I'd say well played Quality may in fact have edge of Quantity. It could only take you a few turns to reduce the numbers of the enemy force to something more equal. In doing so you reduce their advantage (Quantity) but no losses actually reduce your advantage (Quality). So you maintain the core strength of your army up to the last model while they will reach a tipping point and can't do much about it. In fact, I've played many games against Evil where I simply try to get them to break then charge their Hero(es) on my move (so they can't call Stand Fast) and simply let them start failing Courage tests.* Works even better when I use the combat version of Galadriel since she brings along a reduction in enemy Courage. I've seen the bulk of what's left of a Goblin or Uruk Hai army vanish in a single turn doing that.

*NOTE: Obviously move the rest of your models into good position to handle any charges your opponent may make from passing tests.

Rohan is where you're going to have issues in both Quantity and Quality. An all foot Rohan army used to be reasonably viable (but not as competitive as other options) but I fear the -1 to Throwing Spears when move will reduce that further. Cavalry is often a hard one since you pay even MORE for your "Quality" and have a much greater burden of playing them well...not to mention being even more threatened by horde forces for many factors. But it will take some games to know just how the change to RoR work out in the end.

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Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

The question is valid, but has been well addressed by those who have answered. The things that I would find it best to emphasize (since there isn't too much more that I can do at this point) are that 1) quality absolutely has to use the terrain to their advantage- in an open field battle, quantity can play to its strengths and 2) when broken, charge the quantity heroes. Keep a cool head, stick to your basic tactics, and play intelligently, which means not letting yourself get swamped by the horde that runs in your direction.

Fortunately the game is rather well-balanced overall with, imo, neither quality nor quantity having a major advantage. That being said, I have always been partial to using quality. You simply have to build a very solid army and then play intelligently.

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"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”

I pretty much agree with this. It does seem slightly unbalanced, though, that playing a quantity army is much more forgiving than a quality army.

That has been the case for a long time, however it has been - at least according to my admittedly limited experience (~15 Hobbit-era games) - worsened by the introduction of special strikes, Axes and Swords in particular. These favor cheap, expendable fodder armies (like Goblins) over expensive ones (like High Elves) to quite a noticable extent: 4-5 point Goblins do not suffer nearly as much from the special strikes' disadvantages as 10-11 point High Elves do - in the case of swords Goblins have literally no reason whatsoever to not use Feint, and being S4-6 with Piercing Strike hugely outweighs the risk of losing D3 Defense - something that cannot be said for Elves that cost 2 to 3 times as many points and are accordingly perpetually outnumbered to begin with! Yes, it's not necessarily game-breaking, but still it gives quantity-focused armies a buff they did not need.

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Rohan - as it should have been. A house rule project.

I remember a few months ago I played this guy, he was using the store galdrhim and I was using my goblins, we had the same amount of models on the board but I used a defensive tactic, bottlenecking him in with my blackshields.
In the end I slaughtered him and I only lost 6 models, all of which warriors.
In this case the "quality" troops were my blackshields, by them having S4,D6, but on paper his archers and his high fight guys were all outclassing mine.

So there you go.

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http://grungehog.blogspot.co.uk/

Tactics are able to rememdy the number problem more than anything else, ultimately.

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"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”

S4 is hugely more desirable than higher F. Higher F only comes into play in the comparably rare case of a drawn duel roll, whereas S4 flat out doubles your chance to wound D6 (which is the majority of) targets while Elves still need sixes. I'm not surprised you smashed him.

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Rohan - as it should have been. A house rule project.

Mmm. I disagree that S is more desirable than a higher F. I would place them about equal. Afterall, if you never win a fight, your higher S won't do anything more than flail around uselessly- more than anything, I do believe that he was able to get the elven player to do what he wanted- which was to insure that the elven player didn't have more dice than he did, thereby providing a situation where the higher strength could come into play.

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"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”

The higher Fight only comes into play if you tie on your roll. The vast majority of Fight rolls are resolved by the dice themselves and never come to a Fight value comparison. I would take a +1 S over +1 F almost any day.

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Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

Exactly. An example:
High Elf w/ shield (F5, S3, D6) vs Morannon-Orc /w shield (F3, S4, D6)
Chance to wound: 16.67% - 33%
Chance to win combat: 58.33% - 41.67%
Chance to win and then wound: 9.72% - 13.98%

Yes, it's theory, but I've seen it work out like this in practice many times: the Elves win more fights, but have a hard time killing stuff - especially when you consider the Orcs will virtually always have (channeled) Fury on them, which lowers the statistical 9.72% above by another 1/3. Contrarily, the Orcs may win less individual fights, but in the ones they do win, they have a significantly higher (double, to be precise) chance to actually kill their opponent. And the Elves cost more, so them having more dice is rather rare, unless they shield, in which case they can't wound at all...

