New edition battle report: Eagles v Mirkwood

 

Legolas v a Great Eagle is not the fight he wanted to have

Legolas strode ahead of his troops all senses alert as he scouted their path. For all that there was no sense of any opposing force, he was uneasy and on edge. He knew that part of it was concern about the purpose of this expedition; taking the defenders of his kingdom so far from home in search of Arnorian treasure was distasteful to Legolas.

With a guilty look back over his shoulder at his father, Legolas tried to quiet his concerns. Atop his proud Elk, Thranduil looked the picture of a wise and powerful king. Surely if the Palantir of Fornost had truly been found, then would not the halls of his father be the best and safest spot for it? And yet Legolas could not push down his nagging doubts, nor quell his feelings of unease.

It was this feeling that all was not well that warned him of trouble, such that he was already springing into action before he heard the first piercing cry from above. It was thus with an arrow already nocked to his bow that he heard the watchers call:

‘The Eagles! The Eagles are coming!’

Over the weekend, basically the entirety of the new books has leaked online. I don’t think ‘breaking the internet’ has been a thing since at least 2019, but if the phrase was ever appropriate then it would apply here.  The forums have been going mad analysing the new rules, with hot takes ranging from the misinformed (‘Glorfindel isn’t here, he must be going to Legacies!’) to the lukewarm (‘Last Alliance looks strong now’) to the sizzling (‘Thorin’s Company is finally good!’).

In the brave dawn of a new edition it’s hard to really determine which of these takes are correct, because so many things have changed at once. Is access to Strike less important because it’s weaker, or more important because monsters are buffed? Are mounts still essential, or does the existence of Treebeard’s precision Hurl mean that they’re a liability? Is magic weak because the best spells got nerfed, or strong because Channelling looks amazing? Who knows?

The only way to find out is through testing, so a-testing I will go. And that’s starting with two of the things that I think look scariest from the immediate leaks: The Eagles and Mirkwood.

 

Lists

Not complex, but looking very scary

The Eagles got some big boosts coming into this edition, and I’m surprised I haven’t seen more talk about them. To start with, Gwaihir has traded Heroic Strike for A3, which is absolutely a great trade. Strike has been nerfed enough that a F8 Eagle probably isn’t needing it much anyway, and the third Attack is huge for his reliability.

Following on from that, Fledglings give the list the ability to fit in extra numbers and play more points values without wasting points. At 600, for example, you can weaken one Eagle a bit (-1 Fight, Strength, Courage, Intelligence and Defence, plus Dominant (2) instead of Dominant (3)) to fit in a whole extra bird, which is great.

And finally, their army bonus is perhaps the best in the entire game. Once per game, at the start of the Move phase, you can stop all enemies within 6” of Gwaihir from moving. No test, no resist rolls, just a 6” bubble of ‘I can move, and you cannot’. This looks utterly insane, and I’m very keen to see how strong it is on the table.

However, Eagles do still suffer from their classic problem of struggling to win fights when they’re facing lots of dice. And speaking of lots of dice…

 

No banner in the list is sad, but Thranduil brings his own now!

I’ve seen a lot of Elf players down on Mirkwood, primarily because Thranduil lost access to his Circlet and Bladelord got changed. Those are legitimate losses, but the gains in exchange are huge.

To start with, the Army Bonus now makes Thranduil a banner, which is great. He also gets free Heroic Combats á la Aldrac, impact hits with his Elk, wound rerolls and access to old-school Instill Fear when on foot. These make him a really punchy threat, capable of shredding a battleline in a way he couldn’t really before. I don’t know whether he’s better than he used to be, but he’s at least comparable.

Legolas, on the other hand, is nothing but improved. He can now shoot while in combat (including firing three shots, which can be at the models he’s fighting!), hits on a 2+ and ignores the penalty for moving and shooting. Stroll this guy forward and just keep shooting, and there’s nothing your opponent can do about it short of Transfixing him or putting a battleaxe through his skull. Huge boosts for ol’ Leggy, who clearly did not need them.

