First Impressions: Isengard, Part II

Good morning gamers,

We're back in Isengard today and we're going to cover the rest of the faction after covering the Uruk-Hai last time. We've got mostly men (or Istari, who are like men) today, though there are some Orcs, Wolves, and birds in the discussion as well. There's also a smattering of four different army lists today, so lots of context for the units we're viewing.

Isengard Non-Uruk Profiles: How Have They "Changed?"

If you're interested in learning about the changes to the Uruk-Hai profiles for the Isengard faction, you should check out the previous article in this series. Today, we're looking at the other units in the Isengard faction, which will have some overlap with the discussion next time of the Hill Tribe units.

We need to start our discussion of Isengard with the big man himself: Saruman. There are two army lists with access to Saruman: the Army of the White Hand list (where he isn't required, but all of the army list bonuses only work if he's on the board) and the Muster of Isengard (where he is required, but oddly enough has no army special rules tied to him being in the list). From a stat perspective, Saruman is basically unchanged - same numbers, Courage/Intelligence value of 3+, nothing special.

Saruman still has the Palantir, which now forces a roll-off with the likes of the Azog Ambush rule (awesome, since it used to be overridden and wasted) and is still a very valuable reason for taking Saruman. He picked up a new rule, Saruman's Deceit, which allows him to apply a -1 penalty on a single enemy hero's attempts to resist magical powers cast by Saruman against the hero (though a natural 6 remains a 6). If you think two-handing with the penalty is bad (I don't, but many people do), then this is like applying the new rules for two-handing to your resist tests . . . chew on that for a minute.

FAQ Time: Reviewing the February 2025 FAQ

Good morning gamers,

On Valentine's Day, we got some love from the GW team in the form of an FAQ drop - the first of the new edition (and really the first in a year)! There weren't a lot of changes, but I thought the clarifications were good and nothing really changed. You can view the updated PDFs here (which have been periodically updated since the drop of the new books - and the Armies of the Hobbit/Lord of the Rings actually had their drops the day before, but without the date change). I have included the relevant FAQ text for context (but not the errata text - we'll be summing that up instead).

Photo Credit: Reddit 
I submitted a few things - but I was mostly happy with the changes in the actual books, so . . . yeah, I wasn't digging furiously this time through.

What Didn't Have Changes

There was quite a bit that hasn't changed - most notably that we still don't have a release date for the next supplement (Armies of Middle-Earth) or the Legacies document. Most of the rules sections were unaffected - there were individual profiles that had weapon/stat changes, some profiles/profile options were added to army lists for completeness, and some rules that had sentences that were present in past editions have snuck back in for clarity. Most of the errata were "tidying up" changes, not mega changes.

Most of the rules clarifications fall into one of three categories: to what extent does new text for old rules change the way things have always been, how powerful are cavalry (and what are my options in lists that have new cavalry mechanics), and how do objective markers work? Let's start off with the errata and then we'll dive into the FAQs.

First Impressions: Isengard, Part I

Good morning gamers,

One of the first armies I started collecting back in late 2010 was Isengard - specifically, a bucket of used Uruk-Hai Warriors (Captain, banner, 18 shields, 10 pikes). A few purchases and conversions later, and I had a few Captains, a Saruman, and some Uruk-Hai Scouts/Orc Warriors to go with them. All in all, it was a pretty economical way to get started with an army.

And I hated it. I hated running my Isengard army. I looked for all KINDS of ways to use them well and no matter what I did, the Elves, Dwarves, and sometimes Rohan/Gondor/Moria armies in my meta would just seem to run right over me. And don't get me started on those crazy Angmar Orc/Hunter Orc lists that Centaur used to run during the warband era - I was paying far too much for Uruks and not getting nearly the value I felt I should have for their stats.

