The New Age Is Begun: the Defenders of the Pelennor Army List

Good morning gamers,

This month is "Pelennor month" and we've covered the Fiefdoms (lots of Gondor units with special take-this-hero-to-get-these-warriors rules), the Grief of Eomer (a mix of Gondor and Rohan units, led by two smashy heroes), and the Return of the King (all of the ghosts with the Three Hunters thrown in). Today, we're taking all of those units - plus a bunch of others who show up in the Atop the Walls list - and putting them into one monster list! In trade for this greatly expanded roster, we're going to have a single special rule . . . but don't let that knowledge cramp your style. The list is very strong and gives veteran players a lot of options for list building. Let's see what we have to work with today!

The Defenders of the Pelennor: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

There are a ton of profiles in this list - the full list is provided in the profile adjustment section below. Suffice it to say that if you're looking for someone from Minas Tirith, the Fiefdoms, Rohan, or the Rangers who was fighting in the War of the Ring, chances are good that you'll find them in this list.

Army List Bonuses

This list has some army building restrictions - none of which are unique to this list. Your Rohan Warriors have to be led by Rohan Heroes, your Gondor Warriors need to be led by Gondor Heroes, and your Dunharrow Warriors have to be led by a Dunharrow Hero or one of the Three Hunters. The omission in this list is that the Rangers don't have the ability to lead anyone - they're included because of their appearance in the Return of the King book, where they led Clansmen of Lamedon (and other Fiefdoms militia from the coast), so it seems to me that they should be able to lead other units (maybe if there are no Dunharrow units in your list to be book-accurate?).

Beyond this, there's only one rule: each Hero in your army gets to declare a free Heroic Combat once per game. This is a really great rule since a) it's free, so Grima can't make it cost extra Might, b) it affects all heroes regardless of their affiliations, and c) it's easy to keep track of for both you and your opponent. On its face, this is weaker than the Riders of Theoden army list (where you get a once-per-game Heroic Combat on a single turn if Theoden is still alive, but also get +1 Strength on the Charge) and probably weaker than the Return of the King (where you get Anduril for free and F4 on some of your Warriors), but overall, it helps this list a lot in that you can take the list in any direction and you won't be fighting against the army list bonus.

The New Age Is Begun: the Fiefdoms Army List

Good morning gamers,

We're kicking off Pelennor Fields month with a list that I'm very glad I waited to review until after the FAQ dropped: the Fiefdoms. At the start of the last edition, I was completely blown away by the "overlapping bubble" rules that the army list had (the Fearless and Banner buffs in particular) and the units themselves were pretty average cost for above-average Fight (for the most part) and low-to-average Defense (for the most part). At the end of the last edition, I was building lists around Imrahil and Gandalf the White, using Minas Tirith frontliners supported by Dol Amroth pikemen. This edition, the Fiefdoms plays pretty differently with some very, VERY drastic changes to reign them in (and yet no commensurate price drop appears to be present for their units) - I'm a pretty generous person and I try to write that way on this blog, but I gotta say, this army seems a little over-priced on a few units and so . . . prepare for not a lot of variety in the lists at the end. :) Let's see what lies beyond the realm of Minas Tirith as we travel south and west through Gondor to find the oft-unsung heroes of the Pelennor fields. As we do in this series, anything that's strictly tied to Legacy profiles will be in red.

The Fiefdoms: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

There aren't any new profiles for this Gondorian subfaction - though Imrahil got a fancy new sculpt! We have the OG named heroes of Imrahil, Forlong, Angbor, and Duinhir alongside Captains of Dol Amroth for our generic heroes. We also have Knights of Dol Amroth (foot or mounted), Men-at-Arms of Dol Amroth if you're using Legacies, Clansmen of Lamedon, Axemen of Lossarnach, and Blackroot Vale Archers. While we have all of these guys on the roster, your actual roster may vary a little . . .

Army List Bonuses

The army list in this edition is . . . a little weird, but thematically better than last edition. While you used to be able to take all of the warrior types in the list, regardless of which heroes came with them, now you have to have at least one hero of each subfaction (Dol Amroth, Lamedon, Lossarnach, and the Blackroot Vale) in order to bring warriors of the same type. This makes sense to me - though as was noted in our custom list at the end of the last edition, the Clansmen of Lamedon that show up at Minas Tirith are led by an unknown Captain, not Angbor . . . so maybe there should have been an exception for Clansmen of Lamedon?

The profiles are, however, exactly what you expect: Prince Imrahil and Captains of Dol Amroth (who can give you access to Knights/Men-at-Arms of Dol Amroth if you want someone cheap), Angbor the Fearless (who gives you access to Clansmen of Lamedon), Forlong the Fat (who gives you access to Axemen of Lossarnach), and Duinhir (who gives you access to Blackroot Vale Archers). This functionally means that you might be forced into two or three of the factions if you want an all-around list (cavalry/expensive front-line infantry - and/or supporting models - from Dol Amroth, bows/supporting models from Blackroot Vale, front-line guys from either Lamedon or Lossarnach).

Stupidly Fun Lists, Part I

Good morning gamers,

Recently, we had a "longtime reader" send us the following comment:

I have 2 rather stupid but fun list ideas. This is already a suggestion for a category for you guys ;) "Just dumb fun lists" or so.

Anyway: List 1: All artillery gondor (3 Trebuchet,, 3 avenger bolt throwers, flesh out with whatever.

List 2: All fellbeast mounted nazgul, air superiority fighters. Welcome to the black dart missile age.

I always wanted to run this with allied dol guldur nazguls or castellans if somehow possible, but well.

Alternatively: Troll-only Barad dur squad. I still have to paint my trolls though

I began writing a reply when I decided that the "comments section" of an old post wasn't the right place to do it. This got me thinking as well about what lists would be "stupidly fun" to run - and maybe these thoughts will give you things to think about as well. With that, let's kick off a new series on "stupidly fun" lists to run - and how to make them viable (if not competitive). For the sake of starting somewhere, our lists today will all be 650pts - this should mean that you're probably 100-150pts off of whatever game you're playing, since many events are still run at the 500-800pt level.

Back to Basics, Revisited: Cavalry in MESBG

Editor's note: sorry to the 182 viewers who saw a blank page - the article was written, but didn't get pasted in on time. :-)

Good morning gamers,

We're back in our Back to Basics series today and we're looking at a part of the game that became much more balanced in the current edition of the game: cavalry!
When you could buy a horse or armored horse for 10-15pts/hero, there was basically no reason NOT to buy it. Now, for basic mounts costing 20-25pts/hero (more for elite cavalry options, like the White Warg) and with the addition of the Sharpshooter keyword on many bow-armed heroes, buying a horse is still usually a good idea, but you might choose to pass on it if you don't think you can keep the mount alive.

