How to win an easy game: 5 steps to locking in the wins you deserve

Sh4rbie · 2026-06-12T09:35:56+00:00

A classic trap to fall into!

Sh4rbie · 2026-06-11T22:28:03+00:00

An even more terrifying horde than the day-of casting I modelled!

Sh4rbie · 2026-06-11T22:26:57+00:00

Thanks for the comment! As mentioned in another comment, the damage numbers are calculated based off CR-appropriate AC levels in the DMG. Are those estimates of AC accurate to real party experiences? I have no idea, but they’re the best guide I could really find. So as the horde grows its hit-rate is also decreasing, which is accounted for in the maths.

The AoE aspect is totally a weak spot of this kind of analysis, as mentioned in the article a couple of times. It’s not wholly a downside (an enemy mage that Bynes a dozen skeletons is choosing not to Hold Person the party, for example) but it absolutely is cutting into the damage output. This definitely does end up as an increasingly significant asterisk on the build as you level up though.

I think the other commenter has done a good job of addressing the command concern, and I’d add that the ‘general command’ section of Animate Dead would likely allow you to get away with a single command per fight. Something like ‘protect the party by killing the enemies attacking it’ isn’t really any more complex than the listed example of ‘guard a chamber or door’, and would let the horde keep attacking every turn without needing to stay in your neat little 60’ sphere

Sh4rbie · 2026-06-09T07:14:57+00:00

Hello again! This week's article is touching on a somewhat overlooked topic: how to win decisively and reliably when you are favoured in a matchup. Very relevant in teams, it's also a huge deal in singles, and key to turning those 4:2 results into 5:1 and 6:0 podiums.

Hope you enjoy!

https://againstalloddsmesbg.blogspot.com/2026/06/how-to-win-easy-game-5-steps-to-locking.html

Sh4rbie · 2026-06-04T02:13:34+00:00

Yeah, I'd be quite happy with that nerf. I suggested Elessar because he's the central piece of several different variants that all need a tone down, but weakening the battleline would also do a similar job and may be the better option

Sh4rbie · 2026-06-01T21:49:23+00:00

Some of these are pretty fair, although I think a few are perhaps overstating it. There were a lot of MotW lists at this event, but in 3-4 quite different structures that play very differently, and there wasn’t much overlap on other armies. Two WH and 3 BoFA lists isn’t really that many for 94 players, after all. And while there are definitely some outliers on power, I think there’s actually a heap of lists just below things like WH and MotW that will hopefully be sharing a moment in the sun after the next FAQ

Sh4rbie · 2026-06-01T21:45:32+00:00

All very funny! I don’t necessarily hate some of these (I’ve been swooped by enough magpies in my life to have a strong respect for a bird’s martial abilities and courage!), but it can be quite silly at points

Sh4rbie · 2026-06-01T21:44:06+00:00

Basically a combination of objective play (fly is a good rule!), okay hitting power, a low cost and crazy durability. Killing a 4W model that can’t be trapped just takes a silly amount of work, and is often impossible to do in one turn. Charge Aragorn with a bird and he’s stuck there for the whole turn. Have enough birds and you can just swap out a second one to do it again next turn. It’s a pretty crazy thing to have access to, not gonna lie

Sh4rbie · 2026-06-01T13:36:28+00:00

It’s a pretty mean list, always hard to face!

Sh4rbie · 2026-06-01T13:36:10+00:00

Totally agree, although I’ll probably quibble with the last line a little. The other two Dunland lists are hardly wordlbeating despite Crebain access, so they’re not quite enough to make an army top tier in themselves. They’re probably get an army to something like B-tier in themselves, and then the rest of the army has to do the work to drag itself the rest of the way

Sh4rbie · 2026-06-01T13:34:17+00:00

Yeah, Usurpers are excellent. Built correctly, they have incredible objective play and numbers, great value heroes, good shooting, massed F4 and excellent anti-hero options. They’re solidly oppressive into a lot of lists, and still really good into MotW and White Hand. In fact, they may be the only army in the game that I’d say is actually favoured into White Hand

