Revisiting Play Styles Part 3: The Linchpin Playstyle

Hey Reader!

Welcome back to the blog! Tiberius wrote a blog post recently about list building for beginners, based on a 2015 post I made talking about the seven list building play styles I noticed at the time. Last time we talked about the Theme Playstyle, and in today's post we are looking at the third playstyle: the linchpin list.

As before, we will look at what this playstyle looks like in concept, and then work to maximize its potential on the table to bring you victory, coupled with thoughts on which armies do this best.

I.  The Linchpin Playstyle: "Focus and Overwhelm"

Also referred to as the "Focus and Overwhelm" strategy, this playstyle looks at one aspect of the game - magic, monsters, mobility, melee prowess, mob tactics, might points, archery (sorry - I couldn't come up with an "M" word for the last one! I feel ashamed), etc. - and turns that up to 11 in the army. If that part of the game works for the controlling player, they are probably going to win because they dominate that aspect of the game.

Shire: an army that focuses on Shooting and Numbers to win

I will go on record (and Tiberius will probably write a reply post on this, which is fine) saying that I think there is a hierarchy in regards to which of these you should overpower to be most effective (more on that below), but before I do, I want to say that you can do any of these quite effectively, and by focusing on any given aspect you may find it easier to beat some of the more powerful armies in the current meta.

And that's one of the nice things about playing a Linchpin army: you can take one aspect of the game that you really like, that your army does really well, etc. and lean heavily into it to attain victory. You tend to see this a lot from Tiberius in our gaming group (most of the time it's magic or archery, as he really loves magic and throwing weapons), but I think we've all dabbled with it at some point.

You'll also find a lot of crossover between the theme playstyle and this one, which is why we're doing these two back-to-back, as some themes focus around a specific aspect of the game (monsters, poison arrows, etc.). But I think they are different because the focus on, "I want as many archers as possible" is very different from a thematic army, and that's why it gets it own list.

Put another way, Linchpin strategies are often incidental Thematic armies: the theme of, "as many ranger as we can fit in" or "as many artillery pieces as I can fit in" is incidental to the actual aim which is, "a butt-ton of dangerous stuff clouding out the sun will hit some people even on a bad day."

So toward that end, let's look at how we can make the most of the Linchpin style.

Quest of the Ringbearer Inspired Lists: Rangers of Ithilien LL

Good morning gamers,

Well, this is our last post in this series for now. We've already seen how to take your Quest of the Ringbearer collection to field armies like Angmar, Rivendell, and the Serpent Horde, as well as Legendary Legions like the Breaking of the Fellowship, the Black Riders, Ugluk's Scouts, and Cirith Ungol. Today, we're covering an army that has gone from dominance to decline in the international competitive community: the Rangers of Ithilien.

The List

We get quite a few Minas Tirith models in Quest of the Ringbearer (despite the faction only showing up in three missions) - here's the full list:

• You have access to several heroes from the Black Gate (King Aragorn, Gandalf the White, and Peregrin Took, Guard of the Citadel);
  
• You'll need Faramir, Madril, and Damrod;
• You'll need the ForgeWorld models for Anborn and Mablung;
  
• You'll need 24 Warriors of Minas Tirith;
• You'll need one Minas Tirith Command blister (for the Warrior of Minas Tirith with banner);
  
• You'll need one box of Rangers of Gondor; and
• You'll need 6 Osgiliath Veterans (two with shields, two with spears, and two with bows) - though you can convert these models pretty easily from Warriors of Minas Tirith if you want too.
  

This Army Will Break Your Local Meta . . .

Good morning gamers,

Let me begin by acknowledging the click-bait title - I couldn't help myself. Centaur has recently been playing with a new army (and exercising a new 3D printer) and I have to admit, I had no idea how powerful it was until it started crushing armies that are deemed crazy powerful (the Vanquishers of the Necromancer in Command and Control, the Black Riders LL in Contest of Champions, and a Balrog/Cave Troll spam from the Depths of Moria LL in To The Death - twice). What army am I talking about? Well, Centaur's been running this one:

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Yep, today we're looking at Fangorn and how they can single-handedly change your local meta - because traditional, conventional armies (and faddish, awesome armies that are used to fighting conventional armies) have no idea how to fight them. :-)

Quest of the Ringbearer Inspired Lists: Cirith Until LL

Good morning gamers,

We're almost done with the year and we've almost finished with this mini-series of taking our collection from Quest of the Ringbearer onto the tabletop for matched play. Today we turn to a Legion that I was very excited to see (and kinda groaning at collecting - the models are SO EXPENSIVE!) - the Cirith Ungol LL. This Legion, run as a normal Mordor list for a long time by theme-minded fans, looks a lot like the Ugluk's Scouts LL, but behaves very differently. Let's look at what we have to work with!

