The Stuff of Legends: Defenders of Erebor

Good morning gamers,

We're back in the Defence of the North supplement to view a list that I had very mixed feelings about when I started playing with it - and even after playing a half-dozen games at various points levels, I feel like I still don't fully understand it. I can say that I've been pleasantly surprised with a few of the models in the list - and have some very surprising shenanigans that can be run with it. And more importantly, I can say that I love it - I love this Legion a LOT.

Let's dig into one of the hallmark lists of the new supplement and what it has to offer (fair warning: this article is LOOOOOOONG)!

UPDATE: Many thanks to the anonymous user who pointed out that Barazanthul is in fact Master-forged (as it always should have been). Some parts of this article have been updated accordingly.

Part 1: What Do You Need?

Legion Tax: 165-240pts

The list requires at least one named Dale hero (either Brand or Bard II) and at least one named Erebor hero (Dain, Thorin III, or one of the living, mobile Champions of Erebor during the War of the Ring - Dwalin, Bifur, Bofur, Dori, Nori, or Gloin). With Brand/Bard costing 100-110pts and the Dwarves costing between 65 and 130pts, this Legion actually has a quite variable tax on it (as low as 165pts if you took Bard and either Bifur or Bofur - though probably Bifur - or as much as 240pts if you take Brand and Dain - which is quite likely at high points levels because of the Legion rules).

Usually in these posts, this is where I go into what you ACTUALLY need to take. This Legion . . . doesn't really have that. No, this Legion has so many different facets to it that I don't think I can boil the list down to "here's what you need to take." Instead, I found myself feeling a strange sense of DeJa'Vu when I was writing lists for this Legion - getting flashbacks to the start of the new edition of MESBG and over the past few years writing lists for one of the most thematic army lists in the game that HASN'T been turned into a Legendary Legion: the Last Alliance.

Why List Building For The Last Alliance Is Hard

Good morning gamers,

Here at TMAT, we love list building - I mean, the next best thing to playing the game is planning what army you want to bring to the next game you play, am I right? Well, since the new edition dropped, I've come back time and time again to the Last Alliance (a historical alliance between Rivendell and Numenor) and have enjoyed tinkering with various lists. With this tinkering, I'm often left feeling like I haven't got it quite right - there's always something missing or a glaring vulnerability. So today, I wanted to walk through the things I've discovered with this historical alliance (and while this article wasn't planned to be released right before the Rings of Power series airs, it does seem strangely appropriate to talk about how the allied list functions and what you need to know about it).

Why Writing The List Is Hard

If you've never written a Last Alliance list before, let me walk you through some of the decisions you need to make. First and foremost, since you're choosing to go with a historical alliance between Rivendell and Numenor, you'll need at least one hero from Numenor (Elendil, Isildur, or a Captain of Numenor) and at least one hero from Rivendell (thematically this would be Gil-Galad, Elrond, or a High Elf Captain - though you could argue for Glorfindel, Erestor, or Gildor). Once your Rivendell hero is selected, you also have some Minor Hero options (Cirdan and Stormcallers) and of course, you can TECHNICALLY run the Twins, Lindir, or Arwen with Numenor (though it's not thematically appropriate as it breaks the timeline). 

The Stuff of Legends: The Vanquishers of the Necromancer

Good morning gamers,

Today we're continuing our review of Legendary Legions from Fall of the Necromancer - and I know people asked when we'd be reviewing these in print, but for this Legion in particular, boy am I happy I waited until after the February 2022 FAQ. :-) Yep, today, we're dealing with the Vanqiushers of the Necromancer Legion, something that was smashing tables with Prone-inducing spells until the Middle-Earth team made two very dramatic changes. I still think the list is good, and we'll see why in a moment. Let's dig in!

Part 1: What Do You Need?

Photo Credit: Tumblr
Legion Tax: 470pts

Thanks to the February 2022 FAQ, in this list you now need to take not one, not two, but THREE heroes - Saruman the White (who will always be your army leader), Galadriel, Lady of Light, and Gandalf the Grey. With the addition of Gandalf to this line-up, this Legion has the highest official Legion tax in the game (470pts - though if you run the Grand Army of the South, you're probably spending well over the 375-400pt minimum once you fill out the howdah of the required Mumak).

