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.

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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. 

The Road to the TMAT Spring Zephyr Tournament - Tiberius's List

Good morning gamers,

Well, I've broken my every-other-week Thursday cycle again - hopefully you don't mind. This weekend, we'll be having our Spring Zephyr tournament, where we'll have small armies, short games, and lots of chances for redemption. It'll be grand - but as is always the case, there were a lot of armies clamouring for my attention. Today we'll walk through the various lists I considered running - and what list I finally landed on. Let's start with . . .

Honorable Mention: The Kingdom of Khazad-Dum 

There's nothing in this game I love more than using an army of Dwarves (except maybe one with a Balrog) and Khazad-Dum is a great choice at lower points levels. At 350 points, I was able to get a 19 model army with a Dwarf King, a King's Champion, and a mix of Dwarf Warriors and Rangers to fill out the ranks. Nothing fancy here:

• Dwarf King
• 5 Dwarf Warriors with Dwarf bows
• 4 Dwarf Rangers with throwing axes
• King's Champion
• INDEPENDENT: 2 Heralds
• 6 Dwarf Warriors with shields 

It's the "nothing fancy" bit that made me not take this list - I'm sure it would have done well, but it's also very boring to play. With this being a teach-new-players-to-play event, I didn't want to show up with a grind list of Dwarves, so these guys get to stay in box. I was surprised that my dishonorable mention even fit in the points level . . .

Dishonorable Mention: The Serpent Horde 

So . . . it's a Mumak with Rappelling Lines and some guys in it . . . which would be very hard at this points level to stop with magic or archery. I have no doubt that winning certain scenarios would be hard - and that winning other scenarios would be easy:

• Haradrim Commander with War Mumak of Harad with Rappelling Lines [ARMY LEADER]
• 5 Haradrim Warriors
• 5 Haradrim Warriors with bows

But this is not a good gateway army - no new player is going to look at a Mumak and say, "Yeah, let's go fight that." So, he's staying in the box as well. This leads us to our first actual list . .  

Candidate #5: Rohan - Fellowship Convenient Alliance 

Centaur has done book-accurate Helm's Deep lists before, but this is a first for me. Eomer and Gimli retreat to the caves of the Deep in the book, so I made an all-shooting list with 16 models that reflects their stand at the caves (though Eomer was smart and grabbed a horse):

• Eomer on horse with shield and throwing spears
• 4 Warriors of Rohan with bows
• 6 Warriors of Rohan with shields and throwing spears
• 4 Rohan Royal Guards with throwing spears 
• CONVENIENT ALLY - The Fellowship: Gimli, Son of Gloin 

The list is very skirmishy, but doesn't really have the time to skirmish. The time constraints require an aggressive game play that is just too swingy with this list for my liking. Still, I liked it (and will have more thoughts on this list in a future post).

Candidate #4: Lurtz's Scouts LL 

A better skirmish list is one that can skip shooting and just engage - and a really fun way to do that is with Lurtz's Scouts. Lurtz is a good hero who gets outclassed as the points level increases, but at 350, you can get a big horde of Uruks to help him out:

• Lurtz with shield
• 4 Uruk-Hai Marauders 
• 4 Uruk-Hai Marauders with shields 
• 5 Uruk-Hai Marauders with Uruk-Hai bows 
• Mauhur 
• 3 Uruk-Hai Marauders 
• 4 Uruk-Hai Marauders with shields 
• 3 Uruk-Hai Marauders with Uruk-Hai bows 

This list has an impressive 25 models and was a strong contender for my choice, but then my son expressed an interest in running it, so I backed off. This led me back to Helm's Deep and another Legendary Legion . . .

Candidate #3: The Defenders of Helm's Deep LL

At last year's 300-point Winter Whirlwind tournament, an attendee brought a Theoden/Haldir version of this list - and it did okay. This list has Legolas and has lots of Elf bow shots, 8 supporting models, and some cheap Rohan infantry to form the front-line:

• Theoden, King of Rohan with heavy armor and shield
• 6 Warriors of Rohan with shields
• 1 Warrior of Rohan with throwing spears and shield
• 4 Galadhrim Warriors with Elf bows and spears 
• Legolas Greenleaf with armor
• 4 Warriors of Rohan with shields
• 1 Warrior of Rohan with throwing spears and shield
• 2 Galadhrim Warriors with Elf bows and spears 

20 models is pretty good - and with a few of those as supporting models, you're in a pretty good place if you have a shieldwall match up! While I could get good shooting in on most of the scenarios, this army depends on the spearmen being with the melee units - and with a lot of objective scenarios and not a lot of time on the clock, I just didn't think I would be able to score VPs and still shoot. Maybe next time guys. To get lots of shooting while still getting to the objectives, the better list turned out to be . . .

