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I tried a version of this list at 800 with Erestor swapped with Arwen on Asfaloth (down to 8 Might with the swap but 8 is still plenty with Elrond's Foresight), two more Riv Knights (3 in total), 3 more Elf Bows (11 from 8) and one fewer model overall (29 from 30) and it worked quite well (proper shield & spear ratio as well). Double Bruinen and plenty of cav charges coupled with the brutal -1 Courage Dismay bubble projects effective board control and some good opportunities to deal decent damage. This list concept really is great if you have an Evil and magic-heavy meta in your local group.
Dragons are the kings of sunk cost fallacy, they start at 300 and just keep going up. You don't think you can even justify the Dragon unless it has the Hide upgrade. The Defence 9 halves the number of wounds you take which means half the number of courage checks. Thats basically its base cost then you look at the other upgrades and decide if you want one of them... Which OF COURSE you do, its Flight so you can get anywhere (that your enemy lets you) and the Hide lets you feel more comfortable about flying because throwing spears, crossbows and longbows arent going to shred you nearly as badly... So thats 350 points. Maybe the Breathe Fire and try to go for that big AOE, control more space, with flight you actually have as much threat range as bows but with so much more lethality! Costs a Will point but you are so hard to wound now with all them scales maybe its worth that one singular crumb of Will from your stores. Most enemies will spread out just because of the threat and get less value from their auras... But not that Cirdan with his blasted Blinding Light. Wyrmtongue is unreliable, especially if you intend to actually be engaged ever. However, being able to nullify a 100 point enemy hero on a 3+ once per turn to try to earn the value back when you would not be doing anything noteworthy otherwise, or to pull someone into threat range to set up a trap, a heroic combat or a hurl. So clutch when the enemy is determined to turtle up... Maybe we take ALL of them. Only 450 points - why not, right? We're well over half a Smaug so why stop!? Yeah, probably too much. Or we can just commit to being a waddling roadblock dragon. Even with 6" movement its base size lets it threaten two objectives at once. Gets the In-The Ways from infantry, and can hide under trees from siege weapons, very hard to commit to fighting it in melee when most heroes need to spend Might to Strike and are only wounding on 6/4s even if they win. They need probably 5 won combats to actually kill it and if they flub the roll it Rends them for 4 strikes at 3+, that smarts. Easier to ignore that entire side of the board and kill goblins. I kind of wish you could pick from a more 'mise en place' list of upgrades, 25 for +1 Defence and +1 Wound is way more comfortable than 50 for +2 +2. Maybe you pay 25 points for one instance of fire and another 25 for another use. 25 points to be a fast dragon with a 10" walk speed then another 25 points on top if you want the Flight. That would be nice.
Fun report! One thing to note on the Dragon is that it doesn’t actually have any magic unless you upgrade it with Wyrmtongue (which probably isn’t worthwhile), so it’s actually worse in that way than you were assuming. You obviously didn’t cast with it anyway, but I thought you’d be interested in the extra little nerf. Speaking of magic, that was the one saving grace for the Dragon this game (and the reason there are much worse matchups available): it absolutely hates enemy offensive spellcasters and there weren’t any here. When you need your Will to stay alive, a classic double-caster Mordor or Angmar list is nightmarish for it. Drain Courage sucks, Sap Will sucks, Compel and Transfix suck, Black Dart can just kill you once you’re out of Will and Fate… It’s rough. I want to like the Dragon, but magic (and that base size) really makes it so much worse than it looks
@@NowForWrathGaming Yeah it happens. If you're planning on playing the Dragon in the future, I'd say you played it too conservatively. That moment when you decided to back off because Gil-Galad could charge him seemed iffy to me. Like, if you're scared of Gil-Galad when you're on the charge, what's the point of the Dragon? If you went through with that combat, if Gil-Galad wins, you cop a couple wounds tops as long as your not trapped. If you win a fight on the charge, that's pretty much a dead leader for him. And in the process, you're trading might with Gil-Galad, which is favorable to you, because Gil-Galad with no might is just a strong elf, a Dragon with no might is still a frigging Dragon. Just my opinions on this.
@@BrickWann the problem with this idea is that Gil-Galad wants to be fighting the dragon while the elves and Numenoreans fight the goblins. You are much better off letting Gil-Galad fight shitty goblins all day while the dragon eats the troops. Paying 300 points for a flying beatstick means you need to pick your engagements. Otherwise, just don't bother paying 50 points for that ability.
