A Noob's Perspective: Fangorn (and Friends!)

Recently I have embarked on a hobby project involving everyone's favourite mobile trees. My usual way of doing an army is to throw contrast at it until it looks 'good enough'. However, inspired by the extreme talents of the Drawn Combat team, I decided I wanted to do something that I could take time over and actually be proud of the result! Well that sort of happened, in that I am proud of what I have made but I definitely got carried away and smashed out 3 Ents in less than a week! Hey-ho. It got me thinking about how they might actually function on the tabletop though, so let's have a look at how they work!

Army Quick Hits:

Race: Ents
Strength: 8 😱
Defense: 8 😱
Fight: 7 or 8 😱

Attacks: 3

Wounds: 3
Courage: Base 6 (7 for Treebeard 😱)
Kit: Branches, Roots, Twigs, Leaves, Rocks 🌿

Special Stuff: Everything is a Monster, everything causes Terror, everything can Throw Stones (18" Range, Strength 10 😱) everything is a Woodland Creature (you'd really hope so), everything can Bludgeon. 

Bludgeon is a Special Strike where you pick up a model in base contact (anything smaller than a Monster - if you choose a Cavalry model they get dismounted automatically) and smack them into their friends. If you kill the first thing you hit (the attack counts as having S8) you can move on and hit something else. This continues until you fail to kill someone or there is nothing left around you but pulp. The person you pick up takes a S8 hit every time but you can continue even if they die. This means that you should be prioritising picking up mounted Heroes first, Heroes on foot second, Cavalry third and then anyone you fancy after that. 

Army Bonus: Everything becomes Fearless and is completely unaffected by Magic or anything that would move them/prevent them from moving. 

Heroes:

Treebeard: For a long time this guy was Fangorn's only hero and so had to be included in every list. Luckily he is a Hero of Legend so you can bring up to 18 Ents with you (which would only cost 2160 points plus Treebeard himself). He has 3 Might, 6 Will and 3 Fate. The 6 Will is interesting because if you have your army bonus up then it has really limited uses. The most common spells (Transfix/ Compel) won't affect him anyway, and he is Fearless so won't need it for Courage tests. There are some spells he will want to guard against (Black Dart/Chill Soul) but they are fairly rare or hard to cast anyway. 

Treebeard also has access to Heroic Strike, Strength and Defence. All of these are useful to have, especially Strike, meaning you only have a 1 in 6 chance of not getting up to F10. 

Finally, Treebeard has the option to equip some shoulder mounted machine guns in the form of Merry and Pippin. Admittedly these machine guns have accidentally loaded feathers instead of bullets with their Thrown Stones only being S1 and 8" range but every little helps! They can also be left on objectives if need be, though this is risky since pretty much anything in the game could take them down without too much trouble. 

Quickbeam: The first of the new Heroes from War in Rohan. For 50 points cheaper than Treebeard you lose a point of Fight and Courage, as well as only having 3/1/1 for M/W/F. However what you get in return are an 8" Move and Heroic March. This guy is Fangorn's answer to Usain Bolt. A better comparison might be to a regular Ent, as he only costs 20 points more but gains the Heroic stats and March. That seems like a bargain! His Might will almost certainly all be spent on Marches as Ents really suffer from their not-being-so-hasty in some Scenarios. 

Beechbone: This guy is 20 points more than Quickbeam for which he gains a point of Fight, Heroic Strength and Strike but loses QB's movement bonuses. Beechbone also gets rerolls to wound against Orcs, Uruk-Hai, Goblin or Isengard models. That covers a pretty large amount of the Evil armies in the game which is great! Not so great is that he must charge one of these models if able to do so. A wily opponent will be able to take advantage of this and draw him out for an ambush if you aren't careful. Having a second Heroic Strike available is very handy though so I still think this guy gets included where possible.

Troops:

Ents: These have got to be a contender for some of the toughest troops in the game, with F7 S8 D8 A3 W3, but they do come with a price tag! They cost the same as around 20 Orcs, which they may well be able to take on in a straight up fight (maybe...) but tactically 20 Orcs are going to give you a lot more options. However with a bit of luck that can smash virtually anything! Don't let them get surrounded at your peril!

Lists:

When going for an all Ent force they really write themselves. If you don't want to waste points then there is rarely more than one way to fill you points up. So here is a quick rundown of how to get your points worth with Ents. 

