In Defense Of: Moria Blackshield Captains

Good morning gamers,

Last week I tried to give a passionate defense of Mordor Trolls (and who knows if I succeeded in making them look good), but today we're turning to yet another unloved model: the Moria Blackshield Captain. Moria has lots of great heroes, ranging from powerful monsters (like the Balrog and the Watcher in the Water) to puny-but-cheap/functional heroes, like Moria Blackshield Shamans and Durburz. Among the host of options available to Moria is a model that looks really cool but . . . well, just falls shy of the mark for most people - which is a shame, because he's actually really good. Join me today as we walk through what's so great about the Moria Blackshield Captain . . . but first, we gotta talk about the critiques this guy gets (in general, the comments are fair critiques) . . .

Why NOT To Take Moria Blackshield Captains

If the Moria Blackshield Captain were the only generic Captain option for Moria, that would be one thing, but Moria has two generic heroes who can lead 12 troops and have Heroic March: Moria Blackshield Captains and Moria Goblin Captains. Without any additional gear, the Blackshield Captain costs 10pts more and has +1 Defense (which is mitigated if the Moria Goblin Captain takes a shield - which not everyone does), has +1 Courage (bringing him up to C4 innately and C5 if there's a drum around), and gains the Hatred (Dwarf) special rule (+1 To Wound against Dwarves - which can be awesome, more on this later).

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

One of these boosts is free - but the benefits of all of these boosts are highly situational. Being D6 is generally a good thing for a hero (many warriors will wound you on 6s - as will most shooting attacks), but it isn't very good if you're up against another hero, who probably wounds you on 5s (if not 4s if he gets +1 To Wound). Being C4 is also good - but only marginally better than being C3 (and if C4 is good enough, than a Moria Goblin Captain within range of a Moria Goblin Drum is going to be C4 as well). Furthermore, both of these hero options can automatically pass any Courage tests they need to take if they're within 6" of a Moria Goblin Shaman who has cast Fury or if they are within 12" of the Balrog . . . so the Courage thing might be moot.

Nemesis: How to Fight the Assault on Lothlorien Legendary Legion

Good morning gamers,

Last time, we looked at the much-feared Assault Upon Helm's Deep Legendary Legion and some strategies you can employ to fight it. Today, we turn to the other "Assault" legion (the Assault on Lothlorien) to see what the hype is about this list . . . and some things you can employ to fight against it. Yes, it shoots things - and yes, it has crazy shenanigans that the Helm's Deep list doesn't quite have - but it also plays very differently and can be beaten with some other methods of attack. Let's dig in and see what all the fuss is about (especially now that they've changed a bit).

What Makes The Assault on Lothlorien Legion So Hated?

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community 

The first thing that annoys players about fighting this Legion is that it's a horde list - this critique isn't unique to the Legion, but any time you can get a large number of models at basically any points level, someone is going to gripe. Sometimes bringing a horde to the board (I'm a poet, I know) is fine - no one seems to complain that much when there's a Denethor-led Minas Tirith spam list on the board - and there are plenty of lists that run "just a lot of Orcs or Goblins" that no one things is oppressive. It's not like this list is spawning new models from behind your lines like Goblin-town or has +10 or +15 models on you at the start of a game (though it might).

What makes this list annoying is that it's a horde list with other stuff. The list has access to Moria Goblins (5-7 points depending on what gear you give the Moria Goblin Warriors and your opinion of Moria Goblin Prowlers), Orc Warriors and Trackers (5-10 points depending on the gear you give them, potentially more if you invest in a banner), and Wild Wargs (which all heroes can lead and are very cheap fast infantry). If you spend 250-300 points on these things, you can easily field 40 warriors at most points levels, so long as you have the heroes to lead them.

Enter the shamans in this list: on the named front, you've got Druzhag and Ashrak (at least one of them is required), who come in at 50-90 points, but fielding both is certainly possible at 500+ points. You also have Muzgur (who is required along with one of these Goblin guys - and now has to be your army leader), who at 70 points is one of the cheapest Heroes of Valour in the game (normally he's Fortitude, but in this list he's Valour). Pick up all three of these guys (or two of these guys and one other hero) and you can horde out pretty easily.

On the generic hero front, you have both Moria Goblin Shamans and Orc Shamans (45 or 50 points, respectively) who are able to lead 12 warriors in their warbands, thanks to the promotion to Fortitude status in the Legion. Which one you prefer used to depend very much on your view of Orcs - are they just a handful of spearmen behind the Goblins or are they a proper shieldwall (half shield, half spear-and-shield). Now that you have to have fewer Goblins than Orcs, it'll be hard for any player to have exclusively Goblins in their shieldwalls, but I have always liked the picks that can help the Orcs reach S4 (which you can get with Moria Goblin Prowlers who have to fight two-handed, but not Moria Goblin Warriors) and the flexibility of not having to have these guys arrive near the Goblin lines. I used to be in the minority opinion on this - time will tell how the new meta for this list will shake out.