@@doubleoblit I disagree, in fact the opposite is true. Gil-Galad wants to avoid the Dragon. Why would he want to fight it? Statistically, if he wins he deals 1 wound, whereas if he loses he takes 2 at least himself if the Dragon rends while not on the charge. On the charge, honestly might just kill him outright. No, there's no reason why you should be afraid of Gil-Galad while you're on the charge, unless you're trapped. But he wasn't even close to being trapped. Yes, you pay 50 points to pick your engagements. And this engagement would be a perfect pick. And I think that the argument of holding the Dragon off while the troops do the killing is sily. I mean, sure, that scenario might end up being good for the Last Alliance troops, but what else do you want the Dragon to do? Kill 2 Numenoreans a turn? How is that a better use of the Dragon, than draining the resources of Gil-Galad, potentially killing him, winning VPs, and then having nothing that can challenge it on the battlefield? No, the idea that the Dragon would be better used doing anything else other than killing the enemy leader makes no sense at all.
Thanks for a fun summary, and congrats on the podium! I definitely agree on the changes you’d make to the list; Ashrak is fun, but a Shaman does add quite a lot to the list as well as saving some points. Given how often the army breaks, Fury ends up being a pretty big deal in the lategame. Those retrospective errors always feel so rough; I remember taking out a tournament with the Watcher in the Water, only to be subsequently told that it was on the wrong base size the whole time. I’d bought it second-hand and pre-assembled, and just assumed that the base it was on was correct, but it still felt quite sad to suddenly have an asterisk over the whole thing. All of which is to say, don’t sweat it, these things happen, and kudos to you for doing the right thing afterwards
Thanks much and thanks for the comments! It's funny- I go back over everything thoroughly in order to make videos and sometimes wonder how much stuff gets missed! Yeah I am gonna try AoL again but leave Ashrak out and see how it goes.
Great video guys! I´ve really enjoyed the battle! Just two thing, first, what happened with the shoots from orcs on the Great Beast, I can´t imagine you failed every single turn to try go down the goat of Thorin and two, did you try Flameburst with Kardush on Thorin? Anyway great game!! That Great beast is stunning!
This is basically exactly what you want with AoL: the dice consistently in your favor haha. Having played with that legion a fair bit, it's very powerful when the dice are going your way, but in general, if you have 1-2 bad turns (which you didn't here), it snowballs down hill very quickly as the army is incredibly fragile in close combat with the low defense and low fight value. If your opponent has faced it before and knows how to play against it and all the ways to counter it's tricks, yeah, it's a struggle to actually win anything once they get in close.
Another awesome Battle Report guys! Keep ‘em coming. New Special Rule: The Tabletop Admiral - “If the controlling player created TTA, all models in the army may benefit from the Lord of the West special rule.” (Created by the Dice Gods)
Great battle report, the scenario was certainly a scary one for Gondor against AoL with how much it forces them to spread out. And you kinda have to see the Bat/Spider combo in action to appreciate how much it hurts and how you have to position to prevent it. One small rules note: at about 37 mins, the Warg Rider is slain and the Warg runs away to let Ingold Heroic Combat away. But thanks to Durburz' Courage boost for Wargs, it should arguably have stayed and denied the Heroic Combat. The 'arguably' is because RAW Wargs don't get the Warg keyword even after their rider is slain, but I've only seen it ruled as working in practice
Warg Riders have orcs, so maybe you weren't counting those? Looks like 20 orcs and 20 goblins to me, which would be legal, unless I'm missing something.
@@jamit500 @scuurn Howdy! Sorry for the slow reply! Okay the boxy modular buildings are called the "Ruins of Ulvhelm" and were free on Thingiverse. The ruined tower, the larger ruin right next to it, and two of the other less boxy-looking ruins are all from The Print Goes Ever On. The set they are from is called "Osthold". Hope that helps!
@@NowForWrathGaming Thank you! It looks great. I run a similar gondor force so love to keep seeing takes like this on how to take on pretty hard to beat armies.
Yeah, dismounting is an interesting idea. I even said to Steve before our game, "so I guess I just need to make sure I don't leave a spider/bat-sized base worth of space around Boromir". Then in the heat of the moment...I forget.
We are in talks now to finalize details of our consumption of Ashrak Insurance LTD. We will however be removing everyone working in the Claims Approval department and focus all of our resources on denying claims. Expect changes to your policy.
@@NowForWrathGaming elrond very important so his horse is less likely to get darted and as he is your main offensive tool he has good resist, even worth it to channel the fortify to be really good at resisting
