Howdy folks. New player here with what is probably an obvious question.

There's a lot of lists for Goblintown and such being bandied about, but in my admittedly somewhat limited research I haven't seen much about the force I seem to be drawn to. Are the Hunter Orcs subpar? Lacking in some major area? Any advice for getting started with them?

It'd be very easy to pick up EFGT and run a Goblin force, but the goblins just don't have the same visual appeal. So, basically, where should I start and what pitfalls should I avoid with Azog and his Hunters?

I haven't built mine yet, but they seem slightly OP on paper in combat, but with their low D a bit vulnerable to shooting. Probably nothing wrong with them at all

There are a few good things about Hunter orcs. The rule Many Blades, and the fact that they ride fell wargs who count has having Fell Sight. (good rule).

Their defence is bad and everything else about them is generic orc. A load of tosh against arrow fire but decent enough in combat.

The reason they have the many blades rule is so they stand a decent chance against Thorin's Company in combat.

Worth putting them in your force I should think. I've got them both on foot and mounted.

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My old WIP thread - http://www.one-ring.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=16246&start=0

Greetings, and welcome to the One Ring.

I plan on building a small Hunter Orc band myself, but that will be much later. As for advice, cavalry need plenty of Heroes & Might to ensure that they get off their charges and are able to scoot away when they have lost Priority.

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Respectfully,
Jonathan

Do what is right, love mercy, and walk humbly

Battle Companies

I'm building up a band of them too, it's just Goblin Town is the easiest way to go at the moment and being something of a Goblin"aholic", I started with those!

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"That'll do it..."

It's probably just that Azog's hunters are A: Expensive and B: Are currently wqithou an Azog model!

Yeah I think the turning point will be when Azog comes out. He's a very popular character in my local GW amongst the new hobbyists!

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"That'll do it..."

A common problem for "young" lists is a lack of versatility in units and heroes. I refer you to Numenorians and High Elves. As the trilogy progresses, I expect to see more characters, tougher unit types and command upgrades.

Well, after looking things over a bit, I've more or less very tentatively pointed up the following list (which probably needs a lot of tweaking).

Azog on White Warg
6 Hunter Orcs on Fell Wargs
3 Fell Wargs
Fimbul on Fell Warg
6 Hunter Orcs on Fell Wargs
2 Fell Wargs
Narzug on Fell Warg
6 Hunter Orcs on Fell Wargs
2 Fell Wargs

The utter lack of shooting is somewhat problematic, but I had issues justifying taking Hunter Orcs with Orc Bows as opposed to Fell Wargs, which can keep up and hopefully do some damage.

Narzug is a bit of an odd choice, but for 5 points more than a generic Captain he gets a few stat bonuses but most importantly an additional point of might, bringing my total up to 12 for the list (which should help with getting into and out of combats).

Azog is pretty much a character assassin with a fixed 2+ to wound. Scary.

I used a Goblin Town (with an allied contingent from Moria lead by a shaman) army with Narzug on warg (proxied warg rider) and 12 hunter orcs on foot against an Isengard army (with the addition of Bolg, my opponent just got him and wanted to try him out), and they did fantastic. They are definitely NOT OP, pretty much everytime my opponent won a fight, I lost a model, but they can deal enough damage to stay pretty much even. The goblins dropped like flies, but the Scribe brought in 9 more guys before Saruman killed him (I had to deploy him close to the middle of the field cuz I rolled poorly), so I still had a lot before the end. Anyway, seeing the Hunter Orcs in action (at least once), they need to get into combat ASAP, once there, they should do some damage before dying, which they will if they lose. I can see them losing their effectiveness against dwarves (needing a 6 to wound most of them), but they should still work well. Narzug did pretty well, but lost to an Uruk-hai captain and died early on. Bolg is a beast, but very killable. I fought him 3 times in one day, the first, I used the Golden King to make him flee when his army was broken (I love that guy!), the second, I threw an Uruk at him with the Great Goblin and knocked him over, I then charged in and killed him before he could get to 10 kills (the shaman with channeled fury was AMAZING!) and the third game, I kept Immobilising him until he died. However, until he died, he was cutting his way through several heros and lots of troops, but he never reached 10 kills.
As I mentioned, channeling Fury works wonders, I really like the new magic system.

tl:dr, I really like the new hunter orcs, I already have a prefect 500 pt army worked out, but it requires Azog, Fimbul and 2 boxes of Fell Wargs before I can use it. There goes my Christmas money!

