A Rolling Deathball Gathers no Moss: Why You Should Think Twice About Clumping Up

'Hang on, they're all F5, with a banner and Wound reroll, AND they're Fearless? Lovely' (Dewi Evans of Guardians of Wiltshire via Warhammer Community)

One of the great joys of listbuilding in any system is figuring out how to stack an egregious amount of buffs onto your basic models until they effortlessly sweep away the enemy’s elites. This is easy enough to do in MESBG, especially for armies like Fiefdoms or Angmar, and facing armies like this can lead to a quick massacre if you’re not careful. Anyone who’s tried to charge a Círdan/Galadriel-backed line of Elves will be very aware of the potency of these combos, which I’ll be loosely calling Deathballs.

Your opponent's face when they see you brought C2 models (StOttilien)

However, as I hope to explore in this article, they are not without their weaknesses. In particular, if they’re forced to split up and fight in multiple locations instead of piling everything within a 6” bubble, then they can find themselves outnumbered and outfought by opponents who just brought along efficient and self-reliant models.

To explore this further, let’s compare two similar Angmar list ideas. The first is based around the Witch King, a Shade and a couple of Barrow Wights, all supported by a bunch of Orcs. The second swaps the Witch King and Shade for a Captain on Warg, another Barrow Wight and a heap more Orcs. The first list clearly has a lot more raw punch: anyone trying to charge the Deathball will be taking Terror tests at -1 Courage, then having to deal with -1 to their Duel rolls. That’s pretty miserable for any army, and trying to engage it directly is a recipe for disaster. But what happens if you don’t have to engage it directly? If a scenario or matchup forces the army to spread out, then it won’t be able to get full benefit from its nasty debuff auras, and will find itself relying on basic Orcs to win the day (and without the numbers to let them do so!). The second list, in contrast, is less intimidating in a head-to-head clash, but can cheerfully fight in multiple locations across the board with numbers to spare.

Not the sort of list you want to charge, but also not a fan of spreading out (GBHL Podcast)

Now, you might well ask at this point: 'But pray, dear friend, what devilry could so scatter my warriors across the field of battle?' Not sure why you’d ask it like that, but you definitely could. And in some situations, there absolutely isn't anything forcing you to spread out. You can cheerfully Deathball up and roll across the field, mincing everything in your path. But there are actually a surprising number of cases where this isn’t an option, for which even the most brutal of Deathballs must be ready.

The most obvious of these are games that use Maelstrom deployment, like Hold Ground or Heirlooms. If your army is literally forced to deploy scattered across the map, then you probably won’t be able to stack your buffs onto them all. Similarly, scenarios like Capture and Control, Domination or Reconnoitre force an army to engage in lots of fights across the board in order to secure Victory Points; again, that's a hassle for the Deathball. Even Storm the Camp or Fog of War often force armies to spread out to prevent enemies sneaking onto objectives or assassinating protected models. In any of these style of games (more than half of the missions you’re likely to play), many models will likely end up fighting without the protective buffs on which they rely.

If the scenario forces you to spread out, then that's what you're doing (By Brush and Sword)

In fact, even in out-and-out killing games like Lords of Battle, clever play by opponents and the setup of terrain can force a Deathball into spreading out. An opponent with an advantage at range can split up into multiple skirmishing groups, forcing you to do the same if you want to pin them down. Flanking cavalry can force you to break off some warriors to prevent them maneuvering around you and charging your more vulnerable models. The best way to take on an outnumbering force is often to hold chokepoints against them, some of which can be quite separate from each other. And a single siege weapon is often all it takes to force you to spread out your formation and probably send some warriors off to deal with it. In any of these circumstances, the optimal way to play will generally involve breaking up your Deathball. Of course, any competent opponent is likely to try and engineer these as well; they’ve probably charged into Shade/Harbinger armies enough times to try and avoid the experience. For these and a hundred other reasons, armies are frequently forced to spread out more than they would like to do. If we've designed a list that only functions when everyone is close together, this could be an issue.

Nothing like one of these to make you regret clustering up (Games Workshop)

So it’s clear that we need to be able to split up our troops a bit. How does this impact our listbuilding?

First of all, it doesn’t mean that we have to throw every buffing model in our army straight in the bin. Heroes like Círdan, Shamans or a Shade can be enormously useful, and give you ways to take on enemies that would otherwise smash your unsupported warriors. The point isn’t to ditch them entirely, but to be careful how much you’re relying on them. If you’ve managed to fit both Círdan and Galadriel Lady of Light into your list, then chances are you don’t have many models to back them up, and will get hamstrung if you’re not able to fall back on terrifying your enemy off the field. On the other hand, if you had Círdan along but ditched Galadriel, you could easily fit in another dozen or so warriors and be prepared to contest objectives all over the map. Let’s look at a few ways that you can make your army less reliant on the Deathball formation, and thus better able to adapt to complex in-game situations.