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Rohan - as it should have been. A house rule project.

It's at that point that one can't rely on the clash of the shield walls- it comes down to applying the odds effectively and outmanuevering your enemy (with this, of course, comes the art of stacking the odds in your favor).

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"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”

Does this math take into account supported models? The odds of getting a six (and therefore auto-winning) is higher the more dice you have, and I'm wondering if that doesn't offset those odds. I think 2:2 or 3:3 and the odds start shifting in the elves' favour. My experience feels like I can never have too many spears, but I wonder what the math says.

No, the above was just a basic 1:1 situation. I'm not that much of a stochastics nut, but some numbers I can put out there are these:

Chance to roll at least one 6 with two dice (also for S3 wounding D6):
11/36=30.56%

Chance to roll at least one 6 with three dice:
91/216=42.13%

Chance to roll at least one 5 or 6 with two dice (S4 wounding D6):
20/36=55.56%

Chance to roll at least one 5 or 6 with three dice:
152/216=70.37%

Again, in 2:2 (and the very unlikely 3:3) situations, the Elves win more fights, but they are still far less likely to wound than Morannon-Orcs are - especially once you factor in the obligatory fury shaman. I'll leave it to someone else to figure out the exact probabilities.

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Rohan - as it should have been. A house rule project.

I play high elve so quality is always over quantity for me. Playin vs goblins, if you have a spear supported frontline and cover your flanks, then the best the goblins can do is back up their front men with spear support. Then it's two goblins vs two elves. For me, the advantage comes in not how many models you have on the board, but how many you have in each fight and the luck of your dice rolling.

If facing a phalanx (3 attacks) take out the front line with your archers and then it's two vs two again. IMO, if played well, quantity (elves and dwarves) will win over quantity or any evil army almost every time (judging on the fact that I've never lost a battle).

Hope this helps

LordElrond

While list design is important, the battle is not fought and won there alone.
Quantity is great in almost any situation, it gives you redundancy and sometimes the luxury of being able to make a mistake provided you correct it before too many losses.

But, taking a massive swarm will not guarantee victory. When you are outnumbered you must use everything to make the most of it. Big armies are harder to manoeuvre. Being the larger force means nothing if your warrirors are blocking each other from fighting or if your foe is locked up tight in a strong defensive position. With cavalry in particular remember: They are many, we are few, we will be many where they are few.
Hit one section of the hoard and withdraw before they can bring the numbers on.

I also believe that while there have been some hoard tourney winners out there, there have also been entire hero armies that have seen victory.

In the games I play, Rohan is the swarm, having almost twice as many models as I had in my list. However, I still managed to win in a three way battle (Elves (me) vs Rohan vs Isengard) by holding a strong position and replacing ay dead troops with reserves. You also have to bring your archers into close combat at the main fight or face being severely out numbered. However, mounted heroes can really halp in this situation (Glorfindel mounted, 4 attacks charging!)

http://sphotos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/557275_4425198956914_2059199815_n.jpg

Without a doubt one of my best games, horrendously outnumbered I deployed to make the most of my opponents swarms (Ignore Aragorn he rapidly legged it over to join the army of the dead, needed to put him there to keep my opponent guessing)
Throughout most of the game I kept moving, forcing my opponents army to march long and hard to get into the fight.

http://sphotos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/404048_4425211277222_1994640658_n.jpg

Eventually I ran out of room and the goblins started pulling it back. In that pic is almost everything left in the goblin army for three army of the dead. They began to make more of an impact as they brought their numbers to bear.

Yes, if outnumbered, stay out of the middle of the board to prevent yourself from being surrounded, which is when quantity is much better than quality (unless the quality is Sauron, a Balrog or an Ent).

I guess that whas 500 points, dit you won?

but in most cases it just isn't posible to play with low numbers,
when playing reconaitre for example, ye will just be stopped for 3 turs, but in those turs the golblim player moves his troops of the board and has got reanforcements.

@lord elrond, what do you mean with:
quantity is better than quantity

Lucas

I meant that quality is nearly always better than quantity, unless you are surrounded, in which case, quantity is better, as you can make better use of your numbers.

I edited my previous post.

I did win that game as it happens, very narrowly, it was slay the warlord so I eventually managed to get Aragorn to fight through to the Goblin commander.

There are always going to be some situations where your army isn't quite as suited to the objectives. Yeah that army of the dead force might struggle with reconnoitre but equally that goblin army would struggle in to the death (the one where you gain pts for every model slain).

Different victory conditions are the reason that its best to keep some balance in your army or at least have some idea of how to adapt to different situations.