CJ's "More will come" Legions The Battle of the Five Armies Part 2: The Forces of Nature

The last of the Five armies to arrive, the Great Eagles and Beorn the Bear break the goblin and warg army. Beorn rescues Thorin's body from the melee, and then doubles back to crush Bolg for good measure. Radagast's Alliance and the Misty Mountains are extremely difficult to make work consistently as pure lists due to the low model count and vulnerability to getting swarmed (we'll ignore the ever popular Gwaihir airdrop into Meta lists and the current success of the Beornings Legion). So in exchange for no Allies, I'm looking to give these guys some extra teeth(!) to make them more consistent for tournament and scenario play. On a personal note, Meneldor the Swift and Landroval are the first characters that I ever wrote house rules for back when I was thirteen and I'm still hoping that one day they'll get included in the MESBG.

THE MISTY MOUNTAINS

ARMY COMPOSITION

Meneldor the Swift and Landroval may only be taken in an Army that also includes Gwaihir.

Meneldor the Swift 120pts 

Eagle, Monster, Infantry, Hero – Hero of Fortitude 

F7/4+ S6 D8 A2 W3 C6 M1 W1 F1

Wargear: Claws and Beak.

Heroic Actions: Heroic March

Special Rules: Fly, Monstrous Charge, Terror, Lord of the Eagles (Gwaihir, pg 95 AoLotR)

Landroval 130pts

Eagle, Monster, Infantry, Hero – Hero of Valour

F7/4+ S6 D8 A2 W3 C6 M1 W1 F1

Wargear: Claws and Beak.

Heroic Actions: Heroic Strike

Special Rules: Fly, Monstrous Charge, Terror, Lord of the Eagles (Gwaihir, pg 95 AoLotR)

Gusting Winds ACTIVE

If unengaged in Combat, at the end of his movement or during the Shoot phase, Landroval can target an enemy model within 3”. The target and all non-Monster models within 1” then resolve a Bash Special Strike against S6.

When rescuing Thorin's Company a couple of the eagles opt to blow the orcs and wargs back in a firestorm. Landroval, Gwaihir's brother, gets an homage special rule for situational shenanigans including cheeky knockdowns/dismounts!

ARMY LIST

Radagast the Brown on Great Eagle

Beorn (Great Eagle….100pts)

Gwaihir

Landroval

Meneldor the Swift

Great Eagles

"...crap", thought Azog. Beorn (Man) with a Great Eagle mount will be able to cause a huge amount of damage with his 3 attacks and Burly two-handed axe combining with the Eagle's F7 and Monstrous Charge. The addition of the two other named Eagle Hero also allows the list to be rounded when taking Gwaihir. Like a lot of these BotFA Legions, this swaps a lack of allies for a bag of tricks to provide a different gaming experience to the usual Radagast's Alliance Army List.

Additional Rules

Radagast the Brown is treated as a Hero of Legend, and must always be the Leader.

Gwaihir is treated as a Hero of Valour.

"Wheeeee!"

Special Rules

“He scattered the bodyguard”

The first time Beorn rolls to transform in a Game is treated as an automatic success. Beorn if mounted will immediately dismount if he transforms into a Bear. Beorn may dismount immediately into Combat, moving models the minimum distance to allow him to be placed. His mount does not need to take a Courage test in order to remain on the Board.

Beorn may use the Bludgeon BPA (see Treebeard pg91, AoLotR). Additionally, instead of moving normally, Beorn (Bear) may elect to put his head down and Ram. Beorn then moves up to 8” in a straight line, and any enemy model he comes into base contact with is immediately subjected to either the Bash special strike or the Barge BPA. Any prone model that Beorn charges during this Ram move suffers 2 S8 hits.

Instead of copying and pasting from the Beornings Legion, I've tried to emulate Beorn's fighting style from the film. He won't have his popular Monstrous Charge, but using the Bash aspect of his Ram movement will achieve the same effect the majority of the time and allow him to reach his targets (see below!). The opponent will also likely be prone before the combat so he's safe from Strikes. These additions to Beorn's profile gives the player a lot of manipulation capacity to set up Hurls, clear objectives, and break up tight formations for the Eagles to pick apart.

Nature’s Wrath

Radagast counts as a Banner to friendly models within 6”, and rules limiting Heroic Actions and Stand Fast!s affecting friendly models in individual profiles may be ignored. Eagle models gain a bonus of +1 to their Strength on a turn in which they charged. Beorn gains the Hatred (Orc, Goblin, Troll, Warg) special rule, and if he slays the Enemy Leader Beorn the Bear also gains Harbinger of Evil. 

A Banner effect will push these monsters from 3->4 attacks on the charge, vastly improving their consistency. In order to make the list more cohesive I've also given an opt out for the rules from Gwaihir and Beorn which restrict the impact of their Heroic Actions. By saying "may", there's an option for Beorn to not move as part of Gwaihir's Heroic Move and then react to the enemy movement or vice versa. In the books Beorn crushes Bolg, not Legolas, which makes the goblins scatter. Reducing the enemy courage will strongly compliment the ubiquitous Terror in this List.

Imposing Presence

Models count as their remaining number of Wounds for the purposes of calculating the number of models in range of objectives or within areas of the Board for Scenarios which award Victory Points for these. In the case of mounted Heroes this applies to both the Rider and the Mount.

This is always the main issue with All-Hero/Monster Lists trying to be viable in an objectives based game. Allowing models to count as their remaining wounds for numbers on an objective will make this much easier. Spreading out is still bad news for this List, but at least a Great Eagle is less likely to be cancelled out by a single goblin. This also gives Radagast's Renew an important use in the late game!

Example List:

Radagast on Great Eagle

Beorn on Great Eagle
Gwaihir
Meneldor the Swift
Landroval

Great Eagle

1000pts, 11 Might, 6-8 Models (18-24 Wounds)