The sales pitch: The besieged Rohirrim’s desperate last stand! Depending how you build this army, it’s either Helm or Hera’s show – and, in this blogger’s humble opinion, one is for when you want to re-enact the movie and the other is for when you want to win games.
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| Credit: Warhammer Community |
What
makes it tick?
It’s a Rohan
Infantry army, so you’re looking at mid-to-high numbers, low-ish defense, and
lots of throwing spears, with a rather good hero lineup in the form of Hera,
the surprisingly great Olwyn, the supporting Lief, and the Rohan Swiss Army
Captain - and then you’ve got Helm. Yes, that’s two digs at Helm in as many
sentences, and don’t worry, we’ll get to him later. In terms of infantry,
Dominant (2) is the headline, and not only is it really strong, it’s very
thematic for a beleaguered, besieged force. Basic S3 D5 Rohan troops aren’t setting the world on fire, but they
are cheap, and the effective extra head count will help your ragged late-game
battle line clutch out objectives in many scenarios.
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| Credit: Warhammer Community |
Hera is a must-take, a F6 D6 3A brawler
that prevents your opponent from striking, meaning you can throw her in to a F7
hero and guarantee to at least tie fight value if you strike. With Defense too,
she can be a real roadblock and punch far above her weight, and can even
withstand a charge from a mounted cavalry hero with her combat stance. While
her reroll-wounds-on-the-charge means she isn’t bad at killing things, she’s not
exactly an assassin at S4 3A, and will take a while to chew through any
multi-wound model at D5 or higher. I’d give her a shield and put her in more of
a defensive role against those big heroes – she’s survivable enough that you
can play her conservatively and keep your General VP’s relatively safe.
Olwyn on the other hand – at 100pts
mounted with F5 3A and no strike, you want her in the thick of it. Enemy heroes
and even F5 troops will give her cause for pause, but as she only takes wounds
on a (modifiable) 6, and with 3 fate backing up her 2 wounds, she will take
quite a bit of punishment before going down. I’d expect her to drop eventually,
but if you throw her in to the fray and get her killing troops, I’d expect her
to earn her points back almost all of the time.
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| Credit: Warhammer Community |
Lief is an interesting one. For 50pts, you get access to a suite of once-per-game 3” buffs, but using them efficiently is hard as they all want Lief to be in different situations. Compounding the issue is that fact that his buffs are switched on after his activation – meaning that anything that wants to make use of it during the movement phase needs to start its activation near where Lief finishes his activation. I’m sure someone smarter than me can come up with an optimal flowchart for Lief that involves him seamlessly moving from one buff to the next, but here is the most sense I can make of it:
- Free hero heroic combats – easy enough, have Lief finish his move near several heroes. If you can bunch up your heroes and get 3 or 4 might points worth of value, then Lief has already paid for himself. This is your most important buff.
- Fearless – a little awkward, as it kicks in after
Lief’s move, meaning Lief need to lag behind the units he’s buffing. Best used
after lines have already clashed and preferably to guarantee tying up a
terror-causing model.
- No move-and-shoot penalty and reroll hit rolls – potentially
really strong, and worth a bit of engineering to make the most of. If you can
get Lief in to a block of 12 archers, this takes your expected hits while half
moving from 4 to 9; or, to put it differently, 12 buffed archers are pulling
the weight of 27 unbuffed ones for a single turn. If you’re on your game with
movement, you can probably get even more in to the bubble.
- Woodland creature / mountain dweller for a turn – situational, and awkward
to use as it kicks in after Lief’s move. However, I can see a fringe use for
this if you can use it to mount a surprise cavalry charge through terrain. Situationally
powerful.
- Extra 2” move – awkward to use, as if you’re using this to
march up the board, Lief is likely dropping behind – he can’t move ahead and
switch on the buff as the other models will then be out of range, so he has to ‘sacrifice’
his move for the turn to affect his pals. However, as it doesn’t come with the
restrictions of a heroic march, you can definitely use this to surprise your
opponent when they think they’re out of charge range.
