Good morning gamers,
This July, we'll be digging into the wild men of Dunland - we've already looked at the Army of the White Hand (which is really mercenary Dunland to Isengard), but this month, we'll be pivoting to Dunland as a primary faction and mostly focusing on the armies from the War of the Rohirrim. These guys are really fun to run and the new sculpts that they have are gorgeous! Let's dig in and see the first of these lists (and one that has been very strong in the international meta): the Usurpers of Edoras.
The Usurpers of Edoras: Changes for 2025
Profile Selection
This list only has five hero profiles and three warrior profiles - that's all. The good news is that the profiles we have are, generally speaking, just fine for what we need. We have Freca and Thorne who provide tactical bonuses, we have Targg for some tactical and some combat bonuses (more on him throughout), Hill Tribes Chieftains for Marching your army around, and Wulf for hammering through the enemy.
From a warrior profile perspective, we have fast strategic units with Crebain and we have two very flexible unit options for our grunts with Rohirrim Traitors (max of 12) and Hill Tribesmen. With the changes that have been made this edition to the old Wild Man of Dunland profile, these two unit options give us basically everything we'd want except mounted warriors (and heavy infantry - that was never going to be on the table). The bench is light, but this does give us the points we need to get some splurge options for gear and to really bolster our numbers. This can be helped out dramatically by our army list bonuses . . .
There are two army list rules that you need to know (but also require very little brain space to remember): if you take Freca, he's your General and you can only take Rohirrim Traitors in Lord Thorne's warband (more on both of these guys throughout this post). So . . . to restate . . . always take Freca and Thorne-with-a-full-warband-of-
Other than that, there are two rules that the army gets: your Hill Tribesmen and Hill Tribes Chieftains get a 6+ save against all wounds they take and friendly Dunland models (everyone except Lord Thorne and the Rohirrim Traitors - include Crebain!) get +1 To Wound when making Strikes against enemy heroes. This won't help your bows kill enemy heroes faster, but it will make trapped heroes go down sooner. Also, Wulf hits a lot harder - but more on him later.
We don't have a lot of profiles today - and a few of them are basically repeats of the Dunland options in some of the Isengard lists we looked at last year:
- Freca, Lord of the West March is, in my humble opinion, a must-take in this army. He's 80 points (and becomes your General), has 3 Might for Heroic Moves, is sort of resilient with D6/2 Wounds/1 Fate, and isn't terrible on offense with F5/S4/2A and the aforementioned 3 Might. He's got Hatred (Rohan) - like a lot of people in this list - but also gives a +1 bonus to friendly Dunland Warrior Fight Value within 6" of him - and if the enemy General is killed near him, he's treated as a 6" bannerby all friendly Dunland models. With 15 models in his warband, he's pretty efficient and very useful for supporting a Dunland battle line.
- Wulf, High Lord of the Hill Tribes is your assassination piece - and boy are his sculpts intricate! For 130pts mounted, he's got good offensive stats with F6/S4/3A and 3-Might-and-Strike (as well as a banner-like reroll and rerolling 1s To Wound when fighting heroes - which may be a trap, more on that later) and fine-not-great defensive stats with D5/3 Wounds/2 Fate. He definitely doesn't want to be shot at by S3+ ranged weapons and he's TERRIFIED of Legolas, but he hits hard and he's pretty well costed all things considered.
- General Targg is . . . really expensive. For 80pts on foot and 100pts mounted, he's fine on offense with F5/S4/2A with 2 Might and Heroic Defense/March and fine on defense with D5/2 Wounds/2 Fate. With Master of Battle (4+), he might get some extra heroics, but that's purely based on you positioning him well and your opponent being forced to call heroics near him before he has to call. You can also give priority to your opponent to reroll 1s To Wound when making Strikes with Dunland Warriors near him . . . which isn't enough of a reason to hand over priority on its own (but if you wanted to hand it over anyway . . . sure, that's a bonus?). Personally, I'd leave him at home and instead take . . .
