The Scouring of the Shire, Part 1: Ruffians in Bree

Good morning gamers,

Last year, Centaur and I played through Fantasy Fellowships every other Saturday and it was a lot of fun. I think Quest of the Ringbearer is the best supplement released to date and the scenario options in it certainly contribute to that. Centaur (Hi Reader!) firmly believes that The Scouring of the Shire supplement is better, so when we were probing through scenario campaigns to do this year, the choice was clear: we were doing Scouring.

Centaur has been collecting Hobbits for ages and has recently printed a bunch of Ruffians to support his GW Sharkey's Rogues heroes, so after finding and painting Robin Smallburrow, he was good to provide all the models. With his help getting some 3D printed roads and smial doors (and a mill - all paid for by advertising revenue from this blog by viewers like you . . . thanks, guys), I undertook the terrain side of the house. Now you know who to critique for what.

Our first scenario begins in Bree, which means I get to show off some really old, child-proof terrain today . . .

Ruffians in Bree

The board is a 4'x4' board in two panels - I have an Inn of the Prancing Pony in the middle for Quest of the Ringbearer, so we measured out a 12" radius in all four cardinal directions and marked the edges with black dice (you can see one at the bottom of the image behind the Ruffian models).

The scenario participants are 4 Hobbit Militia and 8 Bree Villagers (Hobbit Militia with +2" of movement, +1 Strength, and -1 Courage) against Bill Ferny (remember him?) and 9 Ruffians (3 bows, 2 whips, 4 vanilla). To win this scenario, the Bree-folk need to kill Bill Ferny (2 Wounds/1 Fate with Defense 3 and only 1 Attack), while the Ruffians need to quarter the Bree-folk AND Bill Ferny needs to kill two models. If the Ruffians quarter the Bree-Folk but Bill Ferny kills 0-1 models, the game is a draw. Let's see if we can make some mischief in Bree . . .  

Nemesis: How to Fight Against Elrond

Good morning gamers,

This is our third week in our Last Alliance-focused thread of our Nemesis series (after stepping away from the series for a few weeks) and we're looking at one of the greatest Elven heroes in the game: Elrond. When Centaur and I got started playing MESBG, Centaur jumped feet-first into both Rohan and Isengard . . . and he bought Elrond. Why? Because Centaur LOVES Elrond. I mean, he really, REALLY loves Elrond. I mean, if you asked him who the top three spell casters for the Forces of Good are, Elrond makes the list. He . . . REALLY . . . likes Elrond.

His Elrond has been epic in many a game against me. My Elrond has been hot and cold - and while he's killed many things, he has never gotten me more than two Foresight points in a tournament game before (while Centaur's seems to always roll 5s or 6s . . . not that I'm bitter or anything). Yes, Elrond is good - and if you're not ready for him, he can really make things look unwinnable. So how does one prepare to fight this guy? If you think it's with the same tools you'd use against Gil-Galad, you'd be kind of right . . . let's see where the overlap is by understanding what Elrond is bringing to the table.

What Makes Elrond So Hated?

Like Gil-Galad and Elendil (though certainly not to their extent), Elrond has a really solid combat profile - he's F6 with 3-Might-and-Strike on an Elven-made weapon, he's got 3 Attacks, access to a mount, and Lord of the West for effectively 4-5 attacks when he's dueling and 3-8 wounding dice with an unconditional reroll, depending on whether his cavalry bonuses are all active. His sword, Hadhafang, is also a hand-and-a-half sword, so if you're okay with two-handing (which you generally should be - give it a try sometime), he can also get +1 To Wound, which is a great way to make sure he's not blunted by most units. Furthermore, Hadhafang gives him +1 To Wound against Spirit models, which means he'll wound those pesky Warriors of the Dead on a 5+ WITHOUT two-handing (4+ if he is) and can even get some crazy-low wounding difficulties against the likes of the Balrog.

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

I actually didn't mention Elrond in my discussion on how to counter the Balrog (though if you go ALL the way to the bottom of the comments, you'll see a discussion of it in brief), so I'll just go over the highlights now: Elrond (base S4) begins by wounding the Balrog on a 6/4+, which is pretty good all things considered (lots of heroes start - and stop - here). This means Elrond is expected to deal maybe one wound/turn if he can manage to trap the Balrog. Thanks to the Balrog being a Spirit model, this gets improved to a 5/3+, which puts him quite close to 1 wound/turn without a trap (and close to 2 wounds/turn with a trap). If he two-hands as well, he can improve his wounding difficulty to a 4/2+, which is going to put him on 2-3 wounds against an untrapped Balrog and 3-5 wounds against a trapped Balrog - which is INSANE. 

