Character Comparisons: Evil Combat Heroes

Today we have another edition of Character Comparisons and we have gone for a big one!

Evil Combat Heroes

When looking for some Evil characters for comparison they seem to come in a few different categories which there isn't much point looking between. No one needs to know that Saruman is better at Magic than a Troll Chieftain but the Troll is better in combat. So with that in mind we have tried to pick characters than all have a similar use, what I am calling Utility Beatsticks. I am defining this as characters whose main use is in combat but that provide other utility to the army too. So today's contenders are: Gothmog, Shagrat, Amdur, Suladan and a Khandish King on Chariot. Everyone has all the upgrades they can have, so Gothmog has Warg and Shield, Shagrat has Heavy Armour and Shield of Cirith Ungol, Amdur has an Armoured Horse, Suladan has a Horse and Bow with Poisoned Arrows and finally the King has a Chariot. So without further ado:

Police Lineup: Please can you identify the model that ruined your army

Hero Stuff

1st: Gothmog
2nd: Amdur
3rd: Shagrat
4th: Suladan
5th: King

This is a tricky one straight away as there guys have a plethora of special rules between them. I have to give 1st place to Gothmog here. Though he only has 3/3/1 for M/W/F (which is not the best of these guys) I think that Master of Battle just makes him too good in this category, especially as it is automatic and doesn't even need a dice roll. In practice this gives him way more than 3 Might in games as he can automatically counter call any Moves in particular. He also has what I think are the 3 best Heroic Actions in the game: March, Strike and Defence. 2nd place goes to Amdur. He is also a 3/3/1 character but more importantly he has Blood and Glory (meaning he gets a point of Might back whenever he kills a Hero) and The Lord of Blades. The Lord of Blades allows Amdur to call a free Strike if his opponent does so. This is huge as Amdur is already F6 with an Elven weapon, making it much more risky for the opponent to call a Strike. In practice what it actually does is stops your opponent from calling Strikes in the first place, allowing Amdur to beat up mid tier characters with ease. 3rd place is Shagrat, mostly because he also has Blood and Glory, however he is the only one of these characters to have the full 3/3/3 stats so that is a point in his favour. 4th goes to Suladan for also being 3/3/1 and having access to Stirke, March, Resolve and Challenge but nothing else fancy going on. Last place is the King who only has a measly 2/2/1 but does also have Strike and March (as well as the less useful Resolve).

Hitting Power

1st: Amdur
2nd: King
3rd: Shagrat
4th: Suladan
5th: Gothmog

This is another tricky one. Everyone here is mounted apart from Shagrat, but he also gets the knockdown bonus thanks to his big Shield. They also all have 3 attacks base too. Everyone is S4 apart from Shagrat at S5, and everyone is F5 apart from Amdur at F6. For that reason I am giving 1st place to Amdur. He is just more likely to win fights so I am valuing this more than Shagrat's S5 as you have to win fights to be able to hurt things. Amdur also has an Elven Blade and is a Banner for himself, making him hit even harder. I initially had Shagrat in 2nd but when I remembered about the King's Impact Hits that tipped things in his favour. Two S4 hits before the combat even starts is huge, especially against Cavalry. Also, as Shagrat is not mounted he doesn't have the opportunity to get the extra attack on the charge. That being said, Shagrat is still definitely in 3rd place thanks to his high Strength. Suladan and Gothmog are identical in terms of Fight and Strength but Suladan has Poison on his weapons so he gets 4th place and Gothmog comes last. It is also worth mentioning that both Suladan and the King have a Bow too, allowing them to do damage outside of combat.