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"Leave Sauron to me."
If you're in the Raleigh, NC area, let me know.

How many points does said list equal? If it a 500pts then it actually looks pretty solid, you have decent enough numbers, mobility, and a beatstick, so good job!

A 500 pts, you can get:
Fimbul on warg and 12 hunter orcs, 6 of which with either bows or 2handed weapon, or like the box make up, 4 and 2, respectively, and
Azog on White Warg with lance and 12 fell wargs.
So the list you were talking about is probs about 600~650 pts.

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"Leave Sauron to me."
If you're in the Raleigh, NC area, let me know.

I'd like to say a few things to help you play this list effectively that I do not think have been mentioned.

Firstly, a brief analysis of some of the units:

Hunter Orcs on Foot: without any equipment, or with two-handed weapons these guys are a little overpowered and a large quantity of these should do you well. You will of course know how effective the many Blades rules is, and they have a decent strength too, and not to costly to field. So very good. When you give them bows however it is not really a great idea. Think about it. For their cost, with an above average strength, a combat-oriented special rule, low defence and a poor shoot value, you don't really want to give these guys bows.

Loose Fell Wargs: Very similar to normal Wild Wargs, their speed and strength are useful etc but they cost a little more because of this Fell Sight rule. When you think about it, how often are you actually physically in a position to charge a model that you cannot see. Not very useful really, but for the cost, they're not too bad, and can be fielded in large numbers.

Hunter Orcs on Fell Wargs: Well... er, the models look nice and on paper they might seem sort of alright but do not do it. Twice the cost of the foot version with little benefit. The loss of Many Blades is balanced out with the cavalry extra attack, but with that, it shouldn't really cost more than a couple of pts more than the ft version. Also, the fell sight rule is even less effective because the hunter Orcs being higher up, have an even greater LoS than their mounts. For 1pt less than a Hunter Orc on Fell Warg you can get a Warg Rider with shield and throwing spear. It will survive longer and has an incredibly unlikely attempt to throw something. The hunter POrcs only benefits are extra strength, which is pointless because the wargs have the same, fell sight which isn't wirth much, and many blades which ceases to exist. All in all not good. The rules were probably written this way to counterbalance the slightly overpowered foot versions. Maybe a couple in one warband in support of 6-10 loose fell wargs but nothing more. You could use the models to represent allied Warg Riders instead.

Azog and Bolg; Briefly, yes they are both very good, but don't try takin both unless you are at a minimum of 1,000pts preferably more. Just pick the one more flavourful to you.

Fimbul and Narzug: unlike Hunter Orcs, these guys are better when mounted because of their special rules.. Taking these to lead you Fell Wargs would be a good idea. The extra might is great to.

Generic Hunter Orc Captains: On foot, great, like as Dragon Knight but cheaper and lower defence, good fighter, you can take it or leave it with the two-handed weapons. As with the regular sloggers, these are not as good mounted, take the named heroes mounted instead unless you have run out.

A few other things;

As others have said, thre lack of an Azog model has led to reduced popularity at the moment.

Regarding allies: A warband or two of hunter orcs or fell wargs would make decent allies. Bolg leading 12 hunter orcs for instance would be strong hit squad used as allies to cheaper expendable armies like Goblin Town, Moria and Angmar. When Hunter Orcs are your main list, the kinds of things you need to thingk about allying are models which fit in themewise or rulesrise but aren't there. For instance you could take on Orc Shaman, a Troll and some regular Orcs. The Shaman gives a nice boost to your Orcs, the Troll gives you a handy monster, and the Orcs increases your number. An Orc Drummer is another idea rather than using heroic actions of wargs to increase the spped of your Orcs.

