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.

Army Concept: Girls Night Out

 

Hey Reader!

As I'm kicking around a few ideas for an army for our next tournament, an idea struck me that led me down a very deep rabbit hole (considering the army build restrictions) one night, and that meant I had to write a blog post for you all to talk about this very strange but very interesting concept. It's not a "meta" way to build an army, but golly is it a fun idea, so I thought I'd share it with you.

The army is a "Girls Night Out" army, and has a simple rule for army building: all of the models must be female. This means we have a very short list in our game, and it's probably only a Forces of Good army (but NOT ALWAYS - MORE ON THAT AT THE END!), but the models you get access to are actually really good, and you can build some pretty competitive lists with them.

So with no further ado, the rules and the profiles we can use.

I.  Defining a "Girls Night Out" Army

As mentioned earlier, our choices of models is very limited: even if you convert up unnamed captain models, you don't have a lot of choices. Assuming that you can turn any captain, King of Men (Queen of Men? Kind of a cool concept, and we know of at least three Numenorean queens who ruled), or warrior choice into a female character, here's the named profiles we can choose from:

Galadriel: Arguably the strongest of the characters we have to work with, we can either take her as a support caster who can regrow our Fate Points (assuming the Mirror is close) or as a decent close combat hero who can give us exceptional magic defense. The former is not as powerful in combat, but does have a stronger ally matrix, so keep that in mind.

Arwen: We get access to another F6 character with magic! This is very useful, as it also gives us a way to knock people down (through Wrath of Bruinen and charging people with Asfaloth) which should increase our killing power. We have the typical low Strength, low Defense issue that this army will generally struggle with, but whatcha gonna do.

Tauriel offers us a reliable infantry hero both at range and up close, which is really nice, and I think challenges Galadriel for the place of "Most Valuable Player" in our list. She still suffers from low Defense, but honestly that's just standard Mirkwood, so we're fine with that. Tack onto this that some of her fellow rangers already have female sculpts, and it's easier to add a Mirkwood contingent than it is for other armies in the line as we don't have to do as many conversions.

Eowyn: So to start off, we cannot take Dernhelm, as Merry is not "Mary," so that's a loss. But on her own Eowyn is a decent captain-level model, sporting F5 and 2 Fate instead of the traditional 1, all while still being around the same cost as a Rohan Captain thanks to that S3 reduction. And since she can take throwing spears and potentially benefit from the Rohan army bonus, she's a decent slayer. Not great, but decent, especially for her points cost. She can also get up to D5, which is more than Galadriel and Arwen can claim, but still not great.

Hilda-Bianca: We can get access to dirt cheap (and decent) spear support, so that's nice, and a useful special rule as well. She's nothing to write home about, but she gives you access to a small retinue of cheap spears. The other thing she does for you: she's a Fortitude hero for 30 points, so allying with historical allies is very, very easy.

You would have access to Sigrid and Tilda if you could take Bard, but alas, it's not possible. So we will not be looking at them today.

No comment on whether Alfrid in the dress should count in this list.

Rosie Cotton and Lobelia Sackville-Baggins offer us two Shire heroes, which means we could take a small contingent of two-handed weapons and/or bows to support the main lines, and for dirt cheap (easily under 50pts for almost 10 models). The trick is that these are Minor and Independent heroes, so getting them in an army is going to be hard. More on them in the next post in our series.

It's also worth noting that we have an option on the Forces of Evil side, as Dunland has one female hero: Frida Tallspear. She's not the most amazing hero ever, but hey - we have a hero! And that may be all we need. More on her later, though it's also worth noting that unnamed heroes for Forces of Evil also include (assuming there are female verions of these) dragons and cave drakes for Moria (and the presence of eggs makes me think the cave drake model is female), wild warg chieftains for Angmar (she-wolf matriarch that leads the pack), unnamed spirit models for Angmar, and (if there are female versions) trolls, though this is a hotly debated topic by the few who really care. 

So...yeah, there are some very interesting options, though not all of them may present many options for warrior choices, thanks to the fact that, as far as we know, all orcs, goblins, and uruk-hai are male.

With this in mind, the rules are simple: all models must 1) be female, and 2) still follow all the normal rules for list building. This means if we want a convenient alliance we need a Valour or Legend hero from all forces involved. If we want a historical alliance we need a Fortitude or higher hero from all forces. That makes things tricky (as we have Galadriel and a Queen of Men for Valour, and Tauriel, Arwen, and captains for Fortitude), but them's the rules.

So with these restrictions, let's look at five army lists: three historical alliances (I thought about doing a pure list, but I wanted to show off more of the models), and two "Kicks and Grins" pure armies for the Forces of Evil (because we don't have nearly enough green alliances/unnamed Valour heroes in Forces of Evil to make alliances work).

The Bare Necessities, Part XXXVI: The Iron Hills

Good morning gamers,

We've already looked at the Iron Hills a little when we reviewed the Army of Thror - they make great allies for basically anyone in the Armies of the Hobbit book (Historical allies with the Army of Thror, the Halls of Thranduil, and the Survivors of Lake-town; Convenient allies with everyone else). With D7 infantry that can be D8 in shieldwall, D6 infantry who can wield either crossbows or two-handed pick-hammers, D6 cavalry that can knock enemy models over BEFORE fighting, chariots that deal three S6 impact hits, and those nasty ballistas that can deny enemy archery. While the list doesn't have a lot of hero options, the heroes it DOES have are very good. So where do we begin when looking to build a balanced list with this army? Well, we should probably begin with this guy . . .