Dan's lovely Amdur on the right

Survivability

1st: Shagrat
2nd: King
3rd: Amdur
4th: Gothmog
5th: Suladan

1st place here goes to Shagrat. He is D7 and is the only one who has 3F. All the characters have 3 wounds which makes life easy. I did struggle to quantify the King's Chariot here as the fact he has an In The Way for everything, and it is on a 5+ definitely is a huge bonus. However as he only has D6 and 1F I have awarded him 2nd behind Shagrat. 3rd place is Amdur and 4th is Gothmog. Amdur has lower Defence than Gothmog (6 v 7) but he does have an Armoured Horse and, more importantly, his higher Fight and Lord of Blades rules are also defensive as he is less likely to lose fights in the first place. Last place is Suladan. With only D5, an unarmoured Horse and 1F this guy will not be sticking around long if his rolls go badly.

Buffs

1st: Gothmog
2nd: Suladan
3rd: King
4th: Amdur
5th: Shagrat

Gothmog is the obvious winner here. His The Age of Man is Over and The Time of the Orc has Come are so good and get even better in his LL. He is leagues ahead of everyone else in this category. 2nd place goes to Suladan who has a 6" Banner which everyone can use, as well as a 12" Stand Fast. The King comes in 3rd. He also has a 6" Banner (which is even bigger thanks to his larger base) but it can only be used by Khandish models. 4th is Amdur as he has a 3" Banner which has the potential to go up to 6" if Amdur kills the enemy Leader. This is situational at best. Last place is Shagrat who has no buffs to speak of at all.

Control

1st: Gothmog
2nd: King
3rd: Amdur
4th: Suladan
5th: Shagrat

There isn't a huge amount going on in this category but there are a few subtle things. Gothmog wins this one again thanks to his Master of Battle. This is a pretty good control piece as it can stop your opponent from calling Heroics, or even just mitigate them a bit if it goes to a roll off. 2nd goes to the King. His control element is his impact hits, meaning people want to stay out of range of where they could be hit and hence controlling what they do. 3rd is Amdur for his Lord of Blades rule, which makes your opponent think twice before Striking. 4th and 5th are a bit of a toss up really. I put Suladan in 4th just because I guess his Banner might give your opponent more to consider. Shagrat is last again. The poor lad just wants to murder things.

Can I kill stuff now?

Magic

1st: Suladan
2nd: King
3rd: Gothmog/Shagrat/Amdur

Nothing going on here in terms of casting but in terms of resisting Suladan and the King have Heroic Resolve. Suladan gets 1st place as he also has 3 Will whereas the King only has 2. Everyone else is joint 3rd as they all have 3 Will points and nothing else to talk about.

Major Drawbacks
The major drawbacks are all pretty varied here so I haven't bothered ranking them. Gothmog's is his lack of Fate, as is Amdur's. If you roll badly with these guys they can get in trouble quickly since they don't have that Fate cushion to fall back on. To be fair, Suladan and the King also only have 1 Fate but they have bigger problems. Suladan is super squishy at D5, he is a real glass cannon since if he wins fights he has Poison to do a lot of damage, but if he loses he is going down fast. The King has a lack of Heroic stats as well as limited movement potential because of the way the chariot works. Also limited by movement is Shagrat as he can't be mounted. He also has the lowest Courage of all of them too. As you can see, these are way too varied to rank. I guess you could say Gothmog and Amdur have the fewest major drawbacks but I'm not assigning numbers as it is too situational.

The Bigger Picture

1st: Gothmog
2nd: Suladan
3rd: Amdur
4th: King
5th: Shagrat

This category is all about how they fit into their respective armies. Gothmog has to take this one as he is the linchpin of any Orc based list. 2nd is Suladan as he is a super cheap Hero of Legend (the only one here) which is useful for 2 reasons. First because he can bring a lot of troops and second because he can be your leader and allow you to be more reckless with any other HoLs you might have, e.g. The Witch King. 3rd is Amdur because he has both Phalanx and Gleaming Horde, meaning he can fit well into your pike block or Kataphrakt wing. 4th is the King because of his big Banner and last is Shagrat because he is only a Hero of Fortitude.

And the winner is....

Conclusion
So the totals are in. Remember the scoring here is like Golf, lower is better.

