I have issues with Harad

LordoftheBrownRing · **Posted:** Tue Jul 08, 2014 11:11 pm

Ok first off, let me put it this way. I have taken Harad twice. I have a half warband of trolls which are great, and so are the Watchers of Karna. I like Suladan, and the Serpent Riders are ok.

My only issue is, the regular foot soldier.

Ive played twice with them. Once, Suladan and 8 serpent Riders mounted, and a bunch of foot soldiers, and watchers.

Today I took 2 warbands of mounted Raiders, 5 half trolls, and watchers.

Both times the elites owned/did their job, and the regular foot soldiers were garbage.

The first game, I vastly outnumbered my opponent, and still had my regular guys slaughtered. I won, but only because we played a fight to the last men. Against Elves, if we used courage, I would have probably lost.

Today, we played Hold Ground, and because of a few of my opponents tactical mistakes, I won on VPs but barely. Again, with courage checks, I would have gone down earlier.

My watchers always perform. My trolls and Serpents aint bad, and I love Suladan.

But the vast majority of standard Chieftans and archers/spearmen are terrible.

Can someone explain to me a tough army youve seen without just spamming elites into the mix.....because other than picking up some Abrakhan Guard, more Watchers, and more Trolls.....I never see this army working....the mounted Haradrim were terrible. They got a few lucky bow shots early. Other than that.....I would have been minced by the Mirkwood Rangers. That and the fact my opponent let me charge and kill Thranduil way early in the fight.

Help?

After today, Im thinking about selling or trading most of my harad foot soldiers.....and cavalry.

Other than the mentioned elites, and a few spear supports, I find the army useless, and would prefer to use their elites with other Eastern Kingdom troops like Reavers, Easterling pikemen, etc.

jdizzy001 · **Posted:** Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:47 am

Their str is in their bows. A 50% bow limit is nothing to scoff at. That is really the purpose of their foot soldier. But to utilize the 50% bow limit you cant firld much else besides southrons. Even mahud will cancel out your bigger bow limit.

LordoftheBrownRing · **Posted:** Wed Jul 09, 2014 6:13 am

jdizzy001 wrote:

Their str is in their bows. A 50% bow limit is nothing to scoff at. That is really the purpose of their foot soldier. But to utilize the 50% bow limit you cant firld much else besides southrons. Even mahud will cancel out your bigger bow limit.

Yeah the first game, I took 50% bows and they didnt hit anything. Even weak elves....you need a 5 to kill.

halauas · **Posted:** Wed Jul 09, 2014 6:49 am

Isnt harad at 1/3 bow limit? it is eastern kingdoms that is at 50% bow limit.

Anyway, i have played harad 4 times now and all of them went pretty good (2 wins-2 looses, but losses were still good games as my opponents played good and tactical)

I do not know at how many points you play your games but my examples will be at 600 to 850 points

VS dwarfs (win)
Haradrim raiders thrived. They are an amazing cavalry for their points + lances, they butchered the dwarf with great ease, picking 6-8 of them + 4-5 serpent riders are amazing combination as you use the simple raiders for body-shield and distraction but in the same time they can still kill pretty easily. I wont mention half trolls/watchers/abrakhan guard, they did amazing job
Bows were useless against dwarfs sadly.

VS Wood elves (win)
I took 2 warbands of haradrim warriors and they did their job, witch was to die! simple warriors are for 2 purposes, body-shield and swarm , both went good as almost none of my elites died from elf bows and in the end elves were so outnumbered that all the fights were 3-1

VS gondor (lose)
the reason for the loss of this match was boromir, i simply could not stop him as soon as i lost my ringwraith (knight of umbar) he kept butchering while it was hard to kill his simple footmen. Still Raiders did a good job and also i lasted long after force was broken simply because i had a hornblower (ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS pick on when playing harad ALWAYS!) it was a good battle in overall.

VS isengard (loss)
Crossbows just butchered everything, he maxed out in numbers so he could pick as many crossbows as possible.My simple haradrim warriors did protect most of my elites but still when i reached him i couldnt do much in close combat vs a tight phalanx of uruks, no matter how much i tried to flank and swarm him every fight was 3v2 (counting his 2 lines of pikemen). Vrasku was like a machine gun killing my heroes and his simple uruks just kept winning every fight (also a little bit of luck from his side) but still, i did not have many losses after force was broken and my opponent played tacticaly, making it a good battle aswell

Conclusion, you dont expect haradrim warriors to much other than protect your elites from bowfire and try to trap your enemy, they are still decent for that job and you need numbers for harad and ALWAYS ALWAYS pick a hornblower, hide him somewhere far on the map untill your force is broken.
Raiders are very good cavalry for their points, the reason is: cheap lances!
Chieftains are not much of heroes, but when you also pick a taskmaster you have the chance of performing a heroic action every turn, witch is great.
For last if you pick an army of elites they will go down from bowfire pretty soon and with so low def (without having numbers) they will go down fast aswell.

