Fog of War, Part 1: Rivendell

FOG OF WAR

Welcome to the new series of articles dedicated to the armies of the newest edition of Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game. The title ‘Fog of War’ is inspired by the same term used to represent uncertainty in situational awareness experienced by participants in military operations. In other words, to represent the unknown. Hopefully, this series will give new players an idea of what to look for when building army lists and will help veterans establish what they are likely to face in the upcoming tournaments. Hope you enjoy the read as much as I enjoy writing it!

Part 1: Rivendell

When I returned to SBG in 2017 after a 3-year break from competitive play I made an 800 points Rivendell list for Desolation of Stockport. The list was purely a meta call for that tournament – a combination of Fight 5, Defence 6 and Courage 5 was the best thing going against a Double-Fell Beast Mordor and Harad armies I expected to face. I also included Saruman, 2 High Elf Storm Callers and Arwen to ensure no Fell Beast ever does any harm. I loved that list, but it wasn’t really something that most players would enjoy playing, because it didn’t contain any worthy Elven heroes.

Thus, I decided to start this series of articles with Rivendell. I feel like it’s one of the armies that have gained the most in the newest edition of the rules, and rightly so. A common complaint of most players for several years had been that the Elven Heroes, the likes of Glorfindel or Gil-Galad, were simply too weak. Magic overshadowed their abilities and their Fighting skills were dwarfed by the amount of Heroic Strikes everybody was able to call.

The new edition of the rules not only changes that by removing Heroic Strike from majority of the heroes and making Magic generally weaker. The Elf Lords now are even better at facing magic (with Magic resistance or better!) and they have gained an extra dice in combat, effectively giving them 4 dice to win combat (or 5 mounted on charge), making them as powerful as historically their names would suggest.

As GBHL tournaments most commonly play between 500 and 800 points, throughout this series, I am going to aim to stick to that sort of point limit, sometimes varying up or down.

500 Points:

Warband 1:
Elrond, Master of Rivendell on a Horse
7 High Elf Warriors with Shields
7 High Elf Warriors with Bows and Spears

Warband 2:
Arwen Undomiel on Asfaloth
4 High Elf Warriors with Shields
2 High Elf Warriors with Spears
1 High Elf Warrior with Spear and Banner

Total: 500 Points, 23 Models, 4 Might, 7 Bows and a lot of angry rivers.

At small points level like this there are few things that can take out an Elf Lord. His magic combined with his daughter’s magic should make the enemies tremble. There is an argument here for moving Elrond and Arwen around, so the bowmen can benefit from his Army Bonus. But since he’s mounted, I think it’s easy enough to move him during the game.

*BONUS LIST*

500 Points:
Warband 1:
Elrond, Master of Rivendell on a Horse with Heavy Armour
12 Rivendell Knights with Shields
1 Rivendell Knight with a Banner

Because who doesn’t love a Rivendell Knight!

800 Points:

Warband 1:
Gil-Galad on a Horse
6 King's Guard with Shields
6 King’s Guard with Spears and Shields
1 King's Guard with Shield, Spear and a Banner

Warband 2:
Glorfindel, Lord of the West on Asfaloth
3 High Elf Warriors with Shields
3 High Elf Warriors with Spears and Shields
3 Rivendell Knights with Shields

Warband 3:
Cirdan
4 High Elf Warriors with Elf Bows and Spears
3 High Elf Warriors with Elf Bows

Total: 800 Points, 7 Might, 32 Models, 10 Bows.

The first thing you’ll notice is the lack of shield for Gil-Galad and Armour of Gondolin for Glorfindel. Honestly I don’t think these are necessary. With the number of dice these guys have, they will rarely, if ever lose combats. Defence only matters when you lose. Even if they were to lose a combat, the number of Wounds and Fate points will keep them easily alive. I’d rather have 2 more Elves.

King’s Guard is in there because Fight 6 will be useful not just in the mirror matches (which I would expect quite a few), but also to make enemy heroes burn through Might. I always wanted to include these guys in Rivendell in the past, but in the previous edition Gil-Galad was just not good enough. Supported by a banner, they will be losing very few combats.

Cirdan, historically (game-wise) the worst of all Elf characters is now somewhere between good and very good, as he adds some nice defensive variety in Blinding Light and Aura of Dismay and a cool offensive spell that makes our heroes that bit stronger.

Lastly the Army Bonus only works if the leader (Gil-Galad) is near the bowmen. I think this leaves you with a choice – if you wish to primarily shoot and don’t need Gil-Galad in combat, by all means ride him to the bowmen. If you’d prefer to be fighting, he’s better off with his Warband.

Another alternative could be to use both Gil-Galad and Elrond, as they’re both Heroes of Legend, which would allow you to skip on Cirdan and have 33 Elves, for a total of 35 models. You would then get the Wrath of Bruinen but lose Blinding Light and Aura of Dismay. There’s a lot of ways to build this list and we haven’t even touched on Twins and other named heroes!

The primary weakness of Elven forces is always going to be in its numbers. The very nature of an elite force such as this means that you will generally always fight against armies that outnumber you, thus you will have to use terrain to your advantage and utilise your powerful heroes as the centrepieces of the army to bring the enemy numbers down. Once the numbers are even or you have a numerical advantage, you should be able to defeat most other armies, as the quality of your troops will generally always be higher than everyone else's. 

ALLIES:

Since High Elves and their heroes cost so many points, I’m not entirely sure whether it’s worth investing in alliances. Elendil screams to be picked alongside Gil-Galad for a Last Alliance theme, but whether TLA will be strong enough depends entirely on whether Strength 4 and Defence 5 is better than Fight Value 5 and Defence 6 on troops. We won’t really know that until several tournaments have been played and a metagame has been established. I will definitely be looking at Numenor separately though. As for others, we have some cool options, but I think I’d just stick to pure Rivendell for now.

Personally I can’t wait to cast a Channelled Aura of Dismay and then every turn use Enchanted Blades on either Glorfindel or Gil-Galad…

Good Luck!
BlackMist

PS. Rivendell was always a subject of Episode 11 of An Unexpected Podcast. For an in-depth discussion, check out this video: