The New Age Is Begun: The Erebor Reclaimed Army List

Good morning gamers,

This post was supposed to kick off our April series, but Centaur got busy, so you get this article either a day late or six days early, depending on your perspective. Today and through April, we're back with Dwarves - but this time, we're plowing through the Iron Hills Dwarf Warriors from the Armies of the Hobbit and the Armies of Middle-Earth! My son has used these guys a ton - they're a bit expensive for 1 Attack infantry, but they're incredibly durable and if you can manage to get good numbers with them, you can find yourself with the numbers advantage pretty quickly and then the battle swings hard in your favor.

The list that I think showcases these guys the best is Erebor Reclaimed. When I first read the updated rules for the Champs (three in particular) and saw the army list special rules, I was absolutely flabbergasted that they weren't the meta. I think there's a lot going for this list - so let's see what we have to work with and how it's changed from previous editions of the game.

Erebor Reclaimed: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

This list has only lost one profile technically speaking from the previous edition of the game: Iron Hills Goat Riders. This list has actually lost another profile (the "champ chariot") and has effectively lost six other profiles (King Thorin, Fili, Kili, Dwalin, Dain, and Iron Hills Captains on their mounts). While the mounted heroes are still available in their infantry forms, they function quite differently than they did before - and without warrior cavalry options, this list faces the perennial problem of all Dwarves: how do we make up for being slow and getting where we need to go when we need to be there? Thankfully, one of our army list bonuses helps us with this . . .

Army List Bonuses

The glamor rule of this army list is that everyone in your list has Heroic March and while this isn't great for Iron Hills Captains finding a place in the list, this list goes the extra mile and allows the Dwarves who are benefitting from a Heroic March to ALSO charge . . . which means if you have enough Might in the list, you can basically have 8" move infantry. Now it should be noted that the standard rules of ending within 6" of the March hero still apply, so that 8" move is going to be highly predictable, but considering that anyone can trigger it means you have a lot of flexibility with where and with whom you move 8".

Nine Companions: Building a Hero-Heavy . . . Shieldwall?

Good morning gamers,

Today we're continuing our ongoing formations series (my, it's been a while since we did one of these!) and we'll be talking about hero-heavy and all-hero lists (more to come on this topic as the year progresses). Most of the posts we've done with formations have to do with conventional armies that have a handful of heroes working in concert with a host of warriors (usually infantry, occasionally cavalry). If you've ever tried to move from a conventional force to a hero-heavy force (either all-hero or heavily slanted towards heroes), you have probably found that you need to think differently and play differently than you would with a conventional force - especially in objective missions.

Today, we're going to look at a few different ways you can set up your heroes on the board in order to make all-hero or hero-heavy lists function well as a shieldwall (especially if you find yourself up against a conventional force). We're going to first look at why you'd want to run more heroes as opposed to the bare minimum number of heroes (maxing out on warriors instead) and then look at how you can change your formations to maximize the value of your heroes. Let's dig into it!

Understanding Heroes: Why Run More Heroes?

Heroes are one of the best features of MESBG - and chief among the reasons they're so great is that they give you access to Might points (or at least, most of them do). Might points can, of course, be used to boost rolls (making an almost-win into a win-by-tying or a win-by-being-higher), which makes the hero unit FEEL better than his weight in grunts in certain situations. Most players, however, want to use their Might points for calling heroic actions - though which heroic actions you want to be calling will be heavily influenced by what your opponent has.

When I got started playing MESBG back in 2010 (it was LOTR SBG back then), there were only three heroic actions: Move, Shoot, and Combat. Move and Combat were basically all anyone called - and we all hoped that our big combat heroes with 3 Might would be able to call 3 Combats and kill 2 models followed by 2 more models for three turns . . . well, this doesn't really happen very often, but if it does, boy do you feel like your hero is something special!

For hero-heavy and all-hero armies, Heroic Moves and Heroic Combats are your most useful heroics - not only because every hero has these, but also because Heroic Moves and Combats alter the tempo of the game, allowing you greater control in where your heroes are and what their matchups are. Yes, having Heroic Strike can be really valuable too - but hero-dominant lists will get FAR more value out of crashing through grunts than they will rivaling big pieces . . . especially if your force doesn't have warriors around to guard the flanks of the heroes while they work.