Nemesis: How To Fight The Balrog

Good morning gamers,

We're kicking off a new series here at TMAT today: Nemesis! I've been planning this series for a while now and it was born, actually, out of the In Defense Of series (where we take models that lots of players think are worthless or "bad" and explore how valuable they can be/how to make them work).

Nemesis tries to do something similar: we're going to be looking at models that lots of players say are "too good" or "unfun" or "unfair" or "overpowered" or "pick-your-favorite-phrase-that-means-there's-something-insanely-too-good-about-it" and explore how to beat those models. Sometimes these models will have a Legendary Legion, an army bonus, or an alliance that causes them to go from "fine/fair" to "too good/overpowered" and when that's the case, we'll flag it in the article.

Our first stop happens to be one of my favorite models and one that, when run well, can REALLY ruin your day. Yes, it's Devin Moreno's least favorite model in the game: the Balrog. This guy is not only one of the most expensive models in the game (and tied for most expensive model available to the Moria faction), but he's also the figurehead of one of the most feared Evil Legendary Legions in the game. Let's see what's up with this big guy that makes playing against him so unfun.

What Makes The Balrog So Hated?

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community 

The Balrog begins with unparalleled stats: he's F10 (innately higher than any other model in the game), he's S9/D9 (so Rending doesn't help enemy monsters wound him more easily and he's wounded on 6s or worse by basically everything in the game), he's got 4 Attacks (on-par with most big heroes when they're mounted and on the charge, better than most other heroes), 10 Wounds (less than Smaug, sure, but on-par with Mumaks and better than anyone else), 10 Will and Resistant to Magic (because locking down monsters with magic is a good idea), and C7 with Fearless (because, you know, why not have both).  His only real "down-side" in his core stats is his 6" movement, which is "fine" on a 60mm base, but can mean that getting his positioning requires some thinking. Not having any Might points or Fate points is also a knock to the profile, but as we'll see in a moment, there are mitigations for this.

Defence of the North Inspired Lists: Assault On Lothlorien Legendary Legion Revisited

Good morning gamers,

If you've been following discussions across the Facebook groups about the state of the game right now, there's one Legion that's shaken up the meta more than any other Legion: the Assault on Lothlorien. This list makes you always play at night (which limits enemy archery range), has tons of creatures that can be buffed by Druzhag/Ashrak, and a bunch of shamanic characters to make their grunts (Goblins, Orcs, Bats, Spiders, and Wargs) go racing without fear into their enemies. Yep, it's a horde that can outshoot better armies and can deal quite the punch where it wants to be.

Photo Credit: Defence of the North 

Since we're walking through the Defence of the North sourcebook and seeing how we can take the forces in it into Matched Play, the Assault on Lothlorien Legion was clearly going to be discussed, but the list you're going to see today is FAR from the list you're likely to see across the gaming table because, as is usually the case, the scenarios don't give us all the models we'd normally want. This doesn't mean the list we're going to look at today is garbage, but rather, it requires a different approach to play.

Our models are a mixture of units available in the Mirkwood missions and the Lothlorien missions (depending on whether you want Orcs or Goblins):

• Muzgur, Orc Shaman
• Druzhag the Beastcaller and Ashrak
• 1-2 Orc Captains (depending on whether you chose to substitute a Taskmaster for an Orc Captain in two scenarios)
  
• 1-2 Orc Shamans (see above)
• 48 Orc Warriors (who also need to be used for Warg Rider dismounts)
• 6 Warg Riders
• 6 Orc Trackers
• 48 Moria Goblin Warriors (who you'll also need to be used for Warg Marauder dismounts)
  
• 8 Giant Spiders
• 12 Fell Wargs
• 2 Bat Swarms
• 3 Warg Marauders
  

This list of models is only missing a few models from the Legion list, but the ones its missing really changes the options you have for its game play. First and foremost, we don't have any Moria Goblin Captains or Shamans, so we're capped at a max of 30 Goblins, Spiders, and Fell Wargs. This is . . . usually not the way you want to run this list. :-) While I usually abandon Ashrak in favor of a Moria Goblin Captain and an Orc Shaman (see my review of the Legion), I think if you only have the models from the scenarios at your disposal, he becomes an auto-include.

Ashrak becomes doubly necessary since we don't have any Wild Warg Chieftains, who provide the biggest muscle of the list, which means you need to lean hard on Giant Spiders to get any kind of punch in the army. If you're going to use spiders, you definitely want Ashrak in the list so they get the upgrade from Poison to Venom (rerolling all failed To Wounds instead of just rerolling 1s To Wound).

