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!

Fall of the Necromancer Inspired Lists: The Rise of the Necromancer Revisited

Good morning gamers,

We've come to the last post in this series (mostly because I didn't want to tackle the Vanquishers of the Necromancer) and we're ending with one of my favorite Legions ever: the Rise of the Necromancer LL. Often hailed as a horrible all-hero army because it's slow and has far too few numbers, this Legion his a PAIN for many armies to deal with because everything in it can just refuse to die. Yes, you might be able to outmaneuver them, but don't underestimate them. Thanks to getting several missions in the Fall of the Necromancer sourcebook with Castellans in them, we actually have a very healthy list of models to use:

• The Necromancer of Dol Guldur
• The Keeper of the Dungeons
  
• 9 Nazgul of Dol Guldur
• 6 Castellans of Dol Guldur with Morgul Blades
  

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Today's discussion will not only be on the list itself, but also a short treatise on the points levels that it plays well at - let's dig in!

Fall of the Necromancer Inspired Lists: The Dark Denizens of Mirkwood Revisited

Good morning gamers,

Warning: There will be references to Spiders in this post (and a picture below). Mythopoeia, stop reading now - you've been warned!

In our third article in this series on the Fall of the Necromancer, we turn to an army that . . . doesn't have a Legendary Legion: the Dark Denizens of Mirkwood! Yes, we're looking today at an army of beasts - bats, Wargs, and SO many Spiders.

Photo Credit: Fall of the Necromancer 

The Fall of the Necromancer includes several missions that focus on the spiders (and other creatures) that flooded into Mirkwood and were fought off by the Elves who lived there. This means we have a fairly large collection of models to use in Matched Play:

• The Spider Queen (with her Broodlings)
• 2 Bat Swarms
• 6 Giant Spiders
• 6 Mirkwood Spiders
• 6 Fell Wargs
  

Since the Spiders are 240pts cumulatively, the Bat Swarms are 70pts together, the Spider Queen is 115pts, and the Fell Wargs are 48pts, you can get all of these models for 473pts - but I don't think this list wants to go in 27pts down into a 500-point game. So instead, we're going to ally in another army today and up the points level to 700 points - let's look at the list!

Fall of the Necromancer Inspired Lists: The Pits of Dol Guldur Revisited

Good morning gamers,

This is our second post in our mini-series that brings those Fall of the Necromancer models you need for scenario play into Matched Play. Evil has a real problem building lists for Matched Play, since you get a mix of Orcs that are used in the Armies of the Lord of the Rings with the Necromancer in the scenario book - and without a Hero of Valour/Legend to bring along (and almost always as Impossible Allies), you're really limited in how you can build lists for Matched Play games.

As such, the one faction that's pretty well fleshed out in this book is Azog's Hunters - though our access to heroes and bows in the scenarios is quite limited. As such, we can grow our available model count a bit and trade our archery-heavy rules for other rules by not running Azog's Hunters and instead running the Pits of Dol Guldur Legendary Legion. Here is the list of models we have to play with from the scenarios:

• Azog (we probably have the model that's mounted on the White Warg, but not in the scenarios)
• The Keeper of the Dungeons
• Thrain the Broken
  
• 12 Hunter Orcs with no additional gear (we probably have 12 other Hunter Orcs)
• 6 Hunter Orcs on Fell Wargs
• 6 Fell Wargs
  

While the Pits of Dol Guldur Legion loses a lot compared to a historical alliance between Azog's Hunters, Azog's Legion, and the Dark Powers of Dol Guldur, the scenarios pare down the selection of models even MORE than normal. We don't have Gundabad Orcs to give us spears, C3, or D6 for starters - and that's a HUGE loss. Thematic, yes, but still a huge loss. We also don't have any generic Captains, so we'll need to take Azog (duh) and the Keeper of the Dungeons to lead our troops (and he's not bad in this Legion - especially if your opponent is worried about Azog). Still, no Captains means a max cap of 33 models in our force and no Heroic March unless Azog is willing to burn Might to move the army (which, admittedly, he can get away with in this Legion since he has the option for free Heroic Combats).

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

The units we have access to are incredibly limited in number - as you can see above, we have 12 Hunter Orcs, 6 mounted Hunter Orcs (so we have 18 Hunter Orcs if we don't take mounted guys), and 6 Fell Wargs (who might be needed as loose mounts for the mounted Hunter Orcs). As I mentioned in the what-models-do-you-need post, we'll ACTUALLY have 24 Hunter Orcs (up to 6 of which can have extra gear), as well as the White Warg, but this really constrains what kind of list we can build. As such, we're going to be looking at two lists today - one that is pretty true to what we've been given, and one that departs a bit from the script (but still doesn't require us to buy any more models). Let's check it out!