First Impressions, Dwarves of the Hobbit, Part I

Good morning gamers,

Back in 2019, I wrote an article that compared the Dwarves of Thorin's Company and their Erebor Reclaimed "future selves", looking at which version of the two was better (hint: it was basically always the Champs). While there may have been slight changes to the Dwarves over time, the difference between the book-released profiles and their ending state was pretty negligible. This led to a common critique of Thorin's Company in particular (and to a lesser extent the all-Dwarf-hero Erebor Reclaimed list) when new all-hero Legendary Legions were being released and the lack of synergy between the Dwarves made Thorin's Company and Erebor Reclaimed look like a poor all-hero army choice.

Now we have a new edition and we'll be looking at nearly thirty profiles today as we consider how the profiles for all thirteen Dwarves of Thorin's Company (and their Hobbit companion Bilbo) have changed - and boy do we have some interesting changes today! Let's start off with the two that are not related to each other . . .

Thorin and Bilbo: How Have They "Changed?"

Thorin has always been a bargain deal for less than 150pts - and he was such a good deal, that I considered an Impossible Alliance with Thorin's Company Thorin and Balin, King of Moria for our GT last year and ended up taking Thorin King Under the Mountain with Balin, King of Moria instead. Dwarf heroes tend to pile in a lot of stats into a small points package and golly is that still true of Thorin in this new edition of the game. 

Thorin's Company Thorin is still 100pts base but he picked up Heroic March as a heroic action (which matters less in the Thorin's Company list since everyone gains March and can use Will to call it, but it matters a lot more in the Rangers of Mirkwood list where he is the only Dwarf hero that can declare a March). His stats remain the same as they ever were and the rerolling-1s element of the old Thorin's Company army bonus got rolled into his profile, which is really good for him and particularly good for his S4 buddies. Additionally, friendly models can benefit from Thorin's Stand Fast, which is good to have in the same way that it's good to have Stand Fasts in Elf lists.

Photo Credit: Giphy

King Thorin went up in price by 15pts (130pts base) and picked up F7, Fearless (which he never had), Hatred (Gundabad), and the old Du Bekar army bonus - though it applies to all Dwarf models now instead of just the Champions of Erebor, but also only has a radius of 3" instead of 6". Ancestral Fury was modified to only give him a free Heroic Combat on a turn in which he Charges, but it's still a free Heroic Combat, which makes Thorin an excellent choice for carving through troops.

He traded Heroic Resolve for Heroic March (which doesn't matter in Erebor Reclaimed since everyone has March in that list too, but matters a lot in the Ravenhill and Battle of Five Armies lists) and he lost access to the war goat - which hurts A LOT - but retained access to Orcrist and if you build your list in a particular way, this can make him very, very deadly. I do fear that he may fall into the "Durin problem" a bit in the Ravenhill/Battle of Five Armies lists since a 5" move hero isn't hard to stay away from, but in the Erebor Reclaimed list, he can declare a Heroic March and still charge after using the 8" movement from it - that's the same maneuverability of a goat on a straight-away, but might actually be better than the movement of a goat in a congested area.

Turning now to Bilbo, Bilbo got a 5pt-reduction in cost (55pts base) and still has Strike/Defense/Resolve like he did before (which is a good suite of options, especially on a Ringbearer/support piece). His profile didn't otherwise change - and honestly, with all the other changes that are happening (and the fact that the Ring doesn't half Fight Value if there's someone other than the Ringbearer in combat), I'm not sure how high Bilbo is on my to-take list anymore. Still, he was overpriced before, so I'm glad he got a slight points drop.

Burglar Baggins also got a points drop and is 75pts now (-15pts!). Despite this steep decline in cost, he got boosted to 2 Attacks, his Mithril Coat protects against Rend now and allows him to reroll Fate rolls of 1. Like his Thorin's Company version, he still has Strike/Defense/Resolve, which gives him some good options in a Lake-town list, but he seems kind of expensive for a Battle of Five Armies list (so expect to see him a lot more in Assault on Ravenhill and possibly Survivors of Lake-town lists).

