Army List Review: Defenders of the Pelennor

Dan Stu: In a change from the last 2 weeks of highly restrictive army lists, review #4 takes us over to the Pelennor for one of the most iconic last stands in all of fiction! 

The sales pitch: An honest to goodness, traditional salad-type army list with tons of crunchy variety and only a light, low-calorie dressing. By which I mean this army is heavy on the roster size, light on the special rules. If you’ve got the old Pelennor box set, if you’ve built up a sizeable collection of Good models and want to run a supergroup, or if you want the closest experience to the old allies matrix but in the new edition, this is the list for you.

Credit Games Workshop

What makes it tick?

Disclaimer – as this is such a massive roster, we won’t be doing a deep dive on any of the specific units, which will be covered in much more detail in future instalments.

Remember list building? Like, actual list building, with tough decisions and opportunity costs? That’s what this roster offers. The beating heart of this list is its unbelievably good selection of top and middle tier heroes. Whereas most lists in ‘new SBG’ revolve around a single main hero and a smattering of named or generic captains, Defenders exudes so much star power it would make Varda herself blush. Your massive hitters are Aragorn, Gandalf and Eomer, supported by Legolas, Gimli, the King of the Dead, Theoden, Eowyn, Gamling, Irolas… The list goes on. Whereas a lot of new edition army lists can be accused of building themselves, that is certainly not the case for Defenders.

The troop selection is equally varied, with a broad selection of warriors including cavalry options from Rohan, great all-rounders from Gondor and super-heavy brawlers from Dunharrow. You’ve even got really robust ranged options from skirmishing Riders, longbow-wielding Citadel Guard, and even a trebuchet if you’re feeling frisky.

And while your army bonus only gives you one special rule, it’s a good one – a free heroic combat, once per game, per hero. If we compare this with Riders of Theoden’s ‘Death’, it’s very favourable – the free heroics aren’t gated by your General being alive and within range, and don’t all have to be called on the same turn. Definitely powerful, and potentially game-deciding if used well, either to blitz enemy troops to even up the model count, or to make a play for a key enemy hero.

However, there is a slight catch. Not only do your troops not get any special rules - there is an opportunity cost in that they are also not gaining value from army bonuses they would have had in other lists. It means no +1 strength on the charge for your Rohan cavalry, no  +1 fight value bonus for your ghosts, no fearless Minas Tirith troops. Your rank and file are strictly limited to what is on their profiles, which may cause them to struggle in a world where a lot of armies' special rules give their troops an edge. This isn’t terrible for Minas Tirith warriors with their very robust stat lines and shieldwall, and they should probably make up the bulk of your troops allowing you to mitigate this shortcoming. However, it can sting for your more elite options.

A cool feature of Defenders is that it shares many units with other lists, so that you can often take a list built under a different army (e.g. Atop the Wall) and run it as Defenders. It's a nice change of pace - you can even 'ally in' a new hero to keep things fresh – again, trading in that list’s army bonuses to do so.

Some people have expressed a bit of disappointment in this list and in its evil counterpart, the Legions of Mordor, and their limited and fairly generic special rules. I think this criticism is fair, and speaks to the designers being cautious around armies with lots of list building options in a new world of highly restrictive armies. Still, I wouldn't have minded something a bit more thematic in an army list that covers so many memorable cinematic moments.

So all in all, what you lose in specialism and army bonuses, you’ll need to make up for in versatility, or by making some off-kilter skew lists at low points that might catch your opponent off-guard. It’s a supervised outing for old-school SBG list building.

Credit Games Workshop

Assembling your Army

Putting together a Defenders list is surprisingly tricky. The high cost of your big heroes puts you squarely in to ‘lean army’ territory (by which I mean you'll likely be running at a below-average model count), which is exacerbated by some of your key units (Aragorn, Legolas and Eomer) only being able to bring along expensive ghosts and cavalry in their warband. This means that if you want to assemble a strong shieldwall, which you probably do, you’ll need to ‘pay the Gondor tax’ by bringing the likes of Gandalf or another Gondorian hero. Their defensive troops just need to stand still and die slowly, as it’s the beefy & mounted heroes that will do most of the work, in what's known as a hammer and anvil playstyle. The doughty Irolas is a good choice to helm the battle line while your big hitters get to hitting.

