 1 natural 6, so it can come up semi-reliably). He also has Leader (Hobbit Shirriff), so he does allow you to bring a cadre of shirriffs in his warband, but that's the only shirriffs you'll have for your force. He doesn't get access to Woodland Creature anymore like he did last edition, but he only got that on foot, and ideally he'd never be on foot, so honestly it's not much of a loss.
- Rangers of the North get access to Armor now, so they can be D5. That's pretty nice. It's not game-breaking, but it is a nice thing to have access to. They are also Heroes of Fortitude, so they can lead 12 warriors each, which is a really big deal. Cheap heroes with cheap warbands is really, really nice for getting the numbers up.
Otherwise no changes, other than the obvious: the profiles are limited to 3 warriors (hobbit militia, archers, and shirriffs), 2 hero profiles (Bandobras and Rangers of the North), and your best heroes are F4. This comes with drawbacks, which we'll discuss next.
Battle of Greenfields: Strengths and Weaknesses
Perhaps the biggest strength that this force has is numbers: having a single 50pt hero, and your other heroes being 25-30pts (plus option for a spear, but I'd pass on this as we'll discuss later), with only 4-5pt warrior models, is really nice for getting really high numbers. That means a Ranger with armor leading 8 militia and 4 archers (to maximize archery) is an 82pt warband for 13 models (average of 6.3pts/model). That's insane.
One of the biggest drawbacks is their generally low Fight Value. With heroes only sporting F4 (so on-par with rank-and-file infantry and elite troops for most armies), up to 15 F3 Hobbit Shirriffs (which is the bottom tier for most armies), and F1-2 hobbit militia and archers (on-par or lower than the baseline troops for every other army), you are going to lose a lot of fights. And that's just how it goes: you're just in a spot where you may lose a ton of models because you just couldn't win duels. So plan for that.
Another advantage of this army is good shooting. With a 3+ Shoot on every model, and at least throwing stones (if not shortbows are human bows) on every single model, you can field so much more shooting than your average opponent. And with the new limits on throwing weapons in addition to bows this edition, it's one of the rare lists that can actually field 100% shooting. Which is awesome (if you like/trust shooting).
Another drawback of this list is their generally short range. Not a big issue if you're fighting at night, but it is a big issue if you're fighting most armies. With S1-2 ranged weapons, you need time to actually do damage to the enemy, even if you get 50+ shots at a low points limit. And the 8" throwing stones (which can't move and shoot in the same turn), 18" shortbows (so 1-2 rounds of reliably shooting) and 24" range on your human bows (rangers only, which is only 2-3 rounds of reliably shooting), it's not a lot of chances to get your wounds in, especially when you factor in the chance of In the Way rolls.
But one of the biggest weaknesses of this list is no banner access. Now this is one issue I have with the new edition: if you're going to change how scoring works to make banner VPs more common, and if you're going to get rid of the Alliance Matrix for covering bases that aren't in a base list, and if you're going to review every single profile for adjustments, then why doesn't every army have a banner option? This makes no sense to me. And in this case it's doubly punishing for Battle of Greenfields: not only do you have a low chance of winning duels as it is due to a low Fight Value (so rerolls would be necessary to help you capitalize on sub-6 rolls for your opponent), but you are very possibly starting down on the VP count purely because of list building. That's an issue, and you need to know that's the case before running this army.
It also lacks magic. Sometimes a weaker, softer army can survive if it has sufficient magic to topple an enemy, and while they have excellent magic defense (yay for hobbits all having Magic Resistance), not having magic or other tools to help deal with power heroes, fast-moving anything, or other heavy shooting lists opens you up to a lot of issues.
We're not done yet, :P It has issues with mobility: with a single mounted model (who is also your army leader, and gets bonuses for being near your super slow models), a handful of 6" Move models, and the rest of the army is 4" Move, this army has to be very intentional about where you move in the Move Phase. And with no access to Heroic March, this is a very, very important part of the game: Move Phases always are for every army, but even more so for this one (even more than the other Shire-style armies, which have access to dogs and/or Heroic March to get them to different places).
