The Army of the Dead
The dead men of Dunharrow got a bit of a glow up in the new edition, namely with that 8" movement rate. With the Spectral Walk ability supporting this, allowing them to never be slowed by Difficult Terrain and auto-pass Climb, Jump, Leap and Swim as if they'd rolled sixes, they are some of the most maneoverable troops in the game. Depending on the terrain, they can arguably out-move cavalry, something you only really otherwise see from Uruk-hai scouts or flying creatures.
Whilst they are only F3 base (boosted to F4 rarely), their speed, Terror and D7 (D8 with Shield) really allow them to pick and choose their fights and survive bad situations much better than anything outside of Dwarves. Where they do win, expect them to do damage as well, with Blades of the Dead allowing them to attack the Courage value rather than the (usually higher) Defence value. Assuming you aren't facing pjama elves (who outfight the Dead and actually have higher Defence against them), you should have a good chance of winning any infantry grind, even with your likely lower numbers.
In any list they are present (Defenders of the Pelennor and Return of the King) they will also always be accompanied by at least one of the Three Hunters and/or the King of the Dead, offering a wonderful boost where they'll often be the anvil to the heroes' hammer.
In Return of the King, the Dead are your entire force both mounted and on foot. They will support the heroes perhaps more than the other way around though, with movement, high defence and Terror allowing them to be a strong screening force for letting the tag team of Aragorn and the King of the Dead to put pressure where they needs to and avoid being surrounded. At the same time, they can quickly and efficiently get to objectives or board edges without even needing March in a lot of cases.
For supporting the Dead themselves, in Pelennor they can be joined by F4 troops from Gondor, various cavalry options for the knockdown, and ranged firepower with various bows, throwing weapons and even siege weapons. There's also the option of Gandalf the White for magical support. In this list, the Dead will often be either your shock troops or a core part of your battleline, albeit an expensive one that has to compete with Gondor troops for the role.
Pelennor is also the only way to run a pure Dunharrow list, should you want to.
That latter list is where I will be using them. I'm only painting up 7 for now, but at 14pts a pop (15 with the shield) that's at least 100pts already, with the added tax of needed Legolas, Gimli or the King at minimum to field them (all 100pts base) it's a decent investment to field them. They will work well as a strike force for my Pelennor lists, which are currently a mix of Rohan Cavalry, Gondor shieldwalls and a smattering of support pieces such as Lossarnach Axemen and a single Bolt Thrower.
For the painting, I went with a light grey primer, then picked out the metals with Vallejo's Natural Steel. Everything was washed with a Citadel's Biel-Tan Green Shade.
Spectres
Spectres are the perhaps the closest match Evil Armies have the the Army of the Dead, but one that trades combat ability for support ability.
They match the Dead with the Spectral Walk, Terror and S3 Blades of the Dead abilities, which is nice, but move slower at 6" and are F2 and D6, one point less in each of these stats and with no option for a shield (or any other wargear for that matter). Costing the same as a Warrior of the Dead with a Shield, that's not exactly something you want to field as your main battleline.
Instead, the Spectres strength is in its A Fell Light is in Them ability. In the move phase each Spectre can force any single model it can see within 12" to pass an Intelligence test or be forced to make its full move towards the Spectre. There are some limitations to this, such as the move cannot be used to directly cause damage by falling or Charge into combat (except against the Spectre, should you wish it), but it remains a powerful ability.
Spectres can pull models out of formation, perhaps ruining a Shieldwall defence bonus, preventing shooting or even simply allowing your own troops to mob up and surround one of the opponent's warriors away from the battleline. You can pull a banner bearer out of position, or an objective holder into a trap.
Of course, it can always fail, especially if the opponent has high Intelligence stats (especially the case with heroes), but 2 or 3 Spectres could all target the same model and through sheer pressure of dice, move them forwards and cause disruption in the opponent's formation that you can capitalise on.
I've just built one for now, the base model being a Wood Elf warrior with an arm from the Mirkwood Rangers sprue, a spare sword and a mix of cuts and greenstuff to ruin the clothing. Painting was done in the same fashion as the Dead above, but I chose to include a Reikland Fleshshade wash on the areas of skin. It's a sublte different but I like it.
I'll be definitely adding more Spectres to my armies, as I feel they are key parts of the Angmar and Minas Morgul lists. I plan to run the former more often, as I already have a decent number of Orcs and Carn Dum warriors that can really benefit from some movement shenanigans.
Shade
The final new addition I have for this batch is the Shade. Unlike the previous profiles, this one is a Hero, but still shares the trifecta of Spectral Walk, Terror and Blades of the Dead. Like it's compatriot the Spectre, it is certainly not a combat piece, F1 and S1 don't go very far even with 2 Attacks. It is at least survivable, sporting D8, a healthy 3 Wounds and even a single Fate point.
Instead, the Shade is firmly a Support Hero, with three abilities for helping your list.
Starting with Conduit of Angmar, the Shade can be used as the casting point and Line-of-Sight for any Ringwraith's magic, similar to Crebain for Saruman. This goes further as well, where if the Wraith happens to be within 6" of the Shade, they can cause a Wound to add a one to their Casting Roll. The first half of this roll is lovely and really helps keep the magical oppression going on your opponent, as it's tough to hide from multiple angles. The second half is likely to be rarely used outside of key moments where a spell could win or lose games, but should be remembered, even if it costs you the Shade itself.
Swirling Mists is a lesser version of Blinding Light (perhaps more akin to Khazad-Dum's mirrors), and inflicts a -1 penalty to shooting attacks on models with 6" of the Shade at the cost of one of its 4 points of Will. Very useful when your lists typically comprise in majority of D4 and D5 Orcs. As an added bonus, if your Shade happens to be within 12" of the shooter it becomes a -2 penalty instead, favouring an up-close playstyle.
Finally, the Shade has Ghostly Resolve, a passive ability that gives all friendly Angmar Orcs within 12" a +1 to Courage Tests. With Orcs being as famously cowardly as they are, this at least brings them up to being on par with most Man warrior profiles and will help in those cases where the opponent also has some Terror.
These three abilities are great of course, but that's not where the fun ends. Being a Spirit Hero, it will usually provide the Terror rule to Angmar Orcs within 3" and it also has Dominant 3. These rules and it's defensive stats all come together to help make the Shade and its warband a decent enough speedbump for holding objectives. It's a solid Hero for just 75pts and I look forward to taking one in a Host of the Witch King list some point soon.
I quite like GW's official model, but ever on a budget I settled instead for building my own using some Age of Sigmar ghosts (nighthaunts?) that I picked a sprue of by random a few years back. I fused two of these together with a bit of greenstuff, removing the scythe-hands and replacing them with simple hand weapons from the Vitrix Vikings sprue. Once again, I used the same painting style.
Where are the Barrow Wights?
Whilst there are more Spirit models in the MESBG range, most of the rest of them are Ringwraiths and they are kind of their own beasts. The last proper ghost model is the Barrow Wight, which I've not included here. This is partly because I don't have any of the official models and have had no real ideas on how to properly represent them with the parts I have on hand. They will have to wait for a later date to join my forces.
They are still a useful part of any Angmar list, and sport the wildly useful Paralyse Magical Power. This is one of those more controversial abilities in MESBG, especially when used en-masse, but not one that cannot be played around or countered, especially with the tiny 6" casting range. Still, that's not for a deep discussion now.
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Until next time!
