A few months ago I got in a discussion with my gaming group about how army sizes have changed, and I thought it was very interesting so I wanted to bring it over here.

Pre-Hobbit, so in LoME days and before, I couldn't be caught dead with a small army. My rule of thumb was that the army should have a model count approximately equal to 10% of the points limit. This meant that for 500 point games, I was aiming for 50 models, 70 for 700, etc.
And you know what? It worked for me! I won my fair share of tournaments, I could always see the look of fear in my opponents' eyes as they saw the elite horde of whateveriwasplaying come their way.

Since Warbands came out, granted the whole point was to stop people from playing elite hordes (the 1 Elf Captain + 70 Wood Elf lists come to mind) and bring the focus back to heroes, I would say it worked too well. Nowadays, I find myself incapable of pulling in the same kind of numbers. Even if the number of heroes didn't change (I was generally averaging around 13-14 warriors per hero before, not too huge a difference), I just always find it necessary to take the big heroes, when I rarely ever took them before. Suddenly, I'm the guy taking a 30-odd model army to a 650 point tournament; an unforgivable sin in my teenage years. What has this done to my W/L record? Made it worse, even though, I would argue, I've gotten much better tactically than I was back in thoe old days. So why do I keep doing it? No idea.

Anyone else notice this sort of shift? What's your warrior/hero ratio like and what kind of heroes do you find yourself gravitating toward?

It certainly is interesting. First off, I loved the introduction of warbands, as I really despised those Legolas + 60 wood elves or shaman + 100 orcs/goblins armies. I think that warbands helped to put emphasis on the fact that this is a skirmish game at its core.
Now, it's clear that not every army aims to have the same numbers. At 600 points, Hobbits or Goblin Town are going for about 60-70, while Wood Elves or Dwarves are comfortable with 3 warbands, and there also some armies, like Rivendell Knights, that are fine with just one.
But one think that I see many people doing, which I think affects they win ratio badly, is that they but too big emphasis on taking big heroes, or that they just take too many of them. I love playing those cool characters, but I also realise that my 500 points Wood Elf force can't support both Celeborn and Galdriel, and Glorfindel, Gil-Galad and 18 elves is just a poor force.
Now,one the other hand, there also people that love going all-in on hordes, trying to include as many units as possible, which I also think is wrong. It's because there are now ways to kill a lot stuff in one blow, like hurl, channeled Nature's Wrath, or good old sorcerous blast.
For some time I tried different tactic, especially on lower points-levels - include a big monster, like Beorn, and then add in as much troops as possible (i.e. Laketown). This looks good on paper, but as it turns out, you can't really rely one model for you army to work; because when it chokes, fails to win a combat or something, your sub-optimal units simply can't make the job done.

What I found works out the best for me is to try to find the right balance between quality units and cheap ones (for example, Erebor dwarves supported by Laketown Guards or Gundabad Blackshields supported my Moria Goblins) and go for cheap or mid-level heroes of good quality (Alfrid, Beregond, Shamans; Thranduil, Vrasku, cheap Wraith are among those that I used recently). This means I try to go for around 3 warbands for 450-550 points.

So, If I have to sum it up with one sentence: don't pay too much for your heroes!

For me, the big heroes are what makes the game fun. I love to take a Last Alliance theme with Gil-Galad + the twins and Isildur/Elendil with warbands of King's Guard/ Numenoreans at about 800 pts, backed up by Alfred or a captain and Laketown guard, which I think are necessary to boost the numbers in the army as spear supports and make sure that the whole army is not simply overrun by greater numbers.

I'm thinking of something like this for Numenor at 700:

Elendil, horse, shield
8 Warriors of Numenor, shields
4 Warriors of Numenor, shields and spears

Isildur, horse, shield, the One Ring
9 Warriors of Numenor, shields
3 Warriors of Numenor, shields and spears

Alfred the Councillor
8 Laketown Guards, spears
4 Laketown Guards, spears and bows

Laketown Guard Captain
7 Laketown Guards, spears
4 Laketown Guards, spears and bows

51 models,
8 bows
8 might + Alfred + Narsil

MR. DUDE:

First off, thanks for making this topic. This is something I wanted to talk about but not many seem to care to talk about it. It always intrigues me because I OFTEN see peoples' army lists and they just immediately set themselves up for failure..



