Heroic Heroes: Top 10 Heroes for Heroic Strike

Good morning gamers,

Well, we're closing out the year with the specialized heroic action you've been waiting for: Heroic Strike! Ah, Heroic Strike - the specialized heroic action that seemed so stupidly powerful when my mates and I looked at the Hobbit SBG rules that we said, "No thanks - we'll stick with the Legions rules and the big blue rulebook." In the new edition, Strike isn't available to all heroes and so becomes an interesting part of list building theory and meta-gaming. But how useful is it anyway? For more on this topic, you should check out Rythbryt's series on Heroic Strike, where he delved into how useful this heroic action really is (and covers a lot of other things too - things that can make your Heroic Strikes more powerful AND things that can make countering Heroic Strike easier without having to call a Strike in return).

What Does the Heroic Action Do?

Heroic Strike, like Heroic Defense and Heroic Strength, is pretty straight-forward: the hero who calls Heroic Strike in the Fight phase increases his Fight Value by D6. Like all heroic actions, Heroic Strike is called at the start of the Fight phase, but your increase in Fight Value isn't determined until the fight involving that hero is selected to be resolved. This is important because if a F3 Meriadoc, Captain of the Shire calls a Heroic Strike against someone like the Witch-King of Angmar, the Witch-King will need to decide whether to counter-call a Heroic Strike BEFORE knowing if Merry got a 1-2 and retained a lower/tying Fight Value to the Witch-King's original Fight Value of 5. Counter-calling a Strike might be the "safe" way to go, but it would also mean foregoing a Heroic Combat (something the Witch-King is likely to succeed in pulling off if he's on the charge with the Crown of Morgul - and certainly possible if he's riding a Fell Beast).

This increase in Fight Value is also determined before the players choose whether or not they are using any special strikes - so a model armed with a sword or dagger (most models with Heroic Strike have these kinds of weapons) can Strike up to a high Fight Value and then choose to Feint to lower their Fight Value if they're fighting warriors (or low-Fight heroes) in order to not only get a higher Fight Value, but also reroll 1s on their To Wound rolls. Neat, huh?

The Bare Necessities, Part V: Making Your Heroes Better (and Keeping Them Alive)

Good morning gamers,

Today is our last post in our series on list building – walking through the different things to consider for your army when thinking about victory points (VPs) that can be scored in a game. As a brief refresher, here’s the list:

• Fast troops who can claim objectives or exit the opposing board edge;
• At least one banner;
• Ways of delaying/avoiding being broken (often in the form of large numbers);
• Means of killing/inhibiting enemy heroes; and
• Means of keeping your own heroes alive/augmenting their damage.

We’ve already covered fast troops, banners, “the numbers game,” and neutralizing enemy heroes. Today, we wrap up the discussion by talking about different ways you can make your heroes better (and keep them from dying). Most of our discussion today will focus around your Army Leader (and your opponent’s Army Leader), though most of it also applies to other heroes.

Top 5 Ways to Waste Might Points: One Gamer’s Opinion

Good morning gamers,

In this series on heroes, we’ve covered an exhaustive reviewof the Dwarves in Thorin’s Company (and which variant is better – the Thorin’s Company ones or the Erebor Reclaimed ones) and revisited a taxonomy on Isengard heroes that we did a while back. Today, we turn to the use of Might, one of the most important resources you’ll have to manage in the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game. Some of the thoughts I have in this article have already crept up in some of my other articles, but I think they all bear repeating in one central place. And if you’re going to talk about heroes for a month, talking about Might is probably a good thing to add to the conversation.

The guiding rule we’re going to following today is this:

Might is a scarce and important resource – don’t risk wasting it!

If you accept this rule, everything I’m about to write makes sense (even if it galls us to have to admit in a game). While the purely analytical side of me agrees wholeheartedly with this, I often find myself drawn to violate the following five rules (so naturally, I’m going to caveat exceptions to all of them). :-) Okay, enough blather - let’s get into it!

Sizing Up Dwarves: Thorin's Company vs. Erebor Reclaimed

Good morning gamers!

For those who have been following our blog for a while, my last post showed how I re-did some models I converted for Thorin’s Company. Recently, I acquired all of the new Thorin's Company models (the Dwarves at any rate) and began to re-convert my Thorin's Company rangers to match the color scheme of the army. It was a great project to make my Dwarves look like those in the movies, but I really like the new models (plus, my son was reading the Hobbit at the time, so maybe that kept them on my mind)!

I do like that thanks to the errata, their army bonus gives all of them Heroic March – something they REALLY NEEDED when the rules were originally released. While there are many great things that make this army fun to use, we’ll be using this post not only to showcase how they look now, but also contrasting the Thorin’s Company version of each hero with his counterpart version in the Erebor Reclaimed list (which Rythbryt did a write-up on earlier in 2019). For the purposes of this post, we will only be comparing the profiles of the heroes themselves. I say this because the heroes from the Erebor Reclaimed list can lead Iron Hills Warriors and Iron Hills Goat Riders - both of which are amazing warrior units, as Rythbryt writes about here and here - but the comparisons get really muddy if we include the ability to take warriors vs. having to run as part of a single warband. With that said, let the pictures begin!

Is Heroic Strike Good? (Part IV: The Probabilities (Plural) of Heroic Strike)

We come to it at last...

After a lengthy build-up breaking down all the components of a successful duel role, we're finally read to talk about Heroic Strike itself. When does it make sense? And when is it *gasp* a waste?

There's actually a lot to unpack here (far more than I thought there'd be when I originally started writing on it). We'll start by looking at the overall mechanics of Heroic Strike, mostly to understand exactly what benefits (and risks) it carries with it. It's that balancing of benefit and risk that makes it game-winning or worthless (and a lot in-between).

