5 More Ways to Waste Might Points

Good morning gamers,

Last time we did this, we talked about the five things that I thought were the biggest waste of Might in MESBG. In October 2020, the Durin Show did an analysis of what was written, so since they seemed to eat it up, we're doing it again! 

Side-note: if you haven't checked out the Durin Show, you should - their discussions are brilliant. 

The situations I'm going to cover might be a bit less controversial this time, but a little controversy is good for getting us to re-think our innate assumptions about this game we love, no? Before we dig in, let's review the principle that we'll be following in this discussion:

Might is too precious of a resource to waste.

If you agree with this sentiment, everything we're going to talk through will make (at least some) sense. If you're like me, though, knowing that something is a waste doesn't make it any less tempting, so naturally, there will be exceptions to everything. :-)

Let's get into it!

Last Month on TMAT (December 2019)

As we closed out 2019, we finished a series on shooting and started a new series on heroes, causing us to revisit some of our oldest posts on heroes and tactics.

Magic: Top Five Anti-Casters

Good morning gamers,

In our series on heroes, we’ve looked at Uruk-Hai heroes from Isengard, Dwarf (and wizard and Hobbit) heroes from Thorin’s Company, and the top five ways to waste Might points in the game. Today, we look at the top five heroes that you can employ to resist enemy magic casters (and in preparing for this post, I was rather proud to know that I own most of them - good thing, since almost all of my armies run magic, huh?). :)

How to stop magic?

As I discussed in a previous post on Magic in MESBG, there are four ways to block magic:

• Spend Will (one die for each point of Will you spend – any that get a “natural 6” are returned to your Will store);
• Resistant to Magic (free die anytime you’re targeted by a spell – available whether you spend Will or not);
• Heroic Resolve (free die anytime you’re targeted by a spell, but requires the hero who calls it to stay stationary); and
• Fortify Spirit/Protection of the Valar (two free dice anytime you’re targeted by a spell OR immunity from hostile spells, but requires the hero who casts the magical powers to retain Will OR cast the magical power that turn).

No model has access to all of these innately and most heroes only have access to one or two. Since magic is out of favor for many players these days, you might not get much practice fighting against magic (which can be a nasty surprise). As such, let’s look at some of the qualities that makes a hero a good anti-caster option (in the odd event you run into a double-Ringwraith army).

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!

The Fellowship: The Strength of the Company, Revisited

Good morning gamers,

In our previous two posts, we revisited the Fellowship's tactical units (Gandalf the Grey and Bill the Pony) and the Hobbit characters in the Fellowship (Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, and Smeagol). Today, we wrap up our revisit of the Fellowship to the four characters who really do it all - not only the predominant kill generators, but also provide the well-roundedness the team requires to be truly frightening. At long last, we tackle Legolas, Gimli, Boromir, and Aragorn - Strider. This post revisits a post we did back in 2012 and will be quite different in some areas, but much of what was written there still holds true (so you should read that before you continue if you haven't already).

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 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!

Heroic Srength: APPENDIX B: At Least and Expected Distributions for Heroic Strength (and Other Things)

This will be the last in our discussion of Heroic Strength. We left off last time in Appendix A looking at simulated dice rolls as a way of measuring the likelihood of "wasting" a point of Might on Heroic Strength. This time, we'll be tackling the same question using two more measuring tools: at least distributions and expected distributions.

An at least distribution chart attempts to convey the probability that we will score "at least" X results. For wounds (the primary thing we'll be mapping on these charts), this means our probability of scoring at least 0 wounds, 1 wound, 2 wounds, etc. out of however many to-wound dice our hero has. We made extensive use of these charts in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of this series, looking at the odds that characters like Aragorn and Boromir would have of scoring at least X wounds when they wound on 6s, 5s, and 4s, so they're not entirely new to us.

An expected distribution chart measures the same data, but instead of telling us how many 0+, 1+, 2+, etc. we scored, this chart tells us the probability that we will roll exactly zero 6s, one 6, two 6s, three 6s, and so on. And since the probability of rolling a particular result (like a 6) is important for lots of reasons in our game beyond wounding, these charts may be of interest to you even if you've long lost interest in Heroic Strength.

(Maths ahead...)

Heroic Strength: APPENDIX A: Heroic Strength vs. Mighting your to-Wound Rolls

I'm back! It's been a crazy month involving moving trucks and all that entails, plus trying to finalize my list for TMAT's upcoming Grand Tournament (I think I'm almost there... but I've thought that at least a dozen times in the last twelve days, so...). 

