Recently, I finally succumbed and bought me a box of Hunter Orcs (60% clearance, can't say no to that). This started a loop in my head about what makes for a good combat troop, I even did a statistical analysis of different kinds of front line troops (in a classic spear-wall) just to get a feel for which ones kill the fastest, are most resilient, etc.

Anyway, I then started building some sample armies to maximize the killing potential of Hunter Orcs, but no matter what, I always felt like the army was missing something. Even when I built it to statistically confirm that this army will beat down anything in its path in a straight up fight, it never felt safe.

This leads me to the key point of this post: brute force vs. shenanigans.

Brute force being the point-n-click way to kill things, either through elites or numbers or superior shooting. Shenanigans being the extra little tricks in the game, magic being a common one.

In my example, I was loading up purely on brute force. This gave me an army that would win its 1v1s, but had no way of beating tricky opponents other than rush-n-pound, and I like to be a bit more efficient than that. Okay, try to add some magic or monsters, now I have too few models. Striking the right balance between the two is proving to be a challenge.

The discussion I want to raise here is about that balance, if you're looking at your armies in terms of functionality (brute force) and flair (shenanigans), what do you like to have?

I think the best example of a nice combination is Black Númenóreans combined with a spear line of Morannon orcs with shields. Backed up by a cheap ish ringwraith makes for quite a stong line str 4 support, fight 4 front, higher defence, -1 courage for your enemies to combine with the terror of the BNs could also throw in a banner and warhorn if needed to buff out further weaknesses but then you are pushing points. Magic to deal with heroes or banners etc.

Basically what infinity just said is often what I like to do^

In terms of your original topic(you know I'd love to go super in depth but Im really tired....will tomorrow) I think a mix is always the best.

I always try to have that even with hunters.


One of my favorite combos is:

1-2 warbands hunters led by either Bolg or one of their named 3 might guys
Orc Shaman on warg
Morannons(because I believe their stat line SHOULD be the Gundabads-buzz off theme seakers the Gundabads suck) with shields and or spears
Powerful Mordor killer if I dont take Bolg
Ringwraith on horse

A recent one I took for example was Maxed out Witch King on horse, Bolg with 12 hunters for killing power, Taskmaster, Shaman, and the rest morannons.

Other times Ive taken Fimbul and Yazneg, a wraith, and a shaman with morannon front line for shooting defense.

A mix though always. More armies/ideas to come tomorrow.

_________________
BLACKHAWK 2010 2013 2015 DYNASTY

I both agree and disagree with LOTBR ;p

I think it often will depend on what list you're building in. There are some armies list that do some things very well in which case to run that list to its fullest you may need to invest in their niches, while others, more fleshed out lists, more often maybe? Give you the freedom to diversify and are able to be strong in multiple ways.

I definitely feel like its more fun to play an army that its just a shield wall or just a shooting line.

_________________
Cheers,

P

I've been MIA, school and pretending to be an engineer does that.

While I was writing this topic (which, btw, took about a week or two of writing and rewriting, then eventually I gave up on making it a long and thoughtful essay), I was always going back to the reference butcher list: Reavers. If you want Reavers, you probably want to commit fully to making them combat beasts. This means every model in the army is there to support them in combat, if it can do other things as well (Dark Marshall having magic, for instance), great; but you're weakening the army by adding other kinds of support.

Then I thought, how would I fight against that kind of army with a lesser "butcher" list? You need to disrupt them in some way, Ringwraith magic alone won't cut it against a horde (since, again, I'm approaching this from a Mordor/Hunter Orc perspective). You need a way to stack the odds in your favour; in the case of a Shade+Banner supported Reaver block, that means overturning 95% odds of the Reaver winning a fight. So I started throwing some things in there, then I went back to square one, how does this updated list fare against a more balanced army? Suddenly there's too much flair to take on a balanced army reliably.

It's a lot of finicking around to get the exact list you want, especially for a tournament. I'll post more when I'm less tired and hungry and have a couple of seconds to spare.

Gotta get some of that Kraft Dinner bro ha-ha.

Yeah I know what you mean. It's really weird and interesting trying to build a tournament list especially.

I post alot on here but that makes people assume I'm actually good at the game hahaha. I'm good but locally. Nationally I'm probably average and internationally worse.

List building has a lot to do which I'm usually decently good at but you never know depending on who you're playing. For example....all reavers might not do amazingly against what I took to Nova last year.

I took something like this:

Thranduil(old version)
3 kings guard upgrade
8 Guards of Galadhrim court
Legolas mtd
Bill the Pony

meriadoc peregrin Bandobras mtd paladin lobelia and fatty
And like 48 Hobbits

That's 23 bow shots, terror, and a lot of units with high fight spear support. But in the tournament everyone had fury or Elves so Thranduil was null and void. I'm talking five games I played he was useless.

Against a corsair army though your take a lot of casualties by the time the lines clashed.
Either way it seems like I have a good army and it was but somehow rolls didn't go my way and nearly every player ran from my army till it was unfun go play and I said screw it.

But I had a pretty tough army with not much theme just build to be decent and it didn't work out. Somehow I couldn't win fights with dice stacked in my favor and shooting didn't work that well. Maybe bad matchups too. Oh well. I didn't have big heroes and tactical errors hurt too.

_________________
BLACKHAWK 2010 2013 2015 DYNASTY