Gaelcon Army List Review

Recently the Irish Hobbit League hosted an SBG an 800 Point tournament at Gaelcon, a large gaming convention in Dublin. In an attempt to better understand the local competitive meta I've decided take an in depth look at the army lists of the top 3 players and analyse what enabled these armies to reach the top tables of this event. Considering that this was a Good vs Evil with each player using 2 armies plus a special secret scenario using 250 points from one of the main armies that means I have 6 lists to study, so I'd better get started. Because 250 points is an unusual points level and the scenario was only revealed on the day I have decided not to analyse those lists.

3rd - Sean Magee

Good
Return of the King legion

Army of the Dead perform very well in a Good vs Evil environment due to the generally lower courage in Evil armies. This advantage is leveraged further due to the King of the Dead's Harbinger of Evil special rule making it even easier to score wounds and harder for the enemy to charge you. The Dead's 2 primary weaknesses are typically a lack of Might and zero ranged attacks, both of which are mitigated by the addition of Aragorn and Legolas.

Evil

Azog's Legion and Azog's Hunters

I'll be the first person to admit I'm fully up to speed with the Hobbit era armies (with the exception of Thorin's Company, the most fun you can have with 13 dwarves) but I'll do my best. The Hunter orcs provide plenty of attacks, especially when backed up by Gundabad spears. Azog is capable of worrying even some of the most fearsome heroes while being backed up ably by an Ogre and the Hunter Orc heroes. The smattering of wargs through the list help with objective grabbing or other situations requiring mobility.

2nd- Gerard Bunting

Good 

All Hero

As a primarily thematic player, lists like this do cause me a slight groan. However, I can acknowledge that in a competitive event opting for the non-historical options can provide a significant boost to your title chances. In this case, there are 3 insanely powerful Elven lords and a hard as nails Dwarf all running around on mounts, potentially killing everything in their path. Tauriel feels like the odd one out as a softer target and without a mount, although she is certainly capable of handling herself in a fight. The fact that there are only 5 models here means that you have to kill 3 of them to break the army, and I wouldn't fancy having to take down any of Gil Galad, Glorfindel, Thranduil or Dain without expending significant resources to do it, meanwhile, the other models will have a free reign to target the rest of your army.

Evil

Moria

From a small elite army to a mass of goblins. This army has sufficient models to capture objectives and tie up the enemy troops with numbers. A front line of Black Shields supported by Moria spears provides a solid base and support to the heroes of the list.

There's also the small matter of the Balrog to contend with. This guy is tough enough to take care of pretty much anyone the opponent throws at him and demands the attention of a significant amount of resources to contain. The flaming whip and free heroics give him a large threat range, so simply avoiding him isn't really an option.

1st - David Coleman

Good
Riders of Theoden

In this edition of the game Rohan has been propelled to a top tier army due to a number of buffs they received including the +1 strength on the charge army bonus, the Riders of Theoden special rule buffing their fight value, Gamling's banner of infinite might and the legendary legion bonuses. This list combines all of these factors to form a powerful army capable of handling most things. Although it lacks a super star hero, like most of the other lists in this review, it uses multiple smaller heroes that maximises the benefits of the Royal Standard, allowing the player to use multiple might points per turn with little risk of running out. This means that they can call heroic moves every turn (gaining the benefits of the cavalry charge) and call several heroic combats in each fight phase (cutting through large numbers of enemy models).

Evil
Barad Dur

Really this list is all about one model. The rest of the points are simply there to support that model to allow it time to destroy their opponents hopes and dreams by single-handedly wiping out their army.

Of course I am talking about the slayer of men, scourge of the elves, destroyer of worlds, the one model army that is...

The Orc Tracker on Warg.
Sauron

Sauron is one of the toughest models in the game, able to deal huge amounts of damage both in combat and with magic as well as being able to withstand damage in return. A true one model army.

But this army isn't just one model. A large contingent of orcs provide cheap chaff to score objectives and tie up the enemy to give Sauron time to do his job, warg riders provide some additional mobility and Shelob offers an extra damage dealer to complement Sauron.

Then there's the Tracker. I mean, mine (allegedly) killed something once...

So that's it for my 1st Irish Hobbit League army list review. I'll be back soon with another one after the next IHL event, Santa's Slay in Tabletop Tavern, Kircubbin on the 7th December and organized by Michael Bradford as a fun pre-holidays get together.