Complete Noob here
So, I decided that my first army should be a Moria monster army consisting of Spiders/bats/Wargs/other monstrous critters led by a dragon or two.
A decision made without knowing any of the rules and purely by looking trough the miniatures on the GW site. (And maybe the fact that I will be getting a bunch of dragons and giant bugs with my Reaper kickstarter in the next month or two)

Then yesterday I got the rulebook and the Moria/Angmar book and after reading trough them a bit, it dawned on me that maybe my initial idea for an army may not have been all that good.

So I decided to ask for help on the internet and this place seemed like a good place to take root.

So in short my qustions are as following;
- Would An army consisting of a Dragon leading nothing but spiders/bats/wargs even viable/playable/fun/competitive/sane.
- If yes how would you go about making such a thing (The mentioned reaper kickstarter starts this collection out with about 6 giant spiders, 4 swarms who I plan to use as broodlings, a single bat swarm and a whole lot of dragons).
- Any other units I should be looking at (The Dweller and the Drake looks pretty tasty).
- How necessary is it that I upgrade my big blue rulebook to the hobbit one

If it's any help the army will be facing a Gondor army an Easterling/Harad army (His two Mûmakil are looking quite scary) and a Rivendell army

I am not 100% sure on this one, but I -think- that a Dragon is an independent hero, and as such can not lead a warband, meaning that there would be no valid way to make an army with only dragons as heroes.

Dragons can indeed lead troops, from either Moria OR Mordor. You can only have 12 models in a warband though so would need other heroes to lead extra troops.

I doubt it would be competetive, wargs are rubbish (dont count as cav so no charge bonuses), spiders and bats are good but without troops to back them up they'll get surrounded easily and killed. It would be fun to use though. If you wanted to make it more competitive I would put in Druzhag the bestcaller with a warg chieftain/ spider queen and enrage them.

Havent used a dweller personally but have fought against it once or twice, killed it both times relatively easy with my fountain guard. Cave drakes are decent but they cant lead troops (indie hero).

What size points are you thinking of playing?

Oh and yes, pick up the new hobbit rulebook. Will allow you to learn the new monster rules which I love. There are usually plenty of reasonably priced ones from the starter set on ebay if you dont wish to fork out £50 for the hardback version.

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Hello fellow "frog" and welcome to the game

If you're just starting out, it's not necessary to upgrade your blue book yet, but it will be if you want to use your monsters to full potential. (Note: "monster" is a technical term in the game, and denotes models like trolls, dragons, etc, but not wargs, bats, spiders, etc.) The blue book is fine for learning, and the transition will be almost seamless.

On learning: you might be starting a bit ambitiously. Play some small games first (maybe in the 250-300, moving up to 500 point range), before taking on fielding a dragon. Otherwise you'll be overwhelmed with options and the game will feel like a grind. You'll need to learn about the effect of all the phases: movement, shooting, fighting, spear support, breaking, courage tests, heroic actions, etc. It's quite a lot to just jump into.

On warbands: 1 hero can lead up to 12 warriors max. So you might take a dragon, but it can only lead 12 warriors, you'll need other heroes to lead more troops.

On beasts (wargs, spiders, bats): I think in general a beast army is more fun than effective. I sometimes take them for the eye-candy and the mood than any expectation to win...which doesn't mean they suck at all, they're just more difficult to use. I will disagree that wargs are useless...what they lack in defence or fight they make up for in speed, and they can go 1:1 against Gondor at even odds. They are often best paired with Druzhag as he can enrage them...a Druzhag-enraged Warg Chief is nothing to laugh at. Even an enraged bat swarm can be extremely effective. Also, one of my son's favourites is Ashrak, who can make spiders more effective.

Other natural allies would be goblins. They are so cheap that you can build your numbers back up even after spending a pile on dragons and spiders. There are good heroes with lots of options, e.g.: Durburz, who is effective at keeping your troops in line; or Groblog, who can help Shamans keep your troops from dying.

I've found the Drake somewhat effective, but I haven't used it yet with the new Hobbit monster rules, so I'm sure that will change things for the better.

Hope that helps...

Welcome to the site and the game (btw listen to whafrog he is definately one of the more knowledgeable people on the site).
An all beast army woul be fun to play, in fact the wide range if creatures is why I picked up Moria as my second team. If you are going to play that way you need to consider a few things, archers are your bane, as no beast has any ranged strikes to match them. However all your units would fall into one of two areas, heavy troops and fast attackers. Wargs, Spiders, and Bats can cross the battle-field in the blink of an eye. Also Trolls and the like provide your needed muscle.
For heros you could field Warg Cheiftains to lead warbands also I'd recommend the Watcher in the Water, with the new monster rules he can absolutely devestate any enemy hero in a single turn

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A Troll Chief could be an option for another "Hero" for warband leading purposes.

