One Ring needs a bit of a resurrection, so I'll try my part.

I want to do something like the Continuous Tactical Discussions thread, where we have a topic to discuss, then come up with a new one once we've talked enough. Talk about anything, the role this model plays in your armies, favourite combos, specific tactic, counters, strengths, when you do and don't use the model, etc.



So, let's start with a popular one: Saruman. Could be good or evil.

I can't even kick us off because I think I've only used him once.

Ive used Saruman quite a bit over the years when running Isengard, here's some thoughts

His large point cost makes him tough to include in games 600 points or less, but 650 up to 1000 points he is almost an auto-include for Isengard armies. He can neutralize big enemies while your strong Uruk units chop through enemy models.

If you own the model with him on a horse (old or new), I strongly recommend using the mounted version in games. It's a really big boost to be able to move 10 inches and then cast. Or move 5 inches and cast, and then retreat out of harm's way.

With all his Might and Fate, he is very good at staying alive, even if he gets into combat. Obviously try to keep him out of combat if possible, but sometimes during the end game, he has to join in and he can hold his own a bit.

I think the only time that I've had him die in a game was when I left him exposed and my opponent flew his dragon over my troops and hit him with about 5 wounds in one go.

I can't offer too much about using him as a good model, but with his expanded casting range for certain spells and his free re-roll when casting or resisting, he seems even more fantastic.

Those are my notes, everyone feel free to chip in with thoughts as well

thanks

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T'was in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair..
But Gollum, and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her..

Yeah, the only time I used him was as a good hero and I mostly stayed within 18" to Immobilize and Compel. I guess I'm hesitant to take him more often as a good model because he's an expensive ally, then again that field is saturated on the good side with things like Radagast, Beorn, Treebeard, Gwaihir etc and Saruman is the best at what he does.

Cool. I'll give this another day or two and then do we want to switch topics?

I would say that Saruman is very cost-efficient nowadays due to his improved magical abilities and low cost, and due to high monster meta! Sorcerous blast has reduced dice score of 4, so it is now quite easy to blast enemies. Also, his fireball is a nice thematic addition, even though it is not an ultra powerful spell. Saruman has large leadership so break wont be that big deal. I would include saruman and lurtz into a 600p match. Saruman can also lead a bit more units than normal hero so it compensates his point cost. Also take berserkers to kill transfixed target. And probably get enough archers so u force enemy into u.

Alright, I think that's as much mileage as we're getting out of Saruman. Thanks all!

How about Wood Elf Sentinels next? I never see enough of those around.


My only experience isn't with them, I do have a lot of experience with Spectres though and Spectres are fantastic. They give you so much diversity to make the first move and toy with your opponent's line, Heroic Combat shenanigans (and Sentinels come from armies with powerful combat heroes), and tactical flexibility. Challenge is that Sentinels are really expensive in an already expensive army.

I'll admit, I haven't seen much of these guys recently in either Mirkwood or Lorien. I think the change to elven cloaks hurt them more than anything. Being so expensive and so ease to kill at range without that ability to hide behind your other models makes them much more tempting targets that their specter counterparts. I think they have been overshadowed in Mirkwood by the rangers and the big combat heroes.

It also seems to me like the heyday of these guys was the time of lessor heroes, banners, and shades. When they were basically demi-heroes like the half-trolls. In a time of big heroes with high courage, that are often banners themselves, and with the shade being contained to a single list they don't offer a lot of the same direct benefits they used to. I'd wager they still would be useful in Lorien armies to help deal with low courage monsters by keeping them out of combat or for just generally causing problems. Even there, however, I've seen more people just going for just plain numbers or palace guard over sentinels.

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"Draw your sword with a heavy heart, but swing it with a heavy hand"

think they are still ok units, because targeting an enemy troll or an enemy dragon with an automatic courage test is quite a powerful ability. And many times enemies who have big beasts don't have that good ranged units. Avoiding melee is a good idea though, until late game. If enemy has a monster heavy army, a couple of these units could turn the tide. Do elves have anything that would reduce the courage of enemies similar to nazguls?

Ok, i will open up a new unit to discuss. But please feel free to continue about the sentinel too...

So, the problem is that the dragon is as expensive as has always been, while all other heroes are boosted such as aragorn. So, is there any strategy to make the dragon useful? Its fight value is ok, but not miracleous in the new meta of heroic fights. But, many strong characters have now their fate points lowered. Thorin, and many other formidable heroes have now a low fate. So, could this open up a possibility to try the breathe fire ability?