While we'll be covering the basics of how cavalry work today, you can find more tactical discussions about how to use cavalry in our Cavalry Charge formations series (which was written for the last edition of the game, but the mechanics haven't changed and the articles are still very much applicable to the current edition of the game).

Moving Your Cavalry

It won't come as any surprise to start off by saying that cavalry move faster than your everyday, run-of-the-mill infantry. Sure, there are things like Wild Wargs that move as fast as a horse can and are TECHNICALLY infantry, but man-sized models (and shorter ones) are going to move 4-8" and cavalry will be faster than that (10-12"). This extra movement usually means that a) they can reach a far-flung objective in a turn or two, b) can get around the enemy flanks to charge vulnerable units, and c) if equipped with ranged weapons, they can usually "kite" away from enemy infantry while still shooting at them (moving at half speed, as we talked about in the Shoot Phase post).

But cavalry are different from infantry when they move - first and foremost because their bases are larger than your standard infantry base. Larger bases are a thing when it comes to moving - gaps between models or between a model and a terrain piece have to be pretty big for a 40mm base to pass through them. These large base sizes also mean that more models can charge into a cavalry model's base (or monster's base or whatever), so cavalry should expect to be charged by more things than usual.

Second, cavalry don't treat difficult terrain the same way infantry do: an infantry model moves at half speed through most kinds of terrain (to include your generic "difficult terrain" in the form of marshes and bogs, "woodland difficult terrain" for woods, "rocky difficult terrain" for rocky ground/outcroppings, and "shallow water difficult terrain"). Cavalry work differently: shallow water is treated by cavalry models (and various other unit types, like war beasts) as open terrain, so they can splash through it without any reduction to their speed. All other kinds of difficult terrain, however, reduce cavalry speed to a quarter unless there's a rule that says otherwise. This means cavalry will move as slow as an infantry model will (and often a little slower), so avoid difficult terrain like the plague with these guys if you can help it. If you play with deep water (where models can drown if they enter it), having a mount gives you a +1 to your swim test roll (though if you have heavy armor and a shield, those will apply -1 penalties to your roll, so best not to risk it). Most players don't bother with deep water in Matched Play, but this is good to know nonetheless.

Some cavalry models have special rules that allow them to ignore the penalties for moving through difficult terrain (the most common is the Woodland Creature rule) - but please note that the mount, not the rider, needs to have the special rule in order to ignore the difficult terrain. If the mount has the rule, then the movement penalties will be ignored. There's more to talk about with regard to difficult terrain, but I'm going to put a pin in the discussion for now - we'll be revisiting this a little later, though, when we get to cavalry in combat.

Cavalry models can also dismount in the game: sometimes having a mount can actually be restriction on you as a model (which could be the result of needing to get into a piece of difficult terrain, getting into a narrow space that your cavalry base can't fit into, digging up an objective, or reducing your base size so you can escape the reach of a big monster/hero). Whatever the reason, a model can choose to dismount if they wish at any point in their move: before you remove the mount, place the infantry model for the rider in base contact with the mount. If the model has already moved more than its infantry movement allowance, then it cannot move further that turn - otherwise, it can keep moving up to its remaining infantry movement (including charging other models). You can't dismount into a combat (so if you intend to charge someone after dismounting, make sure you have the movement left).

Note that a model that chooses to dismount cannot remount his steed during the game with one exception: in the Fangorn army list, Merry and Pippin can be taken as a 10pt upgrade for Treebeard. They begin perched on Treebeard's shoulder/head and can throw rocks at people from above. They can also choose to "dismount" from Treebeard and "remount" if they want to. Treebeard doesn't count as a cavalry model while they're sitting on his head, though, so it's not TECHNICALLY dismounting from a cavalry model - and to be more accurate, Merry and Pippin are "passengers" on Treebeard.

The rules for passengers can be found in the Advanced section of the rules on page 115 of the new rulebook and only apply to a select set of models in normal Matched Play games: Eowyn with Merry, Gandalf with Pippin, Treebeard with Merry and Pippin, Legolas and Gimli, and the Warg Marauder model. Passengers don't often do anything while traveling with a mount and rider, but they can choose to dismount if they wish to (unlike a rider dismounting, the passenger can't move any further that turn - but the cavalry model can - though Gimli has a rule that changes this). These models have special rules that provide you with strong benefits if you don't dismount (unless you're counting how many models can escape a board edge - if so, you want to dismount the passenger so they count as a separate model from the rider). If you shoot at a mounted model with a passenger on it, you make the normal horse-or-rider in-the-way test, but if the rider is hit, you then roll to determine if the rider or the passenger is hit. Should the rider dismount/be killed/otherwise be thrown from the mount, the passenger will take a Thrown Rider test as well.

The final thing we need to talk about with regard to cavalry and the Move phase is charging. Sure, cavalry are fast, but if they didn't attack any better than infantry, their increased cost would make them a luxury most generals wouldn't want to pay for. Cavalry get two excellent bonuses when charging infantry (both of which we talked about in our Fight Phase post): Extra Attack and Knock to the Ground. When a cavalry model charges an infantry model (or more than one infantry model), they get +1 Attack (so a 1 Attack warrior becomes a 2 Attack warrior). If the cavalry model wins the fight and the infantry that were charged are below S6, the infantry are Knocked Prone and the wounding dice of the cavalry model are doubled (2 Attacks becomes two sets of 2 dice). This usually results in at least one dead infantry model!

Sometimes only one of these rules with trigger - when charging a S6+ Infantry model, for example (or any Infantry Monster model), a cavalry model would get the +1 Attack for charging an infantry model, but the Knocked to the Ground rule wouldn't trigger because the model has more than S5. Sometimes, however, neither rule will trigger - and the most common situation for this is if a cavalry model a) charges at least one cavalry model, b) is counter-charged by a cavalry model, or c) moved through/into difficult terrain during its move. When there are cavalry fighting other cavalry or cavalry that have moved through difficult terrain, their extra rules are cancelled and they fight . . . well, they fight pretty much like infantry models. It often pays to have a few cavalry in your army to turn off important cavalry charges from the enemy - and Rythbyrt taught me a formation a few years ago that can help do that.

Okay, that's about all we need to cover on the Move phase - let's move on to shooting!

Shooting At Cavalry

Shooting with cavalry works exactly the same way as with infantry - you can move half or all of your movement based on what weapons you have and you're good to go. Because cavalry are faster than infantry, this usually means you'll move a few inches more than an infantry shooting model will, but you're probably also moving slower than an infantry model at a dead run. Shooting AT cavalry, however, requires one additional roll (most of the time): when cavalry models are the targets of a shooting attack, the shooting model must make a random roll to see if they hit the rider or the mount.