Finally, the Spiders are super important in this list because we don't have any Moria Goblin Prowlers. Prowlers not only get bonuses to wound (from their two-handed axes, their Backstabbers rule, and the Legion bonus for outnumbering an opponent). This is pretty nasty when paired with their +1 To Wound with their throwing daggers, but not having them means our skirmishing abilities are going to be really limited. So what kind of list can we run with this? Well, it's actually not THAT different from the list I looked at when I reviewed the Legion - let's see what we have!

The Stuff of Legends: Assault On Lothlorien

Good morning gamers,

Defence of the North brought us six new Legendary Legions and today we're digging into the one that I was the most excited about when I heard about it (and I know I'm not the only one out there who was anxious to give it a whirl) - the Assault On Lothlorien LL. I started playing the game with Lothlorien and Moria - and this list features elements of Moria, Mordor, and Angmar - all of which have been top-tier lists since the current rules set was released (and allying them together just hasn't worked that well - until now). While the profiles you have access to are . . . not the usual competitive staples (or at least, not the way you'd usually rely on them), the list is incredibly strong and fun to play (and while definitely fun for you, it doesn't have to be a slog for your opponent). So let's dig in and take a look at the list!

Part 1: What Do You Need?

Legion Tax: 120-160pts

The list requires you to take Muzgur, Orc Shaman, a new Orc "shaman" profile released with Defence of the North. Additionally, you need to take at least one of the two named Goblin Shamans (Druzhag or Ashrak) - both of which give you access to spiders (and are the only heroes who can bring spiders in your army). This list, like the Cirith Ungol, Men of the West, and Ugluk's Scouts Legendary Legions, has race-based warband constraints (Orcs can only be led by Orc heroes, Goblins can only be led by Goblin heroes, Spiders can only be led by Druzhag/Ashrak), which makes your warband construction a little complicated, but not overly so.

In Defense Of: Dragons

 Hey Reader!

Today we're continuing the In Defense Of series, and Tiberius asked me to jump in and chat about the Dragon from Moria, as it's often passed over for other hero choices - both monstrous and goblin - for various reasons. We will start by looking at why people tell you not to take this model, then we'll discuss why you should take it, and then close out by discussing how to make it work effectively in your army list.

Why NOT To Take Dragons

I have not bought the GW dragon, because I don't think it's that cool looking.
This is Argamentum from Loot Studios.

We've heard it all before: for the same cost as a fully upgraded dragon you can get The Balrog, who gets Fight 10 (instead of F7), Strength 9 (instead of S7), free heroic combats, and the ability to pull people into base contact with him (thereby making it harder to keep him from fighting, as you effectively have to stay more than 14-17" away from him if he hasn't moved yet, which is really hard to do on any sized board). Tack onto this 10 wounds, turning auto-death abilities into 5 wounds instead, and being available in a legendary legion that makes him even more dangerous (and less susceptible to shooting, which is a huge boon when you only move 6"), and it's easy to see why people take the Balrog over a dragon.

Quest of the Ringbearer: Model Collection Update, Part II

Good morning gamers,

We're back with another update on my collection of models for the Quest of the Ringbearer missions. Last time we focused on Part I (up to Rivendell) and today we're revisiting Part I and covering Part II (through Moria).

Part I: The Shire to Rivendell

Since the last update, I got the last of the required figures for Part I, so here they are! First up, we have a model I've been dying to find for ages - Gildor Inglorion! He gets a bad wrap from most of the community, but is pretty good with Tom Bombadil (he's the kind of model who wants more than 1 Might point and can use the Will/Fate/Wound boost too) and gets you access to cheap, fast skirmishers.

8" move with 2-4 Immobilizes a game . . . Pretty good deal.

Next we have two more Barrow-Wights (four total), but I decided that I needed to be able to tell the wights apart better, so I painted the new guys in a similar style to my old ones and then decided to play around with object source lighting with glowing blades:

The red guy turned out really well . . .

Next up, we have three characters from Bree - Barliman Butterbur, Harry Goatleaf, and Bill the Pony (who is used in Part II). Barliman was another experiment in wet blending to get some wear and texture to his hair and clothing (especially his apron). I love the details on this model and want to try him out sometime:

I think I can empathize with Butterbur more than any other character in the story . . .

The Stuff of Legends: the Depths of Moria

Good morning gamers,

We've covered a lot of Legions so far - we've covered almost everything from Gondor at War, we've covered everything from War in Rohan, we've covered both Legendary Legions from the Scouring of the Shire, and we've covered almost everything from the Quest of the Ringbearer. Today we cover the Legion I am most excited to try out at a tournament (our recent escalation tournament wasn't a good format for this Legion, but we'll pull it out soon): the Depths of Moria. 

