Battle Report: Fangorn v. Numenor

Hey Reader!

Who coulda guessed: not only a battle report (which we haven't done in a while), but also a battle report testing out some of the new army lists from the new edition (which I'm going to call 5th Edition, based on The One Rulebook, Warbands, The Hobbit, MESBG, and now the newest 2024-2025 edition, which is what we're playing), showcasing armies that we both think are interesting and are quite different from their previous iterations. So what better way to show you some new content than by crushing our foes on the field of battle!

Tiberius and I had a Saturday morning free (well, watching the children, but they also love the game, so we have fans watching and playing at smaller tables), so we decided to meet up for a 700pt match! Tiberius will be fielding his Numenoreans (with some proxy elves, as he hasn't built enough spearmen yet), while I will be playing Fangorn, because monsters!

Army lists are below:

Tiberius's List: Numenor

Warband 1

Elendil (Army Leader)

7 Warriors of Numenor with shields and spears 

6 Warriors of Numenor with shields 

4 Warriors of Numenor with longbows 

Warband 2

Numenorean Captain #1 (Kaladin)

4 Warriors of Numenor with shields and spears 

3 Warriors of Numenor with shields 

3 Warriors of Numenor with longbows 

Warband 3

Numenorean Captain #2 (Not Kaladin)

4 Warriors of Numenor with shields and spears 

3 Warriors of Numenor with shields 

3 Warriors of Numenor with longbows 

TOTAL: 700pts, 40 models, 7 Might*

Centaur's List: Fangorn

Warband 1

Treebeard with Merry and Pippin (Army Leader)

Beech Ent (Ent Warrior with reroll 1s to wound in close combat)

Oak Ent (Ent Warrior with 4 Wounds instead of 3)

Warband 2

Birchseed (new Ent hero that can call a free Heroic Move each turn if you 1) don't win priority, and 2) your opponent chooses to claim priority. So situational, but very useful for covering bases)

Ash Ent (Ent Warrior with 3+ Shoot Value, and may move up to 3" and still stoop to throw a stone)

TOTAL: 700pts, 7 models, 4 Might*

Scenario: Our scenario for this match is Fog of War, which has changed since the last edition. Not by much, but it has changed. Here are the scoring conditions:

• You get 5VPs if the friendly non-army leader hero you nominate has suffered no wounds, lost no fate, and is still alive at the end of the game; you gain 3VPs if the hero has lost Fate but hasn't suffered any wounds and is still alive at the end of the game, and you gain 1VP if the hero has been wounded, has lost Fate, but is still alive at the end of the game (which is a nice change from the last edition: there's always a reason to go for wounds against heroes). 
• You get 5VPs if the hostile non-army leader hero you nominate is slain in melee at the end of the game (full honesty: I forgot about this change specifying that it has to be in close combat during the game - I had a lot going on), 3VPs if the hero has suffered at least one wound at the end of the game, and 1VP if the hero has lost at least one Fate Point at the end of the game.
• You get 5VPs if you have at least 2 models and the enemy has no models within or touching a terrain feature you specify that is fully within the enemy's half of the board (the "fully within" is also new this edition, and does cut down on the number of potential terrain features someone might choose as those straddling the middle line aren't options anymore - not a bad change, either, especially since it solve issues for big bases that wouldn't fit nicely on terrain features by allowing you to be in base contact instead of having to go into it, so yay for mumaks and Ents having more options); you get 3VPs if you have at least 2 models and at least double the number of models within or touching said terrain feature, and you get 1VP if you have more models within or touching said terrain feature.
• You get 2VPs if you slay the enemy army leader, and you get 1VP if you wound the enemy army leader.
• And finally, you get 1VP if you break the opponent, and 3VPs if you break the enemy without being broken.

So all told there are now 20VPs (instead of 12) on the table, and it's generally easier to get VPs, especially against those notoriously hard to remove models, which I think is healthy.