Winner: Gothmog (16 points)
2nd: Amdur (19 points)
3rd: Khandish King (20 points)
4th: Suladan (22 points)
5th: Shagrat (25 points)

So it turns out that if you also rank these guys in order of points they cost (highest to lowest) you also get the same order. I guess we could have saved ourselves some time and just done that! It is nice to see that our analysis fits in with what the game designers value too though! Shagrat got off to a strong start, being good in the Heroics and the Hitting Power categories, but then he tailed off as really that is all he does. Don't get me wrong, he is still a great character and an absolute bargain but he is a bit one dimensional. Suladan is a strong piece but let down by his weak defence and average hitting power. The King is surprisingly high up the rankings but I also think he is the most susceptible to variance. If you roll well with him he will murder most things and live forever, but if you roll below average he is in big trouble. Amdur is probably the best duelist that Evil has (barring super-Heroes like Azog) and offers some decent buffs too. Gothmog is the other way around. He is an average fighter (for a Hero) but his buffs are game changing enough to put him at the top of the list.

So that's that! What do you think? Anything you would disagree with? Let us know and please let us know if you have suggestions for other Comparisons in the future!

Character Comparisons: Tom Bombadil v Aragorn

When we look at taking a hero for an army, we are often faced with many choices. The cost plays a
big factor, but also raw efficiency is huge. In this series we look and compare a couple of heroes and weigh in our take on how they compare to each other.

For this article, we're going to look at one, if not the most popular hero in the game. Coming in at a hefty 160 points without upgrades, he certainly takes up a big wedge of your list, and in 500 point games, he's going to take up nearly half of your army! The hero in question is obvious, the one and only Tom Bombadil!

We'll be comparing him to some guy called Aragorn today, surprisingly, this bozo clocks in as a hero of legend, despite showing up maybe twice in the books? Jay Clare, please see to this error, as I assume he is meant to be a Minor/Independent hero.

Let's have a look at their stats, to start with. Aragorn has a decent statline, all things considered. A fight value of 6, with 3 attacks all backed up behind strength 4 will make short work of some of the most popular warriors in the game, such as Ruffians or even some hardy heroes, like Meriadoc! He's let down by his defence value of 5, however he gets 3 MWF, to make up for being so embarrassingly easy to wound. He has access to a horse, if you want a bit of extra movement, very useful when you're running away from fights (which you'll be doing a lot with this guy!). On the heroic action front, he has access to all of them, which is very handy, as you'll definitely be needing them to get over his weaknesses. Finally, he has a pretty decent courage value, a surprising trait for such a minor character.

Tom Bombadil on the other hand, has one of the most impressive statlines in the game. Rather than telling you his stats, the cheeky rascal leaves you in surprise and you must read on to see his stats (giving you more hobby time for your money vs Aragorns boring stats). The only stats Tom permits you to see are his move value of 6”, and his Will of 15, a whole 12 more than puny Aragorn. Reading deeper into Tom's rules, he is completely immune to shooting and magical powers, models being hurled stop 1” away from Tom, presumably in awe at his plump podge. To top it all off he can never be charged, and if he chooses to charge in to embarrass the enemy, he AUTOMATICALLY wins the fight! There's something about him not being able to make strikes, but I'm pretty sure your opponent would let you ignore that bit.... It is Tom, after all! Tom also passes all courage checks he needs to make, and whilst Aragorn has a decent courage value, Tom's is just better in every way. On the heroic front, Tom doesn't need any, he is powerful enough, unlike Aragorn who needs to have access to them all to be considered worthwhile.

On the magic front, Aragorn has nothing. What a loser!

Tom has access Refreshing Song, and Banishment! He's going to be sending spirit models straight back to Sunday, believe you me! Refreshing Song is a very interesting spell too, it heals your friends (What a nice guy, Tom!) and casts on a 3+! When casting you must sing:

“Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo!

Ring a dong! hop along! Fal lal the willow!

Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!

Hey! Come merry dol! derry dol! My darling!

