Prioritising Priority: Building Around Moving Second

 

All MESBG players know the feeling of losing Priority on the one turn that you desperately needed to move first. Maybe your cavalry was about to smash into the enemy line, or your spellcaster was scrambling to get out of the way to avoid a charging enemy hero. That one dice roll can totally swing a game, and there’s often not that much you can do about it at that point. Thankfully, there are lots of things that you can do about it if you tackle the problem at the listbuilding stage. Broadly speaking, these can be broken down into two categories: things you can add to your list to let you move first more often, and ways you can shape your force to care less about moving second.

                                                                    The cruel arbiters of our fate (Magical Maths)

The former category is pretty simple, and is largely well-understood. There are a handful of models that let you tinker with the Priority roll itself, although the list is basically just Elrond and a bunch of Dwarves. Saruman lets you seize Priority automatically once per game if you’re fielding his Evil version, which obviously works great if you’re really keen on stopping those Rohirrim charging. More relevant for most armies though is just fielding lots of Might. Heroic Moves might not be quite as good as winning Priority in most cases, but they still let you move first when you need to. The enemy can countercall their own Heroic Moves, bringing things back to another 50/50 roll-off, but they can only normally keep doing so while they have Might remaining. If you’re fielding Riders of Théoden with Gamling, you’re probably going to have Might left well after your opponent has spent their last point. If moving first is really important to you, then it might be worthwhile fielding either the Paths of the Druadan Legendary Legion or the Mûmak War Leader, the only two ways to tilt the odds of that Heroic Move-off in your favour. These obviously require some pretty substantial sacrifices, but they give you the absolute best chance of moving first on any given turn.

                                         If this guy wants to trample you, chances are you're getting trampled (Warhammer Community)

On the other hand, maybe you don’t want to buy into the escalating arms race of who can field the most Might. Maybe you just want to build a list that can survive your opponent moving first for a few turns. Thankfully, there are a number of things that make your army more or less reliant on that first move. A lot of these are less obvious than the previous factors, so we’ll go through them in a bit more detail. To my mind, there are six features that broadly determine how much your army relies on moving first. If you’re on the right side of a lot of these, then you can probably get away with a handful of Might and some gritted teeth. If you’re not, then stock up on those heroes, because getting charged is going to hurt.

1.      Charge Bonuses

      This factor is the most obvious one. If you’ve got a whole bunch of cavalry, then you’re going to want to be moving first most turns because otherwise you’re missing out on both your extra Attack and the Knockdown bonus. The list of charge bonuses actually extends a fair way past that, however, to include things like the Rohan Army Bonus, auric buffs that only trigger when charging (like Théoden’s), and equipment like lances and throwing weapons. A Rohan list where everyone has throwing spears actually cares a lot more about charging than one without, and a Corsair horde is vastly less scary when you’re the one moving first. This category also encapsulates models who can do damage in the movement phase, like Camels, Chariots, and (above all) War Beasts. There’s a reason that the Mûmak War Leader has a bonus to winning Heroic Move-offs: he really wants to be the one moving first on almost every turn. If you’ve got an army with lots of these, bring lots of Might.

                                                                                        Théoden's face when he doesn't get to charge (atalante_star)

        

2.      Numbers

On the other hand, an army with lots of models is much less put off by moving second. If your 15-model Rohan heavy cavalry list is charged by your opponent’s 40-model Mordor force, then every single one of your models could be locked-down and unable to move this turn. But when you get to charge them, they’ll still likely have several dozen models unengaged with which to counter-charge you. A list that has lots of models is less susceptible to being charged because it will still be able to respond with charges of its own, while an elite army that gets charged basically just has to accept the fights chosen by their opponent. If your opponent has done a good job of charging you, you probably don’t want to be accepting those fights if you can avoid it.

                                          Chances are you're not going to be pinning down all of those models (Warhammer Community)

3.      Homogeneity

This related point reflects the advantage that armies with broadly similar models have in being charged. To go back to our Rohan v Mordor matchup, yet another reason that Rohan desperately wants to charge is that they have a lot of very different combat profiles which all want different matchups. Éomer might be quite happy facing Shagrat, but Théoden wants no part of that. You’re much happier if the Witch King is facing a hapless Royal Guardsman than if he’s pouncing on Gamling. If you’re moving first, you get to decide who fights whom, so you get to make sure that Théoden is riding down enemy infantry and Éomer is duelling their leaders. On the other hand, if most of your army is made up of similar or identical models (a sold line of Black Númenóreans supported by Morannon Orcs, for example) then it matters less to you which ones your enemy charges. Black Númenórean A is just as happy fighting Théoden as Black Númenórean B, for example. Even if the models themselves aren’t identical, the more similar your troops are the less you care about which ones are engaging which enemy.

