Preface: this is in future tense but I wrote this a while ago (and it remains unfinished) and never got round to publishing it before the game(s) mentioned, nonetheless I think the post has some merit, so I shall make it my first. Enjoy!
Initial thoughts
So, I have finally found a wargaming group near me with some SBG players. Unfortunately many of my models remain at the old family home, so for now the only forces available to me are about 500 pts of Beornings and up to around 700 pts of shire models.
Some thoughts on the beornings
I am quite keen to try out the Beornings as ever since I first played the last days of the third age mod for mount and blade warband as a Beorning ive thought they would be an extremely cool faction for the SBG, and lo and behold, my wish was granted and they were released with the war in the north supplement.
Now, i am exceedingly happy with the form they have taken, although there are one or two things i would change about them as it stands, battle companies rules would also be nice.
The good first, Grimbeorn is fantastic, he has an absolute beast of a combat profile, a decent selection of heroic actions, and some decent ranged utility with his great bow. this only gets better in the legendary legion, which turns him (and his da) into absolute terrors, monstrous charge, a free 5 plus save and a 6 inch banner.
The Beornings themselves are also incredible profiles, if you take the axe you get a 2 attack, two wound model with an effective strength of 6 (7 if you piercing strike, on par with trolls) and a fight value of 5 to rival even some of the big man heroes, generic captains of any race bar elves should live in fear of this statline. Now this is slightly different if you take the bow, you drop from an effective 6(7) strength to an effective 4(5) strength, but this still gives you greater than even odds of wounding defence 6 and below and on top of that you gain access to the highest strength portable ranged weapon in the game, crossbow troops can match and exceed your ranged damage output under the right circumstances but they can't move if they want to shoot as well, and most of those troops aren't nearly as capable in melee as your archers are.
Now, as for what I would change, I would split the gear options for your basic troops into profiles and improve the shoot value of the archers to compensate for the unused burly, I would also add the option for throwing spears into the army as I feel like it fits the woodsman/hunter vibe they have going as well as helping to make up awkward points values, I would also add in generic heroes as well (Beorning hunt leader or chief or some such) and the ability to field some cheap chaff units like hunting dogs, birds, bee swarms etc to add flavour to the army and allow it to compete better at some points values
Regardless, I am very happy with the form these guys have taken as one of my favourite people's of middle-earth (despite the scant level of detail provided on them in the lore) and I very much look forward to trying my lads out.
I expect some of my opinions on them to change, so stay tuned for that!
Failte a caraid - great post! I think splitting the Beorning profile into two is the right call too, but I also feel like they have become what Dunedain and Rangers of the North always wanted to be . . . for cheaper. :-/
ReplyDeleteGreetings to you too friend, and apologies for not replying with greater haste. Having run rangers before with the grey company LL I have to agree, its a solid list but compared to Beornings it just cant compete, the 2 wounds, fight 5 and free +1 to wound as well as resistant to magic and your 6" banner being tied to a bear definitely beats the rangers heroic stats.
DeleteI'm not sure what the best way to fix the rangers would be but maybe an extra wound and longbows instead of normal bows I think would make them competitive with Beornings at the points level they are at. A decrease in points and hand-and-a-half swords would also be fair I think.