Light goes the weather-wind and the feathered starling.

Down along under Hill, shining in the sunlight,

Waiting on the doorstep for the cold starlight,

There my pretty lady is, River-woman's daughter,

Slender as the willow-wand, clearer than the water.

Old Tom Bombadil water-lilies bringing

Comes hopping home again. Can you hear him singing?”

I'm sure your opponent would love that! Once again, Tom showing how much more hobby time he
can offer versus Aragorn! Lets have a quick look at their biggest downsides and upsides then, now that we've had a dive into their profiles.

In conclusion, I don't see why you'd ever take Aragorn over Tom. He has no spells, can lose fights, doesn't sing and doesn't skip about. If that's not what you want in a character, I don't know what is?!

Character Comparisons: Thranduil v Elrond

Continuing our series in weighing up the pluses and minuses of two heroes will be a comparison between Thranduil and Elrond. I've dabbled in a few forces in my few months of playing SBG and have wanted to try out some elves, so have been thinking about which of the many choices to opt for, narrowing it down to either Rivendell or Thranduil's Halls. Naturally I'd want to size up the power house heroes of each faction! (Elrond is only one of many heroes in Rivendell that you could choose, but he’s my personal favourite so I’ll be focusing on him).

Hero Stuff, Hitting Power, and Survivability

Starting first with Elrond his raw stats are pretty strong, F6, S4, D5 (D7 with heavy armour which you'll almost certainly buy) and 3s in all the right places puts him the upper tier of heroes in the game. Lord of the West means he has a fourth pseudo-attack for both duels and strikes (Thranduil requires a banner nearby to get access to rerolls). He can also buy a horse to improve his mobility and gain extra attacks/knock down on the charge rounding him out as a decent combat character. C7 is also very strong as he can't fail a courage check as long as he has a point of will or might free to spend, and even that will only be necessary 1 out of 36 tests. I'm not sure how valuable that really is in a faction with lots of high courage, but as Harbinger of Evil seems to be so common it can help his force hang on when things start to go wrong and eliminate the chance of poor dice variance putting a spanner in the works. He has a good set of 4 heroic actions. Heroic Strike is a must-have, and the more I play the more it seems that Heroic Defence can also be invaluable. It’s not something you want to spend your might on necessarily, but having access to it can absolutely save his skin and save the game as a result. Heroic Channeling and Resolve are a bit more niche, but both will certainly be useful.

Thranduil on the other hand starts out a little worse, but a lot cheaper. The ability to buy an extra sword and bump him to F7 and 3 attacks seems impossible to turn down. F7 is a very strong attribute to have as it means that there are no basic troops that can match you toe-to-toe and almost all other heroes will have to heroic strike to stand a chance. Even then the odds will be Thranduil's favour to come out on top with his elven made weapons. The blademaster rule is also a benefit he has over Elrond as it means he can hold his own when surrounded and really your opponent will have to avoid swamping him as it will just power him up! He seems like a difficult model to deal with for many forces! He also has the flexibility to buy either a horse or elk for mobility and extra oomph (getting S5 on the charge when mounted on Elk is especially nice). He has both expert rider and fleet foot to get the most out of his mount, and woodland creature. His main downside vs Elrond is his defense is capped at 6 with heavy armour which means that S4 troops and S2 bows (two break points in the game which seem very important) will be wounding him a lot easier than Elrond. He can also be equipped with a bow (something that Elrond has no access to) adding in a little ranged threat. His heroic actions are not bad, but probably not as good as Elrond’s if only because one of his four is taken up by Heroic Accuracy. Strike and Defence are good, and Strength also has value in specific situations and can let him take out high defence enemies more easily.

In terms of the basic profiles and options discussed above I think Thranduil has edged a lead as a combat character, but it's not fair to compare them on that alone so let's dive in to their special rules.