It’s an
interesting, janky toolkit, but is it worth 50pts? For fun factor alone,
definitely. And he can definitely win you games, though I think newer players
may find it tough to get value out of his situational bonuses – he isn’t the
likes of Freca or Gamling who can sit back and give passive benefits, and will
require you to actively engineer situations where he can give benefit. At F3
1A, he’s a lover not a fighter, and can be a liability in scenarios that reward
killing heroes. He provides capacity for high-skill and unpredictable plays,
which is always valuable in the hands of a player who can recognise and exploit
those opportunities. More importantly though, he seems really interesting to
use and comes with a high skill ceiling, something we always love to see.
Rounding
out the hero roster is the trusty Rohan Captain, who runs anywhere from
45 to 75 points. Fully kitted, they are real speedbumps even for assassin
characters – most heroes will need 6s to wound their D7, meaning they can take
a few turns to chew through 2W 1F - but they can also be taken lean if you just
want the march, the might, and the extra unit capacity. If you’ve got Lief, I’d
give your Captains horses for another high-impact free heroic combat – an extra
2 dead enemy warriors will mostly repay the cost of the horse. The Captain is
also your only access to Heroic March, which is important in a foot slogging
army.
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| Credit: Warhammer Community |
On the
troops side, you’re just looking at Warriors and Riders of Rohan,
with only infantry gaining Dominant (2) and rerolling 1s to wound – both great,
although neither of them change the fact that you’re topping out at F3 troops,
or F4 in the case of charging cavalry. In general, when you have access to
cavalry, you’ll always want at least a couple for objectives, but cannot take
them en masse here due to them being counted towards your bow limit. There are
other flavours of Rohan that do massed cavalry far, far better - this is a
Rohan battleline army through and through. You are probably looking at one
third shields, one third bows, one third spear & shield, with a few cavalry
thrown in.
Okay, let’s
talk about the Helmephant in the room. He’s just... not good. I’ve spent
some time trying to find the silver lining in his profile that makes him worth 180pts,
but it’s just not there. I won’t list all of his little bonuses and gimmicks –
he has a metric ton of them, but none of them substantially remedy the fact
that he’s a squishy, expensive model with no innate magic defense, no utility, that
can’t bring troops, and is costed like a combat monster but isn’t even that
good at killing things.
Let’s break
it down. He’s 3A, S6, D5, F7. Good start, especially the strength 6, but he’s
still looking at 4s to wound D5/D6. For a 3-attack model, that’s not setting
the world on fire, and can’t reliably kill a pair of D5 troops to trigger a
heroic combat…which he only gets for free when charging.
When
comparing to the similarly priced infantry heroes Azog (a hero killing
monster), Elendil (a great all-rounder) or Aragorn (a versatile utility piece)
he looks bad. But the comparison that stings the most is Lurtz - a 100pt hero
that trades a point of strength for a point of defense, and gets an
unconditional heroic combat every turn. Ouch. Not to mention the fact that
those heroes can all bring troops, use Stand Fasts and Heroics to help out
their mates. Oof. For me, the final nail in the coffin is his Berserk Rage
forcing him to charge if he can, which a smart opponent will use to cause him
big problems – I would just lure him in to a pit of D5+ troops, and with no means
of modifying his own dice, his 3 might will evaporate quickly as he has to force
the 6 on the duel every turn to stay alive. It’s the same strategy I’d usually
use against Aragorn, except Helm doesn’t need de-horsing first, doesn’t have
the free might to help on the duels, and will likely die the first time he
takes hits as D5 is very weak to S3 troops.
How would I
improve Helm, other than a 30+pt drop? As a glass cannon character he really
doesn’t have the hitting power to justify his fragility, so that’s what I would
change. I really think there is an argument for him being the only native 4-attack
small base infantry model in the game (2 per fist?), or for having a built in
+1 to wound (but not both of these). His free heroic combat and terror should
always be switched on, no question. The latter would also make his Horn of the
Hammerhand much more useful – you’d always be forcing terror checks at a -1 on
the turn he blows it, as opposed to this being reliant on winning the heroic
move off to switch his terror on as it is now.
