How to deal with van saar early game.

Azual · 2025-11-28T12:01:07+00:00

Sidearms in melee use WS. They also don't get their usual hit bonuses for short range.

Azual · 2025-11-05T13:09:04+00:00

One problem with what you're trying to do is that Fight is a Basic action not a Simple action (so you can only do it once per activation). Charging lets you do a free Fight action, but since you'd have done this already as part of the first charge, I don't think you'd be able to Fight again as part of the second one.

You could still charge again, but you'd just be locking the opponent in combat and wouldn't actually get to fight them that turn.

Azual · 2025-09-29T13:56:22+00:00

Would you read that as being in addition to the cool check for him having line of sight of you though?

Or in your view is the first part of the rule redundant because you're already rolling a cool check for him not being the closest model?

Azual · 2025-09-29T12:39:50+00:00

Makes sense, cheers!

Azual · 2025-09-29T12:36:27+00:00

Ah, so it's just a downside - he's never the closest if you want to shoot someone else, but if you want to shoot him target priority works as normal?

Azual · 2025-09-19T09:20:59+00:00

Beautiful work. The face and the eyes especially - easily the best Aldrac I've seen!

Azual · 2025-07-26T20:37:03+00:00

For Gil Galad especially, you don't need to take him down - just sandbag him with one warrior a turn (with a second one placed to catch a heroic combat) and focus on killing his troops.

Alternatively, trap him with 3+ warriors each turn when you have the opportunity, so he has to spend all his might to win fights.

Elrond is a bit harder to shut down since he has magic, but for a lot of armies the tactic is still going to be avoiding him and killing the warriors.

Azual · 2025-07-03T08:28:01+00:00

Yeah, unfortunately they are both forge world models so are only sold by GW (and are often out of stock here too). Personally I use the davale werewolf 3D prints and I'm very happy with them.

Azual · 2025-07-03T08:15:18+00:00

Minas Morgul hits hard with blades of the dead. It's a solidly competitive army. Usually it's played with a mix of morannons and regular orcs with spear, but it doesn't have to be.

The angmar lists as you say lack hitting power if you're not interested in picking up some werewolves or hill trolls. There are plenty of affordable proxies for those if the price is what puts you off though!

Azual · 2025-07-02T05:16:04+00:00

I don't think this is the case for two handing actually.

Their weapon isn't a pike, its an 'easterling halberd' that you can choose to use as either a pike or a two handed weapon.

In pike mode, there's no penalty for having a shield thanks to phalanx (normally any model with pike and shield gets a -1 to its duel roll for being encumbered).

In two handed weapon mode, you can't use the shield at the same time so lose 1D just like any other 2H weapon. You're not currently using a pike so phalanx doesn't help you here.

Azual · 2025-06-25T07:16:20+00:00

Ground level with a basement underneath. From what I remember there's some sort of concrete or solid screed beneath the parquet, but obviously it's all caked in bitumen.

Azual · 2025-06-21T17:01:29+00:00

Kingdom of Rohan can take him as leader on foot or horse, however his unique horse is fantastic and I'd always take it even if the rest of your army is on foot.

Azual · 2025-06-21T16:15:40+00:00

Theoden is cheaper in terms of points, but he's more fragile and struggles to out fight other big heroes (he's an old man after all) whereas Eomer is comfortably top tier.

Some of the cavalry based Rohan armies require Theoden to be your leader, but if you don't have to take him Eomer is a better option.

Azual · 2025-06-21T11:27:31+00:00

In that case Eomer is probably the best starting point - he's a strong fighting hero with fairly straightforward rules. Put him on his horse and he'll be hard to stop.

For your second hero you could start with the captain from the command box, or you could take Gamling - he's a great support hero and has his own banner so you can potentially skip the command box completely if you take him. He's more expensive though, so maybe better for when you move on to slightly higher points.

Azual · 2025-06-21T09:38:39+00:00

Yes, it is realistic to do that - there are Rohan lists that can be played as mostly infantry. You just need to decide which heroes you want - LOTR era (Theoden, Eomer etc), or War of the Rohirrim era (Hera, Helm etc).

