Character Comparisons: Thror v Thrain v Thorin

This is the beginning of a new series which will take an in depth look at a few characters at a time and compare them to each other. This has come about because I have been thinking a lot about the Army of Thror recently and trying to build a 600 point list. 600 points is too small to realistically have all of the 'big 3' in it so I have really been trying to get my head around what each of them do. We'll always try to compare similar characters (there isn't much point comparing Damrod to Azog) and will try to look at them in a vacuum as well as in the bigger picture. So without further ado:

Thror v Thrain v Thorin

Rather than just describing each character we will compare them in a number of categories and try to rank them against each other. Thror and Thrain have no upgrades available but we will consider Thorin with the Oakenshield.

Hero Stuff
I think it's a good idea to discuss the 'Hero Stuff' first as it provides a context for everything else we will talk about. All three have 3 Might and 3 Will. Thror has only 1 Fate whereas the other two have 3 Fate. However, as we'll discuss below, Thror has the potential to have more Fate. All three have Heroic Strike (the big one) but that is the only one common to all of them. Thror and Thorin also have Strength and Challenge, whereas Thrain and Thorin have Defence.

Clearly the winner here is Thorin, he has all the 3's as well as the most Heroic Actions. Second place goes to Thrain, and Thror comes in last. Though Thror has the potential to get more Fate, and also passes Fate more easily, his chance of having 3 Fate (i.e. getting 2 free ones) is only 25%. Thrain on the other hand just always has his 3 points, but also his Heroics are just more useful than Thror's.

Hitting Power
The basics of Hitting Power are Attacks, Fight value and Strength. Luckily enough all three have 3A F6 S4 so that forms a good foundation. Where they differ is in their weapons. Both Thror and Thorin have a Sword and Shield so can both Feint (or Stab should someone really scary come along). This is only really useful against anyone F3 or less though (which, admittedly, is a lot of troops), as otherwise you run the risk of just losing the fight anyway. If Thorin Shields and wins then he can also make a single S4 strike thanks to the Oakenshield, very useful if you have run out of Might and are fighting a higher F model as he would be rolling 6 dice to win the duel! 

Thrain, on the other hand, has a two-handed, Master-Forged Hammer. This takes him to effectively S6 and gives him access to Bash. I can't imagine many scenarios when he would want to Bash (maybe knocking Cavalry off their horses, but then why not just strike the horse?), but being effectively S6 is huge! This makes Thrain better against pretty much everything (Feint and Stab provide less of a benefit than just a straight up +1 to wound). He also gets to reroll wounds against Azog or any army containing Azog. Niche but handy. 

Thrain is the winner here, and I am going to put Thorin in second, thanks to the Oakenshield, and Thror in third. 

Survivability
Survivability mainly relies on Defence, Wounds and Fate. All three have 3 Wounds but the big difference is that Thror is D9 compared to the D8 of the other two. This may not seem a 'big difference' but actually it's huge. It comes into play massively when fighting against S4 (i.e. most elite troops and Heroes) as S4 wounds D8 on 6s but D9 on 6/4. Having played against Durin recently I can tell you how annoying this is! This is not to say that D8 is not also excellent on the others. The vast majority of troops in the game are S3 so are wounding D8 on 6/4 too, its just when you go up to S4 that all you need is straight 6s.

We have talked a little about Fate above, but it is worth saying again that Thror has potentially unlimited Fate. However, the maths is not on your side if the game goes on for a long time or he gets trapped. Think how often you fail a Fate roll. If that happens just once then no more Fate for Thror. However Thror and Thorin can both Shield which gives you 6 dice to win the fight with, so hopefully you won't need that Fate roll too often!

The final thing to mention is Heroic Defence on Thrain and Thorin. You would never call this against S3 troops as you are actually making their lives easier, but against Aragorn, Azog or anything S6 or above (or S4 and two handed or S5 and Piercing Strike or even S3, two handed Piercing Strike!) you are getting a great benefit. You can only call it 3 times but hopefully that would be enough to get you out of danger.

