The Scouring of the Shire, Part 10: The Old Storehouse

Good morning gamers,

The scenario we've got lined up for today is the Old Storehouse, which will involve Hobbit Militia backed by Hobbit Archers, Fatty, and Baldo trying to steal stuff from "the storehouse" (in the form of a pig, some ducks, and two sheep). My Ruffians will start as sentries in this game (we LOVE sentries), and the entire board has the "nighttime conditions" in effect (can't shoot beyond 12", +1 To Wound with your shooting attacks). I've faced Centaur's Hobbits in nighttime conditions one too many times (and an unfortunate number of those times has been with D3 Wood Elves), so I know that his shooting attacks are going to be deadly. If any Shirriffs are killed in melee, they'll instead be Paralyzed.

The Old Storehouse

Baldo got three extra traps for this scenario for winning a previous scenario, so Centaur got to put out a few extra traps in addition to the eight that were already there. Centaur had to split up his models between the two opposing board corners, so he put all four archers on one side with Baldo and two Militia near the bottom-right corner and then put Fatty and the other six Militia at the top-left corner. I spread my guys out at the top-left and bottom-right of the storehouse because . . . you know, I've got sentries and don't want them spread out in a useless position. With the board set, Good claimed priority on Turn 1 and we got stuck in!

Top 5 Profile Changes - Minas Tirith Edition!

Good morning gamers,

So apparently, we have a new edition ahead of us - and while I originally mocked up some thoughts for this mini-series to be posted next year, it seems like it would be good to get ahead of the "eight ball" as it were and get these ideas into the cyberspace and see what you all are thinking. One of the things GW has said about the new edition is that profiles are being reworked to better reflect what they did in the films (and I assume this also applies to the books), so I figured Minas Tirith would be a good faction to begin with a face-lift. I'll do a few more of these before the new edition releases (I hope I get all these through before the deadline!), so if you have thoughts on other factions that you'd like to see, drop a note in the comments!

For the sake of this series, I'm going to assume that GW is going to perform minor surgery on most of the profiles (and I expect some profiles will get by with little to no changes), so for my purposes in this post, I'm going to limit myself to a SINGLE change per profile that I think would bring the model from its current place of obscurity into a place all its own. When the last edition change hit, some profiles (like Theoden and the Balrog - both of whom had a renaissance in this edition of the game) got massive reworks, but for the most part, the profiles got minor edits across the board (like Warriors/Knights of Minas Tirith getting shieldwall or Riders of Rohan/Rohan Royal Guards getting Arise, Riders of Theoden). This is what we're going to do today. Let's start with one of my favorite Gondor heroes in the books/films . . .

Profile #1: Faramir, Captain of Gondor

Photo Credit: The Armies of the Lord of the Rings

In some respects, the current profile for Faramir is fine - if equipped with a horse, lance, heavy armor, and shield (a standard kit-out for a hard-hitting hero), he costs 35 points more than a Captain of Minas Tirith with a similar loadout and has +1 FV, +2 Courage, +1 Might, +2 Will, +1 Fate, has a different array of Heroic Actions (Strike/Defence/Accuracy/Resolve instead of March), Woodland Creature (which doesn't matter when he's on a horse), a slightly better shoot value (if you want him to be using his bow - definitely the case in his Legion, probably not in a normal Minas Tirith list), and a special rule that makes him charge things if Denethor is also in his army (could be a problem, but only if you take Denethor). All told, getting +1 FV, +4 heroic resources, some extra Courage, and more heroic actions is probably worth 35pts, but only barely.

However, Faramir isn't the only Hero of Valour or hard-hitting hero in the Minas Tirith list. For 15 fewer points, you can get Hurin the Tall on a horse and most players agree that he hits as hard if not harder than Faramir does, all while potentially denying VPs for killing your army leader if you can keep him alive (which matters more in some scenario pools than others). Additionally, you could just NOT get Faramir and ally in any number of sub-100-point heroes from the Fiefdoms or Rohan to get similar or better damage output than Faramir (all while keeping your army bonus). If you throw in the convenient alliance Heroes of Valour/Legend (like Gwaihir, Galadriel, and Haldir if you were looking for a bow-armed Faramir), the reason to take Faramir just kind of patters out. OH, and there are Minas Tirith Fortitude heroes who are threatening his place for far cheaper price points as well (admittedly, all of them are on foot, but they're also a ton cheaper, so there's that).