In Defense Of: Mattocks

Good morning gamers,

A surprising number of posts in the last two rounds of this "In Defense Of" series have centered around two-handed weapons - whether it's models who have to fight two-handed (like Bofur the Dwarf or Moria Blackshield Captains) or models that can fight two-handed even if they have other options (like Morannon Orc Captains - if you give them a two-handed weapon instead of a shield - or Mordor Trolls). I've even written an entire article talking about why two-handing can be okay (ignoring models who don't suffer the dueling penalty from the discussion). Today, we're going to continue looking at the topic of two-handed weapon options by looking at an equipment choice that I've come to appreciate having here and there in my Erebor Reclaimed lists: mattocks.

Photo Credit: Spikey Bits

For starters, there are a handful of models that have this rather specialized kind of weapon - most of them can be found in the Erebor Reclaimed/Iron Hills factions:

• Bofur the Dwarf (Thorin's Company)
• Iron Hills Captains (Erebor Reclaimed/Iron Hills)
• Iron Hills Dwarves (same)
• Iron Hills Goat Riders (same)
  

A mattock is described in Bofur's profile as being a "two-handed weapon, which can use either the Bash or Piercing Strike Special Strikes," which is neat since Bashing with a two-handed weapon makes your Bash more likely to work and getting +1 To Wound when you've raised your Strength value to improve your wounding roll is even better. There's nothing to dislike about this, right?

Well, actually no - most competitive players (including the Into The West podcast team) will tell you that the models look cool, but the mattock isn't worth taking. And on its face, I think they're right. However, there's more to this weapon than meets the eye - let's see why mattocks are critiqued so heavily and then we'll look at why (and more importantly how) they can be worth taking.

Why NOT To Take Mattocks

Our discussion of mattocks has to begin with a comparison between a mattock and a pick-hammer. If you look at the Grim Hammer profile from the Army of Thror, you'll see that a Pick-Hammer is a "hand-and-a-half weapon, which may use either the Bash or Piercing Strike Special Strikes." Wait a minute - did you say you can choose whether you want to use this thing one-handed or two-handed? Are you telling me that the Grim Hammers of Erebor knew how to wield things that look almost EXACTLY like the mattocks wielded by their Iron Hills brethren with one hand! Why yes, yes they could - and that's stop number one for many players (including our very own Rythbyrt): there's no reason why a mattock should have to be wielded two-handed when pick-hammers are a thing.

2023 Hobby Bingo: Tiberius's Board

Good morning gamers,

Well, 2023 has been a year - and it's been full of hobby fun! With Fantasy Fellowships, the Minas Tirith board, several tournaments, and lots and lots and LOTS of Morannon Orcs, there's been a lot to keep me busy during my off nights. I haven't officially done the hobby bingo challenge before, though I've always looked at the boards and thought, "I should do that." Well, this year, I said, "Darn it, we're gonna do it this year" - and I am proud to say that it turned out pretty well. Let's have a look!

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Row #1: Lots of New Models (and some movies and a tournament)

Our first square in the first row requires us to start a new army, and for me this year, that was easy: Corsairs of Umbar! Throwing weapons are my thing and these guys have them everywhere. I also had these models sitting around for a while, so I don't have all the guys I painted shown here because . . . well, I need a guy for another bingo box:

Box two is easy - watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Yes, I watch the extended cuts every year at least once, usually while I'm working on batch painting something or working on a terrain project. It took me longer than usual to watch them this year, since I had to catch up on a bunch of Star Wars shows, but I finished watching the extended editions of The Fellowship of the Ring on June 28th, The Two Towers on August 14th, and The Return of the King on September 9th.

Box three was checked off on June 24th when I attended our annual Grand Tournament - I got last place with a Quest of the Ringbearer Angmar army (you can read about my process of picking that list here and some thoughts on the scoring system - and a brief overview of my games - here).

