Last time I wrote of a hero of the White City who hardly appears on the table. Today we leave the white city behind and move through the Anorien and the Eastfold to reach the green plains of the Horselords. Unlike Minas Tirith, Rohan as a clear hierarchy of heroes: Erkenbrand is always the first pick, followed by The Knight of Pelennor (bigger games) and/or Eorl the Young. Then we have the children of Eomund, with Eowyin acting as Rohan's Berengod. Today I'll deal with one of the others, probably the worst of the bunch. Meriadoc, Knight of the Mark!
Well...there's hardly anything to say. In most games there's no reason to field this guy. Unlike Eowyin, Merry can't lead troops and he's way too expensive to be a deployment drop. With average fight value, only 1 attack and a single wound, you'd probably only use him in a campaign scenario or if you are a masochist. It could be argued that, with Merry being this useless you might as well remove him from the list and nobody will notice. Seriously, this guy has no saving grace; even his Resistant to magic rule is of little benefit when you can just deal with him with a Uruk Hai. So, is Merry useless?
Oh yes. Absolutely. There is, however, the tiniest glimmer of hope if you have Gamling with his Royal Banner in the same army. We all know how precious Might is and it is even more important if you play an all cavalry force and Gamling allows any hero of Rohan to recover one single might once his reserve is depleted. That's when Merry becomes useful. Merry has a single might point. Which means that if he spends that single point of might, he will recover it the following turn. The opponent is too far? Call a heroic march with Merry. You lose priority? Call an heroic move with Merry. Abuse this little hobbit as much as possible. Heroic shooting, even heroic accurancy: no might is wasted if you can simply recover it the following turn. And in the fight phase you can charge together with Rohan's strongest to make them fight twice.
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During this year Throne of Skulls new army bonuses will be playtested by the players. Those bonuses are supposed to encourage players to use single list armies but, while the idea is good, the execution could have been done better. We playtested some of the new lists in several point matches and this is what we think about it. Due to lack of models, we won't be able to playtest Mahud, Dead Men of Dunharrow and Wildmen, but is possible that we'll just use proxies anyway. This post will be updated as soon as new armies are tested.
Minas Tirith (+1 to Courage) This bonus changes depending on the way this army is played. Since more than half of the units I played with had the Bodyguard rule, I hardly felt it in a couple of games. However it allowed me to keep Denethor in line for the whole game, which is not bad in high points game and is extremely important when going Full Horde. What really made a difference was the option to field Gandalf the White, which gave the list the always needed spellcaster able to lead troops. Although, it must be said that Gandalf the White is a pitiful and overcosted unit and a player could do just as well by using Saruman the Wise and Damrod (a combo that's 30 points cheaper than Gandalf) or even give up the Immobilize altogether in favor of Galadriel, lady of light: if you have a Boromir impervious to immobilize and whatever, you may just kill anything without needing to immobilize it first. I hope that they just add Banishment to Gandalf's spell list, he's supposed to scare Nazguls away but, right now, he poses little to no threat to them. Until then, the bonus is average. Barad-Dur (+1 to wound rolls when outnumbering the opponent) The Barad Dur list loses Morannons, Black Guards, Uruks and named Nazgul aside the Witchking. But this bonus keeps the killing power high despite those losses. First, consider that this list allows to horde up very easily while still using heavy hitters like Mordor Trolls. Second and most important, this bonus is cumulative with Two-Handed weapons and piercing strike: on average, you can expect a orc equipped with two-handed axe to be able to wound D7 on 3+! And if you are using this list you are probably playing it as a horde so you'll have tons of orcs. To make a long story short, we found out that when the bonus kicks in, it kills. The players just needs to create the right advantage. One thing we did not understand is if the bonus also cover spearmen, but so far we ruled against it. We decided that to outnumber a unit you have to put two or more units in base contact with it. This bonus is really good. Mordor (+1 to courage and re-rerolling 1s to wound) Let's start saying what we all know: Mordor is the perfect army. While most bonus are supposed to encourage players to play a single list, those who use Mordor need no other bonus than what the list itself can offer. Giving the list not one, but two bonuses it's overkill. The courage boost removes or mitigates the one weakness of this army (on a side note: boosting