I know peoples will first say "no, awful". But, when we think about this longer, this breathe fire ability would make the dragon a very scary thing for some enemy units, and force them to spread army and keep valuables away. So, if u could have enough ranged units and a dragon, could u abuse this fear somehow? Also, killing an ent, a troll, a fellbeast, thorin, boromir, etc with 1 fire blow would be op. It would make the dragon more vulnerable, but it might also allow him to have a new strategical value instead of being a flying troll chieftain... now it would be more like a ranged assassin, and after eliminating core enemies, it could proceed into melee.

So, supposedly fire breathe would work best with an army who doesnt want to melee but instead archers?

Especially now that a lot of monsters have had their courage boosted, I keep looking at the Sentinels' profiles to see when I would use them. They are a balanced unit, they're powerful, but I wonder if they're too situational.


Not in the Lothlorien army, but Galadriel Lady of Light has a -1 courage aura.



I've been thinking about fire breathing Dragons for a while. First, the Dragon itself is terrific in combat. Lots of heroes don't have heroic strike, so the Dragon is often the highest fight value on the table. Monstrous Charge means it's getting 5 attacks on the charge and double that to wound, which is scary.

The fear with Breathe Fire is that you're spending Will points, which you might need for courage tests. I've been thinking of ways to make that less of a problem. What I can think of is that the Dragon isn't your leader: whether it's allied in or (if you're playing pure Moria) you also have the Balrog or Durburz, one of them would be your leader and losing the Dragon isn't as painful. You have to save your Might, if you're burning Will then you still need something to help with courage tests. Still, maybe you don't use it at all, you just fly around and threaten, throw the Dragon's weight in combat, then use it later in the game to devastate a line or something. It's a flexible hero with tonnes of damage potential that I've been meaning to try for some time.

Old times i used to håve drågon to leåd mordor årmies. Nowådåys it is restricted to moriå, so is there åny reålistic possibility to ålly the drågon with mordor? I håvent found åny dåtå of how to do this ålliånce exåctly, but i must ådmit moriå hås been nerfed å lot so it would be probåbly better to use drågon on mordor. It would be cool to combine drågon with dwimmerlåke, so enemy måges wouldn't be å threåt, ådd å couple siege bows ånd then strong melee units rest of the årmy. Woul

I think the fire breåthe is useful, ås long ås drågon is used ås ån åssåssin insteåd of ån steådy killer. But i think fire breåthe would be especiålly useful when enemy hås either monsters or then bånner cårriers - both of them u cån tårget ånd kill eåsily. When drågon is used to åssåssinåte, he should theoreticålly win the åssåssinåte fight ånd then he could fåll båck, trying to åvoid getting wounded for nothing.

Ånywåys, whåt do oyu think åbout this kind of weird måssed årmy list of moriå. Ideå is thåt by getting å lot of bows, i could force the enemy to come to combåt, in which cåse the drågon would be useful. Cons åre elves will pwn in rånged, or enemies with siege weåpons. Ålso most of units åre reålly weåk so if enemy hås å måge to disåble the drågon it will be påinful.

Dragon’s slåve host: Moria 800p

*Dragon, wings, breåthe fire
-15 moria goblins

*Goblin captain, bow
-11 moria goblin
-1 cåvetroll, håmmer

*Goblin cåptåin, bow
-12 moriå goblin

*Goblin cåptåin, bow
-12 moriå goblin

Overåll: 800p, 55 models, 22 bows, 9 might.

EDITED: Sorry, I removed the points now!

I'll give a full reply in a bit, just please remember to not post each model's points value.

Alright, here's one I've been thinking about a lot: Isildur. Seems like you have to pick one path or the other for him: combat beast on horse backing up Papa Elendil, or army leader with the Ring, has to use it on foot.

Well, lets approach this rationally... What are the core abilities of isildur? For the same price as a buhrdur troll or shagrath war leader with shield, isildur gets fight 6, attacks 3, strenght 4, magic immunity, and a free heroic combat per turn... Only things isildur lacks combared to the troll is weaker wounding, and compared to shagrath he lacks the ability to knock an enemy down. So, if isildur could do that, he would be a shagrath with free heroic combat - an op killer of normal enemy units. Also magic immunity means that typical magic user foes such as the ringwraiths wont dominate the game so easily. So, horse seems a logical pick imo. But, i guess it depends also on strategy, so what would u people attempt to do with the ring?

