Hello again! I’m back with a quick series of takes on the FAQ that came out on Thursday. There are some big (and small) changes in there, so without further ado let’s dive right in!
The really small stuff
Don’t sweat it. Lots of little changes and clarifications here, ranging from the obvious (Legolas can Might up hit rolls while using Deadly Shot to hit on 2’s) to the still-pretty-obvious (Razgush’s boosts to Orc Captains don’t apply to anything except the Orc Captain profile). In my view, the most impactful of these is that Transfix turns off Brutal Power Attacks, which is clearly how that rule was intended to work but arguably wasn’t how it was worded. This is also good precedent for monsters that have been knocked prone, although I would have liked the certainty there as well. Generally, these are all just useful clarifications, rather than anything too impactful.
Smaller than it seems
Flying monsters and warbeasts are now worse at hiding behind random Orcs to force In The Way rolls! At first glance, this feels quite impactful, as it seems to make flying monsters much more vulnerable to enemy shooting. In practice, it was actually quite challenging to get an In The Way from friendly models, as the model previously had to be blocking the arm, leg, head or body of the monster, which is easier said than done. Basic Eagles and Fell Beasts are functionally unaffected by this, and Gwaihir likely doesn’t really care at all either (D8 with 3 wounds and 3 Fate meant he was never a great target for archery anyway). War Beasts also probably don’t care, as the Commander was likely the best place for all those arrows to go already.
Where it is impactful is for winged Dragons and Gulavhar. The former could very easily get In The Way rolls previously, and was actually a bit scared of shooting thanks to Survival Instincts. The latter was arguably the most proxied model in the entire range, and a number of the common sculpts used had legs firmly planted on the groundㅡ perfect for being blocked by a brave Orc or two, and also for prompting unpleasant rules debates. Given that Gulavhar comes in the Angmar list (which is renowned for moving their opponent’s models to block LoS) and that he is quite concerned about enemy archery, this change is a big deal for him. His sheer power means that he will still be a staple of the competitive scene, but I could see a few more Fell Beasts slipping in as alternatives in future. I guess you could also field Cave Trolls, but I don’t see that happening very often. Angmar lists are already torn between a multitude of hyper-efficient hero options, so a kind-of-okay-I-guess monster is unlikely to make the cut at any normal points levels.
The big stuff
First off, Grimbeorn and Beorn only get to ignore 1/6 of your attacks now, not 1/3. This change is potentially quite significant, and really makes assassination runs on the Bears a lot more viable. It reduces the average number of wounds required to kill them from 6.75 down to 5.4, which is a drop of 1.35 wounds or 20%. That certainly seems like a big deal on paper, but what does it actually mean in practice?
A lot of the time, still nothing. If you have nothing bigger than an Eomer in your list then you probably just default to your standard plan of ‘kill the Beornings and hope the Bears don’t eat you fast enough.’ On the other hand, there are now a few more lists that can actually hope to take out a Bear or two, which radically changes how that matchup plays out. An example might be Angmar, where a sneaky Transfix followed by a Strike/Strength combo from the Witch King and Gulavhar is now a much better option than before (or the same thing with Paralyse subbed in for the Transfix and Strike). Previously, the maths worked out such that the Bear likely survived that, meaning Angmar had burned a bunch of resources for almost nothing. Now, the kill is quite reliable if Gulavhar rolls a 3+ on his Heroic Strength, or still very plausible if he doesn’t.
It’s not a big change, and I maybe would have liked to see them go a little further here on what can be a fairly unpleasant list to play against. But it’s a really solid step in the right direction, and it’s targeting the most oppressive aspect of the Legion.
Speaking of oppression, Assault on Lothlorien also cops some noticeable hits. Having to take Muzgur as your Army Leader is distinctly fine: he wasn’t the best choice before in any tournament using the veto system, but he’s still easy enough to play defensively with. Much more impactful is the requirement to take at least as many Orc models as Goblin models. Note that this doesn’t subdivide by heroes and warriors, so an Orc warrior can make up for a Goblin hero and vice versa (subject to warband slots). At first glance this seems like a massive nerf to the Legion: the standard way of running it is flatly illegal now, after all. In practice, it’s probably quite gentle really, as the Orc options were never that much worse than their Goblin equivalents. Seeding some Trackers in to replace a few Goblin archers is definitely a downgrade, but still lets you retain a lot of shooting punch, for example. Similarly, Orc spears are a pretty good way to back up Goblin shields, especially if you’re not going too hard on Prowlers. At higher points levels the requirement to fit in more Orc heroes for warband slots will bite, but Orc Captains on wargs are kind of great already, so you’re not losing much efficiency.
Probably the biggest shift for the meta way of running this Legion is that you now have a lot more models running around without Cave Dwellers. This not only means that you have a bit less shooting out to 18”, but also means that enemy bows have a lot more vulnerable targets on offer once they get within 12”. This change is still a pretty light touch, but it does offer up a few more ways to engage with this Legion than before.
And obviously, any version of this Legion that wasn’t Goblin-spam is basically unaffected. My Spider list will swap 4 Goblin archers for Trackers and call it a day, and I’m sure anyone previously running sizeable Orc contingents is feeling quietly vindicated.