This is a tricky category but I think I am going to award first place to Thror just because of how difficult he is to wound in the first place. Thrain and Thorin are remarkably similar but Thorin just pips Thrain as he can Shield.

Buffs
This is an interesting category as each of the Dwarves has a unique buff that they provide but all are very different so they are difficult to compare. Thror provides a 6" Banner effect by way of the army bonus. Obviously this means your allies are restricted but it is an incredibly powerful buff so probably worth it. Having a lot of hand-and-a-half weapons and spears in your army mean you can be much more liberal with your use of two-handed as you are backed up by an unmodified dice and a reroll. Thror also allows you to upgrade your Grim Hammers but we'll discuss this below.

Thrain provides a board-wide Stand Fast! which is crazy powerful considering his Courage 6. Get a War Horn in there to virtually assure that your army never runs away. On the other hand, considering how much D7 is in the army it is pretty hard to break in the first place so maybe this isn't as useful as it first seems. I would imagine it's one of those benefits that you rarely use but when you do it's game changing.

Thorin provides a once per game +1 Strength to all Erebor models within 3". This is really good but has to be declared in the Move Phase so needs to be carefully managed. If you call this and go two-handed Piercing Strike with your Guardians of the King then they become effectively S8!! Yeesh! Watch out Sauron!

As I say these are really hard to compare but I think the one that will be most consistently useful will be Thror so I am giving him the win. Second place goes to Thorin as being able to smash through a line can be game swinging, and the lowest courage in the army is 4 anyway so Thrain's is the "least useful".

Control
There isn't much in the way of Control with these heroes, but both Thror and Thrain have access to The Ring of Durin which allows a once per game priority reroll. Thror gets first dibs on it so he wins, Thrain second and Thorin third as he doesn't really have any control to speak of.

Magic
This is easy: no one has any. As discussed above they all have 3 Will so they are all equally good at resisting too.

Major Drawbacks
Again all three have similar drawbacks in that they are slow moving and don't have access to mounts. This is a problem for almost all Dwarf armies though (looking at you Iron Hills, it's a good job they are expensive to buy!) I guess you could argue that Thror's Banner effect being linked to the army bonus is a bit of a drawback as it really hinders you from taking allies to make up for the army's weaknesses, whereas the other two are self-contained. I suppose that means Thrain and Thorin tie for first place, but this doesn't feel that fair as you can just choose to not ally and 'git gud' with what you have available or stick to Green Allies.

The Bigger Picture
So where do these guys fit in with the rest of the army? We haven't yet mentioned that Thorin is 15 points cheaper than the other two, which is obviously something that needs to be taken into consideration. We briefly mentioned that Thror allows you to upgrade your Grim Hammers to S4 and this is pretty significant. Having played a lot of Minas Tirith I can tell you that being mostly capped at S3 makes a lot of match-ups hard work. With all troops having access to Piercing Strike it is less of a problem here, but massed S4 is often a sign of a powerful army.

I think Thror has got to take first place here. As well as providing the opportunity for troop upgrades the entire Army Bonus centres around him so he is providing a lot to the army. Thorin and Thrain are difficult to separate. On the one hand Thorin is cheaper, but on the other Thrain gives access to something not found anywhere else in the army: risk free two-handed strikes (basically access to S6). I'll leave this one to you to decide which is better.

Conclusion
I think the conclusion here was inevitable from the start; it depends what you need your hero to do. Need an immovable anchor for your force? Choose Thror. Need someone to smash through high defence? Choose Thrain. Need someone to be a cheap all-round threat? Choose Thorin. However I started this article with the intention of imposing some sort of ranking so here goes. I awarded 1 point for each first place, 2 points for each second place and 3 points for each third place. Lowest score wins. When tallying it up the totals come to:

Thror 10
Thrain 13
Thorin 12

It didn't look good for Thror at first as I put him as the worst at 'Hero Stuff' and he's the least kill-y. However he then topped every category after that so I think the conclusion is that you need to take Thror in this list. He just provides too much good stuff. Thrain and Thorin are a toss-up and should be decided on based on what you want your list to do.

I hope my analyses made some sense here. Let me know if you think I am completely off beat here, or if there is a category I have missed!