We rolled for board edge, and I won the roll; I chose the lower board edge, and after deployment it looked like this:

For this game, I'm choosing to protect Merry, as I don't think Tiberius is going to try to kill Treebeard: I think he's going to speedbump Treebeard as long as possible, and throw Elendil at Birchseed. I am going to slay the Non-Kaladin Captain, in part because he looks like a warrior, so I'm more likely to just rush him, and also because Tiberius likes Kaladin, so he's more likely to keep him safe, lol. And I'm going to attempt to get to the stable (top-right ruin building near the bridge), relying on Birchseed's free heroic moves if I don't get priority to tie down enemies and give me a (hopefully) competitive advantage in getting to and holding the objective.

And with that, to war!!!

War in Rohan Inspired Lists: Fangorn Revisited

Good morning gamers,

We've looked so far at four Legendary Legions in this series on the War in Rohan supplement (Theodred's Guard, Assault Upon Helm's Deep, the Army of Dunland, and the Defenders of Helm's Deep), but today, we're turning away from the Legion section and looking at a list with no Legions for it: Fangorn. These guys are some of the nastiest models you'll ever have to face - hard to beat in a fight, hard to kill, and with their army bonus, they're immune to a good many magical powers (see my article for how this breakdown works). Thanks to a very few scenarios, we have the following models available to us:

• Treebeard with Merry and Pippin
• Quickbeam
• Beechbone
• 3 Ents
  

Photo Credit: War in Rohan

With 860pts of Ents, it would be easy to say "take everything except Beechbone" - but with only Treebeard having access to Heroic Strike/Defense, this 7-model army would find it pretty difficult to deal with a lot of different threats (multiple Strike heroes, control scenarios against Fearless foes, perhaps Maelstrom scenarios). As such, while you could certainly run that list with my blessing (it's a bear to fight), I've opted for a convenient alliance instead, that will not only get our numbers up but ALSO help us deal with multiple hero threats.

In Defense Of: Merry and Pippin

Good morning gamers,

Today we're viewing two characters that I've been using since I started playing MESBG (back when it was LOTR SBG): Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took. Merry and Pippin are two of the cheapest hero profiles in the game and have . . . well, some of the worst hero profiles in the game too (unsurprisingly). Far weaker than warriors who are cheaper or the same cost as them and by far and away the most vulnerable and fragile models in their army lists, you may wonder if bringing these little imps is even worth doing.

"You need people of intelligence on this sort of mission . . . quest . . . thing . . ."

Today, we'll be looking at these two guys who I have gotten a lot of mileage out of in the past few years. With three different ways to run these guys, we've got a lot to dig into - so let's get started!

This Army Will Break Your Local Meta . . .

Good morning gamers,

Let me begin by acknowledging the click-bait title - I couldn't help myself. Centaur has recently been playing with a new army (and exercising a new 3D printer) and I have to admit, I had no idea how powerful it was until it started crushing armies that are deemed crazy powerful (the Vanquishers of the Necromancer in Command and Control, the Black Riders LL in Contest of Champions, and a Balrog/Cave Troll spam from the Depths of Moria LL in To The Death - twice). What army am I talking about? Well, Centaur's been running this one:

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Yep, today we're looking at Fangorn and how they can single-handedly change your local meta - because traditional, conventional armies (and faddish, awesome armies that are used to fighting conventional armies) have no idea how to fight them. :-)

The Bare Necessities, Part XXXV: Fangorn

Good morning gamers,

As we wrap up other factions in MESBG to review for balanced lists, we come to a faction that . . . honestly . . . you're probably NOT running with a balanced list in mind. Instead, this is a monster-mash army - and the first of three armies that we'll be covering that (when run pure) HAS to focus on low numbers, but strong models. Today we're going to be covering Fangorn - an army that is hard to ally with (even though they're Convenient Allies with all Forces of Good armies) since you have only one Hero of Valor/Legend profile. Once you add Treebeard to an army, each additional Ent makes the remaining points available to you much smaller - so how on Arda can you get a 700-point army with 4+ fast models, a banner, and 30 models when you're running at least one Ent!?!?!?!? The answer might surprise you - read on if you'd like to find out.

