Men of the West Legendary Legion
Among Legendary Legions in the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game, some instantly stand out as excellent. Legions such as Assault on Lothlorien which relies heavily upon the darkness of night to protect from shooting and using buffing spells and numbers to beat your opponent or the Host of the Dragon Emperor that gives you free extra points in match play look extraordinary on the battlefield. While legions such as these do seem incredibly appealing here at the Minds of Moria we enjoy playing lists that are much less seen and look much less competitive. My favorite Legendary Legion in the game may be the Defenders of the Shire, but today we look at the most climactic scene in the Return of the King. The Men of the West.
Army contents:
You are required to take Aragorn king Ellesar as your leader and only Gondor may lead Gondor troops and Rohan may lead Rohan.
You then have the choice from Legolas, Gimli, Gandalf the White, the Twins, Imrahil, Beregond, Merry, Pippin, Eomer, Dol Amroth caps, Gondor caps, and Rohan caps.
Then you may take Warriors of Minas Tirith, Warriors of Rohan, and Knights of Dol Amroth as your troops.
Your list all gains fearless while Aragorn is alive and additionally once per game all models within 12 inches gain +1 fight value for a turn.
As a whole, this legion is looked down upon as one of the worst legendary legions in the game. Recently I took this legion to our GT and placed 3rd with a 650 point variation of this stunning list. The list functions with a very very specific build. When we look at it we see no elite troops save the over costed knights of Dol Amroth. well that over costed knights of Dol Amroth is the key to making this army work. Having f4 with shielding means you can take a hero heavy list and have a good chance of shielding with your knights and winning everywhere else. The list i ended up taking is as follows:
Leader: Aragorn 225
10 Knights of dol Amroth 110
8 WoMT Spear and Shield 72
Beregond 30
2 WoMT Bow 16
3 WoMT spear shield 27
Elladan and Elrohir with heavy Armor 170
650 points 10 might (plus free) 27 models
The list pulled off 4 wins and 1 minor loss at the event. The mobility of free marches meant i could outpace every army i faced and with three f6 hero's i could take on almost any force especially considering they all had elven blades and a one turn f7. Here i would like to take a moment to appreciate courage. It is so heavily underrated but after messing with this legion for the past half year i now take everything i can to up my courage. in standard Gondor armies taking it always pure and normally running Osgiliath vets for the extra courage is my latest example of this. Courage is so important in game play and not having to worry much about it is MASSIVE. Now back to the list. The army's biggest trick is the one turn glory of fight value. BUT it is so so powerful. heroic combats in this army are your best ally. getting in range of enemy heroes and combatting puts so much pressure on them as the rule "For Frodo" is declared after heroic actions. This is shown through all other similar rules specify "before heroic actions" such as Groblog's crown, Eanur, The Knight of Umbar etc.. This is the only rule that distinctly ignores that factor thus meaning it is indeed after heroic actions are declared. This pivotal fact means you can combat and if a hero doesn't strike you may then declare For Frodo and combat into a hero and easily take off 2 wounds with easy from Aragorn and one shot them if you can trap them. Sadly in the tournament i never even used this trick like i had in practice games as in almost all of my games i used it as a defensive maneuver. I declared it to stop a combatting Elendil from taking out a twin used it to cut through f6 elves without worrying about them and then in one match used it for my troops to gain the upper hand when they had a bunch of traps lined up. that is another note. the rule means your standard Knights of Dol Amroth become elves for a turn which is disgusting and pays back the points u paid for them to begin with.
The best strategies are as follows with this list:
March is your friend it is free might after all.
Play grouped together as a death ball and spread out late.
heroic combats make the numbers equal very fast.
Beregond is your rearguard or your protection for objectives.
The list as a whole has many different builds but this is the most consistent one by far and can be adapted for nearly every points value by either dropping Beregond or upgrading him to a captain and filling out the warband and possibly at 750 or up adding a physical banner as well.
Aragorn does the work even if transfixed. he is a passive banner so dont worry about magic you have 2 other heavy hitters to balance it out and resist in the one turn u can actually use Aragorn to influence the game heavily.
The fact that you are all infantry helps you have maneuverability through both your own and your enemies lines thus making your combats much more effective and your heroes much harder to pinpoint and take out.
Take this army out and try it. I have no doubt that if used by competent and skilled players it will work wonders as it has for me ever since I played my second game with the example list shown above. If you like seeing things die on your opponents side much faster then your own then this is the list for you. High defense and incredible damage output combines to make this list beautiful in any scenario. It has just enough models to compete in spreading out objective scenarios but not two much so that scenarios such as lords of battle and contest of champions are always in you favor. it has the mobility to have speed be its ally compared to lists that may have a few cavalry models in it. Then the staggering amounts of might means you get to control the board for the majority of the part combined with the combating shenanigans giving you a massive advantage on positioning and the tempo of the game through you loads of resources.
Thanks for reading and look out for the next post in which we will delve into Minds of Moria to discover tactics and ways to run eagles competitively without a simple one drop Gwaihir into a list and rather a look at it pure or with one or two hero's from other lists.
Until next time, TheMindzofMoria checking out.
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