Mistakes You Might Be Making in MESBG

Kia Ora, Shire-Folk,

Welcome back for another riveting instalment of the Middle-Earth in Middle-Earth blog. As a reminder, we talk about various thoughts, topics, games, and many other things related to the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game published by Games Workshop, better known as MESBG. As another reminder, I am no professional, but read on regardless and you might find something that you can take with you into your future hobbying.

"But Brody" you might ask, "what might we learn today about MESBG from the depths of your ever wise mind?". Well how nice of you to ask, avid fan. Today we will be talking about some of the little 'mistakes' I sometimes see players make during games - although they are usually not massively game-changing, they can help improve some little habits to squeeze a little extra effectiveness out of your plays. 

Middle-management orc loves efficiency.
Photo from: PigGuy1988 - Reddit

Although these tips may not be news to the more experienced players, there may be new little bits you pick up here anyway, and if you learned anything or disagree with any of my takes, let me know in the comments!

Blowing your heroic stats

Heroic stats (Might, Will, & Fate) are one of the most interesting mechanics in MESBG, giving players a feeling of control and agency over their most powerful (and expensive) models - but when you have spent all of them you are left with a little less powerful model that still costs a big chunk of your points and may end up spending the rest of the game flubbing rolls against basic orc soldiers, standing still/wandering backwards repeatedly to cheeky compels and transfixes, or crumpling like horses under a mûmak when shanked by a morgul blade.

My poor Balrog knows exactly how it feels to
have no might and spend all game rolling 4-highs.

Might

Might points are good. Really good. The ability to adjust dice rolls in a game about rolling dice is incredible. So don't spend them on making sure Legolas hits his shot. It's not worth it. Okay, so I will admit that there may be exceptions to that, but in general you won't gain a huge benefit from using it to win fights or hit shots. Why? Lets look at a hypothetical situation.

Say Legolas can clearly see the Witch-King of Angmar flying along on his big scary fell beast, and takes his three shots at the mount, with no in-the-ways. Each shot has an 83.33% to hit, which is excellent. But lets say he misses two. Now you could spend some might now to make both hit the fell-beast, leaving Legolas on one Might point, and now needs to roll sixes to actually wound it. Not excellent. He may have spent might points to hit, but now he has a really high chance to fail to wound at all, and almost no Might to secure those wounds. In short, you spent those valuable points to guarantee a hit, only to maybe lose it to chance after.

Maybe if I fire two arrows I can pretend my bow isn't only strength 3...
Photo from: The One Ring

Say instead, Legolas saves his Might points for the wound rolls. If he waits until he actually hits the fell-beast to spend Might points he can boost any of his rolls of five into a guaranteed wound, and if he's feeling saucy he could even do it with rolls of four or three (although this is probably a bad idea too, that's a lot of might for one wound). Essentially, if you saved it for only boosting rolls of five into sixes you have doubled your wounding chances, and unlike using it to boost hits, there are now follow-up rolls to ruin your lovely Might-fuelled work (unless your target has Fate, but burning those points is valuable too).

The same idea applies to boosting dice to win a duel roll. Even if you win, you may fail to kill your enemy anyway, and if you lose, they may very well fail to kill you too. To summarise, save the might points for big heroic actions or for situations where you can actually guarantee a kill, not before rolling to wound.

(note: there will be times where you need to spend points to win a fight to not lose a valuable hero or hit a 'hail Mary' shot to save a game - if that has happened, you have bigger problems than saving a couple of Might points.)

Will

I'll keep this one short and sweet. Sometimes people will cast spells on you because they have nothing better to do with their spellcaster, or because it will inconvenience you somewhat (as opposed to losing the game). 

If the Witch-King decides to cast compel on your Gimli, who was just about to charge into some orcs and declare a tasty heroic combat and hopefully chop down a few enemy models, it might be worth saving your will and letting it go off. Yes, I know it sucks, and it slows down your game plan, but if he decides to do it again later after you blew all your will points to make sure you got into combat, only for you to now be transfixed with no will points to resist while a mordor troll traps you with some orcs, you are gonna regret wanting those early resists.