If Elrond is also able to reroll all failed To Wound rolls with Enchanted Blades (say, from Cirdan), he's likely to be wounding the Balrog very, very well and actually stands a better chance of killing him than any other Rivendell or Numenor hero. And this assumes that Cirdan used his Might point to channel Blinding Light, instead of channelling his Enchanted Blades to give Elrond yet another +1 To Wound (3/1+ with rerolls on all failed To Wound rolls). I think in most worlds, Cirdan isn't going to be channelling this spell . . . but Celeborn has 3 Might for channelling it and is historical allies with Elrond . . . so that might happen. If you're a D8 or lower Spirit model (as basically every other Spirit in the game is), Elrond is basically wounding with everything without the Enchanted Blades . . . chew on that for a bit . . .

Nemesis: How to Fight Against Bill Ferny

Good morning gamers,

After a few weeks off, we're back in the Nemesis series and I wanted to talk about one of the most ANNOYING characters you'll ever face in MESBG: Bill Ferny. This guys is a cheap hero in a faction that has a bunch of cheap warriors, so that alone will complicate your day - but when you stack onto the mega-horde-with-bows-and-whips annoyance an absolutely game-shattering rule (I don't know HOW this hasn't been errata'd yet), you get just a filthy character. No honorable person would ever run this guy - and yet, there are some people who do. Should you ever run into one of those people, this article will help you beat them. Let's dig in and see what all the fuss is about Bill Ferny and then look at how to beat him.

What Makes Bill Ferny So Hated?

Bill Ferny only costs 40 points (Goblin-level Captain costs) and for that you get a very points-efficient profile. F3/4+ doesn't look great, but compared to Goblins, that's better than you'd think - and since he has a dagger and a whip (2" S1 throwing weapon), the 4+ shoot value actually matters (and will hit on a 3+ or a 4+ depending on whether he's charging or moving-and-shooting if he's taken from the Chief's Ruffians Legendary Legion, which you should always do).

Photo Credit: Warhammer.com

S3/D3 doesn't look great - and 1 Attack/Courage 3 doesn't look great either, but to get the really awesome rules he has, something has to give. As it is, since increasing your Strength and Defense doesn't always help you, these stats are perfectly fine for fighting certain foes who have invested in extra Strength (S4 models won't wound him any better than S3 models) or Defense (D5 models won't be any harder to wound than D4 models - and being D7 is similarly not any better than being D6). Many of his other stats are perfectly normal with 2 Wounds, 1 Will, 1 Fate - look at how efficient this guy is!

Fleshing Out the Faction: Sharkey's Rogues (and The Chief's Ruffians)

Hey Reader!

Welcome back to the blog! Having recently run Sharkey's Rogues at our 2024 Spring Zephyr Tournament, I've been thinking a lot about this faction and what it could use to make it...not more competitive, because I don't think there's anything you can add to make you better at the scenarios where you're starting heavily down-handed without going beyond the theme and written source material of the army, but I do think these few new additions would help to fill a few (read: three) of the gaps currently in the force.

We don't do these very often, but let's be real: post The Scouring of the Shire, I don't think Sharkey's Rogues is going to get any more love than they've already gotten (and admittedly that book was just a beautiful labor of love for two factions I love running, so I'm not complaining about that book), but I do think that these few additional profiles will offer quite a bit of versatility that is much needed in this faction.

We'll start by looking at the "why" behind these additions before looking at the "what," and then look at what changes these make to a few typical Sharkey's Rogues / The Chief's Ruffians lists at common points levels.

I.  Why Does Sharkey's Rogues Need Some Love?

This faction is very small in terms of overall profiles (though admittedly up 100% from pre-Scouring, so no complaints here!): Ruffians with access to whips, bows, and knives/clubs (and possibly Hobbit Militia) for your warriors, and then a smattering of F4 and lower heroes, all D3-4, with 1-2 Attacks, and no access to Heroic Strike or Defence, both of which would be very, very helpful.

