Courage and Terror:
Welcome back to the Minds of Moria. Today we will be discussing a quite often overlooked element of the game. Courage. As well as all things that interact with the rule. Courage is niche rule or thats what it seems like. As a rule of thumb I would always consider it to always have an use. Which after looking through nearly every army it actually is shown to be will quite prevalent. The things that cause you to use your courage that is. From armies that have heroes with terror to certain models that have terror to spectres or sentinels to instill fear. The effects of courage are everywhere and it is such an essential tool in gameplay. The amount of lists that do not have some form of terror is actually pretty low. And it normally consists of much more restricted lists such as the Rangers, Arnor, Druadan, and the army of Thror and maybe a few more. All other factions have access to it and even if they only have 1 or 2 models with it. it means with higher courage you can set aside less resources for that issue. Additionally break point. The bane of many evil army lists. For example let us look at the percentage chances of different courage values. The main focus for me is the difference from courage 2 to courage 3. The difference is the biggest statistical change in the game. Therefore as a base for my i always like to set my base standard bar for lists at courage 4 (in case of harbinger of evil). This means I have a really solid courage to face about anything. Especially with the new take on Angmar we just saw released, well courage is more even more important. The spectres are in I believe all of the new legions (except the wolf pack) and all of them have mass terror. Another way to counter terror is terror of your own. As an example one of my favorite lists currently is a Gandalf Radagast alliance with a HORDE of laketown warriors. The list basically plays you throw up a channeled aura of dismay with half of Radagast's will (i take him on eagle with Sabastian) to give me a 12 inch terror bubble. I recently played an immaculate game versus a guy who ran the new Witch King LL at 800 points. The counter terror meant i could set up so many tricks to basically make my army more effective at charging then his with the way i boxed him out of the objectives. with that and with Radagast running amuck through the tainted a barrow wight and later the Witch King, The counter terror meant so much in that game as with the harbinger i couldn't charge reliably with only courage 2 BUT his troops couldn't either so i set it up so my wizards kept getting cheeky spells of that would help me just delete chunks of troops at a time. throughout that game I only lost 5 models (plus 2 f Gandalf's fate) to nearly board wiping him before we rolled the 2 to end the game. Terror is a great counter to many opposing terror lists.
Break point is a main focal point. With the amount of objective scenarios or scenarios that force spreading out, courage again becomes so important. Hunter orcs or Gondorians in these scenarios. well if both forces get broken i would put my money on the Gondor any day simply for base courage 4 on their lowest value troops. You cannot always rely on standfasts or fury. Its a simple fact.
Warahorns: I would say do not take warhorns unless it is in a army list like hobbits where it doesn't hurt you all that much or in lists at 750points or higher. at that points value generally if you can i would suggest always tasking it if it you are courage 2 or 3.
Building around courage. Simply if you are running something like hunter orcs take either Bolg or Azog from legion and take like 3-4 berserkers to help this. Use them to charge terror troops or spread out and fly solo on objectives. Shamans also help with this but are super super niche compared to the usefulness of the other techniques. Heroes that provide a fearless bubble. These heroes are EXCELLENT. Halbarad the balrog Dain all amazing examples of this. fearless is so useful and never underestimate it.
Courage is vital and I hope as I found out the hard way that you all will avoid that trap and never underestimate it. Thanks for reading, this has been the Minds of Moria and tune in next time where we will discuss the grounds of Moria itself... but in its former glory. Khazad Dum!!
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