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Introduction Every gamer knows that if you have an option to mount a hero you should. It’s common knowledge, indisputable fact, no one in their right mind would argue otherwise, right? Well, I am here to do just that.
(click the picture to link to the painters Instagram account)
A bit of background; I have been a long-term suffering Khazad-Dum/Army of Thror dwarf player. I have looked longingly at my Iron Hills, and Erebor Reclaimed cousins envious of their precious mounts. That was until recently when I bought myself an Iron hills army ready to smash players beneath the hoofs of Dain’s pig - I was going to finally play dwarfs on easy mode. Nothing can stop me from league domination now!
The only thing was a couple of games in, it did not go the way I thought it would. 3 games in with my Iron hills, I had lost 3 games. That is more than I had in my last 4 GBHL 100 events with their foot cousins. So what’s going wrong?
Well, part of the problem was Dain on the pig. I could not get the most out of him. I felt like he was underperforming every game, on top of that my normal reliable dwarf line was crumbling faster than normal and I was struggling with objectives. My typical dwarven tactics and play style just weren’t working.
While fiddling around with list permutations I settled on a list I liked. It had the right numbers and the right playstyle to work I felt. There was just one problem, I had not given Dain his pig! I considered dropping 2 guys to give him the pig but suddenly the list felt small again and was not working for me. Deciding to stick to the list with him on foot I took it out for a spin and won. This was against the same opponent and army, it felt like it just worked. My opponent highlighted how much more difficult the list was to deal with, especially Dain, and despite the lack of pig.
So why did my list get better for not taking a mount for Dain? Well, it’s something I have explored in-depth, looking at the idea of mounting heroes as a whole, not just thinking about what you get, but also what you lose, here are my findings.
Mounts cost points
This one is obvious but when you mount your hero it will cost somewhere between the region of 10-20 points on average. It may not seem like much in an army but once you do it on 3+ heroes it becomes a significant chunk of points. These points could be used to get an extra group of troops to boost your numbers, a banner/warhorn/drum to assist your overall army or even another hero in some cases.
The obvious counter to this is the increased speed and damage potential is worth the points expenditure. I will not argue this is often true for a lot of heroes, but I do not believe it is necessarily the only way to go.
Lots more anti-cavalry
For those of you who didn’t see the 2021 February FAQ and the memes resulting afterwards, you may have missed some of the community running around screaming in fear of the idea that their precious horses will be killed by a black dart.
The clarification on black dart being able to target a mount unresisted is just a new additional way to unhorse a hero. People have run Legolas, wizards, throwing weapons and numerous other things to take that mount away from underneath you for years. Many lists and players on the top table will have some way of negating your cavalry bonus and invested points into doing so.
My argument, save yourself the stress of avoiding that black dart or sorcerers blast and just leave the horse at home. You save yourself some points and potentially means your opponent has wasted some as well.
Mounts get your heroes killed
You have a hero on his lovely steed ready to charge down the enemy. It's all going well until you lose that priority, botch that combat roll or hit by a spell. Any experienced player will be well aware of that post-game phrase ‘if I had won that roll off’ or ‘Aragorn couldn’t roll higher than a 4’, it happens and it sucks. The problem when this happens to a mounted hero is it can hurt a lot more.
Mounted heroes by nature have much bigger bases, this means more models can get in base contact, more dice coming back at you, more pressure to roll that 6. You will often find at least 4 dice coming back at you matching the max 4 attacks on your hero even when you charge. A lost combat will almost mean losing that horse as well.
One way to try and avoid this for heroes is to fight on the flanks, this makes the most of their movement and reduces some of the threat of a spear block. However, it also makes it easier to trap and kill the hero if you lose the roll-off. This hero is also less likely to be able to support/benefit your battle line.
Finally, the benefit of your faster move can also get you killed if a wraith or wizard is hanging around. A successful compel and you may find your hero separated and surrounded. While you can plan to stop this doing so can seriously hamper your hero. A foot hero will never find himself that far from support and is easier to prevent.
Foot heroes live longer
I won’t pretend that a foot hero being run down by a mounted hero isn’t a likely outcome if you’re not careful, but in reality, it’s much easier to keep a foot hero alive.
A foot model has a smaller base and slot nicely into a battle line; their flanks are nicely protected by your troops. Worse case you will find yourself in base contact with 2 models with spear support, but you can have your own spear support as well whether you charged or not giving you the same number of dice to win combat as you would if you charged. Some heroes like Easterling dragon knights can in fact get more attacks to win combat on foot with double pike support.
But what about that charging enemy hero? Well, another good thing about having a smaller base is you can sit your hero 1” back in your battle line and that charging hero can’t get to you.
A major advantage a hero on foot can have over his mounted version is shielding. If you're mounted, you cannot shield. This ability to double your attacks will massively increase your chances of survival and less likely to need might boost a roll-up.
Foot heroes use much less might
It's no secret that heroic combats are a great way for your models to rock out a bunch of kills for mounted heroes. It is also obvious that a foot hero with 3 attacks is less likely to pull this off than a cavalry model. My advice for foot heroes? Do not call one, at least not for the kills like a mounted hero does.
A heroic combating hero is already using a point of might for the potential to kill more troops. This is dependant on beating you opponent's dice roll and killing those you are in combat with. In fact, you really must do this twice most of the time to get the most from the combat. That is a lot of variables and dice you're relying on, you have to expect one of your heroes will fail at least once per game. This is fine as you can use a point of might to make sure it's successful, but that hero is now another point of might down.
