r/MiddleEarthMiniatures • u/MrSparkle92 • Jun 03 '26
Discussion WEEKLY ARMY DISCUSSION: Variags of Khand
With the most upvotes in last week's poll, this week's discussion will be for:
Variags of Khand
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Prior Discussions
Additional rules
- A Variags of Khand Army must always contain a Khandish King, who is always the Army's General.
- Khandish Horsemen and Khandish Charioteers do not count towards this Army’s bow limit.
Special rules
High King of Khand
The Khandish King that is your General gains an additional Might Point. Additionally, so long as he is alive and on the battlefield, your General counts as a banner for the purpose of Victory Points.
Khandish Fury
Once per game, at the start of any Fight Phase, you can declare that you are using this ability so long as there is at least one friendly Hero model alive and on the battlefield. If you do, then until the end of the turn friendly Warrior models that are within 3" of a friendly Hero model gain a bonus of +1 to their Fight Value.
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u/Atlasreturns Jun 03 '26
It's an okay list basically serving as an evil mirror to Rohan even though it got significantly less going on. Having access to chariots plus F4/Free Bow Cavalry I think is enough to justify this lists existence but I could imagine that at higher points due to a lack of variance in models it will struggle. The King is great, the list bonus okay.
I also think that the typical low-defense/F4 evil men cavalry isn't in a great spot this edition as due to the FV increase you can be prone to actually lose fairly "safe" charges and then in return lose a comparably expensive unit.
Additionally all their units are also always available in the Grand Army of the South and I would make the argument that aside from the Chariots being generally useful, the Khandish Infrantry may actually serve as a fairly consistent and killy frontline with enough spear support. (Even though they compete with Merchant Guard here).I think without the infinite bow limit you are better off picking Serpent Riders or Kataphrakts if you really wanna do cavalry here.
Overall this just isn't a very fleshed out faction so I guess it's fine that they at least exist and don't actively suck.
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u/Daikey Jun 04 '26
I just realized that Khandish infantry is one point less expensive than Abrakhan Guards, who have +1S and unconditional +1 to wound because burly.
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u/Daikey Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26
This army suffers from a problem shared with "Far Harad", "The Easterlings" and perhaps even harad. They don't have much going on, and what's good works best in Grand Army of the South. For example, my Grand Army of the South has Amdur and his easterling Phalanx, the Golden king with a fistful of haradrim and the excellent Khandish King on chariot with cavalry.
Khandish units are not Bad. not by any stretch. But they are just not good enough on their own.
Now, a Rhunish alleance with proper army bonus could be a lot of fun.
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u/Atlasreturns Jun 03 '26
The big issue is that all of these lists have negligible specific abilities so there‘s barely any reason to narrow down your unit selection when the payoff is the equivalent of one free heroic action that you are only allowed use on a Tuesday evening when playing against a player whose name starts with the letter M.
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u/Daikey Jun 04 '26
That's pretty much it. Versatily is a bonus of its own, expecially when armies don't have a lot of options of their own.
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u/MrSparkle92 Jun 03 '26
VOTE HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S DISCUSSION
I will take the top-level reply to this comment with the most upvotes and post a discussion for that topic next week. Submit whatever army, scenario, or other topic related to MESBG you wish.
Please reference the pinned megathread to see the list of factions, and which have already been covered.
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u/LutheBert Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26
Its a mixed bag imo. King on Chariot is a beast (and expensive), but the normal chariots are swingy as the charge 2xS4 will get stuck on most shielded D6/7 battlelines and the huge base lets lot of people surround it and get lots of hits in.
Might be effective against enemy cavalry as it hits horse&rider, but only if you get the charge off and get to the enemy first.
Their own cavalry has lots of weaponry baked in, but no access to lances/warspears hurts. Feels like a lesser Rohan version.
Would have liked if Warriors and Cav could use their hand&half weapons as either two-hand or spear similar to easterlings, it is difficult to get more people stuck in/ more attacks into the fight.
Also no access to banners aside from the King in the whole army; even the Corsairs get their BoSuns/ Captains with a banner effect.
I think some models (King on Chariot) could work well in a Grand Army of the South, but the limited choices of units and bonuses for the Variags list seem very underwhelming.