Top 10 Ranking: Middle Earth SBG Supplements

Hey Reader!

In a continuation of our Top 10 series, we're looking today at...all of the supplements for the recent edition of the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game! I'd been holding out hope for an actual Top 10 (as we don't have 10 supplements - but more on that below), but since this is the twilight of the old edition, maybe now is a great time to rank them, as we have the complete list now.

Our ranking is going to gauge the quality of the supplements in five categories, designed to reward the various aspects of these disparate books. First, we're looking at the epic factor of the campaign: how cool/vast/epic is the scenario lineup in the book? Unsurprisingly, if your supplement includes an attack on Minas Tirith, Helm's Deep, Balin's Tomb, or assaults on one or more capitol cities, those books will get higher scores in this category than, say, smaller skirmishes in less visible conflicts.

Second, we look at cost: how much money does it cost to buy the book and all the models you need to play through the campaign. So supplements that involve smaller numbers of models, smaller numbers of Forgeworld/metal models, and require less specialized/out of production kits, will score higher than, say, supplements that require you to buy 2-3 Mumakil and/or a dozen Forgeworld resin heroes, for example.

Third, we rate the content in the book for balance: are the scenarios written in such a way that the scenarios are lopsided (either always to one side or the other, or just lopsided back and forth between the Good/Evil forces)? Are the legendary legions imbalanced, and likely to be FAQed? Having powerful legendary legions doesn't necessarily grant a lower score, but a book with legendary legions that are likely to be changed alongside scenarios that may not be fun to play due to too many uphill battles, will rank lower in this category than a book that shows signs of heavy testing and evenness in its design and execution.

Fourth, we rate the scenarios for variety: are most of the scenarios just a mix of "kill things or get units off the board," or do they include interesting/unique scenario objectives? Do they do anything interesting with forces, deployment, and/or scenario special rules? The more variety there is in the campaign, the higher the score.

And finally, we look at new options: how many new profiles, legendary legions, terrain kits, and/or ways to play the game (really only applicable with Fantasy Fellowships in Quest of the Ringbearer, but we did want to reward that supplement for creating a very interesting new way to play the game!) are in the supplement? Some supplements are heavier or lighter on material (guided by the content in the book), so supplements with more "goodies" will rate higher than ones with less.

So with that, let's take a look at the books we've come to love over the past decade!

Defence of the North Inspired Lists: The Dark Powers of Dol Guldur Revisited

Good morning gamers,

We come to it at last - the final post in what-you-can-do-with-the-scenario-forces-from-Defence-of-the-North. This has been quite the journey for me, discovering what kinds of armies you can build if you constrain yourself to just what's provided to you in scenario play, but today, we break all bonds and look at an army that Rythbyrt has been making popular here at TMAT: the Dark Powers of Dol Guldur.

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community
Fair warning, most of this post is about Castellans . . .

While we looked at the Rise of the Necromancer LL when we walked through the Fall of the Necromancer sourcebook, we don't have the Necromancer in Defence of the North. In fact, we don't even have any Nazgul in Defence of the North (what with this being Lord of the Rings era and both Sauron and the Ringwraiths being in different guises). Instead, we're left with a pretty hum-drum list of generic models:

• 5 Gundabad Orc Captains
• 6 Castellans of Dol Guldur with Morgul Blades
• 30 Gundabad Orcs with shields
• 30 Gundabad Orcs with spears
• 4 Hunter Orcs with Orc bows
• 2 Hunter Orcs with two-handed picks
• 6 Hunter Orcs
• 12 Hunter Orcs with whatever-you-want (because you're going to have them, but not need them for any scenarios)
  
• 12 Fell Wargs
• 8 Mirkwood Spiders
  

Now these are just the models available to you if you run the Dark Powers of Dol Guldur PURE. If you use their historical allies (Azog's Hunters and Azog's Legion), you actually open up a lot of other options (including 50% bow limit Hunter Orcs led by Bolg in Azog's Hunters and access to Goblin Mercenaries from Azog's Legion - along with a lot of other things). While this may not look like an inspired group of models, I can tell you that our good mate Rythbyrt has been taking these kinds of models and doing CRAZY things with them here at TMAT. While the original list looks pretty limited, we actually have a TON of options for this list and so naturally, I've included several lists for you. :-)

Defence of the North Inspired Lists: Azog's Legion Revisited

Good morning gamers,

We're almost done looking at different armies you can make with the scenario participants from Defence of the North. Today we turn to a faction entirely represented by models required for scenarios from the Appendices: Azog's Legion. While not a "Legion" in the "Legendary Legion" sense, this faction has an incredible array of models from the scenarios, mostly because they are the only evil faction in the Battle of Five Armies scenario. Regardless of what kind of models you like to run in Azog's Legion, chances are good you'll have the models you want if you collect what's in this book (unless you're like me and you're intrigued by a double-Catapult-Troll list):