While my love for the Balrog in the last year-and-a-half is well documented on this blog, I know that most people who have reviewed this Legion have been incredibly critical - NOT because the Legion is bad, but because they already hated the Balrog and this Legion makes fighting the Balrog even harder than it was before. I've also heard people say, "It's fine - this Legion just has the Balrog, so once you tie him down, the Legion is easy to beat." My hope is that this article addresses both of these concerns - the Legion isn't overpowered, the Legion isn't impossible to beat, and it isn't EASY to beat either. It's  . . . well . . . just another Legion. Let's dive into it!

Part 1: What Do You Need?

Legion Tax: 350pts

The only model that you NEED to include is the Balrog. At 350 points, he's a pretty pricey model (only less taxing as a Legion than the Grand Army of the South LL), but he gives you an AMAZING combat profile. On offense, this model is ridiculous - F10/S9 and 4 Attacks is a beastly profile, though it's important to realize that many heroes can get to 4A so long as they have access to a mount, have 3 Attacks base, and are charging enemy infantry (which includes most flying models and monsters, such as the Balrog). Some models (like the Dark Lord Sauron) have 4A as well with a pretty similar combat profile. Other heroes have 4A AND Monstrous Charge (like Cave Drakes, Dragons, the Witch-King with the Crown of Morgul on a Fell Beast, and kind of Smaug--he gets the knock-down, but not the extra attack) or more than 4A (with or without Monstrous Charge, such as the Watcher in the Water while he hasn't suffered 4+ Wounds, the Gundabad Catapult Troll if he gets a 2+ on his D6 roll for his crew, the Champions of Erebor on Chariot, and of course an unwounded Gulavhar). Having 4A base is a pretty exclusive club, but the Balrog isn't the top dog in it.

What causes the Balrog to stand out above the rest (and the thing that makes most people not like him) is that he's got 4A at F10 - he doesn't have to Strike. Unless you're Sauron (who doesn't have an Elven-made weapon) or Gil-Galad (who does have an Elven-made weapon), you aren't guaranteed to reach F10, though a few heroes (F7-8) have a pretty good chance of making it to F10 when they Strike - and many of those models are monsters with really high Strength levels (or they're Elendil or Glorfindel). Since getting to F10 isn't guaranteed for anyone except the Balrog/Sauron/Gil-Galad, there's often a complaint that "no one should be that high." Even Sauron and Gil-Galad can only make it to F10 three times in a game (potentially more often for Gil-Galad if he can kill smaller heroes without using Might, since Blood and Glory gets him more Might), so while they can guarantee a roll-off against the Balrog if they tie his highest roll, they're not likely to be able to sustain it long enough to actually kill the Balrog.

TMAT GT: Tiberius's Army Thoughts

Good morning gamers,

This coming weekend is TMAT's Grand Tournament and we're doing an escalation tournament with the following point levels and scenarios:

• 450 - Hold Ground
• 600 - To The Death
• 750 - Fog of War

I've been wanting to throw an escalation tournament for ages - I developed armies in an escalation tournament style to teach people the game since I got started playing (100 points of warriors only, 250 points by adding a hero or two and some additional warriors, and slowly adding more points with additional warriors and heroes until you get to 500-700 points). This approach allows people who are new to the game (or haven't played in ages) to understand the core mechanics slowly and ease them into a game that has (if we're honest) a LOT more rules than the game requires.

Developing armies that can do well at three different point levels and are good at missions that do different things is hard to do - and so I had many armies swirling through my brain before I finally quieted the petitions from the boxes and picked one. Extra bonus points are awarded at this tournament if you have a "nesting dolls" style build, where the 450 is a subset of the 600, which is a subset (naturally) of the 750 - as opposed to having the 450 army be a subset of the 750 army and the 600 be a subset of the 750 army (but not having all of the models in the 450pt list in the 600pt list). Here are the armies I considered taking - and why I didn't chose the ones I did.

Workbench Update: Building the Watcher in the Water

Good morning gamers,

So Christmas was wonderful - got some Galadhrim Warriors from Centaur to paint up, started painting some new Hobbits for the Quest of the Ringbearer missions, and got some flocking and flowers from my kids. Life is great.

One other addition I got was the Watcher in the Water (got a discount from Rythbryt) - and so during naptimes during the past few weeks, I've been slowly putting this guy together. Today I figured I'd show you how it's been coming along!

Guest Post: (In)convenient Allies in MESBG: Preconditions for a Competitive Alliance with Sharbie

Good morning gamers,

This weekend we host yet another article from Sharbie - if you haven't read his previous article on the Watcher in the Water, you should. Today, Sharbie explores the idea of including allies in your lists - what do you look for in an allied contingent? What can they provide that merits losing your army bonus (unless you're Historical allies, which most factions aren't)? Can you go too far with an allied contingent and lose the core of your original force? All of these questions will be covered below - take it away, Sharbie!