Buffs, Control, and Magic

Elrond has one of the three elven rings of power so is able to reroll his fate rolls, giving him a 0.75 chance of passing each roll rather than 0.5, making each fate more equivalent to an extra wound than for other heroes. Combine this with D7 and Elrond Is much more resilient than Thranduil once he starts taking hits, but Thranduil is less likely to have to take those hits in combat due to F7.

Elrond also has his Foresight ability which is incredibly powerful as controlling the priority phase at certain points can absolutely change the momentum of a game. Thranduil has nothing that can really compare, but then nothing in the game apart from maybe Durin's Ring or Balin really can. It is quite variable as it depends on the roll of a single D6, but is unarguably very strong.

Next, let's look at magic. Upon buying the Circlet of Kings upgrade Thranduil gains access to Aura of Dismay and Nature's Wrath. Elrond has Renew and Wrath of Bruinen. Access to Aura of Dismay is great for Thranduil as it grants him Terror as well as the troops around him. Elrond himself causes terror, but the more terror checks you force your opponent to make the more likely they are to fail and having it across multiple sources makes it much harder to set up surrounds and effective flanks. Nature's Wrath and Bruinen are pretty much directly comparable as the strength 2 hit isn't as impactful as knocking the enemy prone so I'm going to focus on the method of casting. Elrond casts his spells in the traditional way by spending his will points, but Thranduil casts his spells automatically with a value of 6, albeit once per game. The obvious benefit of Elrond's method is that he can cast spells multiple times and have their effect at several key points during a game, although I'm not sure how true this really is in practice. To cast Bruinen he has to get a 4+ so rolling a single die is very risky meaning he'll need at least two, probably even three to get off the spell at a key time, especially if he wants to affect an enemy hero that can try and resist. This also leaves him with no will for courage tests or resisting spells himself and there's no sadder hero than one who can be compelled or transfixed without any trouble. Thranduil can guarantee his spell on a 6, making it difficult to resist, and maintain his will stores. He seems much more consistent to me, although won't be able to hit the highest highs Elrond can when fully optimised.

Interestingly, both heroes have an interaction with both the army bonus of their faction and a specific troop type. Elrond makes missile troops much more accurate on a turn in which they didn't move and also allows Rivendell Knights to not count towards the bow limit making them a fearsome force to deal with and allows the Knight builds to be as effective at kiting as they are. Thranduil's bonus grant's plus one to wound to Mirkwood Elves and Palace Guard. This bonus really helps get around one of the biggest weaknesses of elves, which is their difficulty killing things at S3. Thranduil also gives nearby Palace Guard F6. Having troops (admittedly expensive ones) outfighting most heroes in the game will lead to your enemies having to drain a lot of might and generally be quite scared of engaging. I feel this is more directly applicable across more lists, whereas Elrond's bonuses require much more focused list building for specific strategies.

Major Drawbacks

I don’t think either hero has any major drawbacks, with the possible exception of price. A beefed up Thranduil or standard Elrond aren’t going to be able to fit in smaller point games without having to have low numbers as a result. If they go down quickly it’s a large portion of your force wiped out in a single blow, but this is something that can be avoided with careful play.

Conclusion

To my eyes, both heroes seems strong, however Thranduil pips Elrond to the post for several reasons, mainly coming down to flexibility. Elrond lends himself to being a key part of very specific types of lists, such as the Rivendell Knight armies that have been used to great success by people like Ed Ball, but I think Thranduil has to be considered for pretty much any Thranduil’s Halls army (the clue is in the name I guess). Elrond is in the same faction as Gil-Galad and Glorfindel who are super strong combat characters and allow for buffing troops to F6, but no one character in Rivendell can do as much as Thranduil. He seems to be a very fun character to use and a solid foundation for whatever army he goes in.

