Hello,

I've been following the forum for a few days and I'm very much impressed with the depth of knowledge and dedication shown by people here. I recently got into the hobby and from the very beginning I wanted to collect Moria Goblins. I had some money to burn and so I quickly found myself with a whole variety of models. After a few battles with my friend (mines of moria scenarios, small pitched battle between orcs and goblins) I noticed that even with the massive advantage of numbers I can only achieve the closest of victories. Unless I bring the drum into play even the most basic orc warriors can beat back my horde. Could other moria players please share some of your most basic strategies with me?

hmm, perhaps Gothmog the Werewolf, or Blackmist could help you, I only know how to beat Goblina, not how to use them.

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Ours is the fury!

I don't play goblins a lot, but they are fun. Are you playing LoME rules, or the new war band rules? What's your usual army configuration? How many points? Do you have any elites, like prowlers or blackshields? I'm sure the advice will vary depending on those things.



An orc horde isn't much smaller than a goblin horde, and has the advantage of winning 16% more fights. A drum, Durburz, and a Shaman will help you stick around when broken, and help drive the enemy away when they're broken. But that drum is a lot of extra goblins...probably worth it in bigger games, but not in 500 points or less.

An orc horde isn't much smaller than a goblin horde, and has the advantage of winning 16% more fights. A drum, Durburz, and a Shaman will help you stick around when broken, and help drive the enemy away when they're broken. But that drum is a lot of extra goblins...probably worth it in bigger games, but not in 500 points or less.[/quote]


Agreed, that 1 drum will cost you arround 16 goblins (nearly a full warband plus shaman or captain) so in a 500pt match very (over) costly

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"If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten"

To quickly answer this: I have a horde of regular goblins, two trolls, commanders plus Durburz. I'm waiting for 8 blackshields, blackshield commanders (the shaman looks very, very good on paper) and 2 warg marauders (I simply couldn't resist the temptation to have three little goblins riding a massive warg). I want to create a small 500-700 point army.

The things I gathered so far are as follows:
Attacking enemy lines head on in equal numbers is suicide even with the support of spearmen. At first I ignored the 'fighting' stat simply thinking I can roll better- what a fool I was. Every tie is a lost engagement. Unless I have the drum in play you really need to swarm the enemy. Putting a bulk of my forces on one flank and fighting defensively in the centre and the other flank yielded me good results however.

Archers are a big problem for me. They seem to be a waste of points and I was just about to drop them completely out of my force before I found numerous topics here on the forums saying it's a big mistake. The only role on the battlefield I found for them is as light infantry, screening my troops and then charging them in to bring extra numbers into the close quarter combat.
I thought about replacing them by Orc trackers in an Angmar regiment before I found out that the 33% bow limit is applicable to each contingent and not across the army (don't really understand this rule).

Trolls should be renamed Boromirs because they attract arrows like magnets.

With my Moria army I made sure I had enough archers so that I could volley so it takes so out some of their men while my other troops get close

Speaking as an old fashioned Goblin Commander who is yet to use either Prowlers or Blackshields (or Marauders or Warbands), my advice is thus:

Goblins are good holding troops. Get them stuck in and pinning the enemy down. Don't expect them to do much more than hold though. Casualties you cause are often in unexpected places, though if you're trying to kill something, swarm it.

A Goblin Shaman is fantastic backup. Relatively cheap, Fury makes Goblins so much better. Saving 1 of every 6 Goblins is ok (when you're getting heavy casualties) but the courage boost is great once you break. Just keep them out of combat.

Rely on heavy hitters like trolls to bludgeon the enemy (though they are known to woefully underperform). Try and protect them a bit from arrows by getting your Goblins in the way but they do have 3 wounds (I think?) so they're not fragile.

I normally use Goblin archers to whittle down a few of the enemy archers and stop them taking out my trolls and such. After combat has joined they can be thrown into the fray (they're just as good as your spearmen except can't support) or used to shoot into combat depending on the situation.

Lots of cheap might can be good and allows you to dictate the battle.

Bat Swarms are useful creatures when teamed up with a Troll to take down heroes or just give your Goblins a chance. And they can fly over enemy formations to trap them and allow your Goblins to do some damage.

Look into allies such as Shades. For about the same price you've got the equivalent of a drum. Slightly better banner effects (stops auto winning ties on a 6) but without the courage bonus.

Lastly, just fiddle around and try out different options

I don't know about the marauders, but the rest sounds like a good start. I would also add in a few prowlers, they are probably one of the best bargains in the game, having throwing weapons and their special rule for very low point cost.



Lots of good points, I was going to mention this too. Bats are great for hero hunting, and also make great screens for your trolls because they have so many wounds.

Trolls can be arrow-magnets, but that can also be due to the types of games played. If you are playing standard "start on the edge, charge to the middle" types of games, with little terrain, then trolls are vulnerable. If you're not playing with LoME bow limits, then it's downright ugly. If you try the different LoME scenarios, or better yet, the new war band scenarios, you'll have a very different experience.

