Character Comparisons: Evil Combat Heroes

Today we have another edition of Character Comparisons and we have gone for a big one!

Evil Combat Heroes

When looking for some Evil characters for comparison they seem to come in a few different categories which there isn't much point looking between. No one needs to know that Saruman is better at Magic than a Troll Chieftain but the Troll is better in combat. So with that in mind we have tried to pick characters than all have a similar use, what I am calling Utility Beatsticks. I am defining this as characters whose main use is in combat but that provide other utility to the army too. So today's contenders are: Gothmog, Shagrat, Amdur, Suladan and a Khandish King on Chariot. Everyone has all the upgrades they can have, so Gothmog has Warg and Shield, Shagrat has Heavy Armour and Shield of Cirith Ungol, Amdur has an Armoured Horse, Suladan has a Horse and Bow with Poisoned Arrows and finally the King has a Chariot. So without further ado:

Police Lineup: Please can you identify the model that ruined your army

Hero Stuff

1st: Gothmog
2nd: Amdur
3rd: Shagrat
4th: Suladan
5th: King

This is a tricky one straight away as there guys have a plethora of special rules between them. I have to give 1st place to Gothmog here. Though he only has 3/3/1 for M/W/F (which is not the best of these guys) I think that Master of Battle just makes him too good in this category, especially as it is automatic and doesn't even need a dice roll. In practice this gives him way more than 3 Might in games as he can automatically counter call any Moves in particular. He also has what I think are the 3 best Heroic Actions in the game: March, Strike and Defence. 2nd place goes to Amdur. He is also a 3/3/1 character but more importantly he has Blood and Glory (meaning he gets a point of Might back whenever he kills a Hero) and The Lord of Blades. The Lord of Blades allows Amdur to call a free Strike if his opponent does so. This is huge as Amdur is already F6 with an Elven weapon, making it much more risky for the opponent to call a Strike. In practice what it actually does is stops your opponent from calling Strikes in the first place, allowing Amdur to beat up mid tier characters with ease. 3rd place is Shagrat, mostly because he also has Blood and Glory, however he is the only one of these characters to have the full 3/3/3 stats so that is a point in his favour. 4th goes to Suladan for also being 3/3/1 and having access to Stirke, March, Resolve and Challenge but nothing else fancy going on. Last place is the King who only has a measly 2/2/1 but does also have Strike and March (as well as the less useful Resolve).

Hitting Power

1st: Amdur
2nd: King
3rd: Shagrat
4th: Suladan
5th: Gothmog

This is another tricky one. Everyone here is mounted apart from Shagrat, but he also gets the knockdown bonus thanks to his big Shield. They also all have 3 attacks base too. Everyone is S4 apart from Shagrat at S5, and everyone is F5 apart from Amdur at F6. For that reason I am giving 1st place to Amdur. He is just more likely to win fights so I am valuing this more than Shagrat's S5 as you have to win fights to be able to hurt things. Amdur also has an Elven Blade and is a Banner for himself, making him hit even harder. I initially had Shagrat in 2nd but when I remembered about the King's Impact Hits that tipped things in his favour. Two S4 hits before the combat even starts is huge, especially against Cavalry. Also, as Shagrat is not mounted he doesn't have the opportunity to get the extra attack on the charge. That being said, Shagrat is still definitely in 3rd place thanks to his high Strength. Suladan and Gothmog are identical in terms of Fight and Strength but Suladan has Poison on his weapons so he gets 4th place and Gothmog comes last. It is also worth mentioning that both Suladan and the King have a Bow too, allowing them to do damage outside of combat.

Dan's lovely Amdur on the right

Survivability

1st: Shagrat
2nd: King
3rd: Amdur
4th: Gothmog
5th: Suladan

1st place here goes to Shagrat. He is D7 and is the only one who has 3F. All the characters have 3 wounds which makes life easy. I did struggle to quantify the King's Chariot here as the fact he has an In The Way for everything, and it is on a 5+ definitely is a huge bonus. However as he only has D6 and 1F I have awarded him 2nd behind Shagrat. 3rd place is Amdur and 4th is Gothmog. Amdur has lower Defence than Gothmog (6 v 7) but he does have an Armoured Horse and, more importantly, his higher Fight and Lord of Blades rules are also defensive as he is less likely to lose fights in the first place. Last place is Suladan. With only D5, an unarmoured Horse and 1F this guy will not be sticking around long if his rolls go badly.