A more elite infantry approach, if you're OK with added complexity in your deployment and being at the mercy of terrain and maelstrom, is a front rank of shield ghosts backed up by F4 WOMT or Citadel Guard with spears. The complexity is due to these troops coming from separate warbands, something I'm often hesitant to do as any disruption in your deployment can torpedo your game or force your heroes to deploy in restrictive locations. 2 of the current 6 matched play scenarios have irregular deployment, and scrambling to assemble your battleline at the start of a third of your games is not ideal - it can and will cost you games. That said, bumping up from a D7-when-in-shieldwall MT warrior to a D8-all-the-time ghost for 6pts is steep, but you get terror and blades of the dead in the bargain, as well as a convenient F4 support to sidestep the ghosts' lack of fight value. This sort of list building chicanery to mitigate units' weaknesses feels really reminiscent of old SBG, and I'm here for it. If you add Irolas and Citadel Guard with spears in the mix, then you're looking at a really potent infantry centrepiece. 

In terms of collecting models for a Defenders army, there are no wrong answers. Use the models you already have, followed by the models you want the most. Almost every named hero in this list is available in glorious new plastic sets, the only outliers being metal Gamling and resin Irolas, although they’re both lovely models. Each represented faction has at least one plastic troop option, with a few metal models still lurking about, like the Rohan Royal Guard and the Citadel Guard  - both still readily available. The Three Hunters gets you your unmounted plastic heroes, and Legolas and Gimli should probably find their way in to a lot of Defenders lists due to their outstanding value and versatility. You’ll need a banner, which can come from Gondor (Minas Tirith Commanders), Rohan (Mounted Rohan Commanders) or Dunharrow (Army of the Dead banner bearer). The army is ludicrously scaleable, to the point where you can use it for massive narrative 5000pt Pelennor re-enactments without even spamming generic heroes, so grab your favourite troops and go from there.

However, it’s worth saying that this army really comes in to its own at very high points. Defenders will still be adding named heroes when most other armies are spamming captains and banners. Its natural habitat is at points levels that are rarely, if ever, seen in competitive play - so it's really half way between a narrative and matched play army. If you want to run this list to its fullest cinematic potential, with all factions and their heroes fully represented, you’re looking at a huge number of purchases and hobby hours. Taking every named hero comes to over 1300 points before adding troops - that’s serious SBG endgame stuff. Bonus points if you’ve roped in a friend to do the same for the Evil half, with a massive Legions of Mordor list. Even more bonus points if you send us pictures of it.

Possible Pivots

Honestly, for newer players, I’d say this is really a list to pivot to, not from. It’s something you would run because you have the models to run it, not the other way around. Once you have a good chunk of the models, it’s not a bad army to aim towards at higher points.

The obvious counterpoint is that if you’ve managed to snag an out-of-print Battle of Pelennor Fields box set, in which case this list becomes a fantastic starting point, and I’d just pick up the Three Hunters to have a hero lead the ghost contingent.

If you’ve bought and painted models with specifically Defenders in mind, then you can take your Rohan, Gondor or Dunharrow troops and be well on your way to a full army. If you’ve gone for Rohan, for example, Riders of Theoden/Eomer are easily done. On the Gondor side you’ve got lists like Minas Tirith and Atop the Wall which are easily assembled if you’ve already got your block of troops. Return of the King is a particularly straightforward pivot from the ghosts, only needing a couple of heroes and a banner.