                                              Tell me again which specific Orc you were charging? (MiddleEarthSBGIreland)

4.      Terror

    This one should be obvious to anyone who’s played much with the above Black Númenóreans, or especially with Angmar. A Terror frontline is a truly excellent defence to many charging enemies, dramatically limiting the numbers they can get into you. In fact, it’s often much more powerful when you’re moving second. If your Black Númenórean frontline was being charged by an army of average Courage, in the 2-4 range, then about half of the enemies will fail their Courage tests. That means that if you move second, you can counter-charge them and have your entire army facing only half of theirs! Needless to say, that’s a great outcome for you. On the other hand, if you have to move first, then you’re left with a dilemma about which models to charge. If you want to prevent your opponent responding to your moves, then you’ll want to charge all of their models. At this point, your Terror has given you nothing, and your whole force is back to fighting their whole force. If you decided to only charge half of their army to try and make use of your Terror, then around half of the models you didn’t charge will still be able to make it into close combat —and probably into spots you didn’t want them.  Now your Terror has given you some benefit, but you’re still fighting ¾ of the enemy list with yours, and likely in some inconvenient matchups. The situation is clearly much worse than when you were moving second. For this reason, Terror-causing armies are much happier losing Priority, because it allows them to manufacture a numerical edge in a lot of matchups.

    

                                                        Not the sort of guys you want outnumbering you (Dramatic Katastatses)

5.      Magic

However, Terror is often accompanied by magic, which is normally much more inclined to moving first. There are a number of reasons for this. First, if you move first then you guarantee that you get to cast a spell this turn instead of being charged by an enemy warrior (or even worse, an enemy hero!). If you’ve paid 170pts for a Wizard, you want them to be casting spells, not using their one Attack to flail helplessly at an Orc.  Second, spellcasting duels are much easier if you’re the one who gets to cast Immobilise/Command/Paralyse at the enemy spellcaster instead of vice-versa. It doesn’t matter how good a caster Gandalf the White might be, he still can’t cast if a Ringwraith has Transfixed him. Third, a lot of the most common spells are much stronger if your enemy has yet to move. Immobilise means that you can totally ignore a model for the turn, freeing up at least one of your troops who would have otherwise been charged. Command lets you cause an enemy to fall a full 1.5 moves behind the enemy battle, 3 times as much as if you move second. Instill Fear and the effects of Spectres and Sentinels receive a similar boost, because the affected model can’t move again that turn if you get in first. Finally, spellcasters tend to be quite fragile, so they can often end up desperately needing to move first in order to prevent the hero that just punched a hole through your lines punching a hole right through them.

                

                                                                 In game, this would probably go a lot worse for Gandalf (sylvyrfyre)

 

There are a couple of exceptions to this for more minor spellcasters who only have a limited store of Will, like Shamans or Barrow Wights. If you can only cast your spell a handful of times per battle, then being Immobilised or charged by a Warrior is much less of a big deal. Sure, you might have been keen to cast your spell this round, but it’ll probably be almost as good next round. It’s not like with a Wizard, where being held up for a turn means you’re not getting to use your free Will point. Spellcasters with a short range on their spells, like Barrow Wights, often don’t mind moving second either. Paralyse is actually a much better deterrent when you’re being charged, as it really makes heroes think whether it’s worthwhile ending up anywhere within 12” of you. However, outside of these exceptions, you generally want your spellcasters moving first as much as possible.

                                                                   The ultimate area-denial piece (Warhammer Community)  

 

6.      Durability

On the other hand, a durable army is much less concerned by moving second. “Durability” here encompasses both armies with a high Defence and Wounds and armies that have so many models that you don’t care about losing them. An Iron Hills or Goblintown army knows that no matter how this turn goes, chances are they’ll still probably have a fairly similar amount of points on the board at the start of the next one. As such, it’s not as important that they get the matchups they want on every single turn, because they can survive a few bad turns more easily. On the other hand, a Wood Elf list desperately needs to be getting the fights it wants, because their whole army is prone to evaporation if they get sneezed on by the wrong enemies.

                                                        Not a force that really cares how you charge it (Warhammer Community)

    

Applying these factors to a few real lists we get corroboration of some things we already knew. Rohan cavalry lists ought to field lots of Might and other ways to guarantee that they move first, because they are normally stacked full of charge bonuses, low in model count and durability, and filled with a wide variety of combat profiles. On the other hand, horde Angmar can get away with almost no Might because they field lots of identical Terror-causing models who are quite durable for their cost, and a lot of their spellcasting doesn’t really mind moving second. More interestingly, a Wood Elf or Corsair list should actually aim to bring lots of Might if it wants to do well, because they’re low Defence and have lots of throwing weapons. Corsairs can get away with it through sheer numbers, but Lothlorien will often also have magic that really want to move first, so they’re particularly keen on spamming Might points as much as possible.

                                                                       Did someone say they needed Might points? (Dice Monkey)

In conclusion, I see these factors as a useful list-building rule of thumb, especially when assessing how much Might you need in a particular army. If there’s no way to make your force less dependent on moving first, then you better bring lots of heroes. If you weren’t planning on bringing many heroes, then probably go light on throwing weapons and shock cavalry and bring some more durable troops and numbers. And if you really don’t like Heroic Move-offs, then just bring Angmar and ignore the whole concept of Might. After all, you can’t get Heroic Moves called against you if the enemy heroes are all Paralysed!

                

                                                        If you can't tell, I really like Barrow Wights (Tell Me A Tale Great or Small)

 Hope you found this an interesting read, I really enjoyed giving a bit more thought to why some armies care so much more about Priority rolls than others. Make sure to hit that brand new subscribe button to stay up to date with everything I post, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on the article (especially if you think there are any more factors that I've missed or you disagree with some of the ones I have). See you next time for a more practical article on the challenges of scaling armies up or down in points