LordoftheBrownRing · **Posted:** Wed Jul 09, 2014 7:09 am

halauas wrote:

Isnt harad at 1/3 bow limit? it is eastern kingdoms that is at 50% bow limit.

Anyway, i have played harad 4 times now and all of them went pretty good (2 wins-2 looses, but losses were still good games as my opponents played good and tactical)

I do not know at how many points you play your games but my examples will be at 600 to 850 points

VS dwarfs (win)
Haradrim raiders thrived. They are an amazing cavalry for their points + lances, they butchered the dwarf with great ease, picking 6-8 of them + 4-5 serpent riders are amazing combination as you use the simple raiders for body-shield and distraction but in the same time they can still kill pretty easily. I wont mention half trolls/watchers/abrakhan guard, they did amazing job
Bows were useless against dwarfs sadly.

VS Wood elves (win)
I took 2 warbands of haradrim warriors and they did their job, witch was to die! simple warriors are for 2 purposes, body-shield and swarm , both went good as almost none of my elites died from elf bows and in the end elves were so outnumbered that all the fights were 3-1

VS gondor (lose)
the reason for the loss of this match was boromir, i simply could not stop him as soon as i lost my ringwraith (knight of umbar) he kept butchering while it was hard to kill his simple footmen. Still Raiders did a good job and also i lasted long after force was broken simply because i had a hornblower (ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS pick on when playing harad ALWAYS!) it was a good battle in overall.

VS isengard (loss)
Crossbows just butchered everything, he maxed out in numbers so he could pick as many crossbows as possible.My simple haradrim warriors did protect most of my elites but still when i reached him i couldnt do much in close combat vs a tight phalanx of uruks, no matter how much i tried to flank and swarm him every fight was 3v2 (counting his 2 lines of pikemen). Vrasku was like a machine gun killing my heroes and his simple uruks just kept winning every fight (also a little bit of luck from his side) but still, i did not have many losses after force was broken and my opponent played tacticaly, making it a good battle aswell

Conclusion, you dont expect haradrim warriors to much other than protect your elites from bowfire and try to trap your enemy, they are still decent for that job and you need numbers for harad and ALWAYS ALWAYS pick a hornblower, hide him somewhere far on the map untill your force is broken.
Raiders are very good cavalry for their points, the reason is: cheap lances!
Chieftains are not much of heroes, but when you also pick a taskmaster you have the chance of performing a heroic action every turn, witch is great.
For last if you pick an army of elites they will go down from bowfire pretty soon and with so low def (without having numbers) they will go down fast aswell.

Yeah we did 850 both times I believe. Or 750 the first.

I played against Wood Elves, High Elves, and Rohirrim the first game.

Today, Wood Elves, Rohirrim, and Minis Tirith.

I DONT KNOW HOW in the world your raiders did good against dwarves with their armor.....I was counter charged and murdered by wood elves today....

As for the foot troops....even when I swarm I seem to lose fights. Maybe because Im playing Mirkwood jerks and other Elves with high fight. My bows did do better, but once I got in combat, he was able to charge and slay most of my raiders with lance, and a bunch with bow who I threw into combat once it was clear nobody was going to be free to shoot at.

My half trolls stayed alive long enough to keep Tauriel and a warband of Rangers at bay and out of the main fight for a long time.

I killed his other heros quickly because of cavalry charges....It just seemed like with the numbers I had I should have won much more easily.....The watchers did their job well.

IDK how to balance this force.

I have 29 raiders, 8 serpent riders, 6 trolls, a good 12 Mahud, 9 watchers, Suladan, several chieftans, Hasharin who also performed well today, a hornblower, several banners, and a taskmaster.

I just feel like either you have to go all elites, or all swarm with these guys. The first time I went mostly swarm, and they struggled to win fights. Today I went a lot of elites, a lot of mounted-24 riders- and still died and lost fights often......we dont play by courage break rules....Im sure if I did, I could have lost the fight easily even with my opponent making several huge tactical errors.