Because Blogger doesn't like long write-ups, this one is split into two parts. This section (part IV) goes over the three basic probability mechanics in Heroic Strike (the D6 roll to increase Fight Value, the "10" cap on Fight Value, and expected distributions of probable outcomes as dice scale upwards). Part V (which you can read here) applies those principles to a case study between two combatants (Faramir vs. Eomer), and also discusses an alternative use of Might ("boosting") and how that might--or might not--make Heroic Strike more attractive (sorry--those "might" puns were purely unintentional).

(Potential math overload ahead)

Is Heroic Strike Good? (Part V: A Case Study in Miniature)

Photo Credit: Dork Lords

This is the second-part of our mathematical write-up on Heroic Strike itself (cut for length because Blogger didn't like the full feature in a single post--boo!). If you missed the first part, you can find it here. To summarize, we looked at the basic components of Heroic Strike. Here are the high points:

• Heroic Strike, like fight value boosts in general, only improve our odds to win drawn combats, and only drawn combats;
• The Strike itself has a lot of variance, since it hinges on a single, unmodifiable D6;
• That variance can be reduced somewhat by the overall Fight Value cap of "10," and can also be reduced by having higher Fight Value to start with; and
• Even though Heroic Strike only impacts the six drawn combat outcomes (of thirty-six total combat outcomes), those scenarios are among the most probable outcomes once we start rolling two or more duel dice, and only become more probable the more dice we add to the duel rolls.

Now, to synthesize all of this, let's take a look at a practical case study between two opponents who share almost identical stat profiles, except for their Attacks. How might calling Heroic Strike (or not calling it) impact their odds to win the fight? And are there other considerations, beyond the mere probabilities of winning and losing, that caution for (or against) spending Might to Strike?

(Maths ahead, as the rubber hits the road.)

Is Heroic Strike good? (Part III: Dueling with Shields, Banners, and Mounts)

We're almost ready to analyze the merits of Heroic Strike, but before we get there, we have a few more pieces of wargear to sort out: shields, banners, and mounts. As a reminder, here's what we've discovered so far (in relation to small troop combats: 1-on-1, 2-on-1, and 2-on-2):

• RULE #1: In an even duel, both sides have an even chance of winning.
• RULE #2: Having higher fight value than our opponent helps us win the fight, but only if we have a drawn combat. 
• RULE #3: Adding more dice (on its own) is more likely to help us win fights than improved Fight Value (on its own).
• RULE #4: Flailing reduces our odds of winning the fight, unless we already have a lower fight value than our opponent.
• RULE #5: Feinting reduces our odds of winning the fight, unless we have a fight value that is 3+ more than our opponent's fight value. 
• RULE #6: The -1 duel roll penalty from two-handed weapons dramatically reduces our chances of winning the fight, regardless of our fight value. 

Let's start with shields.

(Bring on the maths…)

Is Heroic Strike good? (Part II: Dueling with Whirl, Feint, and Two-Handed Weapons)

Photo Credit: modthesims.info

It's been a while, but now that the TMAT grand tournament is over, there's finally some time to write! Last time, we looked at the basic mathematical anatomy of a duel, and the three general rules that govern the probability of winning (for the moment, at least) small duels (1 v. 1, 2 v. 1, and 2 v. 2). Here's a brief recap:

RULE #1
In an even duel, both sides have an even chance of winning.

RULE #2
Having higher fight value than our opponent helps us win the fight, but only if we have a drawn combat.

RULE #3

Adding more dice (on its own) is more likely to help us win fights than improved Fight Value (on its own).

In this section, we'll add to these basic rules by looking at weapon choices. This has obvious ramifications in the list-building stage, but also plays an important role in battlefield decisions, such as when to use a piece of war gear (one-handed vs. two-handed), and whether to declare a special strike (whirl, anyone?).

On to the graphs!

Is Heroic Strike Good? (Part I: Fight Value and the Anatomy of a Duel)

Having finished a lengthy discussion of an oft-sneered-at heroic action that nobody uses (Heroic Strength), I figured it'd be fun to examine a heroic action at the other end of the spectrum that everyone values: Heroic Strike.

One of the first things new players learn in our game is the importance of fight value. If your fight value is higher than your opponent's, you can auto-win a duel if you roll a six (or can obtain a six through other shenanigans, usually involving banners and/or character-specific special rules and/or Might). You also win if you happen to roll higher on any die than your opponent, or if you roll the same as your opponent. If your fight value is tied with your opponent's, you only win outright if you roll higher than your opponent, and if you tie (or both roll a "6"), then you go to the dreaded roll-off where your fate is (literally) decided by (even more) random chance (than usual). And if your fight value is lower than your opponent's ... well, let's just say it can get very frustrating very quickly.

Most heroes boast a fight value of 5 or 6 (there are notable exceptions on both ends, of course). But as any seasoned player knows, there's a massive difference between FV5 and FV6. FV5 is usually good enough for dealing with regular troops, but not all elites, most heroes (even at low hero tiers), and almost all monsters. FV6 is good enough for dealing with most elite troops (but not all) and most low-end heroes, but not mid-to-high tier heroes, and again, most monsters will still pose a problem.

Enter Heroic Strike: the pinnacle of rule-breaking, at the cost of a Might point it allows our lowly hero to become as adept at fighting at the Balrog himself (although usually "as good as Gil-Galad" is good enough). Game-winning when it works, game-breaking when it doesn't, and usually game-slogging all the time, it is largely considered the most important heroic action to have in a hero's arsenal (now that not all heroes can call all heroic actions).

But are we really sure it's good?

(Controversial maths ahead...)