Mastering Magic: Fury

Good morning gamers,

We come to it at last - the final spell in all of MESBG. We've talked about damage spells (Sorcerous Blast, Area-of-Effect damage spells, and precision spells). We've talked about augments (auric bonuses, stat/resource restoration, magical protection, and damage enhancers). We've talked about debuffs (stat/resource reduction, neutralizing with Immobilize et al, and breaking gear). We've talked about spells that scatter enemy models.

Today, we wrap it all up with one of the first spells I ever used and the spell that (in my opinion) has changed the most from the Legions era to the current MESBG gaming system: Fury.

Ah, Fury. As I've stated in many posts, I got started playing the game with the Mines of Moria starter set and one of the first things I learned was that I needed a Moria Goblin Shaman - Goblins just can't charge Gandalf or gang-up on Boromir reliably without one (that, and they seem to run away a lot)!

Back then, Fury didn't require you to have a Will point to keep it alive - you just had to not lose a fight (which, if you were spear-supporting from the second rank OR standing in the third/fourth rank, was pretty easy to pull off). Even if your opponent had a Ringwraith who could cast Sap Will on you and you lost all your Will, the Fury train kept on chugging. While it was active, all models of the same race as the caster passed all Courage tests and got a 6+ save against all wounds.

When the Hobbit SBG system redid the way magic worked, Fury became dependent on having a Will point in your store. Like the previous version of the rules, friendly models of the same race passed all Courage tests and got a 6+ save against all wounds, but you could channel the spell to improve that spell to a 5+ save. Moria didn't have to do this, as they could take Groblog (whose crown made Fury give a 5+ save so long as he was on the board).

In the newest edition, things have changed yet again - let's look at what Fury does, and to help me with this discussion, I've asked the other members of the TMAT team to help me out a few things based on their experiences (and if you haven't heard our podcast on Evil Spellcasters, I highly recommend you check that out for our extended discussion on Fury).

What Does Fury Do?

Fury is an exhaustion spell that is cast on the caster himself and affects all friendly models within 6" of the caster that have certain keywords (specified by the spell). For the most part, these keywords match the race and affiliation of the caster (Mordor Orc Shamans have "Fury (Mordor Orc)" and so won't help your Black Numenoreans - who aren't Orcs - or your Cave Trolls - who are not Mordor models). Affected models automatically pass any Courage tests they need to take. If channelled, affected models may roll a die for each wound they are dealt and ignore a wound they would have suffered for each roll of a 6 they get.

Mastering Magic: Augmenting Damage Spells

Good morning gamers,

We've only got two more posts left in this series - and today we have some really fun spells: Bladewrath, Enchanted Blades, and Enrage Beast. These three spells are held by only five models - three with Enchanted Blades and two special models who alone have Bladewrath and Enrage Beast. While we've looked at spells that do damage (either as a blast, in an area, or to a single model), restore stats/resources, remove stats/resources, protect friendly models from magic, breaking items, neutralizing enemy combatants, scattering models, and provide auric benefits (either by enhancing nearby models/the caster OR by scattering models), today's spells are the only ones that make you more lethal in combat (though I guess a channelled Shroud of Shadows counts as well).

Fair warning, I only have two of the models in this list, so pictures will be scarce . . .

What Do These Spells Do?

The most common of these spells is Enchanted Blades. When cast normally, the caster picks a friendly model within range (6" for all of them) and if cast successfully, the model is allowed to reroll all failed To Wound rolls it makes. When channelled, the target model also receives a bonus of +1 To Wound (which is cumulative with similar rules, such as the bonus provided by using a two-handed weapon or having the Backstabbers/Hatred special rules).

Bladewrath allows a caster to pick a friendly model within range (6" as well) and that model makes Strikes in the Fight phase at Strength 6. If channelled, this is improved to Strength 10. It's important to note that the model itself doesn't become S6/S10, but rather resolves Strikes at S6/S10 (otherwise, this would be a great counter to the Rend/Hurl Brutal Power Attacks or special rules like Monstrous Charge).

Finally, Enrage Beast picks a friendly Bat, unridden Warg, or Spider model within range (12" this time) and increases the target model's Fight, Attacks, Strength, and Courage values by 2 until the End phase. Because this boosts the model's characteristics, this IS a good counter to the Rend/Hurl BPAs and rules like Monstrous Charge. When channelled, the target's characteristics are increased by 3 (instead of 2). While this is a powerful augment, the friendly model then suffers a S10 hit at the end of the round because of how exhausting being awesome can be (most models will be wounded on 3s - which still means a 33% chance of avoiding any damage at all).