Box 4 requires scenic bases for one of my armies and I decided to showcase my basing style for my Erebor Dwarves, as shown on Ori. The bases were done by painting white through a dryer sheet, then washing in black, then spot-highlighting in black, and then making piles of gold and emeralds from green glitter, PVA glue, and gold paint:

Finally, I needed to finish a Good army of at least 600 points. Because of the way Hobby Bingo works, I wanted to have a list that "just" reached 600pts (because I need elements of this project to cover multiple boxes, and you can't double-count a model) and since I spent quite a bit of time this year converting up Grim Hammers, Warriors of Erebor, and Thorin's Company heads into a War of the Ring era Erebor Reclaimed list, I figured I'd grab over 600 points from them. You can see here Thorin III Stonehelm, Dwalin, Bifur, Bofur, Nori, Dori, Gloin, and 7 converted Iron Hills Dwarves with shields and spears:

MESBG Christmas List #10: Erebor Reclaimed

Good morning gamers,

Tiberius: Our Christmas list today is provided to you by my son, Gorgoroth. While preparing for our 1000-point siege THRO tournament, Gorgoroth tried MANY different lists, ranging from the Return of the King Legendary Legion (that list was scary) to an Azog's Legion spam list (featuring the big man himself, of course). After testing a lot of things, Gorgoroth decided that he wanted elite units (at least F4) and resilient units (preferably D8). So naturally, as I was converting up Warriors of Erebor to be Iron Hills Dwarves to support War of the Ring era Dain, my son was like, "Hey, those guys can be D8, right?" And I was like, " . . . yeah . . ." And he was like, "Well, can I try them out?" And I was like ". . . yeah . . ." And he basically never looked back. So . . . here's Gorgoroth to tell you all about his new favorite army.

Gorgoroth: First off, I'd like to point out that Dain (old) is an awesome dude and I love him. He has great hitting and staying power as far as I'm concerned, plus, he looks supercool. But he isn't the only guy I need to talk to you about. I also like Gloin the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor. Now, comparing him to Dwalin (champion version), he is not too much worse and costs a lot less, so I run him a lot more than Mr. Dwalin and he still kills everything. 

And now I have Bifur. He is used for heroic moves and for his 12 model capacity. Now everyone knows three heroes is not an army so I saw this and took 40 dudes in the army for numbers. and they killed everything (did you notice I love the Ctrl-B button?). Anyway, I had like 200 points left so I went "Huh this would look so darn awesome if only I had some speed . . . I took the armies of the hobbit book . . . page 30 . . . Huh! Goat Riders! So I took 6 riders (with war spears, obviously) plus a captain 'cause turns out they can totally have goats (which, in my book is labeled as awesomeness). So then I found myself at 1000 points and I said "yeah, let's do this!" And we did it!!!!!!

Here's my list:

• Dain Ironfoot, King Under the Mountain [AL]
• 8 Iron Hills Dwarves
• 9 Iron Hills Dwarves with spears
• Gloin the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor
• 5 Iron Hills Dwarves
• 6 Iron Hills Dwarves with spears
• Iron Hills Captain on war goat
• 4 Iron Hills Dwarves
• 6 Iron Hills Goat Riders
• Bifur the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor
• 6 Iron Hills Dwarves
• 6 Iron Hills Dwarves with spears

1000 points, 54 models, 1 thrown stone hitting on a 3+, 54 D6+ models, no fast models but 2 Might for Heroic March, 10 Might

Tiberius: I'm not sure that much else needs to be said - it was awesome. At THRO 2023, Gorgoroth's list was one of two undefeated lists, narrowly beating my Balrog list as the attacker in the burn-the-village scenario and keeping Dronak's spider spam list from burning a bunch of buildings as well (though he would have been good defending the walls too, since he would have just dropped his mounted contingent). Dwarves hurt and they're hard to kill - especially when there are fifty of them. We'll be back soon - until next time, happy hobbying!