- Lord Thorne of the Wold is a lot like Freca - I think you want to take this guy every time. His stats are very similar to Targg's (F5/S4/2A with 2 Might on offense, D6/2 Wounds/1 Fate on defense) and like Targg, he's a Hero of Fortitude. He gives you access to Rohirrim Traitors (and can only take them) and Rohirrim Traitors within 6" of him get +1 Fight Value, which makes them F4 troops. At the moment, these guys are the only source the army has to a banner AND are the only source the army has to a war horn (very useful considering the relatively bad Courage stats of the army). All in all, for 70pts, I think this guy is well worth taking along with a full warband of Rohirrim Traitors (more on their loadout later).
- Hill Tribes Chieftains are your basic generic heroes and are half the cost of General Targg (40pts before gear) and have 2-Might-and-March for getting your infantry up the field. I love these guys and think you probably want at least one of them in your army. While you can certainly take a two-handed weapon on a Chieftain, you don't need the light shields - paying points for the ability to defend by shielding just isn't worth it.
- Hill Tribesmen are basically Wild Men of Dunland and are REALLY different from the way the unit was before - they're still perfectly good without extra gear if you need to save some points, but they can take spears for 1pt, flaming brands for Terror (Cavalry) and effectively Dominant (2) for 1pt, and bows for 1pt (incredibly useful in a horde list like this). I wouldn't bother with taking light shields (on their own or with flaming brands) - as was just said, paying 1pt to defend by shielding isn't worth it. Because Hill Tribesmen with one piece of gear costs 6pts, I would never take more than 5 Hill Tribesmen without extra gear - if you can take 6, you should take 5 guys with a piece of gear each (bows, spears, or flaming brands). Note: at the time of this article, we have seen a preview of some new Hill Tribesman models, including a banner bearer and a horn blower - the stock of these models is will increase when an errata allows them to take those pieces of war gear.
- Crebain are the talk of the town right now - 20pts for a fast mover (who can't snag objectives, but can contest them) with 4 Wounds and can't be trapped is pretty great. In this list, of course, they also help Saruman get angles for casting that he probably doesn't want to expose himself to get, which is wild and crazy. Competitive players will tell you to take at least 6 of these guys - I got a pack from Rythbyrt for Christmas and have converted a that pack of two Crebain into eight, so . . . yeah, I guess that's an endorsement. :)
- Rohirrim Traitors are Warriors of Rohan with Hatred (Rohan). Shields are excellent on these guys, with throwing spears being a good optional choice if you a) plan to have Hill Tribesmen in your front rank, b) you want to lean into shooting, and c) you want your F4 to be protected by a rank of chaff. Generally speaking, however, I opt for the shield and have them as my front-rank units so you have F4/D5 guys at the foreground with slightly cheaper spearmen behind - but go the other way if you want to.
Not a lot of units, but we have a lot of options. Let's see what this list is giving us and where it falls a little flat . . .
The Usurpers of Edoras: Strengths and Weaknesses
Let's start off with the fact that pretty much everything in this list is cheap. Heroes of Valour that are in the 80-130pts are well costed and if they're leading 10-13 models that are 5-6pts each (Hill Tribesmen) along with a handful of Crebain, you get a good number of models for not a lot of points. The Fortitude heroes vary from 40-100pts (70pts if you don't take Targg), and leading 80-85pts of warriors for non-Thorne heroes and leading ~135pts of warriors with Thorne means you can also get a lot of models at any points level. You need to play at a high points level to get everything you want in a list, but even at low points levels, you can get a heap ton of guys that will cover most of your bases.
This list may be a horde army, but its units are very squishy. There are some units that hit D6 (Freca and Thorne), a few that are D5 (Targg, Wulf, and likely most of your Rohirrim Traitors), some D4 units (Hill Tribes Chieftains and technically Hill Tribesmen to shooting attacks), but most of your units are D3 (Hill Tribesmen and Crebain). D3 units - and even D4 units - get killed pretty quickly by most things, so you're definitely going to need to have a lot of models to keep from getting blown off the table. You'll also need to have redundancy built into holding objectives, because a stray arrow could cause you a lot of problems (and repositioning most of the units in this army is quite hard).