Up next on the ‘nerfing shooting lists with Assault in their name’ train is Assault on Helm’s Deep, who will no longer get to abuse the hyper-accuracy of their Ballistae. Losing full rerolls is quite a big deal, especially for the hit roll: it means that they’ll land about 22% less hits across the course of a game, or much more against Blinding Light. That’s probably 2 hits per Ballista a game, which could easily translate into a dozen fewer casualties against triple-Ballista lists. As anyone who has had to cross the field against one of those monstrosities can tell you, good riddance to bad rubbish. This was always an oppressive and meta-warping list, and I’m happy to see its worst offender toned down a bit.
The Legion is still far from dead, of course. Ballistae remain probably the strongest siege weapon in the game, the bomb is still capable of ending games in a single move, and any gameplan that starts with 40+ Uruk-hai is always going to be solid. I imagine that the days of ‘field as many Ballistae as you have Heroes of Fortitude’ is probably over, but I for one won’t be mourning them.
Finally, perhaps the biggest nerf of all is reserved for Army of Laketown yellow alliances. In order to ally in this exceptionally-efficient faction, you will now either need to be fielding Thorin’s Company (who clearly need all the help they can get) or bring along Bard. That’s a frankly massive nerf, as Bard is actually quite bad in this faction. He’s basically equivalent to Eomer, trading some good special rules and twice as much durability for solid shooting, and paying a whopping 45 points for the privilege. That’s criminally overcosted, and I think it means you don’t ally in Army of Laketown for soup builds anymore. Adapting old builds to these new rules, you’d likely be swapping Gwaihir for Bard, which is an exceptionally poor trade.
Some commenters have noted that pivoting to Survivors of Laketown is definitely an option for these builds if they want to continue existing, and in that faction Bard isn’t overpriced at all (weird what adding a 12” Banner of Minas Tirith does to a model!). In general though, I don’t think these builds will be anywhere near as much of an issue as the Army of Laketown versions though. For one, they won’t be able to access the dirt-cheap F4 troops they could previously count on to hold the line, which is a really substantial step down. Moreover, Survivors of Laketown is a much more well-rounded build, that trades the raw efficiency of the Army of Laketown profiles for access to tools like Gandalf, shields and Bilbo. In general, I think Survivors builds rely on layered synergies to become more than the sum of their parts, which runs counter to the idea of a cheap horde with allied-in heavy hitters. There probably are viable Survivors of Laketown soup builds, but they are nowhere near as scary as the Army of Laketown equivalents.
What’s missing?
The obvious first answer here is any changes to the Host of the Dragon Emperor. This Legion is scary, and was the third leg of the oppressive Defence of the North tripod. I would have appreciated a small toning down of this Legion as well, probably by knocking the Dragon Emperor himself down a peg or two. Perhaps losing Resistant to Magic would have been enough, or maybe making the free Black Dragon upgrades half price instead. This does feel like a missed opportunity, albeit one that probably isn’t too egregious. I never found this faction to be as nightmarish as its two compatriots above, not least because it felt like it was playing a standard sort of game. It’s still just a particularly-efficient shieldwall, after all, which is a lot less miserable to fight than being brutalised by Bears or peppered by Prowlers.
Otherwise, there are about a million unanswered rules questions that could have been addressed, which I won’t bother listing here. But at least some progress was made on this backlog, which is about all we can hope for I think.
Overall Opinion
In general, I think this was a great FAQ. Four of the biggest offenders in the current metagame got toned down noticeably (5 if you count Gulavhar as his own faction!), and you can’t really ask for much more than that. Moreover, I think all four of the big nerfs targeted the right things, rather than taking a scattershot approach of nerfing by any means available. The miserable thing about the Beornings was that the bears were unkillable, so they’ve been made more vulnerable. Goblin shooting spam builds were the oppressive part of Assault on Lothlorien, and they’ve been forced into a lot of mild downgrades. Facing Assault on Helm’s Deep felt like a WW1 reenactment because of the Ballistae, and they’ve been toned down. And Army of Laketown wasn’t really an issue outside of soup builds, so the soup builds were targeted and the faction otherwise left untouched. These changes all involved the correct lever being pulled to weaken a faction, and that’s really impressive.
The missed opportunity with the Dragon Emperor is a pity, and buffs to some of the weakest factions and models might have been nice. But in general, this FAQ feels like it’s moving the meta solidly in the right direction.
In any case, I hope you enjoyed this brief exploration of the meta changes I expect to come from this FAQ. As ever, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the FAQ in the comments. Is this the best FAQ we've ever had? What else would you have liked to see in it? I'm always keen to hear.
Until next time, may the nerfs to your armies always be gentle!
As a guy who previously recommended a large contingent of Orcs in the AoL Legion, you're right, I do feel vindicated. :-) T think the Lake-town nerf is less impactful at 800pts than at other points levels, since you can take Bard/the Master/Alfrid/Braga/girls/50 guards for ~650pts - that still leaves room for Gwaihir (you're just in the 50s instead of the high-60s or low-70s). But Bard is fine - and the bodies will be missed.
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