Thoughts on Keith Conroy's Herd

I played a lot of the Herd in 2024 - about 1/3 of my games last year involved the army. I learned a lot and had a ton of fun, but they were (and still are) quite a difficult army to play. Nearer to the end of the year, I stumbled onto the US Masters 2021 results, in which Keith Conroy's Herd won it all, much to the surprise of basically all involved. 

"A very fast, maneuverable list, that …. in the hands of a player who understands the movement of the game, [is] quite quite deadly, despite being from an army that many consider to be one of the weaker armies in the game." - Matt Carmack 2021

Finding the list itself was pretty easy. It’s success actually warped unit discussions and army reviews of the Herd afterwards. However, it took some effort to dig out some additional sources to put the list and approach into better context. The more I researched though, the more I realized this wasn’t a build specific to this particular event – he ran a very similar list at the 2020 US Masters, and he’s been running similar lists throughout 3rd Edition, and has garnered a lot of respect for doing so. 

The 2021 List, and basis for my iterations.

With this being a distinct build and style for Keith and not a one-time gimmick, in 2025 I decided to explore it myself, as I wanted to explore alpha strike as a style, and this seemed like a a great place to start from. With my digging, I found several iterations of Keith's Herd lists. I took what I felt was the core of those, and then started iterating on it myself in an attempt to explore the style more. To me, the core of the list was:

• Spirit Walker Horde with Brew of Speed. The item makes the infantry horde is surprisingly fast, with a 15-17 inch charge range. The horde can hit surprisingly hard, with 30 quality attacks, Pathfinder and TC1, and can get buffed by Bane Chant to really put a dent in things. In practice, the horde is also surprisingly tanky, despite a pitiful Def3. The key here is the infantry horde Nerve, plus Fearless. They usually wouldn’t survive a game, but will often get the first charge to delete a unit, get hit but survive to punch back, and only get picked up after a second big combat against them. They won't carry you, but can set you up for success if used well.
• Beasts of Nature with extra attacks and fly. They are tall and small, and can often make some unexpected multi-charges in the midgame. They are expensive, but Pathfinding, flying monsters can land in forests and be really hard to pin down. Overall, if used well, they can bounce from combat to combat and really punish opponents for any positioning mistakes.
• Lycans, with Items. The items changed over time in his lists, eventually taking less waver mitigation and more things to increase their damage output. I experimented a bit with the number of units and items as well in my forays. The unit is amazingly fast, but also fragile, with just CS1 on the offense and Def4 on the defense. They are not a hammer, and the overall “trick” here seems to be to use the Speed and Nimble to pressure your opponent, to threaten things and force reactions, and then strike when you can get a good multi-charge. 
• Mounted Druids. I already liked the basic Bane Chant Druids in my own infantry-based herd lists, and quickly grew to like the mounted versions too. Given the massive speed throughout Keith's lists, having support units that keep pace is a must, and the mounts are needed so they can both cast and keep things Inspired.

With the core figured out, I tried iterating on it to add my own twists, and seeing what I could learn.

Battle 117 - We took the core, but just two Lycan hordes felt a bit light. I added two regiments, and tried out the Avatar of the Father against the Brothermark. The extra regiments felt nice, adding just a little more staying power and ways to pressure. We were a little unlucky, but came away with a tie in Control.

Battle 122 - We took a third Lycan Horde this time, plus the Avatar of the Father again. This time we were against Frostclaw-heavy Northern Alliance. The third horde felt good, and provided better staying power for the list. We got a little unlucky again, and were dealt a loss.

Battle 131 - We took the basic core against some Halflings practicing for US Masters. I added a Verdant component to the list, with three regiments of Shamblers and the Wiltfather, the thinking being that these higher-defense units might hold stuff up and enable better alpha strikes for me. It was an immensely bloody game, but no Round 7 saw the Halflings take a narrow win over the Herd.

Battle 135 - We took the third Lycan horde again, and dropped down to 1 BC Druid in order to take multiple Lycan Alphas and Moonfang. We were up against a neat Varangur build with a lot of speedy Tundra Wolves, and meaty Draugr. Being slightly speedier with some fliers, the Herd were able to pounce and come away with a big win after neutralizing the opposing speed. 

These were all great games, and I learned a lot. Generalizing, Alpha Strike is not just about speed, and just because you can charge, doesn’t mean you should. The style aims to avoid fighting until you are ready, at which point you pounce. That could be Round 2; that could be Round 4 or 5. If you get your initial engagement timing right, you can often quickly engage in several critical fights at once, and then snowball a combat victory or two for the scenario win. The timing is a hard lesson to learn, but is something I am getting better at with time.

Keith's core list and style is a lot of fun to play. I liked my iterations on it, but I don't want to copy this long term. It is neat to note though, that we arrived at a very similar new core for 2025, with Spirit Walkers, 3 Lycan Hordes, 2 Beasts, and 1 Druid.

Context is important, but the blog site isn't really great for citations, and I wanted to keep this post on the shorter-side. As a bit of a bibliography, the big sources are linked below:

• Forum thread on the 2021 list, post-win. It is not a long discussion, but it presents the list, highlights the important aspects like prodigious speed, pitfalls like obstacles and shooting, and stresses how much skill a low-drop, low-US list like this takes to pilot.
• Universal Battle report From Keith. It's an older list, but it still has the core, and you can actually see how he deployed, and how he played. It's a brief glimpse, but insightful.
• Masters 2025 Matchup Livestream. Keith's list and match-up is discussed around 50 minutes in, and the commenters heap a lot of praise on him. I play both the Varangur and the Herd, and was very surprised to learn that Keith won this match. 
• Forum thread on the Herd, generally. Some good forum discussion regarding Clash Changes at the end of 2021, with a few posts/replies related to Keith's List.
• Counter Charge 525. Keith Conroy (and another Keith) discuss the Clash updates at the end of 2021, highlighting Herd and Elves specifically. 
• Counter Charge 668. Keith Conroy joins to discuss the state of the Herd in 2023, alongside several other Herd enjoyers like Kris Kapsner. 

Again, exploring Keith's style was a lot of fun. I learned a lot about alpha strike lists from these games, and hopefully I can apply some of those lessons to my future lists and games!