Fantasy Fellowships: The Erebor Reunion, Part 7

Good morning gamers,

I know we're in the middle of a "Christmas List" series, but hey, I can turn a Fantasy Fellowship game into a Christmas List! For many players, these aren't the models you'd want if you ran a Minas Tirith/Rohan alliance, but my love for the Men of the West Legendary Legion has given me TONS of practice with these models! Here's the almost-legit, original participants list, clocking in at a very impressive 1352 points:

• Aragorn, King Elessar [ARMY LEADER]
• 8 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
• 8 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears
• Gandalf the White
• INDEPENDENT: Peregrin, Guard of the Citadel
• 8 Warriors of Minas Tirith with bows
• 1 Warrior of Minas Tirith with banner
• CONVENIENT ALLY - The Fellowship: Legolas Greenleaf
• Gimli, Son of Gloin
• Frodo Baggins
• Samwise Gamgee with Sting (this would need to be on Frodo if you did this in Matched Play, of course)
• CONVENIENT ALLY - Rohan: Eomer, Marshal of the Riddermark
• INDEPENDENT: Meriadoc, Knight of the Mark with shield
• 8 Warriors of Rohan with shields
• 8 Warriors of Rohan with shields and throwing spears
• 8 Warriors of Rohan with bows
• 1 Warrior of Rohan with banner

Besides Eomer having 11 more guys than he should, this is actually a legal list for Matched Play - though where is Legolas's armor and Eomer's shield? I mean, Eomer almost NEVER has a shield in Fantasy Fellowships - what's up with that? Anyway, the participants from my Fantasy Fellowship are nearly the same, except that I paid 15 more points for Dwalin instead of Legolas, 10 fewer points for Gloin instead of Gimli, 20 more points for Bifur instead of Pippin, 15 more points for Bofur instead of Merry, and (wait for it) 135 fewer points for Nori instead of Aragorn . . . that's roughly a 100pt reduction on the original participants.

Of course, Nori now has Anduril (so it's really a 60pt reduction overall) - and thanks to having Weapon Master, he'll be wounding on 3s every turn with no penalty for fighting two-handed and D7 (no shield bonus because I'll be two-handing). With 3 Attacks and the equivalent of Lord of the West (reroll one dueling die and one wounding die), I feel that Nori will FINALLY be able to keep up with Dwalin and Gloin in the wounding department (especially after the last showing - he did NOT do well in the Docks of Harlond scenario). Okay, let's kick off the last scenario in this Fellowship's journey!

The End of All Things

This scenario takes place on two boards: a four-by-four board and a two-by-two board. The bigger board was provided by Rythbyrt and the smaller board has shown up in several battle reports in this series. The terrain is intentionally sparse on the bigger one.

Fantasy Fellowships: The Erebor Reunion, Part 6c

Good morning gamers,

There are some scenarios that feel like they're horribly weighted towards one side (Good or Evil). There are some scenarios that look downright impossible to win for one side. There are some scenarios where you look at the scenario rules and just say, "Yeah, I just gotta kill everything and I'll finish the scenario objectives later." We've seen a bunch of these scenarios in Fantasy Fellowships . . . and this is going to be another one. :) The technical win conditions for the Docks of Harlond scenario is to get your Aragorn character and either your Legolas or Gimli character off the Evil player's board edge . . . but we can do this really easily by just killing everyone. And so, this scenario is yet another example of the best scenarios in Fantasy Fellowships: line up the enemy and smash them! Let's get into our last Pelennor scenario - and get back to the beater heroes in my Fellowship!

The Docks of Harlond

The plan here is simple: because we don't have Heroic March in our Fellowship, we're just here to kill lots of guys. The Orcs don't respawn in this scenario, so it's 40 of them against 30 of us - and we have FAR better heroes (and way more points) than they do! So yeah, we're just gonna kill things - and if they're running away from the back board edge and don't want to engage, we'll have Nori and Dwalin (because he's a diva and I can't trust him) run for the gate . . . because why not . . .

I don't have 20 Warriors of the Dead (with no extra gear!) or 6 Riders of the Dead, so I used my 10 Warriors of the Dead, 10 Nazgul of Dol Guldur/Castellan proxies, and my 6 Ponies of Equestria. To make this post a bit more interesting, I'll make some random comments about how well the ponies do.

Turn 1-3: Priority Good, Good, Good 

Good automatically starts with priority in most scenario missions and I won the priority roll on rounds two and three, so I advanced with my guys while Centaur held on the center for a turn and then retreated towards the more restricted deployment of the Rammos Echor gate . . . here are some pics:

The army of the Dunharrow advances towards the enemy, with the ponies driving up the right flank

We continue to press forward as the Orcs begin to fall back - the ponies stayed outside of 12" (so they couldn't be charged) . . .