Credit Games Workshop

Pros:

Massive unit selection

Legolas

Proper old school list building

Multiple strong combat heroes

Access to Magic

Legolas

Free heroic combats

Cons:

No special rules to help troops

Cannot capitalise on the huge roster at low or medium points

Legolas (oops, this one is a Pro)

Lack of specialisation

Expensive troop options for most of your best heroes

  

Lists & Discussion

In these reviews, we’ll start with an ‘entry level’ list that you might want to aim for as you start collecting the army, 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 fun little kickabout was a happy accident from a slow-grow league in which our own Dan Slob wanted to run Return of the King at 400pts - only to find that , after including the mandatory Aragorn and King of the Dead, he was left with a pitiful 140pts to spend on ghosts (and any Dunharrow player will tell you that 140pts does not a lot of ghosties buy). However, ghosts are also present in Defenders, and Leggy and Gimmz come in at a really reasonable 200pts, offering up a huge amount of utility and resources for that cost – especially if you can keep Legolas ahead on kills, thus turning Gimli in to an effective 3A S6 F6 dervish. You could also easily add in Irolas, a banner, and a bunch of citadel guard to this list for a higher points option. 

Is this list in the ‘spirit’ (excuse the pun) of this Army? Debatable, but this is just the type of skew list building that’s often absent in the new version of SBG.

List #2:

Definitely more what you have in mind when you think of Defenders of the Pelennor! It’s all heroes, all the time. For 1000pts this list is very lean (our regular benchmark for 1000pts is 50 models), but with 5 free heroic combats (edit: 6 free combats, we forgot Pippin!), magic, several mega brawly heroes and a rather tanky (if small) battle line, it can do a lot of damage quickly. The 6 Citadel Guard could be equipped with bows, but the added punch they get from spear supporting near Irolas gives your shield wall a bit of teeth, something they're sorely lacking. Your plan here would be to anchor your 13-wide battle line against terrain, protect the flanks the best you can, and hope they last long enough that your heroes can win you the game.

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: 6 at low points, 10 at high points – we’ll call it an 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: 6

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: 8

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: 35

A tough army to score! Theme may be controversial, but I think in most standard points levels, only a small subset of the Pelennor will be represented. The power may look a bit on the low side, but in the hands of a skilled player, strong heroes, Magic, and free Heroic Combats will always create opportunities – as will list building options. Collectability scores reasonably well, as you can collect this army in all plastics, but the cost can seriously balloon if you want all of the options. The hobby factor scores high - a fully realized Defenders army is a serious hobby goal. The fun of this army really stems from its mass of list building possibilities. And from Legolas, of course.

Army List Review: Fangorn

The sales pitch: 

Does being hasty fill you with dread? Do you have an overwhelming hatred of Orcs? Do you enjoy painting brown? Then do we have the army for you! An all monster list that has become surprisingly effective in this edition with some very fun new rules to keep it interesting.

What makes it tick?

Fangorn has had a bit of a glow up this edition. All monster lists have really benefitted from the reduction in Magic, the introduction of the Dominant rule and an increase in powerful thematic special rules. In particular now being able to make a strike at supporting models if they kill the model in base contact with them, making them much more effective at clearing out chaff. These all come together in Fangorn to make a really fun army that is super quick to get on the tabletop.

A standard Ent is F7, S8, D8, with 3 attacks and 3 wounds. This is already great for 100 points but then you add in, Fearless, Terror, Dominant 3 and an obscene S10 Throw Stones attack with 18" range!! That is truly insane and means that opposing Monsters and Heroes can be dealt with at range instead of in combat. You can also assign a particular flavour to each Ent in your army and each one comes with a fun special rule:

Beech lets you reroll 1s to wound

Oak gives you +1 wound

Chestnut gives Mighty Blow

Ash gives you a 3+ shoot value and lets you move half and shoot

All of these are great, with perhaps Chestnut being slightly situational. I don't think there is a wrong answer to which you pick but my personal order would be Beech, Ash, Oak, Chestnut, just because I think the Throw Stones is so much fun. The caveat to these is you can't take multiple of them until you have 1 of each etc, so no entire forest of models wounding on 3s rerolling 1s which would be a bit much.