Announcing the TMAT THRO Tournament 2024!

Good morning gamers,

It's that time of year - The Hunter's Red October will be hitting the TMAT community again (but in December this time, not in October). The tournament will be held in Berryville, VA on December 14, 2024. We're trying our hand at a doubles tournament this year - bring a buddy for the first round, but then be ready to rotate partners as the tournament progresses! Without further ado, here are (in my typical style) the Ten Commandments of the Tournament (Rules):

1) Thou Shalt Understand The Canon

Regardless of whether we have a new edition by mid-December (it appears likely), the ruleset we will be using is from the updated Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game Rules Manual (the Sauron one). The Armies of the Lord of the Rings supplement will govern the rules for armies from the Lord of the Rings, while the Armies of the Hobbit supplement will govern the rules for armies from the Hobbit. Legendary Legions and profiles from any of the GW supplements released between Gondor at War and Rise of Angmar (inclusive) may be used, provided that the army building requirements for the Legendary Legion are followed. Any GW errata for these books will take precedent over the printed text of these documents.

2) Thou Shalt Honor Thy Alliance

This tournament follows the alliance "restrictions" provided in the Armies of the Lord of the Rings and Armies of the Hobbit supplements - players are allowed to have "pure" armies or Legendary Legions (no alliances). Unlike the stated rules for doubles events in the Matched Play Guide, the players who arrive as a team for the first round may not take the same Legendary Legion (as we will be rotating partners).

FAQ Time: Reviewing the August 2024 FAQs

Good morning gamers,

Well, a lot has happened in the MESBG community since Aradcon a few weeks ago - and it's got us here at the TMAT blog excited on a number of levels. February and August have been the FAQ drop months, which have been good for shaking up the meta a bit (sometimes more drastically than other times) and as usual, as July turned to August, I was anxious to see what was new for the game (especially with a new edition coming out and a new sourcebook to boot)!

Photo Credit: Reddit 
I didn't submit anything this time . . . they have my previous correspondence if they wish to know my thoughts on certain Legendary Legion fixes and scenario quandaries for the new edition . . .

Then the GW team threw us a curve ball - in their August 15th Warhammer Community post talking about the new edition, they wrapped up a smashing article with the following:

With the next edition so close, we have made the decision not to release our usual FAQ and Designer’s Commentary document in August. Don’t worry, we will be back on schedule in February with our usual updates – the first of the new edition!

So . . . that makes summarizing the FAQ for August easy, right? Not exactly . . .

The Board Is Set: How to Play Contest of Champions

Good morning gamers,

Author's Note: with a new edition looming ahead of us, it's unclear how the scenarios are going to change . . . so since we're nearly done with the series, we're going to press on and hope that the changes that we see don't invalidate all of our work. Even if the scenarios get reworked, hopefully the principles found in these articles will give you a starting point for how to play the scenarios. If they all change . . . we'll write more articles next year. :)

This is our third and final scenario in Pool 4 - and alongside Heirlooms of Ages Past, this scenario is a polarizing one for many players: Contest of Champions. This scenario is, on its face, about how many models your army leader can kill in melee. For some armies, this is fine - if I'm running Aragorn, Azog, or Boromir, I'm probably able to kill enemy models pretty well (and for a long time). If your army leader is Treebeard or the Balrog, you can probably kill models AFTER you catch them. However, if your army leader is someone like Galadriel or Saruman . . . well, that's likely going to be harder.

Well, today, we're looking to see what kinds of strategies we can use to play this scenario - and we'll approach the topic first by recapping what Pool 4 is all about and then identify the options that are available to you depending on the kind of army you're running. Let's take a look (though you can skip the recap, once again, by clicking here).

Pool 4: Killing Lots of Models

The previous three pools have mostly involved controlling certain points on the map (Pools 1-2) and having enough speed to get to an object or set of objects (Pool 3). While your killing power has value in these scenarios (either for holding or securing objectives - or for punching a hole through the enemy to get to their objectives), there is no pool where your killing power is more important than in Pool 4.

In two of the scenarios (Lords of Battle and Contest of Champions), players have to do a bit more recordkeeping than normal and have to keep track of the wounds they deal to their opponent and the Fate points that are spent by their opponent's heroes (Lords of Battle) or the number of kills their army leader gets in melee (Contest of Champions). Both of these scenarios also allow the armies to start up close to each other if they want to, so things can very quickly become a blood bath . . . which some armies welcome gladly.