CJ's "More will come" Legions: The Dark Beasts

 “More will come”- CJ’s Legendary Legion wishlist.
Part 1: The Path of the Beast

Moria has been my favourite faction ever since I read a White Dwarf article around 15 years ago saying that LOTR players fell into one of two camps: they either wanted to swashbuckle Aragorn down a flight of stairs parrying his assailants, or they cackled with delight as they backed Gandalf up against a lava flow with goblins. I’m a cackler by nature. The sheer variety of options available and little tricks you could learn to engineer in the new edition especially appealed. But I did find myself missing the old Beasts mixed grill I used to enjoy running and used for Chaos in Arda at Ardacon.  

With Druzhag and Ashrak consigned to languish in Moria, unable to visit their old friends and neighbours The Spider Queen, the Mirkwood Spiders, and the Fell Wargs of Mirkwood without a Durburz chaperone and losing the army bonuses, I felt it was time to wonder what could be if the Beasts of Middle-Earth united with their Goblin Shamans to march on Lothlorien or Mirkwood during the War of the Ring.

The Dark Beasts of Moria and Mirkwood

Participants

Spider Queen 115

Druzhag the Beastcaller 90

Ashrak the Spider Kin 55

Wild Warg Chieftains 80

The White Warg 50

Giant Spider 20

Mirkwood Spider 20

Wild Warg 7

Fell Warg 8

Bat Swarms 35

War Bats 25

Warg Marauders 30

Additional Rules:

1. All models except Goblin models gain the Beast keyword.
2. Giant Spiders must be lead by Ashrak, and gain the Venom upgrade for free.
3. Wild Warg Cheiftains may only lead Wild Wargs, and he ignores his Packlord rule.
4. The White Warg may only lead Fell Wargs, gains Heroic Strike and Strength, is a Hero of Fortitude, and she ignores her Pack Master rule.
5. Druzhag may only lead Bat models, Warg Marauders, Wild Wargs, and Giant Spiders.
6. The Spider Queen must be taken, will always be the Leader, and may only lead Mirkwood Spiders.

 

Special Rules:

The Beast Shamans: Druzhag and Ashrak may re-roll one dice per turn when casting. Druzhag’s Master of the Dark Wild rule is extended to Battlefield-wide. Ashrak’s Fury affects all Beast models, and Beast models will benefit from Ashrak’s Stand Fast! and Heroic Actions. Additionally, whilst at least one of Druzhag and Ashrak is alive, models in this LL gain the Resistant to Magic rule.

Wild Savagery: Fighting against a Beast is far removed from the usual training in armed combat a soldier usually experiences. To represent this, any enemy non-Beast model fighting a Beast model in this army uses their Courage value as their Fight value for the purposes of the Duel roll. Additionally, Elven blades do not receive their roll-off bonuses. 

Coursing Predators: Warg models in a combat with no other friendly models may elect to use the Pounce special strike, in which case their Fv drops to 1, but they gain the Monstrous Charge rule for the duration of that Fight Phase. Models which opt to Pounce may have their Fv increased from 1 by Druzhag’s Enrage Beast Magical Power or Heroic Strike in the usual way.

Spawn of Ungoliant: The Spider Queen gains the Harbinger of Evil rule.

Discussion:

This is very much a wish fulfilment kind of Legion, and I wanted to be careful to tread the line between interesting play mechanics and not just setting all the stats to 100 in the Build a Player facility. So, without inventing any new profiles, this Legion sets out to make the most of what Beasts already exist. I decided immediately that rather than typing Bat, Warg, or Spider models every time, we should give a handy umbrella of Beast, in homage to our wicked Beastmaster, Druzhag.

In gathering the great and good (or evil) together in one list it becomes remarkable how many little Moria-esque tricks and synergies are available. Mirkwood Spiders have paralysing web throwing weapons whereas Giant Spiders fight better. War Bats have Pluck and Piercing Talons to do damage, whilst Bat Swarms have their unique fight value rounding shenanigans. Meanwhile Ashrak can make Spiders of all kinds invisible (including the halving of Fv when channelled), Druzhag can raise any Beasts Fv, Attacks, Strength and Courage, and both of them can use Fury to help consistently charging terror-causing enemies. And this manipulation of fight value served as the inspiration for how this Legion could have a unique play mechanic.