And that feeling of frustration and despair set me on one of my most important MESBG journeys: the decision to figure out how to get the most out of expensive spellcasters (Saruman in particular - back BEFORE he was super awesome) and how to get the most out of good-stat, expensive troops(Uruk-Hai of all stripes). Fast forward not one but two editions later, and we're seeing Uruk-Hai profiles that have either changed in very subtle ways or haven't changed at all - and in an edition where lots of characters are seeing a new renaissance, it's very tempting to look at the very familiar profiles in the Isengard section of the book and feel like they've been left behind a bit. 

But it's not true - the Uruks of Isengard are still very strong. Let's take a look today and see what the Isengard garden variety of Uruks look like!

First Impressions: The Kingdoms of Men, Part IV

Good morning gamers,

Tiberius: Red Jacket is back with a review of his beloved Rohan heroes. There will be one point of cross-over with my post on the new War of the Rohirrim heroes, but this should cover all of the previous Rohan heroes who didn't make their way into the undying lands of the Legacies document and the not-so-undying-lands of the greatly-anticipated Armies of Middle-Earth supplement. Forth Eorlingas!

* * *

Red Jacket: Today we are going to examine the profile updates for some of the new edition’s Rohan faction.  Specifically, we are looking at the profiles that carried over from the 2018 Edition Armies book and supplements. This article does not review the new profiles introduced in the 2024 edition… as if there weren’t enough Rohan heroes already. Nor will it comment on the tragi… I mean… “necessary” removal of some of the heroes that weren’t featured in the film. (Even though at least one of them was.) (Yes I know there is another book coming.)

Despite that angsty intro, I like most of the actual changes made to the profiles. I have just a couple more housekeeping things to comment on before diving in.

First, as you are no doubt aware, all profiles had an intelligence stat added in the new edition. I won’t be commenting on it much, since this is a compare and contrast article. Second, all profiles switched to hand weapons, and removed special strikes. I will only be commenting on this in as much as I feel it truly impacts how the model regularly interacts with the game on the tabletop. Finally, in the case of heroes, I will not be commenting on heroic tiers. While in the old edition, they were fixed (more or less) and were a significant aspect of the profile and hero choice in list building, that is not the case in the new edition, with tier being dependent upon the list they are taken in.

So without further ado, let’s take a look at these new profiles.

 

Battle Report: The Three Trolls v. Muster of Isengard

Hey Reader!

In a stunning turn of events, we are back with ANOTHER BATTLE REPORT! I hope to get a lot more battle report content out on the blog this year, because writing battle reports has been fun, and I've missed it, so hopefully you'll be seeing more coming down the pike soon! :)

We decided to do a 600pt match today; Tiberius will be fielding his Muster of Isengard list (Saruman is BACK baby!), while I will be playing The Three Trolls, because monsters! And also this list is wildly different from the previous edition, so I figured it's worth taking them out for a spin (since I don't think I ever got to use them in the last edition thanks to the whole 400pts thing)!

Army lists are below:

Tiberius's List: Muster of Isengard

Warband 1

Saruman (Army Leader)

7 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes 

6 Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields 

2 Uruk-Hai Berserkers 

3 Uruk-Hai Scouts with Uruk-Hai bows

Warband 2

Uruk-Hai Captain

1 Uruk-Hai Warrior with banner 

2 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes

3 Uruk-Hai Berserkers 

6 Uruk-Hai Scouts with Uruk-Hai bows

Enemy Warband

Grima Wormtongue

TOTAL: 600pts, 33 models, 5 Might, 1 DOPE CASTER

Centaur's List: The Three Trolls

Warband 1

Bill the Troll (Army Leader)

Warband 2

Bert the Troll

Warband 3

Tom the Troll

Troll Hoard: 

Nothing Like a Warm Fire (Campfire Banner/Resistant to Magic/Courage effects are increased from 6" to 18")

Full Bellies (All trolls start with 3M / 3W / 3F)

Bowl 'Em Over (Trolls may use their throwing stones as throwing weapons, and may reroll their Hurl distance)

Cover of Darkness (the game will be played at night, and the trolls gain Cave Dweller)

TOTAL: 600pts, 3 models, 9 Might