500 point Mirkwood

polywags · **Posted:** Wed Jan 07, 2015 4:27 am

Well I played around a little bit. The shooting is really strong, I feel. I basically just sat back peppered some uruk hai. Its definitely not as gritty of a list as if it had prince of mirkwood or even some upgrades for Leggy but with Thranduil as the leader I mostly just used Legolas to shoot and if anything could shoot at him he and all the rest of my bows could too. Thranduil stayed safe, only charging into fights he was going to win and Tauriel didn't actually get into it but you can throw her around pretty haphazardly and just let her kill her cost worth of models. I think if Tauriel gets some kills and you get a reasonable number of shots off before the lines hit you'll be in a good spot. If they don't play around nature's wrath you can often just win off that with wood elves. In short, it feels similar to old wood elves, but you get a few less troops a few more bows. The defense 4 on the mirkwood elves I feel like could be great in bow stand off, excluding cross bows, since the bump from defense 3 to 4 actually matters quite a bite vs strength 2 bows and even strength 3s. As you pointed out I cheaped out on the heroes a bit so if you're really forced to brawl I dunno how you'll hold up. Troop count is pretty low but only a few lower then with old wood elves. If you really wanted more troops you could take a captain instead of Tauriel and grab him 1-2 more models, maybe, if you shift the points around a bit. All in all, I think if you want to play these guys like the older elf lists you can, I dunno if they're better but they don't seem drastically worse. I suspect that a more hero heavy elite army with the beefed up Thranduil and Legolas could also work but I tend to feel that if you're taking either of them you might as well just go all hero, worth trying though to be sure.

WhoelsebutHaldir · **Posted:** Thu Jan 08, 2015 4:41 am

Hmm, I'm going to try and playtest the list I posted at the start of the thread soon (hopefully Friday) and see how it does. I'll post up the report here so we can compare the results to your list.

Did you leave the displacement of troops like it was in the list you posted or did you distribute the warriors more between the 3 heroes? Also I'm confused by what you meant in terms of D4 being better that D3 against S2 bows? As far as I know it is still a 5+ to wound.

polywags · **Posted:** Thu Jan 08, 2015 7:19 am

Right you are about the bow strength, dunno why i thought. That's kind of a bummer. I did keep the troops the same as they were, with just one more ranger in one of the warbands. Mixing that up a bit could good, I didn't really put any thought into that side of it. Good luck, hope it goes well.

Galanur · **Joined:** Fri Feb 24, 2012 11:28 am **Posts:** 1389

the only thing on tauriel that i found out is that my enemies tend to run away from her :/
If i want the lines to crash prob taking a palace guard captain instead of her lol least my oponents will find a bit more courageous in heading straight for my lines and fight him.

Galanur · **Joined:** Fri Feb 24, 2012 11:28 am **Posts:** 1389

the only thing on tauriel that i found out is that my enemies tend to run away from her :/
If i want the lines to crash prob taking a palace guard captain instead of her lol least my oponents will find a bit more courageous in heading straight for my lines and fight him.

WhoelsebutHaldir · **Posted:** Thu Jan 08, 2015 11:36 pm

The last time I used Tauriel she got killed in one turn by Sharku. Then again Sharku was killed the next turn by two Mirkwood rangers so that doesn't really prove anything XD.

polywags · **Posted:** Fri Jan 09, 2015 9:22 am

Yeah she's disgustingly powerful though, they should run. Or feed her a model a turn lol.

LordoftheBrownRing · **Posted:** Sat Jan 10, 2015 9:57 am

What I have found with her having played against her over a dozen times is that she's vulnerable to bowfire. I've taken her out like that a lot or by wraithing her to no attacks or fight value.

Coenus Scaldingus · **Joined:** Sat Aug 17, 2013 9:14 am **Posts:** 1121

Bowfire? The best way to kill a model wearing an Elven cloak is with ranged attacks?

LordoftheBrownRing · **Posted:** Sat Jan 10, 2015 12:13 pm

Lol whoops my opponent failed to mention that and i never really knew if it was add on for five points or not. I assumed it was.

Lol i have tonapologize to him what a catastrophic mistake hahaha. I figured since he had the book and i didnt hed inform me of the profile.

Well.....the wraih still stands.

polywags · **Posted:** Mon Jan 12, 2015 7:19 am

Regardless, she isn't unkillable but she throws her weight around miiiiiiighty well, imo. Especially how cheap she is! Its kind of dumb.