• Azog with everything (including the Signal Tower)
• Bolg (on foot)
• 5 Gundabad Orc Captains
• 2 Goblin Mercenary Captains
• 30 Gundabad Orc Warriors with shields
• 30 Gundabad Orc Warriors with spears
• 24 Gundabad Berserkers
• 24 Goblin Mercenaries
  
• 4 Ogres
• 6 War Bats
• 2 Gundabad Trolls with Crushing Clubs
• 2 Gundabad Trolls with Scythe Gauntlets
• 1 Catapult Troll

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Hobbit 

You can actually run an Azog's Hunters allied contingent led by Bolg and featuring a mix of 12 Hunter Orcs (but you probably have a box of 24) and 12 Fell Wargs, which is pretty cool. Since you have no other heroes, though, you'll have a max of 16 models from that allied contingent (Bolg and 15 followers). You could also use all those Gundabad Orc Captains to ally in the Hunter Orcs, the Fell Wargs, and up to 8 Mirkwood Spiders from the Dark Powers of Dol Guldur (your choice of Azog or Bolg to lead the Azog's Legion force - either will pick up Master of Battle). This would, admittedly, be quite good too.

However, our list today is going to be pure Azog's Legion because there's one really neat piece I want to use . . . and it won't help the Azog's Hunters units and most of the Dark Powers of Dol Guldur units at all . . .

Defence of the North Inspired Lists: The Halls of Thranduil Revisited

Good morning gamers,

We've come to one of the most involved factions in the Defence of the North book scenarios: the Halls of Thranduil. While there is an entire section of the scenarios dedicated to the defense of Mirkwood in Defence of the North, the Halls of Thranduil appear in the final scenario of the Lothlorien campaign (the assault on Dol Guldur) as well as two of the scenarios in the Appendices (the Defense of Dale and the Battle of Five Armies). This faction is important - and thanks to Legolas being a Hero of Valor, it's pretty common to see at least some Halls of Thranduil models in a Matched Play Game.

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

For most of the posts in this series (and specifically for this sourcebook), we've seen important models for Matched Play being left on the side lines for scenarios - not so with this faction. In fact, with one exception, you not only get all of the models you'd hope to have for Matched Play, but you also get a LOT of those models for Matched Play. Here are the models we have:

• Thranduil, King of the Woodland Realm with Elk, heavy armor, and extra sword (based on two scenarios)
• Legolas (possibly mounted with Orcrist) and Tauriel
• 1-2 Mirkwood Captains (depending on whether you want to proxy the second Captain)
• 1-2 Palace Guard Captains (based on whether you chose to proxy)
• 1-2 Mirkwood Ranger Captains (based on whether you chose to proxy)
  
• 36 Mirkwood Elves (12 shields, 12 Elven Glaives, 12 Elf bows)
• 10 Mirkwood Rangers (though actually 20)
• 10 Palace Guard Captains (though actually 20 - at least 4 shields, 2 shields and spears, and 4 spears)
• 3 Wood Elf Sentinels
  

This is quite the list of models - and with the exception of Mirkwood Cavalry, this is pretty much all you really need for a solid Mirkwood collection. Expensive though it be, good job scenario writers!

Being Elves, however, there's always going to be the question of whether your list would be better with allies - and as it happens, there are FOUR historical allies we can choose from: the Survivors of Lake-town, the Iron Hills, Erebor Reclaimed, and the Beornings. Let's see what they have to offer us:

• The Survivors of Lake-town:
  
• Bard (on foot and mounted)
• Bard's kids
• Alfrid
• Gandalf the Grey (to be scenario-specific, he should be on foot, but we probably have the option for a horse)
• Bilbo Baggins, Master Burglar
• 36 Lake-town Militia (12 shields, 12 spears, 12 bows)
• The Iron Hills:
• Dain Ironfoot on war boar
• 2 Iron Hills Captains (1 shield/spear, 1 mattock)
• 38 Iron Hills Dwarves (12 spears, 12 mattocks, 12 crossbows, 1 banner, 1 banner and mattock)
• Iron Hills Chariot
• Erebor Reclaimed
• Everything in the Iron Hills list above (the Chariot would need to be upgraded to the Champ-chariot)
• Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain (technically without Orcrist, definitely without goat)
  
• All 12 Champions of Erebor (no goats either)
• The Beornings
• Grimbeorn
• 12 Beornings (8 two-handed axes, 4 great bows)
  

Well, this is quite the list! It only seems fitting that, instead of just saying, "well, I chose to use this one," we'll walk through some of the decision trades that are in play here, because like the Isengard post we did for War in Rohan, I don't think the "best list" is a given - let's dig right in!

