War in Rohan Inspired Lists: The Army of Dunland Revisited

Good morning gamers,

Last time we mentioned there are lots of ways you can run your Isengard faction models in Matched Play - and while Uruks do make up the mainstay of most of the missions, the other prominent subfaction of the Isengard models in War in Rohan are the models from Dunland. Dunlendings got new life with War in Rohan and the Army of Dunland Legendary Legion has been a force on the tabletop since its release. In War in Rohan, we get almost all the Dunland models - and in general, we get them in good quantities:

• Gorulf Ironskin
• Frida Tallspear
• The Wild Man Oathmaker
• Thrydan Wolfsbane on foot and mounted
  
• 3 Dunlending Chieftains
• 12 Wild Men of Dunland
• TECHNICALLY, we have 12 vanilla Wild Men of Dunland and 12 Wild Men of Dunland with two-handed axes
  
• 16 Dunlending Warriors (6 shields, 6 bows, 4 two-handed axes)
• TECHNICALLY, we have three boxes of these guys since we have 3 Chieftains, which means we have 12 shields, 12 bows, 12 two-handed axes, and 3 banners
  
• 6 Dunlending Huscarls
• 6 Dunlending Horsemen
  

Photo Credit: War in Rohan

This is a rather large collection of models, but there's a glaringly obvious model missing: Crebain. Despite being released in War in Rohan, Crebain don't show up in any of the scenarios - and the penalty they apply to hitting them with ranged weapons, their Fly special rule, and their multiple Wounds makes them great for holding objectives and sneaking to get artifacts. Yep, they're a really good model - and thanks to us applying these stupid list building constraints, we're going to build a list today without them.

Fantasy Fellowship Deep-Dive, Part 2

Good morning gamers,

We're in Part 2 today of our Fantasy Fellowship journey, tackling what is one of the most iconic scenes from the Fellowship of the Ring: the journey to and through Moria. In Part 1, we reviewed what kind of foes we're going to face in the first three missions and what that ACTUALLY means you need for five of your Fantasy Fellowship heroes. Today, we tackle the next four missions and look at what you're going to have to face . . . and where you can save some points and invest some points to get the most out of your Fellowship. Let's get into it!

Part 2: The Moria Sequence 

 

Photo Credit: Quest of the Ringbearer
Our first mission doesn't actually start in Moria - and it's kind of a chaotic mess!

We actually have a wide variety of models we'll be facing in these missions - and while most of them are garbage, we have four scenarios with no rest points between them (Wargs in the Night, Balin's Tomb, Escape from Dwarrowdelf, The Bridge of Khazad-Dum), so this is going to be a grind fest where we need to conserve resources as much as we can. We'll be facing the following models: 

• 1 Wild Warg Chieftain (1 mission) 
• 18 Wild Wargs (1 mission) 
• 2 Moria Goblin Captains (no extra gear, 3 missions) 
• 24 Moria Goblins (standard gear, 3 missions) 
• 1 Cave Troll (with everything, 2 missions); and 
• The Balrog (1 mission) 

In all four scenarios, we have all nine members of our Fellowship - and in the first scenario, we also get Bill the Pony. First and foremost, we want our models to be F4 if possible and at least a few of them should have Heroic Strike. We'll be fighting F3 Wargs and F2 Goblins/F3 Goblin Captains - being F4 gives us an advantage against anything except "the big boss" from each mission (the Wild Warg Chieftain, the Cave Troll, and of course, the Balrog). F4 is good enough, so that's what we should shoot for. In the previous path, F4 is handy against the Barrow-Wights and pretty reachable for most of our "four Hobbit" slots. Anyone who isn't F4 should try to be F3 so they get at least a roll-off chance (if not a slight advantage against a single Goblin and about even odds against two Goblins). 

 

The Road to the Winter Whirlwind Tournament

Good morning gamers,

Centaur sprung a surprise* tournament on us and the tournament is intended to get some of the players who have drifted from the game over the years to come back and give it a try (and to introduce some new players to the game). As such, the tournament tomorrow will be 300pts (with no single model costing more than 150pts) and we'll be playing 5 games (45min each). Centaur picked one scenario from each pool and each round, he'll draw the pool that we'll be using (so we need to prepare for 6 scenarios but will only be playing 5 of them). 

We haven't had a tournament at/under 300pts in a long time (we had a 150-pt event in 2017 - and that one didn't require heroes), so this was an interesting challenge. While most people might think that a low points limit would mean fewer armies than normal for my consideration, I can assure you that I tested no less than TEN different lists at this points level (and wrote up a TON more that never even made it to the tabletop). Let's take a look at the front-runners!

Honorable Mention: Vanilla Mordor

Which is more scary: a winged monstrosity or a horde of Morannons!

Last September, I got a Fell Beast (you can see him in a few pictures here, close-ups to come in the next Quest of the Ringbearer collection update) - and it is FUN to use! When Centaur mentioned off-handedly that he was going to do this, I immediately looked to see if I could pair my knowledge of spell-casting, my love of Ringwraiths, AND my new Fell Beast model into a list - but the 150pt limit for individual models really limited what I could take:

• The Witch-King of Angmar on Fell Beast with 3M/11W/2F [ARMY LEADER]
• 2 Morannon Orcs
• 6 Morannon Orcs with shields
• 6 Morannon Orcs with shields and spears
• 1 Morannon Orc with shield, spear, and banner

Veteran Witch-King players will see the glaring omission from this list: the Crown of Morgul. With it, the Witch-King not only casts more reliably with less Will, but is also always 3 Attacks (4 Attacks on the charge). Still, this list behaves exactly as you think it will: it'll win if the Witch-King lives and it will lose if the Witch-King dies. With the Fell Beast as part of the investment, I need to be at least a little aggressive with him - and I ultimately didn't like how swingy my games could be just based on his fights. I would encourage players to experiment with this kind of list without a 150pt cap (or just swap the Fell Beast for a horse, the Crown, and 2-3 Will depending on whether you take an armored horse or not) - it actually is a good list. Alas, it was far less reliable than the other contenders you'll see below.