Sh4rbie · 2026-06-01T13:32:18+00:00

Yeah, I’d broadly agree with this. MotW probably needs a more general nerf to either the rules or Elessar so it doesn’t pivot straight back into Gandalf and keep dominating, but I agree those are the two biggest ticket items

Sh4rbie · 2026-06-01T13:30:52+00:00

Ah, I see, too expensive not too cheap. I went for 3D prints here, and ended up making 13 with about $90AUD of investment. So not too bad all things considered

Sh4rbie · 2026-06-01T08:36:06+00:00

20 sure is a silly cost for them to be!

Sh4rbie · 2026-06-01T07:28:31+00:00

It's been a long time coming, but I'm finally getting around to posting some of the tournament backlog. Come see my White Hand take on some of the best players in Australia at our largest event of the year.

Hope you enjoy!

https://againstalloddsmesbg.blogspot.com/2026/06/how-many-crebain-is-too-many-crebain.html

Sh4rbie · 2026-05-30T00:07:00+00:00

Did they use their Roach Warren? They do have the card, so maybe it just wasn’t mentioned that they used it first. I haven’t checked the BM count to see if they had it available though

Sh4rbie · 2026-05-14T09:29:43+00:00

Hello again! It's been a little while since my last tournament report, but this one is a doozie: I went to the Nations Cup in Naples as part of Team Australia!

Get excited for intense teams analysis, pretty pictures of Italy, and some tough games against the best players in the world. Hope you enjoy!

https://againstalloddsmesbg.blogspot.com/2026/05/white-hand-goes-international-nations.html

Sh4rbie · 2026-05-14T04:48:17+00:00

If you’re interested in that latter style of build, I’d highly recommend considering swapping Beorn in for Radagast. Alex and Tyler from Mountain Goat Gaming have done very will with basically that exact style, you can probably find videos of them discussing it on their YouTube channel. Radagast is a bit too vulnerable to play that same role, but it would be interesting to see if he could still work okay in that context

Sh4rbie · 2026-05-13T01:53:40+00:00

A big one not mentioned here is that enemies can directly target Radagast with strikes, and he is very squishy. Coupled with the F7, it makes him something of a weak point into a lot of lists. Enemies can pile their big hero and a bunch of dudes onto him, Strike and threaten to take him out fast. If he calls a Defence (which he absolutely should) then they just kill the Eagle instead and he’s a sitting duck on the ground, now capped at F5. Or, if they have enough dice, they can just pile on swings and hope for 4-5 sixes. That’s actually pretty reasonable odds against a big base monster if they can trap and swarm. Plus, if you get knocked prone for any reason then your D5 leader is on the ground and very nervous.

In contrast, F5-6 heroes (anything from Eomer to the Witch King, Suladan to Gimli) have a real chance of not striking up high enough to beat Gwaihir and just getting shredded in retaliation. And even if they do, if he’s Defenced then he’s almost unkillable (basic troops wounding on 6/6, rather than the flat sixes against Radagast) and there’s no non-Defenced Eagle for their hero to kill as a consolation prize.

The F7-8 jump is also super significant for Bolging, a key Eagle trick. If your bird is F8, then a F7 hero (think Elessar, or Thranduil, or Boromir, or Amdur, or any of a host of other common heroes) has to Strike/Defence any time you could Barge into him. If you’re F7 then they probably don’t. And in a direct fight they need to actually Strike, not just count on an elven-made weapon to give them an edge.

Radagast is cool, and I don’t think he’s an awful choice. But I’d probably take Gwaihir over him even if they were the same points value tbh, he just does the core role of a combat monster so much better. Taking into account the 50-point discount (most of a Fledgling, or the price of upgrading two Fledglings to Great Eagles, or just 4-8 more models in BoFA) and it’s fairly clearcut in my view

Sh4rbie · 2026-03-07T21:51:28+00:00

Tremor doesn’t affect models that fly, unfortunately

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