While last week’s article explored the smaller monsters of
Moria, this week we’re diving into the holy trinity of monstrous mayhem: the
Balrog, Dragon and Watcher in the Water. Unlike those we covered last week,
each of these monsters are big enough to need an army built around them to
shine; you can’t just plonk a Dragon into any old list unless you’re playing a really
big game. But if we’re going to build a list around them, then we want to know
what we’re getting for our several-hundred-point-investment. So without further
ado, let’s dive into our Moria “Big Three,” starting with the biggest of them
all…
The Balrog
The Balrog has a fearsome and entirely deserved reputation.
It is the single scariest melee combatant in the entire game, and Sauron himself
is the only model that’s really likely to win a duel against it. F10, A4 and S9
are stats that truly stand out from the crowd, ensuring that even the mightiest
of Striking heroes will be unable to gain much of an edge against it. Additionally, F10 with
a (flaming) sword effectively lets him reroll 1’s to Wound, as Feinting is
almost always going to be risk-free. Moreover, with D9 and a massive 10 Wounds,
a few unlucky turns of combat aren’t going to cost Mr Shadow and Flame more
than a flesh wound. The combination of its offensive and defensive stats means
that there’s basically no situation that’s too worrying for the Balrog; it can
take on whatever lands in front of it and come out on top every time.
Even better, its free Heroic Combats mean that it can do so
at pace. This rule means that your opponent’s nasty plans of slowing it down
with a single sacrificial warrior are hopeless, as it's entirely happy to keep
on rampaging every turn. When your opponent can’t bog it down in warriors, and
their best heroes are little more than speedbumps, options start to run
thin. Nor is magic a solution, as our fiery friend has a whopping 10 Will and
Resistant to Magic. It’ll take a lot more than one Wizard to re-enact the battle
on the Endless Stair in game! And just in case all of that Will wasn’t enough
to deal with Terror, the Balrog is Fearless too. Not that it’d be too worried
about Terror anyway, because it can always use his whip to pull enemy models
into close combat with him, even if they’re hiding behind a battleline or
trying to kite it.
It’s at this point that I’d normally say something along the
lines of “If that wasn’t enough,” or “Not only that, but…” Honestly though, it’s
getting a bit repetitive here; this model just has too many upsides! Suffice to
say, it’s also one of the best buffing models in the game. An enormous bubble
of Fearless for its Goblin friends is amazing, as is the Fight value boost it
gives them in their Legendary Legion. It’s the “like Sauron but better” rule of
no Breaking until half Wounds that really tips it over the edge, giving the
force one of the strongest special rules in the game basically for free! The
Legion also makes the Balrog a bit less vulnerable to ranged attacks, and gives
it the hilarious ability to set someone on fire once a game on a roll of a 2+,
just for daring to come near your death machine. Needless to say, this
Legendary Legion makes the Balrog the best centrepiece model a list could ask
for.
So what’s the catch? Well, the big one is the price. Durin’s
Bane brings a lot to the table, but at 350 points, it really ought to. Even at
700 points, it’s going to be half of your army list, and the model is barely
viable at all beneath 600 or so. This is slightly mitigated by the fact that
you’re probably backing up the Balrog with extremely cheap warriors and heroes,
but it still means you’re totally reliant on your centrepiece to do damage.
This is particularly tricky because even a F10 A4 model will still whiff its
duel rolls and lose a combat around 1/3 of the time if facing more than a
couple of die to win the fight. Without any Might, you’re totally at the whim
of the dice, and sometimes they just aren’t going to roll anything above a 3.
Being almost indestructible, you’re unlikely to be too badly punished for a few
bad duel rolls, but they can really slow down your rampage for a few turns.
It’s also possible to flub your Wound rolls, though with S9 and
almost-permanent Feint rerolls, this is less of an issue. Where it is relevant
is when facing heroes with Heroic Defence. With “only” 4 Attacks, it can
actually take the Balrog a shockingly long time to chew through someone like
Gamling, and a hero like Aragorn can probably hold you up all game long! So
while you’re not too bothered by heroes with Heroic Strike, Heroic Defence is
kind of your worst nightmare.