@Salattu: I think you have to wrong one. Elendil has a free heroic fight. And, both have strength 5 now.

Ok, sorry for confusion, it seems I åm å very båd reåder... So yes, isildur does not håve the heroic combåt, but he is otherwise å decent fighter for his medium price...

Åbout the rhing, I åm not sure whåt would be the usåbility of weåring the ring. if u keep it on, enemies won't be åble to åttåck u ås eåsily, but 1/3 time they will move u ås they wish. So i åm not sure if it will be worth it, unless you reålly need to desperåtely hide fåst from ån enemy, who would be otherwise eåsily åble to åssåssinåte you fåst, such ås å drågon. Åny opinions?

Isildur gets to bring the ring for free so I don't see the reason not to just bring his horse all the time and then have him dismount to use the ring if he needs to duel someone with a higher fight or if he needs to start hiding from something. I mean, the ring does make him one of the best fighters in the game, however, I don't think I'd just abandon the horse or his old man to play exclusively to ring use.

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"Draw your sword with a heavy heart, but swing it with a heavy hand"

That's the thing, I can't think of a points level where I would go for Isildur over Elendil. The Ring and FV6 are a more reliable combo to outfight enemy heroes than Heroic Strike, but even at 400 points I would rather have Elendil fully equipped with 18 Numenoreans. I think Isildur's profile is really impressive, really strong, but Elendil is pure carnage. Bolg is one of my favourite heroes to use, Elendil is a really similar profile and he basically starts the game with Bolg at 10 kills (I don't know about anyone else, I use Bolg's Might for Heroic Combat).

So, Isildur is a fantastic hero, but I don't know when I'd have him leading my army to make use of the Ring, when Papa Elendil is right there.

Hmm, maybe their isn't one then. I guess you could have him leading warriors as allies to elves but it still comes down to just dropping, like five guys worth of points, and bringing Elendil instead.

Maybe he is just in the same boat as all the Rohan heroes that aren't Theoden or Gandalf to Bard in Lake-Town. Where you would bring them with either Theoden or Bard but never without that core hero because you just don't get the same effect.

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"Draw your sword with a heavy heart, but swing it with a heavy hand"

I suppose that line of reasoning opens up a broader question about whether their is an optimal build for each army list and if bringing anything other than what is optimal has any value to us as players.

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"Draw your sword with a heavy heart, but swing it with a heavy hand"

And I hate that. One of the things I love so much about this game is that it's balanced, there's very little "why bring X when Y is always better?". You can build a pretty good army list around just about every model if you use it well. I always say that there's no "best", there might be a "best in this situation" but even that is usually debatable. That's why this Isildur question is bothering me, he is an incredible hero, he has so many uses, it's not acceptable in my head that I would always rather have Elendil.


Many years ago, when The Last Alliance was the community's main site, the site admins decided to set up a debate. Everyone who signed up was given a side to debate for, and a few members were set to judge. At this time, the meta in the UK was (despite my living in Canada, I do tend to keep an eye on how things look in the UK): Good armies had Legolas leading as many Wood Elves as possible, and evil had the Shadow Lord with some Morannons allied in with Haradrim. The debate was whether it was worth taking any Ringwraith other than the Shadow Lord, luckily I got the side I agree with which is that, yes, it absolutely is worth taking other Ringwraiths. Me making my argument that it's worth taking other Ringwraiths inspired one of the judges to jump in and argue against me, that's how deeply ingrained the idea was that SL was the only good Ringwraith. Meanwhile, I had by that point won tournaments with the Tainted (who was much more fragile than he is now), budget Witch King, budget Wraiths, Khamul. I believed that it was due to a fear of thinking outside the box that people were fixated on the meta being what it was.

I still feel that way now, I think there are way too many choices in this game for one model or one army build to be absolutely better than another. Even in cases like Mordor Uruk Hai vs Abrakhan Guard, where they have identical statlines but the Abrakhan Guard have Burly, there are situations where I would prefer the Uruks. What I can't stand is what trading card games call net-decking: where someone just copies the deck (in our case army) that most recently won a big tournament. Someone wins a tournament with Radagast in their army, next tournament you'll see 8 Radagasts, without taking into account how this Radagast was used or if he matches your style.


All this big long rant to say I don't think there's an objectively optimal build. I think some models are easier to use than others, some require more planning or risk to use to their full potential, but I think GW could cut support for the game entirely and the meta would still forever be evolving because we have such a diverse and balanced game.