If this sounds like an in-the-way roll, that would make sense - it is an in-the-way roll. It's important to note, however, that because your target is the "model," if you get the required roll to hit the rider and you wanted to hit the horse, you "succeeded" in passing the In The Way and so cannot reroll it to try to hit the horse (just like you wouldn't be able to reroll a different in-the-way roll to see if you hit the target). It's sad, I know - but the new Sharpshooter keyword allows you to not only skip the in-the-way roll, but you get to choose which of the parts of the model (mount or rider) you want to hit - Sharpshooters are very good at picking off horses under big heroes.

Depending on the kind of mount that's being ridden, the difficulty rating for hitting the rider can change: for most mounts, you hit the rider on a 4+ (and the mount on a 1-3). However, if you're up against a Monstrous Mount (like a Fell Beast or a Great Eagle), the rider will only be hit on a 5+.

If the rider is killed, the mount will need to see if it stays on the field. If the mount has an Attack stat of 0 (common on horses, goats, and ponies), then the mount will bolt without its rider and the entire model is removed as a casualty. If the mount has an Attack stat of 1+ (common on Wargs), the mount must pass a Courage test to see if it stays. When counting up how many "casualties" a force has taken, it's important to keep track of how many mounts have been killed/fled after their rider was killed and how many riders have been killed: every dead rider paired with a dead mount will count as 1 casualty, even if they weren't originally paired together.

If the mount dies, the rider will need to take a Thrown Rider test, which we discussed in a recent post: on a 1, something bad happens (the rider is placed Prone and takes one S3 hit - which could kill the rider!), on a 2-5, the rider is placed in base contact with where the mount was located and cannot perform shooting attacks/make strikes in the Fight phase, and on a 6, the rider gracefully recovers, is placed in base contact with where the mount was, and is able to function normally. It's important to note that if the cavalry model was engaged in a fight and got dismounted by an arrow or something, he'd STILL be counted as being engaged in the fight, even if the rider was placed in a spot that was not in base contact with the guys he was fighting.

The final thing we need to talk about are special rules that might help your cavalry: Horse Lord and Expert Rider. The "Expert Rider" rule does a few things for a cavalry model (such as not needing to dismount to pick up a light object - useful in some scenarios - and being able to reroll jump/leap/Thrown Rider tests). With regard to shooting, a model with the Expert Rider rule can gain the +1 Defense from a shield even if they carry a bow (which the Cumbersome rule for shields would normally not allow). If the model dismounts/loses its mount, they now have to choose again between keeping the shield or the bow. Horse Lord changed this edition to not only allow a hero with this rule to spend Fate points to prevent wounds to their mounts, but also grants the mount a free roll to try to block the wound (successful on a natural 6 in most cases). If you have both Horse Lord and Expert Rider, you're unlikely to take damage from a Thrown Rider test - but it does happen and most mounted heroes don't have the pair of rules (or even one of them).

Okay, we're almost done - let's talk about cavalry in combat!

Cavalry in Combat

As has already been mentioned, cavalry get the Extra Attack and Knocked to the Ground bonuses when they charge infantry, but while the most common way to lose these rules is to be charged by an enemy cavalry model (or you charged into one), there are several ways to remove these rules. Because these are Active abilities, you can also turn off the benefits by casting Transfix, which is one of the most common magical powers in the game. Transfix and counter-charging gives the guy receiving the cavalry charge a few options for dealing with cavalry - but only if the enemy cavalry are moving first (we'll get into this more later).

One other thing to keep in mind about cavalry when they fight is they are not allowed to defend by shielding - if your infantry model gets charged by someone scary, he can "defend by shielding" to double the number of dice he rolls in order to skip the "to wound roll" (some heroes can make a single strike after shielding, but as a general rule, no one gets to make strikes when they defend by shielding). Cavalry, however, can't do this - if you charge, you're going for the kill, and if you were charged, you're still going for the kill (but without all the charge bonuses). As such, it might be a good idea to dismount before being charged if you feel like you're in a bad spot.

If you beat a cavalry model in combat, you have the choice to wound either the rider or the mount - declare which one you're targeting before you roll. Often times, the mount will have the same Defense or a lower Defense than its rider - and depending on your Strength value, you may wound the mount more easily than the Rider. As has already been mentioned, killing a mount will count as a full casualty once any rider is killed, so there's some value to killing mounts that have an Attack stat of 1+, but in general, going for the rider is a much better option (as a mount with an Attack stat of 0 will just run away).

Some cavalry models (like Chariots) might have rules that have you pass a roll in order to strike at the rider instead of the mount - this can increase the survivability of the rider quite a bit (since chariots especially have quite a bit more Defense than their riders - usually) and have more than 1 Wound. When making strikes against a model like this, it's best to allocate your wounding dice one at a time (or in pairs if the model is trapped) so that if you kill the mount with the first few rolls, you know you don't need to make the in-the-way roll for the future rolls.

When Are Cavalry Good?

Cavalry are not as overpowered in MESBG this edition, but they can still feel that way sometimes - a big hero with a fast mount can be absolutely devastating and can make it feel like you have no answer to them. Similarly, a horde of cavalry in a big charge can run right over your beautiful infantry ranks and make your chances of winning disappear in a single round (especially if those cavalry are charging a single file of warriors so their dice counts are about the same). While the benefits of a good cavalry charge are clear, are cavalry always worth taking?

For some players, having a few cavalry is good enough - models that can get some extra damage potential in an important spot, run to an objective, or rapidly reinforce a flank are really useful to have, but having a LOT of cavalry can reduce your model count dramatically. For some players, that's okay - having a fast fighting force (I love me some alliteration) is worth running fewer numbers, but cavalry do reduce your model count (and in MANY missions, having more guys on the board can mean an easier time holding objectives or not handing over VPs for being broken).

Cavalry are also really good against infantry - but against cavalry they can really struggle. I did an article on this in our Cavalry Charge formations mini-series, and it bears repeating here: cavalry are great when they're rolling over infantry, but most Warrior Cavalry models are going to struggle if they're up against a D6 cavalry model - especially if they don't have the charge (or are also fighting a few infantry). Some cavarly models have lances or get bonus Fight Value/Strength when they charge and these bonuses won't be ignored if you're fighting enemy cavalry - so they don't mind as much, but they're still rolling one fewer dice, so that it's still worth avoiding if you can.

Cavalry can also struggle against infantry when there's a lot of them - if you're a 1 Attack Warrior Cavalry model and you charge into 2 infantry models, each of which has a spear backing them up (and maybe being in range of a banner), the sheer weight of their dice is going to give them a far greater chance of getting a 5- or a 6-high - and your chances of getting a 5-high or a 6-high are only floating around 56% (or roughly half the time). As a result, cavalry models should be very careful with how greedy they get when charging into infantry shieldwalls (and unless you're a hero with a good Fight Value and some Might to boost a bad roll, you probably don't want to charge headlong into a hedge of infantry).

