Nemesis: How To Fight Gwaihir

Good morning gamers,

As we continue our series of examining good models that can really wreck your day, we're turning to one of the most feared Good models in the game right now: Gwaihir. This is a monster that has incredible agility thanks to Fly, a very impressive combat profile (with only one caveat), and is incredibly survivable. But like most models in the game, there are options available to you when you see this guy on the other side of the board - none of them will be easy, but we'll review some of the tools you can use to counter him. Let's dig into why this guy is so good!

What Makes Gwaihir So Hated?

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community 

To understand why Gwaihir is such a threat, we need to begin with his alliance matrix (or two, actually). Gwaihir appears in two lists - he's a Hero of Legend in the Misty Mountains and a Hero of Valour in Radagast's Alliance. When fielded in Radagast's Alliance, he has no historical allies (since their only historical ally is the Misty Mountains - and since Gwaihir is the only hero in that list, you can't run it), but has a few Convenient Allies (all of the armies in the Armies of the Hobbit book, as well as Lothlorien, Fangorn, and the Rangers, oddly enough). If you're running one of these lists and want Gwaihir to be your grenade hero instead of your army leader, you can certainly take him from this list.

Most competitive players will field him from The Misty Mountains, however. In that list, he's a Hero of Legend (almost certainly your army leader) and he's at least Convenient Allies with every faction (and he's Historical Allies with the Fellowship, Thorin's Company, and Radagast's Alliance as was mentioned above). While the Fellowship and Thorin's Company can certainly benefit from adding Gwaihir to their ranks, most of the time you're going to see Gwaihir appear either in a pure Misty Mountain list (where you're counting on lots of flying monsters to trash enemy warriors), a monster-mash army where Gwaihir and some Eagles ally with either Ents or Bears (or both), or as a one-model drop into a more conventional force that wants a hard-hitting slayer for the low-low price of 150 points. This last one is the usual way you see Gwaihir in competitive play.

Since he can ally with everyone, what is it about this guy that makes him an attractive option (especially when compared to Elven heroes who can also ally with everyone)? For starters (as was just mentioned), Gwaihir is "only" 150 points - which is admittedly a lot to pay for a hero who probably isn't bringing any warriors to the table, but relative to the cost of other heroes, it's a steal. As the cheapest of the eight members of the F8+ club (which features Treebeard/Beechbone from the Fangorn list, Gil-Galad from the Rivendell list, Beorn in bear form from Radagast's Alliance/the Beornings LL, Smaug from the Desolator of the North list, The Dark Lord Sauron from the Barad-Dur list, and the Balrog from Moria/The Depths of Moria LL), Gwaihir is likely to have a higher Fight Value than most opposing models once everyone's out of Might. But his offensive firepower isn't just limited to a great Fight Value: with S6 (S7 on the charge if he's got either of his army bonuses - which he usually doesn't) and 2 Attacks + Monstrous Charge, it's quite likely that he's wounding troops on 4s if not 3s - and that's a lot of dead troops if he's charged into them.

The Bare Necessities, Part XXXVIII: The Misty Mountains

Good morning gamers,

Today we tackle an army that started off as its own army, then got melded into the Wanderers in the Wild during the warbands era, then got broken out into its own army again in the new edition (and is expanded in the Armies of the Hobbit book with Radagast's Alliance). While you might on first glance think that this army is unnecessary with the advent of Radagast's Alliance (I certainly did), the cool thing about this army is that it is Convenient Allies with almost everyone in the game (and Historical allies with some of the best all-hero armies in the game). While I think their army bonus isn't necessary to have (lots of competitive players agree), this army can provided much needed mobility to lots of armies (or firepower to a spam army). Let's dig in and see what's provided in this army (especially over Radagast's Alliance).

Photo Credit: Tumblr

The Misty Mountains: Built To Ally

Let's start by talking about Radagast's Alliance: with only the Misty Mountains as Historical Allies (which you'd only do to take Gwaihir as a Hero of Legend instead of a Hero of Valor), you're looking at pretty much all of the Armies of the Hobbit as your available Convenient Allies (and select others from the Armies of the Lord of the Rings): 

• You have all three of the factions of Men from the Armies of the Hobbit (the Army of Lake-town, the Survivors of Lake-town, and the Garrison of Dale);
• You also have two of the conventional Dwarf factions (the Iron Hills and Erebor Reclaimed - but NOT the Army of Thror . . . which is weird because you're convenient allies with the Garrison of Dale);
• Like everyone, you have all three of the Elven factions (Lothlorien, Rivendell, and the Halls of Thranduil) and Fangorn; and
• You have three all-hero armies (Thorin's Company, the Rangers, and the White Council). 

