Hi, all. I was wondering as I recently got a winged nazgul (cheers, General Elessar) that what nazgul would be best (or at least good) on a fell beast. I was thinking of using the betrayer with my Serpent Horde but not because of poisoned arrows, but because of bane of kings which could be very powerful when on top of the little birdie. Otherwise the Undying who would be very difficult to dismount and could get a lot of turns in combat. Other obvious choices are KoU and Khamul but I wanted to be a little different (if that's still viable).

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"War does not determine who is right, only who is left."
- Bertrand Russel

I have Khamul, haven't used him yet, but with his abilities he should be able to stick around for a while!

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I've heard that the Shadow-Lord is best, as he prevents the fell beast from being shot.

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

Shadow Lord on FB is most useful by far. Others are too vulnerable. Of course Legolas is the main Wraith Counter, but without Pall of Night they can be targeted by other bowmen too, so you'll get hit not only by Legolas's 3 Might autohit but also other arrows which might just cause a wound (since it's 1/12 chance once you hit the rider, and you hit the rider 1/3 of the time normally).

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Coordinator of the Great British Hobbit League

Don't the in-the-way rules still apply even if it's a flyer?

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"War does not determine who is right, only who is left."
- Bertrand Russel

Yes, the in the way rule still applies but I don't think it helps if the tail is obscured and the rest of the model is entirely visible.

Tail doesn't count as part of the body. To get an in the way you have to be in the way of part of the body and that's pretty high with the fell beast, so there is almost never any protection for them.

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Coordinator of the Great British Hobbit League

I don't have a fell beast, but have you tried to hide it behinda a banner?

It's a piece of equipment - can you hide models behind equipment? Surely equipment doesn't count for seeing a model. Plus most of the best competitive armies don't ever use banners

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Coordinator of the Great British Hobbit League

Finally someone who agrees with me here. Shadowlord is the only usefull ringwraith on fellbeast the rest is too vurnerable.

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"There are only 4 things you need in life: Lasagna, beer, a girlfriend and of course a gondor army."

Just out of curiosity, why don't they?

Most won't pay off as pretty much all competitive armies have allied in spears and the banner can easily be compelled by a wraith and then killed by volley fire.

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"War does not determine who is right, only who is left."
- Bertrand Russel

Honestly? Because they're rubbish. Their rule is worth nowhere near those 30 or so points that you pay. It's almost always better to boost your numbers and increase bow count by getting more models. They give no protection against big heroes like Spider Queen, Twins or Shadow Lord on Fell Beast because those guys almost always auto-win fights anyway (and they're completely useless against Saruman and Legolas and the 5 heroes which are just listed are the 5 most popular and the best heroes in the whole game which everyone on top tables constantly uses). Their range of effect is to small make any significant difference. Plus in some scenarios they end up in the middle of nowhere and are gone in a second (Take and Hold for example).

I don't think there was a single banner in top 10 at the GT this year. I'm sure there weren't any in the 12 lists that made the top 6 (I'm good friends with the 5 people that ended up below me so I know their lists), which included:
1. Gondor / Harad
2. Elves / Mordor
3. Elves / Mordor + Harad
4. Elves / Mordor
5. Arnor / Harad
6. Dwarf+Elf / Mordor

And that's interesting actually because statistically it is best to give a banner to Elves, slightly better than to give it to anyone else, and yet with 3.5 elves in top 6 none had a banner.

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Coordinator of the Great British Hobbit League

Ok bear with me, I just read up on the rules for shooting and seeing people. Just because you can't see the banner bearer when you just see the banner, or another piece of equipment, but that doesn't mean it can't block the shot. It could be seen as an object, like a tree or something, which kind of makes sense, but it is also possible that the shot can be allocated to the warrior despite not being able to see it the first place. This seems like a mistake, but I can't find anything which states that equipment is ignored when fiering. I know it is ignored when checking LOS though. So, if I'm not competly off, does the shot hit the warrior carrying the equipment or does it just treat the equipment like a tree.

It's one of the very few grey areas that are left in the LotR rules. Generally since you don't check for visibility of the model by seeing their wargear (like you won't see a model behind a tree if you only see their sword because it's assumed that they're hiding it) then people usually agree that equipment doesn't create a cover for in the way rolls, because otherwise you could have the following situation"

(=== stands for wall
..... stand for nothingness, but due to post formatting they need to be there
---- stands for the pike)

========................================
Pikeman ---------------
.............Another model

In this case you can't see the pikeman, therefore there is no logical reason to hit him, but his pike is blocking the line of sight to another model - if you allow the in the way roll then you're breaking the rules because you cannot possibly in any way be able to hit the pikeman as no part of the shot would ever go through his body, but at the same time it seems you should roll in the way because of the obscurity (but then again it is assumed that the pikeman has hidden his pike next to him...). Therefore for simplicity's sake all carried equipment gets ignored.

So the banner generally wouldn't count as being in the way (plus again look at it logically - will an arrow really be stopped by a piece of cloth?)

And as to your other question, if you do allow the banner in the way then it has to hit the model, it's not a piece of terrain, it doesn't work that way

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Coordinator of the Great British Hobbit League

Ahh, I see, thank you.