I totally understand. The old days of taking Faramir or an Orc Captain with 50 models was the usual. I find it weird now. I basically played when the game was in its first couple of years and then started again after like an 8 year break not too long ago.



Yes! I agree. I often see people taking larger heroes and sometimes two even in a 450-600 point army and I think wow. How can you put for example a Gothmog and a Shagrat War leader in at 500 points. Or I see someone take a troll instead of a big hero at low costs. They end up having like 20 troops at 550 or 500....

Idk why you do it. Lately Ive found myself doing it more, and playing more tactically as well. Lately Ive been winning my games in the first few rounds by placement and knowing scenario vps. I used to love to spam troops or bring medium level heroes. Still do some times. My first tourney army in a big setting was this:

Vrasku the leader
Shaman
Ugluk
Mauhur
12 marauders
12 ferals
8 shield uruks
16 x bows

I was like sweet....8 might is decent(shamans goes to fury always) and a lot of shots, fury, etc. What cant I handle?

I kicked butt against mostly eveything....but the things I got destroyed by were big heroes....Dark Marshall on Fell Beast, the 3 trolls, Gandalf the White, and Prince Imrahil. Those were the big heroes I came up against.

I smoked a Mordor troll in the tourney but that was sheer list building as I swarmed him with furied ferals and he over extended it.

But otherwise, I killed NONE of those models listed. Yes I won two of 3 games and lost the other on the last turn by a point or two but still....I had no answer for those. The trolls destroyed my lines(though I destroyed his goblins and won easily) Imrahil and Gandalf were a pain in the butt, and the Dark Marshall ruined a Shaman, Ugluk, and another one of my heroes in about 4-5 turns. Once I started losing troops and he had a ton of furies, I had No answer. Their tactics were good, but my list, numbers, and limiting mistakes helped me come 4th out of I think 16 at my first tourney ever.

Needless to say thats when I started to use more large heroes/troops.

I think right now Im probably as good as I have been at this game tactically and thats because Ive been playing with less troops and need to be careful more recently. When you have large numbers you tend to wing it. Sometimes they just dont have the time or the power to do it.



These days I like to balance in weird ways. My ratio is different. If I play Mordor I always take a wraith, and a Shaman. Always have to account that those combined are going to be minimum 190 for me with both of them mounted.

Then Ill usually put morannons with them. Front line shield back line spear.

I account for them like that. Sometimes, if I have higher points Ill throw in Shagrat war leader, or a troll.

I usually will never make a mordor army though where I have a mtd wraith, Shagrat, and a troll.

That together alone is 340 points. With the warbands thats 650. 3 warbands arent bad at 650 but considering their courage is weak, I like to keep up numbers.

Basically though for evil I almost always have a caster and if I dont theres a monster or more.

Moria I used to spam goblins mostly because thats all I had. NOW, I have armies that always contain multiple cave trolls or a dweller, blackshields, soon to be marauders, etc. No more spam. As mentioned from the next poster all spam weak armies can fall quickly. I built a good list for Nova. Im sure someone else who was more used to it could have done better but still.....
I had Thranduil, GOTGC, Kings Guard, a ton of Hobbits, Legolas mtd, and bill the pony.

Eventually yes I got kills.....plenty. Unfortunately I faced one spam army of moria which nullified my strengths as they had more numbers and fury.
I faced Isengard which I was dominating but the elite troops held and I had absolutely no answer for the troll. I kept him at bay yes but he easily got 2-3 kills a round. I couldnt even wound Saruman through the lines of Uruks. Nothing to punch through.
Then I played against Galadriel with Blinding Light.....6's on all my shooting fighting against better troops..
Then I fought Radagast on Sleigh, Thranduil, an Eagle, and Mirkwood Elites.

