Tournament Prep - List Building

"The age of men is over, the time of the orc has come!" - Gothmog - The Return of the King

It has been some time since I have made a blog post, 2019 was a busy hobby year for me painting wise but didn't get too much of a chance to update the blog, but the time has come again to write a blog post!

The tournament is a small one, 500 points with most likely 6-8 people coming. I have quite a few armies to chose from and of course I am going to go with an evil force. After some list writing I narrowed my two prospective lists to Moria or Mordor.

The Moria horde list I wrote consists of the following:

Durburz

6 Goblins w Shields

6 Goblins w Spears

3 Prowlers

Shaman

3 Goblins w Shields

3 Goblins w Spears

Groblog

5 Goblins w Shields

5 Goblins w Spears

2 Prowlers

Goblin Captain

5 Goblins w Shields

5 Goblins w Spears

1 Moria Drum

Models: 49

Might: 8

50% Break: 25 dead

25%: 12 remaining

This list is a straight out horde army which I have not actually played before. My usual Moria list at least has some big hitters in a troll or two, the Balrog or a Cave Drake and some fast moving Marauders. 

This list has the numbers to beat out any other army in my local area so I would get the numbers advantage and be able to make good use of the army bonus and trap a fair number of models. That combined with Groblog's crown would bring my goblins up to F4 for standard warriors and F5 for the Prowlers.

Durburz makes for a good leader who can sit in the back to make use of his 12" stand fast when/if I break.

Generic Captain is in the list as a cheap way to get troops in and to hopefully make use of his heroic marches since the goblins speed is a weak spot.

Shaman is in there for the Fury against terror causing armies, this tournament will not be a good vs evil so I may face an evil army with lots of terror or I could face Army of the Dead.

The one focal point of the army is the drum. I just got one and I really wanted to play it in an army so I put it in the list. The rules are very unique that other armies are jealous of. it covers 36" of the board and serves as a banner for any fight with a moria goblin in it, which is every fight since I only have goblins. It also boosts the courage of my goblins (including heroes) by 1 over the entire battlefield, which may be useful vs armies with lots of terror and my shaman isn't in range. The -1 to enemy courage may not seem that useful since I have no terror, but late game it can cause the enemy to flee if I am able to break them.

This list seems pretty good to me but my main issue with it are speed. The goblins are terribly slow so in scenarios like reconnoiter I may be too slow. 49 models is also TONS of models so I may be clogging up the board where I won't be able to fit all my goblins in fights or be able to move them across the battlefield. This also brings up the issue of playtime, I haven't play tested but it will take a lot of time to move 49 models so I will need to really speed up my movement so I don't eat into my opponents time since games will be 1.5hrs.

I was able to playtest this list the day of writing this post, you can find it here.

While pondering this list lets go over my second potential list. Mordor!

Shagrat w Heavy Armour & Shield of Cirith Ungol

4 Black Guard of Barad-Dur

2 Morannon Orcs w Shields

6 Orcs w Spears

Kardush the Firecaller

5 Morannon Orcs w Shields

5 Orcs w Spears

1 Orc w Sword

Great Beast of Gorgoroth

Models: 36

Might: 6*

50% Break: 18 Dead (19 before rolling)

25% Break: 9 Remaining

Much different list that will play quite a bit differently.

Shagrat is the leader and he makes a very strong leader with heavy armor and shield with the ability to gain back Might if he kills an enemy hero (Blood and Glory rule) and the shield helps with his killing power, 3 attacks with knock to the ground turning into 6 dice is really really powerful.

Kardush is a great shaman who will cast fury and be able to keep it up all game with the sacrificial orc with a sword. He also has fireball which is good if I am facing a high defense monster. 

The Great Beast of Gorgoroth is one of the main reasons for writing this list. Mainly because I finally painted mine up so have been excited to try it out. It is truly a bargain model. You get a generic commander (no march though), 9 orcs with bows and then the beast itself. The bows don't count towards the bow limit, which doesn't matter in this army but could in another. Since it is a battle platform the orcs will be hitting on 5s which is nice when combined with an 8" move of the beast.

The beast gets 2 Str 6 hits on its trample which is pretty good for the price point. Str 6 means even against defense 7 or 8 models I will still be wounding on 5's and 4's vs the more standard D5 or 6.

Something to note: 7/12 matched play scenarios end the end of the turn in which an army goes to 25%. This army's 25% number is 9, which is important. The Great Beast, its Captain and the archers all count individually towards the model count so it is 11 models. That means the enemy has to kill the Great Beast and 1 additional model to quarter the army. All models within the howdah also auto-pass courage tests for broken as well so it has staying power late game.

The enemy archers could shoot the commander or the archers out, making in the way shots for the howdah. Now if they hit the howdah which is D8 so an archer hitting on 4s with Str 2 bows you would be wounding on 6/5's which equals a 2.78% chance of causing a wound to the howdah that has 4 wounds. Or a 8% chance of being able to hit, pass the in the way and then wound an archer. Pretty low chances but a chance nonetheless.

This may be a strong point or it could be a sour point when it comes to end game. The orcs within the howdah will auto-pass their courage tests for broken as I said which is great but they also cannot dismount so I will need to manage the movement late game and make sure I save a point of might for a late game heroic move if I need to.

So which army am I taking to the tournament?

Well that is the question now isn't it. After thinking about it for a long time I have decided to go with the Mordor force, which you may have guessed from the opening quote from Gothmog (even though I am not playing Gothmog). The main reason for choosing the Mordor force it that it has more strengths than the Moria list. 

The Mordor list has a strong leader in Shagrat who would be able to face off against most heroes at the 500pt level minus a few tougher ones. Shagrats warband alone is much stronger with 4 Black Guard for the F4 and Str5. The front line of my warriors is also all D6 so I will be able to withstand a fair fight, and I can shield if I am greatly outnumbered or need to stay on objectives.

The Great Beast is also going to be a big problem for my opponents since it has 8" move, has 9 bows and is a tough enemy to face up against since trample avoids taking courage tests since it counts as movement.

Kardush will also be invaluable if I face against Army of the Dead or anything with lots of terror while also being able to fireball high defense enemies on a 3+ wounding them on a 4 or 5 which is pretty great.

Both armies are fully painted, since I like to only play with fully painted armies, with the exception of bases being unfinished. Now it's time to playtest, although I don't know if I will have enough time to do that before the weekend!