Shelob to courage 5 with her 6 will points means that she'll never run away. NEVER. Trust me.) Allowing to reroll 1s on top of that is just too much. Unlike feints, this bonus applies to every unit; Trolls, Fell Beast, Black Guards...and unlike the other list who gains this kind of bonus (Khazad-Dum) Mordor has a good number of units above S4, units that don't really need any more killing power. Again, this bonus is overkill. Kingdom of Khazad-Dum (rerolling 1s to wound) It depends on the points you're playing at. If you are playing in small games (up to 500 points, let's say). The bonus it's a nice addition. Nothing special mind you, nothing game changing. If you are playing in higher points match, you're not gonna care for this bonus. Like, at all. This bonus does nothing to compensate for any of the weaknesses this army has and it's always better to just field one or two allied warbands with spears. It should be noted that, for this bonus to kick in, you cannot field Gimli, the only hero your opponent won't be able to immobilize at 12" away and a great hero for his points cost, nor Dain. In other words, your army is actually getting weaker!! This bonus is Borderline Useless. Moria (Friendly Moria Goblins get +1 to Fight if their opponent is trapped) This bonus suffers from a poor choice of words. Fist, isn't the opponent trapped after the dice are rolled, not before? Whatever, you may say, just change "is trapped" with "would be trapped" (that's how we played). Still, what happens if you are fighting multiple opponents and turns out that only one of them is trapped? Do the fight value still increase if the other one can back away easily? Or, maybe, the fight increases but you can only strike towards the trapped model? Plus, the bonus refers to "Moria Goblins". Not "goblins" but Moria Goblins. Due to this wording, this bonus is worthless anytime you're fighting a model with F4, unless there are also Bats and/or captains involved. This bonus is confusing. Arnor (Models within 6" of Arvedui pass every courage test they have to take) A very thematic bonus that's effective as well considering the low courage of the Warriors of Arnor (which will drop to a pitiful 1 if a Nazgul is around). There's one problem though: Arvedui has 2 wounds, D6 and no fate. Even if you are carefully hiding him behind two lines of warriors and pick only fights he's bound to win, there's only so much you can do to protect him. Of course, you can put Malbeth near him to give him a chance, and at his point you will have a 6" bubble of Channeled Fury...but what do you with the rest of your army? 6" is not much, expecially if the game requires control of different objectives. Armies with strong ranged units will get rid of Arvedui quite quickly (Hello, Vrasku!) and he'll be the top target for Nazguls as well. In a battle against Angmar, this rule allowed troops around Arvedui to charge Wights, Wraiths and even lowly orcs that they would not have been able to charge otherwise due to Angmar special rule. However, D6 and 2 wounds only took him so far and once he died my opponent basically directed the fight phase as he pleased (3" is not much? Consider how big the base of a Fellbeast is). Consider also the fact that, for this rule to be effective against units with the Terror special rule, Arvedui has to be unconfortably close to the enemy lines. I'd increase the range to 12" or even make it cover the whole battlefield but let's face it: a rule that's bound to a model (expecially a very fragile one) it's not gonna do any good in the later stage of the game. Angmar (Angmar Orcs within 3" of a hero that it's also a spirit will gain the terror special rule) Angmar has 9 heroes in its list. Of those nine, six are spirits. With the exception of Gulavhar and The Tainted, which I never actually saw in a competitive match, the remaining four heroic spirits are extremely effective units. Having a Nazgul on horse or fellbeast behind a line of orcs will mostly likely give you almost full control of the fights unless your opponent has plenty of high courage models (elves) or, even worst (or better, depending on the point of view) models with Bodyguard. It's thematic, effective, but situational. Arnor fell the moment Arvedui went down with the warriors basically unable to pick a fight of my choice, but Rohan pressed forward nonetheless (Erkenbrand's horn) and so did Minas Tirith (Citadel Guards and Guards of the Fountain Court made the difference and the +1 to courage actually helped). Basically, it depends on the army you're playing against, ranging from extremely effective to almost useless. Shagrat and Dikey, one more time with Throne of Skulls army list, but this time is only 800 pts. Quick reminder of the points: 1 point if you wound the opponent's leader, 3 if you kill him; 3 points if you break your opponent's force but 1 if you both are broken and finally 3 points for each object you control with no opponents model inside 3" radius from it and 1 if there are. This are the list, in the order of deployment: Gondor
Mordor
The Game Starts!
