Bilbo's Bash Force thoughts

[Lordgoober]

Heh. I'm going to state my forces that I'm running right here and right now. These are FIXED unless I drop elven cloaks for more Hobbits (I got a blister of militia for dirt cheap at adepticon) or do some warband shifting to balance model count. The only hobbits I need to paint from this are 1 Warhorn Archer, Lobelia and Bullroarer.

Theme: Scouring of the Shire

Warband 1: Frodo w Elven Cloak: 5 Battling Brandybucks, 7 Tookish Hunters (one horn)

Warband 2: Sam w Elven Cloak: 2 Battling Brandybucks, 10 Tookish Hunters (One Horn)

Warband 3: Peregrin w Elven Cloak: 5 Battling Brandybucks, 3 Tookish Hunters, 4 Shirriffs

Warband 4: Merry w Elven Cloak and Shield: 8 Battling Brandybuck, 4 Shirriffs

Warband 5: Paladin Took: 8 Battling Brandybuck, 4 Shirrifs

Warband 6: Brandobaras Took: 1 Battling Brandybuck, 1 Shirriff

Warband 7: Lobelia

Warband 8: Fatty Bolger

Warband 9: Farmer Maggot

Evil: Sharkey's Ruffians

Warband 1: Sharkey and Worm: 11 Ruffians (7 Hand Weapon, 4 Bow)

Warband 2: Ruffian Boss (Dunlending Chieftain, no equipment upgrade): 12 Ruffians (8 Hand Weapon, 4 Bow)

Warband 3: Ruffian Boss (Dunlending Chieftain, no equipment upgrade): 12 Ruffians (8 Hand Weapon, 4 Bow)

Warband 4: Ruffian Boss (Dunlending Chieftain, no equipment upgrade): 12 Ruffians (8 Hand Weapon, 4 Bow)

Warband 5: Ruffian Boss (Dunlending Chieftain, no equipment upgrade): 12 Ruffians (8 Hand Weapon, 4 Bow)

Warband 6: Ruffian Boss (Dunlending Chieftain, no equipment upgrade): 12 Ruffians (8 Hand Weapon, 4 Bow)

Warband 7: Ruffian Boss (Dunlending Chieftain, no equipment upgrade): 12 Ruffians (8 Hand Weapon, 4 Bow)

[old coast]

@ Rob

Running the Bullroarer with Frodo and Company will get you dinged on theme as he is from another Age....that's akin to running Arathorn and Aragorn in the same list
legal , yes. Not particularly inspired within the context of the game

Running these huge model count armies (91 models!!),will I am, sure get "the would you voluntarily play this army again?" question answered as a "NO" from more people than just me, taking any sports hit in this game is HUGE when it comes to settling tie breakers, the theme hit will put a good dent in your appearance score.

Question: is it really worth buying all those metal models for a gimmick horde armies wont win every game anyway because they don't have enough hero power and is just going to make your opponents bum out on you?

Suggestion: Lose the bullroarer and anyone else you need to add Gandalf to your Shire List..it will lower the model count and be a better list.

The Scouring only list in my opinion is only viable at 350 points or scenario play. over that your just abusing it.. if you want to run Dunland just run Saruman and Dundland, im sure if you already bought them you could use Ruffians as wildmen....


Overall the clear point of the new warbands rules and the new hobbit rules is to get away from the old tournament "captain and dudes" mentality that was sucking the life out of the game and get back to seeing people actually using iconic heroes and cool themed lists. if people are going to abuse model count in favor of more dice to try to gin up the math for better law of averages instead of just trying figure out how to win, by I dont know, using strategy, that isnt based on dice, then the games brief resurgence will be brief indeed. IF people and I dont mean just you, are going to exploit the lack of a model count..and oh, I dont know...just add another 25-30 goblins to the new broken hobbit goblin list Then BBB will leave a bad taste in peoples mouths,,,,next year Adepticon will be a bust..and the game is done..
Just one persons opinion but one who wants to see the game make it in an environment where there are now ALOT of other good games.