Armies of Middle-Earth SBG: Countering Angmar, Part 4 -- Avoiding (Avoidable) Mistakes on the Table

What?!?! Back for more tricks?!?!

Photo Credit: Hint--I'm a creature of habit (it's me again)

Editor's Note: This article is part of a larger series on dealing with Angmar. Click the links for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

* * *

The semester's over, so I'm back baby! (Raise your hand if you had an article from me on your bingo card for today ;-P )

As some of you may recall, over the Summer we explored strategies to counter Angmar (if you missed it, or need a refresher, you can check out the previous articles on dealing with Terror, maintaining control over our own pieces, and weathering magic spells by clicking the links). In terms of list-building, these are the primary tactical issues that we'll want to make sure we address, or at least think about. And as we discussed at length, most armies have at least some tools available to counter these tactics (or at least make things harder for the Angmar player).

What I want to talk about in this fourth and final discussion, however, is something that often gets lost in all the tactics: mental overload. I touched on this some in my write-up of the Angmar faction proper, but playing with and against Angmar lists (especially optimized Angmar lists of the magic-heavy variety) is a taxing thing for both sides. And in taxing situations, it's easy to forget things that should be obvious, scrap our game plan because we think we see "ghosts,"* and make mistakes. So here's the big-picture idea:

Whenever Angmar has a lot of nasty debuff pieces, you want to make their job harder (not easier) by planning ahead, avoiding simple mistakes that play into their hands, and pressing on. 

Admittedly, that's easier said than done, especially against an experienced Angmar player. But here's a few "meta-tactics" (plus a few practical tactical tactics) that can help us accomplish that primary goal.

* Although when playing against Angmar, you may in fact be seeing actual ghosts...

Reminder 1: Playing Angmar does typically make risk-taking more dangerous, so plan accordingly. We've all done them--those risky, "Hail Mary" plays that put all our chips on the table. A hero calls a heroic combat in a fight where the opponent has one more model than we'd prefer; we do a cavalry charge knowing that everything will come down to the 50-50 roll-off next turn; we march 15" into the line of fire, knowing that if we can just weather this turn of shooting, we'll catch them in the open next turn; we call 4-10 heroic combats in a singe fight phase, hoping to evaporate the enemy's battle line. We'd like to think that every game can be won with planning, precision, and patience. But we know there's games that come down to daring, guts, and dumb luck.

The reality is that Angmar has lots of ways to muck up those risky plays, and then to capitalize on any mistakes we made (especially if you're moving first and Angmar moves second). And an Angmar player wants us to think that because of that fact, we shouldn't take risks like we normally would. Just play it safe--conservative. Now there's certainly something to be said for conservative play against Angmar (if nothing else, that style tends to commit fewer of the "stupid" mistakes that Angmar can really capitalize on, which we'll talk about at the end). But you can certainly take risks against Angmar--you just need to take Edna Mode's advice, and have a plan in place should the risky play fail.

Sage advice, that.

Photo credit: pinterest.com (not me this time... I'm not this creative)

So how do we do this? Here's a couple of practical questions to ask ourselves at the start of the game (and periodically as the game progresses):

What's my target priority this round and next round (at least)? One of the best tips for combatting mental fatigue is taking the initiative (i.e., taking control of things you can control), and pressing your advantages. Think of it as being active/positive-minded ("What am I going to make happen?") instead of passive/negative-minded ("What nasty thing is going to happen to me next?"). After all, we are a participant in the game (not just a passive observer), same as the Angmar player. So we should participate.

Threat assessment is an important part of any game, and games against Angmar are no exception. But Angmar armies often have more threats than we're used to dealing with at once, so we need to be constantly assessing and re-assessing what's the most dangerous thing to us, as well as what weakness(es) we're going to exploit to buy us some breathing space. If it's Gulavhar, am I going to avoid him? Try to bait him over to a far flank? Pour every available shot into him, and try to scare him off? Or am I going to ignore him because he'll have trouble causing my Terror-causing Black Numenoreans (or because my big hero can deal with him later, as long as I can eliminate his supporting Barrow-Wight in the first two turns)?

Now again--this kind of in-game calculus feels like it takes on added significance in a match-up with Angmar (because the threats are more varied, and in some ways more subtle). But the calculus itself isn't any different from what you would typically do against any other opponent. And that's sort of comforting, if you think about it long enough.