What you ACTUALLY need to take is Elrond (and probably Radagast) as well - which means the army really functions well at 650pts, 800pts, or 850pts. Elrond not only gets free Heroic Strikes in this list, but he also counts as a banner for everyone else - which means your F5-6/3A heroes can win more fights by increasing their likelihood of getting a good dueling roll. He's also able to two-hand without the need to burn Might on Strikes - so he's a lot better than the other models in your list at actually two-handing so you can kill stuff.

Ranking the 4 New Battle Hosts!

All images taken from the Warhammer Community article

Hey Reader!

You all know I love a good (and ultimately pointless) ranking post, and seeing as we got four new battle hosts dropping shortly to an online store/physical GW or retailer store near you, it seemed like a good idea to do an overly pedantic ranking of these four new armies to see which is "the best."

Now I should start off by saying that 1) I'm a huge fan of this concept, as it's an easy way for someone to start the game with useful core portions of their respective army and then they can build from there based on their fancy, and 2) that literally none of these can be fully played as-is because of the hero-to-warrior ratio, so I want to note before we begin that I think all of these are awesome, I will definitely consider buying a few of them, and that (in classic Centaur fashion) there will be caveats for the ranking below that will show the mindset I'm using to assess the lists, so if you disagree with those you're probably going to think the ranking is trash, :P

Of course, who am I kidding: some of you are going to think the rankings are trash anyway, but oh well.

So in the way of explaining our criteria for the ranking, I need to express the following caveats for how we approached the comparison.

First, I'm looking at the four battle hosts against each other, not against some nebulous army or legendary legion that could be fielded against them. Since a lot of army concepts rely on a wide range of synergies between warriors and heroes, it goes beyond the spirit of the battle host - a hero (or a hero pair, in two cases) and two boxes of warriors - to compare them to a complex or diversified list. So we will be comparing the four battle hosts to each other only for the purpose of this ranking. If more are released, and if you all enjoy this post, I'll gladly rerank with the new releases as they come out!

Second, we are assuming that the battle hosts face each other on a variety of scenarios, so just because, for example, one battle host is overwhelmingly F3 and another is overwhelmingly F4, that doesn't necessarily mean that the F4 army will win out. It may slant close calls in their direction as melee prowess tends to help in winning matches, but it's not the only factor we are considering.

And finally, I openly admit that with the addition of a second hero a lot of the rankings change. I'll note more on this in the conclusion, but suffice it to say, none of these boxes are "optimized" for competitive play right out of the box. And as I'll note below, I think that's the point, and it's brilliant.

We will be evaluating the strengths of the hero, warriors, and their ability to perform well against the other hosts that are arrayed against them. So with no further ado, let's look at the incredible box set that comes in at last place, only because one of them has to.

The Stuff of Legends: the Rise of the Necromancer

Good morning gamers,

Two weeks ago, Centaur brought us back to our Stuff of Legends series with a look at the Army of Dale. Today we'll be reviewing one of the Legions that I haven't had a chance to test out until recently: the Rise of the Necromancer. I was a big fan of the Necromancer in our Evil Spellcaster pod and you can get detailed reviews of this Legion from Asgarod's blog and a hot-take from Sharbie on his blog - check out their stuff if you haven't already, they're really good! This Legion, like few others, is all about one model: the Necromancer. Amazingly though, it hasn't gone overboard on what he can do and even gives some nice bonuses to the other models in the list so that they can do what they already did even better. I kind of hope this Legion forms a template for whatever Sauron-based second-age army gets released in the ever-hoped-for-but-not-announced-yet Last Alliance supplement that is made. Let's get right into it!

Part 1: What Do You Need?

Photo Credit: TheForce.Net
Legion Tax: 250pts

The Legion requires you to take the Necromancer of Dol Guldur - which, let's face it, we all saw coming. The Necromancer is an older model (some complain that he should have gotten a new model with the book release) but has solid rules for a caster. With 25 Will points to cast/resist spells, participate in combats, use as Fate points, and stay alive, he's got a LOT of time to cast spells (and can even fight for a while if he's not facing anything that will wound him easily).