Then come the heroes. there are 3 to choose from, though Treebeard is compulsory. You'll want him anyway though as he gets upgraded to F8 with 4 wounds and 4 attacks, as well as Dominant 5. He also has his shoulder mounted gatling cannons in Merry and Pippin (they have a S1 Throw Stones which is very funny when they wound something). They also count as models for your army's model count so breaking the army is difficult as you have to kill multiple Ents to do so!

Beechbone is also F8 and 4 wounds but only 3 attacks. However he gets rerolls to wound against Orcs, Goblins, Uruks and Isengard making him especially good for Good v Evil tournaments. You have to be careful with him though as he always has to charge these models if able and he doesn't have any Fate so can be liable to getting swarmed.

Finally Birchseed (he'll always be Quickbeam to me), is only F7, S7 and 3 wounds. He also has only 1 Might but 3 Fate so he's another one that you need to be careful with. You do get free Heroic Moves of the opponent chose to take Priority, which is pretty good but as Ents don't have Monstrous Charge it's also not the end of the world for you to move second so this guy is definitely the third choice out of the heroes.

Lastly let's look at the army list special rules. Ents have a bunch of immunities to Magic, including, most notably, Transfix. They also get a unique Brutal Power Attack called Bludgeon (not technically an army rule but they all get it). It's the same as last edition but for the uninitiated you pick up an enemy model in base contact and use it to whack all the other models in your combat. Each time you do both the whacker and the whackee suffer a S8 hit. If your whacking stick dies that doesn't matter and the attack keeps going until you fail to kill a model in base contact. However, it is important to note that this does not combo with the new Monster rule of being able to hurt supports as it is not a Strike but a Brutal Power Attack. I think there is definitely less use for Bludgeon now as the ability to hit supports is just so good when you attack normally. You can max out at 6 Strikes (assuming spears not pikes) when attacking normally whereas Bludgeon only targets those in base contact. You'll need to make a decision as to which is better situationally but it is worth noting that Bludgeon could stop before you have killed anything whereas with Strikes you'll always get all of them.

Assembling your Army

This is very easy, GW literally only sell 3 models for Fangorn: Treebeard, Birchseed and an Ent (though Beechbone has literally just been announced this week!). The Ent kit is very customisable though so you can definitely make a variety of different looking Ents from it. There is also a metal Ent that occasionally goes on Made To Order so keep an eye out for that. See how I converted one here.

Possible Pivots

None! Currently Fangorn is Fangorn and that's it.

 

Pros:

Every one of your models is high quality and can duke it out with the best of them.

Very strong ranged attack.

Dominant means they actually have play in objective scenarios.

Cons:

Low model count.

No access to fight rerolls. Once you are out of Might and fluff your roll you may be in for a bad time!

Some scenarios are very tricky for them (Recon and Destroy the Supplies in particular)

 

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:

At 500 points the choice is between the 3 heroes or Treebeard and 3 friends. I think I lean towards the extra body as at 500 points there aren't going to be a huge array of threats across from you and an extra body is really helpful in most scenarios. It also means to be broken all of your Ents have to die which is a tall order for other forces at 500 points.

 

List #2:

Here I have just added the two extra heroes. At 800 you really need the Might so they are a bit of a must at this point. I've split them into 3 squads. You have your all rounder squad in Treebeard and the Ash. They are happy to power forward or hang back and be on rock duty as needed. Beechbone and Beech Jnr are your angry squad, they want to get stuck in and use their rerolls. Birchseed and the Oak are the speed squad using Heroic Moves to get where they need to. The Oak here also gives an extra bit of bulk to this portion. Really though you want to keep them all together as much as possible to stop yourself being surrounded and taken out. 