The infantry continue to advance as the Morannons back up towards the gate - the ponies once again stay outside of 12" to avoid being charged on Turn 4 . . .

Fantasy Fellowships: The Erebor Reunion, Part 4b

Good morning gamers,

I told Centaur before we played this scenario, "This one's going to be quick." I like scenarios that just require you to hit things and kill things, but this scenario requires you to wipe out your opponent. Personally, I think quartering is just fine (most games when one side is quartered would result in a round or two of "mop-up" to get to tabling, so I don't think wiping out an entire force is necessary). Still, with no Uruk-Hai respawning, I'm thinking this should be quick and easy. Let's see if my guys can comply this time and actually do that!

Ride Out

The board is . . . well, pretty bare in the set-up so we didn't complicate it. Wide open space, good starts in a corner, evil starts within 6" of the center. As you can see below, this is the perfect kind of place for a cavalry sally . . .

I didn't have my Saxon Huscarls painted up in time, so we're using Riders of Rohan instead. My mounted Aragorn model is representing Nori, while my Erkenbrand conversion is representing Dwalin. For kicks and grins, I decided I'd keep track of Dwalin and Nori's kills, just to see how they do.

Turn 1: Priority Good

I advanced forward with my cavalry and the Uruks advanced a bit to make a straighter line. I was shocked and surprised to see Centaur using my loose phalanx formation - it's really good for making sure you have a long battle line and lots of flexibility with your pikes (2-4 dice in each fight if you support or shield, thanks to having all shield guys in the front).

Fantasy Fellowships: The Erebor Reunion, Part 4a

Good morning gamers,

We're starting off our journey through the Helm's Deep missions and we begin with one of the most iconic moments of the Lord of the Rings trilogy: the defense of the Deeping Wall after the bombs rip an opening in it. The board was . . . not finished, so you'll be seeing mostly-primed walls and the beginnings of a "Geonosis" board as our back-drop. Also, the stairs are missing - but they don't play a big part in the battle anyway. Let's get into it!

The Deeping Wall Is Breached

The game is played on a 2'x2' board and has a 6" section of water that we didn't get finished. Still, it goes out roughly to the sections of unfinished walls, so we kind of know where it goes. The Warriors of Rohan begin with Haldir and Legolas (for my Fellowship, Dwalin) on the top sections of the walls (all Prone) and so I decided to keep my throwing spears near the gap in the wall to hurl down projectiles at the models trudging through the water. Haldir also started near the gap to rain down deadly arrows from above, while my four bowmen started with a clear view of the interior of the walls (but not a view at those still coming onto the board. My shield guys and Dwalin started near the stairs in order to help keep the Uruks hemmed in - we'll see how much they do.

Gimli/Gloin started at the edge of the water area and Aragorn/Nori started Prone in the center of the board. With 12 Galadhrim coming on from the back 2" of the board, I knew my plan with them was simple: if there's no Heroic Move called on the first turn (which would push 10 Uruk-Hai Warriors and 2 Berserkers with a Captain up the field), we have Gloin join Nori near the center of the board and push the Galadhrim to aid them quickly - no point in risking an overwhelm on the first turn. I'd need to leave a firing lane for my Galadhrim bowmen (who would not be starting on the walls), but other than that, I think the plan is solid: keep my heroes together, have Galadhrim to distribute the enemy attacks, and try to survive for 10 turns.

Scoring in this scenario is interesting: there are 7 VPs up for grabs and each hero that is alive gives 1 VP to the Forces of Good (4 VPs total) and each dead hero gives 1 VP to the Forces of Evil (again, 4 VPs total). There's also 1 VP up for grabs if the Forces of Good lose 14 models (since I start with 28 models, this is basically "if we're broken" - though one model short of what we'd actually need to be broken) and 2 VPs if there are more Uruk-Hai outside the water and inside Helm's Deep than there are defenders (far more likely to happen if I'm broken than if I'm not). My thought is that I can win the game if I can just keep all four heroes alive - I can lose everyone else and I can still win if all the heroes survive. Feeling pretty good about Haldir surviving if he's on the wall, we'll see if my champs can do their thing and "just kill stuff". 