Spending Will points is about determining how risky the situation will be if the spell goes off. This is a tricky skill to learn, and only really comes with experience. If it just delays you a wee while, or makes you lose a non-risky fight, or knocks you prone in a non-dangerous situation, it's not worth getting yourself stuck in a crucial moment later. Also, keep in mind that their spellcaster can only really lock down one model at a time - so let Gimli or Helm or whomever was targeted walk away for a turn - you have other models to do some work for a bit.

Fate

Of these heroic stats, this is the most common one I see being misused, but give me a moment and you'll understand why you shouldn't spend your fate points until your last wound.

Imagine you have Éomer running around, murdering things as he loves to do, but oh no! some dastardly orc bows have landed two wounds on him! Now you as the player have two options. You can let Éomer take the two wounds, or you can spend fate to avoid them and leave him with more wounds. Many players I see tend to do the latter.

Unfortunately this is often a mistake. Say then, that the Witch-King is hanging out somewhere nearby with his nasty Morgul blade. He knows now that Éomer is a vulnerable target, with few or no Fate to save an insta-kill from the blade if he takes a wound. Even if your opponent lacks insta-kill options, your opponent knows that Éomer only needs three wounds to kill, so will have a better idea of how many resources they need to devote to deal with him (A charging Gwaihir should be basically a guaranteed kill with knockdown, for example).

Instead, say you spent no Fate points, and Éomer is now on one wound, with 3 Fate. He is now not vulnerable (well, quite as vulnerable) to insta-kill weapons or rules, and your opponent has to guess the amount of work they need to put in to kill him. Gwaihir may charge him, only for him to pass all his fate points and survive, or he might lose a fight to a single warrior, fail them all consecutively and die. This keeps your opponents unsure of how they should move and assign their forces against your heroes, putting them at an immediate disadvantage. It may not always make a difference, but it does more often than you think.

(Additional note: this obviously doesn't apply when being hit early by insta-kill weapons or rules, but also doesn't apply to your general, as most scenarios award VPs to your opponent for wounding your general, but not if those wounds are saved by Fate points. Definitely spend them there.)

Frodo was smart enough to save a Fate point - so should you.
Photo from: HarperTheFrog - Reddit

Edit: One lovely commenter noticed I didn't mention how to work with Horse Lord on characters, and whether or not to spend the fate for the mount. In MESBG, unlike some other game systems, being wounded gives no penalty to combat effectiveness, which is what makes deciding between spending fate or not spending fate be a choice to make, as opposed to a no brainer.

Unfortunately, many characters with Horse Lord don't get this luxury, particularly in the new edition where mounts are now equivalent in cost to three or four basic troops. In addition, many of them are priced around their capability on a mount, and are intended to be killy characters but might rely on the knockdown and extra attack to reach that potential - Éomer being a great example where he is a solid fighter, but three strength four attacks on foot are not particularly solid, versus four strength five strikes with knockdown, (also making his fancy new sword more likely to roll a six, and successfully wound if he does).

Because of this, losing a mount you rely on and paid so many points for hurts. Considering that a lot of this section is about either giving yourself more guarantees or giving your opponent less surety, letting your horse or warg die to a stray arrow is almost always a bad choice, as that gives your opponents the surety that your hero is badly weakened, and gives you less guarantee knowing that you chose to instead keep fate points that may not even work later.

I would say the only exception might be if your hero crucially needs to hold a point and not die, but doesn't care about killing anymore. Not only are they more likely to survive hits than their mount and won't run away if the other one dies, but a cavalry base usually makes models more vulnerable, as they become an easier target for ranged attacks and are a bigger footprint to wrap and trap.

For the most part though, Horse Lords love their horsies - let them keep them.

Underestimating Bowmen

Compared to many, if not most, other wargames, shooting in MESBG can feel like throwing pebbles - with the majority of ranged weapons being strength two and most warrior models being at least defence five, needing sixes to wound on all your shots feels terrible, particularly when you can only bring a limited number of shooting attacks in the first place. 