Defence of the North Inspired Lists: Assault On Lothlorien Legendary Legion Revisited

Good morning gamers,

If you've been following discussions across the Facebook groups about the state of the game right now, there's one Legion that's shaken up the meta more than any other Legion: the Assault on Lothlorien. This list makes you always play at night (which limits enemy archery range), has tons of creatures that can be buffed by Druzhag/Ashrak, and a bunch of shamanic characters to make their grunts (Goblins, Orcs, Bats, Spiders, and Wargs) go racing without fear into their enemies. Yep, it's a horde that can outshoot better armies and can deal quite the punch where it wants to be.

Photo Credit: Defence of the North 

Since we're walking through the Defence of the North sourcebook and seeing how we can take the forces in it into Matched Play, the Assault on Lothlorien Legion was clearly going to be discussed, but the list you're going to see today is FAR from the list you're likely to see across the gaming table because, as is usually the case, the scenarios don't give us all the models we'd normally want. This doesn't mean the list we're going to look at today is garbage, but rather, it requires a different approach to play.

Our models are a mixture of units available in the Mirkwood missions and the Lothlorien missions (depending on whether you want Orcs or Goblins):

• Muzgur, Orc Shaman
• Druzhag the Beastcaller and Ashrak
• 1-2 Orc Captains (depending on whether you chose to substitute a Taskmaster for an Orc Captain in two scenarios)
  
• 1-2 Orc Shamans (see above)
• 48 Orc Warriors (who also need to be used for Warg Rider dismounts)
• 6 Warg Riders
• 6 Orc Trackers
• 48 Moria Goblin Warriors (who you'll also need to be used for Warg Marauder dismounts)
  
• 8 Giant Spiders
• 12 Fell Wargs
• 2 Bat Swarms
• 3 Warg Marauders
  

This list of models is only missing a few models from the Legion list, but the ones its missing really changes the options you have for its game play. First and foremost, we don't have any Moria Goblin Captains or Shamans, so we're capped at a max of 30 Goblins, Spiders, and Fell Wargs. This is . . . usually not the way you want to run this list. :-) While I usually abandon Ashrak in favor of a Moria Goblin Captain and an Orc Shaman (see my review of the Legion), I think if you only have the models from the scenarios at your disposal, he becomes an auto-include.

Ashrak becomes doubly necessary since we don't have any Wild Warg Chieftains, who provide the biggest muscle of the list, which means you need to lean hard on Giant Spiders to get any kind of punch in the army. If you're going to use spiders, you definitely want Ashrak in the list so they get the upgrade from Poison to Venom (rerolling all failed To Wounds instead of just rerolling 1s To Wound).

Finally, the Spiders are super important in this list because we don't have any Moria Goblin Prowlers. Prowlers not only get bonuses to wound (from their two-handed axes, their Backstabbers rule, and the Legion bonus for outnumbering an opponent). This is pretty nasty when paired with their +1 To Wound with their throwing daggers, but not having them means our skirmishing abilities are going to be really limited. So what kind of list can we run with this? Well, it's actually not THAT different from the list I looked at when I reviewed the Legion - let's see what we have!

Defence of the North Inspired Lists: The Host of the Dragon Emperor Legendary Legion Revisited

Good morning gamers,

One of the most popular Legions from Defence of the North is the Host of the Dragon Emperor, featuring shiny new models that have revolutionized a faction that everyone loved to look at and no one thought was competitive on its own. If the measure of success for a Legion is making an uncompetitive force competitive, this Legion has clearly succeeded.

One would think that, if you were looking to take your scenario-play armies into Matched Play, the Easterlings would be a pretty good place to start (and since you won't have Amdur or Khamul in your force, you might as well run the Legion) - but when you ACTUALLY look at the models you need, you'll find there are a few problems in your usual list building choices. Let's see what we have to work with:

• Brorgir the Conjurer and Rutabi, General of the Dragon Legion
• Easterling Command blister
  
• 30 Easterling Warriors (12 shields, 6 shields and pikes, and 12 bows)
• 5 Kataphrakts and 1 Easterling Captain with armored horse, shield, and sword
• 18 Black Dragons (9 shields, 9 shields and pikes)
  
• 12 Dragon Cult Acolytes
• 4 Rhunish Drakes
  
• The Dragon Emperor
  

There are several things that we'd usually want in an Easterling Legion army that we don't have here - most notably, we have only 15 pikes and we don't have a war drum on any of our Kataphrakts (and none of them have been upgraded to Black Dragons). Like I did when I was preparing for the Defenders of Erebor post, I looked at this list of models and thought to myself, "Self, we have no drum and we need more pikes - this isn't going to work."