Cavalry can also be really susceptible to three non-melee elements of the game: archery, magical powers, and the Hurl Brutal Power Attack. The value of archery should be pretty easy to see: if you paid for a mount and the mount gets shot . . . you're back to being a normal infantry guy. You might be alive, but you're not going to be as happy as you would have been if you were galloping through the enemy ranks astride your mighty steed.

Some magical powers will affect cavalry more than infantry - and these include area-of-effect magical powers (like Wrath of Bruinen and Nature's Wrath) or spells that knock models over (like Sorcerous Blast and Tremor). The larger base size of cavalry models not only means that a cavalry model that is near other models is more likely to get clipped by the area of effect range (or be in the path of a flung model/earthquake line), but if the cavalry model is the TARGET of the magical power, the actual area of effect will cover more space because the starting base size is larger. Some magical powers will automatically have a mounted model suffer the Knocked Flying rule, which means you won't be rolling on the Thrown Rider charge to see what happens to you - you're Prone and taking a S3 hit (in addition to anything else you're taking). Others will say you need to test, so there might be some mitigation for those risks.

The final thing we need to talk about is the Hurl Brutal Power Attack. We're going to talk about monsters next time, so I won't divulge everything here, but suffice it to say that like Sorcerous Blast, having a large base on the model that's being thrown means you're strafing a larger area of ground than if you were infantry, having a larger base when you're not the one being thrown means you're more likely to land in the thrown model's path, and you're also going to take some collateral damage for being Knocked Flying that you wouldn't have suffered if you were on foot. Yeah, sometimes it bites to be cavalry.

Conclusion

And that's the "basics" about cavalry. :-) I know that was a lot, but cavalry are a big part of MESBG (as they should be). If you're new to SBG and found this helpful, let us know below! If you've been running cavalry for ages in MESBG and I forgot something, let us know that too! Next time, we turn to another quintessential part of the SBG game: monsters. Yes, these things are a bear to fight (and sometimes they ARE bears who are bears to fight). So what all can they actually do? And how useful are those brutal power attacks, anyway? And how have those brutal power attacks changed in the new edition? Find out next time - until then, happy hobbying!

The New Age Is Begun: the Thorin's Company Army List

Good morning gamers,

This is our last post of all-Dwarves in "Dwarf month" and we're looking at what is mostly an all-hero list: Thorin's Company. I played this list some last edition (never in a tournament) and I've got to say, it's got a lot of rules to keep track of (even more now), but it's FUN to play! The models work together better now and I kinda feel like our recommendation to fix Thorin's Company was heard by GW - but let's see what this list has to offer and what you have to think about when bringing it to the table.

Thorin's Company: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

This list has the fifteen members of Thorin's Company, as you'd expect. For about $60 (less on eBay), you can get that whole list of models - and now that they can't take ponies (sadness), that's a good 1000-points worth of this list for an insanely small amount of money (relative to what 1000pts requires in most other lists). These units are all infantry and carry the bulk of the rules - and if you choose to just play with these guys, you'll have a jolly time for sure.

That said, the list now includes Radagast the Brown (with access to his sleigh, but it isn't required) and Gwaihir (who can bring Great Eagles, but not Fledgling Eagles). Bringing Gwaihir requires you to also bring Gandalf, which makes the investment kind of hefty - but one could argue that Gwaihir is worth it. Interestingly enough, Radagast has the Thorin's Company faction keyword, so anything that's said below about "Thorin's Company" models can affect him too . . . we'll talk about that a bit in the strategy section below.

Army List Bonuses

This list has a few restrictions in it - but they're not hard to remember. You have to take Thorin and he has to be your General. If you want to take any of the Dwarves, Wizards, or Biblo, they have to be in Thorin's warband (which is great in maelstrom missions, but also gives up a lot of deployment advantages to your opponent in virtually all other scenarios). If you want to take Gwaihir in your list, you have to have Gandalf in your list (fair enough). If you want to take Great Eagles, you have to bring them with Gwaihir. Simple, right? Everyone who isn't a bird with Thorin, get birds by taking Gandalf.

The New Age Is Begun: The Erebor Reclaimed Army List

Good morning gamers,

This post was supposed to kick off our April series, but Centaur got busy, so you get this article either a day late or six days early, depending on your perspective. Today and through April, we're back with Dwarves - but this time, we're plowing through the Iron Hills Dwarf Warriors from the Armies of the Hobbit and the Armies of Middle-Earth! My son has used these guys a ton - they're a bit expensive for 1 Attack infantry, but they're incredibly durable and if you can manage to get good numbers with them, you can find yourself with the numbers advantage pretty quickly and then the battle swings hard in your favor.

The list that I think showcases these guys the best is Erebor Reclaimed. When I first read the updated rules for the Champs (three in particular) and saw the army list special rules, I was absolutely flabbergasted that they weren't the meta. I think there's a lot going for this list - so let's see what we have to work with and how it's changed from previous editions of the game.

Erebor Reclaimed: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

This list has only lost one profile technically speaking from the previous edition of the game: Iron Hills Goat Riders. This list has actually lost another profile (the "champ chariot") and has effectively lost six other profiles (King Thorin, Fili, Kili, Dwalin, Dain, and Iron Hills Captains on their mounts). While the mounted heroes are still available in their infantry forms, they function quite differently than they did before - and without warrior cavalry options, this list faces the perennial problem of all Dwarves: how do we make up for being slow and getting where we need to go when we need to be there? Thankfully, one of our army list bonuses helps us with this . . .

Army List Bonuses

The glamor rule of this army list is that everyone in your list has Heroic March and while this isn't great for Iron Hills Captains finding a place in the list, this list goes the extra mile and allows the Dwarves who are benefitting from a Heroic March to ALSO charge . . . which means if you have enough Might in the list, you can basically have 8" move infantry. Now it should be noted that the standard rules of ending within 6" of the March hero still apply, so that 8" move is going to be highly predictable, but considering that anyone can trigger it means you have a lot of flexibility with where and with whom you move 8".

Tiberius's Top 10 Ranking - Best Middle-Earth Film Adaptation

Good morning gamers,

Usually, Centaur does our "top ten" posts, but I've been thinking a lot about the various film adaptations that we have for Middle-Earth and figured someone on this platform ought to finally put them in a ranking. Those of us who are excited for new Middle-Earth content and "going back to Middle-Earth" are probably at least a little interested in how the Hunt for Gollum is going to go, so in preparation for that, feast on the following Top Ten list, though I will begin with a couple of quick caveats . . .