500 points

Treebeard with Merry and Pippin

Quickbeam

Beechbone

9 Might, 3 Models

600 Points

Treebeard with Merry and Pippin

Beechbone

Ent

Ent

6 Might, 4 Models

700 Points

Treebeard with Merry and Pippin

Quickbeam

Ent

Ent

Ent

6 Might, 5 Models

800 Points

Treebeard with Merry and Pippin

Ent

Ent

Ent

Ent

Ent

3 Might, 6 Models

As you can see, because of the way the points work out you actually get fewer Might as your points level increases. This is a strange phenomenon and unfortunately has to happen if you don't want to waste vast chunks of points. These lists also suffer from a lack of rerolls and a very small model count. But let's be honest, you aren't taking Fangorn to be competitive, you are taking them to Bludgeon everything in sight!

Luckily though, Fangorn is Yellow Allies with every other army. This means that you can make some interesting lists, as long as you don't mind losing your army bonuses. As for the Fangorn army bonus, it is one that you may well not want to give up, but it becomes less important if you have more distractions for your opponent's magic. Let's see what we can do.

Fangorn and Rivendell

Elrond, Horse, Heavy Armour

5 Knights of Rivendell, Shields

1 Knight of Rivendell, Shield, Banner

1 High Elf Warrior, Bow

Treebeard, Merry and Pippin

Ent

Ent

800 Points, 11 Models, 6 Might

What do Elves lack? High strength. What do Ents lack? Speed. Put the two together though... and you have what is probably a terrible list! However it can do several things pretty well. It can stand back and shoot pretty reasonably (7 S3 shots hitting on 3s and 3 S10 shots hitting on 4s), it should dominate in combat as everyone is F5 or higher, plus a banner for rerolls. I would imagine you will be outnumbered but the Knights are fast enough that you can pick your battles, plus Elrond's Foresight Points will help with this too. You also have 1 unmounted Elf to hold an objective and just shoot things. The Ents and Elrond will deal with any big threats while your Elves go to town on the troops or lend a knockdown bonus to the Ents should they need it. Everyone is playing to their strengths so maybe it isn't as bad as it first looks!

Fangorn and Minas Tirith

Treebeard with Merry and Pippin

Ent

Ent

Denethor

2 Knights of Minas Tirith Shields

4 Rangers, Spears

6 Warriors of Minas Tirith, Shields

1 Warrior of Minas Tirith, Shield, Banner

Madril

5 Rangers, Spears

10 Warriors of Minas Tirith, Shields

800 Points, 6 Might, 33 Models

Here we have a big old shield wall punctuated by some big smashy Ents. An advantage of Treebeard here is that he is a Hero of Legend and so is automatically the Leader, meaning Denethor is less liable to giving points away. It also means Denethor can get his surprisingly good combat stats into play. You troops are going to line up in a big wall, Warriors at the front, Rangers shooting over their shoulders and lending their F4 to combats. They are the anvil to the Ents' Hammer. 

Fangorn and Hobbits

Meriadoc, Captain of the Shire

8 Militia

7 Shirriffs

Farmer Maggot

Grip

Fang

Wolf

7 Archers

Holfoot Bracegirdle, Shirriff-Leader

12 Shirriffs

Will Whitfoot, Mayor of Hobbiton

12 Militia

Treebeard

Ent

Ent

800 Points, 8 Might, 53 Models

Any army that contains 53 models including 3 Ents has got to be good right?! The thought here is board control. Ents don't do it very well, so let's flood the board with Hobbits! The dogs can be our pseudo-cavalry for getting objectives but otherwise it is a case of throwing enough bodies at the enemy to slow him to a crawl while the Ents smash the big things. Not a huge amount of subtlety here!

Fangorn and Wanderers

Treebeard, Merry and Pippin

Ent

Ent

Tom Bombadil

600 Points, 3 Might (Plus lots of regen), 4 Models

Definitely going to be outnumbered here but Tom can shut of sections of the board to protect your flank and can keep giving Treebeard Might back. Definitely not great but I do like the theme of it.

Fangorn and The White Council

Galdriel, Lady of Light

Saruman the White, Horse

Treebeard

Ent

Ent

750 Points, 5 Models, 9 Might

If you are losing your protection from magic from the army bonus then why not acquire some serious magic potential yourself? Galadriel and Saruman are just about the best casters on the Good side plus their extra rules combo well too. Saruman can make everyone Stand Fast, and Galadriel protects them from shooting and gives -1 Courage to combo with the Ent's Terror.You'll have to play pretty Tactically with only having 5 models at 800 points though!