Telcontar was right about RoR weakness, especially highly pike concentrated armies and Saruman. They will however, plow throw haradrim troops like a hot knife through butter.

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surrender to the strawberry ice-cream

The thing with cavarly charges is to 'pick your moment' - you need to identify a weak point and attack it. Crashing your cavalry into a bristling pike wall is a sure fire way to end up with a lot of horse meat.

Cavalry were used historically to attack unarmoured pointz such as the flanks or rear, or as a wedge to drive through the enemy lines and open up a gap for the infantry to exploit. They are not frontline fighting troops, but rather a specialised unit designed to make a sudden blow exactly where its needed. Attack the enemy's weakness, wreak some damage and withdraw to safety again, that's my motto.

If you take a Might-heavy hero with you, you can win the battle and the cavalry bonuses seriously come into play. So make sure you don't pick on a part of the enemy's formation where Lurtz is lurking.

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Dagster

Your idea of attacking and withdrawing is all well and good, Dagorlad, but there are difficulties. If you attack, sure, you might masscare every warrior you fight against, but if you lose priority, then the enemy can simply charge their foot warriors at you, and turn your expensive cavalry into so much dead bodies

You are right about the Hero thing. If you use heroic moves well in a cavalry force, you can absolutely decimate everyone

just get mounted aragorn and gamling for plenty of might

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surrender to the strawberry ice-cream

Uh, hello? Mounted Argorn costs 185 points, and mounted Gamling with Th Royal Standard of Rohan is 110 . And aside from the points cost, which is horrific , you don't need both. You could stick Gamling on horse with RSoR with Eomer, or just have Aragorn on his own.

True, all to true. .

Though Aragorn is good (understatemeant of the Year) he is not worth his weight in salt.

Get Gamling and a Captain or 2 (or maybe Theoden or Eomer) 'cause the Stanard of Rohan can restore others heroes might. Although we all know that, right?

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surrender to the strawberry ice-cream

@Telcontar, cavalry need to withdraw on the turn after the charge otherwise they end up, as you say, like a pile of dead bodies. The priority roll is stacked slightly in your favour though, because in the event of a draw priority changes to you. And most importantly, you have a Might-heavy hero with you who can call a Heroic Move when the priority dice roll doesn't go your way.

That is why the Standard of Rohan is so important to the Rohirrim - its not Gamling who benefits though, its any another heroes in the radius of effect.

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Dagster

The best thing would be if the RSoR counted for Gamling as well, then there'd be no need to be spending 185 points for Aragron or 100 for Eomer.

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VOTE!

If you field Aragorn, just spend the "few" extra points and gain the absurd invincibility of Anduril. Then all badguys will think twice before fighting him.

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Riders of rohan rule!A good thing to do with them is to take eomer give him a throwing spear get a least 6 rohirim with throwin spears and charge into any enemy line if against any uruk pikemen attack the flanks and because of their lower defense you kill some with the spears and again charge negating those extra attacks.

General George Patton was a cavalryman, then became arguably the best commander on the Allied side in the European theatre. His philosophy could be summed up best in his own words:
"We're gonna hold them by the nose and kick them in the ass".
Relevance here: cavalry are your manoeuvre force. Holding their attention - possibly a fortification (Helm's deep anyone?) or some other strongpoint. The opposition are fixated on destroying one while the other nibbles them to pieces with persistent flanking attacks.

The Norman conquest of Britain followed this sort of idea: a good fortification allows a relatively small number to control or at least observe a large area. The forces required to over come such places are large. In response, a relief force can be drawn from elsewhere and counterattacks the besiegers.

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The discussion is alive! Yay!
New topic is Shamans Available to the armies of Evil, shamans have limited magical powers. Are they worth it?[/b]

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Thror Clawhammer
Is it sad that I spent hours trying to think of a signature?

If playing with Orcs? Yes. I find the Shamans power "Fury", brilliant at keeping just a few more Orcs alive. For Uruk-Hai, I'm not so sure, because although it would benefit the Uruk-Hai greatly, it would take up the room of 5 Uruks.

But, considering that Uruks have dropped in points, and that 5 isn't that much anyway, I'd take one.

All round: yes.

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VOTE!

I find that Goblin Shamans are worth it by a lot.

