The Citadel of the Stars, Part III: Osgiliath

Good morning gamers,

This scenario is sort of deja vu for us here at TMAT - Centaur and I have played this scenario twice during our Fantasy Fellowship campaign (once with me controlling my Fellowship and once with him using his fellowship). This will be the third time we've played the scenario - and like the last two times, we will not be using the exact units in the scenario. :)

Osgiliath (Quest of the Ringbearer, p. 54)

We've decided to use the following models in today's game - due to Anborn and Mablung moving to Legacies (and the already 200pt advantage for Good), I've removed them from this mission . . . but for a bit of foreshadowing, I think I could have used a few more bodies:

• Forces of Good: Garrison of Ithilien 
• Faramir, Captain of Ithilien 
• Madril, Captain of Ithilien 
• Damrod, Ranger of Ithilien 
• Frodo Baggins with Sting, Mithril Coat, and Elven cloak
• Samwise Gamgee with Elven cloak
• Smeagol
• 4 5 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
• 4 5 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears
• 4 2 Warriors of Minas Tirith with bows
• 1 Warrior of Minas Tirith with banner
• 8 Rangers of Gondor 
• 4 Rangers of Gondor with spears
• 2 Osgiliath Veterans with shields 
• 2 Osgiliath Veterans with spears 
• 2 Osgiliath Veterans with bows
• Forces of Evil: The Army of the Great Eye 
• 1 Ringwraith of Fell Beast with 2 Attacks, 2M/14W/2F
• 3 Mordor Orc Captains
• 12 Mordor Orc Warriors with shields 
• 12 Mordor Orc Warriors with spears
• 6 Mordor Orc Warriors with two-handed weapons 
• 6 Mordor Orc Warriors with Orc bows
• 1 Mordor Orc Warrior with banner 

Evil is unchanged (except that the Ringwraith has 2 Attacks base now - huzzah!) and good has lost the Legacied Ranger heroes and traded only two Warriors of Minas Tirith with bows to get melee guys. Some of the hero profiles have changed a bit, but otherwise we've got more or less what we used to have.

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.

The Citadel of the Stars, Part II: The Retaking of Osgiliath

Good morning gamers,

We're back for Part 2 in our custom Osgiliath campaing and we're back in Gondor at War to see if Boromir - without his horse or shield - can retake Osgiliath! As we said last time, we're going to change up the scenario participants to make it Matched Play legal for the new edition - and while we could have been truer to the listed participants by sticking with the Army of the White Hand (now that they have access to Trolls), we decided to shake things up a bit and make it a roughly 525pt game between the Reclamation of Osgiliath and the Legions of Mordor!

The Retaking of Osgiliath (Gondor at War, p. 10)

We've decided to use the following models in today's game:

• Forces of Good: The Reclamation of Osgiliath
• Boromir, Captain of the White Tower with the Banner of Minas Tirith
• Faramir, Captain of Ithilien
• 8 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
• 8 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears
• 9 Rangers of Gondor
• Forces of Evil: The Legions of Mordor
• 3 Morannon Orc Captains with shields
• 6 Morannon Orcs
• 8 Morannon Orcs with shields
• 8 Morannon Orcs with shields and spears
• 6 Morannon Orcs with spears
• 1 Mordor Troll

I wanted to make two notes about the Legions of Mordor list (which we reviewed recently in our New Age is Begun series): this list can be run with just the Armies of the Lord of the Rings book and has 32 models at 525 - and so at 550, you could add a banner to it and it would be quite strong, in my opinion. You could also drop 1 Morannon Orc with no extra gear to get shields on 8 people - that would be good too.

The New Age Is Begun: The Garrison of Ithilien Army List

Good morning gamers,

We're kicking of a review of several Minas Tirith factions today and we're starting with a faction that I've been playing a bit with mostly in the context of scenario play in our custom Osgiliath campaign. The Garrison of Ithilien army list, which is the rebranded version of the Rangers of Ithilien Legendary Legion (which was first introduced in Gondor at War but was then updated in Quest of the Ringbearer and was adjusted in several FAQ releases), is still a powerful shooting list on the tabletop, though some nice adjustments have been made to the army list in order to reduce opportunities for a negative play experience. This list hasn't lost all of its teeth, though, and I think it's a bit of a sleeper list in the current meta. Let's see what Faramir's shooty boyz have going for them this edition, shall we? As we've done in recent articles, anything related specifically to the Legacy profiles will be highlighted in red.

The Garrison of Ithilien: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

When we're looking at profiles available to us, we have basically everyone we had last edition: on the Ranger hero side of the house, we still have Faramir, Madril, and Damrod - and if you are able to include Legacy models, you also have Anborn and Mablung. These guys have had some changes to them, but by and large, they are either more-or-less what they always were but 5pts more expensive OR they got some nice buffs for a 15pt cost increase. All in all, not bad. For non-Ranger heroes, we still have Captains of Minas Tirith (who changed a bit) and Frodo/Sam/Smeagol, who can still be their own warband or part of Faramir's warband - which they might have an easier time being in now that the bow limit rules have changed (more on that shortly).

On the warrior side of the house, the list retained Warriors of Minas Tirith (who had one minor change), Rangers of Gondor (who had one minor change), and Osgiliath Veterans (who had three changes - ultimately all ending as a net positive). In addition to these, the list got access to Knights of Minas Tirith, which means you can have fast units without paying for a horse for Faramir or Captains of Minas Tirith (which you had to do last edition). While March is probably embedded in your list, it's always nice to have some fast units that can Charge - or fast units that can run REALLY far to meet an objective condition if they're benefitting from a March/Heroic Combat. All in all, the list is more or less what it was, but the one option they got makes the list as a whole a lot better.

Army List Bonuses

Like in the previous version of the game, you have to take Faramir in this army list - but unlike the errata'd version of this list late in the previous edition, you don't have to take Frodo, Sam, and Smeagol anymore. This requirement was added when Rangers of Ithilien lists at lower points levels were clocking in with 30+ bows and they've made a different list building constraint to make sure that negative play experience is toned down.

Instead of having Rangers of Gondor not count towards your bow limit in warbands led by the five Ranger heroes, the entire list now has a 50% bow limit. This means that for every Ranger with a bow that you want to field, you'll have to field a tin can as well. Functionally, this means that cavalry and shieldwalls of some kind are going to be common, but it also means that Warriors of Minas Tirith and Osgiliath Veterans with bows are not going to show up in this list. There are other lists where they might find a place (though nothing is certain), but it won't be this one - you want Rangers in this list, as many as you can field.