Here comes your other point....Radagast on Sleigh with them....way too points heavy. My opponent didnt realize they all had rocks and so many bows so I took out the sleigh in the first volley. Sure.....he didnt know....but even if he did that sleigh was a points sink against my particular army.
The other last game I played was against high elves with Gil Galad, Arwen, a Rivendell knight captain and two knights.

First off....theyre not that expensive of course...but for what Arwen and the Captain do, they are expensive. I killed the captains horse with bows and ran him down, arwen was resisted. Sure Gil Galad was amazing against me but I think my opponent would have been served better taking a more balanced force. He also had a banner with those guys. Another REALLY WEIRD thing I find people doing....Taking elites, with huge heroes and then tack on a banner to give themselves even less troops....

Anyway Ill end there for now but I think I made my point with the armies.

Basically a loose summary is I like to have heroes between 85-135 points. If I spam I take weaker ones with monsters to make up for them. If I take a large heroe like a Troll Chief, or Bolg, or new Legolas, I generally make sure the rest of my armies troops are 12 points or under. Hopefully more like 9-10. Especially if youre evil. Numbers are very necessary.

KHAN_GFN:



I agree. I love almost all the new rules. I was lucky to come in after that transitional period from the old rules to the new. But frankly this is MUCH better.

I hate seeing armies with one hero and 50 troops. This makes choosing heroes fun and also makes the game flow more. I had I believe 64 units at NOVA and I will never do it again. Id rather take 24 half trolls and some spearmen and go down in a hail of bows and blood than move an army so slowly EVER again hahaha.



I completely agree. I have seen armies against me time and time again that have two awesome heroes, and about 2/3 of my troops. Hey....if you break them by killing their weaker troops, they no longer have people for objectives and also their heroes get swarmed. Ive seen people write up army lists on this website with Gil Galad Mtd with shield on armored horse and Glorifindel mtd with armor of gondolin at 500 points....Those two with upgrades are 310.

That leaves them 190 for their entire foot soldier section.
Theyre like oh man well theyre fun and cool and tough etc etc. Yeah well have fun facing an army with 4 full warbands where you eventually lose fights and get swarmed and cant hold an objective. Only the elite of the elite players can win with those armies. If two people with the same skill set play against each other its an Elven loss every time against a horde in that armys case.



I already touched on this and youre right. It doesnt work. Ive taken Beorn and Hobbits and they did poorly. Ive taken maxed out witch king with weak captains and all orcs and they did poorly against players who werent that skilled. Balance is the key.




Yep.

One of my favorite armies I ever made was an old battle of five armies one before the new figures and profiles came out. I had:

Beorn
Thranduil with Mirkwood Rangers
Alfrid and 12 spearmen
Thorin with warriors of Erebor.

I had a massive hero, a solid one in Thorin, and cheaper support one in Thranduil, and a weak buffer in Alfrid.
Troops were weak laketwon, medium dwarves, and elite Rangers

Total balance and performed amazingly on several occasions.

Balance is the key.

Ive never thought about points value to numbers as a rule purposely but generally Id say I like this:

350 or less: Monsters or spam list or 1 warband and change
400-450: 2 warbands with a solid hero or medium heroes and elites
500-650: Minimum three warbands at 650...at 500 maybe 2 and some change or huge elites.
700+This is where I like to get into the 4 warband range. I may take three and a monster but I would like to have 3.5 warbands minimum.
850+ If you dont have four, your heroes better be able to become gods on the field.

That being said, all armies are different. We played hold ground last week in a three army battle. My army at a large pts value was as follows:
Troll Chief, 2 trolls
Goblin King, 12 goblins
2 castellans
Buhrdur, 2 cave trolls

Because of placement and good rolling I wiped the enemy units off the map. I lost on vps because we were confused as to what they would be half way through but I definitely got more kills than both of my opponents and likely more than them combined.