Orc Shamans are OK.

Uruk-hai Shamans are not however.

Thats my input.

I made a Shaman for High Elves, only its called an Elven Lightbearer, out of a spearmen. He has all the normal spells, as well as cast light. Hes not done yet, though.

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surrender to the strawberry ice-cream

Never used a shaman before (don't even own one - far too many skulls for my liking), but their profiles seem to indicate they are very useful.

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Dagster

i dont field ork shamans cause i got a ringwraith in my army but it could be usefull.

i always field a gobbo shaman cause fury rules for gobbos.
but this is my dillema with uruks:

i have about 36 uruks in my 500 point army.
about one third of those never reaches the battle lines (dead guys and crossbows)
that leaves me with about 24 uruks leaft. to field a shaman i have to knockout 5.
that leaves me with about 18 uruks and a captain and a shaman.

out of those eighteen ten are beserkers so i hardly ever loose a fight.
that means that i field a shaman for eight urukhai with swords and shields.

the point i am trying to make is that [b]for me[/b] an urukshaman just isnt worth it.
thats if you use fury.
now there are alot of people that use shamans to transfix heros.
in a 500 point battle your enemy wont have any heros worth transfixsing.
if your battling out at 750 or more then you will most likely have a better spellcaster (ringwraith, saruman) or a rightious hero that is good enough to take out your enemies heavvy hitter. (mr. patato head, witchking, troll chieftain) [b]in my opinion[/b]:


unless you have a hell of allot of rank and file then dont bother taking a shaman and DEFINENTLY NOT WITH URUKHAI

Hooga-shagga, shooga-shagga, hoo-hoo-hoo-Hoo!
Like everybody else, I'm a bit leery of the Uruk Hai shaman. The regular troops are plain tough as it is (unless GW weakened them to justify the new points) so it doesn't seem necessary to me. Just another way for old Sharkey to keep unnecessary control over his commanders.
However, I like the prospects for the other two, especially the orc shaman - warg-speed, Mr. Orc!

Yeah, I think so too. I'm doing a conversion on mine and will be removing at least one of the skulls - I'm also changing the head on his spear, so look for an eventual picture to show off.

In short, orc shamans offer a nice thematic alternative to fielding the Nine - or some of them - and making the army magical yet variable.

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Shamans. Not really part of Tolkein's concept that I am aware of so they kind of irritate me. Just does not feel 'right'.
I have one but it is just undercoated, not painted. No idea how often it will be used in practice and also unsure of how it stands up under the new rules or forthcoming variants thereof.

Worst of all, reminds me of someone I used to work with. Scarey woman.

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Evil Shamens, never really like them, don't like the idea of magic at the best of times and tend not to use any myself.
Goblin shamens sound good, basically anything that helps their low courage has got to be a bonus, but orcish (especially Uruk-Hai) sorry don't see either the background to it or the use for them.
Picture the scene, Uruk's running for 3 days starving as they stop for a breather. 3 days of stinking maggoty bread, and up steps Quintin the Uruk shamen, skull in one hand, Magic mushroom in the other,
'I can make food' quote Quinitn,
Ugluk and Snaga take one look at each other, then eat the shamen!!
The whole Uruk mentality is very much hit (and eat) him before he hits you. Any shamen type jumping up and down and talking to himself just acts like a kebab shop on a friday night, drawing all the rowdy drunken element forward to feast.
I would much rather put my trust in hard orcish steel than some skull waving, looney.

English translation -
Goblin Shamens good if you can afford them and feel like a laugh
Orc/Uruk Shamens - Don't bother, trust in strength of numbers.

I only use shamans when i run out of orcs Uruks or goblins. Then i use them. I mean they are pretty good with there fury spell but so elf bow fire can really bring the shaman to the ground dead. Keep the shaman out of combat and close to a big mob of your guys. Shamans can be good and bad. There fury spell is very very very powerful and should be used in the first turn. Shamans have low defence though and heros can easily take one down.

Pretty much do thefollwing when taking shamans i your army

Keep them shielded from arrows and heros

Have them use Fury in the first turn

Don't use any other spells unless needed to.

Keep him out of combat.

Do those things and your shamans will be put to a good use.

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http://www.kingsofchaos.com/recruit.php?uniqid=zx958rx6