1500 Fallen Realms Throwdown

[dtjunkie19]

Alrighty, So I got challenged today at my LGS to a game next week vs. elves. Someone wants to ruin my streak, I say nay ;)

So here we go, 1500 points of rather Thematic and yet Quite Nasty Fallen Realms:

1 Amdur, Lord of Blades -165

1 Ringwraith [Khamul the Easterling] -125

1 Ringwraith [Dark Marshal] -125

1 Ringwraith [The Shadow Lord] -125

1 Easterling Cohort - 215
6 companies
Dragon Knight

1 Easterling Cohort - 215
6 companies
Dragon Knight

1 Easterling Cohort - 225
5 companies
Pikes
Captain

1 Morgul Knight Regiment-190
4 companies
Commander

1 Corsair Arbelasters Formation - 125
3 Companies
Captain

Some things to consider:

-Theme-wise. I'd like to think I stick close to some form of theme. The only concession I made was taking the Shadow lord rather than the Knight of Umbar, however since only Khamul and the Witch king are actually named in LotR I think its safe to say any of them work for the army. Specifically, at least 3 or so are speculated by Tolkien to be of Numenorean origin. Why so many nazgul? Well I like to think of my force as a Raiding party hunting after the ring. As it makes sense that to secure the ring one would go after it in force.

-Effectiveness-wise. Well I did put a lot of epic heroes in for a game of this size, something a little different than normal. However, I will be facing an elf army consisting of pretty much all archers. I wanted everything in my army to be high defense. I've found that armies filled with lots of high defense troops are dead hard to defeat. They just don't die, and with nazgul to enhance them in combat they rip through things as well. Also, everything in my army will be moving fast and I want my whole force to arrive en masse rather than piecemeal.

-Basically the game is going to be pretty simple strategy wise. He tries to shoot me and counter charge. I deploy using the shadow lord and khamul as shields, advance quickly, magic his archers and hit into his lines. Try to hit something weak (like small companies/wood elves) with the knights, declare a heroic fight and sweep into his flank. arbelasters hide behind easterlings, pop out and heroic move/shoot at short range into a unit.

Any thoughts, ideas?

PS: Amdur is mainly in the list because I just got him fully painted and I love how he looks, so he needs an initiation game now that he is fully painted. And he is a ton of fun and nasty on the board. Some might even say his real name is Amdur, Lord of Awesome

[Huronbh]

A good solid list. Not sure about using 3 Ring Wraiths but also not sure which I would remove, probably the Dark Marshal as Amdur covers leader of men for you and all the big units have Dragon Knights already. The one thing I would be concerned about is not having Standards for your Big Fighting units. One poor courage roll on a Terror check and you could be in trouble (though all you need is a 5 on 2D6).

My only other suggestion would be replacing the Arbelaster with Watchers of Karna so you could ambush in and really do some damage to one of his small units or soften a big unit before charging in with less might being expended then in your Arbelaster plan, but each to there own I guess.

Good list and good luck.


-jay

[dtjunkie19]

Well is your concern about the ringwraiths from a fluff/theme perspective or a an effectiveness perspective?

Effectiveness wise, 3 ringwraiths allows me to get off the needed wings of terror/Strength from Corruption, etc on my units. The magic is definitely not wasted.

Amdur is the experiment in this list. I consider him a one shot large/heavy formation killer. Spend his 3 might in the fight phase when you charge/are charged by a strong unit and epic duel, epic strike, and epic rampage. You will most likely destroy your opponent in the duel, causing lots of casualties to him, then following up with an epic rampage and not much is left alive. Combine that with a heroic fight from the dragon knight and you can eat a formation and charge into the flank of another.

However, at 165 points, I could definitely replace him with another formation. Perhaps kataphrakts or serpent riders, etc.

As for the watchers vs. Corsairs, that is interesting I could do that, however I do like strength 3/4 vs, the strength 2 of the watchers. However since this is going to count as a campaign battle at my LGS, and we are fighting in harad, Perhaps I can try out the watchers again, 3 companies w/ bows.

Thanks for the comments!

[Xarius]

khamul is very broken so if you want people to like you drop him or you could go to win.

