Orc bows and Mordor.

Smeagol · **Posted:** Tue Apr 01, 2014 1:23 pm

Is it even worth taking any sort of shooting for Mordor now that you can't volley? 18" at S2 seems utterly pointless to me when I could just fill those points with better melee units.

Thoughts?

Leonardis · **Joined:** Wed Oct 05, 2011 4:06 pm **Posts:** 891

Indeed, my 48 painted Orc bows are useless... Although I could use them as trackers
:-/

Delirivm · **Posted:** Tue Apr 01, 2014 2:11 pm

You could use them as trackers if every orc w/bow is identified as being an orc tracker.
I wouldn't have a problem with that.

I use WoR with bows as Outriders for a similar reason.

If you choose to not take any bows at all, it's a certainty you won't hit anything ;D
So it's really just a personal choice.
You can play a game without orc archers and see how it works out

LordoftheBrownRing · **Posted:** Tue Apr 01, 2014 2:39 pm

Honestly for evil Is only take Uruk X bows Harad or Corsair Arbalesters. Mordor shooting is DEAD. Even trackers aren't that good.

Valadorn · **Posted:** Tue Apr 01, 2014 2:40 pm

It depends of the army you use. But indeed the strongest mordor 500 pts armies dont even use orc archers. In 750 pts only orc trackers.

You can use em only in diorammas nowadays

Smeagol · **Posted:** Tue Apr 01, 2014 2:52 pm

I guess my thinking is that with 5+ to hit and a range of 18" @ S2 I doubt they're going to kill much of anything (ESPECIALLY with my relationship with lady luck :sad:

) and that they'll be engaged in combat really fast with a measly 18" range. Wouldn't it just be better to invest into some more Morannon Orcs or Black Guards with their vastly better defence?

I'm trying to work out an 800pt Mordor army for a tournament and I want to keep it themed to Mordor only. I just can't seem to see any reason for taking any and with a trackers extremely low D4 I don't see any point to them either with an 18" range bow @ S2. I just see them as getting decimated before doing much of any real damage.

halauas · **Posted:** Tue Apr 01, 2014 3:35 pm

indeed orc bows are a little waste of points unless use the for specifir reasons/conditions

they can be of use if the enemy has cavalry, aim to kill their mounts with 5+
if you plan on luring the enemy away or even luring your enemies archers to aim at your archers and not your main formation.
or for last go for spears + bows second line and pray to mother luck that you kill something.

One time my friend playing mordor and with only 6 archers....guess the result... he shoot at my mounted imrahil and 2/6 shots hit = killed imrahils horse, i rolled 1 to falling rider and then took a wound + 1 fate lost....2nd shot again hits imrahil and causes another wound!!!

my point is that you never know how happy the dice can be for you :/

samoht · **Posted:** Wed Apr 02, 2014 12:32 am

Don't bother with orc shooting. Better of giving those orcs some shields and charging them at the nearest enemy. They'll survive better and do more damage.

JamesR · **Posted:** Wed Apr 02, 2014 2:39 am

While the 5+ shoot is terrible I would not be so quick to simply discount it. I seldom use archery for my Moria army but when I do it's been effective. Mind you I have the best goblin archers in the world apparently and they consistently shoot closer to 70% than the statistical 33%. But in large numbers it can still be effective. You only need that one good round of shooting to devastate the enemy army

samoht · **Posted:** Wed Apr 02, 2014 5:30 am

Orc archers can do damage. I know that They are just unreliable.

Paboook · **Joined:** Sun Feb 05, 2012 8:41 pm **Posts:** 172

I agree, I would probably use orcs with bows as trackers as well. Especially after the changes in the Hobbit rulebook brought additional damage to shooting.

Smeagol · **Posted:** Wed Apr 02, 2014 11:40 pm

Paboook wrote:

I agree, I would probably use orcs with bows as trackers as well. Especially after the changes in the Hobbit rulebook brought additional damage to shooting.

What changes are those? As far as I've read the only change seems to be that they took out volleying rules and there's a couple of different types of bows like the great bow, but I didn't see any significant rules changes for shooting.

I'm still not seeing the huge benefit of D3 trackers with a S2, 18" range Orc Bow could be terribly helpful if people are taking elves and what not that could easily shoot them to pieces.

whafrog · **Posted:** Thu Apr 03, 2014 1:06 pm

Smeagol wrote:

Paboook wrote:

I agree, I would probably use orcs with bows as trackers as well. Especially after the changes in the Hobbit rulebook brought additional damage to shooting.

What changes are those?

Your shoot value goes up if you move, so a shoot of 5 becomes 6...pretty useless, but with goblins there are so many it could still be effective.

Smeagol · **Posted:** Thu Apr 03, 2014 2:10 pm

whafrog wrote:

Smeagol wrote:

Paboook wrote:

I agree, I would probably use orcs with bows as trackers as well. Especially after the changes in the Hobbit rulebook brought additional damage to shooting.

What changes are those?

Your shoot value goes up if you move, so a shoot of 5 becomes 6...pretty useless, but with goblins there are so many it could still be effective.

Oh, yes. I did know of this.

Quote:

Especially after the changes in the Hobbit rulebook brought additional damage to shooting.

Silly me. I mistakenly thought that he was saying that shooting did more damage rather than shooting being nerfed a bit because of those rules. Whoops.

Orc bows and Mordor.

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