 

 

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: 5

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: 9

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: 8

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: 7

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: 7

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

Total: 36/50

Scoring this was tricky as every time I went to write a high number I had a thought that stopped me doing so. Theme-wise, obviously they are Ents but there isn't really anything to capture their biggest moment in the story: The Last March of the Ents. I like that they lob stones and can't be moved but it seems odd they don't have a fear of fire or get extra wounded by it. In terms of Power, from what I have seen they are just really good so they get a high score! Cost & Collectability and Hobby factor both have ups and downs. Ents are cheap and are really fun to convert, but that conversion is pretty much mandatory over 500 points so depends on how you feel about it. Plastic Treebeard is really lovely though. Finally Fun factor, they are super fun to play with but I am not convinced they are fun to play against. I have in the past just stood 3 Ents still and killed off two out of three heroes with rocks before they even got to me. I felt bad about that! There is something about playing by the seat of your pants that I really like though, and I've never had a bad time with the Ents!

Army List Review: Lurtz's Scouts

Dan Stu: This week we're looking at our first Evil army, and it's a great one to begin with - easy to collect, and has really had a glow up in the new edition. It's Lurtz's Scouts!

The sales pitch:

The clue’s in the name! Lurtz and scouts. It goes really fast, it hits pretty hard, has great numbers and, thanks to some massive buffs, Lurtz is now the rockstar he was always meant to be. Find the halflings!

Credit Games Workshop

What makes it tick?

While this list keeps the 66% break point common to other Isengard lists, there are really two rules that define it.

First and most important is the 8” move across the whole list. Add to this the free march from your drum and you’re looking at 11” moves during the opening turns of the game thanks to a War Drum – make no mistake, these are some speedy boys and will get you to your objectives fast, so you're looking strong in missions like Hold Ground and Recon. 

The second defining rule is Lurtz’s flashy new free heroic combat once per turn. Used correctly in tandem with Lurtz’s very healthy combat profile of F6 3A S5, this makes it a really dynamic army, capable of some really big flashy plays. A big heroic combat in which Lurtz and a handful of scouts can move 8” can do some really unpredictable things.

Lurtz also has a really fun ‘assassination protocol’ built in to his toolkit. It goes something like this:

• Use sharpshooter to kill the enemy General’s mount, if applicable and possible.
• Use free heroic combats to chew a path to the enemy general.
• Charge in to the enemy general, using your rerollable shield throw (75% chance) to knock them prone on the way in.
• Heroic strike and attempt to kill them in one turn of combat, burning might if necessary - 6 attacks at S5 should put a dent in most Generals.
• Regain might from General Hunter if you kill them.

Sure, it takes a few stars aligning to make it happen, but it’ll feel mighty slick when it does!

Ugluk is somewhat less convincing in this list. At first glance he has a ton of brilliant special rules – which he does – but the best of these does not apply in this army as it needs Orcs present to activate. That means the 20pt differential between him and a captain is buying you a point of might, a hand weapon instead of a 2H (important when you have no spear supports), his special rule, and a second heroic strike. Not great, not terrible, and still probably worth bringing.

Thanks to the very lean selection of models, it would be fair to call Lurtz’s Scouts a one-trick pony. It does what it does well, but it is definitely not a varied toolkit and will run out of options to deal with armies that have lots of toys at higher points levels. Your games will usually involve you trying to encircle your opponent with your high move value – given their lack of spears, this is really the only way to bring your body count to bear, meaning that they really struggle in dense or urban terrain where they have no option but to throw themselves against an entrenched shield wall.

Rounding out your special rules is a board-wide Woodland Creature, giving you options to be very tricky on certain boards.

Credit Games Workshop

Assembling your Army

On the hobby & collectability side of things, it’s a very newcomer-friendly army. You can run it with 3 purchases – scouts, which you can source on their own or in the Isengard Battlehost – Lurtz & Ugluk, and the Uruk Scout commanders, from which you’ll use every model except the Shaman. Past a certain points level, you will most likely need more scouts, another captain and another banner, but there’s a real argument for just running this list at low points. It’s a really cheap army, doesn’t require any converting (unless you want to add shields to your shieldless scouts), and all models should be easily available. Sadly we have no plastic heroes (yet) so we’re stuck with metal characters and a really wonky-looking Ugluk, but there are far worse in the Middle-Earth range. The Scout models are a little long in the tooth at this point but they’re still extremely serviceable.

