The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game/Tactics/Variags of Khand

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Why Play Variags of Khand

If you prefer your army in a more far east Asia flavour then look no further, the Variags of Khand are an army that have the advantage of having chariots, something no other army had until The Iron hills got one.

The new edition helped out khandish a lot, the army bonuses enabling your horse archers to actually be taken in large numbers and chariots actually becoming very strong.

Pros

• Chariots!
• Free archer cavalry

Cons

• No Shields
• Weak Troops
• Inefficient heroes
• Lacks Access to a Banner
• Poor courage

Army Bonus

Any Khandish warriors on charriots and horseback do not count towards the bow limit.

Unit Analysis

Heroes

• Khandish King: A passable choice with decent options, chief amongst which is a Khandish chariot (see charioteer entry). He also acts as a 6" banner for all Khandish models. He’s fairly strong, with access to strike and his banner effect helping out with your lack of spears. However, he's very expensive, which causes some problems with your list. He's the only model with heroic strike and only carries 2 might, meaning you probably want more than one. The banner effect saturates in worth as you stack them, and with their cost it's hard to justify more than one even when you feel like you need it.

• Khandish Chieftain: A standard captain of men statline whose only distinctive feature is the ability to ride a chariot. If you want a chariot hero, the chieftain is probably a better option than the king as he is 35 points cheaper. These guys on chariots make for good allies into other evil forces.

Troops

• Khandish Warriors: It's a fight four bloke wearing armour with a hand-and-half axe. Definitely on the weaker side of the warrior spectrum - their low defence and courage paired with their high costs and lacking access to shields or spears means they'll never really be better than ok. How do we use them? Well, they actually work ok in a pure khandish force. Your army probably lacks might, so over-investing into cavalry that require heroic action backup is risky. Also, your warriors have smaller bases than your cavalry, so you can get more of them inside your king's 6" banner. Hordes of these guys should not be underestimated if you can bring their numbers to bear. Try to trap your opponents and piercing strike with your warriors (lets face it, if you lose you're probably going to die anyway - make use of that hand-and-half axe for that juicy S4). Keep your king alive and the fight centered around them, and hope you win the chaotic brawl.

Cavalry

• Khandish Charioteer: Ah the khandish chariot, the defining profile of this army. They've gone from a fancy, slightly tougher mount on an unreasonably large base to an cheap, maneuverable impact-hitting cavalry model, albeit still on an irritatingly large base. Two S4 hits on the charge is nothing to be scoffed at: although anything D7+ can probably just ignore them, you can punch through D5/6 models and anything D4 is like wheat to the scythes. They're particularly good against cavalry models as they inflict hits on the mount and the rider (tip: throw them into a mounted hero and hope you kill his mount to disable him for at least a turn). They got an awful lot tougher in combat, but the warrior chariot riders are still only D4 and 1 wound, so expect them to die at random and have models nearby to plug the gaps their enormous bases leave behind. Heroes on chariots, however, are deadly. They're higher defence and wounds makes them far more difficult to actually kill, and their additional attacks, fight value, and strength make their charges much more reliable (tip: if you're struggling to push through D7 models, piercing strike with your heroes - their F5 clears most D7 models fight value of 4, they go to S5 and knock prone on the charge. Also, piercing striking doesn't drop the defence of the chariot, so most of the time you won't suffer any repercussions even if you lose).

• Khandish Horseman: Probably the best evil cavalry warrior (excepting maybe warg riders because of how cheap they are). Fight 4, potential to go to S4 and access to a bow makes them incredible skirmish cavalry. The problem? Bow limit can only be avoided in a pure army of a historical alliance, so you refuse a lot of potentially strong allies to get these guys into your list in large numbers. Also, D4 means your opponent will always focus the rider, so they can go down very quickly; and courage 3 is still very unreliable.

Allies

Historical Allies

The Eastern Kingdoms

Convenient Allies

The Serpent Horde

Far Harad

Corsairs of Umbar

Isengard

Mordor

Moria

Impossible Allies

Angmar

Sharkey's Rogues

The Nazgul of Dol Guldur

Azog's Hunters

Azog's Legion

Goblin Town

The Trolls

Smaug

Building your Army

So, for pure khand there are three main ways. The first one: all heroes on chariots. Incredibly strong hitting power, but lacks versatility. If your opponent just sits in a forest or behind a small wall you're pretty much screwed. The second: all mounted khandish. Pick up a few heroes and then horde out as much cavalry (and maybe chariots) as you can. You'll probably want at least one hero on a horse so you can more easily position him for heroic actions. The third is a combined arms: grab two or three heroes and max out your warbands with mostly warriors, as well as a few horsemen for flanking and objective pressure. All these armies should feature a Khandish King on chariot as your lynchpin - it's the strongest profile in the army.

Mostly, though, you'll be looking to allies. You want something that can make up for your weaknesses - strong heroes and casters are obvious choices. Your only options for historical allies are Easterlings, so Amdur and Khamul are obvious choices. If you're willing to sacrifice your bow limit for horsemen, then you can look at things like the witch-king or saruman, maybe even a Shade if you really want to push for outfighting your opponent.

Overall, though, Khandish make better allies than they do a core force. Dropping in a chieftain on chariot or two into another army can really give it an aggressive punch, especially for easterlings who are mostly S3 and who don't have to concede their army bonus for it.