Much Ado About The Skew: The Place of ‘Skew’ Legions in Competitive Play

Coming soon to a tournament near you!

There’s a lot of discourse going around at the moment (some of it mine, admittedly) about the place of ‘skew’ Legendary Legions in competitive and friendly play. What I mean by this is Legions like the Black Riders, Vanquishers of the Necromancer, and (to a lesser extent) Rise of the Necromancer/Breaking of the Fellowship. Realistically, most of the recent chat has been about the Vanquishers, but I think they're just a particularly striking example of a broader problem. What makes these Legions interesting is that they look absolutely nothing like a standard army, having at most about ¼ of the models but being entirely made up of heroes. The problem is that this same uniqueness makes them much harder to balance, which can lead to a number of unfortunate situations and unenjoyable games. However, these Legions also represent exciting new design space, expand the options available to players and reduce the homogeneity of top-tier armies.

After all, we don't want every tournament army to look exactly like this (Jay Clare)

This article is going to look at both the issues and the positives of skew Legions, before assessing whether the net result justifies banning them entirely. Then later this week I’ll be releasing a follow-up article going through a range of potential solutions to see how well they address the problems I’ve been identified.

Before we dive into that though, I’d like to quickly address the question of ‘Why now?’ Since literally the beginning of the game, people have been taking armies like the Fellowship or (slightly later) Thorin’s Company to tournaments, so why is this only becoming an issue now? Frankly, the reason is that the existing all-hero lists were just not strong enough to matter across a range of scenarios. The Fellowship has some good scenario matchups, but it was never powerful enough to be oppressive in them, and it was weak enough in its bad matchups that the good ones didn’t really matter. With the rise of Legendary Legions making these forces (deservedly) more competitive, that’s not really the case anymore. As a result, we have a range of problems to deal with, starting with…

 

Problem #1: They’re Impossible to Balance

Perhaps the biggest problem with skew Legions is how to balance them for scenarios. To see how this plays out, let’s imagine an all-hero list in two different scenarios: Domination and Lords of Battle.

A screenshot from a recent Domination game with the Vanquishers. Covering three objectives with 4 models is hard!

Domination is inevitably a massive uphill battle for these lists. In order to win, you need to successfully mince the enemy army to get their numbers down, then somehow stand on enough objectives to eke out a minor win. That’s going to be difficult because even a quarter of the enemy army will often still outnumber you, so it will take a lot of skilful play to even have a chance. On the other hand, Lords of Battle is almost an ‘auto-win’ (controversial and misleading as that term is). All your expensive heroes have to do is kill a few enemies before going down and you’re likely to end up with a decisive victory, and you might win even if your opponent manages to quarter you.

A picture of the Vanquishers massacring Luke Kronk's Angmar in Lords of Battle

The problem here is that it’s very hard to balance these Legions so they’re powerful enough to compete on Domination while not, ahem, dominating the enemy on Lords of Battle (or Contest of Champions, Valar forbid). The Breaking of the Fellowship, to me, looks like it’s been balanced for Lords of Battle; i.e. it seems relatively fair on that scenario, and will have a pretty rough time of Domination. The Vanquishers, on the other hand, seem quite balanced on Domination (so far I’ve won that scenario twice, lost it twice, and drawn on it once), but are almost unstoppable on Lords of Battle (see this report for how scenarios like that tend to go). It’s really quite difficult to work around this problem, although some methods do exist.

Another related— but less substantial— issue stems from the power of the rules they need to be competitive. The special rules handed out to the Vanquishers and Black Riders are mindbogglingly potent, and they need to be. If Saruman always had 3 Attacks and could cast twice per turn, in combat, he would probably be worth well over 250 points. However, those buffs are required because he can only access them in a slow, incredibly low-numbers list where there is no one to protect him. Bigger buffs tend to be harder to balance, as there’s more scope to be dramatically too strong or too weak.

When this is one of the least impactful rules given to a Legion, you know there's a lot going on

Thankfully, this second point isn’t as substantial an issue as people think, simply because a limited selection of models makes everything easier to balance anyway. You don’t have to worry about how Saruman’s bonuses will combo with Círdan, or Boromir, or a bunch of Khazad Guard; all you need to do is make sure they’re balanced with some combination of his four White Council buddies. Also, this isn’t an inevitable problem, because Games Workshop can just ‘do better’ and playtest more if this is an issue. There are clear examples of this not occurring (well, at least one), but I don’t think it’s an argument against these Legions, and more an argument for better balance generally. So I don’t think this is really the problem, and would draw your attention back to the previous point on scenarios instead.

 

Problem #2:  Not Fun

Now, this problem is partially a subjective one: lots of people just don’t like playing against lists like these. As I’ll address later, lots of people do, so I’m not as concerned about this point generally, but there are a couple of important issues to note.