Picture it this way - say I play a Moria list and bring 45 models, I can take 15 bows. Of those bows, only five will statistically hit on a given turn, and against the majority of warrior models needing sixes to hit means it is unlikely to even score one wound per round. That's 75 points of goblins killing less than one model per turn. That many points could nearly buy you a whole extra cave troll, or 15 more shield or spear goblin warriors.

Maybe we should stop trying to shoot people with toothpicks.
Photo from: IGN

However, consider this - say the enemy has brought their line of warriors into contact with your goblins, and now your poor goblin archers are stuck in melee - if only they had shields! But wait, against any strength 3 troops, the shields provide no additional difficulty to wound, and with spear support (where you wouldn't bother shielding), the goblin archers are equally as likely to wound or be wounded as the models carrying shields, with the additional option of shooting if needing to apply ranged pressure.

Considering then that in many situations your bowmen will be able to fight just as well as your other troops, and that they also provide you the tactical options that bows provide by forcing your enemy to move (lest they slowly get chipped away death by a thousand cuts style), my recommendation is that you always max out your bow limit. Yes, I will acknowledge that shooting can feel horribly weak at times, and you may wish to leave bows at home in favour of wargear that feels more impactful, but it always helps to remember the adage 'an archer is just a swordsman with a bow'.

I doubt that's an actual saying, but it should be.

Overestimating Cavalry

In stark contrast to the last point, cavalry can feel like one of the more impactful warrior options you can choose. Say I charge a Rohan Royal Guard into a couple of orc bowmen - I'm rolling two dice with a higher fight value to win that fight. If I win, then allocate an attack to each archer (doubled now they are prone), that's a 75% chance to kill each archer. Great odds for my one horseman to score two kills, and still be ready to kill more next turn. If each of my cavalry models can pull that off on the same turn, the opponent would likely break that turn.

6000 Rohirrim were enough to break tens of thousands of Mordor's forces.
Imagine if Théoden had more than half of what he hoped for!
Photo from: doubtfulsea

The problem? That's if you win those fights. Two dice versus two dice, even with superior fight value (not guaranteed in all matchups) are still quite likely to fail. And if you do, your cavalry model is usually just a vulnerable as any old foot troop, but double the cost, and now being attacked by at least two models (or more if there were spear supports). Even if you have a banner nearby, that's still not perfect odds, and banners can be tough to use with cavalry anyway on account of the large base sizes. It doesn't matter if several of your cavalry kill one or two models each if several of your other expensive models get shanked because they got cocky.

So my advice? Although cavalry can kill multiple models a turn, aim for 1v1 duels instead. It does mean you won't kill half of their army in one turn, but you will more consistently kill the models you do engage, and be less likely to lose the cavalry if they lose their fights. Cavalry can absolutely crush swathes of the enemy if they roll well, but one of the key points of being a good player in any wargame is reducing the number of times where you have to rely on hoping you roll well, rather than stacking the odds in your favour as much as possible.

Remember the adage 'a cavalryman is just a swordsman on a horse'.

I really hope these sayings take off.

Treating Heroic Strike as a 'Must Call'

Heroic Strike is not very good. Now before you isolate me on top of Orthanc to think about my blasphemous words, hear me out. Even in the previous edition when strike gave a D6 bonus to fight value it wasn't as good as most people tend to think. I can't count the number of times I've seen a hero call a Strike against a monster, only to roll two ones and a two in the duel roll, waste the fight value, not have enough might to boost up the rolls, and get stomped because the didn't call a Defence or be able to boost their Fate rolls. The point I'm making is that a higher fight value only helps if you actually roll well in a duel.

The other aspect of Strikes to keep in mind is considering how risky losing the fight is. As mentioned in the heroic stats section earlier, MESBG is often quite a sub-lethal game compared to some others, and unless you have been charged by something horrible like King Elessar on a horse there is usually a pretty low chance for your model or your opponent's model to kill each other. Most hero duels would have the winner wounding on fives or even sixes, and so sometimes it's actually okay to lose a duel here or there.

