Heyy all!
hope you all had a good christmas like i did. I Just have a quick question that im pretty sure has been discussed before but i didnt know the right place to ask it so im doing it here!

I recieved the Balrog for christmas, and i am excited to paint him up! Its a great looking model (though i do have to say i like the metal version more. too bad its not in production ) i was just wondering how fun/usefull he would be in gameplay? Would he be fun to play in tournament style play or would he just [word deleted] off my opponant? Also, if hes only fun in scenario type games, does anyone have some scenario examples they can share? or could you at least point me in the direction to where i might find some?

hope your all enjoying your vacations!

Kyrrial.

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The enemy? His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. - Faramir

I will share my favorite Balrog experience, although I don't know how useful it will be for you. My buddy had been building a Moria army for some time and had finally purchased and painted up his own Balrog. Felling a mite invincible, he boasted that his Balrog would make short work of my Dwarves, so of course, I immediately challenged him to back up his bragging. We rolled up the scenario and deployed. I set up in such a way that he would have to come to me. My first few turns were spent thinning out the Goblin horde with bowfire while the Balrog advanced behind cover to avoid the attention of my Ballista. Finally, he got to the point where he would have to cross a small open area to get to grips with me. I shot him with everything I had and managed to take a few wounds off of him. The next turn, I used a point of Might to surround the Balrog with Gimli and eight Khazad Guard. The Balrog rolled 1s and 2s to win the fight, was trapped, and then disappeared in a flurry of two-handed axes. My buddy and I laughed so hard at how easily the mighty Balrog, Durin's Bane, was defeated. His debut performance was so terrible that my buddy's Balrog has been known as Dwight, after the character on the American version of "The Office."

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Respectfully,
Jonathan

Do what is right, love mercy, and walk humbly

Battle Companies

I love my balrog, just for the imposing sight of it! But we never play for seriousness anyway, so I don't know how it would actually go in competition (I assume not very well, as it doesn't seem to make many appearances).
I think I've got two battle reports with the balrog, there may be others, but here are two at least:

The first was hopeless, a scenario where you had to roll to see if and where the mini would come into the game - really bad choice when the balrog was essentially my whole force bar some gobs. http://simbattleboard.blogspot.com/2010/07/drums-in-deep-harad-vs-moria-battle.html

The second was cool, I lost the scenario, but the balrog was awesome and did a great job of killing dwarves and holding a chokepoint: http://simbattleboard.blogspot.com/2010/11/dwarves-vs-goblins-evacuate.html

I was fortunate enough to get the metal version, but I'm sure yours will also be a great fun paint. Big job, but worth it in the end! (I think I have a WIP balrog painting guide somewhere on the blog too if you want to avoid some of the mistakes I made!)

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My LotR and 40k blog, Realm of Battle board, dwarves, gobs, space wolves and battle reports. http://simbattleboard.blogspot.com/

Anything about the Balrog is useful here Erunion and i did enjoy your story. It just goes to show that any model can be beat with simple tactics and some luck! The Dwight part was funny as i too watch the office.

And simmuskhan, I have read a couple of you reports before! You have quite a talent for writing, very descriptive. Your dwarf army looks fastanstic as well, interesting bannar lol I too collect dwarves and that was another reason for me to pick up a Balrog, so when i play my cousin he can take the goblin army and we can re live the struggle between the two forces. I think i will try your evacuate scenario if thats ok with you. though i will change up the forces to fit my own army. But first i got some painting to do! ill be sure to look up you WiP .

thanks for the help !

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The enemy? His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. - Faramir

My impression of the Balrog has been that it will kill anything it touches, and against a sensible opponent it won't get the chance to touch anything important.

Without might or a fast move, the Balrog is susceptible to being "fed" a warrior a turn while the rest of his army tears the rest of your army to ribbons. It's a cool model and it can be a neat scenario piece, but for point matches he's not at all competitive.

He's a lot of fun to play with, and if you make a formation where he's in the center, and just let the enemy crash into you, he's extremely useful and will slaughter anything. If you get the chance commit him to your greatest worry in the other army and he will make short work of it. My favorit way of playing him is a column formation or inverted U. For the Collumns I set him up in the middle with a few warriors in front of him (this prevents people feeding one warrior at a time, as they first have to take out the goblins. this gives your balrog good flexibility for the first few turns) and then columns of sword & sheild, then spear, and if you have uruk allies, pikemen behind that. Just keep repeating this until you end up with a formation that look kind of like this:
|||| 0|||| or: IIIIOIIII
|||||||||_____III---III
The 0 being the balrog and retinue. Every second column should be archers and back them up between your combat warriors as the enemy approaches. The first pattern is more for stopping the enemy, and the second for trapping. If your opponent goes for the middle on the second, you can take the edges of you inverted U and trap him by creating a formation that looks like this:
|||||||
ooooooo (the o's are the opponent)
|||0|||
When you do this, they have nowhere but the sides and then you can trap them like this:
|| || 0(balrog)
o| |o
o| |o H
o| |o
|| ||
The H represents the enemy hero, or target that you're committing your balrog to. If the go for the sides at the start of the game, then you can go straight to the second pattern. If there is no need for your balrog to kill anything, use him a a choke point holder. Nothing can get past him so they have to crash into you goblin horde. I find what he does most is A)kill anything he touches, and B) make your opponent change their strategy as they don't want to get near him.

As for my favorite scenario? I was playing with one of my friends, and he was playing a hero heavy army. He got his first few heroes into combat with the Balrog, lost hard. And said "I can't win, good game" The balrog is expensive, but in my opinion completely worth it.

Very well said.

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