[Lordgoober]

he's there as a generic captain as there ARE no generic captains for hobbits, if I was able to run generic hobbit captains, I would. I will never be running him on his horse so those are technically dead points.

Outside of the heroes, none of the ruffians are going to be metal models since we're not at a GW store this year. Thus why there are no whips in the list as I haven't seen a kit out there with plastic whips.

[old coast]

he's there as a generic captain as there ARE no generic captains for hobbits, if I was able to run generic hobbit captains, I would. I will never be running him on his horse so those are technically dead points.

Well thats a pretty good indicator that you shouldnt be running them without named hobbits....

Outside of the heroes, none of the ruffians are going to be metal models since we're not at a GW store this year. Thus why there are no whips in the list as I haven't seen a kit out there with plastic whips.

If you show up with 100 crappy historical plastics proxied as ruffians in that list, you should take the biggest sports/theme hit imaginable from your opponents and the TO
Has brent told you this was OK? I got the ok on other models, but they are actually LotR models from another line, not cheap plastics that arent even LotR figs... BBB has history of people bringing out the best...if you get the ok on that, I would be pretty disappointed..you best check with brent before you do all the work.

seriously just run your corsairs again as evil, they did pretty damn well if I recall...

[BrentS]

If you show up with 100 crappy historical plastics proxied as ruffians in that list, you should take the biggest sports/theme hit imaginable from your opponents and the TO
Has brent told you this was OK? I got the ok on other models, but they are actually LotR models from another line, not cheap plastics that arent even LotR figs...

He has reached out to me to evaluate the models. No final decision has been made.


The one thing I'll interject here... there are multiple ways to build armies and not everyone subscribes to the same principles and dogmas when it comes to making an army list. I endeavor to make BBB fair for all types of armies from the elite to horde. I try my best to balance scenarios so that one army style isn't heavily favored. We introduced theming last year to try and find some way to "quantitate" theme as it related to army building. Its not a perfect science and it never will be.

When Chris and I discussed increasing the points limits for this year, we talked a lot about model caps. Ultimnately, we agreed to not have a model cap as we wanted this year to be a chance to "see what happens". If we find that there are a huge majority of "horde" armies and in general no one has fun playing with or against those horde armies then the rules may change. We do our best to present a fair and balanced tournament. We rely on the players to use their own creativity to bring competitive and fun army lists to play.


On a somewhat related note, I did the same things with Mt Doom this year. There was no minimum model as in previous years. Frankly, I was surprised someone didn't try to "power game" their way through by brining Sauron and the One Ring. That fits the rules of the event and would have been very difficult, if not impossible to beat. Why do I bring this up... I hope its an example that just because you can min/max something doesn't mean you should.

[Lordgoober]

As a note, had we not had been at the bunker last year, I would have tried to run this last year at 600 points which would have been much more reasonable on the numbers. Of course the whole Bullroarer thing wouldn't be an issue if GW hadn't have been half assed with the sourcebooks and made some profiles for generic captains for some of the forces like Hobbits, Woses and Ruffians for example.

[thorhak]

My lists will focus on a "Battle of 5 Armies" theme.
For the forces of Good:

Warband 1:
Dain
6 Khazad Guard
6 Iron Guard

Warband 2:
Thorin w/ Oakenshield and Orcrist
Fili
Kili
Dwalin
Ori
Oin
Bifur

20 models. that's it - and they will be VERY nicely painted!
Can't take all of Thorin's company, so I thought I'd include
One representative from each of the "families". I've played
2 games with this force and it was crazy fun! (Although those
Games were 600 pt. and thus excluded Dwalin and Oin). I do
have something like 14 pts. left and may given 2 Dwarves ponies!

I'm undecided on my Goblin list, struggling w/ Hobbitesque Gobos vs.
LoTR type Gobos...I prefer Shamans and Cavetrolls, Prowlers and
Black shields...

[BrentS]

Love your army Thorhak.

