oops

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From The Lowest Dungen To The Highist Peak I Fought Him The Fell Balrog Of Morgoth

Gandalf,The Two Towers

Hey Thrór, how about wrapping this subject up and moving to the next one. I'd like to discuss the tactical evaluations of some of the new things that have come out over the last few months.

Cheers

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Curunír
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You mean I haven't done this yet? Oops...
OK, the last few months... So that would be SitE and FotN...
Ok then, I can do that.
Khandish Mercenaries
The Sellswords rule of these models makes them a bit of a risk to field - but is it worth their superior fighting skill?

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Thror Clawhammer
Is it sad that I spent hours trying to think of a signature?

I think it would be. If you field a group of 9-10 of them, then you can benefit from their superior Fight, have enough points left over for a decent sized army, and also have enough of them to counter the Sellswords rule to an extent.

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"You draw far too much attention to yourself, Mr. Baggins!"

Great topic, mostly because I haven't used my Khandish troops yet and have not had a chance to try this rule out.

Hmmm, with a 1 in 6 chance that they are not going to show, it sounds risky, but the F4 would be a real help. I would think that you could take a chance by including a few of them in your force and just hope that you beat the odds. By having them in among the other troops, their higher fight skills would come in handy.

I doubt that I would use them in a tournament situation (or a game that I thought might be a tough one to win) but it would be fun to try them out.

The Chieftain and Horseman have the same rule, and I've just noticed that the Horsemen are two points cheaper than the regular Khandish troops, still the risk of not having your Chieftain show up, and thus losing out on his points seems a might risky to me.

Has anyone used mercenaries in battle yet? Did they seem to make a difference?

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Curunír
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Some day, I intend to make a list entirely of mercenaries. 'twould be a bit irritating if none of them showed though...

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Thror Clawhammer
Is it sad that I spent hours trying to think of a signature?

Would be the funniest thing I have ever seen in one of our games though.

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"You draw far too much attention to yourself, Mr. Baggins!"

Great topic, I personnaly havent used the Khandish Mercs. but I can only pressume that a squad of 12 would, numerically speaking have two missing, and I would like to think that the additional +1F would be very usefull for out classing the average rank and file. Has anyone actually used them in battle? I would love to see how they fare against gondor and elves respectively as I find these two armies rather differant in strategy so we can see what they can do.

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You have my sword, now give it back!

I acually played a guy who used about 15 mercinaries along with some easterlings. I was using my goblins so i already had him outnumbered but the addition of 5 mercinaries was a great help. Gaining a few men with 2 handed weapons can be good to support a fight.

Khandish mercinaries are cheaper yes but i think the number of guys you lose usually balances it out to where you have the same amount of points if you took regular Khandish troops. I might use some in my Mordor army but i would never acually make a large army of them. The risk of having your chieftain and small portion of your army fighting against you isnt somethig i like seeing.

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"And you have never been in love. Until you've seen the dawn rise behind the home for the blind."

Is that how the rule works? From memory, one a roll of 1 the model doesn't turn up for the fight- but they don't fight for the enemy do they?

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Thror Clawhammer
Is it sad that I spent hours trying to think of a signature?

no the mercenaries which roll a one on their "sell swords" rule dont jump ship and fight for the other side. It just meens they dont appear on the battlefield on either side.

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You have my sword, now give it back!

Yeah, you are right. However, it would add an interesting tactical challenge if they did swap sides.

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"You draw far too much attention to yourself, Mr. Baggins!"

Yes thats the rule but the senarios me and some friends use, they switch sides. Sorry i forgot to mention that .

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"And you have never been in love. Until you've seen the dawn rise behind the home for the blind."

I like the idea of playing with that rule. maybe we should try it, Thror, when I get some Khandish Mercenaries.

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"You draw far too much attention to yourself, Mr. Baggins!"

That is a very interesting rule and one that could be used in other scenarios/situations for other troops. I'm thinking about the Dunlenders who fought against Rohan, who after the Battle of Helm's Deep pledged never to attack Rohan again. Could be a very cool rule.

The "Sellswords" as it is could also be used for other troops (good or evil), but I think the "mercernary" troops should have their stats adjusted, maybe knock a point off their points value. They may be cheaper for the initial cost, but you will lose a few before they hit the battle field so they will effectively cost more.

Yes, it would be cool to hear some reports about how well they have done in battle. Theoretically speaking, they would have an advantage against normal troops from Rohan, Gondor, etc. but against elves and their F5?

Interesting, I just compared the stats of a Khand Mercenary to an Elf Warrior. Both cost 7 points, but look at the difference in stats!

Back to work

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Curunír
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Actually, I don't think that there is much difference. Khandish Mercenaries have 1 points less Fight, but 1 point more defence. I think that it actually works out about even.

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"You draw far too much attention to yourself, Mr. Baggins!"

That's what I thought at first (aside from the fact that the elf has no war gear. But elves have +1 better shooting, and +3 better in courage!

It's bad enough that they have the sellsword rule, why penalize them more with low courage? I suppose because they are there to make a "buck" (or whatever it is that they make in Khand) so if things go bad, they don't care.

Back to work

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Curunír
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Indeed, I find the Courage quite justified: Imagine. They aren't fighting for honour or valour, or because they are terrified of their masters. They are fighting because they are being paid, and so if they come up against a hue, terrifying creature, or the force starts to die out... They're less likely to stick around.

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Thror Clawhammer
Is it sad that I spent hours trying to think of a signature?

Good points, Curunir and Thror. In which case, I think they should perhaps cost 6 points.

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"You draw far too much attention to yourself, Mr. Baggins!"

I've thought this from the first time I looked at the source book, but then I went digging on the LOTR Forum FAQ and found this.


A short answer but of course no explaination. Oh well.

Also, in case any of you had missed this (I sure did) there is a mistake in the Sellswords rule for the Mercenary Chieftain...



Cheers

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Curunír
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