Hi All!
Been here a few times. I've got quite a lot of experience with WotR, bbut am delving into LotR with some mates now. Viva Evil!
Anyway, having a flick through the books, it looks like monsters (Dragon, Balrogs, Sauron etc.) seem pretty out-of-whack with everything else; I couldn't figure out what'd e good for dealing with them. Does anyone have any generic tips on how to defeat big beasts in LotR? RAnged fire, magic, swamping wth cannon-fodder...what works? Are any evil units particularly good at being beast-slayers? Thanks for your help.

Often you don't need to. Not many scenarios fight to the last man. Usually to break or 25% so killing them isn't really necessary. I'm sure others will have good methods though. Feed a man a turn works well though to keep them busy while you win the scenario. I find it especially now that games are way quicker. Less turns often means less sacrifice required.

Having said that, lots of dice = more likely to get the 6s you need. Last game I played the balrog took three wounds from throwing axes in the first turn! I've also had balrogs wounded from friendly fire from goblins!

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My LotR and 40k blog, Realm of Battle board, dwarves, gobs, space wolves and battle reports. http://simbattleboard.blogspot.com/

As simmuskhan said, keep the objectives in mind. Feeding a warrior per turn is useful for slowing a monster down. To do the latter you need either high courage, medium courage boosted with horns, or models with the bodyguard rule. If you actually have to slay the beast, lots of spears and/or pikes are handy, since spear/pike support don't need to roll for courage.

It's still touch and go, just like fighting Aragorn. If he always gets at least a 5 with his three dice (about a 70% chance), he can wade through any number of warriors.

There are a couple of ways:

- Glorfindel/Gil-galad etc any model with high FV to match/beat theirs.
- Magic. If you play blue on blue then an 80pt RW will severely slow down a 350pt Dragon. On the flipside a Wizard does the same job.

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2011 Tournaments:
Singles GT: 4th
Doubles GT: 14th
Hunting for Heros 2: 2nd

2012 Tournaments:
Singles GT: 19th

I don't know if the dragon has will points but monsters like trolls are easily defeated by transfixing them and then swamping them. That's my usual tactic If I have a wizard or a wraith. This is the same tactic i use to kill heroes.

Dragons do have Will pts, 3 of them, in case you'r insane enough to give them breathe fire which requires you to expend it.

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

If a player has spend a lot of points on a Dragon or Balrog his break point is going to be much, much lower than it would otherwise have been, which is a problem for troops with low courage like goblins. Hordes of goblins are most effective when they are actually a horde, and a monster takes a lot of your horde away. For the same points as a flying Dragon you could get three full goblin warbands led by 2 captains and a shaman.

Is it worth taking some Blackroot Vale Archers and Duinhir for thier 'Aim for the eyes' rule

Not really, unfortunately.

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

why they look like really good especially Duinhir

Because they´re too expensive, unless you know you will face a lot of monsters. We could compare them to Rangers of Gondor: lower F, lower C and no spear option, but for the same points cost. In my (and many others') opinion, the re-roll simply doesn't make up for this.

That's a shame I really liked the models and the the concept of monster hunting archers

Yeah but a model like, for example, Rumil, is cheaper than the extra points you would pay to take Duinhir and his mates, but is 100% guaranteed to be effective, whereas Duinhir and his bro's are only likely to be effective if your facing monsters, which an army like the haradrim will probably never use. If your playing a game without objectives then head for breaking the enemy, monsters generally have pathetic courage. One of the many reasons for maxing out bows would also be to slay beasts, since they are all such huge targets. However i'd say the most effective weapon against really big monsters/heroes would probably be Floi.

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Game Reviews, Top 5 Lists, and more: http://www.youtube.com/user/SuicidalMarsbar

I agree with the Marsbar, they aren't cost effective. Monsters a quite rare.

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

Personally I prefer facing a Balrog over a Dragon, cause the dragon got 2 things its annoying
If he goes with wings and + defence and wounds.

Why?

hes a monstrous at charge with fight 7, unless matched by same equivalent heroes or higher, this beast with alot speed. high fight and strength, if he wins combat might do knock to the ground to the oponent and being a hero with might points, hes really harder to kill and with alot strength he can inflict several wounds
On the other hand hes easier to get off the board than a balrog, since ea wound he takes he need to make a courage test, and that with courage 4 + only 3 will to allow him to stay a bit more, wizards can explore that well ^^

hes a 2 edge blade in general, hes highly effective if things go right and do alot dmg if he wins the fights, also hes a concern to take more serious than a balrog if well upgraded.
On the other hand, to be effective he gets extremely costy (unless you wanna run him 250/300pts just for filling spot(which I think you shouldn´t) or to just had some fun, also when wounded he becomes highly unstable.

So i dunno .... for me, for fun or if you get an extremely well balance army to compensate the dragon cost, or else you will get into serious trouble, cause unlike the balrog being slow..he almost assured he will stay alive.

My quickie review of the Balrog remains "It will kill anything it touches and it won't touch anything important."

A 6" move with no heroic combat and relying on others for heroic moves, the Balrog is very susceptible to being charged by one warrior a turn (who he then kills) and never pulling his weight. If you have ten turns of combat and your 400pt model kills ten 7pt men, the rest of your army is going to be struggling at a 300+ pt disadvantage while the Balrog is tied up.

Add to that, in most scenarios you don't have to eliminate the enemy to the last man. "Feed the Balrog a warrior a turn" is the only tactic you need. If you do have to kill the Balrog you destroy the rest of his army then drop your whole army on it. 4 dice will grab a six about half the time and kill two or three warriors. The other 50% of the time you'll make dozens of attacks against a trapped Balrog and wear it down.

The Dragon, with flight for maneuverability and speed, and Might to stop you just feeding it a trickle of warriors is another matter entirely.

Yuppers, I love using my balrog in games, but it's pretty rare to get points value (although somewhat easier in a couple of recent games due to the warbands rules). It's really awesome in scenario based games where the game is based around the balrog, but not so great in regular games.

I think the "kills anything it touches and won't touch anything important" is a good synopsis. I wiped out an entire warband with my balrog one game, but that still wasn't close to how many points it cost to begin with!

Gotta admit it makes for a great photo opportunity though =)

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My LotR and 40k blog, Realm of Battle board, dwarves, gobs, space wolves and battle reports. http://simbattleboard.blogspot.com/

Killed my first Cave Drake yesterday. Ringed it with cheap warriors, so it could only kill two at a time. Forgot to set a second ring, and it almost escaped with priority---but it had used its Might, so a Heroic Move ringed it back in. After three transfix attempts, the fourth succeeded and Fell Beast flew in for the kill, with help. I get Knock Down, it seems---so the Drake was trapped after all---but I managed to make all six wounds to kill it that one attack, so the Drake did not get to use his Revenge Hits for Being Trapped rule. A flying beast would escape that ring, of course.

If your playing red on red then monsters should be easier to deal with, because you have access to your own monsters but good job anyway, did you win the game?

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Game Reviews, Top 5 Lists, and more: http://www.youtube.com/user/SuicidalMarsbar

How do you get knockdown? I thought S6+ was immune (could be wrong about that...)