The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game/Tactics/Wildmen of Druadan

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Army Bonus

• • "Wild men have Long Ears and Long Eyes; know all Paths": Models from this army list gain the Mountain Dweller special rule. Additionally, enemy models do not gain any benefits from the Stalk Unseen special rule, or any such special rules that give similar benefits, against models from this army list. Additionally, warbands from this army list, that contain between 9 and 12 models, do not need a Hero to be the captain of the warband. Instead, one of the Warrior models within the warband takes on the role of the warband's captain for the purpose of deployment.

Unit Analysis

Heroes

• Ghân-buri-Ghân: If you don't know who he is, don't worry, most people just saw the movies and also have no clue who he is or what he's doing here. To answer those questions, Ghân-buri-Ghân is the leader of the Wildmen Rohan came across while they were racing to assist Gondor... and that's it. If you're surprised that this is enough for him to be included into the game, then remember that the fat barkeep from Bree got a model, so GW will bring in literally everyone who shows up if they want. To this end, Ghân-buri-Ghân has plenty of bonuses that help him kill most Infantry that Evil armies use, since he has Hatred for Goblins, Orcs, and Uruk-hai. He can hide in cover, plinking away with his poisoned blowpipe while they're at a distance, then leap out to hit surprisingly hard despite being only Strength 4, though his Defence certainly leaves a lot to be desired. At Fight 4 and Defence 4 he's not going to be winning or surviving many Duels, especially since he only has one Fate. Fortunately you avoid most unfortunate fights since he's going to be getting both Woodland Creature and Mountain Dweller, and combined with Heroic March Ghân-buri-Ghân should be able to continuously run away from enemy units for a bit before being forced to engage, and even then he can stay relatively safe with his spear.
  • Note that since Ghân-buri-Ghân has short range and pathetic Defence, you're going to want to play him and the Wildmen in themed games only, or games that have a ton of terrain since he can run away from engagements better than nearly every other Monster, and if he keeps running through a ruined cityscape there's a very good chance he and his Warriors will never get caught. Whether or not this will be a fun game to play however is another story entirely, and if you're not playing so that both you and your opponent can enjoy the game, you're just that guy.

Warriors

• Woses Warriors: The near-feral men who are not from Dunland. Woses Warriors can hit surprisingly hard since they hate Goblins, Orcs and Uruk-hai (so they never need more than 5+ to wound any of them, and most of them get wounded on a 4+) although with only Fight 3, one attack and Defence 3, the Woses Warriors are going to take as much damage as they deal. To offset this they all come with poisoned blowpipes, and we hope you like them since running away while spitting darts is what the Wildmen do best. You can only really use them effectively in small games and/or on very specific boards, if there's not many enemies or if there's a ton of terrain it can be nearly impossible to catch the Wildmen, since with their army bonus they ignore all terrain penalties and get to re-roll all of their movement tests (except swimming) so if Ghân-buri-Ghân is nearby, they can be effectively marched around and never caught in cityscape battles while remaining effectively invisible the majority of the time. This isn't likely to be fun for your opponent or for you since these games drag on for a really long time, so if you intend to use the Wildmen as more than allies, limit them to 300 point games tops.
  • Thanks to Hatred the Woses Warriors make for more effective spears if you were going for a Rohan Infantry heavy list, probably one with Grimbold. Hatred's going to be much better than possibly improving your To Wound score, and since the Rohan army can provide In the Way rolls it cuts down on the amount of Woses Warriors you might lose if there's not enough terrain for them to hide behind.