The army just depends on the setting but two big heroes under 600 points is a terrible idea to me unless you build an awesome force.

Thats a lot said, but I have a lot of thoughts on this subject. Especially since I started running tournaments a while back and get all the lists. Very interesting.


@LordElrond

This is a great list. Some people would complain about the combination but frankly theyre daft to think laketown should be left out of this army if he competes in a tournament or against another equally competitive army.

Good heroes, and the extra Alfrid support and the numbers makes this work perfectly.

_________________
BLACKHAWK 2010 2013 2015 DYNASTY

Loving the responses so far!


I agree with you, but I'll just bring up a counterpoint for the sake of playing devil's advocate. Let's say it's a 400 point tourney: if I were to splash on a Beorn, yes, the remaining 200 points of my army will be sub-par, but at that points level, not many people are going to have an answer to that calibre of hero. Forget killing him, I don't know that many armies can even contain him. Now, as you rightfully point out in your next paragraph, that's a dangerous way to play, your entire game plan is "Beorn kills everything, everyone else makes sure they have really good seats to the show", the one roll he whiffs will be bad news. My point is, I can see the rationale to overloading on big heroes; it doesn't lead to balanced armies, but maybe you don't always want a balanced army.

A strategy I've been trying to develop since I got back into the game two or three years ago, perhaps a big part of why my armies have gone from pure horde to big heroes (and not getting it is a big part of why I can't win anymore), is to establish local dominance. Maybe I don't need to take on all 50 of your models with all 30 of mine, if I can keep your hordes at bay while I take on chunks of your army at a time with my huge combat freaks, I will win. As long as that strategy doesn't click, I will continue to lose, but I think that's the justification for me.
So basically it comes down to ambition, an ambition to be able to have the best of both worlds. My upbringing in this game was as a horde player, and now I'm trying to continue playing like one even if my numbers advantage is negligible because I am dropping 60% of my points on heroes.




Hilarious that you say that, I took pretty much that at 600 points today. Shagrat, Gothmog and a Shaman. Had something like 34 models in the army. Guess what? I lost due to not having enough models on the objective!
Part of that was poor deployment on my part, I had 9 Warg Riders that did nothing all game because I bottlenecked them, whereas the heroes did help me establish my local dominance that I wanted, it was too little too late by the time we called the game.




A few paragraphs up, I made a huge statement that I didn't explain, "maybe you don't always want a balanced army". I drift back and forth on that one, the fact that I can't quite explain what I mean by it right now probably means that I don't fully agree with it at this moment. Blackmist on TLA used to talk about it a fair bit. Basically, a balanced army in good hands is very dangerous. However, you can take an unbalanced army that's great at one thing but terrible at other key aspects, and as long as you only use it for what it can do well, you're golden. Therein lies the tactical challenge of an unbalanced army, in the wrong hands it will fall apart, in the right hands it is lethal. Again, though, the fact that I can't explain that in more depth shows how vague this subject is.



Somewhere in all this is a post related to my initial point. Going with the bigger heroes can make the game harder, is that because the list is weaker or because they're just not being used to their full effect? I guess that's the key question this post is raising.

My though process was exactly the same. That said, I played around 6-7 games and it just doesn't work. Which is a shame.




I think that even if it won't work (which, to be honest, probably won't) it will greatly improve your tactical skill and make you think outside the box, which is important in every situation with every army.



The thing is, I think the current scenario play highly favors balanced armies. A force that will do solid in every situation just wins more matches across the board than a more focused, but more variable one.