And finally, glaives retain their existing function as elven-made spears, but also let you get an extra Attack in either the duel or wound rolls. That’s insanely powerful, effectively turning your spearmen into A2 models. The glaive wielder can’t do this while themselves spear-supported, but can while they’ve got buddies in the fight, so it’s often just a free extra die for no downside. If these guys could still take shields or bows with the glaives then I’d call it broken, but as-is glaives are still probably the best upgrade in the game.

Mirkwood Elves are also theoretically S4 now, which would be another massive buff if true. However, I think that this is almost certainly a copy-paste error, so I chose not to use it this game. Palace Guard, Mirkwood Knights and every other Elf Warrior in the game is S3, and I just don’t see GW changing it for one kind of basic Elf and not at least boosting their elite equivalents. This will get FAQ’ed, I’m almost sure of it.

Even so, this list has solid numbers, great shooting, a big combat piece and one hell of a deathstar. Will that be enough to stand up to Six Big Birds? Let’s find out!

The Eagles with decals on their bases are Fledglings

Scenario and deployment

I opted to play Domination, because it’s a classic and I wanted to see how the changes to it felt in practice. It would also test the Eagles in a traditionally weak scenario for them, and see whether Dominant had made a difference in this regard.

The Eagles got to deploy first, and picked the side with a forest objective (to avoid the Elves deploying in it). They stuck fairly far back to limit Mirkwood’s charges to 2 Fledglings and an Eagle, while Mirkwood deployed on the line to try to put the Eagles under pressure. Neither side wants to go first here, but if the Elves do get it then they need to tie up some Eagles to minimise the hit back.

 

Turn 1: The Eagles bounce

The Eagles won Priority, and gleefully handed it over to the Elves. Nice. Mirkwood promptly slammed their whole army forward, with one Mirkwood cavalry charging into two birds while Thranduil and the other went into a Fledgling. Thranduil knew that he’d be dismounted quickly, so wanted to get in some damage early. Legolas hid in a doorway to try to avoid a flash-kill, while the rest of the Elves swarmed forwards– with the exception of 4 archers, who strolled backwards to secure the Elf objectives.

Thranduil and his Knights go charging forward, while the rear archers go backwards

In retaliation, Gwaihir swooped in to kill some Elves, while another Eagle peeled off the Mirkwood Knight from Thranduil’s combat and the third threatened a Barge into Legolas. Scary!

All-fly armies make for a scary counter-attack!

Legolas targeted Gwaihir with his precision shot, but failed to wound and resignedly called a Strike to ward off the nearby Eagle. It promptly lost its fight to two Mirkwood Elves anyway, although they did no damage (D8 is pretty strong, who knew?).

Thranduil did better, having called an optimistic Combat against the Fledgling he was facing (mostly to try to avoid a Hurl from Gwaihir). He won the fight with ease and then burned a Might to get three wounds, killing it in impressive fashion! He sped around the corner and charged the other Fledgling, beating it but only wounding it once. Oh well, first blood to the Elves!

Even better, the two other Great Eagles failed to win their fights against the Elf cavalry, so they couldn’t Hurl their opponents into Thranduil. Only Gwaihir was able to win his fight, but that was enough: with an average Hurl of 6” and no stricter requirements than ‘must have LoS to the target’, Gwaihir could easily Hurl into Thranduil and knock him prone. There goes the 30-point Elk! Thranduil was unhurt, but the Elf that got Hurled was less fortunate.

You'll notice that there's one less Eagle now, and Thranduil is on the ground. He's gonna stay there awhile...

A bad first turn for the Eagles, losing all-bar-one fight and immediately dropping a bird. Yikes. Luckily, they had a trick up their sleeve…

 

Turn 2: Piercing Cry

The Eagles won Priority, and Legolas was poised to declare a Heroic Move. But before he could, Gwaihir let loose a Piercing Cry, freezing all but a handful of Elves in place. With no real scope to do anything with the Move, Legolas opted to save his Might.

Moving unopposed, Gwaihir swooped into the Elven Knight next to Thranduil, hoping to ‘Bolg’ Thranduil by threatening a Barge into him if he didn’t Strike. The other Eagles picked choice combats, trying to screen out Gwaihir to guarantee the Bolging. 