Gothmog and his warband charge Boromir's Warband while a Black Guard and a few Morannon surround the Captain of the White Tower. The Shadowlord sent one of his orc to reclaim the objective in the rear, while the rest of the warband push forwards; the nazgul tries to look for Gandalf, but the Elven Cloak made the white wizard invisible to the Nazgul's eyes. The battle begins with Gothmog calling an heroic combat and slaying one warrior after winning with 3 highest before moving towards another. He wins again with a roll of 3, but fails to wound this time. The Black Guards, with a boosted courage of 4, are not impressed by the horn of Gondor and only the great might of the captain allowed him to win. Two Black Guards gets impaled by the lance and a morannon is killed as well. However, the pitiful rolls continues for the good side that fails to score any other wound on this turn, and three gondorians bite the dust.
The Blast kill one morannon and one orc and the Gondorians press forward. The trackers are now very close to the objective on the hill and the Shadowlord climbs upon a rock to have line of sight on Gandalf; the wizard has already spent part of his power this turn, so the Shadowlord summons his power to Sap Gandalf's will, but the White Wizards repels the spell without too much effort.
On the hill, 2 of the 3 charged trackers go down, but the last one manages to defeat and to kill his attacker. The only hope comes from Boromir that wins his fight, despite Shelob, and kills two morannons.
The last remains of Boromir's warband are killed and, despite Gandalf best efforts, the evil has now more models near the objective in the middle. However hope comes from the south, as the orcs protecting the Shadowlord are easily dispatched by the Gondorians, who now have a clear path on the Shadowlord, who has only 2 will points left. Turn 7 It's the last turn and good gets priority. No heroics can change and the White Rider keeps the remaing Warriors of Minas Tirith in order, while the Citadel Guards and Berengod proudly stand their ground. The white wizards moves to safety while every remaining good model charge where possible, including the now immobilized Shadowlord. Gothmog and Shelob pass their tests, but there are 5 orcs left alone. Four of them pass their courage test but the most important fails and flee the battlefield, abandoning the objective in the forest. The Shadowlord loses the fight and barely avoids a wound thanks to his armor while Gondorians prove their worth by winning most of their fight they're in and killing orcs. The game ends and points are assigned.
Post Game Thoughts Man, what a game. I cannot believe I lost 3 priority rolls in row. Had one of them been in my favor, things may have different. Gandalf was a pitiful offensive caster, but a magnificient defensive one, rolling 6s (the only 6s he rolled in the game) to counter the Shadowlord spell's that were ineffective and left him with only 1 will on turn seven. Gothmog was a pain in the butt: since evil got priority for most of the game, he freely countered every move Boromir had to make. However, what was really surprising was the orcs performance: those simple, lowlife orcs, proved to be much more deadlier than Black Guards and Morannons put together! Shagrat made three mistakes:
Man of the Match We discussed it with Shagrat and, in the end, we gave Boromir the award. He killed the Taskmaster with 2 might, something that made a huge difference in the late stages of the game, killed 8 units between Morannons and Black Guards and stalled Shelob so long that, once she killed him, she had to leave the battle to reclaim the objective she had control of in the beginning. The Army Bonus
Mordor army bonus is massive. The +1 to courage made Boromir's horn useless and kept Shelob in line with only 1 point of will spent while the re-rolling 1s proved to be annoying since it basically allowed the Black Guards to feint without reducing their fight value. In my humble opinion, one of those bonus should be removed. Gondor's bonus to courage had nowhere near the same effect as Mordor's. Since half the army had the Bodyguard rule in the first place, it only allowed Gandalf to made his Stand Fast Roll with his base courage of 7 rather than 6 and Boromir to charge Shelob without problems but, in both those occasions, the test would have been successful even without the bonus, so it was hardly felt. I guess you need to have Denethor or an army with less elites to really appreciate it. And so it comes, our first battle Report. The army of Gondor faces Barad-Dur in The Fog of War Scenario, where objectives are hidden, following the new army Rules from the Throne of Skulls. That means that Gondor will receive a courage boost of +1, while Barad-Dur will get +1 to wound against outnumbered opponents. But First, let's have a look at the armies and at the battlefield. MINAS TIRITH (Dikey)