All three of these spells are useful - especially if you are using units that "have problems wounding." Adding someone who has these spells can increase your overall damage, but picking the right model to augment is often the difficulty with these spells (and making sure they stay within range). To help with this, let's understand who has these spells and how best to use them.

Mastering Magic: Shatter and Your Staff is Broken

Good morning gamers,

So we come to it at last - the last post that will involved Gandalf the White (eight posts required to cover all his spells - clearly, he is a beast)! Gandalf does a lot - he can cast Sorcerous Blast if he wants to do damage to one or more models, he can cast Immobilize/Command if he needs to neutralize one particular model, he can cast Terrifying Aura and Blinding Light as augments to himself and those nearby him, he can give Will points to friendly models (including himself) with Strengthen Will, he can protect models with Fortify Spirit, and he can do precision damage against Spirit models with Banishment.

So today, we cover the most niche thing he (and others) can do in MESBG: break a weapon that is wielded by an enemy wizard (which, if paired with Fortify Spirit, gives him a distinct advantage over enemy wizards). The other characters besides Gandalf who have item-breaking power (Moria Blackshield Shamans, the Witch-King of Angmar, and the Necromancer of Dol Guldur) are also very good at fighting wizards or combat heroes (in the case of the Shaman). Let's take a look at these game-altering, hero-negating, niche-ability casters!

For the third week in a row, no pictures - just got back from vacation, don't own all the models, you've seen plenty from Gandalf, yada-yada . . .

No fair - I was totally going to ruin your day with that!

What Do These Spells Do?

These spells are, as has already been mentioned, incredibly niche. Your Staff is Broken is only possessed by three models in the range and at first glance the spell can only be used against three models in the range (five profiles): Gandalf the Grey/White, Radagast the Brown, and Saruman (or Saruman the White). While these five profiles might not seem like much, they show up in nine different army lists (eight Forces of Good, one Forces of Evil) and these casters can be VERY dominant on the table.

All three of these wizards are expensive (Radagast is the cheapest when run without extra gear at 150 points, though he can be up to 200 points with the Sleigh and Sebastian) and their free Will point each turn from their Staffs of Power is very much why they are "good" to include in any army (I've talked about Gandalf the Grey, Gandalf the White, and Saruman at length in a previous series on magic, showing how they provide good benefits to their team that simply cannot be provided by other unit choices). Taking away this free Will point not only limits the wizard's casting potential (as they move from an Unlimited Spellcasters to an Auxiliary Spellcaster), but also makes them far less cost-effective than other unit options (Gandalf the White without his Staff of Power is a vastly inferior choice compared to Boromir or Aragorn).

When channeled, this spell also does a S7 hit to the caster, which is a cheap shot to be sure (wounds most of these profiles on 3s - Gandalf the White would be wounded on 4s). 

It's important to note before we move on to Shatter that Radagast can choose to NOT take his Staff of Power by taking a Great Eagle mount. I don't generally think this is a good idea - while he becomes a great combat mage while mounted, you might want to support your Eagles with the ability to heal wounds (with Renew), Immobilize enemy heroes who want to Strike against your Great Eagle warriors, and knock models down that are trying to swarm your troops (Nature's Wrath) - and with only 6 Will points, you're just not going to get enough out of him to make him worth it, I think. Still, 6 Will can do some of this work and you're getting a Great Eagle for 50 points, so . . .

As I alluded to above, there are sneaky targets you can hit with Your Staff is Broken besides the wizards listed above, since the spell can break a "staff," which means it can disarm models like the Undying or Sharkey as well. The benefits of this will be a lot less dramatic, but will still be present.

Our other spell we're covering today is Shatter, which can destroy any item that is NOT a Staff of Power, the One Ring, or a piece of organic gear (like mounts, creatures, claws, teeth, wings, or tails). Similar to Your Staff is Broken, when channelled, this spell does a S6 hit - not as strong as Your Staff is Broken, but still quite strong.

Mastering Magic: Magical Protection

Good morning gamers,

Today we start our sixth post in our "masterclass" series on Magic in MESBG. We've looked at Sorcerous Blast, Immobilize (et al), auric spells, restoration spells, and area-of-effect spells. Today we turn our attention to some of the most useful spells a caster can have when facing an army with a spell-caster of its own (or multiple spell-casters - THE HORROR): Fortify Spirit, Protection of the Valar, and Shroud of Shadows. While we'll only be looking at five models today (three Forces of Good, two Forces of Evil), several of these heroes (Galadriel, Lady of Light from the White Council, Gandalf the Grey from several lists including the White Council, and Ashrak from Moria) can ally with all but four factions in the game either Conveniently or Historically (woe to Arnor, Numenor, Barad-Dur, and Sharkey's Rogues). This means that understanding what these heroes do - and why they might be slapped into a list - is good for any player to know.