This is very interesting, I actually wanted to make a topic purely about the subject of big heroes, but now I see I don't need to.
I came into conclusion that big heroes are just not worth it anymore (and I'm speaking purely from the competitive point of view; I fully agree they are tons of fun to play with).
Basically, I'm talking about those fighty ones over around 130 points, so all the Glorfindels, Imrahils, Durins, Gothmogs. Yes, many of them are considered great, but if you go over all the lists that do best on the tournaments, you rarely find any of those characters in them. Some of the reasons are, I think:
- they are not effective. If you take 150 points worth of Uruk-Hai,it's very possible they will kill at leat as many points worth of opponent's army. If you take Glorfindel, he may slay some enemy hero, but if he fails to,he won't almost ever be able to pay his points back. I guess he doesn't need to, but still, he isn't nearly as effective as
- monsters. they are just so much better at killing multiple units. Hurl not only deals damage, but also knocks them prone, which makes line to line combat so much easier for your troops.
- Nazguls are now everywhere, and they are the worst nightmare of all the big heroes. Sap will, transfix, and your mighty characer is either dead or can't do anything. I think anyone who was the victim of this can say how bad it feels when this happens...
- Heroic Strike. Fight still matters on warriors, but it lost a lot of value on heroes. Now every 45 point hero with 3 might can take on even the biggest ones. And they always need to strike back, cause when you're surrounded by a bunch of guys with axes, you can't really rely on your opponent fluffing they heroic strike roll...

This is where, in my opinion, lower point cost heroes with a lot of might or good buffs for your troops gain a lot. Take them, and rely on your warriors and monsters to do the killing (which is, to be honest, much easier in evil than in good armies).
And, once again, all of this is only competitive talk. I agree that big heroes are very cool and enjoyable to play, especially those from the films.

@DUDE



Ill help argue for his opinion since I had the same haha.

I did bring Beorn. The rest I brought were hobbits. Unfortunately Beorn has a series of poor rolls. Although he almost killed the undying in two turns of combat, his poor rolls cost me the game. I needed to barge and go minimum two inches. I rolled a 1. So basically, though victory was in my hands, the hobbits fell to the orcs and all the bows and rocks could not kill em.

Ive also played 400 or 450 with Beorn against Rohan and been very successful but it all depends.......
A strategy I've been trying to develop since I got back into the game two or three years ago, perhaps a big part of why my armies have gone from pure horde to big heroes (and not getting it is a big part of why I can't win anymore), is to establish local dominance. Maybe I don't need to take on all 50 of your models with all 30 of mine, if I can keep your hordes at bay while I take on chunks of your army at a time with my huge combat freaks, I will win. As long as that strategy doesn't click, I will continue to lose, but I think that's the justification for me.
So basically it comes down to ambition, an ambition to be able to have the best of both worlds. My upbringing in this game was as a horde player, and now I'm trying to continue playing like one even if my numbers advantage is negligible because I am dropping 60% of my points on heroes.



Hah great. Let me ask, do you play with Gothmog often?

And yeah that will do it man. Gothmog with shield and warg is pricey, and Shagrat costs a decent amount.

I stress to my friends who ask for tips....deployment can kill. That alone can win or lose a game.

@Khan



Your points are all very true. Im confident taking a 45 point hero like Gorbag or Grinnah or even a more expensive Erkenbrand and taking them against Boromirs and Isildurs because I can heroic strike for 3 turns and make them blow might and whatnot.
Nazgul I use in almost every single evil army. I love em and I use em like theres no tomorrow.
Monsters are where its at. My group sometimes laughs at me because Im all about trolls and monsters. My collection might not be huge like some peoples' but I have:
Troll Chief
3 Mordor Trolls(and parts to make one more including isengard troll)
4 cave trolls(and parts to make 2 or more)
Goblin King(a hidden gem of a unit
Dweller in the Dark)
Beorn
Treebeard
Fell Beasts
and maybe another one or two. They are devastating.



Yup. They are fun because you run through wrecking things with very much slack so you can make mistakes.
But lower point heroes letting your troops do work is great. I do that a lot with Isengard and Mordor. It doesnt work much with good as you mentioned.

As for the question of the topic:


The answer to that question is both, actually.

