The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game/Tactics/Umbar

Corsairs of Umbar

Why Play Harad and Umbar?

Because you enjoy pirates who live in the desert.

Pros

• Crossbowmen galore
• Poisoned arrows

Cons

• Low defence all round
• Expensive and situational heroes

Unit Analysis

Heroes

• The Knight of Umbar: One of the more powerful combat oriented ringwriths, three might points and the ability to ignore the fight phase loss of will for every fight that he wins. He can also elect to use the base Fights, strength or attack values (or any combination of these)of his opponent instead of his own. Add in two more will points than standard and a decent array of spells and The Knight is a superb choice and a steal at 120 points

• Dalamyr, Fleetmaster of Umbar: if 90 points for a Hasharin with two wounds is an issue, 100 points for one with less equipment. He somewhat makes up for this with his smoke bombs, but Dalamyr is somewhat underwhelming.

• Corsair Captain: Another captain of men, but with three crucial differences. D4 sucks, especially with only one fate point, but a fight of 5 will allow him to win virtually any fight he gets into, and they have glorious glorious crossbows. Can camp out in the backfield and blast away while picking off anything that gets too close in close combat. A worthy addition.

• Corsair Bo’Sun: Another crossbow toting corsair hero (modelled after Peter Jackson who was the guy Legolas shot in the film) he’s useful for another crossbow shot, but his total lack of might means that hes actually more useful in a fight with his two attacks and ability to function as a banner. Pair with revers for extra lulz.

Troops

• Corsair of Umbar – sort of standard foot troops, roughly comparable to haradrim, except they all come with throwing weapons and can take shields. Theyre alright, and are best taken cheap to allow space in the army for lots of shiny crossbows.

• Corsair reavers – A wonderful choice for the army. Two attacks at fight 5 for 10 points is a steal at twice the price – even elves will have trouble winning fights against these guys. Their lack of armour is a problem, but they are deadly in the midst of the fight

• Corsair Arbalester – The reason you shouldn’t have bow armed corsairs. Another 10 point model, but they possess the (perhaps dubious) record of being the only unit in the game that is better at shooting than in combat. Crosbows hitting on 4+ is brilliant and their pavise giving them +3 defence against shooting meaning that these guys are the ultimate back field objective holders. Don’t let them be charged as they are pretty poor in combat, but can be gamechangers at range

• Black Numenorian - The men of Mordor swing between very good and very bad. Regrettably, these guys are very bad. Costing 9pts a piece their low strength and lack of options is a pretty bad feature. An upgrade to a castellan of Umbar brings their fight up to 5 and makes them useable but Merchant guard are a better choice overall.

Cavalry

• Haradrim raiders – A sort of ‘rider of rohan’ for the bad guys. They’re okay but possess little I the way of outstanding features – they can shoot reasonably well, but the points are better spent elsewhere.

• Serpent rider – Another one? These guys are to the haradrim raiders what the serpent guard is to ordinary haradrim, but worse, because raiders are not brilliant to begin with. Don’t waste your points.

• Mahud Raider – what’s better than a S4 warrior? A s4 warrior riding a bad tempered dromedary, that’s what. Does the job that the Haradrim Raiders don’t and stack up against the best cavalry of the evil side. Impact hits cause casualties from the moment of the charge and the fun is unlikely to stop there. Once again though, beware the low courage.

Allies

If you want a tad more variety in your life, the other evil forces of Lord of the Rings will allow you to add a few more bits and pieces in to your force

• Mordor– Can replace your cavalry with Morgul Knights and produce an even more effective hammer/anvil combination. Morannon orcs also make for a superb front line to a phalanx, supported by your Easterlings behind. Very good synergies between these two forces makes them natural allies.

• The Eastern Kingdoms– Easterlings can go toe to toe with the Warriors of Minas Tirith and their more esoteric troops (war priests, dragon knights, kataphracts) are highly effective linebreakers. Their true strength lies in the fact that Easterling spears count as pikes and can be used to add an extra attack to troops already being supported by spears. The mercenary warriors of Khand are a decent choice, but not brilliant. The only thing they do that Harad doesn’t is use chariots. Stick with Easterlings

• Moria– They’re ‘meh’ at best, but can pull all sorts of sneaky tricks and can allow you to field close to overwhelming numbers in a very few points. Carefully and sneakily used, they can be highly effective

• Angmar– A couple of named characters of use here, notably Bhuradur, but nothing to write home about. Give these guys a miss.

• Isengard– The only thing that Isengard has that Harad doesn’t already is crossbow uruk-hai (which are worse for you than Arbalesters) Uruk Shamans (nice), pikes (easterlings are cheaper and can use a shield at the same time)and Isengard trolls with shields (situational but alright really). Usable but there are better choices out there.