Fall of the Necromancer - Legendary Legion Analysis

The Fall of the Necromancer supplement is fast on its way into our grubby paws, but we already have a good deal of information about what's included. Today Dave and Dan Slob taking a look at the four Legendary Legions included and seeing what they make of them.

Dave: For my first part in this article I'll be talking a look at the Rangers of Mirkwood legendary legion. This looks like a nice thematic list that'll certainly do well on the table, much to the chagrin of your opponent when you can just sit back and let off a flurry of more than 30 arrows a turn. The legion itself offers some nice bonuses to make up for the limited options.

All of your Mirkwood Rangers will be able to shield as if they had a shield, very handy when they max out at D3 and aren't the cheapest infantry! On top of this, the whole list gain the Hatred (Spiders) special rule, niche for sure but I can certainly think of a few lists this'll be great against, my own regular list being one of them!

Legolas has to be in the list and he'll pick up some extra attacks in combat thanks to gaining the Knife Fighters rule, this can turn him into a pretty potent infantry killer. You'll get the Silent Ambush rule too, helping your army when it comes to random deployment scenarios or maelstrom missions, very handy as you'll want to make sure you can get the most out of your bow fire from the off.

The really interesting rule from the Legion I've left to last; The Masters of The Forest rule gives your models a 6+ save when they are within 1” of a tree or in a piece of woodland terrain. Whilst not something to play for in every game if you come up against an army that is heavy on shooting having a 1/6 chance to survive their shooting should give you the edge, not to mention you've also got 30+ shots a turn yourself!

Here's a quick list I've thrown together, which some of our more long term readers might recognise as an expansion to our Mirkwood 500u50:

Legolas, Prince of Mirkwood
10x Mirkwood Rangers
1x Wood Elf Sentinel

Tauriel w/ Elf Bow
9x Mirkwood Rangers
1x Wood Elf Sentinel

Mirkwood Ranger Captain
7x Mirkwood Rangers
1x Wood Elf Sentinel

699 Points/32 Models/32 Bows/8 Might

With the list you can easily swap out a Sentinel for a couple more Rangers if you'd prefer, I just like the control you'll get with 3 of them.

Simply put, the list wants to hand back and pick of any higher defence models with as may bow shots you can afford to send that way, don't play too much for the Masters of the Forest rule, just consider it a bonus if you spot the opportunity to make it work for you. You've got a generic captain in there giving you access to Heroic March if you need to move a lot of models quickly, and to add to that, there's 8 Might total in the list, with Fight 5 being your lowest. What they lack in Strength in combat, they'll make up for with Fight value.

Dan Slob: The white council has always been an odd list, more of a selection of allies than a force in itself. Has that changed with the new supplement? Let’s have a look at some of the new rules.

You can now only choose from 5 models, Gandalf the Grey, Galadriel Lady of Light, Saruman the White, Elrond and Radagast. All models in the list keep their army bonus of +1 to Resist while near another friendly model, however they also now get the ability to cast magical powers even if they are already in combat (I’d expect a hefty FAQ on how many spells work in this scenario to be coming soon) as well as a boost to their attacks to match their number of wounds. Between these things you don’t necessarily auto-lose if you get caught in combat (though it’s still probably not good). Besides these, each individual member also gets a bit of a boost.

Galadriel can cast Banishment on anyone, but if they are not a spirit they get a free dice to resist, and once per game she can go super-saiyan and auto cast a channeled Banishment which can’t be resisted. However doing so depletes all of her will and loses her two of her special rules (LoL and War Aspect). Pretty good but the costs far outweigh the benefits so you’ll probably only use it when she’s about to die anyway. 

Gandalf gains Fearless and friends within 3” can’t have their Courage reduced. Fine I suppose but they all already had very high Courage so in practice this won’t do that much.

Elrond gets a free Strike every turn and counts as a 3” banner. Pretty big as he’s going to be your guy to deal with big threats but I can’t help wish it was a free combat each turn so you have a bit more killing power. 

Saruman can cats 2 powers per turn and gives everyone in 3” a reroll to cast. A pretty excellent buff to a wizard army, meaning he can use both a control spell and Sorcerous Blast if needed. However he does still only have 6 Will (plus his staff) so I don’t think you will actually get much opportunity to do 2 spells very often (though there are chain shenanigans you can do with refreshing Will via Elrond and Gandalf).

Finally, Radagast gets a 50/50 chance of healing a model he is in base contact with. Very useful for such a small model count but pretty easy to turn off if he gets tied down. Also he doesn’t get Sebastian making the list a 0/10 in my opinion. 

