The Stuff of Legends: The Host of the Dragon Emperor

Good morning gamers,

If you've followed this blog for any period of time, you've probably picked up on something: I don't like Easterlings. I don't - I just don't. Or more appropriately, I didn't like Easterlings. I've heard others (like Matt from the Green Dragon Podcast) protest that Easterlings are not "just another version of Minas Tirith but with worse heroes" - but they are. They just are - or more appropriately, they were. With the release of Defence of the North, the Easterlings got three new heroes and two new warrior options - and while their depth chart isn't as developed as Mordor, Minas Tirith, Rohan, or Isengard, they got some key pieces to become a more competitive faction.

The chief among those improvements was the Dragon Emperor and to accompany this new (and very expensive) model was a new Legendary Legion that, in an astounding and brilliant move, didn't invalidate a "normal" Easterlings list. Yes, he'll probably show up in a lot of Easterling lists (and if you're running him, you probably take a good look at his Legion), but allying with Mordor or Khand (or just running them pure) isn't off the table.

The international community has seen this Legion run to deadly effect - especially in the hands of US-renowned player Matt Iverson - and so I've decided to set my personal biases aside, interview guys who love Easterlings (TMAT's own Centaur and Zorro, TMAT friend MinutemanKirk, and the aforementioned Matt Iverson), and give a fair shake to the Host of the Dragon Emperor Legendary Legion.

I will say that this self-proclaimed Easterling hater doesn't hate them anymore - and this Legion has single-handedly done that. Before anyone thinks I'm going to buy these guys, I will cite the $200 price tag on the Dragon Emperor as my primary deterrent to adding Easterlings to my already copious collection of models. Still, the Legion fascinates me - let's dig into what it does!

Part 1: What Do You Need?

Photo credit: Tumblr
Legion Tax: 170pts

In this Legion, you need to include the Dragon Emperor of Rhun, who comes in at a bargain 170pts. Heroes of Legend are usually not cheap (Theoden, Dalamyr, Suladan, and some builds for the Witch-King aside) and 170pts might seem like a lot, but considering that he comes with a banner and basically has a chariot mount, he's actually quite cost-effective. In the Legion, he doesn't pick up that many buffs - he gets a reroll on one of his dueling dice (two with his banner if his palanquin is still on the board) and gets to upgrade warriors in his warband to Black Dragon for free (nothing wrong with that at all - and when you factor the 36pts saved on the Black Dragon upgrades and the 25pt+ banner, he's closer to 110pts for everything else). Despite not gaining that much, he's the perfect centerpiece to your army and while slow and on a big base, he is integral to the success of (I'll go out on a limb here) any Easterling force.

Top 5 New Battlehosts for Forces of Good

Hey Reader!

Quick caveat before we start: no, we don't have special knowledge about what is going to come down the line from GW, so don't take any of this as, "these are coming in the future" please!!! We love the team, we trust the team, and we don't want to get in trouble, :P

That being said, I think these would also help to bring people into the hobby, and I think the more ways we can make joining the hobby and playing the game easier and simpler for people the better, and battlehosts will undoubtedly help get new players into the game.

And with Minas Tirith and Rohan coming to the line, this is a great start as they are both iconic armies from the films and books. But what other factions would be good to add? Let's take a look.

We will consider three factors: ease of packaging (so plastic models will have an advantage over resin and metal models), popularity (as creating a battle host for, say, Sharkey's Rogues, may not be worth the investment), and driving sales (it should help to sell models that aren't selling out on their own).

#5: The Fiefdoms

Fiefdoms is slowly coming together!

Now this would be an AWESOME battlehost: a group of six knights led by Imrahil supported by a mix of Lossarnachs, Clansmen, Men-at-Arms, and some rangers? This would be incredible and beautiful and just everything that you'd love to see from a battlehost. And with them combining the sets for Lossarnachs and Clansmen, this is easier than ever before. 

But this is also the issue: this is a lot of non-plastic minis in a single set, and there's no living way that this makes a good profit for GW. So while I think it would be among the most attractive of the battlehosts (and even a seasoned player like me would buy it, just because the savings on it would be too good to pass up), it's also one of the reasons it will probably never happen. So I place it here.

The Bare Necessities, Part XLVII: Grimbeorn and his Beornings

Good morning gamers,

With the release of Defence of the North, we have a new faction that you can ally with if you have a Forces of Good army: the Beornings. No, this isn't the new Legendary Legion (view our article from last week on that list) - it's "just Grimbeorn" and up to 15 Beornings. They lose a lot of rules, but they gain something valuable: the ability to ally with other factions. Do any of the other Forces of Good factions have anything to offer that rivals the boosts from the Legion? Let's dive in and find out - I think the answer might surprise you . . .

