The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game/Tactics/Variags of Khand

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Why Play Variags of Khand

If you prefer your army in a more far east Asia flavour then look no further, the Variags of Khand are an army that have the advantage of having chariots, something no other army had until The Iron Hills got one.

The new edition helped out the Khandish a lot, the army bonuses enabling your horse archers to actually be taken in large numbers and chariots being very effective.

Pros

• Chariots!
• Free archer Cavalry

Cons

• No Shields
• Weak Troops
• Inefficient heroes
• Lacks Access to a Banner
• Poor courage

Army Bonus

Any Khandish warriors on charriots and horseback do not count towards the bow limit.

Unit Analysis

Heroes

• Khandish King: A passable choice with decent options, chief amongst which is a Khandish Chariot which is near mandatory (we will get into in just a second). He also acts as a 6" banner for all Khandish models, including himself. He’s fairly strong, with access to Heroic Strike and his banner effect helping out with your lack of spears. However, he's very expensive, which causes some problems with your list. He only has two Might, meaning you probably want more than to save your Might for combat since Heroic Strike makes a huge difference if he's charged in an unfortunate situation, and if you use Heroic Combat and slay your opponent, you can immediately perform another Chariot Charge. You shouldn't get more than one however, Khandish Kings on their Chariot get very expensive and you'll be left with a lack of troops if you try to get more of them. It's also a good idea to keep a Khandish Chieftain around, Khandish Kings will benefit from them declaring Heroic Moves and in turn you'll be able to use your Chariot before the enemy has a chance to counter. The worst thing that can happen to it is if it's charged after all, as a charged Chariot is a nearly useless Chariot.
  • To get into the Khandish King's Chariot, it not only makes the King far tougher (since his In the Way roll only lets him get hit on a 5+ instead of 4+) and this also works in combat to boot. The Khandish King will survive against most enemies, which will allow him to take advantage of his Chariot Charge. The Khandish King is one of the few models in the game that can ignore Control Zones, and as he comes into contact with models he inflicts two Strength 4 hits, and then continues moving through, inflicting more hits if this kills them. If this doesn't kill the enemy models, then the King can engage them in combat, with Heroic Strike, four attacks, and knocking over Infantry in the process. This will likely finish off any enemy Infantry he couldn't kill by running over, and as mentioned above if you called a Heroic Combat, you can then continue rolling through Infantry and getting in a new fight. Don't forget to use Piercing Strike on Infantry he knocks over either, they can't fight back and 8 Strength 5 attacks will finish off most Heroes in the game. Even Aragorn will need to start spending Fate to prevent some of those from slipping through.
  • Beware of enemy models that are capable of wounding the King's Chariot on a good roll. If you come across them stay far away, otherwise they'll smash his Chariot and you'll be left with a mediocre Hero at the end of the day. Also beware of any Monster with Monstrous Charge, since all of them are capable of knocking your King right off his Chariot.
  • While this will rarely come up, the Khandish King can use his Chariot Charge to kill Grima Wormtongue, since his hits are inflicted automatically instead of as a result of combat.
  • If you don't care about your Army Bonus, consider allying in an Angmar Orc Shaman. If you use Wither, the King's Monstrous Charge will be able to knock over Cavalry and enemy Heroes, which will just further increase his ability to dish out damage.

• Khandish Chieftain: A standard Captain statline whose only distinctive feature is the ability to ride a chariot. Khandish Chieftains on Chariots make for fantastic companions for Kings on Chariots because of this, as their Heroic Moves allow them and the King to move before your opponent can counter them, and everything we said about Kings on Chariots applies here as well, with the exception that Chieftains are generally worse in combat. Try to get them involved in the same combat as a King, since they can run down enemy models, get caught in a Heroic Combat, and then run down enemy models as well (or finish off some of the models the King is in combat with). Unfortunately their non-Chariot options are very lackluster. Khandish Chieftains have issues surviving on horseback, it's easy to shoot their horse out from under them, and they die extremely fast in combat. Even regular Infantry can kill them relatively easily since they get wounded on 5+ from Strength 3 enemies, and they lack Heroic Strike to help them protect themselves from enemy Heroes. If you're getting them, make sure they're on a Chariot, and take them either in groups on a Chariot, or as a companion to a King.
  • Since the Variags of Khand are pretty lacking in their army selection, Khandish Chieftains and Chariots following them make for great allies to other forces, especially the Easterlings. They offer a great and mobile option for killing Infantry, while your allies can be relied upon to kill the other types of units.