This army also has access to Crebain, which solve a lot of problems. It's no secret, Crebain are fabulous - they're hard to shoot at directly, they can't be knocked Prone/count as trapped, they have more Wounds than most heroes have Attacks, and they're able to Fly very quickly to where you need units to be. The only downside these guys have (and it's both a big deal and a small one) is that they can't pick up objectives this edition - this means you still need a plan for getting to the Prizes in the middle of the board or to dig up heirlooms wherever they are on the board, but you can still hop onto and hold objectives in games like Domination or Breakthrough and you can destroy objectives in scenarios like Destroy the Supplies. They're a very positive add to the list and I'd definitely forego some warriors/gear to get some in your list.
One other downside, however, to this list is that it doesn't have a lot of options for dealing with enemy heroes. Yes, Wulf gets +1 To Wound with rerolling 1s if he beats heroes and he gets a dueling die reroll to help him get that win, but against heroes who aren't out of resources, he very well could find himself taking as much of a beating as he deals (or worse!). Also, Wulf is one of the few scary things in this list, so if your plan is to send him like a rocket into someone fairly big, your opponent may be able to dodge him instead. Freca gets a 6" banner rule if you can kill the enemy general and Wulf is probably your best tool for doing that, but if you find yourself against a hero too big for Wulf to handle (Sauron, the Balrog, arguably Aragorn, possibly any version of Thorin/Helm/Azog, heroes who are happy to hide like Saruman/Galadriel/Denethor), you're going to be in trouble. This is a soft critique of the list - you have tools like shooting that might be able to do something, but just be aware that you may need to "just use warriors/Crebain" to force out resources so Wulf can work his way to the hero after they're out of resources.
Okay, let's look at some strategies for using this list!
The Usurpers of Edoras: Strategies for the Tabletop
We're going to start off by talking about Lord Thorne's warband. I think you definitely want Thorne in your lists (70pts) and you probably want to also take a Rohirrim Traitor with banner (31pts) and a Rohirrim Traitor with war horn/shield/throwing spears (34pts). These three models are 135pts, which means we can add 10 Rohirrim Traitors with shields (70pts) so we can have a full warband for 205pts that gives us a banner, a war horn, and a 10-man or 11-man frontline to start with. This is . . . kind of ridiculous. You can optionally add 20pts by taking 10 throwing spears on these guys too - they can either shoot with their spears as throwing weapons or support front-line models if they want to, but if you don't have the points, don't worry about it.
Next, we need to talk about Freca's warband - like Thorne's warband, this group can be F4 and while I think you could take 15 Hill Tribesmen, I think this is a great warband for putting most of your Crebain. In the lists you'll see below, this is your all-around warband that can provide supporting tools to your army, but Freca doesn't want to be in danger, necessarily, so having units like bowmen, flaming brand tribesmen, and Crebain allows you to be cautious with his initial deployment and then respond to how your opponent is deploying and covering your bases. You can put basically anything you want in this warband.
You probably want a Hill Tribes Chieftain warband as well - I'm going to recommend at least a 100pt warband with the 40-point Chieftain and 10 men (10 spears to support the Rohirrim Traitors). Based on what else you have in your army, you might put a Crebain in here or mix in some bowmen/flaming brands - but if you lean hard into the spears, you definitely want this warband supporting Thorne's warband and getting them where they're supposed to go.
Next we need to talk about Wulf. While I think there's a very strong temptation to take him at every points level, I'd like to point out that a full warband featuring a Hill Tribes Chieftain with 11 Tribesmen and 1 Crebain is roughly the same cost as Wulf on a horse. Since Wulf's warband is likely to cost you over 100pts (assuming there's at least one Crebain), it's quite likely that by taking Wulf, you're losing a warband and at least 10 models. For some players, that may be an acceptable cost . . . but most heroes have to spend a Might point to call a Heroic Combat to avoid spending an entire turn fighting one Hill Tribesman . . . so having 10 more blokes seems like an acceptable alternative to me. Personally, I don't take Wulf until you hit 700pts - but look at the lists below and decide if you can drop 10 models to get Wulf in your list.