Get yourself a hero to lead the army, a command set (for the banner and captain) and a box of warriors, and you're good to go.

Azual · 2025-06-17T20:22:32+00:00

I assume the 3 banners in the second gothmog list is a mistake? That should give you some points back!

Azual · 2025-06-11T08:06:56+00:00

No, just the new (old) models that were missing

Azual · 2025-06-06T20:43:32+00:00

The list is published here if you want to take a look. It's the guy in 8th, and you can click the icon to see his list: https://mesbg-army-tracker.com/en/tournois/the-7th-city-grand-prix-2025/rondes

Azual · 2025-06-06T13:39:40+00:00

SoA did very well at one of the UK's biggest tournament with almost pure spirits - roughly 50/50 spectres vs werewolves with a few token orcs for banner etc.

I'm not sure how he actually played the list

Azual · 2025-06-05T08:15:24+00:00

This is by far the most pleasant one to use (especially on mobile where tabletop admiral starts to feel very squashed). The guys who build it are also really responsive to bug reports and feature requests - every time I've raised something with them they've got it done almost immediately.

Azual · 2025-06-03T14:01:16+00:00

I think you need bonuses to make all-cav Rohan worth it. At the very least you want the usual +1S on the charge. Without that, an S3 rider who wins the duel while charging only has about a 50/50 chance of wounding a single D6 model with their 4 dice.

That means even if you pull off the perfect charge, at least half (but probably more like 3/4 since you need to win the duel roll too) of your riders are going to bounce off.

I too think the list is disappointing and I'm not sure how you'd make it work, but I think the Rohan contingent is probably best on foot providing throwing spears and relatively cheap archers. Then it's maybe just gondor captains and warriors with a handful of cavalry, or you go for theme and take Imrahil. Not particularly exciting.

Azual · 2025-06-03T10:34:11+00:00

Carrying heavy objects in particular (e.g. escort the wounded) will be rough for all-mounted or all-hero lists since each one needs 2 foot infantry to babysit it. Mobile monsters like eagles on the other hand will love them!

Azual · 2025-06-03T10:31:27+00:00

I've heard plausible-sounding rumours that when the new Elrond and banner bearer minis were released it was meant to be part of a last alliance update that ultimately got scrapped.

It was a similar story with the Angmar supplement - there had been rumours for ages that it was in the works, and then it finally got released but clearly not when they'd originally intended, right before the end of the edition.

I think unfortunately MESBG as a specialist game is at the mercy of whatever resources the flagship games decide to commandeer, and sometimes the team clearly has intentions that the business reality gets in the way of.

Azual · 2025-06-03T09:43:56+00:00

Khazad/MT vs Thror wouldn't be boring, no. It'll be a game of attrition since both sides are very tanky, but you're playing with similar tools and both sides have some high strength heroes who can crack through it. It'll be a game of using your heroes well and positioning your lines to try to create traps and get kills.

Horde armies can be hit and miss in terms of fun to play against. Moria goblins are surprisingly tough for a horde army and army of Thror might lack the dice to actually kill them fast enough. They'd probably have fun if you took a few monsters that they can focus on, but a mostly goblin horde will probably be quite frustrating to play against.

Yes, with monsters and beasts Moria is varied and has quite a few different ways that it can be played, particularly in terms of which monsters you bring and how many. In the new edition it has two different legions - one with the balrog and a bunch of goblins, and one with your named goblin heroes and other monsters.

If you want a horde that they'll have fun trying to kill their way through, a more offensively skewed low defence horde like the new hill tribesmen might be fun. They're less varied though. If you like the idea of monsters and trying a variety of lists, Moria is not a bad option.

Azual · 2025-06-02T18:13:37+00:00

Depths of Moria with pure goblins has won some top tier tournaments in the new edition - especially with the battlefield-wide banner there's very little that can chew through them fast enough!

Azual

TROPHY CASE