Buffs

1st: Gothmog
2nd: Suladan
3rd: King
4th: Amdur
5th: Shagrat

Gothmog is the obvious winner here. His The Age of Man is Over and The Time of the Orc has Come are so good and get even better in his LL. He is leagues ahead of everyone else in this category. 2nd place goes to Suladan who has a 6" Banner which everyone can use, as well as a 12" Stand Fast. The King comes in 3rd. He also has a 6" Banner (which is even bigger thanks to his larger base) but it can only be used by Khandish models. 4th is Amdur as he has a 3" Banner which has the potential to go up to 6" if Amdur kills the enemy Leader. This is situational at best. Last place is Shagrat who has no buffs to speak of at all.

Control

1st: Gothmog
2nd: King
3rd: Amdur
4th: Suladan
5th: Shagrat

There isn't a huge amount going on in this category but there are a few subtle things. Gothmog wins this one again thanks to his Master of Battle. This is a pretty good control piece as it can stop your opponent from calling Heroics, or even just mitigate them a bit if it goes to a roll off. 2nd goes to the King. His control element is his impact hits, meaning people want to stay out of range of where they could be hit and hence controlling what they do. 3rd is Amdur for his Lord of Blades rule, which makes your opponent think twice before Striking. 4th and 5th are a bit of a toss up really. I put Suladan in 4th just because I guess his Banner might give your opponent more to consider. Shagrat is last again. The poor lad just wants to murder things.

Can I kill stuff now?

Magic

1st: Suladan
2nd: King
3rd: Gothmog/Shagrat/Amdur

Nothing going on here in terms of casting but in terms of resisting Suladan and the King have Heroic Resolve. Suladan gets 1st place as he also has 3 Will whereas the King only has 2. Everyone else is joint 3rd as they all have 3 Will points and nothing else to talk about.

Major Drawbacks
The major drawbacks are all pretty varied here so I haven't bothered ranking them. Gothmog's is his lack of Fate, as is Amdur's. If you roll badly with these guys they can get in trouble quickly since they don't have that Fate cushion to fall back on. To be fair, Suladan and the King also only have 1 Fate but they have bigger problems. Suladan is super squishy at D5, he is a real glass cannon since if he wins fights he has Poison to do a lot of damage, but if he loses he is going down fast. The King has a lack of Heroic stats as well as limited movement potential because of the way the chariot works. Also limited by movement is Shagrat as he can't be mounted. He also has the lowest Courage of all of them too. As you can see, these are way too varied to rank. I guess you could say Gothmog and Amdur have the fewest major drawbacks but I'm not assigning numbers as it is too situational.

The Bigger Picture

1st: Gothmog
2nd: Suladan
3rd: Amdur
4th: King
5th: Shagrat

This category is all about how they fit into their respective armies. Gothmog has to take this one as he is the linchpin of any Orc based list. 2nd is Suladan as he is a super cheap Hero of Legend (the only one here) which is useful for 2 reasons. First because he can bring a lot of troops and second because he can be your leader and allow you to be more reckless with any other HoLs you might have, e.g. The Witch King. 3rd is Amdur because he has both Phalanx and Gleaming Horde, meaning he can fit well into your pike block or Kataphrakt wing. 4th is the King because of his big Banner and last is Shagrat because he is only a Hero of Fortitude.

And the winner is....

Conclusion
So the totals are in. Remember the scoring here is like Golf, lower is better.

Winner: Gothmog (16 points)
2nd: Amdur (19 points)
3rd: Khandish King (20 points)
4th: Suladan (22 points)
5th: Shagrat (25 points)

So it turns out that if you also rank these guys in order of points they cost (highest to lowest) you also get the same order. I guess we could have saved ourselves some time and just done that! It is nice to see that our analysis fits in with what the game designers value too though! Shagrat got off to a strong start, being good in the Heroics and the Hitting Power categories, but then he tailed off as really that is all he does. Don't get me wrong, he is still a great character and an absolute bargain but he is a bit one dimensional. Suladan is a strong piece but let down by his weak defence and average hitting power. The King is surprisingly high up the rankings but I also think he is the most susceptible to variance. If you roll well with him he will murder most things and live forever, but if you roll below average he is in big trouble. Amdur is probably the best duelist that Evil has (barring super-Heroes like Azog) and offers some decent buffs too. Gothmog is the other way around. He is an average fighter (for a Hero) but his buffs are game changing enough to put him at the top of the list.

So that's that! What do you think? Anything you would disagree with? Let us know and please let us know if you have suggestions for other Comparisons in the future!