500 Under 50: Moria

In today's 500 Under 50, we're going to be having a look at Moria! Hordes of Goblins, clad in rusty armour in almost endless quantities!.... Well, that's not what we're looking at! We're going to have a look at making a list with one of the best beat sticks in the game, The Balrog.

The Balrog is obviously a great centrepiece to any Moria army, and if you're looking at starting
them you'll probably get him eventually, so why not get him straight away? Let's be honest, he is the reason you are starting this army anyway! The list will be pretty simple, since the Balrog is going to eat up most of the cost, in points and pounds. The list is as follows:

The Balrog
8 Moria Goblins with Shields
8 Moria Goblins with Spears

Goblin Captain with Shield
6 Goblins with Orc Bows

See what I mean? Pretty simple list. To put it on the table you're going to need to pick up:

The Balrog: £37.50
1 Box of Goblin Warriors: £26
Total cost: £63 from Games Workshop

Or £55 if you order from our new partner at Rebel Base Gaming! Just click here to get it all in one bundle with free postage!

The astute among you might notice that we've chucked a Goblin Captain in the list as well, without including on in the buying section. That's because Goblin Captains are really quite easy and fun to convert, and we'll have a blog post coming out very soon which will show you how I converted my
Goblin Captain.

So, in case you haven't seen what The Balrog brings to the table, he's an absolute beast. What he lacks in Might points, he makes up for in raw strength. With 4 Strength 9 attacks, he's going to make short work of pretty much anything he gets into a fight with, and with an equally impressive Defence of 9, he's fairly safe should he lose the duel roll (since you have no banner or rerolls in the list). He has a throwing weapon which can pull models into base contact with him, and he gets a free Heroic Combat each turn! He's an absolute tank. You're going to want to make sure you can take out enemy heroes, so make good use of the Fiery Lash to try and pull them from behind their line. He offers your Goblins a 12” bubble of Fearless, which is very handy, since you'll be at such a low model count. You'll need to make the most of the few Goblins you have when it comes to eating control zones and allowing the Balrog to dominate the field, setting up traps where possible.

The real icing on the cake for the Balrog comes in the form of his FREE Heroic Combat each turn. You're opponent is likely to try and send a single model each turn into the Balrog to try and stop him from being able to charge, but thanks to the Heroic, you should be able to make short work of the sacrificial model and move onto a juicier target! Just watch out for over committing, you don't want to end up trapped yourself!

The 6 Goblin Archers can make a small force of objective grabbers but don't expect them to win you games! If your opponent decides to dedicate some of his list to killing them, they'll probably die.  Goblin shooting is not the best.

Look out for our “Conversion Corner” article coming soon showing you how to convert your own Captain!