In general, people like it when they’re able to kill stuff. Taking on 70 Goblins and massacring 50 of them is Good Clean Fun, and makes a player feel like they’ve got a lot of agency. On the other hand, running your soldiers onto the blades of the Vanquishers until enough of them have died for you to win on objectives is lacking some of that satisfaction. Even where these lists are actually balanced correctly (in the sense of having a roughly even chance of winning the scenario) I can see why players wouldn’t like watching their prized army get massacred while causing no casualties. That last statement isn’t hyperbole either: I’ve played 28 games with the Vanquishers now and lost one model. Even when they lose, their opponent isn’t often getting the dopamine hit of killing an enemy model.

Pictured: not a particularly fun game for either side. Radagast got Wounded once and healed himself immediately. That was it

Building on what I mentioned in Problem 1, this is especially the case in the scenarios these Legions are dominant in. At Fog on the Darling Downs, my first three games were scenarios in which Vanquishers could just kill stuff and win, and very little fun was had by anyone in those games. The last game was Divide and Conquer though, and we both had a blast, so it’s clear that the issue here is more that these armies are overly powerful in certain scenarios than that they’re inherently unfun.

 

Problem #3: More Focus on Matchup

At the recent TMAT tournament, an Erebor Reclaimed squad of heroes came up against the Black Riders. By all accounts it was a fairly miserable experience for both sides, and the outcome was absolutely never in doubt. After all, what can 5 slow heroes do against a list that can just kite them and spam magic till they die? Replace the Black Riders with the Vanquishers and the game is probably pretty similar. The more ‘skewed’ an army is, the less likely that an army that hasn’t prepared for it can pull out a win. If you run a list that relies on heroes without massive magic defence against the Vanquishers, you’re almost certainly going to get minced. On the other hand, if you brought along your own Lady of Light then suddenly the matchup is tilted way in your favour.

Galadriel giveth and Galadriel taketh away

This has two negative effects: first, there are going to be more games where army lists determine the winner, not player skill. It didn’t matter how talented or practiced the Erebor Reclaimed player was, they’d basically lost as soon as the matchup was announced. This is almost never the case when two vaguely similar lists clash. Who will win out of Boromir and a Minas Tirith shieldwall v a horde of Goblins with a couple of Cave Trolls? Probably the better player. Who will win out of Thorin’s Company and the Vanquishers? The Vanquishers (unless Bofur is present, amusingly enough).

Finally a matchup in which Bofur is better than his brothers! (Dave Townsend)

The second negative effect of this is that it increases the emphasis on listbuilding to win games. Instead of being able to take the models you like and broadly expect to compete in every game, the increasing number of lists like this almost force you to bring along counters in order to have a fighting chance. I would expect to see the sales of White Council Galadriel spike in the next few months, because not only is she essential to the Vanquishers but she’s incredibly potent in the matchup against them (and the Black Riders and Rise of the Necromancer). Players are going to be forced, more and more, towards building for the meta. This has always happened to an extent, but as the chance of facing one of these ‘skew’ lists increases, armies that can’t build to counter them are going to be slowly squeezed out of the game.

 

If you haven't built with these guys in mind they're going to give you a really rough time

Well, that all sounds pretty doom and gloom, doesn’t it? However, I don’t think that’s the whole story, and I think people are overselling it a bit (including me, if you only read the first half of this article). In fact, just like the kindness of Smeagol hidden inside the maliciousness of Gollum, I think these Legions contain plenty of good as well. Not least of all, and in direct opposition to my previous point, I think they lead to…

 

Benefit #1: Increased List Variety

If someone told me a year ago that an army of Saruman, Galadriel, Radagast and Elrond would have gone undefeated at a major tournament (or that I’d have won a tournament with them!), I would have laughed. And the idea that the Australian Masters would have been taken out by The Nine, with nary a Fellbeast in sight, would have been no less amusing. Each of these Legendary Legions has made an army competitively viable where before it wasn’t (or, in the case of the Fellowship, made them a little closer to viable. Sorry Tiberius), and I think that’s pretty objectively a good thing.

Let's face it, no one is sad to see the Fellowship around a bit more often

The presence of these skew lists also encourages players to try out models they wouldn’t normally in order to counter them. Yes, the Lady of Light was everywhere anyway, but Isildur, Glorfindel and even Bofur are hardly models you’d expect to see in a competitive list, and they certainly seem to have more of a role now than before. I've even seen people discussing online how to get some Heroic Resolve into their lists! These Skew Legions are shaking up the meta, and that inevitably has at least a temporary positive effect on list diversity. Some players will continue fielding the old stalwarts, while others will adapt their list with more tools to deal with magic and heroes— tools that otherwise might have kept languishing on a shelf. The effect will eventually be reduced, but in the meantime I’m excited to be looking more closely at some models I’d previously neglected.