BARAD-DUR (Shagrat)
The Battle Begins Good has priority. Boromir moves behind the lines towards the center while Gandalf tries to Strenghen Will the Captain, but apparently the white wizard does not like Boromir very much after what happened to Frodo, and the spell fails. Evil does not manage to do much better. Both Shamans used 2 will point and a might point to cast a channelled Fury, but one of them fails miserably and will spend the rest of the game as a very expensive spearman. However, the one who succeded managed to save one of his orcs from Berengod's deadly arrow. Dikey's not amused. But neither is Shagrat, since his orcs failed every single shot that turn. Priority goes to the Evil Side, but their marching orcs have to split because of a ruined building in the North side of the field, and that slows them down. Gandalf decides to slow them down even more by casting a Sorcerous Blast that sent on orc flying back into the nazgul, wounding two of his companion in the process, but the Shaman saves one of them. Faramir leads his Knights around the forest on the far east, while Boromir is moving steadily towards the center. Only the knights moved fully, the rest of the army is carefully taking its time. The Third turn sees Gandalf blasting orcs away once again, a majestic blast against the center of the evil ranks that knocks down many orcs, including the shaman, and kills two of them. Sauron retaliates with a channeled Chill Soul. The Taskmasker is too much of a wimp to whip Sauron, who has to give up his might point. But his is a Might well spent, because 2 Gondorian Swordmen and 2 Guards of the Fountain Guards go down. In the meantime, Faramir's knight are done with their movement and are now at charge range. The Nazgul tries to make Faramir more vulnerable by sapping his will, but fails his spell. CHARGE! Good's priority. With no might, there's nothing the evil side could do to stop Faramir, who bravely passed his courage test, from charging the Nazgul, while the knights charge the orcs nearby to prevent them from supporting the Nazgul. Boromir moves in to support his brother from the south, charging 3 orcs, while Denethor and Gandalf stand together; the white wizard keeps his free will point safe for the round, ready to face the spell that Sauron is channelling. Again, the taskmaster does not dare to whip his Dark Master and the spell is cast but this time the White Wizards successfully repels it. The Orcs move against the knights, to outnumber them where they can, while one spearman moves in to help the wraith. The shoot phase isn't worth mentioning, we go straight to combat! Boromir calls an heroic combat while Faramir calls a Strike to have the Fight advantage over the nazgul. The horn of Gondor freezes the orcs and they all go down to the mighty champion of the white city, who then moves against two spearmen, killing them both. 5 Orcs down in a turn: just another day out in the field for Boromir. Faramir, while amazed by his brother display of skills, proves his own worth by striking down the Nazgul. However, the knights fail every other fight they're in, and one of them loses his life. Evil priority, but Boromir calls and heroic movement, countered by Sauron. The taskmaster proves to be utterly worthless and Sauron is now without might. Boromir moves towards the center, charging orcs without a care in the world, while Faramir and the knight move to clear the rest of warband, this time with support from Gandalf's Citadel Guards. Sauron cast a spell that bounce off Gandalf as some of his orcs charge without much success. Meanwhile, thanks to the Citadel Guards' support, the knight have basically wiped out the Nazgul's Warband, and only one lone spearman is still standing. Boromir...well, he's just being Boromir. Good gets priority once again and there's no hope left for the center of the evil formation which is now charged from east and South. Boromir's killings have opened a path for gondorian soldier to charge into the Shaman, who gets a wound saved by fate. At the end of the fight phase, there's only one orc left alive: the brave orc, despite having his back against a wall managed to win against two Warriors of Minas Tirith supported by Citadels! Evil archers tried their best, but it wasn't enough and the few arrows that found their mark were not sturdy enough to pierce the thick gondorian armor.
