Why didn’t the eagles just fly the One Ring to Mount Doom? They were too busy dominating the Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game tournament scene, trouncing all comers in the Warhammer-style miniature wargame set in the Tolkien legendarium. Eagle armies have become extremely powerful thanks to changes in the latest edition of the rules, which make them a force to be reckoned with in tournaments.
The updated edition of Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game (MESBG) released in December, bringing with it a shiny new starter set and tweaks to the core rules. Broadly, it’s been a real boon to the game, and editor Alex has been steadily building and painting Rohirrim since that set was released: check out his MESBG Battle of Edoras review to see why he fell in love with it.
While most of the changes to the rules tidied things up or removed rough edges, they have also changed the balance between different types of unit. In the simplest terms, magic and heroes are weaker and monsters are better. That means that armies packed with monsters, such as the Eagles, are now at the top of the pecking order.
Exactly how dominant the Eagles are depends on which set of data you’re looking at and how you slice it. With the new edition less than six months old, there aren’t many recorded games for the less popular factions. But the Eagles are definitely popular.
At time of writing, the site Longshanks records data for 4503 games since December 4. It puts the Eagles in second place, with 225 games and a 65% win rate. The diminutive forces of The Shire come in at #1 in the Longshanks data, with a 74% win rate. But as only 17 games are recorded for the furry-footed faction, it’s not exactly a representative sample.
Tabletop Admiral reports on 3121 games for the newest edition and gives the Eagles a similar 63.7% win rate over 120 games. That doesn’t earn them quite such a high rank; they’re in at #8. But there’s only one faction that has both more games, and a higher win rate than them; Saruman’s Army of the White Hand, with a 65.4% win rate over 241 games.
In short, if you want to play MESBG in earnest right now, and you don’t want to play with Eagles, you’ve got to be ready to play against them. Their huge movement distances and flight mean they can pick and choose their combats, they’re extremely hardy, and they hit like a truck.
Gwaihir, the Wind Lord has the once per game ability Piercing Shriek that stops every enemy within six inches from moving for a turn, guaranteeing control of an objective and giving the Eagles another turn to charge.
But they can be killed; mobbing the birds with infantry will bring them down eventually. Heroes using Heroic Might have a reasonable chance to kill them, provided they have enough support – though the Eagles will eat them alive if they survive. Using Heroic Combat to break the combat sequence and take down a second Eagle before it can devour your own hero is vital.
Or if you’re running the Army of Laketown or Dale, bring three Wind Lances, and turn the eagles into rotisserie chicken with two meter long barbeque spears.
As one of Games Workshop’s specialist games, MESBG receives less regular balance updates than its flagship titles; Warhammer 40k recently received an errata to an overpowered Ork detachment less than a month after it was released. Expect the Eagles to circle for a bit longer than that.
Want to play a different, extremely powerful army full of Eagles? The Warhammer: The Old World Wood Elves army can be utterly brutal (though it does have its counters). If you enjoy MESBG, the eagles (MESBG faction, actual birds, or the ’70s country rock band), and debates about whether or not the eagles could have taken the ring to Mount Doom (obviously not, Sauron had evil RADAR), we’d love to hear from you in the official Wargamer Discord server!
Source: Wargamer