You could do a Moria goblin style army with wargs and represent the Bo5A.

[BostonNazgul]

a 75 model max could solve some problems and compromise between a "horde" and a ridiculous amount of models.... just like legions had.

[old coast]

dup post

[old coast]

Well something should be done or at least settled on for model count, the last couple years since warbands rules have come out lists have been great across the board. we've seen tons of variety and the games been alot of fun with few rare exceptions The minute we go to 750 points this kind of stuff starts up again.

Rob has posted over on the IWFB forum accusing me of "model snobbery" saying that' I'm demanding he buy $500 worth of metals to run that Ruffians list.

To be clear. NO, I am not saying that at all.

Because he feels the need to cross post on another forum where I know a couple dozen of the people he's complaining too after 5 years of competitive Warhammer.
I want to be crystal clear where I am coming from.

I am saying that both lists he's posted here IMO are total garbage, and He should not play either of them- nor spend to money in either metal or plastic to do so.

The reasons I dislike both lists are they are both anti/theme canon, and the army lists in the current books do not provide the proper heroes to support them.
Running models at 25% over the old maximum model count is not in the spirit of this small community of players where rarely anyone gets anything less then a maximum sportsmanship score.

let me reiterate some specific examples

The Shire list.
Bullroarer Took does not belong in a list with characters from the main trilogy. he certainly doesnt belong in any Scouring list which is what this is. He's is from previous time long before any of them where alive. while legal to use characters from other ages per the rules. This is extremely anti theme, Poor form. and should be judged accordingly. everyone has respected the timeline since I have played this game.

I dont care if " GW screwed up" and didnt create any profiles of models for generic captains for Hobbitts or Ruffians, the fact that there are not any should tell you something. such as, perhaps there are not supposed to be...the shire has 5 heroes already I am sorry that 65 models isnt a sufficient core of your 750 point army.

As for the Sharkey/ Scouring List. Again there are no Ruffian captains, probably for the good reason that beyond Sharkey +12 ruffians and Grima +12 ruffians it just wasnt necessary for any potential Scouring scenario as they probably havent sold 84 ruffian models combined since the year they were released, it didnt occur to them to create " generic ruffian captians" Running Dundling captains with Ruffians because there isnt any is again anti-theme, because there aren't any and perhaps there isnt supposed to be.

Since neither list can be supported by the proper models, and it wouldn't be possible or practical by any sane person to acquire the models for second list (due to cost and model availability) Which would be a requirement IF this tournament were at the Bunker were its been since 2009. But since its not at the Bunker this year and Brent is "open" to allowing some non GW models. Somehow its suddenly cool to show up with 84 non- lord of the rings proxies?????

here's what the tourney rules currently state

"All models should be taken from the Games Workshop/Citadel Range. Some leeway on model proxying or “counts as” can be used; however, these proxy situations should be discussed with the tournament organizer prior to the event. Use the Contact Info if you have any questions about proxy models."

84 models is one hell of alot of leeway.

There is nothing wrong with tough lists in tournament..there is everything wrong with running a gimmick that will annoy people and cause them to not enjoy the event just because you can. That has never been the spirit of LotR here,

Brent seriously needs to re-evalute his own model policy for this event. because I am sure as hell not going to drop $300 bucks on the weekend to play in an event with a bunch of proxies, with lists that shouldnt even be allowed and that the books don't support with the proper captains profiles to do so. model counts above 75 per player are ridiculous for a skirmish game and given the time limits its not reasonable to expect the average player to be able to finish their game with an excess of 120 models on table.

[BrentS]

I've stated my final opinion and ruling on this in a separate thread.

I think we've hijacked Smeagols thread enough and would like to allow this to go back and debating the merits of an army list and not the event rules.

[prion2001]

I go off the grid for 24 hours and look what you guys go and do.

I moved Smeagols original post and a second one to it's own thread and noted in the title not to hijack it.

I locked this one as any discussion of proxys and model count rules can probably go in the thread Brent started in the news section.

Jamie