Nemesis: How to Fight Against the Goblin King

Good morning gamers,

Today is our last post (for now) in this series on how-to-fight-against-those-models-that-are-not-fun-to-fight-against. Our contestant today is a model that I have never used, but have had to face many, many1 times: the Goblin King. Yes, it's the dreaded monster from Goblin-town and all his lovely entourage! While this post will be focusing primarily on the Goblin King himself, there will also be thoughts on the other models that are in his list, since their presence make him MUCH more difficult to deal with. Let's get into the discussion of one of the nastiest profiles around!

What Makes the Goblin King So Hated?

There's a lot to unpack with this guy, but it's probably best to start off with his combat profile. The Goblin King has a pretty mediocre stat line compared to most monsters, but it's a lot of the numbers you want - Fight 6 with Strength 5/3 Attacks is incredibly good for most heroes in the game, and with 3-Might-and-Strike, you're at least on-par with other heroes. This is made even better by his two-handed pick and the Burly special rule, which allows him to be S5-6 with +1 To Wound - at effectively S7-8, he's doing as well or better than most monsters in the game!

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Many of the monsters who rival him (The Balrog, Smaug, Dragons, the Watcher in the Water, Cave Drakes) have really big bases, but the Goblin King has a 40mm base (on par with Buhrdur, Sauron, and Cave Trolls - the Troll guys are envious of this guy's profile and Sauron is . . . really expensive in comparison). This gives him incredible mobility, especially since he's got the Relentless Advance rule, that allows him to move through his own models and squish/potentially squish them to get where he wants.

The greatest critique of the Goblin King can be based on his defensive stats, but even here, he cheats: he's "only D5" with 3 Wounds/1 Fate, but thanks to his Blubbery Mass rule, any wound he takes that isn't caused by a magical power or an Elven-made weapon can be saved on a 3+ BEFORE he has to spend his Fate point. While there are models out there with 6+ saves (the Bears in their Legion, Durin, Fury/Oblivious to Pain) and even one model who can give out a 5+ save (Malbeth the Seer), getting a 3+ save is not only BETTER than having infinite Fate points, but is only comparable to Thror with the Arkenstone (which will save once on a 3+ and can save multiple times on a 4+) and Goroth's "Look Out, Sir!" rule that allows him to bounce a wound onto a friendly model nearby . . . which is good for Goroth, but not great from his friends. Yep, when it comes to shrugging off punishment, there's no one who does it better than the Goblin King.

It Has Come To Me (Again): Thoughts On The One Ring, Revisited

Good morning gamers,

When the new rules dropped back in late 2018, I did a post on the One Ring and how it had changed since the LOTR SBG days (when I first got started playing). Since then, we've had a few FAQ clarifications (a few very needed clarifications) and I've played a LOT with the Breaking of the Fellowship Legendary Legion and those experiences have given me some new perspectives on things you can do to both use the Ring well and fight against Ringbearers. So today, we're going to take a look at what the rules are for the Ring, how these rules have been altered by FAQs and Designer Commentaries, and ways you can use these rules to both use Ringbearers better AND fight against them.

Rules Review (With Errata and Designer Commentaries Notes Added)

There is a whole page of rules dedicated to the One Ring - thankfully it's broken up into sections for us. Let's dig in and see what's interesting in each part of the rules (I've color-coded the relevant Designer Commentary questions to the references from the rules (to include the errata that have been made on it).

Wearing the Ring

[Wearing The Ring] The model with the Ring can put it on at any time during their Move phase. As soon as they do so, they become Invisible. [ERRATA: Whilst invisible, the Ringbearer may move through friendly and enemy models, provided they do not end their move overlapping any part of another model’s base.] If a model who put on the Ring is mounted, their steed will bolt and they must immediately take a Thrown Rider test.

Q: Can a model with the One Ring put it on if they have already been charged that turn? (p.90) A: No.

Q: Do Invisible models ignore enemy Control Zones when they move? (p.90) A: Yes.  

Two things jump out at us from this section: first and foremost, as the Designer Commentary on the main rulebook has clarified, a Ringbearer cannot put on the One Ring if he has been charged already. This will require planning a turn or two ahead, but otherwise isn't a big deal. It can bite new players, though, so if you're just learning how Ringbearers work, you may want to just accept that there's an error or two that might be made when learning the game. This will probably be one of them.

Second, if your Ringbearer can take a mount (Isildur on horse or Bilbo Baggins on a pony), then you'll want to dismount BEFORE you put the Ring on. Because you can put the Ring on at any point in your movement, you can dismount, put the Ring on, and then move without penalty - but the timing does matter.

