Top Units by Faction: Minas Tirith Heroes

Hello readers, General Ly Average here and welcome to my second article on the Hobbit Strategy Battle Guide (now with pictures!!!). I thought that today’s post ought to be in a different vein to my first article and I was hunting around for ideas. Several people have said that one of their first questions when starting the Hobbit SBG was ‘What’s the best hero/troop in the game?’. This is a tricky one for many reasons, but I thought that tackling it by army could be viable. So this is what I came up with: I would go through the various armies in the game and give you all my views on the top three heroes and troops in each list, one article on heroes, one on troops (spreading out the content so I don’t run out of steam, of course). And so the ‘Top Units by Faction’ category was born…..

So, for my first article in this ilk I decided to start with a truly iconic army straight out of the films, Minas Tirith. So, without further ado, let’s begin with my thoughts on the best heroes in the Minas Tirith army list:

      Top Three Heroes: Minas Tirith

Number Three: Madril

Image credit goes to Middle Earth Wardens

At number three we have Madril, Captain of Ithilien. He’s got your standard captain of men profile with armour and a bow, but a 3+ shoot value and 3 Might. This is very nice indeed, making him a nice little Might caddy which you can use to counter Heroic actions called by your opponent or use to get a cheeky wound with shooting. Other than that his profile is nothing special; Fight 4 is a bit rubbish and only having Defence 5, 2 Wounds and 1 Fate means that he’ll go down if you lose fights, but you don’t take him for combat ability. You take him for his special rule, ‘Master of Ambush’, which allows all warbands entering play as reinforcements to get a +1 modifier to their dice roll and includes scenarios like Recoinnoitre. This, on a model that costs only 55 points, is great. Suddenly your whole army is getting what could be a game-changing bonus in Hold Ground! and Reconnoitre, as your units have that much more of a chance of coming in exactly where you want them to be, which can swing the outcome of the game. Cheap, great special rule and 3 Might (and still available in metal from GW at the time of writing); a solid choice in any Minas Tirith Army.

Number 2: Beregond

A mounted Beregond conversion by ste271276 of the One Ring forum

Clocking in at number 2 we have a model that many Minas Tirith veterans swear by, Beregond. Responsible for showing Pippin round Minas Tirith in the books, he has now taken up the responsibility for leading a warband in almost every competitve Minas Tirith list you see. And not without reason, because this guy is a very, very good choice. On the face of it, Beregond is nothing special. His statline is slightly familiar to anyone that has used Rangers of the North, looking very much like a slightly buffed warrior: F4 is ok but not great, but the 1 Attack, Wound and Fate point mean that he isn’t good in combat; one lost fight will take him down, although Strength 3 troops will need 6’s to wound him as he’s Defence 6. He has a single might point, which is handy, a 3+ shoot value and an Elven Bow, which is nice but not exactly a game changer, a will point to resist spells (woohoo) and the option to take a horse (conversion required). A charging Beregond is alright in combat, especially with the Knockdown, extra attack and Strength 4, but he’s certainly not going to touch anyone remotely combat orientated. Finally, he has Bodyguard for a hero of Minas Tirith in your army, which is actually very useful: have him bodyguard someone tough, auto-pass his courage and use his Stand Fast! to make sure your troops stick around. But none of these things are why you take Beregond. You take him for his points cost: at a paltry 25 points on foot and just over 30 when mounted he’s one of the cheapest non-independent heroes in the game. Hobbit heroes are more expensive than him, for goodness sake, and he can lead troops! What you’re getting with Beregond is a very cheap way to get 12 more Fountain Court Guard/Citadel Guard in the army, and with other heroes of a similar standard and cost in the list Minas Tirith armies can be very large and yet still field excellent troops. Beregond is a staple of competitive Minas Tirith lists, and rightfully so.

Number 1: Faramir, Captain of Gondor

Image credit goes to Shadow and Flame

Finally, my personal favourite from the heroes of Minas Tirith, it’s Faramir, Captain of Gondor! Base, Faramir has Fight 5 with a 3+ Shoot Value, standard hero strength and defense with armour, 2 Attacks, 2 Wounds, Courage 5 and 3 2 2 for Might, Will and Fate. He also has a very respectable points value of 70 points basic. However, Faramir is a very versatile choice: he can take a bow if you feel that you want the Faramir from straight out of the Battle for Osgiliath (as shown in the image above from ‘Shadow and Flame’) or you can kit him out to make him tougher and more combat orientated, which would be my recommendation. He can take Heavy Armour and a Shield to take him to Defence 7, a key point as Strength 4 models (i.e most heroes) will be needing 6’s to Wound him, and can also take a Horse/Armoured Horse and a Lance. Taking all of these makes him very nasty indeed, and for a 2 Attack hero he can kill a surprising amount on the charge with the knockdown and +1 to Wound from the lance. The 2 Wounds, 2 Fate and Defence 7 also make him a pretty good leader and 3 Might is very good. One interesting point to make is that he has Woodland Creature, given to him in an Errata, so you can really surprise your opponent by charging straight through a wood at a target they’d hidden so Faramir wouldn’t be able to get to them. But other than that, he has no particular special function or use beyond being quite survivable and killing 2/3 models a turn on the charge. The reason I really rate Faramir is that he’s a great utility hero: he can dish out a fair bit of damage on the charge, has very good heroic stats and can be a tough nut to crack; and he is always these things in every game. He is always consistently useful for me as a tough leader that can really get stuck in and leaves me lots of points to sink into my very good Minas Tirith troops; even fully kitted out (excluding the bow) he doesn’t break the 100 point mark. I’ve always found him to be that perfectly balanced, mid-level hero who can kill what he needs to kill while leaving lots of points to spend elsewhere. And he works at any points level: even as low as 350 points he is my auto-include hero, because he can still pull his weight while leaving enough for 2 full warbands and a cheap second hero like Beregond. Every game Faramir performs well and earns his points back, hence every game he is in my list.

So there you have it! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this article as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it and I’d also like to think that you found this useful or thought provoking. I would also like to thank Shadow and Flame, who kindly allowed me to use their picture of their beautifully-painted Faramir. They do some great conversions and commission painting, I highly recommend checking out their website:  http://www.shadowandflame.co.uk/ for more of their work. Two other big shout-outs go to ste271276 of the One Ring forum for allowing me to use a picture of his excellent mounted Beregond conversion and to the Middle Earth Wardens for letting me use one of their images. You can see more of their work here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Middle-Earth-Wardens/1638386853056125?fref=ts

So that’s all everybody, I’ll be back at some later point with my post on my Top Three Troops of Minas Tirith. Be sure to comment with your thoughts and Happy Strategy Battle Gaming!