The other big issue facing the Balrog is one that we see
onscreen: it’s kinda slow. Move 6 isn’t awful (unlike another model on this list),
and it’s heavily mitigated by both free Heroic Combats and the whip pulling in
enemies, but it still leaves our big flame-y boy annoyingly easy to avoid. The
whip also only has a 50% chance of working when you’re not charging, and will
often just kill the model you grab if it’s a warrior, so it’s not a great
solution to the problem of speed. This makes you very reliant on the Might of
your Goblin Captains for Heroic Marches and Moves, which is quite annoying for
a 350-point model. Goblin Captains are cheap, and you were probably bringing
along quite a few for warrior slots anyway, but it’s still frustrating that your
centrepiece model is so dependent on backup to keep moving. Finally, the sheer
power of the Legendary Legion is also kind of a difficulty; if you want to
field the Balrog, you really want to take this Legion, but doing so rules out a
whole bunch of Moria’s most useful models. Losing access to Bat Swarms and Warg
Marauders particularly hurts, as it means your force is stuck at Move 5 or 6. While
it’s maybe a bit harsh to count “It’s part of a really sick Legendary Legion”
as a downside of a model, it does mean that the Balrog is a little harder to
fit into a force.
Dragon
The Dragon, on the other hand, gives up the Balrog's laundry list of
advantages for basically two special rules: Fly and Monstrous Charge.
Thankfully, those two rules are both ridiculously strong. Fly (which is
technically an upgrade but may as well be incorporated into the base price of
the model) has a ludicrous number of potential uses, from reaching combat
faster to lining up Hurls or hunting enemy support heroes. These deserve a
whole article’s discussion, but suffice to say that having Fly is Very Good.
Monstrous Charge is less versatile, but it turns out that
vastly amping up your damage output on the turn you charge is really, really
strong. While the Balrog's 4 Attacks can sometimes take a few turns to kill tougher models, anything that loses a fight to a charging Dragon is going to be
taking a massive 10 (!) S7 Strikes. There is very little that can withstand that
sort of punishment, even amongst the most defensive heroes. Not only does this
let the Dragon keep rampaging, but it means you only need to win combat against
the enemy leader once to rip them to pieces. No extended duels for you!
Aside from these two massive benefits, the Dragon is also pleasantly versatile at the listbuilding stage. You can run it “naked” with just Wings, dramatically ramp up its durability with Tough Hide, or even turn it into a piece of flying artillery with Breath Fire (although see here for why you might not want to do that). This can let the Dragon more easily fit into a force, as does its status as a Hero of Valour for easy allying. Finally, its comfortable 3/3/3 stats mean that it can laugh off a few Wounds with Fate and call its own Heroic Actions, both very useful abilities.
How many Wounds can it laugh off? Well, do I have an article for you...
However, this again all comes at a price. Your Dragon is
coming in at a minimum of 300 points if you want it to be effective, and often
rises to 350—
the same as the Balrog. That means that it will be fairly unsupported in a lot
of games, and you’re really relying on it to do most of your damage for you.
That can be quite a nerve-wracking thing to do, as its Survival Instincts
special rule can see it flee the field after a single Wound. As explored in
the article I linked earlier, this special rule is a little less likely to come
up than it first seems, but it’s still a real disadvantage that the other
models on this list don’t have.
Moreover, the real effect of Survival Instincts is the vulnerability to magic it brings with it. Because you need to save
your Will points for Courage tests, you’re almost helpless to resist the
predations of enemy spellcasters, especially Nazgul and the like. Even someone
like Gandalf is well-equipped to Immobilise you every turn, preventing your
300+ model from doing the damage it needs to. If you’re facing a Terror-causing
army, your opponent might not even have to use magic to pin you down: your
measly C4 will see you fail plenty of Courage tests to charge anyway. And
if/when the enemy manages to break your relatively bare-bones list, your Dragon
has a solid chance to flee the field every single turn. For such an expensive
model, that’s… not ideal.
The final challenge for a player wanting to field a Dragon
is that it doesn’t really bring anything to your army besides its own killing
power. Sure, it’s got Harbinger of Evil, but nothing Moria has really comboes
that well with this. When you compare that singular aura to the buffs the
Balrog is handing out like flaming candy, it seems hard to justify the Dragon.
The Watcher in the Water
Our last model on this list is one whose inclusion I should
probably justify. The Watcher is a good 100+ points less than the last two
models, and its stats are largely much worse. However, it earns its place here
because of its status as a centrepiece model that you should be building
around. As discussed in this article I wrote awhile back on TMAT, any
list including the Watcher needs to support it by fielding a huge horde of
Goblins and at least one Bat Swarm. Those requirements mean that unless you’re
playing a huge game, you really can’t just throw the Watcher in on a whim if
you want it to perform, exactly like the other two models on this list. This is
in contrast to the “Little Three” models I looked at last week, who are all
happy to slot into existing lists without too much hassle.
