Army List Review: The Fellowship

Dan Slob: One of the most valuable pieces of content I came across when starting this game was the Veni Vidi Double blog with its excellent tactical advice and sample lists. Now we are in a new edition and we have had a few months to digest everything we are committing ourselves to reviewing one army list a week until they are all done. Considering how my last attempt at writing a regular blog article went (Hobby Blog episode 2 when?) I will probably fail immediately but joining me on this journey is fellow DC-er Dan Stu so hopefully we will keep each other accountable!

Credit Games Workshop

The sales pitch:

The Fellowship is the most iconic list in the game. It's literally all the main characters of the books in one place. For an army list you just can't get theme-ier than that! Sadly in terms of playing games it does struggle a bit, simply by the nature of it being an all hero list, and especially because half of those heroes are Hobbits! But you aren't in this to be a sweaty power gamer, you are here to embody the spirit of the story!

What makes it tick?

There is some cool stuff going on in this list. Starting with Sam, his Frying Pan being able to stun a model on a 4+ so they can't move next turn is fairly unique. There aren't that many effects that stop movement in the game, and those that exist are generally associated with very high points cost models. Since he's still only F3 he's not super likely to be winning a tonne of fights by himself but if he is in the same combat as one of the big boys then it is a nice addition to have if you fail to kill something. 

Gandalf being F5 and effectively S5 with Glamdring is exciting, especially as he could 2 hand if he wanted to. He would then be wounding a D6 model on 4s and a D5 model on 3s which is quite tasty. Sadly in this list he doesn't get his Cart or a Horse so he is a bit less effective than he is in other places.

Aragorn is still Aragorn. Being F7 is super good and his free point of Might is still what defines him, but you have to be really careful at D5 as he can absolutely go down if he gets overwhelmed. I like the idea of giving him a Bow and being a mini Legolas for a few turns with his free Might but it is often hard to fit that 5 points in.

Legolas is just mental this edition. His special rules should basically just read "I do what I want". I have found that shooting his 3 shots into his own combat makes him really good at killing Captains. He is also only D4 though so again an abundance of caution is needed when the fighting starts.

Gimli is also great this edition, ironically because Legolas is so much better. It means that in practice his +1 to wound is often just always on which makes him a murder machine. Being D8 is also sorely needed for this list as you need someone you aren't afraid to get stuck in. He also has throwing weapons which are nice, and one day I hope to hit with them.

Big Boz is still great with his mighty 6 Might. F7 is also amazing as he can just press the eject button with his Might when he needs to and often auto-win a fight. His horn is nice to have, especially when fighting Evil armies but if you are relying on it going off to get out of trouble then you are probably already on the wrong end of the game.

Finally there is Bill, who is a 25 point Banner that gives you a Might back 1/3 of the time. Excellent at 25 points, and your opponent may even feel too guilty to kill the good boy (probably not though).

I didn't talk about Frodo, Merry or Pippin because I think they are pretty bad. The best thing about them is that Pip's intelligence is 1 worse than Merry'. Frodo used to be great but the One Ring has been super nerfed this edition and now only halves Fight when the Ringbearer is the only model in the combat. Seems very bad for Frodo. 

Credit Games Workshop

Assembling your Army

This couldn't be easier! The plastic Fellowship box is all you need, however if you want to add the noble Bill to your lists you'll need to fork out separately for the Personalities of Bree pack which costs almost as much as the Fellowship box. That being said, it is still by far the cheapest way to get an 800 point list on the board, and definitely the easiest to paint! My own Fellowship got contrast paint slapped on them and were ready to go in pretty short order!

Possible Pivots

 

These heroes feature in a lot of lists, but in particular Road to Rivendell will get use out of 5 of your 9 models, and all of the Personalities of Bree if you picked those up too. Breaking of the Fellowship allows you to expand into a more normal army pretty easily by picking up Haldir and some Lothlorien Warriors. As you have the 3 Hunters already, a box of ghosts and the King of the Dead is an inexpensive way to get a fairly competitive army in the Return of the King too.

Pros:

Cheap

Fun

Thematic

All hero armies always end up with great stories!

Cons:

Will struggle to play objectives

Low defence all round (except Gimli)

Easily broken

All hero armies always end up with horrifying stories!

 

Credit Games Workshop

Lists & Discussion

As with all of these reviews, we’ll start with an ‘entry level’ list that you might want to aim for as you start collecting the army, and then move on to something more fleshed out.

These aren’t necessarily super-optimised lists, but they will be built in a sensible way that capitalizes on what think are the strengths of the list – and where possible, in a way that doesn’t mandate buying a whole box of infantry for a single model!

List #1:

This list is essentially just throwing Might at the problem until it goes away. Use Legolas to soften up targets on the way in and then go to town with you big boys when they arrive. It probably won't win Domination or Recon or Destroy the Supplies, but the other 3 you have a pretty good shot at and that's not bad for an all hero list. There was a real choice between Boromir's Horse or giving him a shield and Aragorn a Bow but I think the flexibility of having a cavalry model is too good (unless you are facing another Legolas in which case it will be dead immediately).

 

List #2:

This was easy, it's just everyone and all their upgrades except the Mithril Coat. Honestly these guys just aren't going to stand up to many other 800 point lists but you will be there hero of everyone's hearts if you take it. At 800 you'll likely be looking across at 40+ models and that's just too many to keep your Hobbits and horsey safe. You'll probably have a blast playing it though and it's just about the cheapest way to get an 800 point army there is so have at it!

On to the scores! Each category is scored out of ten, and we’ll explain below each score what it is we’re looking for.

Theme: 10

How well does this army encapsulate a moment from the books or films? Are all the right models present and does it feel like the moment it’s based on?

Power: 4

How well does it fare against other armies? We’ll be assuming that this is based on the Army’s ‘preferred’ points range, as it’s not very useful to assess how Lurtz’s Scouts performs at 1000pts, or Barad Dur at 300pts.

Cost & Collectability: 9

We’re looking at entry level cost to the army, how many purchases are needed, and are the models available off the shelf?

Hobby factor: 5

How good are the models? Are we dealing with shiny new plastics or stinky old finecast? Does the army require any converting, and does it lend itself to cool and unique paintjobs?

Fun factor: 10

How fun is that army to play, and crucially, how fun is it to play against?

Total: 38/50

Scoring this was fairly easy. It's the theme-iest list you can get, it's very cheap and how can you not have fun playing as the Fellowship? However it is let down by it just being kinda bad and also the Fellowship box is very much showing its age at this point.

So there we go. 1 down, 45 LOTR armies to go. To make it fun we will randomly generate the next lists we are going to talk about each week, but we will force it to be alternating Good and Evil for as long as possible. The first draw for next time was Lurtz's Scouts! See you then!