We closed out Part 3 of our series on Heroic Strength (you can find Part 1 and Part 2 here) by asking the following question:

Question 2: Does the probability of wounding with Heroic Strength outweigh the certainty of wounding if I save that Might point to modify a wound roll?

The reason we saved that discussion for later is that it really launches us fully into a secondary discussion of opportunity costs in general, which needed some additional problem-solving. I’m not a math expert, and the probability calculators that I usually use offer the probability of rolling a number combination on 2 or more dice (sum of 7, sum of 11, etc.), which is great for calculating courage tests (more on them in the future, perhaps) but not for providing a breakdown on the probability of rolling each individual number on X number of dice or the expected odds of rolling each number on each die, both of which are what we’re really concerned about here (in a D6-based game). Which means I had to get more creative.

Because I couldn’t find a single metric that adequately addressed this problem in a way I could understand, I’ve decided to tackle it instead using several different methods. In this Appendix, we’ll start with a batch of simulated dice rolls to give us a sense of what various to-wound rolls look like before and after Heroic Strength modifications. In a future write-up, we’ll consider some other, broader, methods, like expected outcome distributions and custom dice simulations.

Finally, if you're still wondering why we're still going on and on about Heroic Strength, which is clearly a niche heroic action, the data we're looking at is useful for other things as well--we're going to look specifically at wounding and the frequency with which +1 modifiers improve our dice rolls (and at what point we start suffering diminishing returns, or their opposite), so you can substitute your favorite +1 modifier for Heroic Strength/Might-to-wound (like two-handed weapons, Backstabbers, Hatred (X), etc.) or even +1 modifiers unrelated to wounding (i.e., +1 on climb tests for Cave Dwellers, or +1 on reinforcement rolls). Spoiler alert: +1 modifiers, especially +1 modifiers that operate on multiple dice, are tremendous value.

More maths awaits…

(which isn’t grammatically correct, but it alliterates… sorta…)

Heroic Strength: The Return of the (Numenorean) King (Or, How Heroic Strength helps Elendil... and your hero, too! ... if they actually win the fight)

So far, we’ve looked at Heroic Strength solely in terms of the benefits it can confer if our hero loses the fight. In part 1, we looked at how Heroic Strength can protect heroes who are swarmed by cavalry models or find a Mordor troll up in their grill, by shrugging off knock-downs, offering us cheeky ways to blunt what monsters usually do well, making us too heavy to hurl and harder to rend, and keeping our all-important mount under our hero’s heroic tushy. And in part 2, we examined how, depending on the opponents we’re facing, Heroic Strength may even provide comparable (or better) protection than Heroic Defense.

All of this should give us some confidence that if we expend Might to call Heroic Strength, there are at least some scenarios (which also happen to be particularly dangerous scenarios) where we’re probably going to see at least some return on our investment even if we lose the duel. Now let’s consider how Heroic Strength can help our hero if he wins the fight.

More maths! More charts! To war!

Heroic Strength: The Two Choices (Or, Why would I ever choose Heroic Strength over Heroic Defense?)

If you're just joining us, this is part 2 of a three-part homily on Heroic Strength. (No really, it's a proper homily, complete with alliterative points, inside references, and illustrations.) You can find part 1 here, which discussed the major defensive bonuses that we can give to heroes against cavalry and monster/monstrous mount units by calling Heroic Strength.

Of course, our prior discussion has begged the question: are these defensive benefits from Heroic Strength as good as what you’d get if Elendil spent that same Might point on Heroic Defense? The answer... in many cases... is “probably.”

(More maths incoming... and charts!)

Heroic Strength: The Fellowship of the Red-Headed Step Children (Or, Why Heroic Strength isn’t Always a Total Waste of your Might Point)

In Tiberius's write-up on the new heroic actions, he took a detailed look at what each of them do and when you might call them based on their utility. All but two were found at least some utility. The unfortunate misfits? Heroic Shoot and Heroic Strength.

Following Thumper's maxim, I shan't say anything about Heroic Shoot. But I read Tiberius's post shortly after a TMAT Tournament where I made frequent (albeit unexpected) use of Heroic Strength in all three of my matches. While it's not the sort of heroic action you would automatically call every turn, I believe there are situations--and several of them--where it adds clear value. 

Tiberius was kind enough to give me a chance to explain. So here's the first of three write-ups examining the case for Heroic Strength. 

(Also, there be some maths ahead...)