Gûlavhar is one of the most powerful models in the game,
capable of tearing through whole armies and terrorising unprepared opponents.
Moreover, his relative uniqueness –especially in the context of all the Angmar
trickery he relies on – means that it is harder to be one of those
prepared opponents that can take him on. If you know how Aragorn plays then
you’ve got a good sense of how your opponent will use Elendil, Helm or Boromir
against you, but Gûlavhar has no such close analogues.
However, if you are prepared and understand what he can do, then Gûlavhar can find himself quickly picked up, with the Angmar army crumbling in his wake. To that end, I’ve written up this guide for non-Angmar players to try and understand what to do in the face of the overwhelming array of options available to the spooky vampire. I’d also recommend this article I put out last week, discussing how to use Gûlavhar in a range of circumstances. It made use of a checklist to convey Gûlavhar’s standard gameplan, and this article is doing the same thing. I'd also recommend Tiberius' article on a similar topic to this one a few weeks ago: great minds apparently think alike while planning out content! So without further ado, let’s dive right into our first step:
Step 1: Identify your threats
The first part of defeating Gully is knowing which of your models can actually do so. For almost all armies, that amounts to models who can get to F7+, either natively or with the benefit of Heroic Strike. This is critical because Gûlavhar rolls enough dice that you can never rely on him flubbing his duel rolls (though he probably will at some point anyway), and even a single lost combat is often enough for him to pick up your critical hero. So being able to get that high Fight value and bring it to bear is critical. Some armies can also access things like siege weapons, Bat Swarms or Demolition Charges, all of which can perform the same function of placing Gûlavhar under threat.
In any case, at the start of the game you should be
identifying these models and placing a high priority on keeping them alive and
functional. These models are your route to winning the game, and without them
you’re likely stuffed. If you didn’t bring anything that ticks these boxes,
then I advise ignoring the rest of this article and looking up the nearest bar
for after the game: you’re going to need a drink.
Step 2: Shoot Gûlavhar
There’s really not much to say about this, other than to
note that Gûlavhar doesn’t like shooting very much. Chipping even two wounds
off him early can be a big deal, and really slow down the early rampage. And of
course, there’s always the chance that he just dies, especially if you have a
siege weapon. Live that dream.
More prosaically, pay close attention to threat ranges as
Gully closes in. In particular, remember the existence of Spectres and Compel,
either of which can bring your models further forward than you expected to
allow a beautiful Heroic Combat into your lines.
The final point on shooting is not to overestimate its
possibilities. Wounding Gûlavhar is nice, and worthwhile attempting, but
remember that he can also heal by killing your warriors. All it takes is him
picking up a couple of your models on the first turn of combat (generally quite
reliable, especially if he’s near his banner) and he’s likely healed back up to
full wounds and full offensive output. As such, while you absolutely should try
to shoot him, it’s important not to sacrifice your broader gameplans for the
chance to do so. In my last tournament game with Gully (which you can read about here), Josh held his
Gondorians quite far back in order to get in those early shots. As a result,
all of the combat took place near his objectives and far from mine, making it
much easier for me to destroy two of his supplies and clinch a tight win. In
that instance, the mere threat of Gûlavhar and my magic forced him to deploy
far more defensively than he otherwise might have.
Step 3: Neutralise threats
As discussed in the last article, a key component of Gûlavhar gameplay is forcing your opponent to waste resources dealing with the mere threat of what Gûlavhar can do. The absolute classic example of this is Gûlavhar charging a couple of warriors or a captain and calling a Heroic Combat, with his player pointing out that he can fit into either of your best combat characters. You now have the choice between wasting Might on both heroes by calling unnecessary Heroic Strikes, or letting Gûlavhar swoop in and delete whichever of them he chooses. It’s a lose-lose scenario, all the more so because if you do call the Strikes he’ll just fly off and kill something else important. As discussed last time, this is vitally important to using Gûlavhar, because it depletes the capacity of your threats to actually threaten him. If your Striking heroes have burned all their Might before they even get to face Gûlavhar, then things are going to go badly wrong for you.
The absolute key to beating Gûlavhar, then, is expending the
minimum of resources to neutralise the maximum amount of threat. I’m gonna
restate this for emphasis: you need to minimise the resources that Gûlavhar
can bait out of you in order to beat him.
This starts, predictably enough, with screening. If Gûlavhar
simply can’t get into your heroes come the fight phase, then there’s no need
for them to call Heroic Strikes to protect themselves. Even a handful of
warriors standing in inconvenient positions can be enough to neutralise this
kind of threat. Of course, this is another spot where the Angmar suite of tools
makes life challenging, because you need to plan around models wandering off as
Spectres and Ringwraiths use their spooky tricks. At a certain point this can
never be completely planned around: asking ‘how can I screen my hero if 4 of my
warriors go for a walk this turn’ is a fool’s errand. However, the more
thoroughly you do screen (including by blocking in relevant warriors), the more
you force your opponent to rely on the dice and the more resources you force
them to expend.
Combat can also be a lifesaver when it comes to screening.
Firstly, models that are in combat can’t be Compelled or Fell Light-ed away;
where they are is where they’re going to stay until the combat phase. Secondly,
consider how control zones impact the situation. If your hero is in combat then
Gûlavhar can only get into your hero by charging them without touching any
other models’ control zones. Otherwise, (assuming no other friendly models are
facing the same enemy, or you have Priority), he’ll get peeled off by the
unengaged warrior that he has to simultaneously charge. In effect, your hero
being in combat makes it vastly easier to screen out a surprise bat-attack.