Thanks for all the great advice! I especially like the idea of bringing shades in- a more mobile and damage resilient drum. I haven't noticed the special rule for bats until now (I must have overlooked them because of their silly looking figure) and I might get one or two of them as well. I will also make sure to get few prowlers into my force- I especially want to see how their throwing weapons perform in battle.

Just to clarify things- I'm playing with the warband rules (from what I've gathered it's a relatively new system?).

One more question- do goblins standing in front of a troll block enemy line of sight?

They don't block line of sight, but they do count as "in the way".

If you have 12 Orc Trackers, you will need 24 warriors without bows from the Angmar list, as Moria is a different list.

Also, Cave Trolls are Arrow-magnets usually, not hero-magnets.

Moria Goblin Prowlers used to be one of the best value Warriors in the game, they're still good, but the pt increase on them hurts them. In order to maximise their potential you will need a lot of Prolers w/ shields supported by normal Goblins with spears, and maybe a couple with 2-handers, have them led by Durburz, Groblog and a few Shamans. Prowlers with bows used to be really good, but the pts, plus their shoot (they would need to be 3+ to be worth it), and lack of poison or spears, stops them being as good as they once were, but they're still a viable alternative to Goblins w/ bows, but make sure you do send them into the fight at some point.

I plan on trying Marauders, but no word yet. Bat Swarms neutralising abilty is very good. Warbands is a very new system. If you play at a high enough pts value, a Shade and a Blackshield Drum would be good. Don't bother with Cave Trolls, unless your playing a generic Goblin horsde with nought eles but Captains and Shamans, and you have more than two Trolls, allying in Buhrdur wold be a better bet, or you have Warg Cheiftains. If you want a SQ, use the Mordor one as she can lead troops.

Have you considered a Dragon or Drake?

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

Agreed, that 1 drum will cost you arround 16 goblins (nearly a full warband plus shaman or captain) so in a 500pt match very (over) costly[/quote]

How'd you get 16? it costs the same as 20 goblins, or a captain with shield and 12 goblins. It's definitely worth it, won me a game with the rerolls, but not at low levels. At 750 pts, it's a neccessity. Durburz + Shaman = no goblins fleeing. Ever. The 1/6 chance of surviving is a nice bonus. Won't win you the game, but it will definitely help. One game, 3 goblins in one turn were saved via Fury.

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"Leave Sauron to me."
If you're in the Raleigh, NC area, let me know.

the only thing that i would say is that durburz plus groblog plus shaman seems to be a good idea, and last battle kept my opponants forces from dying or running and ended up me being beaten by 1 model (first to reduce opponent to 25% wins) so i would reccomend that as a tactic, as it makes those pesky goblins hang araund for ages as long as you can roll ok on the fury rolls

Forgot about Groblog. Don't have him or the rulebook yet.

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"Leave Sauron to me."
If you're in the Raleigh, NC area, let me know.

groblog is alright, a useful special rule, but his low fight means he is sometimes not the best hero, meaning in the last turn of my battle 2 berserkers managed to kill him in 1 swoop.

for anyone who has a goblin army this seems good advice, don't throw in your heroes to soon, they seem to die easily. (apart from dragons and balrogs, but that's another story)

Also, never take a standard Goblin Drum. The Blackshield Drum can do everything that the Goblin Drum can do and more (notably play while moving and replacement of drummers) for the same cost (I think? It used to be cheaper). Though I doubt many people would stop you using the Goblin Drum models with the Gundabad rules, just changing the drummer replacements from Blackshields to Goblins.

I have both variations of the drum and yes, they are the same price, they do the same thing but blackshields get the 'run and drum' rule which allows them to keep up with other troops.

I've accepted the lack of decent missile troops by this point and will probably stick to the tactic of using archers as light infantry with the bonus of shooting before they join the combat for extra attacks. I probably won't bother with prowler archers and just use their basic throwing weapons as a nice bonus before they are thrown in. I think dispersing few with two handers among regular goblins with shields will add some killing power, especially if I manage to trap some enemies. My problem with them is that they are metal (therefore expensive) so I might convert some regular goblin spearmen with spare TH axes and some green stuff. The fact that there are only 3-4 type of models and they all wield bardiches doesn't help either.

@GothmogtheWerewolf
I recently bought the dragon (want to recreate few Hobbit scenarios) and will def. use it in large point battles. I will give the trolls another chance but as you said I might eventually drop them altogether. Once I use the marauders I will let you all know how they perform (in hands of an inexperienced player at least!).

I am toying with the idea of a Druzhag suicide squad which I got from one of the topics here on the forum but that would require purchase of even more models and I've already spent more than I should have. In the future perhaps.

Finally I might try using Groblog with two shamans spread along the battlefield (the 5+ save plus no routing troops sounds tempting!).

Once again, thank you all for sharing your knowledge.