The New Age Is Begun: the Paths of the Druadan Army List

Good morning gamers,

Rohan has a lot of army lists this edition (citation needed) and one of the oddest ducks in the line-up is the Paths of the Druadan. Released in the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement, this list features the heroes from the Riders of Theoden, your typical mounted Rohan warriors, as well as the tad-expensive-but-loaded-with-rules Wose Warriors led by Ghan-buri-Ghan. This list has an interesting play style, an interesting set of rules, and is a whole lot of fun to use. Let's see what we have to work with in this list!

The Paths of the Druadan: Changes for 2025

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As was said above, this list includes the six named heroes in the Riders of Theoden list (Theoden, Eomer, Eowyn, Deorwine, Elfhelm, and Gamling), Captains of Rohan (obviously), and then Rohan Royal Guards, Rohan Outriders, and Riders of Rohan. The list adds to this line-up Ghan-buri-Ghan and Wose Warriors, who in the last edition could only be taken in Ghan-buri-Ghan's list (or if you ran Rohan allied with the Druadan, you could have leaderless warbands with 10-12 Wose Warriors inside them). This edition, Ghan-buri-Ghan and the Rohan heroes can mix and match the troops they lead, much like you can do with the Men of the West army list. This is a great change in my opinion and a huge change for list building. In an era where you can't take leaderless Wose warbands, this is the only way you can use more than 15 of them - and for a very, very, VERY small segment of the SBG population, that means their collections are still valid. :) Let's see what bonuses we have to encourage us to run this list . . .

Army List Bonuses

Last edition, the Paths of the Druadan Legendary Legion required you to take Theoden, Ghan-Buri-Ghan, and 15 Wose Warriors. This edition, you only have to take 12 Woses (3 slots left over), so that's nice? Riders of Rohan don't count towards your bow limit in this list, which is novel for the lists we've been looking at this month.

The other rules are the same as they were last edition: there's a special rule (Know All Paths) that allow you to win the roll-off for Heroic Moves on a 3-6 (or 1-4) instead of the usual 4-6 (or 1-3). In a list that wants to skirmish, this is a huge bonus. Similarly, the Waypoints special rule allows you to place three tokens after deployment is over that remove difficult terrain penalties for your Rohan models, which is great for making sure that your horses are moving at full speed (and getting Charge bonuses) through woods, rocky ground, or swamps. Finally, the Kill Orc-folk rule allows all friendly models to reroll TO Wound rolls of 1 on their Strikes against Uruk-Hai, Orcs, and Goblins. Paired with Hatred on your Woses, this makes them very reliable at killing Goblin-town Goblins (wounding on 3s and rerolling 1s), pretty reliable at killing most Orcs, Moria Goblins, and some Uruk-Hai (wounding on 4s and rerolling 1s) and decently good at killing the D6 Uruks, Orcs, and Goblins (wounding on 5s and rerolling 1s). 

The Bare Necessities, Part XLV: The Wildmen of Druadan

Good morning gamers,

We're on the second to last army to review in this series and today we're talking about a faction that most players don't even consider playing: the Wildmen of Druadan. This army, (which began as its own faction, then became part of the Wanderers in the Wild during the "Warband era", and are now their own faction again) has seen very little change in the profiles since their original release. Due to having average stats (except for below-average Defense), there doesn't seem to be much reason to try running these guys - and with only one historical ally and a 16-model limit if you ally conveniently, there are limited options for even using the army. But as is often the case, the army everyone thinks is garbage can have surprises for you on the tabletop - let's dig in. :)

If you're not in the movies, you don't get a GIF . . . unsurprisingly . . .

The Wildmen of Druadan: The Art of the Keep-Away Horde

I don't play Druadan - though I do like their Legendary Legion. Because I don't play them (I like my Wood Elves and think they're a better list), I decided I needed to reach out to an expert on how to think about the faction and get some tips on how to run them. I asked veteran player and American legend Tim Hixon to give me some feedback on a host of questions and boy did he pile on the feedback! Here is some of the information he passed on to me:

Tiberius: At first glance, Druadan has warriors that are both expensive (9 points/model), but with spears on every model and Stalk Unseen, it would appear that you'd want to use terrain to your advantage when engaging with the enemy?

Tim: Numbers are also a crucial thing to consider and since you pay for one hero to field this force it is very cheap in comparison to other forces. So despite their higher per model cost you are not paying the hero tax in a Green alliance.

Never take on a numerically larger force. You will need to trap opposing models in order to maximize your damage output. To that end, you want local superiority to overwhelm an opponent. Also remember to use those blowpipes at every opportunity. The entire force is range capable and have poisoned ammunition.