The Hobbit: High Defence is a must.

We have being going a bit LOTR crazy over here. TommyH, Spicerack and I have been playing The Hobbit the past two months without stop. It's a great system. However, today I want to talk about why High Defence values are a must, especially for evil armies.

Today, Spicerack and I had two games at 400 points. It was practice for next week's tournament. Even though the first game was technically a draw, I had all but wiped him out in both games. The reason? My high Fight Value, and his low defence.

I play elves, and elves are freakishly good in combat. Okay sure, they are only str3. Yet, that doesn't matter when they win the fight the majority of the time. Having a FV5 standard model means that you are automatically winning the fight 15% of the time. That doesn't sound amazing, but when you have 2-3 attacks at that value, all you need is one six. Spicerack's downfall today was this exact case. All I had to do was roll at least one six (which on my GW manufactured dice, seem to happen a lot) and then wound against his Defence of 4. Add in to this combat characters and I was eating my way through the orcs. 

I should point out, at this point, that Spicerack doesn't usually run D4 orcs. Both TommyH and he run D5+ models constantly, leaving me with no options but to run dwarves to counter. However, in both games, Spicerack's Ringwraith and Shagrat survived to the end. Shagrat, or "shaggy/shagman" is ridiculous, every Evil player should take him - no excuses. 

Going back on topic. My str3 bows and combat attacks were awesome today because they were wounding on 5+ most of the time. I have 11 arrow attacks each phase and this put a HUGE dent into his army - something that, usually, doesn't happen. The importance of higher Defence value units cannot be stressed enough. Both Good and Evil have access to these units. I prefer Dwarves, but Kingdom of Men have access to some beefy units to. This is how I usually bring high defence AND fight to the field:

Balin

8 Khazad Guard

Thranduil

1 Galahdrim with Banner. (I know, it really should be a Dwarf, but I don't have the model)

10 Wood Elves with Spears.

Very SOLID shield wall, backed up by very SOLID fight values. The elves sit at the back providing the dwarves with FV5 supporting attacks, and the Dwarves provide the defence. Plus, Khazad guard can use their two-handed weapons (and str4) to obliterate my opponents units. Being Fearless while Balin is alive also makes it awesome. I have won many fights using this tactic......many. 

I highly suggest everyone rethink their approach to list building in The Hobbit. If theme is your thing, then by all means have whatever you want. However, for those who participate in competitive LOTR (is there even such a thing?), then get yourself a shield wall. The formula for success here is Str4 D5+ en mass. 

- Out.