Possible Pivots

With a suite of painted scouts, you can easily run Ugluk’s Scouts by adding a handful of orcs, Snaga & Grishnakh. Alternatively, if you picked up the Isengard Battlehost, you’re well on your way to taking Muster of Isengard (add Saruman & Uruk Warriors) or Army of the White Hand (Saruman and Hill Tribesmen).

 

Pros

Fast & excellent scenario play

Great objective holders

Great model count

Decent shooting inc. Sharpshooter on Lurtz

Robust combat stat lines

Great at low points

Very good at Maelstrom deployment

Easy to collect

Powerful at flanking

Cons

A one-trick pony

No spear supports

Struggles against big heroes

Low defense across the board

Need to be able to flank – weak against strong infantry lines

Bad at higher points

Where’s Mauhur!?!

RIP
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. However, in this case, the entry level list might be as far as you want to go!

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:

You’ll struggle to find a more natural fit than Lurtz’s scouts at 450pts. This army can be made with 3 purchases, assuming you’re able to source a few extra Uruk shields and add them to the naked scouts – it’s probably worthwhile, as D5 is a big step up from D4, and is often the difference maker for denying an enemy S4 hero a successful heroic combat. The main reason I’ve gone for Ugluk over a captain here is because it allowed us to hit 450pts without needing to buy a second box of scouts, but that’s less of a concern at, say, 400pts.

List #2:

As we’ve said, the list really tapers off at higher points levels. Beyond 500 or so, you’re firmly in the ‘spam captains and troops’ territory and, what’s more, you’re really looking at including a second banner to cover you army’s extremely large footprint. At higher points, more armies are able to gum up the board with their infantry lines too, meaning that the shine really wears off on the Scouts’ flanking strategy.

 

On to the scores! This being our first evil instalment, we’ll explain below each score out of ten, and what it is we’re looking for.

Theme: 9

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: 6

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: 10

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: 8

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

Total: 39/50

A very robust 39 for the Scouts! Very high scores on theme and collectability, as this army wants for nothing in those areas. The small roster of fast and strong lads will always be something you're happy to get out on the table, too. 

Join us next week for a trip to everybody's favourite spooky forest!

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!

    

February FAQ: Don't let the Dragon Emperor Drag On, and Ents are OP now

Dan Stu: It's February again, and we all know what that means! 

No, we're not talking about lapsed New Year's resolutions and seasonal depression - it's FAQ time! 

Credit: Warhammer Community

It's quite slim pickings this time around, which we can view as a good sign of the game being in a pretty healthy place. Had we wished for one or two extra bits? We'll bite our tongues on that for now...

HEADLINE - DRAGON EMPEROR GETS COMEUPPANCE

Let's talk first about the one big nerf which I think we all saw coming a mile off, which is that the Dragon Emperor now costs an extra 30pts. This feels like it's been on the way ever since his points cost was first announced, prompting every SBG player to say in unison 'The Dragon Emperor costs HOW MUCH!?'

While it's a pretty decent response to pretty outrageous performance the Easterling Legendary Legion has been putting in at GBHL events, we're not sure many of us predicted a points change, which are very unusual for SBG. In SBG, units are balanced in the context of their armies, and buffs / nerfs tend to take the form of  new releases, Legendary Legions, special rules and modifications to alliances, which are all much more interesting than points tweaks, which GW tend to use as a last resort. 