I’ve established that the Watcher is a bit of a pain to
bring along, but why would you want to try? Well, the biggest reason is that your
opponent is likely to have very little experience playing against something
like the Watcher, simply because there is nothing like the Watcher. The
playstyle it encourages and the tricks it can pull off are absolutely unlike
any other model in the game, so unless your opponent has played against it much
before they will be underprepared for what it can do. This is in stark contrast
to the Balrog and Dragon, which are basically the equivalents of a superpowered
Troll or Fell Beast, respectively. Because the Watcher has no such equivalent,
it is very hard for enemies to plan for and deal with it.
Of course, for that to matter you’ve got to be able to do
some cool stuff with your unusual model. Thankfully, the Watcher has a lot of
tricks up its sleeves (I have no idea how this aphorism fits in with the whole
tentacle thing). On base stats alone, its 6 Attacks give it a huge edge over
literally every other model in the game, and mean that nothing with less than
F6 will even slow it down. This is particularly true in light of its Tentacles,
letting it pull in enemy banners, spear supports and other fragile models to be
devoured. They also add a surprisingly relevant number of S3 hits, which will
average about a kill per turn against a lot of enemies. But while these
abilities all make the Watcher great at mowing through chaff, the real upside
of the Tentacles is the way they let you assassinate enemy heroes. By pulling
them into contact with the Watcher, a Bat Swarm and a few more Goblins, even heroes
like Azog and Elendil can be taken out in a single round. They’ll be capped at
F5, facing a dozen or more rolls to win the fight and then twice many Strikes,
half of which will be at S6. Almost nothing is walking away from that, no
matter how strong they are. Even better, this setup can be used every single
turn and from behind the Goblin shieldwall, allowing the Watcher to pick out
choice enemies from a position of safety. And of course, against models without
F6 or Strike, the Watcher doesn’t even need the help of its Bat Swarm friend to
tear them limb from limb.
Alongside the offensive capabilities of the model, the fact
that it’s a “mere” 200 points means you can fit in a lot more toys around it
than its two competitors. It’s also quite good at withstanding spells with 5
Will and Resistant to Magic, which is a definite edge over the Dragon. And it
brings one more truly unique ability in the form of its From the Depths special
rule, letting it effectively “Deep-strike” to anywhere on the battlefield. Not
only does this let you hold it in reserve until its needed, it also gives you a
huge edge in scenarios like Storm the Camp; how many troops do you leave behind
to defend your camp when an A6 monster could pop up there at any moment?
Sadly, being able to operate in a totally unique way does
come with the downside of not being great at doing ordinary monster things. In
particular, you’re very vulnerable to enemy heroes when they can charge you
straight up without getting yanked into a tricky spot and Bat Swarmed to death.
If your infantry line starts to crumble, then your tentacled deathball can
quickly find itself hacked to pieces by Striking enemies. As it starts losing
Wounds, it also starts losing its capacity to deal damage, which can really
slow you down. Furthermore, the Watcher lacks the mobility to escape a bad
situation if you get it into one. Sure, you can arrive on the battlefield
wherever you like, but with only M4 you’re going to struggle to redeploy once
you do. The Tentacles do mitigate this a lot, giving you a reliable threat
range of 8” or 9.5” if you March, but it’s definitely still a weakpoint. The
reliance on the Tentacles can also lead to wasted turns, as you’ll occasionally
miss with all of your shots and fail to pull anything in to combat with you
(~8% of the time if you’ve stayed still, or around double that if you’ve
moved). It’s not a common issue, but it’s annoying when it comes up. It’s also
vastly more annoying against Blinding Light casters, where you have a roughly
55% chance of missing, or 30% if you’re willing to spend Might. On the plus
side, the odds of you whiffing once you get a model into close combat with you
are very low: you’ve got an 87% chance of beating an average Captain in a
fight, and there’s not much chance of them escaping the combat alive.
We’ve now exhaustively covered these three monsters, any of
which are capable of taking on whole armies in the right circumstances. But
when does it make sense to actually field them?
For the Balrog, it probably makes sense to flip the
question: when does it make sense not to field it? Durin’s Bane is so
ridiculously good, especially in its Legendary Legion, that you really need a
reason not to bring it along. What might that reason involve? Well, the most obvious
is price. If you’re playing a small game, the Balrog will often just be
unfeasible to include, regardless of how devastating it might be.