Candidate #2: Rohan 

Apparently, I have had Rohan on my mind. :-) This list abandons the numerical focus of the other two lists and instead goes for the mostly all-cavalry focus that makes Rohan great. I could have upgraded the Riders of Rohan to mounted Royal Guards and run the Riders of Theoden Legion, but I wanted the extra body:

• Theoden, King of Rohan on armored horse with heavy armor and shield [ARMY LEADER]
• 5 Riders of Rohan 
• Gamling, Captain of Rohan on horse with the Royal Standard of Rohan
• 4 Riders of Rohan
• 1 Warrior of Rohan with shield and throwing spears

Up until the moment I submitted my list, I kept coming back to this one. I ran Rohan at the last event and frankly, I wasn't sure that the infinite Might in this list was going to be appreciated. The list itself doesn't look scary - but all the warriors shoot, we can move quickly if we want to, and our numbers are good (for being mostly cavalry). I looked into turning the Warrior of Rohan into throwing spears/Royal Guard upgrades, as well as turning Gamling into various heroes (Erkenbrand and Dernhelm, in particular - and running Theoden as the only hero with 15 Riders of Rohan/Rohan Royal Guards), but while this list was fun to play, it was facing off against a very strong contender . . .

Candidate #1 and Tiberius's List: Minas Tirith 

I don't know that there's ever been a points level where I have felt better about bringing Denethor than this one. I have a horde of guys (my maximum of 29 models) and plenty of F4 or D6 and spears everywhere. With objective missions being a thing, I feel pretty good at being able to contest my opponents in most games:

• Denethor, Steward of Gondor [ARMY LEADER]
• 4 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
• 2 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears
• 1 Warrior of Minas Tirith with shield, spear, and banner 
• 1 Knight of Minas Tirith with shield 
• 3 Rangers of Gondor
• 4 Citadel Guard 
• Madril, Captain of Ithilien
• 6 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
• 6 Rangers of Gondor with spears

This is a proper spam list that has forsaken only one thing: a powerful hero. I have a lot of guys - and not a lot of answers to big heroes - but I can be where I want to be and hopefully that will be enough. In the end, I thought this list was better than the 16-model Men of the West list I briefly looked at, so there's that. :-) I also explored getting an extra Knight or two at Rythbyrt's and Centaur's suggestions, but I couldn't get the points to work out without having to purchase a bunch of models - so I left it with one mounted model. 

I think it'll be fine - the list can have a 13-file F4 shieldwall if it needs it (three F4 Rangers of Gondor will be in the front rank supported by the Warriors of Minas Tirith with spears/banner; ten Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields will be around them supported by F4 Citadel Guard/Rangers of Gondor with spears), so if we face another shieldwall list, I'm feeling confident that the FV we have will be fine - and we can probably wrap-and-trap to make up for being S3 all around.

Conclusion

I'm excited for the event and I hope the players who come have a good time. I'll see if I can get an update out after the event with how things went - until next time, happy hobbying!

Sharkey's Rogues: A "Game Master" Army

Hey Reader!

In preparation for the upcoming TMAT Spring Zephyr Tournament, I've been playing around with Sharkey's Rogues, 1) because I've owned the models for a while, 2) because I painted SO. MANY. of them, so I need to use them at some point, and 3) because a 350pt tournament is about the highest you can go before you're worried that you're being outclassed (450 is probably the highest I'd ever go, maybe 500), so when is this opportunity going to come up again? :P

But as I started practicing with them in earnest (and doing okay, actually), I realized why I enjoy playing them so much: it's a "Game Master" army, and as someone who has been a game master semi-professionally for roleplay games for over 10 years, it means I have the mindset to use them correctly. And that's what I wanted to chat about today.

Literary Corner: What the Hobbit Films Did Better Than the Book

Good morning gamers,

Over the past month and a half, Centaur and I have been having a literary debate about whether The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books or the films by Peter Jackson are better than each other. Rythbyrt has told me that there's a defense for saying that the Lord of the Rings trilogy of films might be better (at least in some ways) than The Lord of the Rings books. Centaur hotly disagrees. Last time, Centaur went first and argued for why The Hobbit book was better than the Jackson films . . . and today, I'm not exactly going to disagree with him, but rather, I'd like to focus on the things that the Jackson trilogy changed that actually improved on what was in the books (*gasp* *horror* *gasp*).

I think I agree with both Centaur and Rythbyrt that The Hobbit book is better than the films - on the whole. It's quite defendable to think that The Hobbit book is better than the Jackson films - and it's also defendable to think that the animated Rankin Bass classic film of The Hobbit is better than the Jackson trilogy - but there are things that I don't like in the book (or that just confuse me) that I think a departure in the films made them better. As such, I've moderated the title of this post from the stronger statement I made about The Lord of the Rings trilogy and will instead focus only how how I think The Hobbit films improved on the book. Let's start off with . . .

Reason #1: Distinct Dwarves

One of the things that Peter Jackson said he feared about The Hobbit in his production diaries is that there are so many Dwarves - fifteen lead protagonists is a lot (before you get into guys like Bard, Thranduil, and of course, Legolas - let's not forget about Legolas). If you read the book, most of the Dwarves are learned about in pairs - Balin and Dwalin are the best scouts and have longer beards than the others, Kili and Fili are the youngest and have the best eyesight, Oin and Gloin are the best at making fires, and Dori and Nori order more breakfast than the rest (though everyone likes food).

There are a few situations where a single Dwarf gains some renown away from the others - Dori is the strongest, Thorin is the most revered and probably the best in battle, and Bombur is, of course, the fattest (large enough for two - this comes up a LOT, much to his chagrin). The sad thing is that the other three Dwarves (Bifur, Bofur, and Ori) are basically just referenced in passing so that we don't forget that they're there. Ori is said to have had the best handwriting in The Fellowship of the Ring, but in The Hobbit, he's quite forgettable.