The next turn also causes an issue. A mounted hero needs to charge, or risk losing the mount or worse. What do you do then if you lose priority? Call a heroic move of course. The only problem is, that is another point of might gone. Meanwhile, my foot heroes are still on full might. Getting to move first is nice but not essential for them. If I call a heroic move it's more to drain my opponents already depleted reserves. This isn’t just for the 1 turn either, but every turn.
More might is almost essential for armies with mounted heroes as the big hitters need to be spending their might on fights. To combat this, players will invest in cheaper might caddy heroes to call those heroic moves. This is fine but is another significant investment in points on top of the mounts for some armies.
So what does this actually mean?
I have touched on how mounting your hero can give you some unseen disadvantages. But what impact do these really have on the battlefield?
Dwarven Case study
A good example of this and the inspiration behind writing this article was the comparison I had in comparing 2 dwarf armies I have experimented with recently.
List 1:
Dain, Pig
x14 Iron Hills warriors with spears
x1 Iron Hills warrior with spears, banner
x3 Goat riders
Murin + Drar
x8 Iron Hills warriors with spears
x3 Iron Hills warriors with crossbows and spears
32 Models 9 might (+4 MoB Dain) The iron hills army has a Dain mounted, Murin and Drar coming in 32 models for 700 points. The numbers are a bit low for my taste but not awful for an elite army.
List 2: Thror x6 Guardians of the King x5 warriors, spears+shields
Young Dwalin x7 Warriors, shields x5 Warriors, Spears + shields
Dain (on foot) x10 Iron hills, Spears
36 models 8 might (Dain gets 4+ MoB) The Army of Thror/Iron hills list has Dain unmounted, Thror and Young Dwalin instead. My model count also is increased to 36, it may not seem like much but it has a significant impact in-game.
As a social experiment I posted the lists on the ‘MESBG - Competitive players’ Facebook page to see what the general feedback would be on the two lists: The feedback, as predicted, thought that I should be probably getting some goats and maybe a bit of shooting, go for more S4 in list 2. The most common response was why had I not mounted Dain though?
People were in general less critical of the pure Iron hills list.
But why has this objectively 'better' list performed so poorly for me compared to my other Dwarf lists so far?
Numbers and battle line strength
It may not seem like much sometimes but the drop from 36 models to 32 is significant. That is an addition of 2 dwarfs you must kill to break and another 4 models to grab objectives. Even just 4 more people in the battle line can make a more impactful, if subtle, difference.
As you can see here the lines of list 1 is much shorter, more so than just 4 models. When you are including numbers in your battle line, you must also account for models that won't be partaking in the battle line. This can include ranged units (I have included the crossbows in the picture above though) and cavalry, these are often busy doing other important things. This in effect means that the comparison between the 2 list and the numbers fighting in the battle line could be more like 10 than 4! A shorter battleline means you can be surrounded and hemmed in, you either need to spread thinner to counter this or use terrain well.
Using Dain in the centre means he can get bogged down, while he may not lose his mount, he really does not gain many benefits from his mount this way. Dain will likely kill just as many models on foot across the game as mounted. Remember a mounted hero that is charged is after all no better than a foot one and in the case of Dain he can fairly reliably kill nearly 2 models a turn with spear support on foot anyway.
Losing the mount can also open holes in your line that can be exploited.
Out on the flank, he can make the most of his mobility but also leaves the other heroes doing the grunt work in the line for kills and heroics.
Compare this to the foot list. The line is already much broader, Dain can be placed within the battle line and still get the most out of him. His might can be used to support the whole army more effectively.
Mounted Dain would find a difficult decision on where to use his might, as he really wants to be calling combats. On foot, you have more freedom to use it on marches/strike or just bumping up wound rolls.
A side note is that Dain can be drawn out of the battle line due to his Fiery Temper rule. This is less of a concern when he is on foot.
The list with Thror, Dain, Dwalin has better hitting power and army support overall than the other list does. It does not need the mounted hero to do the killing power and is much more reliable for it. I may benefit from giving some range support or adding a goat rider. This would, in my opinion at least be a better investment in points than mounting Dain. Reasons for why I haven't are a subject of a different article though.
Conclusion?
I do not expect people will suddenly start not mounting all their heroes, nor should you. In many cases, you will still find that the benefits will outweigh the downsides. This will also come down to playstyle, I have used armies for years competitively that did not have the option of mounts and learned from it and shaped my tactics. The case study specifically refers to my dwarfs, although I am now considering similar in other lists. Hopefully, at the very least I have helped you understand the benefits of being on foot, you may have learnt to deal with being dismounted better, maybe even build your list a little different with this in mind or even give characters you thought were worthless another look. (seriously Celeborn going 2-handed with a couple of pikes supports is a very scary and reliable model)
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Great write-up - I've been playing Khazad-Dum (Kingdom of Moria) and Lothlorien for ages and I've often felt that having more cavalry would help a lot. Recently though, I've been playing with the Men of the West LL (no cavalry) and heroes like Elessar and Eomer clearly want mounts. Turns out, though, with the extra guys you can get by NOT mounting them, you can have a slight numbers advantage in your battle line - and with the spear supports they can benefit from, you're not feeling the damage output reduction nearly as much as I'd thought!