Just for fun, I decided to keep track of kills for both Dwalin and Gloin this game, even though neither has a rule that makes them better for doing so - but it proved to be very informative for me (and will hopefully be interesting for you). Okay, let's get into it!

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!

Fantasy Fellowships: The Erebor Reunion, Part 3b

Good morning gamers,

We're back in Fantasy Fellowships today and will be covering the Ambush at Night scenario - I know last time I said we'd cover Warg Attack too, but having both in the same post was just too long! This mission is surprisingly NOT about our Fellowship members - Merry and Pippin are playing a mini-game against a depowered Grishnakh, with your victory conditions mostly being triggered by whether you can quarter the enemy (and whether you can get the Hobbits off the board before they're killed - which is much harder to do with Merry and Pippin than when you've got two pretty competent heroes as I have today). Let's dig into the scenario!

Mission #2: Ambush at Night

We deployed our forces as you see - the Isengard force isn't allowed to move on the first turn and Eomer's cavalry are split up into two groups - one led by a Captain of Rohan on horse with shield, the other led by Eomer on horse (yes, he has no shield or throwing spears - who does that, GW, seriously who does that!?!?!?!). The only thing of note from Turn 1 is that Bofur was able to untie his bonds (getting the required 6) on the first turn, so he's free to leg it from here on out!

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. :-)

Fantasy Fellowships: The Erebor Reunion, Part 3a

Good morning gamers,

Today we're kicking off Part 3 of our Fantasy Fellowship campaign where my "Erebor Reunion" Fellowship is playing its last game with (almost) all of its members - Dori will have his last mission (as the Boromir character doesn't get to go on) and such an array of heroes will not be seen again in this campaign until we get to the Black Gate (and even then, Bilbo/Maggot will be apart from the rest). If you've been following my conversion series for the Champions of Erebor, this is the first post where you'll get to see those models in action!

Mission #1: Ambush at Amon Hen

Okay, so my thought going into this was simple: Gloin and Dwalin are two of our best fighters and they start WAY out of position. So, what we want to do is move towards them with Bilbo/Nori as much as we can and THEN advance towards the boats. If we can use Heroic Combats between these guys to get some extra movement for them (and Bilbo), we can do this. 

I'm also going to lean heavily into a few pieces of war gear that we picked up in Lothlorien: Nori will be using his new dagger (which gives him the Elven-made keyword, allows him to Feint if he Strikes well above his opponent's Fight Value, and deals D3 wounds for every unsaved wound - perfect for clearing out Uruk-Hai Captains). Bifur will be using his "nice shiny dagger" whenever he's not spear-supporting someone with his boar spear (since the rerolling all failed To Wounds is often better than two-handing) and Bofur FINALLY has a one-handed weapon that he can use (which is also often better than two-handing - though I'll probably two-hand if I'm only fighting one shield-armed guy so I have the option to Piercing Strike up to S5). Finally, if Gloin gets in a tight spot, I've got three full rerolls for him thanks to the three locks of hair he got from Galadriel. The other items are unlikely to see much use (I like the Light of Earendil, but I plan to have the Ring on the whole mission, so I can't use it).

Okay, let's get stuck in!

Grim Champs: Converting the Champions of Erebor, Part 1

Good morning gamers,

I mentioned at the start of the year that I was going to take a bunch of Champions of Erebor in my Fantasy Fellowship this year. The champs are kinda expensive (like everything in the Erebor Reclaimed list), so I wanted to look for conversion options. While I was puzzling through this, I got the Dain and Thorin set from Rythbyrt and I noticed how similar the shield design on Thorin was to the cheaper Warriors of Erebor. Picking up a box of Warriors, Grim Hammers, and Thorin's Company costs the same as the champs, but also nets me a bunch more models - so I began a neat endeavor to convert up our Heroes from these models. Let's start with the six Dwarves in our Fellowship.

The War of the Ring Era Champs

These are the bits we're going to need for our War of the Ring champions (I didn't end up needing Dwalin's hammer). We mostly need their heads, but we're going to also borrow some other bits too. Let's start with the Champ that's being used by both me and my son for Fantasy Fellowships this season, Dori!

