[Tale Telling] Working My Brain Around Easterlings in Competitive Play

Note: I had written up a different version of this but wasn't happy with how rambly it became. Hopefully this is more focused while providing similar information.

 

For those of the competitive persuasion, Easterlings have been a topic of conversation since the Defense of the North Expansion Book dropped and brought a massive update to the faction. While this was a good thing for the game, as Easterlings are a popular army but were quite underloved/underpowered, the pendulum swung too far the other way. While not an unbeatable army, Easterlings push out many, many armies as they outclass them in terms of winning Duels and general reliability. Let me compile a quick list of why this is:

• 12" Banner Effect with no Penalty, tied to a 6 Wound Model
• 6" +1 Fight Aura
• Extra Banner Effect for Heroes (Legendary Legion)
• Free Black Dragon Upgrade for +1 Courage and Fight (Legendary Legion)
• Access to Heroic March and a Drum
• 8-9pt Warriors for a normal or slightly heightened Warrior count
• Underpriced new models
• Excellent new fighting Heroes

What Easterlings will commonly put on the table is The Emperor, Rutabi, and then another Hero such as Brorgir. If taken outside of the Legendary Legion Khamul the Easterling is a common inclusion, although the Legendary Legion is purely better than the "normal" army, in my opinion. They will also have a Drum via Kataphract, plenty of Fight 5 Pikes (Black Dragon and Emperor Aura) and some mix of Sword Warriors, Acolytes, and/or Drakes.

So what's problematic about that? Well straight off you have a Pike army, that ignores the downside of Pikes, which will have a Fight 5 model in every combat (in the back where they're hard to get to) along with 3 Attacks and a Banner. If an Acolyte goes in the front you can get 3 Attacks with two models, or 4 Attacks with three models. The immense size of the Banner Aura (partially due to The Emperor's base size) allows Easterlings to spread out if they want and render a normal, 3" Banner, almost useless. Of course in nearly every single game Easterlings will have Fight Value or at worst tie, keep in mind this is with very cheap Warriors.

When playing the Legendary Legion the faction also has some of the best fighting Heroes. Both The Emperor and Rutabi have Heroic Strike and are full offense Heroes (3 Might, 3 Attacks). Bringing a third combat Hero just ups this more while bringing Brorgir allows for quite a few options and, to me, is the clear winner. Access to Fury removes Terror as an obstacle, Tremor just straight up kills some armies if shot from the flank, and two combat buffs will quickly end threats when the Heroes win Duels.

Lastly, Easterlings are amazing at almost all Scenarios. Maelstrom Deployment is probably the worst but can either be built around, powered through with Might, or vetoed. The rest are all completely fine and thanks to The Emperor's table-wide Last Stand (on Courage 7 with either version of the army) there is almost never any risk at sending models to camp Objectives. Shutting down The Emperor is nearly impossible as he has Resistant to Magic, great combat ability with a ton of Strikes should he win, immune to Prone/being moved while on his Palanquin, and Heroic Defense. Even sending in something like Gulavhar and a Bat Swarm will yield limited results as the Palanquin has too many Wounds to be one-rounded almost ever and The Emperor will just turtle until his army swarms whatever the threat is.

On the table this creates an army that is exceptional at grinding down opponents with repeated combats, slowly whittling them away and winning on Scenario. Their Leader is hard to wound and much harder to kill, their Break Point will be generally medium to high, and they can move quickly with a Drum and/or Heroic March. Regular Warriors can also take Bows should there be a need to deal with Cavalry, although you're likely to win against their Charges anyways. Due to the sheer size of the Auras, models can spread out or form a tight shield-wall, whatever is needed.

Any opposing army that relies on grinding out a game, fighting straight up, or similar has very little hope of winning. While Heroes can bash through normal Easterling Warriors they'll be stopped by Easterling Heroes and The Emperor will typically quickly kill them unless the model has exceptional Defense. I have yet to see a straight up combat army that can out-fight Easterlings assuming even play skill, even a hard hitter like The Riders of Theoden will be hard pressed to make serious progress.

So...Now What?

While Easterlings are an over-centralizing presence in the meta they are not without weaknesses. Let's take a look at some of those:

Lethality

While Easterlings are great at winning Duels, they're mostly Strength 3 with no way to increase that. This makes Defense 6+ very good against them, if you lose combat but don't die then everything is okay. Most of their kills against such an opponent will come from Heroes which allows for some counter-play, especially if Rutabi can be controlled or assassinated.

A list with three fighty Heroes will do better against Defense 6+ while a list with Brorgir will have a tougher time, especially if Tremor isn't allowed free reign. While this doesn't help regarding a proactive plan, it can keep you in the game long enough for other things to work.

Siege Engines

Easterlings are one of the worst armies when it comes to playing against Siege Engines because they rely on long files and Heroes to win. Taking out the Palanquin or The Emperor is a huge prize but even just blasting Warriors can make a major impact. Siege Engines will force the army to spread out, possibly allowing for a quick strike before they can get themselves back together.

The downside to this is Siege Engines are notoriously unreliable, so only armies that can use them effectively are likely to be able to use this strategy. Assault on Helm's Deep, Dale, and the like should be able to rely on their Siege Engines but just slapping an Iron Hills Ballista into a list won't always bear fruit. Terrain can also be a major factor in how effective Siege Engines are so it pays to know your meta or the general setups when attending an event.