Photo Credit: Rebloggy.com

The Iron Hills: What Do You Leave At Home (And What Can You NOT Leave At Home)?

All pure Iron Hills lists begin with Dain Ironfoot - and in most cases, he will be mounted on his war boar (though an article from Dwarf aficionado Ali King indicates that may not be necessary). Regardless of whether you have a pure Iron Hills army or a Historical Alliance, the addition of Master of Battle (4+) is great for Dain - so unless you're bringing a bigger hero than Dain (not many are), you probably want Dain in your army. For 160 points when mounted, he's expensive for a Hero of Legend, but not as expensive as two Heroes of Fortitude, so you won't suffer too much from bringing him.

With the exception of the mattocks (unfortunate, since they look really cool), all of the gear options for Iron Hills Warriors are amazing - shields by default, the option to trade the shield for a crossbow, a banner on anyone (maybe two banners?), and spears for shield-carrying or crossbow-carrying Dwarves is good. These infantry models form a good core for any army - and make a great anvil for this force in particular. Adding a few Goat Riders to support this army gives you slightly more speed (especially if you March them) - not necessary en masse, but a very dangerous pocket of power.

I don't think you leave home without a good block of infantry and some Goat Riders. The question becomes whether the siege weapons are important to your strategy. On the one hand, bringing a ballista can force almost any shooting army to come to you and engage you in melee (exactly what you want with your block of Dwarf heavy infantry), but similarly, ballista require you to be in a particular place (giving you less deployment flexibility and very little maneuvering once you've deployed). Sure, some scenarios may not require you to move, but if you need to get somewhere, a ballista could be a liability.

The Iron Hills Chariots are very expensive - and while they can do lots of damage, I'm not sure how useful they are without someone like Gandalf the Grey to knock everyone who has engaged the chariot over with a Sorcerous Blast. Chariots are even more expensive when equipped on an Iron Hills Captain (or in an Erebor Reclaimed list with the Champions of Erebor on it). They're powerful, but oh so very expensive. I know people like these things, but I just don't see them fitting in our list today - they cost too much.

Without further ado, let's look and see what we're doing with the Iron Hills in a balanced list . . .

Announcing the Hunters Red October 2021!

Good morning gamers,

It's that time again - Fall is upon us, so it must be time for The Hunters Red October 2021! The tournament will be held at Patrick Henry College on October 2, 2021. This year, we're doing something special where all participants will be bringing two armies (one Good, one Evil) and play matches with them in a Good vs. Evil format. Without further ado, here are (in my typical style) the Ten Commandments of the Tournament (Rules):

The Bare Necessities, Part XXXV: Fangorn

Good morning gamers,

As we wrap up other factions in MESBG to review for balanced lists, we come to a faction that . . . honestly . . . you're probably NOT running with a balanced list in mind. Instead, this is a monster-mash army - and the first of three armies that we'll be covering that (when run pure) HAS to focus on low numbers, but strong models. Today we're going to be covering Fangorn - an army that is hard to ally with (even though they're Convenient Allies with all Forces of Good armies) since you have only one Hero of Valor/Legend profile. Once you add Treebeard to an army, each additional Ent makes the remaining points available to you much smaller - so how on Arda can you get a 700-point army with 4+ fast models, a banner, and 30 models when you're running at least one Ent!?!?!?!? The answer might surprise you - read on if you'd like to find out.

Fangorn: So You Like Treebeard, Huh?

There are many armies that have decent Heroes of Legend, but you don't REALLY want them being your army leader. Heroes like Theoden, Girion, Galadriel, or Gandalf the Grey can all be your army leader - and if the scenarios require just keeping someone safe, maybe it's fine to have them as your army leader. However, if you have the faintest chance of getting Contest of Champions and had the choice of a F5/6 1-2A hero or a F8 3A hero (who also is D8 with 3 Wounds and 3 Fate), which would you rather have? Well, you'd probably want the F8 guy - and for that reason, allying in Treebeard is a pretty good option for some armies.

Allying him in DOES come at a cost - not only does the non-Fangorn element lose a good 190-200 points of models, but you also lose the Fangorn army bonus (Fearless is good to have, but not necessary since your Ents have good Courage - it's the immunity to magical powers that would keep you from moving or knock you over that's the real appeal). The question is whether you NEED the model count at the points level you're playing at - if you don't need the model count (Contest of Champions, Lords of Battle, To The Death), maybe you can make due without all that other stuff and instead of rely on having a few models that are hard to kill (and good at killing things).

At the end of the day, I decided that this post was going to feature an army that had a Convenient Alliance between Fangorn and an army that could give it a real banner with pretty cheap troops and some mounted models. I also wanted the Fangorn contingent to be more than just Treebeard - two or more Ents would be good. So, that gave me only a few choices - and here's the list that we ended up with . . .