First, this is NOT going to include TV shows - which means you will not be seeing either seasons of Rings of Power in this article. Telling a story through 6-8hrs of TV time isn't a fair comparison to the 1.5-4hrs that a film can cover - that, and I know people can have polarizing views on the series. I will keep my opinion about the series to myself (though I think I will not be alone in sharing that I thought the storytelling in Season 2 was tighter than Season 1, perhaps because it had most of its characters introduced in Season 1), but as most of you might be able to guess if you've read this blog for any period of time, I'm generally pretty optimistic and positive about things - and if I can search for good in something, I usually find it.

Second, just because I rank a film on the lower side of the scale doesn't mean there's nothing good in it. Building off the previous thought, there are good things to be found in all of the films we're about to view - but it appears to me that the greatest reason people rank things poorly is because of the "deviation from expectation". If you came to a film like The Desolation of Smaug and expected it to cover just what was in the Hobbit (more on this later), you were probably disappointed - and if you're like my wife, you probably thought that much of the fighting in the Battle of Five Armies and the extra-canonical relationship stuff from the Desolation of Smaug could have been dropped to make the trilogy into two films. Fair enough - those were deviations from your expectations and you're more than justified in feeling that way.

While I will try to manage my criticisms of the films, please understand going into this that my reviews will still be pretty positive - I'm not here to bash someone else's creative genius and I certainly don't think I could have made any of these films better than their creators. I am a fan of all things Middle-Earth and I love a good story - so the films that get me the most immersed into the world and that tell a well-contained story are going to rate well . . . and those that don't will rate less well. With that in mind, let's start off with . . .

Back to Basics, Revisited: The Shoot Phase

Good morning gamers,

We're in our third post on how to play the game and we're tackling one of my favorite aspects of the game: the Shoot phase. This phase of the game is the only phase where your opponent doesn't really get a say in what happens - sure, he can maneuver his troops during the Move phase to make his units harder to hit (or impossible to see) OR even use special rules that make shooting at his troops harder, but once he's done moving, it's all in your hands. For a game that is heavily dependent on "rolling better than your opponent," it's nice that at least one aspect of the game doesn't involve that kind of competition. This also makes armies that focus too heavily on shooting hated by some members of the community, so just be aware of that before delving headlong into it. Let's understand what you can do in the Shoot phase!

The New Age Is Begun: The Army of Edoras Army List

Good morning gamers,

We're still in Rohan this January (what can I say - there's a lot of Rohan lists) and we're kicking things off with one of the new Rohan lists from the War of the Rohirrim film: the Army of Edoras. I'm going to preview the rest of the article here and just say that regardless of whether you liked the film or not, this list is SOLID. There are lots of good heroes that you can buy on a budget, very functional warrior options, and good special rules. Let's see what this list has to offer (anything related to the Legacies document will be marked in red)!

The Army of Edoras: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

This list doesn't have a corollary really from the last edition. The Helm's Guard list is the closest you're going to get - and that list was really starved for hero options. This list doesn't have that problem. Besides the generic Captain and Huntsman profiles, you have access to Helm, his four relatives, and two other members of his court. You also get the expected warrior options of Warriors of Rohan, Riders of Rohan, and Rohan Royal Guards (if you bring Helm).

Army List Bonuses

Like most Rohan lists, Riders of Rohan don't count towards your bow limit, so if you want to go shooting-heavy (and/or cavalry-heavy), you can. While charge bonuses are usually not hard to come by in Rohan lists, this list can get to reroll all failed To Wound rolls on one round for models within 12" of your General if your General charged that turn. This will affect infantry and cavalry models, but only once. Beyond that, you have just the base stats for your units . . . so beware those D6 shieldwalls!

Additionally, if any of your heroes charge, all Warriors within 6" of the Hero auto-pass Courage tests to charge Terror models - this won't matter for any Rohan Royal Guards in Helm's warband, but can be a brilliant way to tie down a monster while your heroes crash into the warriors of the enemy. These aren't glorious rules, but they're perfectly functional.

The New Age Is Begun: the Riders of Eomer Army List

Good morning gamers,

There were two Legendary Legions during the last edition that I absolutely loved and that almost everyone thought was trash: the Men of the West and the Riders of Eomer. Yes, there were issues with both of these Legions - and I asked in an email before almost every FAQ/Errata release for a few things - and I'm happy to say that just as my beloved Men of the West got a glow-up (and are actually quite good now), so also the Riders of Eomer got a few very, VERY needed changes and they too have had some time in the sun. Once again, this army list doesn't just feel like the development team listened to us - they particularly listened to me. This makes me very happy - so let's dive into Eomer, Gandalf, and all their brave boys!

The Riders of Eomer: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

If you're playing with the Legacy profiles, nothing's different from the Legendary Legion of yester-year - you have Eomer, Gandalf, Erkenbrand (maybe), and Captains as your heroes and Riders of Rohan (maybe Redshields) as your warriors. Pretty straightforward, right?

Well, yes and no - on paper, the profiles are all the same. However, the special rules for both the army list AND the rules of some of the units have changed as well, which means that previous strategies with this list have changed a bit - all for the better, I think.

Army List Bonuses

As was previously the case, Riders of Rohan don't count towards your bow limit - yaye for more than one warrior in each army. :) Eomer is still always your General, which is good because you can then be a bit more reckless with Gandalf (and you can pick him as a hero to keep alive in scenarios like Fog of War). 

The special rules also improved a bit - Gandalf can still use Look to the Sun once per game at the start of any friendly activation phase (so if you're moving second, you don't need to declare you're using it until your opponent has finished moving) to make any enemy models engaged with your Cavalry models get a -1 penalty to their dueling rolls. This rule feels less powerful now that Gandalf's Cart is a thing (and can happen every turn), but it's still very good for getting a big charge off.

The Ride for Ruin and the World's Ending special rule got a nuanced but necessary change: instead of getting Strength +1 on the charge while within 12" of Eomer, the Strength +1 bonus is now global. Since the generic Rohan bonus last edition was global, the 12" limit to Eomer felt . . . bad - and there wasn't even a Fearless-while-charging or other sort of glow-up that you got alongside it. Now, it's global and it's good.

Finally, Eomer got a new special rule in this list (To the King!) that gives him a free Heroic Combat each turn - which is SO GOOD in a cavalry list and super good with Eomer's improved profile!

The New Age Is Begun: the Army of the White Hand Army List

Good morning gamers,

If Ardacon is any indication, then the Army of the White Hand is a good list - all three people who podiumed in the Invitational Masters event were running the list and that probably says more about the view of this list that the highest competitive minds have rather than how good the list is at your local tournament scene. That being said, everyone's talking about "the White Hand" list and whether Crebain are broken because of it. The list is more than just about Crebain - but Crebain are also very important to it working well. Let's see what's up with this list and some thoughts for running it, shall we (and as always in this series, anything related to Legacies will be highlighted in red for whatever players or tournaments don't allow Legacy models)?