If you take say an Azog, Gil Galad, Elrond, Aragorn, etc then you have a ton less troops than a counter part for them like say Fimbul, Legolas, or a Boromir of Gondor. But it also depends on the scenario. If your leader dies and it helps the enemy, you may want to be more careful, or make sure hes got good defense. Either way the game will be harder if you are outnumbered thats no lie.

Is the list weaker? Almost certainly more of the time. Unless you have elites. A good example of a mix is Isengard. Saruman and Grima with elites works well because you have two attack models. I wouldnt consider that an argument against bigger lists. The idea of this game to me is whoever can stack more dice to win a fight has a better chance and numbers do that.

Is the list always weaker? No, not always, but often yes.
Are they being used to their full effect? Also often no.

At games where you play 600 points or less whats the point of playing Bolg? You will get to 10 kills maybe sure....but if you do likely your army has already gotten close to breaking him.
How about Beorn at 600? Better hope they dont have trolls or a spellcaster.....it just depends on scenario but I would say most gamers think about how to maximize numbers every time when building a list.

_________________
BLACKHAWK 2010 2013 2015 DYNASTY

You're both right, but I still don't necessarily think that means the other side of the debate is wrong. As LotBR's last line suggests, when it works, it really works.
I come strictly from the small heroes side of the debate. I regularly went up against Aragorns and Treebeards with my army leader being mini-Shagrat, if anyone remembers the old LoME scenario Contest of Champions, I regularly smoked the bigger heroes with my Gorbags and Shagrats (in fact, I had a 100% record of major victories in that scenario over years of tournament play), but that's more the circumstances playing into my hands than the big heroes being useless.




Well, different heroes have different functions. The cheap captains are mostly might dispensers, and if you surround a big combat freak, they can give you the edge there, but relying on them mostly means you plan to win a battle of attrition. That's fine, it works (again, I should know, having used that approach most of my gaming life), but attrition isn't the only way to win.
The Gil-Galads and Azogs of the world force you to play another way. You generally won't win through attrition with a hero like that, eventually he'll get bogged down and run out of M/W/F, making it a matter of time before he collapses. Heroes like that are all about doing the damage quickly then spending the rest of the game mopping up. Their might is more for personal use than it is for your army's, it's there for heroic combats and the like, as opposed to the more supportive uses that the captains often have.
Basically, I find captains more reliable, sure. You know exactly what your captain will do each game, and it works. Big heroes either win you the game outright, or they struggle. It's not always about making their points back either, Aragorn isn't going to kill 40 Goblins all by himself, but if he kills 15, then breaking the Goblin player just got a whole lot easier.

Big heroes are spellcaster food, that we know. To deal with Ringwraiths, you either 1) bring something specifically to kill/neutralize them, 2) give them no target worth picking on, or 3) give them too many targets to deal with. All three are viable strategies that have bothered me as a heavy Ringwraith user. Option 3 is what we're trying to crack in this topic, it's a hard one to pull off, I am not disagreeing there.



I don't use Gothmog all that often, no. I think in the past twelve years, I've taken him to two tournaments and four friendly games total. He's a good 3/3/3 hero with access to a Warg, that makes him appealing, and he's not all that expensive for what he brings to the table. I just, you know, generally can't leave home without Shelob and she comes at his expense. The one exception is a day that I took Shelob, Gothmog, and Khamul (on FB) at 600 points to practice for a tournament (which ended up being changed to 400). I think that day was what really got me thinking about this for the first time.


Deployment is huge, I'm glad there's a new topic about deployment now, that's a massive encyclopedia worth of discussions.


I bolded one of the most important lines I've ever read about this game. The game is about setting the odds in your favour. Numbers are a great way to do that, absolutely. There's nothing more comforting than knowing that, no matter how many troops you lose, you've got a never-ending well of them. On the other hand, if you've got Gil Galad and the Twins chewing through your opponent's flanks, you can very realistically take out a dozen enemy models a turn with just those three. That's another way to stack the odds in your favour.








Ultimately, I'm in that very odd position of my experiences agreeing with you guys, while my theorizing mind wants to disagree.