Finally, we need to talk about Targg. This guy, I think, has a better place in the Besiegers of the Hornburg who we'll look at next week. In this list, he's 80pts on foot, which is the same as:
- 2 Hill Tribes Chieftains, who can lead +9 warriors and has more overall Might (unless Targg can get Master of Battle to trigger twice), though each individual hero is worse than Targg;
- 1 Hill Tribes Chieftain and 2 Crebain, which gives you a better way to blunt enemy heroes than counting on Heroic Defense from Targg (though you still have a weaker profile on the Chieftain); or
- Freca, who I think gives a better support capability with F4 Tribesmen than anything Targg is providing.
While you can certainly put Targg on a horse, I don't think that alters the comparison in his favor at all and may even make things worse. For me personally, I'd leave him at home in this list and save him for the besiegers (maybe - more on that next week).
Finally, we need to talk very briefly about Hill Tribesmen and Crebain. Both of these units can be fabulous for taking on elite units (be they heroes or warriors), but you have to do so carefully. Crebain can fly into enemy heroes and prevent them from going anywhere, but you want to make sure that a Crebain can't be wrapped-and-not-trapped by lots of units, since the more dice your opponent throws (even if they're not being doubled for being trapped), the more likely the hero is to blow through the Crebain and into the units he'd rather be fighting.
Hill Tribesmen are great for tying down enemy heroes who have to spend Might points to go fight other things, but for the opposite reason as Crebain: a 1-die Tribesman is probably losing and dying, but if he has any chance of winning, he might deal a wound with the +1 To Wound bonus he gets from the army bonus. Swarming a hero with lots of little guys MIGHT be a good thing, but the more Attacks the hero has (and the more Might points the hero has), the worse this plan is, as a hero who would otherwise feel like he needs to Heroic Combat out of a lame fight now might feel like he's doing his job for king and country by killing the grunts who have happily come to him. Yes, you might win and overwhelm a foe that way (use my 2-4-8 math rule if the enemy hero has 1-3 Attacks), but I'd also consider just using one guy instead.
Okay, let's look at some lists!
Sample Lists
Our first list is a 500pt list that sports 35 models and throws their bows to the wind and wants to overwhelm their opponents up close. It features Freca, Thorne, and a Chieftain, along with 4 Crebain:
The Chieftain's warband should work with Thorne's warband, with the 10 Tribesmen with spears and the war horn supporting the Chieftain and the 10 Rohirrim Traitors. The banner, Thorne himself, and the Crebain are able to float and support those models. Freca's warband is playing support with 1 vanilla Tribesman, 5 brands, and 3 Crebain.
As we move up to 650pts, we have added a second Chieftain and both Chieftain warbands are designed to support Thorne's boys - they also bring a whole chunk of archers and each has a Crebain. Thorne's warband is unchanged and Freca's warband has a few more strategic options. This list features 6 Crebain:
At 750pts, we've dropped one of the Chieftains and we've finally added Wulf - this list also has 6 Crebain and adds an extra 2 models from the last version (we're also at 12 bows instead of 10 in this list):
You could change up the distribution of Tribesmen in the various warbands (this list wants both Wulf and the Chieftain to support Thorne, but you could make it just the Chieftain if you wanted more spears in that warband), but I think the bones of the list are good. This sports a lot of models, it has decent Courage and shooting, and it's got a general who should be easy to keep alive to deny VPs for your opponent.
Conclusion
This list is solid and across the international community, this one is definitely a favorite. I think it's got a lot of flavor to it, celebrating distinctively Dunland units alongside some of the oldest and bare-bones Rohan units in the game. Also, the new sculpts are gorgeous. If you've enjoyed using this list, let us know in the comments below! Next time, as has already been mentioned, we'll be looking at what happens when Freca dies (spoiler alert) and his son, Wulf, has taken control of the helm (pun intended). We'll see if the Besiegers of the Hornburg holds a candle to these guys next time - and until then happy hobbying!
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