[dtjunkie19]

He also fits in with the list thematically. And while he is very powerful he is by no means unbeatable. And its an awesome model I love the way he looks

[Nu Fenix]

I run 3 Ringwraiths and Amdur, and find it works quite well [only my generalship fails me!] as it means you have a good spread of Courage and magical support.

A useful combination I find is using Epic Rampage from Amdur with The Betrayer, as re-rolling you missed hits increases the effectiveness of Epic Rampage considerably. Using him instead of one of the other Ringwraiths would be worthwhile - If I had to pick, I would replace The Shadow Lord.

If each of your Easterling Cohorts was joined by a Ringwraith, with Wings of Terror and At the Double! you could end up moving 24" and so be likely of getting into combat on the first turn, depending on your terrain. This would only put the Morgul Knights 4" behind, and still likely to charge.

If you can, try and save the 1 Might on your Dragon Knights for a Heroic Duel, as the Ringwraiths can try to tip the odds greatly in your favour with Black Breath, and as such you would be winning by 7 before the dice are rolled [+6 Fight and +1 causing the duel].

Depending on what you face, I found I was better off using Strength from Corruption as an offensive spell against high Defence enemies, which are often in low numbers or wouldn't benefit too greatly from the extra Strength. If the Strength appears to be an issue, proceed to counter-spell with Enfeeble ;)

[Dragon Prince of Caledor]

I think its a solid list. Good luck!

[Huronbh]

My concern with 3 ring wraiths was the point sink. 125pts is a whole other unit possibly and I was questioning the point expenditure at 1500pts. I will be interested to see your reactions on how the list did.


-jay

[Emissary]

Man, the army looks so small. Mordor spoils me.

Khamul is fine, he also fits the army's theme very well.

I think I'd trade out the other two ringwraiths for 2 of these 3: the tainted, the betrayer or the knight of umbar.

The tainted works wonders with terror tests. He's probably the most overlooked and sneaky of the 9. Between every one of your units causing terror if you seed them with terror causers or spells things can get ugly in a hurry when formations can't rely on heroes to get them to charge.

The betrayer works well with Amdur. Rampage + rerolling attacks = many more dead.

The knight of umbar also works well, especially if you can get a monster near him to copy.

[dudesurf]

You know what you should do, play Dalaymar in the same formation with Amdur. The two of them are rediculously strong together and are totally worth the points.
With Dalaymar you can reroll missed rolls, and with Amdur you get extra dice for every hit.

SO imagine this:
I roll 8 dice for my company. 5 hit, 3 miss. I reroll my 3 misses and get 2 more hits, making it 7 hits. I roll 7 more dice (one for each hit). 3 hit, 4 miss. I reroll my 4 misses and get 1 hit making it 4 hits. I then add 4 dice for my hits. I roll them and get 1 hit and 3 misses. I reroll my misses.....

Basically you roll dice til the cows come home and reduce companies to rubble. Amdur has 3 might, and Dalaymar has 2, so you can do this monster combo twice in the game!

Otherwise, I'm playing pretty much the same army!
Jeremy

[Lord Asuryan]

or betrayer+amdur...

[Mephaine]

Also random point but Khamul via wording has one flaw. His save works for the company but not hits on him in a duel. Only loop hole and an easy chance to kill him without more casualties.
Yeah Lord asuryan is right Betrayer more useful due to him being, well, magical. I mean Dalamyr negates charge bonuses, pikes do the same pretty much. So ya he is sort of that daft character just there as a cheap alternative.

[Emissary]

Also random point but Khamul via wording has one flaw. His save works for the company but not hits on him in a duel. Only loop hole and an easy chance to kill him without more casualties

Where are you getting this from? Khamul rebounds any hit on his formation on a 5+. Since it applies to the formation proper, it applies to every part of the formation. If Khamul is in the formation, it applies to him. His ability also doesn't state that it can be only used at specific times, so it can rebound any hit his formation (or any part of the formation) suffers, not matter when the formation suffers the hit.

It's the same logic of when a spell reduces the courage of the formation, it also reduces the courage of heroes within the formation.

[Avatar of the Eldar]

For what it's worth, in terms of theme and proportion, I'm of the camp that advocates for dropping 1 Nazgul and getting more troops - probably another Kav unit.

Otherwise, I like it and would be happy to play against it.

[Kyrios]

Which ringwraith goes in which formation?