Australian Master's Lists Review

This weekend sees the Australian Masters tournament take place. It is a 750 point clash of Australia’s best and brightest. Today, some of the UK’s worst and woeful (that’s us) give their thoughts on these lists and how they will do. Enjoy!

50 Models, 6 Might

This is a bit of an odd list. I’m not sure what to make of the hero choices here. The troops choices are great: tonnes of throwing weapons and crossbows and just tonnes of troops in general. I also like the inclusion of the single Numenorian with War Horn. But those hero choices... I’m not sure if I’m just missing something or if they are genuinely weird choices. Either way, Corsairs have enough excellent strategies to do well even with the odd heroes so it could still go far!

51 Models, 15 Might

One of the newer Legendary Legions to hit the tables and boy, are there some big numbers in this list. Firstly I'm a big fan of marauders, given the fact that the upgrade is free in this list is another bonus to it. The one downside to it in this Legion however is that you have a tendency to leave the Orcs behind, which also means you're not getting the most out of the Animosity special rule when it comes down to combat. Granted, Uruks are not prone to losing fights to easily so there's a good chance of them holding the lines until the Orcs can get in for the bonus - given the ratio of Uruks to Orcs, I wouldn't be surprised if there would be less reliance on Animosity. This is also supported by the heavy amount of Uruk bows being fielded. 15 strength 3 shots is a pretty scary sight! Finally, there's an awful lot of might in this list, with four heroes who can call a Heroic March, this is a very quick list who can maneuver their way to objectives and good positions in a rapid way. 

8 Models, 19 Might (!)

Despite there being two Black Riders lists in this tournament, which are hard capped at 9 models, this is still the smallest army here. In some ways it is the opposite of the Black Riders. 8 Elves on foot, with little few shenanigans to help them but their martial skills. Despite their small numbers these guys can take on a horde surprisingly well, with 6 of the 8 models able to get 5 attacks! (or more for Thranduil and Tauriel). It also helps that everyone is a minimum of F6. I'm curious to know whether the Ranger Captain's benefit from the Army Bonus of +1 to Wound when near Thranduil because if so then they are horrifying. Honestly, I think this one might be my pick to win it, though like any glass cannon, if the dice gods decide they are displeased then it could go south quickly.

21 Models, 7 Might

Everyone knows RoTK at this point. Excellent heroes, a super threat in the form of the King's one-hit KO and a bunch of super solid warriors. The problem is that everyone knows RoTK at this point. Players at this level will know what to do against a list like this so it will take some excellent play to confound their expectations. That being said, if no mistakes are made then this kind of solid-ness could do really well. The high-defence Dwarves of the Iron Hills in particular will not want to see these guys, and there are plenty of low courage evil armies in this tournament that this list can easily prey on.

9 Models, 19 Might (!)

May as well talk about both of these lists at the same time as they are identical! At first glance it is hard to see how these guys can do well until you start to read in to their special rules. 9 free Channelled Transfixes on top of 7 Will that is purely for Casting (they don’t spend it for being in combat in this LL) will deal with an awful lot of stuff. Added to the extra penalties to Courage that they give from being spooky boys will mean an awful lot of the armies in this tournament will struggle to get any meaningful charges off. However there is nothing gung-ho about these guys, they are a scalpel not a hammer. Their games are going to be very cagey and will possibly go to time a lot. I’m going to be really interested to see how they do. 

47 model, 6 Might

This is another army that lives by its new special rules. There is nothing insane in the new LL but what is does give is several incremental boosts that stack up to make a crazy good army list. They serve to buff the army’s weaknesses really well. There is obviously a lack of Might here and, even with the +1F near the Balrog, the troops are mostly still bad. However there are a lot of them which is handy! The fact that the Balrog is now hard to hit will be super handy if they have to play the Iron Hills’ horrible Ballista. Really it’ll come down to whether or not an opponent can deal with the Balrog. If they can then this list is screwed, if not then it’ll probably win. 

42 Models, 10 Might

Well this is quite an all star cast for Mordor heroes, and certainly a mixed bag of abilities. You have got Mordor's best caster, their (arguably) best support caster, their best combat heroes, and (arguably) the best support hero. There is far too much to go through for each of these characters but suffice to say there are some brutal combinations to be had. Backing them up is a veritable horde of Orcs. Orcs are some of the best value troops in the game and quantity is a quality of its own. My worry is that there is only 1 banner and it is going to want to be in too many places at once. However this list has the tools to deal with pretty much anything, though it could suffer to a large amount of elite shooting.