And let's be honest, the Dragon Emperor was only making waves inside his Legendary Legion. While he was clearly undercosted as a model, this was counterbalanced by the rest of the Easterling faction's 'meh-ness', and it was only in the Legion that things got problematic. So with that said, let's have a look at the various ways in which the community had predicted that Emperor would be deposed:

Solution #1: Remove the +1 Fight bonus

Pros: Emperor is now an expensive paperweight

Cons: Emperor is now an expensive paperweight

Easterlings are bad again

Solution #2: Decrease or remove the banner effect

Pros: Has a big impact on his buffing ability

Cons: The Emperor loses a bit of his identity as a centrepiece support hero

Impacts DE outside of the LL

Solution #3: Increase points cost

Pros: Can be tuned easily

Has a meaningful impact on model count at low points

Cons: Emperor is now dead outside the LL

It's not a very interesting fix

MESBG doesn't really 'do' points tweaks

Might not be enough 

Solution #4: Remove extra reroll in the LL

Pros: Only hits the LL, which is the only problematic incarnation

Cons: Removes one of the few Legion bonuses - it is now basically just the same as regular Easterlings apart from free BDs, which is boring

Solution #5: Remove free BD upgrade in LL

Pros: It was a weird rule to start with and skewed things towards the Legion way too much

Ebay gets flooded with cheap BD models

Cons: Black dragons are now just in the back rank, it only works out at around a 20pt nerf

Everybody who bought 4 packs of Black Dragons writes GW an angry letter

When we spell these out, it's disappointing but not really surprising that GW chose the route of a points tweak. It preserves the character of the model who, while he might be detested by many, still occupies a really interesting and unique niche in the Middle Earth roster. It's a very 'play it safe' way to curb his effectiveness, especially at lower points, where the LL had a shockingly high model count and could be really oppressive to play against.

However, the big casualty here is non-LL Easterling lists which will now never see the Dragon Emperor. Nobody was doing this competitively, but it was a fun and experimental way to play (some of us may have had Emperor & Chariot lists in the works) and the disproportionate hit to these wacky, uncompetitive lists feels a lot like collateral damage. The Emperor will now only even be seen in his most disliked and arguably his most boring incarnation - a big whiff from GW on that front. 

In a vacuum, I think that removing the free Black Dragon upgrade in the Legendary Legion is a much neater fix. It targets only the legion, brings back the 'high fight at the back' playstyle which is a unique Easterling quirk, and let's be honest, the rule was only there in the first place to sell a ton of the very tasty but very expensive FW Black Dragon models that GW oh-so-coincidentally released at the same time. We get it - GW are running a business here, and the game and community we love is built on the back of a successful business model designed to sell toy soldiers. But this kind of shoot first, ask questions later approach is something we're more used to seeing the the more heavily monetised games like 40k, and we'd be lying if we said it didn't leave a sour taste.

But the good news is that the emperor could have been absolutely gutted, and he wasn't. He's still well designed and perfectly playable, even if not top tier any more. Compared to some knee jerk nerfs that makes a unit unplayably bad, or totally remove whatever made them cool in the first place, it could be a lot worse.

Time will tell whether this nerf is enough to bring him in to line, though - it's ultimately around a 3-model penalty to the LL which still functions in exactly the same way. 3 models isn't nothing, but I have a feeling that the list will still be a big shiny brick wall in certain matchups. And the mumak in the room, of course, is that this nerf may just roll out the red carpet for the other list that we've seen dominating GBHL podiums recently... 

Credit: Micheal Bradford

Editor's note: This is all very nice Dan, but can we please address the ACTUAL nerf to the Dragon Emperor?

Dan S: Whoops - my mistake. Let me sort that real quick:

RIP Dragon Emperor, 2022-2024. I for one welcome our new Ent overlords, etc, etc. 

That's your lot for balance updates. On to the rules clarifications and changes.

RULES CLARIFICATION - PAIRING OFF FIGHTS 

Listen, here at Drawn Combat we're a classy bunch, and we don't like to say 'I told you so'.

But in this instance, we totally told you so, so suck it nerds. 