Fangorn: So You Like Treebeard, Huh?

There are many armies that have decent Heroes of Legend, but you don't REALLY want them being your army leader. Heroes like Theoden, Girion, Galadriel, or Gandalf the Grey can all be your army leader - and if the scenarios require just keeping someone safe, maybe it's fine to have them as your army leader. However, if you have the faintest chance of getting Contest of Champions and had the choice of a F5/6 1-2A hero or a F8 3A hero (who also is D8 with 3 Wounds and 3 Fate), which would you rather have? Well, you'd probably want the F8 guy - and for that reason, allying in Treebeard is a pretty good option for some armies.

Allying him in DOES come at a cost - not only does the non-Fangorn element lose a good 190-200 points of models, but you also lose the Fangorn army bonus (Fearless is good to have, but not necessary since your Ents have good Courage - it's the immunity to magical powers that would keep you from moving or knock you over that's the real appeal). The question is whether you NEED the model count at the points level you're playing at - if you don't need the model count (Contest of Champions, Lords of Battle, To The Death), maybe you can make due without all that other stuff and instead of rely on having a few models that are hard to kill (and good at killing things).

At the end of the day, I decided that this post was going to feature an army that had a Convenient Alliance between Fangorn and an army that could give it a real banner with pretty cheap troops and some mounted models. I also wanted the Fangorn contingent to be more than just Treebeard - two or more Ents would be good. So, that gave me only a few choices - and here's the list that we ended up with . . .

Fleshing Out the Faction: Fangorn

 Hey Reader!

Welcome back to the blog! I want to start off by saying that I love the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game, and am ever so pleased with the hard work that the team at GamesWorkshop puts into the game to bring us the best play experience possible. I have been overwhelmingly pleased with the supplements and models we have gotten, and am very grateful for the hard work behind the scenes.

But I also think that with the release of War in Rohan there were a few missed opportunities for both Fangorn and Isengard, and I wanted to cover the former of those in this post.

Fangorn is a great faction: it's full of monsters (which are fun to use), very defensible (Defense 8 and 3 Wounds will take you far), and we even got two new ent heroes in the new lineup! But even with the new additions, there really isn't a lot of variety in the faction, and what makes forests so interesting is their variety. It's what makes a forest look wild, and having some variety in the faction would be fantastic.

Naturally there are many ways to add variety, some of which may dramatically change the way the faction plays, so we will start by looking philosophically at what the faction should be, and then from there discuss a new set of upgrades to the basic Ent warrior, and then move on to three new profiles to further flesh out the faction.

I.  Philosophy: Options and Balance

To start with, the ents are the shepherds of the forest: they look after trees and huorns (awakened trees) and protect them from internal and external threats. They are not great in number (so you should be one of the smallest armies in a tournament - we will not be changing that) but make up for that with tremendous size and fortitude.

The ents dig deep, drinking water and eating earth for centuries as they pursue their calling: to guard what Yavanna made from the children of Aule and the peoples of Middle Earth that would threaten the beauty of the forests. But since they lost the entwives, they are running out of shepherds to patrol everything, and thus some question whether ents are even real, as they are so scarce seen.

(This also means don't get your hopes up for an "Entwife" profile later in this post. Yes, I thought of an idea. No, I didn't add it. Yes, if we do a First Age or Second Age supplement I'll note it there, but that would not be a traditional Fangorn army, so I'm not including it here. Suffice it to say, though, yes, the entwives do have a "Farming" and "Nut and Acorn" special rule that I'm very proud of, :P )

So from a lore perspective, we want to incorporate all of this. From a balance perspective, we also need to keep in mind that the current costs for heroes and warriors in this faction is basically perfect for most standard game sizes (as Jay Clare noted recently online), so we will not be adding point costs to any of the ent warriors. Instead, we will be offering a set of free upgrades to your ents that give both bonuses and penalties to keep the balance between styles of ents while also giving you some customization options to make your Fangorn army more unique and serviceable to meet other needs.