I want to second what was mentioned earlier about Wargs not being cavalry so do not try to use them as such. But I wouldn't go so far as to say rubbish. They don't compare to the hitting power of a true cavalry by any reach but they are fast, have a decent Strength value and are cheap. Consider them more like lightly armored fast attack troops (a complement to generic Orcs). For their points you can field a full warband pretty affordably.

The Watcher is one of the models that bugs me about the changes as it was really a niche unit and could be a bit over powered as such. With the new rules and the fact that he can, IIRC, be used in any type of terrain I think he's going to kill more fun at the table than anything else. Maybe a nice option now and then but not regularly...like Saruon I suppose.

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Wow that's some pretty good responses (and fast)

I really am mostly looking for a fun army, but it would be nice not to loose all the time.
I have been playing Warhammer 40k Eldar for several years so I have some experience in handling speedy glass cannons.

When I said lead by a dragon it was mostly thematically as the general/leader/top dog, dragons are lazy so they delegate power.
Maybe switching it for a Drake is better in smallish games.
- How big an army would you suggest to go before taking a Dragon? (And any other big monster for that matter)

- Where do I find out who can be a warband captain and who can't?

- How is area of effect attacks such as the dragons fire breath resolved against a model with more than one part, such as cavalry and Mûmakil against normal shooting they kind of give cover to each other

In any case I just ordered a spider queen, two warg chieftains and two boxes of wargs together with Drûzhag who should be able to lead warbands who are too small for Drakes

- And just to keep asking, If Drûzhag gets a courage bonus from some drums, does he pass on his boosted courage to any beasts in range of his ability.

For the pints with a Dragon is recommend at least 500 points, I don't like to generally spend more than 1/2 my points on one character.

To find out who can be a war band leader just look in te new source books (the equivalent of a 40k Codex) all heros can be unless they have a very distinct symbol next to their name

And in the courage question the answer is yes, when a character receives a modifier in that way that is his courage value until the conditions are removed.

Also Drakes cannot lead warbands, Dragons can but Drakes lack the intelligence, spider queens cannot either

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Any hero can lead a war band, unless they are marked as "Independent" (eg: Spider Queen). The first few pages of your sourcebook describes this, there is a flag symbol to denote them.



For cavalry, it's considered "one model" for most purposes, I don't think you roll an "in the way" for dragon fire. Not sure about the Mumak, never has come up since we don't play evil vs evil.



It's probably too late, but it's unlikely you'll need more than one warg chief. You're starting out pretty hero-heavy as it is. It is possible to field all-hero armies, but a warg chief isn't usually in them, they don't have the Might to leverage. Not sure what you mean by "warbands who are too small for Drakes"...a warband's size is not dependent on the hero leading them.



This is one of those "best to read the rules and try a game or two", because given your knowledge of the game the answer just might be more confusing But FWIW...

Once your army is cut down to half its models you are considered Broken (one reason why all-hero armies are difficult). Once Broken, each model has to make a Courage test each turn to stay on the battlefield. Heroes have a special rule: they can roll their Courage first (it tends to be better) and augment the roll with Will if necessary. If they pass, warriors within 6" don't have to roll. There are some exceptions though, eg: warg chiefs only affect wargs; Durburz's range is 12", not 6", etc... So a drum on the field is good for everyone, you just have to decide whether it's worth replacing 70-100 points of other models. 100 points is a goblin hero and 12 goblins, so that might boost your Break point to the point where a drum is superfluous.

Shamans like Druzhag have another option, the Fury spell: any affected beings (and for Druzhag it's only the beasts) within 6" no longer have to roll Courage for anything, whether it's charging an Elf lord, or being Broken.

So it does, how in the world did I miss that?



The large amount of heroes is me still thinking in units, where I need a second Chieftain if I split them in two units of 6
As soon as I read your post it dawned on me that they don't need to stick together (skirmish games are quite new to me)
well I can probably find a use for the other Chieftain at a later time

I was talking about army size with the drakes. Just me mucking about in the terminology.



See this is another example of me reading something without it sticking completely.
For some reason I got it into my head that stand fast was a heroic action (As in used up a point of might).
I can see why the drum is less effective when you don't have to take as many courage checks.
And even with the large amount of terror models in my army 100 point is still more than 12 wargs. so I will probably not be using it.

But generally I hope the rules stick better when I get to use them in a couple of games.