Character Comparisons: Thror v Thrain v Thorin

This is the beginning of a new series which will take an in depth look at a few characters at a time and compare them to each other. This has come about because I have been thinking a lot about the Army of Thror recently and trying to build a 600 point list. 600 points is too small to realistically have all of the 'big 3' in it so I have really been trying to get my head around what each of them do. We'll always try to compare similar characters (there isn't much point comparing Damrod to Azog) and will try to look at them in a vacuum as well as in the bigger picture. So without further ado:

Thror v Thrain v Thorin

Rather than just describing each character we will compare them in a number of categories and try to rank them against each other. Thror and Thrain have no upgrades available but we will consider Thorin with the Oakenshield.

Hero Stuff
I think it's a good idea to discuss the 'Hero Stuff' first as it provides a context for everything else we will talk about. All three have 3 Might and 3 Will. Thror has only 1 Fate whereas the other two have 3 Fate. However, as we'll discuss below, Thror has the potential to have more Fate. All three have Heroic Strike (the big one) but that is the only one common to all of them. Thror and Thorin also have Strength and Challenge, whereas Thrain and Thorin have Defence.

Clearly the winner here is Thorin, he has all the 3's as well as the most Heroic Actions. Second place goes to Thrain, and Thror comes in last. Though Thror has the potential to get more Fate, and also passes Fate more easily, his chance of having 3 Fate (i.e. getting 2 free ones) is only 25%. Thrain on the other hand just always has his 3 points, but also his Heroics are just more useful than Thror's.

Hitting Power
The basics of Hitting Power are Attacks, Fight value and Strength. Luckily enough all three have 3A F6 S4 so that forms a good foundation. Where they differ is in their weapons. Both Thror and Thorin have a Sword and Shield so can both Feint (or Stab should someone really scary come along). This is only really useful against anyone F3 or less though (which, admittedly, is a lot of troops), as otherwise you run the risk of just losing the fight anyway. If Thorin Shields and wins then he can also make a single S4 strike thanks to the Oakenshield, very useful if you have run out of Might and are fighting a higher F model as he would be rolling 6 dice to win the duel! 

Thrain, on the other hand, has a two-handed, Master-Forged Hammer. This takes him to effectively S6 and gives him access to Bash. I can't imagine many scenarios when he would want to Bash (maybe knocking Cavalry off their horses, but then why not just strike the horse?), but being effectively S6 is huge! This makes Thrain better against pretty much everything (Feint and Stab provide less of a benefit than just a straight up +1 to wound). He also gets to reroll wounds against Azog or any army containing Azog. Niche but handy. 

Thrain is the winner here, and I am going to put Thorin in second, thanks to the Oakenshield, and Thror in third. 

Survivability
Survivability mainly relies on Defence, Wounds and Fate. All three have 3 Wounds but the big difference is that Thror is D9 compared to the D8 of the other two. This may not seem a 'big difference' but actually it's huge. It comes into play massively when fighting against S4 (i.e. most elite troops and Heroes) as S4 wounds D8 on 6s but D9 on 6/4. Having played against Durin recently I can tell you how annoying this is! This is not to say that D8 is not also excellent on the others. The vast majority of troops in the game are S3 so are wounding D8 on 6/4 too, its just when you go up to S4 that all you need is straight 6s.

We have talked a little about Fate above, but it is worth saying again that Thror has potentially unlimited Fate. However, the maths is not on your side if the game goes on for a long time or he gets trapped. Think how often you fail a Fate roll. If that happens just once then no more Fate for Thror. However Thror and Thorin can both Shield which gives you 6 dice to win the fight with, so hopefully you won't need that Fate roll too often!

The final thing to mention is Heroic Defence on Thrain and Thorin. You would never call this against S3 troops as you are actually making their lives easier, but against Aragorn, Azog or anything S6 or above (or S4 and two handed or S5 and Piercing Strike or even S3, two handed Piercing Strike!) you are getting a great benefit. You can only call it 3 times but hopefully that would be enough to get you out of danger.

This is a tricky category but I think I am going to award first place to Thror just because of how difficult he is to wound in the first place. Thrain and Thorin are remarkably similar but Thorin just pips Thrain as he can Shield.