Army of the White Hand: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

This list is the closest thing to a "normal Isengard list" from the last edition. You have access to Saruman and Grima, most of the Uruk-Hai profiles, most of the Orc profiles, and all of the Dunland profiles from the last edition (especially if you include the models that moved to Legacies). The primary profiles that you're missing are Lurtz, Ugluk, Mauhur, and Uruk-Hai Drummers from the Uruk-Hai hero side of the house, Uruk-Hai Warriors and Berserkers for the Uruk-Hai warriors, and the ballistas and bombs (which are oddballs, but still Uruk-Hai). You're also missing Snaga and Sharku from the Orc contingent - but that's literally it. Everyone else and their brother shows up in this list - and that means there are a LOT of options.

The list also doesn't have required heroes, so you can technically run whatever you want in it - Centaur used it for the first scenario of our custom Osgiliath campaign because it is LITERALLY the only list where you can get just Orc Captains and Orc Warriors in your army! Now, all the army list bonuses are all tied to Saruman, so you should probably run him, but you don't have to - and that's great. There's also a wide variety of subfactions that are represented in this list - Dunland, Uruk-Hai, Orcs, and of course Saruman and Grima - so depending on the theme you want to run, this list provides a nice canvas for your play (if you have a competitive bent, the options are probably less, but there's still some variety).

The New Age Is Begun: The Reclamation of Osgiliath Army List

Good morning gamers,

This will be our last Minas Tirith-oriented post for a bit - don't worry, though, we'll be back to tackle the Pelennor army list in the future! Thanks to our Osgiliath custom campaign, I've been able to play with a wide variety of Minas Tirith lists and while I've only played one scenario with this particular list, golly was it fun! The Reclamation of Osgiliath army list is one of those "big hero with a bunch of guys" kind of list and boy does it pack a punch when it gets going! Let's see what there is to know about this one (and in a stunning turn of events, there's been no changes to this list from either the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement or the Legacies document, so what you see in the Armies of the Lord of the Rings supplement is actually what you get) . . .

The Reclamation of Osgiliath: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

I'm not going to lie, this list is REALLY constrained for profiles - eight in total. On the hero side of the house, you have Boromir, Faramir, and Madril as your named hero options, supported by the lowly-but-awesome Captain of Minas Tirith. These four provide you with a good spread of options for heroes, though having one really expensive, one sort-of-expensive, and two cheap heroes can make for awkward decisions (as we'll see throughout this post).

Your warrior options are similarly constrained but good - you have the ubiquitous Warriors of Minas Tirith and Knights of Minas Tirith, who give you solid combat profiles at fairly affordable prices and then you get Rangers of Gondor and Osgiliath Veterans as your specialist options. This is the same corps of warrior choices as you'll find in the Garrison of Ithilien, but you aren't allowed to take 50% bows in this list, so you're more likely to see a dominance of the melee guys in this list instead of the Ranger-heavy list builds for the Garrison of Ithilien.

Army List Bonuses

There was no Legendary Legion like this in the old edition, so our point of comparison is the standard Minas Tirith army bonus of yore - +1 Courage. Yaye. We've traded this for three special rules, the first of which is This City Was Once the Jewel of Our Kingdom, which gives everyone the Mountain Dweller special rule. As was mentioned in the Garrison of Ithilien review, Mountain Dweller is a great rule to add to your army when a lot of them already have Woodland Creature - though I will note that since you're more likely to have models that won't have Woodland Creature in this list, it would actually be quite nice to have the flex option that the Garrison of Ithilien has in this list (but I'll take moving through rubble terrain without penalty and getting +1 to movement rolls for free).

The Remember Today, Little Brother special rule is one of the hallmarks of this list vis-a-vis the Minas Tirith list we talked about last time: Boromir and Faramir can spend each other's Might, Will, and Fate while they are within 3" of each other. Since Boromir is likely to be mounted and Faramir has to be on foot, it is likely to be rare that they'll stay with each other the whole game, but if you're worried about your opponent filling your army leader/banner full of holes, at least you can spend his brother's resources to keep him alive? Also, a 9-Might Boromir sounds pretty devastating . . .

Finally, there's the once-per-game For Gondor! special rule, which is declared at the start of any Fight Phase when Boromir is alive and on the battlefield. Friendly Gondor Warrior models within 6" of him (so not Faramir, Madril, or Captains of Minas Tirith) gain +1 To Wound when making Strikes - this is killer (literally!) and can swing a shieldwall-grind pretty quickly. This +1 To Wound also stacks with other To Wound benefits, such as Boromir's Son of Gondor special rules, lances for Knights of Minas Tirith, or Hatred (Mordor) on Osgiliath Veterans - given the right conditions, a good For Gondor! turn can be absolutely devastating to an opponent!

All in all, the rules aren't game-breaking but they can be very splashy - if you like those kinds of rule sets, this is a good one. If you were hoping for more . . . well, let's look at the profiles to see if there's some things there to convince you that the list is good . . .

The New Age Is Begun: the Minas Tirith Army List

Good morning gamers,

Today we're tackling the Minas Tirith army list, which has some distinctives among the Minas Tirith factions of the game, despite starting with a pretty limited set of profiles (the Armies of Middle-Earth and Legacies supplements fleshed out the list a lot more). If you're just getting into the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game and have the Armies of the Lord of the Rings in hand, this is a pretty good army to start with for several reasons which we'll get into today. Let's see what the list has to offer (and in case you're new to this series, anything in red is tied to using the Legacies document)!

Minas Tirith: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

This list has most of the "tin can" units that were available to Minas Tirith in the last edition. You only have one of the "big three" beater heroes (Boromir, no Elessar or Gandalf), but you have a nice supporting cast of Denethor, Faramir, Irolas, and generic Captains of Minas Tirith from the Armies of the Lord of the Rings book. When you add in the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement, you have access to Hurin, Ingold, Beregond, and Bolt Throwers, which gives you some alternate options to Faramir, Irolas, or Captains - as we'll see a little later, I don't think there's a substitute for Boromir . . . that's probably as it should be. If you expand your horizons to include the Legacies profiles, you add in Cirion and Knights of the White Tower, which means you're glutted for hero options, many of whom are living in the F5/2A/no horse realm, so it's very much a "season to taste" based on your play style or preference for models. Besides Pippin, the only model that I feel should be here but isn't is the Trebuchet option . . . I'll whine about that more later, but everything else that should be here is here.

On the warrior side of the house, we have four profiles: Warriors of Minas Tirith and Knights of Minas Tirith can be taken by anyone, Citadel Guard can be taken by Denethor, Boromir, Faramir, and Irolas (but in practice, probably just Irolas), and Denethor can take Guards of the Fountain Court (read: he should probably JUST take Guards of the Fountain Court, maybe some Warriors of Minas Tirith to stand in front of them, but I'm not sure that you want to do that). While you don't have Rangers or Osgiliath Veterans (Hatred (Mordor) would be pretty sweet here), you have basically everything else - and since a lot of heroes can take Citadel Guard with longbows, you have decent bow options and very good heavy infantry options. All in all, it's a pretty good list!