The Bare Necessities, Part XXXVII: Goblin-town

Good morning gamers,

Well, this is an army I've fought quite a bit and I can't say I've enjoyed any of those games. At all. So when it came to doing this series last year, I passed on reviewing Goblin-town because, frankly, I didn't know how everything worked and what was a good way to tick all the boxes. To be even more frank, I'm not sure you NEED to check all the boxes. 30+ models will basically be a given, but do you need fast troops with this list? What about an actual banner? Ways to buff your models? We'll get into all of that today as we review an army that has its own special place in the hearts of MESBG players.

Two great and annoying models . . .

Goblin-town: The Art of Fast Play

Goblin-town plays a game that several armies do: spam out cheap, horrible models and rely on your outlandishly high numbers to take the day. Unlike armies like the Shire and Sharkey's Rogues, you can support other models - and while your Defense is low (like the Shire and Sharkey's Rogues), the fact that everyone has the equivalent of a spear for basically the same price means you can get LOTS of die into your fights. And I mean LOTS of dice. So why doesn't everyone play this list?

I think the biggest reason is that this army takes FOREVER to take a turn. Moving 30-40 models CAN take a while if you're being super careful, but moving 60+ models takes a long time even if you're trying to move quickly. Movement trays can help, but even with trays it takes a long time. So how can you fix this so you can play within a time constraint?

There are two ways, I think, that this can be done. The first is to embrace the Goblin-town mindset and don't care about where you place things. Veteran gamers may cringe when I say this - but I'm serious: place models so they're backed up by a friendly model, but just move them. No planning, no worries, no strategy - just take up space! If you're moving in the right direction, you might be a bit out of position for one turn, but there will be another turn and you'll be in a spot that's just fine.

The second way (and I think the more competitive way) is to ally with someone else - other armies will be more expensive and will give you other ways of dealing with problems (like big heroes and devastating spell-casters). By bringing in a big hero or two (backed by average-cost to expensive warriors), you drop your model count and can take your turns faster.

So what's the right balance between a high model count and allying in what we need to make a balanced list? Well, we're turning to the Armies of the Hobbit army book and allying with an army that, frankly, would want to keep their army bonus in most cases. But it turns out, you can supplement a lot of Goblin-town weaknesses by just bringing one warband of models from another list.

The Bare Necessities, Part XXVIII: The Chief's Ruffians

Good morning gamers,

We've looked at lots of armies in this series - armies that can have balanced lists and ones that cannot. I think any list can be made to be a balanced list, but as we've seen in some of our lists (Rohan, Moria, Kingdom of Moria), not all have to check all five boxes. In today's post, we're going to look at a list that checks off  . . . almost no boxes! Centaur has been a huge fan of Hobbits for a long time, so I figured (what with him having the Scouring of the Shire book and all) he wouldn't mind helping me think through how to run Sharkey's Rogues as a "balanced" list. As we've done in the more recent posts of this series, we begin with some interviews.

Credit: Davetownsend

Interview Questions with Centaur (edited by Tiberius for clarity)

T: Sharkey's Rogues doesn't have any fast models and does not have access to Heroic March - how do you think about missions that require you to get places?

C: So, this is one of the weaknesses of Sharkey's Rogues: you just have to admit that your opponent will reach your board edge or objectives before you do on the whole. There is one exception to this, though, and it's how I'd deal with the problem and that is heavy amounts of archers. If you are running 10-man warbands, you can put a lot of points into warriors without having to buy heroes. Assuming you only buy Sharkey, Worm, Sid, and Ted, for 598 pts you can take 30 archers along with 49 ruffians and 12 hobbit militia if you don't take whips on anyone, which is a LOT of shooting. You can use that to drive people off an objective, keep them from getting across the board (even if you move, you're doing an average of 5 hits per turn, which assuming 6s to wound is 1 wound on average each turn), or keep solo riders or even small bands of riders from getting to an heirloom or other objective quickly. So while you can't move quickly yourself, you can at least neutralize the effectiveness of your opponent moving quickly, which is basically just as good (except in some ways better, as you then have the numerical advantage when fighting closes).

T: Sharkey's Rogues is Impossible Allies with everyone - is there a faction that you would risk an Impossible Alliance with?