Overall some really nice buffs but nothing to really negate the fact that this is a 5 model army. Added to that is the problem that most of the buffs have a really short range so you need to keep everyone together which hurts your objective play. There is also a minimum cost of 300 points as you must take Galadriel and Saruman. This makes army building pretty awkward as you can only get 3 models at 500, you basically cannot field a 600 point army as any 4 would take you over, you get 4 models at 700 and then all 5 cost 800 or 845 with the sleigh. I think this is very much an all or nothing army really. Of all the all-hero themed lists I do think this is one of the better ones, but really you are only taking this for fun, not to be competitive. If Sebastian was included it’d be S-tier obviously but alas it was not to be.

Dave: The Rise of The Necromancer legion looks like a great take on the Dol Guldur list. What you'll lose in the form of some Orc bodies you'll gain some serious killing power on The Necromancer himself.

For this legendary legion The Necromancer will pick up an extra attack but on top of that he'll be able to cast 2 spells per turn rather than just 1, though he can't attempt the same spell twice in the same turn so no fishing for multiple wounds with Chill Soul or any other shenanigans. I'll preface the list I've written with a small note. I've never played The Necromancer or The Hobbit era Ringwraiths and I've not got the most experience with magic as a whole. Feel free to critique the list until the sun comes up. That being said, here my list:

The Necromancer

The Witch King

The Forsaken

The Abyssal Knight

The Abyssal Knight

Khamul The Easterling

The Keeper of the Dungeons

700 Points

The Necromancer is the obvious power house of the list, casting up to two spells a turn he should be able to chain a few interactions together, Drain Courage followed by Instil Fear should help shift some pesky models from objectives or some of your opponents more position reliant abilities away from the battle line. Don't get to comfortable throwing out 2 spells a turn though, 25 Will can drain fast especially when you can use them as Fate points.

Obviously as I said above, my choice of Ringwraiths might be far from viable but I'll try and give my reasoning for each.

The Witch King has an extra point of Might which should help out a ton in the form of Heroic Moves or buffing a die to win a duel (Ringwraiths are only F5 after all!).

The Forsaken rerolls wounds, very handy when you're low model count. Adding anything to limit randy dice is always good, especially when you only have 7 models.

Abyssal Knight seems great for a bait and switch play, and also means you can send one off to guard an objective and easily get back up if your opponent tries to fight back for it.

Khamul gets an extra attack which will never go amiss, but I'll be honest. He's mostly in here because his model is too nice to not take!

Finally, I've added the Keeper of the Dungeons for more of a punch thanks to his extra Strength over another Ringwraith, his special rule which makes him even more potent the more kills he gets, and lastly for his clutch access to Heroic Strike. This looks like a fun legion, maybe not the most competitive, but certainly a blast to get some gorgeous models on the table!

Dan Slob: Did you need yet another army list that Azog can slot into? Well have no fear because now he has a Legendary Legion too! Let’s have a look at what we can do here with the Pit of Dol Guldur.

So to begin, you can only have Azog, the Keeper and Captains, none of the myriad of named characters you usually have. This is a bit of a shame as the named captains are pretty great. Your troops are limited to Gundabad Orcs, Hunter Orcs and Fell Wargs (sorry Goblin fans). This means none of your usual big hitters like Berserkers, Trolls, Ogres or Bats. This is going to make the list feel a bit one dimensional but a lot of recent tournament success has been had by lists that just spam low cost, efficient troops and that is certainly what you are getting here. 

To make up for this you get a few special rules. Once per game you can auto win priority AND not allow any enemy heroic moves that turn. That is pretty big as it could really mess with armies that need to get a charge off. Your whole army also gets Resistance to Magic which is a nice bonus too. Finally, Azog gets to call a free Heroic Combat each turn. When I first read this I could not believe my eyes, as if Azog needed another rule to become even more of a murder machine! However there are a few things to note here. First he does not get Master of Battle in this list so no mimicking heroics. Second he does not get any options outside of his warg. That means he is capped at D5 which is extremely scary for him. He won’t have to lose too many combats before he goes down when even S3 troops are wounding him on 5s. He is definitely a glass cannon in this list. 

So with all these things in mind, what kind of list can we out together? At 800 points you can get:

Azog on Warg

Keeper of the Dungeons

2 Hunter Orc Captains on Wargs

9 Gundabad Orcs with Spears, plus 1 Banner

29 Hunter Orcs, plus 1 War Horn

2 Hunter Orcs on Wargs

That gives you a total of 44 models and 13 Might. You have 4 scary combat characters, a decent block of troops to hold an objective and then a huge array of 2A S4 Hunter Orcs to engulf the enemy. It is becoming more and more apparent these days that quantity can often outplay quality in this game so this is a scary prospect to face! 

Overall I think this is one of the better LLs we’ve seen recently though I do wonder if it is actually any better than just taking this list normally. The one turn priority could be huge or it could amount to nothing and that will really make or break whether it was worth going down the LL route. 

So, what did you think of Dan and Dave's hot takes on the new Legendary Legions? Are you excited to try them out once the book drops? Let us know in the comments and we'll see you next time!