We all know Heroic Shoots are rubbish. Seriously; I've been playing for years now and, as far as I can recall, I've never called a Heroic Shoot. So, here's my suggested rule change: all models within 6in of a Hero calling a Heroic Shoot have their shoot value decreased by one for that turn (by decreased, I mean made better; 4+ becomes 3+, etc.). I think this would make Heroic Shoots worthwhile in certain situations, but not overpowered.

Thoughts?

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

I like it. I've never used a heroic shoot myself. Might is too precious for heroic combats and moves. Generally I find heroic combats almost always worth the risk of failure, heroic moves are only desperate counter-measures, and heroic shoots...never used them either.

Hmm, that's funny. I find that 60-70% of might used for heroic actions is for herioc moves, and the rest for fights. (And never for heroic shoots. Yep, they are really useless...)

Your rules change sounds good. A round or two of ~14 crossbows hitting on a 3+?

Interesting. I on the other hand can't count how often I've used heroic shoots. And this is serious, in games such as harad vs elves I tend to use heroic shoots 2-3 times per game because when you both have 20 bowmen and kill each other on 5s, shooting first is more important than any other thing you can spend might on during that game.

Of course when playing a shooty vs non-shooty or non-shooty vs non-shooty forces there will almost never be a reason to call it, but in the following match ups:

- isengard xbows spam vs wood elves
- xbow spam vs gondor longbow spam
- harad bow spam vs wood elves
- all of the above vs high elves

...You would have to a complete fool not to use heroic shoots regularly (isengard, gondor and harad have been my main armies for years and my most common opponents have been elves of all kinds).

Of course it's useless for orcs and goblins. Oh wait, if you have 24 goblins shooting against 20 wood elves, you're actually outshooting them in volley, so why not call some heroics if you've taken a spam of captains, whose might doesn't offer much else than a heroic move and heroic shoot - and you probably have enough of it for the first. In the same match up if you're both in range, goblins will average 2.66 elves in the shoot phase if firing first and lose 4.66-5. At the same time if you shoot 2nd goblins will average 2 in comparison to 5.33 - surely worth a might point if you have a million of them already and your elf opponent can't afford to use up any.

Think about it. Heroic shoot is great in many instances.

The above suggested rule change is not bad, but if you're shooting first you're effectively already implementing something similar because you have more bowmen than you would if shooting last.

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Coordinator of the Great British Hobbit League

Yeah, that's about right for me too.

I forgot to say this in my first post, but perhaps this new Heroic Shoot could represent the Hero calling "Take aim!".

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

BlackMist's post has made me think again about the Heroic Shoot. As a relative newcomer to SBG (and one who hates playing with unpainted models) I've never had enough archers on the table to make it worthwhile, but I certainly would consider it if spending a point of might from my Bow-armed Goblin Captain gave me the chance to shut down my opponent's volley fire before he did it to me. Just need to paint a few more Goblins........
It's all situational though, I'll probably never call a Heroic Fight with a Goblin Captain unless it's to launch a Cave Troll into something juicy.

What if the Heroic Shoot took place at the same time as Heroic Moves (you shoot instead of moving), allowing you to shoot before being charged, to shoot before enemy units have the chance to move out of LOS and to shoot with a group of archers, then charge with other units later in the move phase?

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Titans Wargames Club

http://s10.zetaboards.com/The_Titans/index/

Interesting idea. It might work, but it could be too overpowered. It might also be too complicated to work effectively.

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

In most of my games that included the "Mighty Hero" attribute, I have purposefully looked for situations to use Heroic Move/Shoot/Fight to my advantage and donot find these actions rubbish. My gaming objective is very simple... play by the given rules, know what my options are which includes strengths and weaknesses, utilize what I have and most importantly, have fun.

I've used Heroic Shoot once, about a week ago with eight corsairs against like ten throwing axemen, and get this it was the last turn of a Reconnoitre scenario, so it had no significance.

I've used numerous Heroic Shoots in almost every single game where my front line consisted of Corsairs and my opponent's front line of Elves or Rohan Warriors with Throwing Daggers. It had a huge significance.

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Coordinator of the Great British Hobbit League

I think we use a lot more terrain, especially the small bits that break things up. You can actually make a front line If we want to volley we can do it, but then it's hard to keep everything together when advancing, and is usually not worth the tactical disadvantage of having to unravel it, so we usually don't bother. Our games tend to resolve into numerous squads forming a rough "line-ish" (which, IMHO, is more of a true skirmish game). In that context, calling a heroic shoot where at most 6 shooters might benefit seems a waste.

Emergencies aside, I tend not to spend might on heroic moves because it often comes down to being countered and ending up in a roll-off. It seems a waste to me. I'd (usually) much rather take the hit and keep the Might for a heroic combat.

I agree that the value of heroic shoot decreases as you have more terrain on the board.

Also, I might add that heroic moves are much more important when either side is using calvary, and to a lesser extent throwing weapons.

I've used Heroic Shoots aplenty when in a volley fire war with elves.

Most of the time it was when I had reached only 20 bowmen and needed to be sure I can get two volleys off, so Legolas/Shadowlord can potentially be hit twice.

I think its in the WoTR rules where Herioc Shoot allows the user to shoot even after they've moved their full extent. I think i'd be prone to jump to this ability with my grey Company or Crossbows much faster than a move or combat.