Let’s talk
about a few of his upsides – I’ve given him quite a scathing review, but he’s
not a bad profile, he’s just overcosted. Can he perform well? Yes, absolutely. Raw
killing power backed up by fight value will always do good work in the right
hands. He terrifies high-wounds, low-fate heroes. He can’t be your leader,
so you can afford to play him recklessly or trade him. S6 prevents you from
being knocked prone by charging cavalry so he’s not easy to assassinate with a
cavalry hero. War horns are always good (although less so if you lose them
before breaking), and there is the potential for a smart play by using the once
per game -1 courage on a turn in which you expect to kill an enemy hero,
combining the once per game ‘Horn of the Hammerhand’ with the ‘Frenzy of the
King’ rule. Models within 3” of Helm must then pass a courage check at -1 or run away from Helm during the end phase,
so the -1 courage can really help to disrupt enemy lines – you will just have
to win a heroic move off the next turn to capitalise on this. You can also save
the once-per-game horn toot for when your opponent has broken, which could be
devastating to armies with already low courage values – orcs sticking around on
a 9+, anybody?
And lastly – glass cannons are just good fun. If we’re really honest with ourselves, if your aim is to play a competitive Rohan infantry army, you’re probably looking elsewhere anyway… So why not throw angry santa in the mix and have a good time?
Assembling
your Army
Normally
for a Rohan army we’d be recommending starting with the Edoras box or the Rohan
Battlehost, but if you’re looking to run this army in particular, there’s
nothing wrong with just buying a couple of boxes of Rohan Warriors – none of
the heroes from the Rohan bundles are present here. But to be honest, it’s so
easy to transition between Rohan armies once you’ve got a bulk of Warriors and
Riders painted, there aren’t any bad options when buying in to Rohan, and the bundles
will give you more options later on. At the time of writing, Helm and Hera are
available individually and Lief is on the way, but Olwyn is currently
unreleased and will require proxying. You’ll also need to pick up a Rohan
Commanders pack for a captain and a banner. The forge world heroes are pricey, but
it’s not a tough army to collect as the bulk of its troops are new plastics,
making the price pretty agreeable overall.
When assembling
an army list, your only complication is that if you’re bringing Helm, he can’t
take any troops, which makes him almost impossible to include at low points.
This evens out at higher points as Hera and mounted Olwyn are both great heroes
who can bring a good number of troops with them, so I think they are always
your starting point.
Possible
Pivots
I would
imagine that a lot of people eyeing up this army have played Army of Edoras
from the starter box and want to expand their options. Defenders is a great,
low-commitment pivot that only involves painting a handful of heroes and
potentially a few more Warriors.
After these
two, you can expand to the more contemporary flavour of Rohan, adding in more
heroes, Riders, and Royal Guard as necessary. You’ve got great options for
foot-slogging Rohan in Defenders of Helm’s Deep, which adds in elves for
some high fight value support and vicious shooting. Unmounted Rohan also show
up in Men of the West. If you have purchased one of the bundles then you
can pivot to any number of armies that feature mounted Rohan, and after playing
Defenders you will be well stocked with painted dismounts!
Pros:
Super
themey
Fun and
flavourful named heroes
Dominant 2
wins games
High skill
ceiling with Lief
Decent at
range if maxed on bows & spears
Cons:
Helm is overcosted
Limited
troop options with no real F4
No model for Olwyn at time of writing
Cannot
bring a full back rank of spears due to throwing weapon limit
Low defense
across the board
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 is a
lovely starting point. You’ve got slightly above average numbers, two really robust
heroes, decent might, very healthy shooting (if you can get a round of shooting
off with all of your bows and spears, it’s quite scary) and even better, you
only need a single pack of warriors and riders each.
List #2:
For the
record, if I was trying to make a strong list, I’d absolutely have Olwyn
here instead of Helm, and she would definitely find her way in to the list at
800. But this is really a pretty good balance of power and theme. I think the
game would pivot on trying to get a single turn where the Captain, Helm and
Hera all have a free Heroic Combat to smash apart the enemy lines, and go from
there. Considering you’ve got two fairly massive heroes, this list is pretty
healthy on numbers, too!
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: 8
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: 7
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: 6
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: 6
How fun is
that army to play, and crucially, how fun is it to play against?
Total: 31
A fairly
middling 31 for Defenders, and that score is really buoyed by theme and collectability.
Hobby drops a few points – but will gain these back once the full roster is
available for purchase! On the fun side of things, the troop selection is very
limited but you’ve got some very unique heroes and a big glass cannon, which always
leads to eventful games, one way or another.
Next week
we’ll be continuing our coverage of the War of the Rohirrim armies with the counterpart
to Defenders – it’s Besiegers of the Hornburg!
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