 

Benefit #2: Boosting Thematic Lists

This argument really is one for Legendary Legions in general, not just the skew ones, but I think it fits in anyway. I, like, most fans of this game, am a bit obsessed with the Lord of the Rings (and even the Hobbit, although it pains me to admit it). When the lists on both sides of the table feel like they’re recreating a scene from the movies or books, it makes my heart sing a bit. And Legendary Legions, by their very nature, are doing their part to trigger that feeling. When Saruman Blasts one opponent and Immobilises another before striding into combat with his staff swinging, that feels like that genuinely pretty cool scene from the Hobbit. When the Black Riders Transfix my hero through sheer horror, that feels like what should happen. And when the battered members of the Fellowship fight desperately to defend the Hobbits (and their tasty banner rerolls), that feels like Amon Hen. Legendary Legions, including these skew ones, are great at creating these vibes.

No matter how you feel about the Vanquishers, this is clearly still a pretty cool moment

Benefit #3: Fun in a Different Way

As mentioned before, fun is a very subjective term, so take this with a grain of salt. But personally, I think the skew Legions make for quite enjoyable games. They force both players to look at the game from a totally different angle and approach it in a totally different way, and I find that extremely refreshing. If you try and play the Black Riders like any other cavalry force, you’ll be tabled by turn 5. And if you try and play against them with your normal strategies, they’ll kill your general and send your army running for the hills. These Legions give you very different games, and I like that mental exercise. When you’re playing something like Domination against the Vanquishers, the strategic element of the game is super exciting and tense.

The Vanquishers desperately fighting not to kill the enemy so Elrond could burn the last two Supplies

They’re also exceptionally fun to play with. Only having a small number of (quite powerful) models means there’s heaps of room for individual heroism, and you have the time and mental energy to really think about how to get the most out of your models. It’s a really interesting test of skill to decide whether to activate Saruman first to Sorcerous Blast that key opponent, or use Galadriel to Banish Saruman’s opponent to let him move and line up a better angle. And when playing against these lists, it’s an unusual challenge to think about how you can keep them under pressure and leverage your numerical advantages. It’s a different way of playing the game, but I think there are valid reasons for enjoying these matchups.

In saying that, it’s noticeable that a lot of these enjoyable factors are more present at the mid-top tables. If you’re matched into the Vanquishers after losing your first two games, it’s likely going to feel less like an interesting strategic challenge and more like ‘My opponent gets to ignore the rules and pick up my models.’ The effect of these ‘high-skill’ lists on less experienced players is a genuine worry, so probably don’t field these guys when teaching a newbie how to play. And again, these armies are only really fun when they’re on a relatively balanced scenario, so that’s still a problem that needs addressing.

 

Benefit #4: Skew is Everywhere

This isn’t strictly a benefit to these Legions, but more a refutation of the idea that they’re the only kind of skew out there. If we take the ‘average’ list to be something like 2-3 heroes leading 25-35 troops, we immediately see lots of other lists that don’t fit this mould. Monster mashes, Frankenstein yellow alliances packed with powerful heroes, even Goblin Town lists with 75 models are as far from the average as the Black Riders or Vanquishers can get. Playing against a Goblin Town player raises a lot of the concerns we’ve discussed today, just in reverse. So while these Legions have put the focus on one particular type of skew, let’s not pretend it’s the only one out there.

It's not like facing this army in Command the Battlefield is a fun and balanced time, after all (52 Weeks 52 Games)

In fact, I think the initial definition I have been working with for skew (one of these all-hero Legions) is probably too narrow, and a better understanding of the term is: ‘armies that are radically more likely to win certain scenarios and matchups than others.’ This encompasses things like Goblin Town who can hardly lose in Domination but cry when they see Lords of Battle, as well as the Legions discussed here who often feel the opposite way. What it doesn’t encompass are nicely balanced lists that are roughly as happy to see Domination as Contest of Champions in any given game.

These guys are definitely balanced in one sense of the word, if not the other

Taking this as a whole, it seems to me that there are some legitimate problems with these Legions. While ‘fun’ is fairly subjective, the difficulties in balancing these armies for a spread of different scenarios and their encouragement of counter-building lists are somewhat concerning. However, I also think that they’re bringing a lot to the game, and I think doing anything drastic like banning them from competitive play would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater (I tried to think of a way to adapt this phrase to Middle Earth, but I got nothing. Throwing Frodo in with the Ring?).

To that end, part two of this article will be covering a few different solutions to this problem, ranging from careful selection of scenarios to GW modifying their rules via FAQ to address the problem. Hopefully in assessing these solutions, we can start to come up with ways to move forwards from here.

I hope you enjoyed this little editorial on skew Legendary Legions. Check back in next week for part two, and let me know in the comments what you think of these armies!

Until next time, may your matchups always be winnable!