Monsters

With Easterlings being reliant on positioning to fight at their best, Monsters can be a real pain for them. The ideal option with a Monster is to Hurl from a flank, taking out a bunch of Pikes from supporting at the very least. This is most reliably done with a Monster Hero so you can Might to win the Duel, or maybe even Heroic Strike. Monsters are also just good at killing and the faster you can punch a hole in their lines, the better.

Using non-Hero Monsters requires more finesse as an Easterling Hero can easily spoil your fun. Similarly you'll need Priority with a normal Monster as otherwise their combat will be chosen last, negating the effect of the Hurl. Heroic Combat can get around that but otherwise you're going to have to be cagey as to when you go in.

Even without Priority a Monster can Barge, disrupting formations and potentially getting somewhere juicy such as into Black Dragons. Easterlings have no ability to control or remove a Monster from range unless they have Khamul, who's not the best at casting, so in general this seems to be one of the more reliable strategies.

Magic

It's unfortunate that The Emperor is so meaningfully resistant to magic, however the rest of the army is not so lucky. Rutabi only has 2 Will, making her a prime target for Immobilize and the like. This can force The Emperor in, which may be to your advantage, or simply eliminate the primary killing piece of the army as The Emperor stays away.

Command can cheekily pull the middle model out of a Pike line, suddenly leaving the front model by itself and without Fight 5. While nice you have to be good at killing and have a solid Wizard to make this work as it's slow and grindy. Much better are Spells like Wrath of Bruinen, enabling enough Prone to get a lot of work done. Again, this isn't something most armies have access to so one size does not fit all.

High Model Count

Continuing down the path of strategies not everyone can follow, Easterlings seem as though they can struggle against very high model counts. What this allows you to do is wrap around the flanks and take some Pikes out of the equation, possibly losing your own models but also wearing down the front. This works much better if you can get the Easterlings spread out but that assumes an appropriate Scenario or a mistake from the opponent.

For my money, the best army at this is either Lake-Town variant. Army can get up to Fight 4, equaling the non-Black Dragons. Survivors can take Axes, allowing them to kill on 5's. Both can get a very wide Banner effect with is crucial for counter-acting The Emperor's Aura. 

High Fight

Lastly, you can simply out-fight Easterlings but this is very tough to do. You'll want a lot of Fight 6 as otherwise you're probably throwing less dice (due to Pikes) and relying on a 50/50 if you do tie. Of the armies that can do this I think only Lothlórien is viable, Last Alliance doesn't have the staying power and will be badly outnumbered. Bat Swarms and things will also work but it's tough to do more than one combat at a time with Magic/Effects that reduce Fight.

In general this is probably the least useful/reliable strategy, the high Fight of Easterlings is what makes them a bit too good so it's not surprising that other factions can't do the same.

 

Desired Changes

While I don't rely on FAQs/Erratas to fix things, Easterlings are certainly an army deserving of one. I actually have no issue with any of the models that came from Defense of the North, I have an issue with their cost. The Emperor is completely unacceptable at 170 Points, he should be a minimum of 200, I'd opt for 220. Models with exceptional Auras are better the larger their army is, so to reign them in you allow them to bring less stuff. Rutabi and Brorgir are also underpriced although not by as much, they could use 10-20 Point increases just to be in line with other, similar, Heroes. Finally, Acolytes could use a 1 Point increase or so.

Along the same lines I think all the Legendary Legion needs is to lose the free Black Dragon upgrade OR keep it but remove the +Fight from the effect. There simply can't be a Fight 5 army unless you're paying Elf Points and combined with all the other effects it's out of control. With the Black Dragon cost, Easterlings are fairly pointed but without it they're quite busted. Sadly the writers of the game already failed to reign in the army so my hope of this happening is limited. MESBG isn't competitive enough to really show the cracks in the game, if this was 40K the next large event would probably have a huge Easterling showing and force the issue.

My Workarounds

Initially I thought my favored Lake-Town and Lothlórien army wouldn't be able to handle Easterlings but upon reflection I think I have a chance. With enough Bows I should be able to net a few kills and tilt the numbers further in my favor, then use my model count and Court Guard to good effect. Militia can attack the flanks, breaking the game into multiple Duels, while Fight 6 Elves hold the center against Fight 5. I also have Galadriel to deal with Rutabi or move Pikes out. It's probably not a favored matchup but I think it's doable.

Evil has been more of a slog, not because nothing in Evil can beat Easterlings but because I only play Take On All Comers lists. Something like Assault on Helm's Deep has their own terrible matchups in turn so personally I don't opt for them. I think Angmar does well with all their Monster Heroes but Mordor might be my go to. I'm still working on particulars but if you're only after anti-Easterlings I love War Beasts, Demolition Teams (Isengard), Monster Heroes, Monsters, and the like. Just taking Warriors and relying on them will get you beat every time and Evil has very little solid shooting to get anything done with. I think I'll be going with M&M, Monsters and Magic, and see how that works out.

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Those are my thoughts on Easterlings and their place in the current game. I'd love to hear from others about their Easterling experiences, what seems to work against them, and so on. Drop a comment and we can talk about it, otherwise I hope this has been useful to someone out there. Thanks for reading. :]