Fall of the Necromancer Inspired Lists: The Rangers of Mirkwood Revisited

Good morning gamers,

Today we're beginning the first in a series of posts on taking your Fall of the Necromancer models into Matched Play. If you didn't catch the drift from our review of the models we need to play all of the scenarios from Fall of the Necromancer, we don't have a lot to work with. All of the Halls of Thranduil models available to us are available in the Rangers of Mirkwood LL, so we'll be looking at that today. These models include:

• Legolas Greenleaf, Prince of Mirkwood
• Tauriel with Elf bow
• 2 Mirkwood Ranger Captains
• 20 Mirkwood Rangers
  

Did you notice anything that was missing (besides all the armored stuff)? A lot of players like to add in a few Wood Elf Sentinels into their Lothlorien or Halls of Thranduil lists to provide some shenanigan options to their forces - and these are really good inclusions. Did we get any in the scenarios? No.

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Sentinels also give an underrated bonus to the army: variability in points usage. At almost any points level, you're likely to have both Legolas and Tauriel in your list - Tauriel is one of the cheapest F6/3A heroes in the game and can reliably have at least 4 Attacks on a turn when she's able to charge two enemy models. With 3-Might-and-Strike on both her and Legolas (who picks up the Knife Fighter rule in the Legion - which I would totally pay extra for to get on every version of him), you can at least challenge most big things in the game AND fight against spam lists.

But once you get these two heroes . . . what do you do next? With only 14-point Mirkwood Rangers and 75-point Captains available to you, not coughing up points that "you just can't use" is quite hard without using weapon swaps. Having something that is 25pts doesn't SEEM like that much of a help, but spending 25pts when you would have spent 28pts can save you a little more, which allows you to turn those odd extra points into an Elven Cloak for Legolas or another guy.

With a max points value of 620pts (650 with 22 weapon swaps), I've decided on showcasing a 500-point list (in line with what we did for the Scouring of the Shire series - small books get small points levels) - here it is!

Fall of the Necromancer: What Models Do You Need?

Good morning gamers,

We're starting our way through the fifth sourcebook released for the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game, which is a follow-up to an older sourcebook from a previous edition of the game (also bearing the same name): The Fall of the Necromancer. While the original book was inspired by Elves and Wizards who would have been around during the time of the Necromancer (to include Cirdan and Arwen . . . you know, because THEY would be larking about in Mirkwood during the time of Thorin's epic journey to Erebor), the current rendition follows the storyline of the Hobbit trilogy, including some interesting missions which appeared off-camera but were mentioned in the film franchise.

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

The book is also critiqued for being VERY thin compared to other sourcebooks of similar pricing - the book is similar in size to the Scouring of the Shire supplement, which is priced a lot less than the other supplements that have been released to date. The other limitations to this sourcebook will be viewed as we go through it, but let's get this out of the way first: this was the first supplement released that featured Armies of the Hobbit models in the scenarios - and while Defence of the North also features some models from the Armies of the Hobbit, Fall of the Necromancer is the only sourcebook to date that contains exclusively Armies of the Hobbit Legendary Legions (there are two in Defence of the North - one of which might be redundant). While we'll be focusing on the scenario side of the house, this sourcebook has released Legions that have been dominant on top tables (both before and after nerfing was done) at a variety of different points levels and is still valuable for both Matched Play enthusiasts and scenario-driven players. Let's dig in!

Part 1: The Founding of Dol Guldur to Lurking in the Shadows

In the first four scenarios, we have quite a few models - they'll form the basis for most of the campaign. While most of the scenarios will involve models from the Armies of the Hobbit, we begin, actually, with a few from the Armies of the Lord of the Rings. Let's see what we need.

Purchase #1: Rohan Command blister (or Rohan Mounted Command blister)

It's funny that, in a book devoted to the Armies of the Hobbit, we start off with some Rohan models. :) While profiles could have been made (even if just for scenario play) for the woodmen of Rhovanion, we are just using nomadic Rohan guys . . . okay, fine.

Personally, I think giving us "Mirkwood Woodsmen" with a basic profile akin to the Bree Villagers we saw in the Scouring of the Shire (and incorporated into our Watchers of the Roads LL last December) would have been great. As it happens, because we only need a Captain of Rohan on foot, you can get either the foot Command blister or the mounted Command blister - whichever you like better (or think you'll use).

Purchase #2: 12 Warriors of Rohan (or the Rohan Battle Host)

Well, look at that - we also need 12 Warriors of Rohan to join our Captain. Funny, in order to get 12 of these guys, we need to get 24 of them. But if we're willing to pay ~$45 for the Warriors of Rohan and ~$50 for the Command blister . . . we could save some cash and use Eomer as our "Woodsman Chieftain" (or paint up one of our extra Warriors of Rohan to look more elite than the others) and 12 Warriors of Rohan and just get the Rohan Battle Host and get some Riders of Rohan for free. Chances are good we'll want a Battle Host if we want to get started in Rohan anyway, so while it's a pricey bit of kit, it's actually a far better value for us than trying to get the exact models we want (though adding the Rohan Mounted Command blister to the Rohan Battle Host is a really good option too).

Since we only need these woodsman for a single scenario, I still think giving us custom profiles for a Woodsman Chieftain and Woodsmen for the scenario (like they did for Bree Villagers) would have been the right call. Just saying . . .