Top 10 Best Skirmishers in the Game - Centaur Edition

Hey Reader!

So in preparation for telling you about this post, I think I need to make five caveats first like I did in our last post on archers. But before we launch into that, we're looking at the best skirmishers in the game today!

So first, I have to call this post "Centaur Edition" because if I thought the archers post was going to have detractors, boy howdy is this one going to have detractors (especially since someone's favorite camels and another person's woodland hoodlums didn't make the list, :P ).

Second caveat: since I'm combining evil and good in this list, like the last one, expect to see more Forces of Good models in this ranking as they are generally better at shooting, but also because Forces of Evil just in general doesn't have a lot of throwing weapons. Sure, Goblin Prowlers and Umbar are a thing, but beyond that it's pretty sparse. Less than half of the evil factions have throwing weapons (and four of those that do only have the Warg Rider profile), whereas over half of all Forces of Good factions have access to at least one warrior profile with them, and that's even before factoring in the more favorable alliance matrix that Forces of Good enjoys that allows for easy access to throwing daggers and throwing spears.

Third caveat: I'm only looking at warrior models for this comparison, mostly because we already reviewed the heroes in a previous podcast (and if you're wondering, I think the best skirmisher hero bar none in the game is Elfhelm, Balrog's whip included), but also because some of the special rules/Might point discrepancies make them hard to compare to each other, so I figured warrior profiles were closer in value and form to each other.

Fourth caveat: as we mentioned before there's a difference between an archer and a skirmisher, so this is a look at skirmishers: people who can move their full distance and shoot in the same turn. So you will see no evaluation of bows or crossbows in this ranking, and as much as I love them, I'm not reviewing throwing stones either.

So sorry hobbit rock lobbers: I love you all to bits, but I won't be ranking you. Pour some entdraught out for the best boys getting shafted in both the archer and skirmisher posts by Centaur.

War in Rohan Inspired Lists: the Assault Upon Helm's Deep Revisited

Good morning gamers,

At its core, the War in Rohan supplement is about two factions: Rohan and Isengard. Last time, we looked at the MANY units we have at our disposal from the War in Rohan scenarios to bring to Matched Play for various Rohan lists and today we look at the other big faction available: Isengard.

One of the first factions I started collecting in MESBG (back then the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game) was Isengard - I had 18 Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields, 16 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes, a Captain with shield, and a banner guy. A few chop-shop sessions later, and I had a few crossbows converted up (including a Captain) and over the last twelve years, I've accumulated many, many Uruk-Hai models and Dunlending proxies (historical Saxon Thegns from Warlord Games - and with all the spears that box set came with, it is easily one of the best purchases I've made for the hobby, period). As I've documented throughout this blog, it took me a long time (and forcing myself to use Saruman) to get me to love Isengard - and when the faction got a revamp in the new edition (mostly to Saruman), I REALLY started to enjoy using them.

Photo Credit: War in Rohan

In War in Rohan, our Isengard collection is wide open - especially if you took my advice and bought a Battle Host box:

• Heroes:
  
• 8 Uruk-Hai: Vrasku, 5 Uruk-Hai Captains with shields, Ugluk, Mauhur
  
• 7 Dunlendings: Gorulf Ironskin, Frida Tallspear, The Wild Man Oathmaker, Thrydan Wolfsbane on horse, 3 Dunlending Chieftains
  
• 8 Orcs: Grishnakh, Snaga, Sharku on Warg, 1 Orc Captain on Warg, 4 Orc Captains with shields
  
• Warriors: 
• 125 Uruk-Hai: 24 Uruk-Hai Scouts (8 shields, 8 Uruk-Hai bows, 8 vanilla), 85 Uruk-Hai Warriors (35 shields, 35 pikes, 12 crossbows,3 banners), 16 Uruk-Hai Berserkers
  
• 40 Dunlendings: 12 Wild Men of Dunland, 16 Dunlending Warriors (6 shields, 6 bows, 4 two-handed axes), 6 Dunlending Huscarls, 6 Dunlending Horsemen
  
• 66 Orcs: 18 Warg Riders (6 shields, 6 Orc bows, 6 throwing spears), 48 Orc Warriors (16 shields, 16 spears, 8 Orc bows, 8 two-handed weapons)
  
• Siege Weapons:
• 5 Uruk-Hai Demolition Teams
• 1 Isengard Assault Ballista
  

With almost 300 models at our disposal (plus Saruman, Grima, and Lurtz if you buy the Isengard Battle Host and the Lurtz and Ugluk sets), we certainly have enough models to run a variety of lists, including the Army of Dunland Legendary Legion (which I decided to give its own post - we'll go into that next week), a vanilla Isengard list, an Ugluk's Scouts list, or at low points levels a Lurtz's Scouts list or a Wolves of Isengard list. Today, though, we'll be looking at one of the most competitive armies in MESBG right now: the Assault Upon Helm's Deep Legendary Legion. As dominant as this Legion is, our list will look a lot different from the way most people do it because . . . well, we will have a maximum of one ballista.