With the exception of the Misty Mountains, the Elven factions, and the Rangers, everyone from the Armies of the Lord of the Rings book are Impossible Allies with Radagast's Alliance. 

By contrast, the Misty Mountains are Convenient Allies with every faction except the Fellowship, Radagast's Alliance, and Thorin's Company (which are Historical Allies). This means that you only need to decide if your army bonus is worth keeping or whether you can live without it - no other considerations need be made. Some armies (like the Fiefdoms and the Army of Thror) play very differently without their army bonuses - and while they probably CAN live without them, you generally don't want to give them up (both have great historical allies they can take). Other armies (like Numenor or Minas Tirith) can live without their army bonuses - especially if you're allying in high-Courage, high-Fight/Strength models who can do most of your fighting for you (even trapping people by charging the back rank while you press with your grunt infantry).

In today's list, we'll be building a balanced list with a Convenient alliance (the only way we can get 30+ models and at least one actual banner). While there were lots of great ideas I had for this army (some will be included in this article, others will appear in future articles), I wanted the army we showcased today to have at least one Great Eagle. Many armies can benefit from "just adding Gwaihir" - but I feel like that alliance doesn't showcase the Misty Mountains well. So instead, I wanted an army that allowed me to get several Eagles, had enough staying power to hold out for the Eagles to do their damage, AND could get an actual banner (and some fast troops). In my mind, there was one clear choice - not a thematic choice, but a solid choice none the less. So here we go - darn theme and full-steam-ahead!

Shooting: Skirmish models, Revisited

Good morning gamers,

Today’s post is something special – today I'm joined by Centaur in talking about different skirmish lists in MESBG. The intent of this post is to highlight some of the tactical thoughts that go into using different lists. For our purposes today, skirmish lists will be focusing on dealing damage outside of melee in order to whittle down an opponent's force to a more manageable size. This generally requires movement, as skirmish troops don't want to be engaged right away.

Without further ado, let’s take a look!

The Armies of the Hobbit, Part I: Orcs!

Good morning gamers,

This post begins our discussion of the Armies of the Hobbit and like we did with the Armies of the Lord of the Rings, we'll be covering the Forces of Evil first (in two parts) and the Forces of Good after that. Unlike the Armies of the Lord of the Rings, we don't have previous sourcebooks to group things (and we don't have the old Legions of Middle-Earth book to guide us either). Ergo, we'll be grouping things by common types (Orcs, other Bad Guys, Dwarves, Men, other Good Guys). It should be fun.

1) The New Lists: Azog's Hunters, Azog's Legion, Dark Powers of Dol Guldur

These three lists are, in many ways, one list broken out in to three parts (if you ignore their army bonuses): many of the warrior choices provided in these lists are shared across the others: both of the Warrior options for the Azog's Hunters list are available in the Dark Powers of Dol Guldur list (hereafter Dark Powers), and the Dark Powers list also has access to the Gundabad Orc Warriors available in the Azog's Legion list. While there are some unique warrior choices across the Azog's Legion and Dark Powers lists, by and large you get the same feel from a warrior-perspective no matter which of these lists you choose.

Where these lists differ is in their heroes - Azog's Hunters have average-defense heroes, all of which can be mounted (and with Expert Rider on many of them, there's good reason to do so). Azog's Legion has barely any hero optons, but most of them are/can be heavily armored. The Dark Powers list provides you with the Necromancer and the Nazgul, along with several other generic hero options and the Keeper of the Dungeons (powerhouse options abound). When looking at the lists, the heroes are what make the greatest difference between them (and should come to the forefront of your decisions about what kind of army to get).

WARGS!

Happy work-off-the-tryptophan-and-carbs Day!

after a much too-long hiatus, I figured it was time to dust off the blogger log-in to post some updates from Karningul. Tiberius and Glenstorm have been working hard at keeping the blog alive, but with a lull for the holidays (and a now-functional camera) I'm hoping to have some down time to draft up some filler to display some of the projects I've been working on for the past... far too long.

my busy hobby table

Howls in the Night...

Hey Reader!

Yeah, that title was a bit darker than I wanted it to be - it's the new name for the Misty Mountains list I'm building, and it sounded better on paper than when I saw it on the blog, so sorry about that, :P  I'm also working on a "Halloween Army" for my new Angmar list (which will contain most of the scary/ghoulish choices for Angmar, minus Gulavar the Terror of Arnor, as I think he's overpriced for what you get), so more on that this summer.