Explain to me two things-
1: How did your raiders crack the dwarves armor and close combat prowess.
2: What wood elf army did you face? My buddy always brings Thranduil and Tauriel it seems. Theyre both so fn good.

halauas · **Posted:** Wed Jul 09, 2014 7:41 am

1: I used my raiders to charge his flanks, while most of his troops were bothering with at the front line with my sward of haradrim warriors, i kept charing my cavalry to his troops behind that tried to delay me. I did spend all of suladans and a mounted chieftains might only to take priorities (heroic moves) and kept charing, so 4 dice each raider+ 1 to wound roll from lance made the dwarfs fall easily. (as old dwarfs dont have any spear supports the fights were 1 vs 2 (dwarf warriors vs 2 dice raider)
So mainly my warriors at front were meat to bother his elites and my cavlary to slay his simple warriors from the reat until i trap him.

2-I did play vs ghaladrim + old mirkwood, this fight was pretty much easy but against the new mirkwood jerks (as you call them) i believe i would have lost too

rangers are just a bane for swarming armies like harad sadly, i have not face them yet gladly.

I havent played with an all elite harad army but i have played against with my Fiefdoms, witch i won
My cavalry (knights) lost pretty easily to his serpent riders whenever faced but he just couldnt pass throught my phalanx of warriors of the dead, supported by 2 lines of men at arms and guarded with foot knights from the rear, only his half trolls did a decent job but abrakhan guard/watchers/serpent guard just couldnt kill anything to this maily bebause he was always 3 vs 2 (fiefdoms-haradrim elites)

jdizzy001 · **Posted:** Wed Jul 09, 2014 9:22 am

Harad is the 50% bow limit per pg 26 of the fallen realms source book. Easterlings live by the normal 33% bow limit.

Dr Grant · **Joined:** Fri Aug 03, 2012 1:50 pm **Posts:** 1339

From the Fallen realms FAQ:

Easterling Warriors in warbands chosen from the Eastern Kingdoms army list have a bow limit of 1/2 (rounding up) instead of the usual 1/3.

jdizzy001 · **Posted:** Wed Jul 09, 2014 11:31 am

That is great! Where are these FAQ's, I want them too!

Dr Grant · **Joined:** Fri Aug 03, 2012 1:50 pm **Posts:** 1339

Black Library website although before you ask the Fallen Realms one is mysteriously MIA...

General Elessar · **Posted:** Wed Jul 09, 2014 4:04 pm

Why on earth wouldn't you use Courage? It's a rather fundamental part of the game.

I could be entirely wrong, but I get the impression that you're trying to play your Haradrim Warriors in a generic shieldwall, much like one would play Warriors of Minas Tirith. If you do this, then you will invariably lose, because a Harad Warrior is neither resilient nor lethal enough for this to work. You really have to exploit your archery superiority to whittle the enemy army down and, more importantly, force your opponent to be offensive so that you can react to him and place yourself in a tactically advantageous position.

The other primary purpose of Haradrim Warriors is to distract your opponent and draw enemy models into positions where they will be vulnerable to your elite troops (in my Harad army, usually Serpent Riders). A case of divide and conquer at its finest.

JamesR · **Posted:** Wed Jul 09, 2014 4:45 pm

I do rather like regular Haradrim troops. Until the most recent update they were under costed slightly (1pt) now they're perfect and have lots of nice upgrade options. They add spear support to your force easily and are offensively dominant, if used correctly. They also make nice meat - shields for your elites

jdizzy001 · **Posted:** Wed Jul 09, 2014 4:47 pm

I've had similar experiences. Harad =/= shield wall. If you want to put them behind a shield wall, ally them with easterlings. However, if you want to maximize your bows, I recommend balancing your force with cavalry. Draw in your foe with arrows, then flank them with horses.

Pindergorn · **Posted:** Wed Jul 09, 2014 8:32 pm

Try combing the Betrayer with a Warband of archers. Doesn't his special rule allow better poison rolls?

LordoftheBrownRing · **Posted:** Wed Jul 09, 2014 11:36 pm

halauas wrote:

2-I did play vs ghaladrim + old mirkwood, this fight was pretty much easy but against the new mirkwood jerks (as you call them) i believe i would have lost too

rangers are just a bane for swarming armies like harad sadly, i have not face them yet gladly.

New Hobbit models are rough......in Combat those Mirkwood dudes are tough. Your swarming would only result in more deaths per turn.

General Elessar wrote:

Why on earth wouldn't you use Courage? It's a rather fundamental part of the game.

I could be entirely wrong, but I get the impression that you're trying to play your Haradrim Warriors in a generic shieldwall,

Im going to stop the quote there because Im not stupid. Do you think I would do a shield wall with a primarily D4 army.......

And because my opponent....the only person in the area who might play every week as opposed to getting a game once a mont, prefers to just play the battle to the death. Its not my choice. So go ahead and continue your assumptions.