11 Might, 37 Models

This force brings together the armies of Azog’s Legion and Azog’s Hunters such that Bolg the leader gets Master of Battle, but the Hunters get their improved shoot value and bow limit. The combination of Bolg’s MoB and F7 makes him a nightmare for any combat hero to tangle with, whilst Fimbul and Narzug are relatively squishy. The army overall feels like it’s quite well balanced with solid troops, a cheap monster, and some maneuverability in the form of the Wargs and Goblin Mercs, but will struggle with strong magic users. The Black Riders will be a tricky challenge as they can immobilise Bolg almost at will and the low courage of the orcs will leave them unable to capitalize on their higher numbers in combat

9 Might, 39 Models

The core of this list is very similar to Josh’s list, but has more of the tanky Gundabad Warriors and no Goblin Mercs. Overall it feels very similar and will struggle against the same things as Josh’s list, but I prefer Josh’s as it has a little bit more variety and a few more tricks

45 Models, 9 Might

Another Isenguard list with a hefty chunk of models to play with. Previously we had Ugluk's Scouts, now we're dealing with more of a traditional army of the White Hand. Saruman is always a good choice with a great range of spells and the free Will to make them stronger as well - he'll be great for locking heroes down but as we've seen with some of the other lists, there's a lot keeping him busy. Ugluk is an interesting choice to back Saruman up however, but he's also pretty cost effective for those 3 points of might. Once again we're seeing a healthy amount of ranged potential as well with the inclusion of Vrasku and a mix of crossbows and bows. Could be some heavy casualties before combat with this firing line. I do worry about the lack of might in this force compared to the others we've seen, there's a big possibility this force could be outmaneuvered easily. The core of Uruk Warriors however may be enough to keep the force from falling too easily.

16 Models, 6 Might

So this force is definitely an oddball and I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. Half of the force is pretty resistant to shooting, and also has the ability to fly so we're looking at some good objective grabbing. Grima is always a fun choice to inconvenience heroes, but we're also looking at a lot of might in these lists where it might not be such an inconvenience. The Dunland warriors are also a nice block of models, but I do fear there's just too few models in this list to deal with some of the other small, but hero-centric lists.

32 Models, 6 Might

Quite a shooting heavy Iron Hills list here, and the sheer lack of Blinding Light in the rest of the lists is nothing but good news. 6 Crossbows and a Ballista is going to ensure that your enemy has to come to you. There are a number of Cavalry heavy and elite armies in this tournament, all of whom are going to be very worried by that Ballista. Backing them up are a shieldwall of 17 Iron Hills Dwarves with a Captain in their midst. They are the anvil to Dain and the 4 Goats' hammer. I really like the look of this list, it has a bit of everything. It could struggle against the Magic heavy lists as Dain is just going to get bullied by all those spells but played well it could do a lot of work! It's a shame there weren't quite enough points to mount the Captain on a goat too but to do so would mean sacrificing some of the shooting.

12 Might, 54 models

This is a very interesting list and several things jump out at me for being good! It has one of the best heroes in the game for taking objectives in the form of The Spider Queen and when combined with the deployment shenanigans of the Goblin Mercs and Scribe and the fast moving spiders and bats this army will be much more mobile and cover more of the board than you might expect where the troops only move 5”. There is a lot of combat capability, not just from monstrous heroes, but from Gollum and the Bat Swarms. These guys will have the fight value of anything they’re engaged with meaning that heroes will be living in fear of getting ganked at any time. Potential downsides are that there are a lot of big bases in this list (Mirkwood Spiders are especially noteworthy for this) combined with lots of troops which could mean a little bit of getting in your own way when attempting to set up the ideal combat. The flying bats and ability of spiders to ignore terrain mitigates this, but it still feels like a challenge. The model count is also relatively low for a Goblin Town army. As a comparison this army has a similar breakpoint to the Ugluk’s Scout force, but the troops are a lot less robust. It’s a force that doubtlessly takes some skill to use well and I can’t wait to see how it gets on (and to have a go at myself).

20 Models, 6 Might

Honestly I love anything that has a Mumak in it. I am not 100% convinced about how well this will do as everything is so fragile but I guess it will all come down to player skill. Serpent Riders are absolutely explosive on the charge and Raiders are incredibly flexible, which, coupled with the might of the Mumak and the excellent Suladan, gives this list plenty of tools to deal with everything. However, as with any glass-cannon list, if it starts to go wrong it could all crumble quickly!

28 Models, 8 Might

I believe this player is something of a cavalry savant and you can hear him talk about this list in much more detail on the excellent Green Dragon podcast's Cavalry episode. I won't bother adding anything to that as I am a novice compared to this player, other than to say that I love Angmar and this list is terrifying. I do wish there were some Barrow Wights in there but that is because I am bad and they are my crutch!

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So there we go, our (admittedly noob-y) take on each of the lists. Any one of these could win it so instead of picking one list between us we are each going to pick one each:

Dan’s pick: Thranduil’s Heroes

Colm’s pick: Angmar Cav

Steve’s pick: Angmar Cav

Adam’s pick: Corsairs