Sorry Scary Galadriel, you're amazing but we need a few more Elves (u/srbandrews)

As hinted above, the most obvious way to mitigate your reliance on the Deathball is to think carefully about every buffing character and whether they’d be better off as someone who can actually kill stuff. A Rivendell Captain is happy fighting in the centre of your battleline or way out on a flank, while Círdan is only worthwhile if you can stick him right in the middle of your forces. Similarly, a Shaman needs lots of buddies around to fire up, but a Captain is happy harassing the enemy Camp or seizing an objective by himself. These are obvious ways of increasing the movement flexibility of your list, but there are others.

For one, increasing your maneuverability — whether through Heroic March, a Drum, or just a few more cavalry— can increase your capacity for mutual support and reduce how isolated your models have to be. If you have the speed to force an engagement well into the enemy side of the board in Reconnoitre or Storm the Camp, for example, then you can keep your troops closer together and still threaten their objective. Similarly, a large cavalry contingent is well-equipped to support whichever group needs assistance when there are multiple distinct areas of combat going on.

Splitting up a list like this is hard to do (Dave Townsend)

Even more important than mobility, however, is numbers. Being outnumbered becomes much more debilitating the harder it is to form an effective battleline, because your models are easier to Trap and will be in more 2v1 fights. The more groups an army is forced to break into to contest the game, the harder it will be to form a battleline, and the bigger an advantage numbers will provide. If you have 30 Elves facing 50 Orcs, for example, it will be hard for the Orc player to bring their superior numbers to bear. If you instead have 6 Elves against 12 Orcs, then all of your Elves will be ganged up on and your force will likely be wiped out.

Would you believe me if I said these Elves actually cost more than the Orcs?

To see this in action, let’s look at two matchups that might occur when armies are forced to spread out. In the first, pictured above, Círdan’s warband of 6 Elves is facing an Angmar warband of a Barrow Wight, 11 Orcs and a Warg Rider. Both of these warbands are lifted straight from a battle I recently played, and both are of a similar price. Despite that, it’s clear that this is a fight the Elven player would want to avoid, because the Orc numbers would likely see them overwhelm and slaughter the Elves over a few turns of combat.

Here, the points disparity is a whopping 128:225 in Good's favour

In contrast, let’s look at a warband of 12 Elves led by a mounted Captain with all the trimmings taking on the same Orc warband. It’s pretty obvious that the Elves are going to win here, as they have all the advantages (and also cost about twice as much!). But it’s actually quite unlikely that the Elves will be able to wipe the Orcs out quickly. There will be lots of 1v1 fights, especially if the Elves weren't able to anchor their flank on a board edge, and the Elves will win just barely more than half of those fights. The Orcs will probably lose about 2 models per turn (assuming the Captain can be held up by the Barrow Wight), or even less if they shielded. The Elves will definitely win in the long term, but they’re unlikely to do so as fast as Círdan's warband falls to the Orcs it’s facing. That’s in spite of the substantial points disparity here. In fact, if the Elves were facing two of these Angmar warbands, they'd probably be hard-pressed to survive, for all that the points values remain pretty even.

The Captain is suddenly wishing he spent those Might points on his Maelstrom roll

The point being made here is that armies with lots of models and faster models are much better equipped to spread out than smaller armies, because numerical and mobility advantages are amplified the less models there are in an area of the board. On the other hand, high Fight value troops and those with powerful auric buffs are vastly better when they can form up into a tight Deathball and grind the enemy down. If you want to maintain your army’s flexibility and capacity to compete in a wide range of scenarios and against a wide range of enemies, it’s important to maintain your numbers and mobility and not rely too heavily on Fight value and buffs. And when you’re on the field of battle, have a bit of a think about whether your army would be better of breaking up the enemy list or fighting as one big chunk. If you can use the terrain and objectives to force the engagement you want, then you are already well on your way to victory.

A list that really likes a spread-out game (52 Weeks 52 Games)

I hope you found this article interesting, writing it certainly helped crystallise a lot of how I look at enemy armies and matchups. In fact, you can even see these principles in action in an upcoming battle report between Dol Amroth and Angmar. As ever, if you have any thoughts, feelings or ideas, I’d love to hear them, especially if you think I’m missing any other factors that can force an army to go wide.

Until next time, may your Deathballs always be able to clump!