This diagram generated a decent bit of conversation (and dare I say controversy?) back when we posted our 'Upping your Game' article, and it seems that common sense has prevailed. Despite some poor wording, it was clearly intended that the priority player can allocate fights to their advantage and this was the way it was usually played at events. However, the relevant section of the rules was worded clumsily, leading to some overzealous application of 'rules as written', with people saying that having a 1v1 was always mandatory if possible and model C would always have to fight model B, regardless of whether that was advantageous for the player with priority.

Now it's clearly established that the priority player can divide these fights up in to a pair of 2v1s if they like, which is the much more intuitive ruling. In the case of red having priority, this is good, as it evens up fights and gives them a chance to un-trap model B before it has to fight. This is the way it was played in practise 95% of the time, and the competitive community had landed on this as the correct interpretation.

However. It's not all peaches and cream. The change to the wording does introduce some new complications, too, and the ramifications of these may take some time to unpick.

Without the '1v1 where possible' wording, there is no longer a requirement to pair models in to the maximum number of fights, and this could have quite a big impact on the non-priority player's ability to 'peel off' models from fights. This is helpfully illustrated by adding a new red model D to this diagram:

Under the old rules, this would have to be resolved as 3 fights, which may or may not include a trap, depending on the order in which the fights are resolved. Now, may be resolved as only two fights - a 3v1 vs red B,  and a 2v1 with red D and A - which is a potentially massive change. 

Blue having priority here results in a trap as long as they resolve the fight with red B first - same as before - but now that blue C can join the same fight, that's potentially an extra 2 strikes against trapped red B compared to previously. If there are any heroes in the mix, that's an even bigger change and favours the priority player much more. It does make the game more intuitive, as there are no arbitrary restrictions on how fights are paired and the only restriction is that everything in base contact needs to fight somebody - but we'll need to do a bit of work to see just how big this change is. 

However, we've said it before and we'll say it again - movement, control zones and pairing off fights constitutes the bulk of the game's complexity, and they could really do with fleshing out in the rules to make sure this stuff is as clear as it possibly can be. A flowchart or two wouldn't hurt, either. 

BUY ONE AXE, GET ONE FREE (THIS IS A MANDATORY OFFER)

Was anybody doing this? I never saw it and now I guess I never will. If you are the one person who modelled all of your Acolytes to have one sword and one axe - kudos for the effort, and I hope you kept some spare axes lying around. 

IT'S NOT OVER, ANAKIN - I DO NOT HAVE THE HIGH GROUND

This one didn't come up all that often, but it did always feel a bit bad when your opponent had an unscalable cliff or building in their board half and you didn't, resulting in you being peppered by spells or bow fire all game with no recourse. A simple change but a good one. 

However, it's still slightly unclear whether you can deploy in terrain that is theoretically scalable, but that your opponent can no longer climb once your models are deployed - e.g., narrow balconies and trees. Technically it would be possible for a model to reach them over the course of the game if they died to ranged fire, so there still might be some 'feels bad' moments during deployment. 

RULES CLARIFICATION - CONTROL ZONES

I'm not sure this was really ever misinterpreted much, the rules are quite clear on starting a move inside another control zone - just don't move closer and you're golden. Clearly some people were confused on it, though, so there's no harm in spelling it out. 

COME CLOSER, I WANT TO HIT YOU WITH MY BOW

Again, I'm not sure how many people were doing this and I'd hate to be the TO who had to admit that, rules as written, someone carrying a bow is technically not 'unarmed' - but it's no longer an exploitable wording. Lovely.

RULES CLARIFICATION - BLUDGEON

RIP overpowered Ents 2024-2024, it was fun while it lasted. 

That's pretty much it - there were a couple of small rules clarifications but nothing meaty. The main event here was the Dragon Emperor nerf, and time will tell what the effects will be - but early reactions seem to be pretty mixed. Regardless of how you feel about it, get used to seeing an awful lot a certain evil alliance until the next FAQ drops!