I Saw Three Trolls (and I'm tired of fighting them)

Good morning gamers!

This post kicks off a three-post series on some random musings I've had on armies of evil - I normally play armies of good (I'm that kind of guy), but despite my pure heart and lawful-good personality, I am the proud father of three stormtroopers. So...I play against a lot of evil armies (and collect a lot of evil armies so my stormtroopers have something fittingly evil to use).

So today's post involves some thoughts I've been mulling around for quite some time. The primary driver for these thoughts is that recently (much to my delight), my son Gorgoroth has started playing the game. After I showed him the new rulebooks, he wanted to read the books - so I said, "Let's start with The Hobbit." So we did - and we're reading it now. Some of the first characters Bilbo meets on his adventures are the three Trolls - Bert, Tom, and William (not Bill - he's called William in the book, so that's what we call him). Shortly after running into these three characters, Bilbo is plunged into the depths of Goblin-town and meets "the Great Goblin" and all his little minions. As we met these characters, my son asked, "What do these guys look like in the game?" So I showed him.

Making Trees (a.k.a. don't throw anything away)

Good morning gamers,

As the TMAT GT 2019 approaches, I'm making terrain! I've always believed that the best way to get a terrain project done is to give yourself a deadline and I've been working on forests for quite a while (read, since I got started almost nine years ago). Today's post is informed by YouTube videos from The Terrain Tutor, though there are other channels on YouTube who will show you how to do this too (I'm subscribe to Lukes Aps as well).

Is Heroic Strike Good? (Part I: Fight Value and the Anatomy of a Duel)

Having finished a lengthy discussion of an oft-sneered-at heroic action that nobody uses (Heroic Strength), I figured it'd be fun to examine a heroic action at the other end of the spectrum that everyone values: Heroic Strike.

One of the first things new players learn in our game is the importance of fight value. If your fight value is higher than your opponent's, you can auto-win a duel if you roll a six (or can obtain a six through other shenanigans, usually involving banners and/or character-specific special rules and/or Might). You also win if you happen to roll higher on any die than your opponent, or if you roll the same as your opponent. If your fight value is tied with your opponent's, you only win outright if you roll higher than your opponent, and if you tie (or both roll a "6"), then you go to the dreaded roll-off where your fate is (literally) decided by (even more) random chance (than usual). And if your fight value is lower than your opponent's ... well, let's just say it can get very frustrating very quickly.

Most heroes boast a fight value of 5 or 6 (there are notable exceptions on both ends, of course). But as any seasoned player knows, there's a massive difference between FV5 and FV6. FV5 is usually good enough for dealing with regular troops, but not all elites, most heroes (even at low hero tiers), and almost all monsters. FV6 is good enough for dealing with most elite troops (but not all) and most low-end heroes, but not mid-to-high tier heroes, and again, most monsters will still pose a problem.

Enter Heroic Strike: the pinnacle of rule-breaking, at the cost of a Might point it allows our lowly hero to become as adept at fighting at the Balrog himself (although usually "as good as Gil-Galad" is good enough). Game-winning when it works, game-breaking when it doesn't, and usually game-slogging all the time, it is largely considered the most important heroic action to have in a hero's arsenal (now that not all heroes can call all heroic actions).

But are we really sure it's good?

(Controversial maths ahead...)

Heroic Srength: APPENDIX B: At Least and Expected Distributions for Heroic Strength (and Other Things)

This will be the last in our discussion of Heroic Strength. We left off last time in Appendix A looking at simulated dice rolls as a way of measuring the likelihood of "wasting" a point of Might on Heroic Strength. This time, we'll be tackling the same question using two more measuring tools: at least distributions and expected distributions.

An at least distribution chart attempts to convey the probability that we will score "at least" X results. For wounds (the primary thing we'll be mapping on these charts), this means our probability of scoring at least 0 wounds, 1 wound, 2 wounds, etc. out of however many to-wound dice our hero has. We made extensive use of these charts in Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of this series, looking at the odds that characters like Aragorn and Boromir would have of scoring at least X wounds when they wound on 6s, 5s, and 4s, so they're not entirely new to us.

An expected distribution chart measures the same data, but instead of telling us how many 0+, 1+, 2+, etc. we scored, this chart tells us the probability that we will roll exactly zero 6s, one 6, two 6s, three 6s, and so on. And since the probability of rolling a particular result (like a 6) is important for lots of reasons in our game beyond wounding, these charts may be of interest to you even if you've long lost interest in Heroic Strength.

(Maths ahead...)

Magic In MESBG, Part IV: Lothlorien

Good morning gamers,

This post wraps up our discussion of magic for a while, as we look at the army I'm bringing to the TMAT GT 2019 - Lothlorien. If you haven't caught up yet, check out our discussions on Gandalf the Grey (in Thorin’s Company) and Gandalf the White (in Minas Tirith - though we did a second post on him going in-depth into some of the things you can do with him here), and Saruman (in Isengard) for some background -  we'll be referring back to these a bit. Lothlorien/Mirkwood was my first army that I "finished" in LOTR SBG, but I've added a few models to it over time and have managed to NEVER take it to a GT. So, here we are. While the list you're about to see is FAR from competitive, it should be fun and emphasizes the one thing Elves do better than anyone else: shoot at stuff.