Similarly, if you feel like you really need some of the other tools available
to Moria lists that might be excluded by the Legendary Legion, then there’s a
good chance that the Balrog isn’t for you. The perfect example of this is if
your army needs what one of the other two monsters discussed here can bring; if
you’ve got the Balrog along, then good luck fitting in a Dragon too. Basically,
outside of these circumstances it’s always worthwhile at least strongly
considering the Balrog.
The Dragon, on the other hand, definitely needs you to
specifically want what it's bringing. Maybe you’ve piloted Gûlavhar for years
and know that you can get heaps out of the Dragon’s Fly, or maybe you’re
worried about backline buffers or devastating cavalry charges; a Dragon can deal with any of those issues with ease. If you’re desperately in need of more
magic or a way to break up big enemy formations, then one with Wyrmtongue or
Breath Fire could be worthwhile. However, even when you’ve identified some need
to include a Dragon, you’ve still got to make sure the list can accommodate it.
It’s absolutely terrified of Evil spellcasters, so should only really be
brought in a Good v Evil format, and it's weak enough to spellcasters as a whole
that you really want some way of dealing with them. An army with good solutions
to big heroes (a Bat Swarm and a few Blackshield Shamans, for example) will
also make it easier to justify a Dragon. Smaller games can also help, in that there will be less big heroes and magic running around, but it
can be hard to find space for a Dragon beneath 600 or so. Overall, I think the
Dragon is hard to find a place for in a pure Moria list above this size, but
could be worthwhile in an allied force that can deal with enemy spellcasters
and heroes well (such as this one run at the Australian Masters
recently).
The Watcher, meanwhile, fits best into a force with lots of
models and at least one Bat Swarm. I think it’s best at around 500 points, as
this points level means you often only have one hero you need to neutralise
before the Watcher can rampage unconcernedly. It does still work above this
points level, but you need to make sure that there are other threats to deal
damage and draw aggression away from it. It’s also much better if the scenarios
it’s likely to face are ones which concentrate the action so the enemy can’t
run away from it, or ones like Storm the Camp that let it pop up unexpectedly
and win you the game. Within these constraints though, I think it’s a very
versatile model, that can turn matchups against expensive enemy heroes or forces
without much Strike into easy wins.
The final option to consider is simply fielding none of the
Big Three. This “wide” playstyle can work quite well, especially in objective
games where the smaller monsters and Goblin hordes it brings along can defeat
the enemy in detail. Reducing your reliance on a single model to win you games
also makes it harder for enemies to knock you out of the game by killing that
model. However, this approach really does start to fall off in larger games,
where you can find yourself short on dedicated tools to kill the powerful
enemies you start to face at these points values.
Overall, I think that in games of 700+ points your starting
point should always be the Balrog, and all other models should be viewed as (probably
inferior) alternatives. The new Legendary Legion is just that strong that
you need good reasons not to take it. Closer to 500, alternatives like the
Watcher or “none of the above” start to shine, and even a naked Dragon can
succeed at 500 points. But in those larger games, I think that the Balrog just
casts too long a shadow. And flame.
I hope you enjoyed that read! It ended up being bigger than
even the monsters themselves, but I hope it justified the length. Next week
we’ll be looking at something totally different, although I'm sure we'll return to Moria listbuilding soon enough. And as ever, if you’ve got any thoughts on how to build a Moria list, I’d love to hear from you below or on Facebook.
Until next time, may your Balrog always roll a six!
Loved this post - I have used/faced the Balrog in games of 400-500pts and while he does struggle a little, there's very little he can't handle. If you can avoid being quartered, he's pretty hard to beat (especially in the Legion). It's probably better to run a Cave Drake, but I'm not sure - not being broken until the Balrog is dealt with is pretty irresistible.
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed! You're definitely right that there's not much he can't handle, especially in those smaller games. That "if you can avoid being quartered" is probably the rub, but I think that it's probably avoidable at 500 in a lot of matchups. I've found it's not so much a "he doesn't work at 500" kinda situation, more that you end up with a few more bad matchups than at 700 and up. If you're facing Elves or Army of the Dead, you'll have a great day. Against even something like Gondor though, you can end up outnumbered 3:2 by much better troops, which is a big hurdle for the Balrog to recover from. Sometimes he can still do it, but it's an ask
DeleteAwesome article! I love all of Moria's Monsters. They're all so much fun to play. I responded to your post on Cave Drakes with how my 1000 point Balrog/Shadow Lord list did in that tournament last weekend. If I didn't have horrific dice rolls in game 1, I would have placed either 5th or 6th. (ended up 14th out of 28, so not too bad).
ReplyDelete