JamesR wrote:

I do rather like regular Haradrim troops. Until the most recent update they were under costed slightly (1pt) now they're perfect and have lots of nice upgrade options. They add spear support to your force easily and are offensively dominant, if used correctly. They also make nice meat - shields for your elites

Yeah they do..... but when half a warband goes down in two turns...youre in trouble...

I guess I really have to take every warband and split them up instead of making predominantly 2 types of troops.

halauas · **Posted:** Thu Jul 10, 2014 6:16 am

Quote:

New Hobbit models are rough......in Combat those Mirkwood dudes are tough. Your swarming would only result in more deaths per turn

Not a single doupt about that. Still i would like to try against them with a pure force of arhcery as infatry and every other model Cavalry (prefer raiders). Outshoot them in every turn and Cavalry still counts as 1 model against mirkwood rangers, thus not activating their special rule. However this is only a guess, i never tried it...

In any case not every army is good against everything, like i said i found out in a harsh way that harad is next to useless vs isengard.

For last i would not see a full elite harad army working out as even their elites lack def, only way would be to add atleast a warband or frontline of black numenorians they way i see it.

LordoftheBrownRing · **Posted:** Thu Jul 10, 2014 7:55 am

halauas wrote:

Quote:

New Hobbit models are rough......in Combat those Mirkwood dudes are tough. Your swarming would only result in more deaths per turn

Not a single doupt about that. Still i would like to try against them with a pure force of arhcery as infatry and every other model Cavalry (prefer raiders). Outshoot them in every turn and Cavalry still counts as 1 model against mirkwood rangers, thus not activating their special rule. However this is only a guess, i never tried it...

In any case not every army is good against everything, like i said i found out in a harsh way that harad is next to useless vs isengard.

For last i would not see a full elite harad army working out as even their elites lack def, only way would be to add atleast a warband or frontline of black numenorians they way i see it.

Good point. Numenoreans are good and in their army......I am surprised you best the Dwarves with their stats....they're like the good version of Isengard

halauas · **Posted:** Thu Jul 10, 2014 8:37 am

The key to beat dwarfs is:
1-swarming, dwarves are expensive and even more expensive heroes, they have no spear support and no cavalry. So if you throw a meat shield on them (haradrim warriors) to keep them busy all the time it is really easy to flank them and trap them in most cases. Do not bother killing their frontline as that is next to imposible, aim for any banner first, then their high str units (khazad guard/iron guard)
2-Use harads +1 bonuses, only half trolls have str to wound dwarves easily, everything else in your army (even str 4) is useless, so try to wound them using harads tricks, like abrakhan guard (5+ to wound dwarves) Cavalry with lances(5+ if he has lance).
-3 do not rely much on heroes, 1 suladan or knight of umbar is enouph to be the leader and everything else should be the cheapest captains just to boost your numbers (with warbands) Haradrim heroes are no better than your units when it comes to wound dwarves.
-4 NO ARCHERY vs dwarves, haradrim archers or arbalesters are useless vs dwarves, do not even bother picking any at all, they will eat out your points.

LordoftheBrownRing · **Posted:** Thu Jul 10, 2014 8:59 am

halauas wrote:

The key to beat dwarfs is:
1-swarming, dwarves are expensive and even more expensive heroes, they have no spear support and no cavalry. So if you throw a meat shield on them (haradrim warriors) to keep them busy all the time it is really easy to flank them and trap them in most cases. Do not bother killing their frontline as that is next to imposible, aim for any banner first, then their high str units (khazad guard/iron guard)
2-Use harads +1 bonuses, only half trolls have str to wound dwarves easily, everything else in your army (even str 4) is useless, so try to wound them using harads tricks, like abrakhan guard (5+ to wound dwarves) Cavalry with lances(5+ if he has lance).
-3 do not rely much on heroes, 1 suladan or knight of umbar is enouph to be the leader and everything else should be the cheapest captains just to boost your numbers (with warbands) Haradrim heroes are no better than your units when it comes to wound dwarves.
-4 NO ARCHERY vs dwarves, haradrim archers or arbalesters are useless vs dwarves, do not even bother picking any at all, they will eat out your points.

Thanks for the tips. I pretty much do everything you say. Except forumber four. If you don't know you're playing them you can't do much about that.

SouthernDunedain · **Posted:** Sun Jul 13, 2014 9:35 am

I would max out on archers v dwarfs because they are slow and you have poison. Even if you kill 2/3 a turn, over 4/5 turns, that's a lot of dwarves you don't have to fight. One good round of shooting can win the game.

I have issues with Harad

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