Thranduil is not in combat, but can't move. And he's next to Gwaihir. Great.

An Eagle went back into the Elves screening Legolas, hoping to Bolg him as well for good measure.

The Elf Move phase was short, with the models outside of Gwaihir’s 6” bubble charging into the wounded Fledgling. The archers also made it to their respective objectives, although they knew that they wouldn’t have anyone to shoot for a long time. Legolas did take his shot (at the wounded Fledgling this time), but again failed to wound. Oh well.

The Combat phase started with Thranduil sadly spending his last Might to Strike; if he didn’t then Gwaihir would just go in and he’d probably die anyway. Legolas opted to be brave, however, and didn’t Strike. The Eagle was still facing two Elves, and he’d whiffed once before. And even if he did Barge into Legolas, he’d probably whiff that combat anyway. Plus, Thrandul being out of Might meant that Legolas really needed to conserve his, because otherwise he’d be out after the next Heroic Move-off and Gwaihir would have at least two turns of unopposed Heroic Moves. It was a risk, but a reasonable one.

Sometimes gambles just don't pay off

So, of course, the nearby Eagle beat the two Elves he was facing, Barged into Legolas (with his spicy new D3+3” move), got the 6, and shredded everyone’s favourite shield-surfer. Huh. 

Gwaihir, his Bolging successful, Hurled the Knight he’d charged into his buddy and killed one, while the nearby Eagle did the same with his Mirkwood Elf. Finally, the Fledgling won his fight against 5 Elves and killed two of them, which put paid to Mirkwood’s hope of getting another kill early.

This turn was devastating, removing one of Mirkwood’s heroes and all of their remaining Might (as well as 4 warriors). With Gwaihir still on full Might, the Eagles would be moving first on demand for the rest of the game.

Things suddenly look much worse for the Elves 

Turns 3-4: The King is dead

Mirkwood did win the following Priority, but (as predicted) Gwaihir called a Move. This didn’t affect the Eagle that had just slain Legolas, but did allow the Lord of the Eagles to swoop into Thranduil. His 3 buddies did their best to screen him out by charging the nearby Elves, but one Mirkwood Elf with spear support did manage to sneak through a gap to tag Gwaihir. The Fledgling and the furthest Great Eagle were also both trapped, so there was a real risk of at least the Fledgling going down this turn.

One Elf is breaking away for the objective in the top left, while the rest desperately try to save Thranduil

As it happened though, the Eagles won all-bar-one fight, killing 5 more Elves. Gwaihir also got the six he needed and savaged Thranduil, although the Elf King managed to survive on two wounds. Yikes!

On the next turn the Eagles won Priority, and Thranduil was still out of Might. Gwaihir swooped back in, while the other four birds formed somewhat of a battleline to keep it to a solo duel. The Elves were also starting to run low on numbers, and were unable to turn any of the fights into favourable ones.

Many less Elves in these fights!

The one bright spot for Mirkwood was that they were now holding 4/5 objectives, with the 5^th held by no one (in a forest near the main fight). If they could keep the Eagles pinned down then they could maybe win on points, especially if Thranduil could stay alive a little longer.

Sadly, that dream was not to be, as Thran-daddy went the way of his son in the ensuing Combat phase. Even worse, 6 of his warriors were torn up as well, which Broke the Elves and meant that it was basically a question of how many objectives they could hold while quartering themselves.

The centre has been nearly cleared of Elves, and the Eagles are ready to fly

Turn 5: Race for the objectives

The final Priority of the game went to the Eagles, which was a big advantage. A Heroic Move would have pinned them within 6” of Gwaihir, and probably forced them to Barge a lot to prevent the Elves quartering too early.

Instead, one Eagle could swoop across the board to the Eagles’ corner objective, claiming it (thanks to Dominant (3)) while charging the lone Mirkwood archer contesting it. The Fledgling could also intercept a nearby Elf, preventing him from getting into the forest while hoping to Barge back to the objective itself if it won the combat.