Pre-warning: no pictures in this post, mostly because I only own the two Gandalf models and have photographed them a lot already in this series. Call me lazy.

What Do These Spells Do?

Two of these spells are quite straight-forward: Fortify Spirit gives a friendly model (which could be the caster himself) not one but TWO free dice when you make a Resist test against a magical power - and yes, this stacks with other free dice that might come from Heroic Resolve, Resistant to Magic, or a Staff of Power, and they don't require you to spend a Will point of your own to use them. They're just free. When channelled, the highest Resist die also gets +1 to its result (meaning you can automatically resist any spell that is cast against you on the roll of a 5 or 6 - wow-zahs). This spell is an Exhaustion spell, so once cast, you want to make sure the caster (not the person who is the target of the spell) retains 1 Will in their Will store to keep it up.

Protection of the Valar is also straight-forward in that the friendly model that is targeted by the spell is immune to both magical powers and weird special rules for the round (I'm looking at you Golden King of Abrakhan and Dead Marsh Spectres!). When channelled, this spell affects the target and all friendly models within 3" of the target, which can make A GROUP of heroes immune to any magical barrage. Unlike Fortify Spirit, however, this spell isn't an Exhaustion spell, so you need to cast it every round in order to make it work (the opportunity cost is certainly higher, but not being affected by magic for the round is guaranteed).

Shroud of Shadows is the most nuanced of the spells and also the most powerful. Based on the most recent Designer Commentaries, the friendly model that is targeted by the spell is not only immune to magical powers (except from Ringwraiths, maybe Sauron), but is also invisible (granting all kinds of movement benefits) and is immune to shooting attacks and requires a Courage test to charge the model with a reduction of Courage based on the distance the model is from the target. As clarified in the most recent FAQ, models that fail this Courage test get to move normally and aren't rooted in place. When channelled, any enemy models in base contact with the target halve their Fight Value (rounding up). While definitely useful at keeping models from being targeted by spells, this spell ALSO makes it hard to shoot or charge them - perfect for keeping a very important model safe.

Quest for the Ringbearer: What I REALLY Want From The Legendary Legions

 Good morning gamers,

Earlier this week, we were given a few hints from the Warhammer Community Team via Jay Clare about what was officially coming in Quest for the Ringbearer. If you haven't read the article yet, you should. As a long-time lover of the Felllowship of the Ring movie (and as a proud owner of the old Fellowship of the Ring Journeybook), Quest for the Ringbearer has been the sourcebook I've been most excited about to date. While I've been guessing for a while about the Legendary Legions that were coming (I had seven in mind, five-and-a-half of which showed up in the book), I figured I'd get my guesses on paper before they're spoiled so I can either say "I called it!" or "But I had this really great idea . . ." Without futher ado, let's get into those Legendary Legions!

Mastering Magic: Area of Effect Spells

Good morning gamers,

Today we start our fifth post in our "masterclass" series on Magic in MESBG. We've looked at Sorcerous Blast, Immobilize (et al), auric spells, and restoration spells. Today we look at some of the most fun spells in the game: area-of-effect offensive spells! As fun as rooting a model in place can be, as great as regaining heroic resources is, and as awesome as augmenting models around you is, we REALLY want to do massive damage. While you can do that with Sorcerous Blast under certain conditions, it's easier with some other spells - or is it? The spells we'll be covering today are: Collapse Rocks, Wrath of Bruinen, Nature's Wrath, Panic Steed, and Tremor.

What Do These Spells Do?

These spells can be grouped together in different ways, but here's the basics of each spell:

• Panic Steed removes the mount of the target (becomes an area-of-effect when channelled);
• Nature's Wrath knocks enemy models Prone near the caster (and deals S2 hits when channelled);
• Wrath of Bruinen also knocks enemy models Prone near the caster, but also inflicts a S2 hit (channel for higher Strength on the hits);
• Collapse Rocks deals a S5 hit to a target model that is near a rocky piece of terrain (becomes an area-of-effect when channelled); and
• Tremor deals a S6 hit and knocks models Prone who are on a D6" line away from the target model.

All of these spells have the ability to affect an area of the board - but some require you to channel them in order to get the area of effect to occur. Wrath of Bruinen, Nature's Wrath, and Tremor all affect a given area of the board (3" around the caster for Wrath of Bruinen and Nature's Wrath, D6" line away from the target for Tremor). Collapse Rocks and Panic Steed become area of effect spells when channelled (2" around the target for Collapse Rocks, 3" around the target for Panic Steed).

Most of these spells also knock their targets Prone: any hostile figure within the affected area of Wrath of Bruinen, Nature's Wrath, or Tremor are Knocked Prone (with cavalry suffering from Knocked Flying instead of rolling on the Thrown Rider chart). Collapse Rocks and Panic Steed don't innately Knock Prone, but Panic Steed does require a roll on the Thrown Rider chart.