Warriors

• Khandish Warriors: It's a Fight 4 bloke wearing armour with a hand-and-half axe. Definitely on the weaker side of the warrior spectrum - their low Defence and Courage paired with their high costs and lacking access to shields or spears means they'll never really be better than okay. How do we use them? Well... exactly as it sounds. You shoot with your archers and march up with your Warriors, trying not to get mad whenever they get shot off the table which is going to happen a lot. To that end, keep them in cover if you can, use them to hold backfield objectives and stock up on as many bows for your Infantry as you can, especially since your Cavalry and Chariots do not count towards your bow limit, so that should be maxed out here. If you are intent on taking the fight to your opponent, try to trap your enemies and use Piercing Strike with your warriors since let's face it, if you lose you're probably going to die anyway - make use of that hand-and-half axe for that juicy Strength 4. Keep your King alive and the fight centered around them, and hope you win the chaotic brawl.
  • If you intend to go with allies, especially Easterlings since they're Historical Allies with you, consider dropping these guys faster than your Chariots drop Infantry. Khandish Warriors are a worse choice than nearly every Evil Warrior, especially when compared to an Easterling Phalanx you could be supporting with your more mobile assets.

• Khandish Horseman: Fight 4, potential to go to Strength 4 with Piercing Strike and access to a bow makes them incredible skirmish Cavalry. The problem? Bow limit can only be avoided in a pure army of a historical alliance, so you refuse a lot of potentially strong allies to get these guys into your list in large numbers. Also, Defence 4 means your opponent will have an easier time shooting them off the board, or killing them in combat so they can go down very quickly; and Courage 3 is still very unreliable, so have them escorting your King or Chieftain as he goes rolling around on his Chariot after you hit the Break Point.
  • Watch out for enemy Cavalry, as Khandish Horsemen lose almost every single Cavalry engagement in the game. Their low Defence does not help in this manner, especially if they're charged.
  • Khandish Horsemen do help the Easterlings quite a lot, they provide good archer support and are decent enough on the charge, which is more than can be said for the Kataphracts. If you're going to ally the two armies together, which you should seriously consider doing, then you could keep your Variags of Khan force entirely mobile while the Easterlings provide the Infantry support.

• Khandish Charioteer: Ah... the Khandish Charioteer, the defining profile of this army. They've gone from a fancy, slightly tougher mount on an unreasonably large base to a cheap, maneuverable impact-hitting Cavalry model, albeit still on an irritatingly large base. Two Strength 4 hits on the charge is nothing to be scoffed at: although anything Defence 7 or higher can probably just ignore them, you can punch through Defence 5/6 models and anything Defence 4 like they're not there. Chariots are particularly good against Cavalry models as they inflict hits on the mount and the rider, and even against mounted Heroes they can kill the horse, which throws the rider and renders them useless for a turn. They got an awful lot tougher in combat, but the warrior Chariot riders are still only Defence 4 and 1 Wound, so expect them to die at random and have models nearby to plug the gaps their enormous bases leave behind.

Allies

Historical Allies

The Eastern Kingdoms

Convenient Allies

The Serpent Horde

Far Harad

Corsairs of Umbar

Isengard

Mordor

Moria

Impossible Allies

Angmar

Sharkey's Rogues

The Nazgul of Dol Guldur

Azog's Hunters

Azog's Legion

Goblin Town

The Trolls

Smaug

Building your Army

So, for pure khand there are three main ways. The first one: all heroes on chariots. Incredibly strong hitting power, but lacks versatility. If your opponent just sits in a forest or behind a small wall you're pretty much screwed. The second: all mounted khandish. Pick up a few heroes and then horde out as much Cavalry (and maybe chariots) as you can. You'll probably want at least one hero on a horse so you can more easily position him for heroic actions. The third is a combined arms: grab two or three heroes and max out your warbands with mostly warriors, as well as a few horsemen for flanking and objective pressure. All these armies should feature a Khandish King on chariot as your lynchpin - it's the strongest profile in the army.

Mostly, though, you'll be looking to allies. You want something that can make up for your weaknesses - strong heroes and casters are obvious choices. Your only options for historical allies are Easterlings, so Amdur and Khamul are obvious choices. If you're willing to sacrifice your bow limit for horsemen, then you can look at things like the witch-king or saruman, maybe even a Shade if you really want to push for outfighting your opponent.

Overall, though, Khandish make better allies than they do a core force. Dropping in a chieftain on chariot or two into another army can really give it an aggressive punch, especially for easterlings who are mostly S3 and who don't have to concede their army bonus for it.