Finally, Gwaihir and the last two Great Eagles flocked down onto one Elf, hoping to Combat off him to bounce all over the board. This was a mistake, as a lone Mirkwood archer managed to pass his Break and Terror checks to charge Gwaihir and peel him off, leaving the other two Eagles stuck in the middle.

C5 Elves are so annoyingly consistent!

Elsewhere, almost every Elf passed their Break checks, but they’d need things to go really well for them in combat.

This didn’t start well, with Gwaihir’s Combat going off to send him hurtling onto the back Elf objective. With Dominant (4), this objective had gone from giving 3VPs to Mirkwood to 2 VPs to the Eagles. Ouch!

Gwaihir asserting his (literal) Dominance over these Elves

Elsewhere, the Fledgling won its fight against a shielding Elf and Barged him away, before using the D3+3” move to stalk into the forest and tear to shreds the final Elf that could threaten that objective. This move forced me to check a few rules, but as far as I could tell the Eagle could choose to walk into the forest off its Barge (and get its charge bonus to boot), securing them that objective.

Two objectives cleared, Eagles flying high!

The lone archer on the Eagle corner objective also died, and the archer facing two Eagles was also (unsurprisingly) minced. This reduced the Elves to well under 25%, for a big 16-3 victory to the Eagles!

Strategy review

The final board state

Ouch! This game looked to be going Mirkwood’s way after that excellent Turn 1, with a Fledgling dead for the cost of only one Elf (and Thranduil’s Elk). But the Piercing Cry was just so devastating, and the devastation of Turn 2 meant that Mirkwood was coming from way behind. In particular, it made it exceptionally hard to avoid the Bolging, even when the Elves were piloted by a player who’s fairly experienced against that trick. How do you prevent an opponent’s flying monsters from threatening to Barge into you, when they have two consecutive turns of Movement in which to set it up? This drained the Elven Might stores, and meant that the Eagles would be moving first (and thus killing) for the rest of the game.

Mirkwood did do a good job of mitigating the Piercing Cry, with their centre anchored on the ruins and a bit of an anti-fly formation to force Gwaihir away. This meant that at least some Elves could counter-move on Turn 2, but it was not enough to really turn the tide (and the Fledgling they charged won its duel roll anyway).

Almost all these Elves just stand there for the turn while the Eagles swoop

The Eagles made some noticeable positioning errors, mostly around their use of Fledglings. The Fledglings hit nearly as hard as the Great Eagles but are significantly squishier, so having them deployed out the front was a bad move. It would have been smarter to put the Great Eagles out front, as they weren’t half as vulnerable to a Thranduil charge. The surviving Fledgling should also have swung across to the other flank once it got to move on the second turn; whichever bird was on the Eagle’s right flank was going to get swarmed, so it may as well have been a D8 one. I’m not used to the crazy mobility of army-wide Fly, and hadn’t quite realised how easy it was to ‘swap’ models in the fray.

The Eagles also had no reason to allow Mirkwood to charge three Eagles on Turn 1. Allowing the charge onto two was sensible as a lure, but the third one could have just been a little further backwards and avoided the risk entirely.

As for Mirkwood, I think it was the right call to blitz forward on Turn 1. It was the best chance they were ever likely to get of a good initial engage, and Thranduil absolutely made the most of it. It left him low on Might, but getting to take off an Eagle was worth it. They probably made a mistake in leaving two models on each of the back objectives, but the risk of one running away after Break was too much to bear in a game like this. And it would have been better if the Bolging could have been prevented, but (as I mentioned earlier), that's just really hard to do when your opponent gets to move multiple times with flyers before you get to move once. 

Army reviews

Starting with the losers here, Mirkwood actually felt pretty solid. Leggy didn’t get a chance to show off what he can do, but Thranduil was actually quite impressive; the old Thranduil (on foot with Circlet and swords) certainly couldn’t have killed that Fledgling, although I suppose he would also have been less concerned by getting Hurled into and dismounted. And the free banner was great, flipping several fights on the first turn (before he was knocked prone…).