So with the knowledge that this is not an A-Tier army list, let's talk about how to get the most out of it.
Battle of Greenfields: Strategies for the Tabletop
First things first, let's talk about army composition: I do think that maxing out shirriffs in Bullroarer's warband is a good idea. Shirriffs offer, for 5pts, a F3 base (which is helpful) with the ability to two-hand (so you can become effectively S4, which you may need), and has a reliable Courage and Intelligence check, which you may need. It's not losing too many bodies, but
From a hero perspective, you have to take Bandobras Took, which is fine because for his cost he's an incredible slayer against enemy warriors (especially infantry). Add in Rangers for Might and shooting across the board is really nice, but it still leaves a lot of gaps in our inventory. I do tend to think that armor is a good idea; D5 isn't better against S3, but it does help against S2 archery (which is nice) and against S4 melee attacks (which may come in useful), so since our numbers aren't bad, and 30pts is still cheap, I'd plan on going for durability and taking the armor.
Next your warrior choices are pretty straightforward. Shirriffs are useful, naturally, and you'll probably want 33% Hobbit Archers just to take advantage of your army special rules and do some damage at longer ranges to help you melee. Militia are cheap, but everything is cheap, so cutting into these numbers isn't going to hurt your overall take.
I think there is an interesting question of whether to go all-archers in specific warbands and all-militia in other warbands: you can do this (it makes it easier to do deployment in some cases), but it's not strictly necessarily with good placement.
It's also not a bad idea, if you think Courage is going to be an issue, to bring a War Horn on one of your archers; you have the points, and having that bump to Courage could be a really big boon to your force.
So with all of this in mind, let's look at what your army could look like.
Sample Lists
To start off, we'll take a look at a 500pt "Budget" list, showcasing just how many bodies you can bring at even this points level:
First off, you'll notice that at 500pts we already have almost 70 models, and if we were willing to drop the war horn, some of our 22 bows (between hobbit archers and Rangers of the North), or converting shirriffs to militia, we could break 70 models. So that's already an impressive swarm: a true horde (average of 7.1pts/model).
I opted for the War Horn to cover Courage issues, but also because these lists are boring as it is due to limited options, so I might as well spice something up, :P But yes: you can easily add another 5-6 models if you drop the war horn.
At 650pts we're just going to lean into this some more:
This list just doubles down on it: we have 8pts left over but we're out of slots, so you can possibly promote models, add spears (as we have 6 rangers), or heck, add another war horn so you have redundancy in case someone snipes a warn horn, but honestly I don't think it matters much. The result is the same: 94 models at 650pts (which is 6.9pts/model), all capable of shooting, and 30 of these are bows.
Now one of the things worth discussing is the 12x Milita v. 12x Archers in a warband. You can mix them, and that's fine for some things, but I tend to find that since there are likely some parts of the map that will be more open and some that will be pretty dense, it can be useful to not have small pockets of archers scattered around, and instead have them working in unison to leverage your firepower. Add onto this that, in areas that are really open, you can line up a ranger with 6 militia on either side, and then line up another ranger with 6 archers on either side of him in a second rank, and suddenly you have semi-protected archers who can support the rest of your force easily deployed. Hence that loadout.
And as we look at 800pts, we (unsurprisingly) break 100 models:
Look at that: 118 models at 800pts (that's 6.8pts/model), all shooting, including 42 bows, and with 2 slots left you can technically hit 120 if you drop some archers/shirriffs for militia. Which is crazy!
It's the only real thing this list can do - push out numbers and shots - but hey: it's pretty dang good at that, and hopefully your rangers hold the line in close combat with their 2 Attacks.
Conclusion
The list is limited in what it can do, and it really only has one path: push with numbers, especially numbers of shooting. But hey: if you like that skew, lean into it! This list can do it, and it can do it with
Watching the stars,
Centaur
"We watch the skies for the great tides of evil or change that are sometimes marked there." ~ Firenze, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
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