Fantasy Fellowships: The Erebor Reunion, Part 2b

Good morning gamers,

We're back - my poor broken Fellowship fled Balin's Tomb and is running down some questionable stairs. We're starting pretty battered as you can see:

With a need for five members (including Old Bilbo) to get through the gap at the end, we'll see how quickly our short legs will carry us - let's get into it!

Mission #3: The Dwarrowdelf

We deployed within 6" of the western board edge, putting Dwalin and Dori in front while Gloin and Nori (both of whom were hurting from the last mission) held the rear. Bifur (free Heroic Moves) and Bofur (lots of Might) backed up the leaders, with Gandalf and the Hobbits scrunched in the center with the dogs. We advanced quickly:

Turn 1: only one Goblin shows up . . . great start . . .

I'm going to summarize turns 2-3 very simply - I got priority on the first three rounds, I got off one Strengthen Will on Gandalf (4 Will), I walked down the stairs, and a few Goblins showed up to challenge us (1 warrior, then 2 warriors, then a Captain and a warrior):

Turn 2 - some more Goblins show up . . .

Turn 3 - a Captain and another Goblin shows up . . .

Fantasy Fellowships: The Erebor Reunion, Part 2a

Good morning gamers,

We're back with the next set of scenarios in Quest of the Ringbearer, beginning with Wolves in the Night and going through the (notorious) Bridge of Khazad-Dum. The missions begin with a Rest Point in Rivendell and we will have the full Fellowship for these four missions. Because these scenarios are much longer, we're only going to cover the first two today (Wargs in the Night and Balin's Tomb), while the other two will have to wait two weeks. Let's see how we did!

Mission #1: Wargs in the Night

So in this scenario, I started with my six Dwarves on the exterior, my dogs and Gandalf near the center, and Bilbo/Maggot ready to support Bifur and Bofur. For the first two turns, I forgot to take pictures, but it's fine, since the Wargs stayed away from us as we drifted towards the eastern board edge. Gandalf cast Strengthen Will on himself on Turn 1, getting a 7th Will point, and cast Sorcerous Blast on the Wild Warg Chieftain on Turn 2 (2/3 Might, 5/6 Will), but the Chieftain resisted on a 6. On Turn 3, things looked like this:

Yes, I have nine Ringwraiths standing in for some Wargs . . . it's a thing . . .

The wargs had priority and while I could have called a free Heroic Move, I needed to respond to his charges, so I let the wargs charge. The only models in danger were Wolf (fighting two wargs) and Bofur (who was facing down both the Wild Warg Chieftain and a warg), so Bilbo put on the Ring and pulled one of the wargs off Wolf and Gandalf cast Sorcerous Blast (3/6 Will left) on the warg who charged Bofur and threw it into another warg (unengaged), and most importantly, knocked Bofur and the Wild Warg Chieftain over: the target warg died, while the other warg was knocked prone:

Fantasy Fellowships: The Erebor Reunion, Part 1

Good morning gamers,

Today we're going to look at the first three missions of Fantasy Fellowships for my Fellowship. Our last post walked through what we have to face in these missions (Ringwraiths and Barrow-Wights), so let's see how we did!

Mission #1: Buckleberry Ferry

My team of "hobbits" wants nothing to do with hiding from some lowly Ringwraiths - nope, go in fast, take them down one at a time, job's done. The players I have are:

• Ringbearer: Old Bilbo Baggins with Sting and the Mithril Coat
• Companion: Farmer Maggot with Grip, Fang, and Wolf
• Rohan-bound Friend: Bofur the Dwarf
• Gondor-bound Friend: Bifur the Dwarf

With a Fellowship that wanted to get locked in quickly, I lined up my guys as far forward as possible and were ready to rush for the southernmost Nazgul straight away:

It's surprising how close you can start to these guys if you really want to fight them . . .

I charged headlong forward and the nearest Nazgul got a 6 for his sentry roll, moved into position to see us, and immediately sounded the alarm:

SSSCCCEEEEEETTTCCCHHH!!!