More gifs of daddy - Photo Credit: Tumblr 

Grimbeorn and the Beornings: How Important Are Army Bonuses, Anyway?

When it comes to the alliance matrix, running a pure list or a historical alliance has one advantage: you get to keep your army bonus. For most factions, though, you can live without it - it might help your army, but sometimes an alliance can get you as much or more than your army bonus does.

While a Convenient alliance makes you "just lose your army bonus" (and this would appear to be the best route for the Beornings to take, since they have no army bonus of their own), an Impossible alliance grants three additional penalties: first and foremost, heroic actions only affect models from the faction that's calling them. This can be bad, but can also mean nothing. Second, banners/banner effects are faction-specific as well. If you don't run banners, it's no big deal (and since Grimbeorn counts as a banner for his guys, bringing another banner will just help the other guys). So there we go - not much lost there.

Third, impossible allies break independently of each other. Giving up points for being broken can be really bad (3-5 VPs in some scenarios) or not that bad at all (1VP in some scenarios). Since there's only 12 VPs up for grabs in any given game, avoiding being broken is generally a good idea (and it causes many armies to avoid Impossible Alliances where possible - even if they have no banners or stand fasts that need to help the army as a whole).

Unexpected Military Formations: The Anti-Archery Shield

Good morning gamers,

Earlier this week, we looked at the Beornings Legendary Legion and I mentioned in passing that there was a specific formation you could use if you needed to advance against enemy archery and there is no terrain to hide behind. Today, we're going to look at that formation.

The Expected Formation: The Solid Wall of Bears

To exhibit this formation, let's look at the following 800pt army:

• Beorn [ARMY LEADER]
• 7 Beornings
• 3 Beornings with great bows 
• Grimbeorn
• 7 Beornings
• 3 Beornings with great bows

If you have two D8 models with 60mm bases, the strategy would appear to be simple: make a 120mm wall between you and your opponent with your bears:

Now this seems like a solid plan - we have D8 models with a 5+ save before they need to spend Fate protecting our D4 infantry. But, if we pit this against a shooting army, we run into a problem: we protect our models from a pretty narrow firing arc.

Because our bears are "leading the charge", we have given our opponent no reason to keep his archers (or anything else) in front of our formation. A smart opponent will not stand in front of you as you charge - he's going to move around the formation as best he can:

The more he moves, the further your bears are from the action. So how can we stop this from happening? Well, we change the placement of our bears to look like this . . .

The Unexpected Formation: Angled Deflection Shields 

What's changed? We still have our bears in front, but we haven't blocked all of the forward arc - instead, we've left a corridor for the enemy to direct his fire without in-the-ways. Why? Because only a few archers will likely be able to make that shot and that means our attrition rate down that alley will be low. By contrast, basically all of our flanks are guarded and we have discouraged our opponent from shooting out our Beornings by moving to the side.

As an added bonus, we know that every archer possible will want to be in one place: the corridor we've left open. Our bears can still advance towards the archers and those archers will just be saf about it, leading us to massacre the main body if they stand/scoot-and-shoot.

Conclusion

This kind of strategy may see some Beornings fall - but with our army together, our bears are right where we need them: amongst the Burly chaps who want that banner reroll. If this formation article was informative for you, let us know below! Until next time, happy hobbying!

The Stuff of Legends: The Beornings

Good morning gamers,

We've covered several of the Legions from Defence of the North so far (the Army of Dale, the Defenders of Erebor, the Assault on Lothlorien, and the Fell Beings of Mirkwood) and today we're covering one of the last Legions that has proved to not only be popular, but also be competitive at top tables. Yes, today we're getting our broken overalls and our plaid shirts on and looking at the Beornings Legendary Legion!

It should be noted that next week we'll be reviewing the "normal" Beornings army list, which isn't exactly an "army list", but functions VERY differently from this Legion. We'll cover when you'd want to use the normal list instead of the Legion in that article, but everyone seems to want to run this Legion and I'm inclined to think that this Legion might be the most competitive way to play with bears and their acolytes. Let's get into it!

Part 1: What Do You Need?

Legion Tax: 200pts

This Legion doesn't require you to run a particular bear (Beorn or Grimbeorn) but does require you to run one of them. Beorn can't lead any troops other than Great Eagles in Radagast's Alliance (the only other list he's in), so popping him into this Legion gives him access to cheaper troops (though they're still pretty pricey, even for elite warriors). Grimbeorn can be fielded in the aforementioned Beornings "list", though with no other help, his contingent caps out at 500pts (so you're in the same boat you'd be in with the Three Trolls if you ran them pure). While both bears are definitely threats to any hero, this Legion allows you to run them together (what would normally be an Impossible Alliance) and get decent numbers in their ranks.