Buffs
This is an interesting category as each of the Dwarves has a unique buff that they provide but all are very different so they are difficult to compare. Thror provides a 6" Banner effect by way of the army bonus. Obviously this means your allies are restricted but it is an incredibly powerful buff so probably worth it. Having a lot of hand-and-a-half weapons and spears in your army mean you can be much more liberal with your use of two-handed as you are backed up by an unmodified dice and a reroll. Thror also allows you to upgrade your Grim Hammers but we'll discuss this below.

Thrain provides a board-wide Stand Fast! which is crazy powerful considering his Courage 6. Get a War Horn in there to virtually assure that your army never runs away. On the other hand, considering how much D7 is in the army it is pretty hard to break in the first place so maybe this isn't as useful as it first seems. I would imagine it's one of those benefits that you rarely use but when you do it's game changing.

Thorin provides a once per game +1 Strength to all Erebor models within 3". This is really good but has to be declared in the Move Phase so needs to be carefully managed. If you call this and go two-handed Piercing Strike with your Guardians of the King then they become effectively S8!! Yeesh! Watch out Sauron!

As I say these are really hard to compare but I think the one that will be most consistently useful will be Thror so I am giving him the win. Second place goes to Thorin as being able to smash through a line can be game swinging, and the lowest courage in the army is 4 anyway so Thrain's is the "least useful".

Control
There isn't much in the way of Control with these heroes, but both Thror and Thrain have access to The Ring of Durin which allows a once per game priority reroll. Thror gets first dibs on it so he wins, Thrain second and Thorin third as he doesn't really have any control to speak of.

Magic
This is easy: no one has any. As discussed above they all have 3 Will so they are all equally good at resisting too.

Major Drawbacks
Again all three have similar drawbacks in that they are slow moving and don't have access to mounts. This is a problem for almost all Dwarf armies though (looking at you Iron Hills, it's a good job they are expensive to buy!) I guess you could argue that Thror's Banner effect being linked to the army bonus is a bit of a drawback as it really hinders you from taking allies to make up for the army's weaknesses, whereas the other two are self-contained. I suppose that means Thrain and Thorin tie for first place, but this doesn't feel that fair as you can just choose to not ally and 'git gud' with what you have available or stick to Green Allies.

The Bigger Picture
So where do these guys fit in with the rest of the army? We haven't yet mentioned that Thorin is 15 points cheaper than the other two, which is obviously something that needs to be taken into consideration. We briefly mentioned that Thror allows you to upgrade your Grim Hammers to S4 and this is pretty significant. Having played a lot of Minas Tirith I can tell you that being mostly capped at S3 makes a lot of match-ups hard work. With all troops having access to Piercing Strike it is less of a problem here, but massed S4 is often a sign of a powerful army.

I think Thror has got to take first place here. As well as providing the opportunity for troop upgrades the entire Army Bonus centres around him so he is providing a lot to the army. Thorin and Thrain are difficult to separate. On the one hand Thorin is cheaper, but on the other Thrain gives access to something not found anywhere else in the army: risk free two-handed strikes (basically access to S6). I'll leave this one to you to decide which is better.

Conclusion
I think the conclusion here was inevitable from the start; it depends what you need your hero to do. Need an immovable anchor for your force? Choose Thror. Need someone to smash through high defence? Choose Thrain. Need someone to be a cheap all-round threat? Choose Thorin. However I started this article with the intention of imposing some sort of ranking so here goes. I awarded 1 point for each first place, 2 points for each second place and 3 points for each third place. Lowest score wins. When tallying it up the totals come to:

Thror 10
Thrain 13
Thorin 12

It didn't look good for Thror at first as I put him as the worst at 'Hero Stuff' and he's the least kill-y. However he then topped every category after that so I think the conclusion is that you need to take Thror in this list. He just provides too much good stuff. Thrain and Thorin are a toss-up and should be decided on based on what you want your list to do.

I hope my analyses made some sense here. Let me know if you think I am completely off beat here, or if there is a category I have missed!