The List

This is once again an army that can use Orcs - and as we saw with both Angmar and the Ugluk's Scouts LL, Quest of the Ringbearer gives you a LOT of Orcs. Unlike the Ugluk's Scouts list, we only have 16 Uruk-Hai (including Shagrat), so our options for running Uruk-Hai in this Legion is pretty limited (though only just less than the 25 Uruk-Hai we had for Ugluk's Scouts). Thankfully, though, we do have plenty to work with - let's see what we have:

• You'll need the Shagrat and Gorbag pack - the new one with the two poses of Shagrat is best, more on that in a minute;
• You'll also need Shelob, who is a nasty piece of work in this legion;
• You'll need 37 Orc Warriors (12 shields, 12 spears, 6 Orc bows, 6 two-handed weapons, and 1 banner); 
• You'll need 3 Orc Captains and if you purchased the Orc command blister, you also have an Orc Shaman; and
• You'll need 15 Mordor Uruk-Hai - technically, you need 15 with no extra gear, so this could be as many as 30 Mordor Uruk-Hai if you want to spend a lot of money and be technically correct.

True talk: I'm not sure that anyone would ever run Mordor Uruk-Hai with no extra gear in matched play - getting a shield seems to be a popular choice, though I prefer the Orc bow (they're decent archers and scary to charge). I equip some of these Uruks with two-handed maces as well for extra damage. If you're buying 3 packs of Mordor Uruk-Hai so you have 18 warriors (though again, you COULD buy 5 packs so you have 15 warriors without extra wargear), we can safely assume you have 18 Uruk-Hai to work with in reality. Today, we'll be taking advantage of our "actual collection" and assume you have access to 18 Mordor Uruk-Hai (plus 2 Shagrat models) - let's look at the list:

• Shagrat, War Leader [ARMY LEADER]
• 1 Mordor Uruk-Hai with two-handed mace
• 3 Mordor Uruk-Hai with Orc bows and two-handed maces
• 4 Mordor Uruk-Hai with Orc bows
• Mordor Uruk-hai Captain with shield
• 1 Mordor Uruk-Hai with two-handed mace
• 2 Mordor Uruk-Hai with Orc bows and two-handed maces
• 5 Mordor Uruk-Hai with Orc bows
• Gorbag, Orc Captain with shield
• 6 Orc Warriors with shields
• 5 Orc Warriors with shields and spears
• 1 Orc Warrior with shield, spear, and banner
• Orc Captain with shield
• 6 Orc Warriors with shields
• 6 Orc Warriors with shields and spears
• Shelob

The equipment is all wrong and many of the Uruks are Isengard Scouts . . .

700 points, 45 models, 14 Orc bows hitting on a 4+, 5 D6+ models, 1 fast infantry, 10 Might

Revisiting Play Styles Part 2: The Theme Playstyle

Hey Reader!

Welcome back to the blog! Tiberius wrote a blog post recently about list building for beginners, based on a 2015 post I made talking about the seven list building play styles I noticed at the time. Last time we talked about the Collection Playstyle, and in today's post we are looking at the second playstyle: the themed army.

Similar to our last post we will examine what goes into this playstyle, and then discuss how we can maximize the effect of that playstyle and which armies best allow us to maximize the potential of the theme.

I.  The Theme Playstyle: "Feel Over Math"

In a very oversimplified paraphrase of the philosophy, this playstyle comes down to accuracy over aptitude. If Lorien wasn't at Helm's Deep in the books, then we aren't taking elves in a Helm's Deep centric army (and in fact, you're probably playing Vanilla Rohan so you can add Hama and Eomer to the army, as Hama dies there and Eomer is also with them). If Gimli wasn't with Balin when he setup the Kingdom of Moria you won't run Gimli in a Kingdom of Moria Khazad Dum army. The theme comes first.

Minuteman Kirk in our gaming group is renowned for this, and I suspect that Red Jacket falls into this category to some extent as well: the feel of the army is critical to how we build lists.

Now, this means that there's a good chance that good models (like Gimli) won't be taken in an army because they just don't fit the theme, which is why the power level of the model isn't necessarily considered (hence "accuracy over aptitude"). It also means that you may not take advantage of other boons or special rules available to your faction.