The New Age Is Begun: Atop the Walls Army List

Good morning gamers,

We're continuing our walk through the Gondor army lists and we're turning to a list that's sort of like a list I used to run in the old edition - and if you've played through the Gondor at War supplement or Fantasy Fellowships, you'll recognize the name of this army list right away: it's the Atop the Walls army list, which means the most important units you can take are Gandalf on Shadowfax and . . .

TREBUCHETS!
Photo Credit: Guerre-Anneau

This isn't the only list that has access to trebs, but it's certainly the list where they are the most effective (and thanks to having such a limited selection of profiles, you're most likely to field them here). This list is basically a streamlined version of the pure Minas Tirith list from yester-year, but with a few special rules tacked on to make things interesting. Let's see what's in store on the white walls of Minas Tirith, shall we (as we have been doing, anything related to the Legacies document will be highlighted in red)?

Atop the Walls: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

Our heroes of Legend and Valour are simple: Gandalf and Hurin respectively. The addition of Hurin is great - he's in Minas Tirith in the books and governs in Aragorn's stead after the battle of the Pelennor is over, so he'd be here for sure. We'll dig into the profiles more in a moment, but suffice it to say that we have two solid beater heroes available to us. On the Fortitude side of the house, we have access to the two heroes that you got with Gandalf (and Pippin) in the Atop the Walls scenario from Gondor at War in the form of Beregond and Irolas - both of whom remain solid choices in this edition (and Beregond got QUITE the glow-up with the rules changes). You also have generic choices in the form of Captains of Minas Tirith (very reliable March heroes) and Knights of the White Tower (F6 generic heroes with Heroic Strike). You also have Pippin, who you will never take just for himself.

In addition to these traditional hero options, you have access to both Gondor Avenger Bolt Throwers and Gondor Battlecry Trebuchets. As we'll see next in the army special rules section, these guys can be a tad more effective in this list than in other lists and the way that they're helped can make them reliable means of forcing your opponent to play the game the way you want. There will be some times when they're also just like all other siege engines, so there's that.

The New Age Is Begun: the Men of the West Army List

Good morning gamers,

Google informs me that this post is the 1000th post on the blog . . . apparently, we've had a lot to say since March 2011. :) From all of us here at the TMAT blog, thanks for reading our stuff, bearing with any inaccuracies we've had (always tell us if we've messed something up - we try to go back in a timely manner and clean them up!), and just generally encouraging us by engaging with our platform. It means the world to us that people read our stuff!

Today is a post I've been looking forward to for a LONG time. There was no way I was going to write this article before the Legacies document dropped and boy was I happy when it did! Since about 2020, I've been playing on and off with what is now the Men of the West army list - and much to my disappointment (despite email after email before the errata documents were released semiannually), the list never received any of the love that I thought it deserved. With the release of the new edition, this army list encapsulates so much of my feelings for what the design team did:

They listened to us - and specifically, they listened to me.

Now I'm not vain enough to think that I was the only person asking for updates to this list - there have been others who did quite well with the Men of the West LL in the previous edition and our own competitive player friend-of-the-blog Sharbie has touted the army list's credits in the new edition. But I've been playing the game for a long time and been writing about how that list wasn't a bad Legendary Legion (though it could have used some updates) for a long time too - and they listened. They listened to me. And maybe you don't care and haven't cared about this list at all in your life, but there's probably a corner of the game where they listened to you too. So walk with me as we explore how this list as changed from drool to cool (though it's always been cool to me) as we stand alongside Aragorn and the brave men of Gondor and Rohan at the Black Gate . . .

The Men of the West: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

There have been very few adjustments to the profiles available in this list - though there have been a few notable additions, nothing has been lost. You still have to take Elessar, but now you can (usually) take an armored horse on him as well - which solves one issue that Rythbyrt always had with this list. For big power heroes, you still have Legolas, Gimli, the Twins (now that the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement is here), Prince Imrahil, Eomer, and Gandalf the White - which gives you a stronger all-hero corps than most of the all-hero armies that you find in the sourcebooks (see my thoughts on the Fellowship and anticipate my thoughts on Thorin's Company).

Supporting this cast of named man-sized heroes are the same generic heroes we had before (Captains of Dol Amroth, Captains of Minas Tirith, and Captains of Rohan), the same lesser named heroes of Beregond (some serious updates to this guy were made this edition), Merry, and Pippin, as well as Gwaihir (the new "kid" on the block) if you choose to not take any horses on your heroes (which complicates a list that Rythbyrt liked to take in the last edition). We'll talk about the decision to take Gwaihir or not a little later, but suffice it to say for now that the option to have Gwaihir in the list (and potentially Eagle warriors - though unlikely in my opinion because of the heroes you have access to for about the same number of points) is a welcome change.

On the warrior front, we still have Knights of Dol Amroth (on foot only), Warriors of Minas Tirith (now F4 and slightly more expensive), and Warriors of Rohan (better skirmishers than they were in the last edition now that their throwing spears can be used as standard spears in all lists), but if you include the Legacies document, you also have access to Men-at-Arms of Dol Amroth - which I BEGGED for so . . . many . . . times . . . #TheyListened. All in all, there are no cavalry warrior options, but the options you have in this list have always been good/fine and now they're good/better.

Top 10 Most Improved Good Profiles from the Armies of Middle Earth Book

  Hey Reader!

We're back with another Top 10 post, today looking at the top ten most improved profiles in the Armies of Middle Earth book from the Forces of Good. Now that we know all the armies that someone can be fielded in, potential models that they can pair with, and special rules, we're set to rank the top ten most improved models for the Forces of Good in the Armies of Middle Earth book.

As we did in the top ten most improved profiles for the Forces of Good, a few caveats before we look at the list: 

• We're ranking the most improved profiles in The Armies of Middle Earth book, so we won't be looking at profiles beyond that book. It also means we're almost done with this part of the series!
• We're ranking the top ten most improved profiles for the Forces of Good in the book, so only good profiles will be considered here.
• We're ranking the most improved profiles, not the strongest profiles: Durin is incredibly powerful, but the change from last edition is literally just an increase from F6 to F7 at the expense of +10pts, and while that means he is improved, and good, and tough to beat, he's not among the top ten. 
• The "Most Improved" means that the profile had to exist last edition, which is not really an issue with this book, but again it's something we're looking for in this ranking.
• There were more profiles than this list can hold, so yes, I couldn't include all of the ones that I thought were interesting/useful. There will be some honorable mentions, but suffice it to say, if you really thought that someone should have made the list and didn't, there's a good chance that they were considered and just didn't break the top ten.

