The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game/Tactics/The Wanderers in the Wild

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Why Play The Wanderers in the Wild

You’re an absolute lore nut who still gets mad at how Tom Bombadil was cut out of the films; or, you want to recreate obscure scenes as part of a campaign. That’s honestly it. These guys do not synergise well with anybody and really aren’t a proper army on their own.

Pros

• They’re actually quite fun to play around with, lots of interesting rules and general fuckery.
• Decent looking (?) and pretty unique models if you can get hold of them.

Cons

• Tom and Goldberry are expensive for what they bring, which isn’t a whole lot outside their batshit stats and special rules.
• The two Dwarves are kinda boring and are Historical Allies with no one except Minas Tirith, and only if the army includes Cirion (aka the only Not Good named hero of Minas Tirith)

Army Bonus

Since the wanderers are just a handful of heroes who live in the wild and not an actual army you don't have any army Bonus.

Unit Analysis

Heroes

• Tom Bombadil: Lorewise he’s literally God. Crunchwise he is one weird bag of tricks: all of his stats, excepting Will, are set at ‘?’. Nothing can charge him, nothing can shoot him, nothing can cast magic powers at him, and nothing can enter his control zone. If he charges, any combat he is involved in is automatically won, however, he and anyone else involved cannot strike blows. He moves at full speed through all areas of difficult terrain, and has one magical power that regenerates a single point of M/W/F for a single friendly hero within range - it goes off on a 2+ and he has a huge stock of Will, so you can rely on a successful cast pretty much every turn - this spell seems to be the main reason for his genuinely shocking 160 points cost. Altogether he’s a strong buff character with, essentially, invincibility (shame he’s functionally incompatible with nearly every other army in the game).
• Hilariously, this weird little model is probably the only thing in the game that can survive Smaug/Sauron/the Balrog and win a fight against all three of them at once - Tom is superb at locking down overpowered enemies like this; although he can’t damage them, he can put them out of action for whole turns at a time, with no danger to himself.

• Goldberry: She’s identical to her husband in every sense; the only difference is that she can’t be brought unless Tom is also in the army. GW are sexist

• Murin & Drar: Two bffs who roam the wilds having adventures - honestly, an odd choice if you bring these guys, since they don’t bring much that any army can’t get for themselves whilst still keeping their army bonus. Yes, you read that right; despite being these famous travelling adventurers who’ve fought all across Middle-Earth, they are only Historical Allies with Minas Tirith (and even then only if Cirion of Amon Barad is included). Gamewise, they’re a dwarf with a dwarf bow and a shoot of 3+, and another dwarf with a shield and sword who’s slightly better against Orcs and Goblins in combat. Weird.