C: Probably not, though there is one exception to this rule in my mind, and that is Angmar, ironically. [Sharkey's Rogues] are Impossible with everyone, but truthfully you don't give much up by losing either of their army special rules, and you gain a lot as Sharkey's Rogues if you ally them in. You get access to cheap cav with warg riders, cheap casters with barrow wights, and you can ally them in by taking a dirt cheap Valor hero with Buhrdur. But the biggest reason why you ally them in is to add shades to the army (which won't help your Ruffians, but will make your Orcs harder to deal with): being able to knock a -1 (or -2 if fighting a two-hander or a banner) off their roll makes up for the fact that you have a sub-par Fight Value, and if you can't take 10-man warbands, you might as well take dirt cheap orcs to aid you. Plus you get access to cave trolls if you need guys who can smash through enemy lines.

T: How important is it to include the new Ruffian heroes (Sid Briarthorn, Rowan Thistlewood, and Bill Ferny)?

C: Sid is an auto-include: he's strong, he's a banner for everyone who is not him, and he's the closest thing you have to a fighting hero. Rowan is good on terrain-heavy maps; you probably don't get to use his free Heroic Combats very often (as how often will you fight against armies with hobbit heroes, and how often will Rowan be near enough or capable of calling a Heroic Combat to get to that fight? There's a lot of variables working against you). Bill Ferny is good (and cheap), but I don't think he's an auto-include per se. Great for random deployment matches as he can keep a power hero's warband off the table a bit longer, but I don't like how it's fully out of your control. If the opponent really wants Boromir, Aragorn, etc. to come onto the table and your -1 is making it so that there's a 33% chance they don't come on, and another 33% chance you get to control where they come on, all they have to do is spend 1 Might and the bonus is gone. And it's not like Ferny is a great fighter once that model comes onto the table. Plus if they have someone like Madril or anyone who makes it easier to get onto the table, you're really not doing anything useful (definitely nothing as useful as adding 7-8 ruffians to your army). So I'm not personally sold on Bill; you can include him, but I definitely think he's the weak link.

T: How important is it to include the new Hobbit heroes (Lotho Sackville-Baggins and Ted Sandyman)?

C: Both are really good, but the real winner here is Ted Sandyman: being able to add, for 48 pts, 12 models with axes (S3 when they Piercing Strike)? This is great (more info on this in the next question). Lotho is good (as bribing is awesome), but I don't think he's this good. Ted is the other auto-include for this army, and for good reason.

T: What is the point of taking Hobbit Militia with Ted Sandyman (over more Ruffians)?

C: Hobbit militia give you cheap access to axes, allowing you to Piercing Strike to get S3 attacks for 4pts/model. This means you can put them in a fight with another Ruffian (not hard, as you have so many), use numbers (and possibly a banner on the Ruffian from Sid) to win the fight, ignoring the penalty from Piercing Strike. And even if you do miss, there's not a much higher chance that your opponent wounds you than you had walking into it, so it's fine. Besides, it keeps your F3 S3 model, who is also D3, from being killed by the guy who strikes at the less than D3 hobbit that used Piercing Strike. So that's actually a plus. Hobbit Militia also have a 8" 3+ shooting attack when the enemy starts getting close.

T: Is there a reason to run the normal Sharkey's Rogues over the Chief's Ruffians Legendary Legion?

C: Again, it would really only be if you wanted to ally in another faction. Otherwise the LL is great, and allows you to overrun the enemy, but not with a F2 or lower army like other spam armies. Sure, you're low defense, but most models have a 50% chance of failing to wound anyway; I'd rather take the higher FV than higher Defense, and with 30 archers you can pound away at smaller forces very effectively (not to mention extra throwing stones as they close). But truthfully, the LL is pretty much all you need if you're running these guys: use a ton of guys on the table, and swarm the enemy to death.

Thanks Centaur - we'll view some alternate lists based on Centaur's recommendations at the end of the post. The list we'll be looking at today is based on the info provided here and features the critically-acclaimed Chief's Ruffians Legendary Legion.

Armies of Middle Earth SBG: Goblin-Town in the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game

Updated May 30, 2023: Thus far, we've been looking at armies with huge heroes and elite troops. Don't get me wrong--it's fun to play armies with beefy stat lines and heavy armor. But sometimes it's good to shake things up with a good ol' fashioned horde and drown your opponent in buckets and buckets of dice. 

Today, we're taking a look at the hordiest of horde armies: Goblin-Town, from the Armies of the Hobbit. Unlike the other armies we've looked at, Goblin-Town has very few profiles, and most of them (Grinnah, Goblin Captains, Gollum, and Goblin Warriors) have nearly identical statlines with just a few different characteristics between them. But don't let that fool you: playing this army demands a lot from you, and dishes a lot at your opponents.

Plus it has its own theme music!  One version is an awesome classic. The other... not so much.