No more free banner :(

The glaives were also excellent, although they didn’t get a chance to fully show off. There were a number of fights in which the Elves got the critical 6 thanks to their extra dice from the glaive, only for the Eagles to get it as well. They also made a huge difference to how the Eagles moved; I was consistently trying to avoid fights with the glaive-wielding Elves where possible, because they were the most likely to beat my Eagles while still threatening to whittle me down.  If I was building a Mirkwood list tomorrow, I might genuinely replace every shield with glaives– or perhaps leave a few in the centre of the battleline, where I’m certain to be spear-supporting regardless.

So, Mirkwood felt pretty good. What about the Eagles?

I don’t want to be too hyperbolic here, because Eagles have always been a quite swingy list. The difference between their Turn 1 (winning no warrior fights) and Turn 2 (winning all-bar-one) is emblematic of this, as 2-3 dice models with no Might can always just bounce.

In saying all that, the Piercing Cry special rule gives the list effectively a second bite at the cherry. They’re almost always going to get an initial engage moving second against at least part of your line, and if they can then Piercing Cry you into immobility for a turn then they get two turns of beating you up before you can respond. And if they then win the next Move-off, or– as in this game– they’ve already stripped you of Might through Bolging/assassination runs before you get to it, then they’re likely to walk through you from there.

Final casualty piles for both armies. One of these things is not like the other!

Aside from that one insane special rule, the list felt fairly reasonable. The Fledglings were honestly worse than I expected: D7 is a really big drop down from D8, and F6 was quite big in this matchup as well. Lower Dominance meant that I was constrained a little in where I sent them, and lower Strength was an issue in certain fights. It’s definitely worth fielding them when you only have to downgrade one Eagle to do so, but I think you’d rather 3 Great Eagles than 4 Fledglings in most matchups and at most points values.

Both revised BPAs played a big part in this game. Barge being D3+3” was useful at a number of points, guaranteeing the Legolas assassination run and the Fledgling’s move onto the woodland objective in the final turn. And while I missed old Hurl’s ability to shape battlelines around it, new Hurl was great in a different way. The precision of its damage output and dismounting was excellent, and very hard to play around; Thranduil would have needed to be entirely outside of Gwaihir’s LoS or more than 7” away to escape it in Turn 1, which is an enormous amount of threat to be playing around. Don’t expect to have your mount for long when there’s an enemy monster on the field!

Also, I can hardly talk about how the army did without mentioning Dominance. In a scenario like this one it was game-winning, allowing the Eagles to easily flip back objectives without having to kill every single model on them. Just plonking Gwaihir onto the bottom objective to double-out two Elves was awesome, and was a totally different outcome to how that play would have felt last edition. And contemplating how this army would do in Reconnoitre is just hilarious, now that they effectively count as 17 models for the purposes of leaving the board.

On that note, Gwaihir felt much stronger than before. A3 was immense, and meant that he was actually reliable in a way that the other Eagles aren’t. I never wanted to Strike with him, and Thranduil would have absolutely survived the two assassination runs if he hadn’t had A3. A huge glowup, on a model that did not need it.

I imagine the Eagles would struggle to scale up much past 600, but at least at this level they seem like a genuine contender. The Eagles, the Eagles are coming!

Eagle party! 

Scrambling through the undergrowth, Legolas clutched at his wounded arm and scanned the treetops. All around him were the calls of the Eagles as they hunted, the terrified cries of his Elves as they fled, and the beating of great wings.

Legolas had not seen what had happened to his father. One moment Thranduil had been resplendent, slicing through one of the great birds with his blade and hurtling onwards. Then an Elf had come hurtling through the air and felled him, before a piercing shriek and the attack of another Eagle had forced Legolas from the field.

He felt he should go back and look, to save his father – his king. But as he fled through the darkening forest, Legolas knew that there was nothing he could do to help. In the eyes of the Eagles he was no longer a threat, capable of rescuing Thranduil from danger. He was just a wounded mouse, weak and of no threat.

He was just prey.

A bad day to be Legolas

I hope you enjoyed this first battle report of the new edition. May there be many more to come! In the meantime, I’d love to hear about any first games you’ve played, or if there’s anything you think looks extra spicy that I should test out.

And until next time, may you always win the critical Priorities you need!