Most of these spells do damage: Wrath of Bruinen does Strength 2 hits (Strength 3 if channelled, Strength 8/9 if the target is in a water feature) to all affected models, Collapse Rocks does a Strength 5 hit to all affected models (so long as the targets are near a rocky piece of terrain), and Tremor does a Strength 6 hit to all affected models. Panic Steed removes the mounts of the affected models, but otherwise doesn't do any damage. Nature's Wrath does no damage innately, but does a Strength 2 hit to all affected models if channelled (basically becomes Wrath of Bruinen without the water feature rule).

Finally, most of these spells affect only enemy models. Wrath of Bruinen, Nature's Wrath, and Panic Steed only harm enemy models (which makes them great spells to cast when your opponent charges one of your battle lines). Collapse Rocks and Tremor have to be used more carefully, since their damage (Strength 5 and Strength 6 hits!) are suffered by both friendly and enemy models.

For those of you who like charts, here's the visual summary of what is described above:

	Collapse Rocks	Nature's Wrath	Panic Steed	Tremor	Wrath of Bruinen
Area of Effect?	*	X	*	X	X
Knock Targets Prone?		X	**	X	X
Damage Spell?	X	*	**	X	X
Affect Only Enemy Models?		X	X		X

* Channelled version meets the requirement

** Models that get a 1 on the Thrown Rider chart will be Prone and take a S3 hit

Guest Post: How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Tentacle (A Tactica on the Watcher in the Water with Sharpie)

Good morning gamers,

So today we have a guest post that was sent to us on Facebook by one of our readers. Today's tactics discussion centers around using a model I find intriguing (but haven't scrounged up the money to purchase yet): the Watcher in the Water. As an avid Moria player who loves throwing weapons, this model has long been on my list of models to try out (though with me always running the Balrog, I'm not sure I can squeeze this guy into enough games, if I'm honest).

Our guest author, Sharbie, has some interesting thoughts on using one of the most underused monsters in the game - take it away Sharbie!

The Bare Necessities, Part XIII: Moria

Good morning gamers,

We’ve talked about Minas Tirith, Isengard, Rivendell, Mordor, Lothlorien, Angmar, and Numenor already in this series on list building and today we turn to my first army of Evil – the one that took me a LONG TIME (and ultimately a Balrog) to enjoy using: Moria. Moria has a surprising number of warrior and hero profiles and their variance is huge (literally “huge” in size of model, points cost, and $$$ to acquire). That said, Moria’s wide selection of heroes (read monsters) and warriors (read monsters) can be really expensive and leave you wondering what you’re actually getting for the purchase of that model. After nearly 10 years of collecting Moria (and occasionally enjoying in game-play), I’ll share some of my thoughts that made me agonize over this list for so long (and even now, I’m not convinced it’s quite right – I think it’s mostly right, but you’ll see what I mean when we get into it).

Moria: Who’s Your Centerpiece?

While Minas Tirith armies need to decide which of the “big 3” to run (King Aragorn, mega-Boromir, or Gandalf the White), Moria armies have a “Big 5” to deal with: do you run...

1. A Balrog (who will eat up half of our points today)?
2. A Cave Drake (or two)?
3. A Watcher in the Water (maybe with a Cave Drake)?
4. A Dragon (with wings and one other upgrade)?
5. Or Durburz (who is not anywhere near as big as the other options, but if you don’t take the Balrog, he makes for a pretty good army leader and can be run with basically any of the other options without much difficulty). 

The beauty about Moria is that while you have lots of options to choose from, you aren’t stove-piped into taking just one of them (a Moria army could easily field Durburz alongside any of the monsters - including the Balrog, Cave Drakes are fairly inexpensive as well). Today, we’ll be looking at my favorite of the Moria monsters (which our dedicated readers already knew was going to happen, right?) and a way you can build your Moria list around this monstrocity. Here’s the list . . .

The Bare Necessities, Part III: Numbers (or not-being-Broken)

In our previous two posts in this series, we’ve discussed the benefits of including fast models (cavalry in particular) and banners (not just units that count as banners) in your army because of the points they can score you in certain games. The five points that make up the series are reprinted here as a roadmap for today’s discussion:

• 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.

Today’s post covers what most new players tend to value in an army: raw numbers. While having raw numbers doesn’t score you points in and of itself, it does make your army (in general) harder to break, which in most scenarios will give your opponent some points. Having greater numbers also makes it easier for you (in general) to trap your opponents – and traps win games.

So, today we’re going to discuss some of the subtleties of numbers in a points match game and different ways you can avoid being broken in a game (and other ways you can take advantage of numbers).