WhoelsebutHaldir · **Posted:** Mon Jan 19, 2015 1:56 am

So I took this army to the tournament today and it preformed rather well. The first game I played was against the other most experienced guy at the event. He had brought a Balrog and 12 wild wargs. The scenario was to the death and it went pretty much how one would expect with these armies. I managed to kill most of his wargs in the first 3 tunes for no lose of my own. I moped up the rest of the the wargs in combat with a few of my troops while Thranduil and Legolas and the rest tried to battle the Balrog. The first 3 turns of combat with it I used Legolas's might to heroic struck and win the fight, over the three turns I caused 2 wounds (both saved by fate). The fourth turn of combat Thranduil tried to strike up and rolled a 2, I then lost the fight and Thranduil was killed by the Balrog. The next turn I was faced with a choice, run away and leave one model behind and hope the random roll to end the game happened or try and fight it out. I didn't want to be "that guy" so I ended up charging everything I could into the Balrog including Lgolas and....well Leoglas became a very fine stain on the ground after one turn of combat. Ah well such is life, after that I comited one warrior to the Balrog and the rest ran away as there was no more hope is trying to kill it. The turn after that the game ended as a 19 to 17 game for my opponent. I was a little bummed out knowing that had I ran Legolas away my odds would have been better, but it was still a fun game against a rarely seen model so I can't really complain.

The next game was a massive battle with everyone's armies fighting it out (good vs evil, 7 players a side) with victory points for 7 objective (scored as per domination) and victory points for spending fate or wounding heroes. My forces did rather well, the archers I had helped defend the castle that we had, along with my palace guard and Thranduil. While my 10 Mirkwood Warriors teamed up with Beorn to fight some orcs and a Mumak on another part of the board. Legolas and the two Knights actually did very well and fought off some half trolls/watchers of carna/warg riders with the help of an eagle in another section. Legolas managed to kill an Orc captain and some half trolls, I was very pleased with his performance and he is becoming one of my favourite models.

Overall it was a very fun event with the evil side ultimately scoring more points Over the day than good by about 20. I was very happy with the way this army performed and I think they really could be a competitive force if played right.

Coenus Scaldingus · **Joined:** Sat Aug 17, 2013 9:14 am **Posts:** 1121

A Balrog and 12 Wargs, wow, that's not something you see every day.

Any particular changes you would have made to your list, given your experiences?

Galanur · **Joined:** Fri Feb 24, 2012 11:28 am **Posts:** 1389

I think hes list was just fine, what defines on his case how sucessfull or not he can be, its literally the way he plays though...

LordoftheBrownRing · **Posted:** Mon Jan 19, 2015 5:21 pm

I understand your not wanting to be that guy...but I would have definitely took off.

The thing is....Im not sure where youre from.....but in America where I am, I rarely can attend a tournament. So Im going to play to win. Between friends I would do what you did but not if I pay to play in a serious setting.

All in all though, Im glad your army worked to your liking. Mirkwood Rangers when used correctly are probably in the top 5 models in the game IMO.

WhoelsebutHaldir · **Posted:** Mon Jan 19, 2015 7:22 pm

Ya I uderstand LordOfTheBrownRing but it was a free event at my local GW, and was more of an event to see how good the support for SBG is in my area. So in the interest of having a good time I did that. Oh and I'm from Canada

CoenusScaldingus I don't think I would have changed this army up, the shooting as always was nice and helpful, the Mirkwood warriors fought well and did their job (dieing heroically) while the cavalry and heroes did the damage. The palace guard and Rangers were a nice addition and gave me some great options while playing. I don't think there is a point in trying to take more than 2 warbands at 500pt with this army so having elite troops and good heroes is the way to go.

LordoftheBrownRing · **Posted:** Tue Jan 20, 2015 5:10 pm

Oh well I got ya then bud. I understand. Was there a good amount of supportive people?

polywags · **Posted:** Tue Jan 20, 2015 7:26 pm

Nice! Sounds like it went pretty well. Balrog and wargs is a little weird and with your strike you had as a good a shot as you could have asked for really. I haven't gotten to play anymore yet but I am still pretty interested to see this list against a battery of other armies and see what it can do.

I agree though, I am really starting to like the rangers. They're a little risky but can really do well and are very fun and thematic.

WhoelsebutHaldir · **Posted:** Tue Jan 20, 2015 8:36 pm

There were 14 guys out at the event so it was a great turn out for us, considering if the people who had bailed had shown up we would have had 20! There was a mix of people there ranging from experienced to practically new to the game. I actually ended up being the good general in the mega battle because I was the most experienced so that was interesting. But everyone seemed to have a good time and it looks like we might be having monthly events now so it's very positive! I'm also hopeful that I can get some games in with the guys that I met on the weekend, so the future is looking good

Well I also got in a game the night before against my friend Alexander (LOTRIsengard), he was using a close variation to the army that is in his thread. We played contest of champions and the army did well. I managed to kill Sharku and a couple of his Warg riders before we hit combat, once we did my archers took shots at his while our shield walls clashed, eventually he decided to commit his Crossbows to combat and the numbers up on the front line really swung in his favour as my archers were tied up by just a few of his men. At this point I got Thranduil to cast channelled natures wrath and managed to kill 4 of his uruks (we had played this wrong so maybe a couple more would have lived, but he managed to save about 3-4 with fury) after that and couple of rounds of combat which saw my Knights and Heroes gain the advantage he broke, at which point his shaman decided to run and the game swung to my favour quite drastically.

It was a fun game, but it would have been a lot tougher had I not killed off Sharku and his Warg riders early on.

500 point Mirkwood

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