It never made a huge amount of sense to me that the races of Middle-Earth would be proficient with weapons and fighting man to man (orc, elf, …), but that when being charged by some eldritch Gorilla-sized wolf they would know how to fight that sort of threat. In general, this is why Trolls and other monsters have very high Fvs, to represent their ability to overwhelm rather than out-fence an opponent. To represent the sheer terror and unfamiliarity in fighting that an army of magically enraged Beasts would impress upon the average military, I opted to write that opponents models would have to use their Courage values as their Fvs. This would especially be noticeable in elite troops that might be supreme sword fighters but in the face of a wave of teeth and claws may not fare so well! 

Naturally the Spider Queen as the leader will be a focal point to the army, but just to tie in with the Wild Savagery rule I wanted to pay homage to all spiders in Middle-Earth being descendants of essentially the source of that ancient evil Ungoliant. By reducing opponents courage values whilst the Queen is alive on the table, the opponents will also notice their fight values wavering! But she isn’t the only familiar Matriarch in this list- I wanted to find a place for the White Warg who we assume lived on after the battle of the five armies and serves as a characterful stand-in for a Fell Warg Chieftain. By lifting the packlord and packmaster abilities, the Warg heroes also contribute useful Might points for Heroic actions (especially March).

And when discussing wargs, I have discussed with friends before how basic infantry warg profiles in SBG don’t appear to live up to their ferocity and strength portrayed especially in the Warg Attack scene from the Two Towers. Partially influenced by the various shots of wargs running over infantrymen, as well as one bowling Aragorn clean off his horse, and the manner in which wolf packs hunt in nature, I wrote in a small special strike that with its drawbacks is hopefully more a fun thing to try a few times a game rather than anything game breaking.

But the real characters are the Beast Shamans. Ashrak upgrades his spiders from rerolling 1s to wound into rerolling failed wounds, has some sinister little rules that might put people off trying to kill him in combat, and most importantly can make all spiders invisible (including the Queen!). When combined with Spiders terrain-ignoring movement, invisibility more or less allows spiders to have a 10-inch flying movement as well as protection from counter charging. Then there’s Druzhag. How I’ve waited for his rerelease from GeeDub. All Beasts within 12 can use his courage value, and when that isn’t enough, he also has Fury to make sure they get the job done. But his real game smashing spell is his signature Enrage Beast. On a 3+, any Beast within 12” gets +2 Fv, attacks, courage, and strength in exchange for a S10 hit in the end phase. For multi-wound beasts (of which there are many) this is of little concern and can turn bat swarms and giant spiders into monstrous combat machines. Which is to say nothing of what it could do to the Queen! But the issue with these two is the finite amount of Will to make the most of these spells especially if they happen to be targeted by any opposing spellcasting. So to bump their consistency just a little bit, they can reroll one dice per turn for casting, and finally to characterise the Bestial Fury their magic invokes in the Beasts they grant a resistant to magic dice to models in this Legion whilst alive. Currently if you lose priority you can wait to see what Druzhag enrages, and then just immobilise it. Or if you win priority, just try and immobilise Druzhag to prevent the cast in the first place. RTM gives just a little pushback to that.
 

 Finally, to make list building a little more interesting, all Beasts are restricted in terms of who they can be lead by. This is representative of pack/colony mentalities in nature, and we assume that through dark magic the Shamans have corralled this patchwork army of Beasts to their bidding. This is also to try and encourage more of the fun characters to be taken and prevent overspamming of numbers through cheap wargs and Heroes. You must have the Spider Queen, but you also want the venom spiders, as well as the March from the Wild Warg Chief? So do you leave out Druzhag and access to bats? A good army list provides a bit of a challenge to get the balance right.

Conclusion:
This has been a bit of a love letter to some of my favourite models and profiles in the game and a forlorn hope that one day a fun Beasts legion might happen so that I can cackle maniacally as I imitate Count Dracula and command my wolves to rip apart the elves of Mirkwood! It could have been easy to go way overboard but then that wouldn’t have been interesting. The list still has some glaring weaknesses, but I firmly believe it would be one of the most characterful and fun to play armies around, with a simple but unique play mechanic to keep other players on their toes!