Thursday, February 5, 2015

DBA Fantasy Army Lists

I've been trying to piece together some adequate army lists for some fantasy DBA armies for my wargame. As I have mentioned in different posts, the two best sites that I have found for fantasy DBA army lists are as follows:
Tolkein in DBA 2.0 by David Kuijt. This page contains 5 bad guy army lists and 6 good guy army lists, and:
DBM/DBA Middle-Earth Army Lists By Luke Ueda-Sarson. This page contains 18 total army lists.

These are both very good, well-researched and well thought out pages, but they are not 100% complete. They both only contain many army lists for a broad subject, such as Mordor or Isengard. As both of these armies consisted of dozens of subtypes, such a sweeping army list must necessarily contain only small amounts of a wide range of element types. I would prefer army lists that were more specific. For instance, David Kuijt's armies only contain two or three elements of warg riders, but warg riders were a separate army in their own right, such as the hunter orcs from the Hobbit movies that pursue Bilbo and the dwarves across Middle Earth. Warg riders are pretty cool, and it seems a shame to buy a whole box of them only to use a few figures.
So, to bridge this unfortunate gap in DBA fantasy army lists, I have decided to create my own army lists. Some of these army lists are based on the official historical army lists found in the DBA 2.2 rulebook, others come from my imagination.
Feel free to use these separate from or in addition to David Kuijt's and Luke Ueda-Sarson's helpful army lists, or make your own.
NOTE: if you intend to use these army lists for BBDBA, all orc armies are considered allies except Isengard and Mordor, which are enemies. If you are using these army lists for general fantasy gaming, not LotR in particular, they are all allies.

BAD GUY ARMY LISTS:
Warg-Orcs:
This army list encompasses all warg-riders as seen in the LotR or Hobbit movies and books, or for general fantasy. Examples include hunter orcs and the specialized warg riders in Saruman's army.
The following army list is taken from the III/44 Tribal Mongolians  of the DBA 2.2 rulebook. Both the cavalry and Light Horse elements consist of orcs mounted on wargs. Warg elements are treated the same as Light Horse, with the following exception taken from David Kuijt's page:
"Warg-mounted Orcs - wargs were large, fierce, intelligent and vicious wolves; they often served as mounts for goblins in addition to fighting for themselves. In DBA 2.0 Wargs are best represented as Light Horse, with one additional rule. In DBA 2.0 in the terrain section it says "Dunes and Oasis are bad going except to camels"; to reflect the special abilities of Wargs and Warg-mounted Orcs, use the additional terrain rule that:

Woods and Marsh are bad going except to Wargs
Warg rider cavalry are impetuous. Like Knights or Warband, they follow up one base depth after enemy that retreat, withdraw, or are destroyed. In the army lists below "2Wa" is the abbreviation for Wargs or Warg-riding orcs or goblins."
Note: for the terrain, enemies, allies, and aggression rating, you can use either the "Misty Mountain Goblins" army list on David Kuijt's page or the "Goblins" army list from Luke Ueda-Sarson's page.
Army list:
1x3Cv(Gen), 1x3Cv or 2Wa, 10x2Wa

Skirmish Orcs:
 These were the lightly-armed, smaller orcs depicted in Middle-Earth. Examples include Moria orcs and other Misty Mountain orcs, and the goblins of Goblintown.
The following army list is entirely a product of my own brain. I have chosen to make many of the elements axilia units because the following definition, from the DBA 2.2 rulebook, seems to fit skirmish orcs well:
"AUXILIA, representing foot able to fight hand-to-hand but emphasising agility and flexibility rather than coheision... These were used to chase off or support psiloi, to take or hold difficult terrain, as a link between heavier foot and mounted troops, occasionally as a mobile reserve, and often as the main troop type of mountain peoples."
I allowed a lot of choice of element types to represent the diversity of a marauding orc band.
Army List:
1x4Ax(Gen), 4x4Ax, 2x4Wb, 2x2Ps, 3x4Ax or 4Wb or 2Ps or 3Bw

Organized Orc Army:

This army list is intended for armies such as Isengard's non-Uruk-Hai battalions, Mordor, and Gundabad. They contain many different weapon types and there are a lot of choices to be made. The 2LH(Gen) element is intended to represent the orcish officers, mounted on wargs, that strode up and down before the ranks of their men... er, orcs... before battle. As the number of figures on a base has no effect on game play, feel free to put only one mounted officer on this general element.The Elephant element is meant as a troll element. Artillery should be a ballista, trebuchet, or catapult. You can use human heads as ammunition, if you want.
Army list:
1x4Bd or 2LH(Gen), 4x4Bd or 3/4Sp, 2x3/4Ax, 1x4Bd or 4Bw or 4Sp, 1xArt or El or 2LH

Pike Half-Orcs:
This army list represents the formations of heavily armored Uruk-Hair pikeman that assaulted Helm's Deep. Both Kuijt's page and Ueda-Sarson's page contain an Orthanc or Isengard army (the army of Saruman, mostly made up of Uruk-Hai) but neither of the army lists accurately represents the overwhelming formations of heavily armored pikemen.
The army list is ridiculously simple, but represents the Uruk-Hai army pretty well. After all, they were just a bunch of pikemen with their commander, Lurtz, standing above them with a sword. Thus, one blade element and 11 pike elements.
Army list:
1x3/4Bd(Gen), 11x4Pk

GOOD GUY ARMY LISTS:
The good guy army lists are better covered by the two pages mentioned; you have a lot of choices. However, if even these are not enough for you, look in the DBA 2.2 rulebook and use a historical army. After all, its fantasy. Who says Greek hoplites can't fight wargs, or that Braveheart-era Scots can't do battle with undead warriors?

Rangers:
I have only one army list for the good guys. While this may seem very disproportionate - after all, I made 4 orc armies - good guy armies are better covered by existing army lists. The only gap that I could see was for an Ithilien ranger type army - an army of elite scouts and skirmishers, armed mostly with bows and swords.
This is a pretty boss army, so I created an army list for it:
Army list:
1x4Bw or 3Bd(Gen), 3x3Bd, 8x4Bw 

2 comments:

  1. I think it's fairer to say that the movie does't accurately represent the actual Battle of Helms Deep as described in the book. Luke U-S lists are about the book not the movie! Of course there's no pikemen - there's also no crossbows either...they weren't in the book!

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  2. The organized orcs only total 9 elements

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