And so with that, let's look at some cool profiles!

Honorable Mention: Khazad Guard

All images from
the new book!

Not much actually happened with Khazad Guards this edition: they're still able to reroll 1s to wound like last edition, they don't have access to Piercing Strike anymore, but they did pick up one nice upgrade for only +1pt/model: they jumped up to F5, making them truly elite infantry, finally on-par with elves.

They don't make the top ten because a lot of the characters above are either the same or lower cost than last edition, or getting far better value, but it's worth noting that we finally have F5 dwarves, and more than that, per the new rules for two-handed weapons, if they roll a 6 for the duel roll they don't get the -1 penalty, which is nice.

Quick Starter Armies with the Armies of Middle-Earth Supplement

Good morning gamers,

We've looked at the Battle of Edoras Box Set, the Armies of the Hobbit, and the Armies of the Lord of the Rings supplements in this series so far, so it makes sense to tackle the last sourcebook in the list, the Armies of Middle-Earth. This supplement (and the Legacies documents, which I will not be covering in this series) were greatly awaited by us here at TMAT - a good number of our local players had lynchpin characters in most of their lists in one or both of these releases, so we're very happy to finally have "the completed set" for list building.

As has been noted in every post in this series, GW is not sponsoring us here at TMAT. I get no kickbacks from the way you spend money, I don't have affiliate links, and I'm not associated with a webstore or physical store of any kind. We here at TMAT are just a bunch of gamers trying to play with toy soldiers on a budget. As a result, the recommendations I provide here are the result of much thinking and planning - mostly for myself and maybe my musings and plannings will help you too!

List building on a budget THIS time is going to be tricky, since we're assuming that you're spending $60 on a rulebook, $50 on either the Armies of the Hobbit or the Armies of the Lord of the Rings supplement, AND you're spending $50 on the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement, which means that we'll be looking for armies that you can get for $50 to $350 more (between $200 and $500). As always, I'll provide additional thoughts on how to save money along the way - which with this lot has led to a few conversions that aren't hard. With that, let's start with the Good armies . . .

FAQ Time: Unpacking the August 2025 FAQ

Good morning gamers,

I didn't submit anything to this FAQ - I've been busy fussing with Star Wars Legion and Bolt Action lists for the better part of the last few months, so I'll be honest, this FAQ snuck up on me and yet, there wasn't that much that surprised me. There was one VERY big change that I totally did not see coming . . . before we get into that, let's take a look at what got updated . . . and then we'll get into the really spicy stuff that creeped up and went unanswered.

Photo Credit: Reddit

What Didn't Have Changes

It should go without saying that there were no clarifications on the Legacies of Middle-Earth document, which GW has already said exists so people can use the "no-longer-supported" profiles - many of which were beloved in the last edition. I'm personally very appreciative that the Legacies document was released and that we have it - if they don't update any of the profiles, I think I'm fine with that.

Beyond that, everything got updates (though the Matched Play Guide only got one update, so it's basically as-is - I expect that to change as more people play the updated scenarios). Let's dig into what didn't really change (or what worked the way we thought it did) . . .

Rules That Worked Like We Thought

There were a few errata to the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement - most of which were expected: Theodred starts with a shield, Druzhag's Fury magical power targets himself, and like in the last edition, Druzhag can include Beast models in his warband, but that doesn't open them up as options in other warbands. I'm not going to reprint the text of these errata here - but you can find them in the Armies of Middle-Earth Designer Commentaries.

I'm going to start with an FAQ on Treebeard carrying Merry and Pippin from the Armies of the Lord of the Rings supplement: the question was asked if Merry and Pippin are affected at all by the Wrath of Bruinen magical power while sitting on Treebeard's head. The answer, as you'll see below, is no - they cannot be targeted and are unaffected. There was a tandem question asked about what happened to them in Treebeard is knocked Prone - the answer is that they, like any rider, are Knocked Flying:

Q: If Merry and Pippin are riding into battle on Treebeard, and Treebeard is hit by a power such as Wrath of Bruinen, are they also hit by it? What happens when Treebeard is knocked Prone? (p.24) A: The Merry & Pippin rule states that they cannot be targeted individually by Magical Powers, and so they won’t be targeted – they would not suffer a hit from Wrath of Bruinen. If Treebeard is knocked Prone, Merry and Pippin will count as being Knocked Flying, as per the result on the Thrown Rider Chart (see p.70 of The Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game Rules Manual).

Quick Starter Armies with the Armies of the Lord of the Rings!

Good morning gamers,

We've previously looked at how to take the Army of Edoras box set or the Armies of the Hobbit supplement and get started for $200-$500 USD in the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game. Today, we're tackling the Armies of the Lord of the Rings supplement as a new player - and since we've already looked at the Army of Edoras box set, we'll be assuming that you aren't interested in playing the factions from the War of the Rohirrim film (but might be interested in playing a Rohan/Dunland faction, so the starter set will only be on the table if you are interested in these factions).

As we said last time, GW is not sponsoring us here at TMAT. I get no kickbacks from the way you spend money, I don't have affiliate links, and I'm not associated with a webstore or physical store of any kind. We here at TMAT are just a bunch of gamers trying to play with toy soldiers on a budget. As a result, the recommendations I provide here are the result of much thinking and planning - mostly for myself and maybe my musings and plannings will help you too!

Like we did with the Armies of the Hobbit, we're going to assume that you've spent $60 on a rulebook and $50 on the Armies of the Lord of the Rings supplement, which means that we'll be looking for armies that you can get for $100 to $400 more (between $200 and $500 total). I'll do my best with as many of these as possible to provide stacking ways to get into the more expensive armies at lower points levels (to ease into the purchase structure). With that, let's start with the Good armies . . .

$300 Investment in The Breaking of the Fellowship: the Fellowship, Haldir, and 1 box of Lothlorien Warriors

I could have said, "Just buy the Fellowship", but let's be honest, that's boring. :-) This way, you get not only a Fellowship list (and are on your way to any number of other lists), but you're also starting out a Lothlorien army. Now I will say that the three purchases required for this list - the Fellowship, Lothlorien Warriors, and Haldir is just shy of $300 with the main rulebook and the Armies of the Lord of the Rings in hand, so if you wanted to pick up a mounted Boromir to fill out your Fellowship roster (or the Wood Elf Command blister so you can have a banner), you can do that.

The list provided below is a fun list and you can try it out with just the purchase of the main rulebook, the Armies of the Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship, and the Lothlorien Warriors (if you proxy one of your bowmen as Haldir):

20 models isn't a lot at 650, but 17 Might and counting is CERTAINLY good. Also, 11 arrows go twang! Purchasing three copies of Haldir is pretty pricey - but if you did go all-in on buying him, you'll be a good ways towards collecting a Lothlorien list, so you're getting into at least three army lists with this purchase plan!