Breaking Point Good seizes priority again in the sixth turn. This time Boromir goes straight for the Shaman while the infantry mob up the remaing orcs and the knights move around the building. A Brave citadel stop Sauron from moving then the Dark Lord repels the Immobilize cast upon him by the White Wizard. Orcs arrows strike true, killing a Knight, while Denethor falls to the orc's blade. Enraged by his father untimely death, Boromir gets rid of both the Shamans and Faramir kills two more orcs. After two more turns of boromiring (I dediced that he needed a new word, at this point) there's no longer a center in the evil side nor a ranged threat, and even the brave orc fell after three turns, something that upset Shagrat almost as much as the Nazgul's death. Gandalf made sure that Sauron's move is hindered by his own orcs and even on that flank the fights are mostly one vs one with supports, with the good side preventing Barad-Dur from using its bonus. From Turn nine, all hope seems lost for the Evil side. They are now broken and mightless, the nazgul is down, Berengod is well hidden inside the forest on the east and Boromir has still enough might to boromiring around. At 11th turn the timer calls the last turn. Boromir moves against a lone archer, while Faramir and the knights perform a repulisti and only a single orc survives. Boromir calls an heroic combat: he easily butchers the archer to small pieces (a whopping seven wounds; they are still looking for his head) and then moves inside the forest nearby, securing the objective for Gondor. The Warg rider sent to seize the evil objective does not manage to get in there before the end of the game. Faramir and Boromir called an heroic combat each. The Big brother grabbed the objective in the forest, while the little brother killed the archer and then moved to trap the warg rider near the statue in the center, killing him. All the riders were successfull in their final turn and when the game was over, only one orc was standing on the western front. With the evil force broken, the nazgul killed, Berengod safe and sound full control of the objective, the Good Side scores full points against none. Post Game Thoughts The ruined building on the north side was to Shagrat what Russia was to Napoleon: To move his orcs forward, he had to split them in two groups, which severely weakened both their offensive and defensive abilities. Since the Nazgul had no might and the Shamans spent theirs to channel Fury, I had full control of the North Side of the battlefield thanks to Boromir's Might, which allowed my troops to keep their advantage over the orcs, attacking those warbands one at the time and outnumbering them despite the fact that the evil army had almost 20 models more. On the south front, Sauron had a majestic opening, killing two Warriors and two Fountain Guards with a Channeled Chill Soul, but once his might was gone he had no way to force his way throught: between the orcs getting blasted and compelled in his way and the Gondorian Elités heroically sacrificing themself one at a time, the Dark Lord was in no position to give his troops the support they needed. While he opened the path for a warg rider to seize the objective, the game ended before it could do it. Man Of the Match While every hero did what I intended for them, we agreed that the man of the match has to be Boromir. The Captain of the White Tower. His amazing reserve of might points allowed him to move across the battlefield with ease killing every opponent everytime he charged (and he charged each turn after the close quarter fights started), including the two shamans. His last heroic combat allowed him to seize the objective uncontested, while his boromiring (I really want this to be a word) opened the path for the rest of his troops and he contributed in no small part to the breaking of the evil force with 15 confirmed kills. Thanks to his lance and double strikes, even fury couldn't do much to stop him. The Army Bonus
Barad-Dur bonus did not come into play much but, when it did, they killed. Moving from 6 to 5+ to kill is huge, expecially if combined with piercing strike and the fact that the bonus kicks in when outnumbering: you have a bonus to your wound roll and you are already throwing more dice. Without Gandalf to disorganize the evil lines with his Blasts, a lot more Gondorian would have died. Gondor bonus was, as expected, not massive. It did, however, helped me in taking control of Denethor for the whole game, with only one will point spent. Thanks to Sauron's special rule, Denethor would have failed at least four courage test, but this +1 to courage kept him sane. Even more relevant than the bonus, however, is the fact that Gandalf is in the list. Without Gandalf, Gondor would have had no magic support nor way to disrupt the evil lines from afar and the game would have been very different. In the end, what really upgraded the Minas Tirith army list is not the +1 Courage bonus, but the fact that Gandalf the White is now part of it. |
Sugli AutoriSiamo Dikey e Shagrat, e facciamo parte del Gruppo di Gioco della Sicilia Orientale dedicato al gioco " Middle-Earth: Strategy Battle Game" prodotto dalla games workshop, che è la proprietaria del marchio registrato. Archivi
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