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

Very good points that I am probably going to wind up ignoring largely out of rule of cool. A few counterpoints from just going over rules a little.



Orc bows are cheap as chips and the army has a 1/2 Bow Limit. At 750 points, taking a full compliment of bows reduces my model count by two--except that (in that case) I couldn't take more warriors anyway. While I fully admit that they are not optimal gear, they allow for some adaptability and gives you something to do against terror-causing foes.



Fell Sight is absolutely amazing, IF you plan around it (and have adequate terrain to allow it to come into play). It allows you to be in a position where you dictate charges and your opponent does not. Now, if you are playing on the Shire's Bowling Green, then yes it's less useful, but when there are a number of LoS-blocking pieces of terrain, this rule becomes an incredible advantage.



Losing Many Blades hurts, I admit, but what you get is an oftentimes 2-attack model with Knock Prone with a decent strength and over half again the speed of a normal Hunter Orc. Not a bad trade, although I'll be the first to admit that an entirely-mounted force will lack enough numbers to be effective.



What benefit does Narzug have while mounted? Not seeing a reason to stick him on a Fell Warg other than having an additional point of Might traveling with the packs (which, admittedly, can be enough).

Narzug has the Expert Rider rule.



They still cost too many pts for that, compare it to a Warg Rider which is much better value. The speed you can counter with Heroic march and/or drummers.

Line of Sight: I generally play in relatively open terraign, chances of making use if this rule is very slim. Even not, if the target is partially obscured, you can still charge anyway. I dom't really think even with lots of terraign there will be many occasions hwne you can charge a model you can't see.

Even with a 50% bow limit, it doesn;t really help if their archery is terrible, they die easily. Unless you are guaranteed to start far enough away from your enemy, there is no point.

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

I genuinely wouldn't consider Expert Rider to be a good reason to mount a character, particularly when said character has other rules to encourage hanging back and shooting.



While I'll bow to your experience, the numbers really don't quite back it up. For slightly less than the cost of a Fell Warg and a Hunter Orc, you get a combined model with an additional fight and four times the offensive output of a Fell Warg (or an additional strength and twice the offensive output of a Hunter Orc) and roughly twice the survivability. Plus, you know, the additional speed, which is amplified with Heroic Marching.



Admittedly if you are playing with minimal LoS-blocking terrain the rule is unlikely to come up. I suppose I am used to playing (other games, admittedly) with a plethora of things that block LoS, from houses to ruined walls and so on.



While it may not crop up in games, I can think of plenty of times where I would want to charge some warriors, knock them down and/or kill them, then move 5" away and shoot some arrows (even if the arrows aren't going to do much). Or, alternatively, if you are out of charge range, being able to shoot allows you to potentially do something.

hello, (I'm new to one-ring but playing the game for a long time)

I think azog's hunters are amazing, there hero's are just to good and I did wone a tournement today with them (and a converted azog).
Only Gotmog is right, don't take them on a warg, they won't be good. (the only good thing is the rule to charche from behind terain if you use the rule goed)

Ik don't think you should use bows, they aren't worth there points, becouse they are bether when fighting. on warg they still are not worth it, to may points and a weak rider.

MVG

I already tryed some tests with proxies before I purchase and a pack of Fimbul, 5 orcs hunters on warg and 7 wargs, its pretty annoying to play with low defence, but being as a scout force to kill something specialized or fighting against outflanking cavalry, they hold their work. also pretty good runners in max to try to steal an enemy objective and go through charges on models they cannot see
and also paying for the riders, the warg themselves cost 1point less of upgrade than getting loose wargs
on the other hand considering... if you get a -1 on shooting if a model moves which makes orcs shooting from 5+ to 6+.. having a move of 5" shooting at 6..well I dunno guys, but dont seems much drastic diference to allow em to go a bit faster

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Fimbul on fell warg is really good, but orc hunters on fell wargs aren't good, I think it's better to take a warband with fimbul on warg (fell) and a warband of fell warg for speed.
bows on a 6 are noth worth it.

Lucas

soo make a warband of fimbul 2 riders and rest fell wargs?

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