Tactical uses of Special Strikes

jscottbowman · **Posted:** Tue Aug 26, 2014 10:29 am

Whilst I have enjoyed most features of the new Hobbit rules, I have yet to get to grips with the Special Strikes...

I did play a game the other day, where I played Angmar against my mates dwarves.

We played the special strikes rules and I have to say the new effects made my mates dwarf army rather potent, with all their axes and piercing strikes...
For the most part there was little adverse effect to the dwarves using these special strikes because their armour is so tough anyway even if they lost a fight I was often still needing a 5 or 6 to wound them, most of the time and if they won the fight my orcs got chopped up...

It made me wonder if the special strikes benefit some armies more than others...?

It also made me look at the varied strikes in more detail to see what benefit I could find in them tactically...

Piercing Strike is fairly obvious in its risk benefit ratio but as mentioned above really benefits high defense troops to risk using it...

Feint... it has minimal benefit for an increased risk in losing the fight on a tied roll... suddenly its obvious that if you already have a fight value less than your opponent, then you are at no further risk to use it... which thus benefits crappy fighters marginally ... my goblin is going to be dodging and feinting against your skillful elf... (it just 'feels' wrong)...
I can see the benefit in a High Fight hero who can risk dropping a point or two of F, to give him the chance to reroll a 1 when rolling to damage with multiple attacks...

The stun and bash special strikes, I really don't see how they benefit you, as they mean you forgo the chance to wound your opponent... in the hopes things might get better in the subsequent round... seems a rather risky option...?
They both rely on you either winning priority next turn to take advantage of the situation (and that's if you get it to work), or can call a heroic move to do the same...

Whirl - seems very risky again, you can hit multiple targets once each if you win the fight, but your F is dropped to 1, so you'll lose on tied rolls, and if you are up against several opponents then chances are they are also going to have at least equal to or more dice than you for attacks in the fight... seems an incredibly risky choice...

I welcome some thoughts/discussion on these and advice on when to best use them...

if this has already been discussed, I'd be grateful for link to post thread.

Cheers
Scott

JamesR · **Posted:** Tue Aug 26, 2014 1:14 pm

I'm sorry but I think you really have piercing strike backwards. It benefits low defense models the most. Dwarves dropping from D7 to D4-5 is a very big deal as you are drastically making it easier to wound, and each Dwarf is so expensive comparatively. Now a Goblin Town Goblin for example, only has D3 so he doesn't have much to lose, and already is so low it often won't effect the die roll needed to kill him, but the chance to strike like a cave troll is well worth the risk of such a low point model.

You nailed feint, Goblins basically have poison now lol

I've only seen bash used well to dismount a mounted model or to double a multi-attack model's strikes. Such as a Grimhammer paired with an Iron Guard. The GH bashes and knocks the opponent down losing his single strike but doubling the Iron Guard's strike to 4 (so your net gain is 1).

Stun is very rarely useful in my experience as well. I've never used it personally and only seen it used once or twice.

Whirl is kinda like Feint I think, Goblin Town goblins benefit the most from this as they have nothing to lose in terms of FV

SouthernDunedain · **Posted:** Tue Aug 26, 2014 7:34 pm

Bash is brilliant. All my converted erebor dwarves carry hammers. When backed up by spear support, the front ones always bash on the off chance you knock over your opponent. If you do, the spearman gets double strikes. Even if you don't kill, your opponent is prone and will probably burn a might point to get priority for the next turn.