Finally, remember that Gûlavhar will be threatening to
bounce into your hero after he resolves his first combat. As such, the models
that he charges into will not be there to screen him out – they’ll be very,
very dead. Too often I’ve seen opponents attempt to screen out Gully, not
realising that I could just charge straight into their screen and bust a hole
in it, forcing them to Strike or die.
Step 4: Call the bluff (or,
generally, don’t)
For all the good work you did in step 3, it is still likely
that the Angmar player will find some angle you couldn’t or didn’t think to
ward against: it’s what us Angmar players do, the slimy gits. As such, you’re
likely to find yourself weighing up the impossible choice of burning critical
resources or letting Gûlavhar eat your hero.
It’s at this point that you should flip the table
(figuratively!) and contemplate the situation from your opponent’s perspective.
Specifically, go beyond thinking about what they could do, and think
about what makes sense for them. Yes, if you don’t Strike then Gûlavhar
can go straight into Ingold and eviscerate him. But is that actually a good
idea for Gûlavhar when Aragorn is standing right next to Ingold, ready to hack
a hole through Gully on the next turn? This is especially true when there are a
multitude of good targets available to Gûlavhar this turn. At that point Strike
is only allowing you to choose who he goes into, rather than actually
preventing him from killing a hero (unless you call a Strike with everyone,
but that kind of expenditure can rapidly end up unsustainable). If Gûlavhar can
just choose to kill something else juicy and important, then maybe defensively
Striking isn’t really doing much for you. And finally, consider how badly you
need the Might. If the Might you’d need to burn on Strikes are your last two
Striking Might points, then perhaps you need to accept that one of your heroes
is getting mulched to give your other hero a chance to get revenge next turn.
I’ve just listed a whole bunch of reasons why you might want
to call your opponent’s bluff with your heroes, but let me be clear: generally
this isn’t a bluff, and your opponent is very happy to swoop in and tear a
juicy target to shreds. At that point, there’s no point thinking about how much
you would like to maintain Erestor’s Might pool for next turn, because he’s not
going to be around next turn if he doesn’t burn it now. This is why it’s so
critical to focus on screening in step 3: once you get to this point, it’s
generally too late and you just need to burn the Might. This should be your
default choice here, with not doing so only being contemplated in unusual
circumstances.
Step 5: Counterattack
The moment you’ve been waiting for! Chances are that Gully
has swooped in and made a right nuisance of himself, and you’re already
starting to haemorrhage Might and models as he rampages. Still, you’ve got a
chance, because now is the time to counterattack.
In essence, the plan here is to get a Striking hero (or
ideally two) into combat with Gully, while trapping him with lots and lots of
warriors. At this point you should be able to kill or cripple Gûlavhar,
hopefully picking him up or at worst forcing him to disengage and skirmish
until he’s regained his full wounds store. The reason you need the Striking
heroes (or other ways of beating Gully’s F7) are so that you can guarantee
winning the likely-drawn combat, and the reason you need the warriors and the
trap is that Heroic Defence means that Gûlavhar can survive a deceptive amount
of attacks.
The key here is making sure that your opponent can’t
shutdown your counterattack with magic or peel off your Striking heroes. All it
takes is one Transfix (or Paralyse, Valar forbid!) slipping through against
your hero and suddenly your counterattack can find itself torn apart by an
angry vampire. Similarly, if an Orc manages to sneak through and tag your
Striker out then your poor warriors are likely going to have a bad time against the Terror of Arnor. Be particularly alert for Spectres, who can open up gaps
you didn’t think existed to let a sneaky Orc ruin all your plans.
These kinds of big counterattacks don’t always work, but I
think they’re generally necessary. At the end of the day, the only tournament
games I’ve lost with Gûlavhar have come when my opponent managed a big swing
back against a pinned Gully. In one case Gûlavhar actually survived, but the counterattack
did enough damage that his capacity to win me the game was eliminated. I
imagine it’s possible to beat Gûlavhar without ever actually making that
counterattack, simply by killing his warriors fast enough and playing the
objectives. But it’s certainly not something I’ve ever experienced: Gûlavhar is
normally a bit too devastating to be ignored like that.
Step 6: Know when to ignore step 5
In 16/18 scenarios, Gûlavhar being dead or alive at the end
of the game will be worth 0 points (assuming your opponent brought a Ringwraith
alongside him, which I think is almost always the right call). Moreover, points
win games. As such, it’s important to realise when going after Gûlavhar will
not actually gain you anything useful, particularly towards the end of the game. You probably still need to tie him down
and threaten him a little (even the best-laid plans rarely survive a 200-point
vampire flying around unconstrained), but sometimes it’s just not worth it to
kill him. I’ve lost Gûlavhar in a lot of tournament games, and generally it’s
because I realised that his sacrifice was getting me more points than he could
otherwise get me. Remember that your opponent probably has a 1-wound Army Leader and a
bunch of D4-5 Orcs running around. Killing them will often get you way more
points than finishing off Gûlavhar.
Conclusion: Knowledge is power
At the end of the day, the single best thing you can do to
improve your odds against Gûlavhar is to understand his gameplan. He’s a
fabulously versatile and complex model, which makes it really hard to wrap your
head around all the options available to him. But the difference between
playing against Gûlavhar when you know what he wants to do and playing against
him when you don’t is absolutely night and day. You have to engage
with what this model can do when you play against it, because otherwise a
skilled Angmar player will probably take you apart at speed.
Thankfully, by reading this article (and ideally this one as
well) you’re already well on your way towards understanding the matchup and
learning how to play against this perennial terror of the metagame. If you’re
hardened veterans of the wars of Eriador, I’d love to hear from you about the
things that you’ve done against Gûlavhar, either below or on the socials.
Until next time, may your screens always be tight!
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