In the vein of the new warbands lists, what about a new line for the Wild Warg Chieftain that is an upgrade for wild wargs in his warband?

Like "Pack hunters - may upgrade wild wargs in his warband with +1 attack and knockdown when charging for 2 points each"

Sort of like how the new spider guy can upgrade spiders to the super-venom.

What do you think?

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Don't wild wargs already have that since they are cavalry? Or have I been playing them wrong this whole time?

They are not cavalry. The definition of cavalry is a mount and rider.

it would be good if the warg chieftian would give warks the extra attack + knockdown of cavalry, but i think it would mean increasing the points cost of the model, and i 'm not sure how many extra points that that rule would be worth.

I guess I assumed 5 pts like other similar special rules. Love ideas though.

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Treating the Chieftain as cavalry would probably up it by 10pts. For the normal wargs I think that 2 points is adequate.

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I'm not really a fan of this upgrade simply because it doesn't really bring anything new to the table. Wild warg + cav bonus = warg rider model. Im not too sure what the point difference between a wild warg and a warg rider is off the top of my head but if you really wanted a wild warg with cav bonus that is essentially a warg rider minus the potential to survive having the rider/warg killed. If you are still keen on this, I would suggest a point cost of 1-3 points cheaper than a warg rider. Anything less than that and there would be little reason to take a warg rider over a wild warg. Maybe the crappy orc bow but that's really stretching it.

@valamir normal heroes pay 5 points for a horse don't they? And they get the extra arrow protection which the Wwc wouldn't get.

@battalia so many reasons why! Mostly thematic and fun related. I don't like orcs. I do like goblins. I do like wargs. I don't like their large base size when fighting men. Really it's just for fun. Otherwise I'm almost tempted to just pay for a rider, not model the rider and just suck it up when arrows kill me. I like fielding a pack of monsters, wild wargs with a menacing alpha male chieftain.

So for me what it adds to the table is good looking fun and story.

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They pay 10, or 15 for armoured. I think 5 for the warg chief is plenty, mostly because I don't find him that effective. He seems more like a scenario-specific profile, only really useful when he has a bunch of wargs who need his stand fast (hence his surplus of Will). But without having the purpose of leading a "wargband", there are other profiles in that point range that are more effective.

Why on earth would a Warg Chieftain turn his pack into cavalry. (By the way, they often have an alpha female, not an alpha male).

The Warg chieftain is useful, if you have Druzhag and/or your playing at a friendly level against people who in WotR stick Gimli in 1 company of Iron Guard.

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He's not turning them into cavalry, just trying to represent the wargs being able to take a man to the ground on the charge. I also didn't know about female wargs. No reason the chieftain can't be female! I don't remember that from tolkein?
In any case, it's for fun playing games with friends, so don't stress it =)

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I think it works better if normal Wargs don;t go knocking people to the ground, the whole reason the Orcs allied themselves wioth the Wargs was to give themselves cavalry, something both races benefitted from.

As for the gender, Tolkien said Wargs were wolves, and wolves can be led by an aplha female, therefore in a non-cheesy fantasy world, they can have female pack leaders.

Unrealsm takes the fun out it, you might as willl give the Wargs an upgrade to grow Wings and fly. (slight exaggeration, but there is a line for a reason).

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

Sorry gothmog, but you're aware what you're playing, right? I know you take it quite seriously, but I'm just trying to have some fun.

In my game today I had goblins, wargs (wolves the size of horses in miniatures), cave trolls and an elephant bigger than a three story house. I'm uncertain where the realism stopped for you, but for me it was at roughly page 1.

Today we went with 11 points for a warg and 80 for the chief. They didn't do stacks of fighting anyway so can't judge much from that, but it felt a lot better when looking at the relative sizes and speeds of the minis.

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Might I suggest that you make them part-cavalry? Give them one of the two bonuses, like knockdown but not the +1 attack.

This is a matter of degree, it's not a black/white issue. Just because there are goblins doesn't mean throwing out all the laws of physics and biology. Magic and spirituality aside, the core of Tolkien's world is the same as ours.

Since when did science/biology reduce the momentum of a warg if there is not a rider on top of him? You have the rider on the warg, and now suddenly he can knock people over, but he couldn't before?

Do whatever you want sim, it's a friendly game. I think 11 and 80 points is about right.

I'm not advocating for or against the knockdown rule (which is not merely mass-related), I'm only reacting to the "do what you want, it's not real anyway" argument. Basically supporting gothmog's attempt to assume a reality-basis unless shown otherwise (e.g.: magic).

Ah, okay. I too tend to try to think that things are as close to here as possible, but in my mind that would mean that wild wargs get the knockdown as they aren't really any different than 'cavalry'. (maybe trolls should get the knockdown too, or even strength 6+ gets a knockdown, but not always the +1 attack.)

Agree, I gave S6+ the knockdown-on-charge in my By the Book rules, and didn't add point costs.

Actually, wolves are led by an Alpha male. If something happens to him, injury or death, the Alpha female takes over until another Alpha male comes along.

I think it could work, call them White Wargs instead of normal wargs and say that life in the Misty Mountains has made them stronger and tougher than Wild Wargs, giving them the knockdown rule.

The reason to take Warg Riders over a White Warg (as I will now call them) is that the orc can survive. I would say that 1-2 points is all that's needed, with anything more being useless.

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