Stun is always useful, it is basically a free transfix. Have you ever had your general bashed over the head by a club and had to fight at FV1 with 1 attack? It is painful.

legion · **Joined:** Fri Dec 27, 2013 6:58 pm **Posts:** 205

Hobbit Sherriffs are awesome with stun. They basically are now the elites of a Shire army lol

Pindergorn · **Posted:** Tue Aug 26, 2014 9:40 pm

I'm giving my Mordor Troll a Flail simply because it looks cool. And was easy to convert. It'll probably only ever get used for Whirl when hes surrounded by 4 or more enemies.

legion wrote:

Hobbit Sherriffs are awesome with stun. They basically are now the elites of a Shire army lol

They already were, weren't they? Don't they have the highest fight value? Other than Battlin' Brandybucks.

jscottbowman · **Posted:** Tue Aug 26, 2014 10:45 pm

SouthernDunedain wrote:

Bash is brilliant. All my converted erebor dwarves carry hammers. When backed up by spear support, the front ones always bash on the off chance you knock over your opponent. If you do, the spearman gets double strikes. Even if you don't kill, your opponent is prone and will probably burn a might point to get priority for the next turn.

Stun is always useful, it is basically a free transfix. Have you ever had your general bashed over the head by a club and had to fight at FV1 with 1 attack? It is painful.

That's interesting... I had not thought of it that way, ...but I would not have assumed you would get to resolve the bash first, then the spear supports (or other fighters in same fight) attempts at wounds ... I would have thought both actions happened at same time so spear would still count as striking foe 'normally' pre-bash effects...?
?

jscottbowman · **Posted:** Tue Aug 26, 2014 11:18 pm

JamesR wrote:

I'm sorry but I think you really have piercing strike backwards. It benefits low defense models the most. Dwarves dropping from D7 to D4-5 is a very big deal as you are drastically making it easier to wound, and each Dwarf is so expensive comparatively. Now a Goblin Town Goblin for example, only has D3 so he doesn't have much to lose, and already is so low it often won't effect the die roll needed to kill him, but the chance to strike like a cave troll is well worth the risk of such a low point model.

I hear what you are saying... though I still think dwarves do rather well out of it...

Take khazad guard s3 d7 against my s3 d4 orc...

If my orc wins the fight against the dwarf normally. I need a 6 to wound... if the dwarf fluffs its piercing strike attempt and rolls the worst it can it drops to d4, and my orc is now wounding on a 5.... odds are the dwarf is still going to survive...

...do it the other way round, the dwarf is normally wounding my orc on a 5, and if my orc fluffs the piercing strike his D could drop to enough to be wounded on a 4 or even a 3 ... statistically my orc is likely to die...

(I have not added two handed weapon effects into the above)

So in this example I'd say the rule benefits the dwarves...

But I would agree if your D is very low anyway then you have nothing to lose...

Perhaps the Goblin Town scenarios are what brought these abilities into play when the match ups between the goblins there and Thorins company were studied...?

In our game (angmar vs dwarves) the rule had an unexpected benefit... whilst taking slightly longer to resolves the fights, the overall game was over quicker than normal as my orcs seemed to drop like flies... ;-)

jscottbowman · **Posted:** Mon Sep 08, 2014 2:39 am

Thinking again about the special strikes...

If a hero has say three attacks, can he use special strikes to resolve some of the attacks and use others normally - here I am thinking of a hero with a hammer... can he use one attack to bash, then 2 to hit the now prone enemy normally, who will now count trapped against him, thus doubling those last two attacks from 2 dice to 4?

NarsilReforged · **Joined:** Sun Sep 22, 2013 11:13 am **Posts:** 316

I use piercing strike with my Castellans of Umbar and Corsair Reavers. With multiple attacks and/or high fv you'r more likely to win and then also kill with high str. Also Khazad Guard are str 4.

JamesR · **Posted:** Mon Sep 08, 2014 5:18 pm

jscottbowman wrote:

Thinking again about the special strikes...

If a hero has say three attacks, can he use special strikes to resolve some of the atoacks and use others normally - here I am thinking of a hero with a hammer... can he use one attack to bash, then 2 to hit the now prone enemy normally, who will now count trapped against him, thus doubling those last two attacks from 2 dice to 4?

No. The rules for special strikes such as Bash that replace the normal to wound roll specifically stare that strikes (the plural is given in the rules). So all chances to wound are forfeit

Tactical uses of Special Strikes

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