Even the heir of Isildur flubs a duel roll here and there.
Photo from: WhatCulture

To finish this section, lets look at the new version of Strike. Only D3 fight value boost? Oof. Say Bard the Bowman decides to bravely charge a Gundabad troll to save his poor, vulnerable children (that somehow wandered onto an active battlefield, terrible parenting if you ask me). Afraid of such a fearsome foe, Bard calls a Strike to try and win the duel. With a D3 boost, Bard has a 33% chance to still be lower fight than the troll, 33% chance to match and need a 50/50 roll off, and only a 33% chance to beat the troll's fight value. Keep in mind, as said previously, it only matters if he rolls higher than the troll. He may not even roll a needed six, or the troll might roll triple ones and bard didn't even need the strike to win.

Now let's say bard even wins the fight (not super high odds as we have discussed), bard then has to roll four sixes to even kill the troll that turn. So sure, he won the duel, and is now down some Might and still stuck right next to a probably pretty healthy and still very dangerous troll. 

Striking definitely has it's place, especially in situations where you can make sure you have so many dice you are very likely to roll a six, you are likely to kill if you win, or you are likely to die if you lose. Just don't think it's some kind of auto-win button in a duel. You're going to really appreciate those Might points later.

Splitting Monsters/Heroes Off

Let's be clear, I'm not talking about Gwaihir or Gûlavhar (he is meant to fly 12" and you can't convince me otherwise) who can easily reposition and support themselves out on a flank. I'm also not talking about things like the Fellowship or Ents, where the whole list is Monsters and they need to split to cover ground. I'm talking about regular foot-slogging monsters and heroes, who pay a points premium for fancy rules and really need to be in the thick of things to be worth their while.

Many armies centre around a battleline of troops in the centre, and games often end up with the lines clashing and blobbing somewhere in the middle. Environments like these are where heroes and monsters shine, coming in and hitting the flanks of the enemy lines and crumpling them, helping your battleline mop up the remainder. In addition, being near your troops makes it much more difficult for your opponent to wrap and trap your expensive models, as you have options for peeling off fights or just standing next to your hero/monster so enemies can't charge there.

If I'm paying 400 points for Sauron, you can bet your ass he's going to stand
in the middle and send several models halfway across Middle-Earth.
Photo from: Nerdist

Unfortunately, sometimes it's tempting to send those expensive models off to act as a 'second spearhead' for your army, hitting some vulnerable forces that are separate to your enemy's main line, like some archers in the back or some objective holding mooks. This is definitely not always a bad call, and may be necessary to tie up some troops or claim and important point. Generally speaking, however, if your expensive Elendil runs off to kill six archers standing behind a ruin, he will make back maybe a small portion of his points after being kited for a bit, then be stuck in the middle of nowhere. In the middle of the board, your main line of numenoreans is now being soundly beaten by your opponents battleline, either because they saved points not bringing a big hero/monster (and therefore badly outpoint you) or they have their own big scary model helping to crush your warriors before Elendil can come running back, by which time you may well be broken.

The point I'm making is that slow moving monsters and heroes are designed to move to the areas of most action and sit there, chewing through enemy models while daring opponents to come after them. They can't afford to be out of position like Cavalry (that are fast enough to move back) or archers (which can still affect the battle from further away positions), and they aren't cheap enough to be able to not contribute for a few rounds (like most regular foot warriors).

Also, lets not kid ourselves - we're playing for the cool factor of watching badass heroes and monsters do their thing in awesome rumbles in the middle of the board. Luckily, it's usually the right move. 

Concluding Thoughts

MESBG is a crazy game of constant strategic and tactical decision making - if you do any of these things (as I also am guilty of), that's okay. For the most part, they won't make or break your game, but they will help you in small ways, and helps provide some insight into the depths of the ruleset and the agency you can have.

If you gained anything from this, please let me know in the comments below, and if you would like to hear even more tips sometime, I'd be glad to do another one. Finally, if you have any comments, criticisms, or suggestions for future posts, leave them below or through the contact form as well.

Thank you for wandering in here for a read, remember, not all those who wander are lost!