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

I can't do anything about the lack of a war drum (not within the constraints of this series), but I did get lucky on the pike front. I knew right away that I was going to "cheat" and say, "I need two boxes of Easterling Warriors, so I'm going to use 8 shields and pikes instead of just 6." This is "better," but still not good. As I mentioned in the what-models-do-you-need post, however, I got a second boon on this front: in the second scenario, we need 12 Easterling Warriors with shields, 5 Easterling Kataphrakts, and 1 Easterling Captain with armored horse, shield, and sword - and THAT means we need 18 shield and sword guys. How many shield guys do we get in two boxes of Easterling Warrirors? Only 16. So . . . if we want all dismounts for all our Easterlings . . . we need a third box. :-) And THAT means we actually have . . . 12 pikes. With 21 total pikes to work with, let's see what kind of list we can build!

Defence of the North Inspired Lists: The Defenders of Erebor Legendary Legion Revisited

Good morning gamers,

To kick off the series of taking your Defence of the North scenario forces into Matched Play, we're looking at what has become my favorite Legendary Legion from that book: the Defenders of Erebor. These guys are NOT crowd favorites - armies like the Assault on Lothlorien, the Host of the Dragon Emperor, the Fell Beings of Mirkwood, and the Beornings are all proving to be popular armies and incredibly competitive (at least at certain points levels). While the Army of Dale has been championed by some players as very competitive (I don't dare disagree with Rob from the Unexpected Podcast team or Jeremy from the Green Dragons - and I've had by butt handed to me by Centaur a few times with that Legion), no one seems to be talking about the sixth Legion from the book (well, besides Sharbie).

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

So the mantle falls to me - and boy do I love these guys. Usually, my force choices with these guys involve a bunch of "vanilla" Iron Hills Dwarves (who come with shields by default), some spears to back them up (some Dale, some Dwarves), and a bunch of Dale bowmen to run around in skirmish triangles to hold objectives and guard flanks. I also run one of the pairs of heroes and some Champs (starting wtih Bifur), occasionally including a Captain of Dale or an Iron Hills Captain for March. What we have to work with in the "Dale saga" scenarios is . . . well, incredibly limited on these fronts, which made me really struggle with the army list I wanted to make. Here's what we get in the first group of scenarios:

• Brand, King of Dale
• Bard II, Prince of Dale
• One Dale command blister (Captain with shield, Warrior with banner, Warrior with war horn)
• 6 Warriors of Dale with shields
• 8 Warriors of Dale with shields and spears
• 6 Warriors of Dale with Esgaroth bows
• 12 Knights of Dale
  
• Dain Ironfoot, King Under the Mountain
• Thorin III Stonehelm
• Iron Hills command blister (Captain with shield and spear, Warrior with banner and shield)
• 12 Iron Hills Dwarves with spears (and shields)
• 6 Iron Hills Dwarves with mattock
• 6 Iron Hills Dwarves with crossbows
  

Did you notice that we only have 6 Esgaroth bows, no "vanilla" Iron Hills Dwarves, and no Champs to work with? Yeah, me too - it made me really dread having to write a list. After spending some time being bummed about how awful the list was going to be (and considered NOT covering the Legion), I wrote the article we covered last Thursday about what models you need to play everything in Defence of the North and remembered that, like in the Return of the King, there are some wonderful things that can be found in the Appendices . . . and my day got a lot, LOT brighter. :-)

Defence of the North: What Models Do You Need?

Good morning gamers,

We're reviewing the most recent MESBG supplement to be released and boy was Centaur (and I more belatedly) excited to get it: Defence of the North. By now, you probably know the drill for these posts: I walk though the models you need for the scenarios, provide a cost at the end of each section to make you cry, and give advice on how to save money where you can along the way. Since this sourcebook has lots of models from the Armies of the Hobbit (and lots of ForgeWorld purchases from both the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings range), I thought it might be good to review the costs of the preceding sourcebooks:

• Gondor At War: $3500
• The Scouring of the Shire: $1100
• War in Rohan: $3700
• Quest of the Ringbearer: $2100-$3200 (depending on whether you want to play just the scenarios from the book, Fantasy Fellowships, or both)
• Fall of the Necromancer: $1100

NOTE: we should expect the prices in this post to be a bit higher than the other books because since writing those what-do-you-need posts, there's been a price hike on some of the models in the range. Still, since many of the models we need are from the Armies of the Hobbit (some of which didn't see a lot of movement), I don't think it'll have moved the needle too far to make the comparison ridiculous.

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

As you can see, there's quite a bit of variation, with the Gondor and Rohan supplements being very pricey, the Shire and Mirkwood supplements being "fairly inexpensive", and Quest of the Ringbearer falling in the middle (or near the top if you invest in everything you need for Fantasy Fellowships . . . which is a good chunk of what you'd need for the Gondor at War/War in Rohan supplements too). Will Defence of the North be the nastiest surprise yet? Let's dig in and find out!