The Stuff of Legends: The Wolf Pack of Angmar

Good morning gamers,

AAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

Yep, today we're tackling the Wolf Pack of Angmar Legendary Legion - and boy has this been the golden boy of the Rise of Angmar sourcebook. No, it's not the strongest of the Legions - but it's definitely got the most flavor and I think a lot of players were looking forward to being able to throw together a pack of wargs and actually have a chance of winning games (well, games that weren't heavily skewed to fast armies already).

While I haven't been playing with this Legion, my son Gorgoroth has been intrigued by it, so I've seen it mostly in the context of doubles games and I can tell you, there are strengths to this list . . . and definite drawbacks. So let's hash through this very popular, fun Legendary Legion and see what there is to like about it.

Part 1: What Do You Need?

Legion Tax: 80pts

This Legion only requires you to take a single model: a Wild Warg Chieftain. This guy gets buffed up to an "Uber Warg Chieftain," who has 3 Might, 3 Will, 2 Fate instead of the usual 2 Might, 2 Will, 1 Fate of a Warg Chieftain. Unlike the "Uber Troll Chieftain" of the Black Gate Opens LL, this guy gets no special rules to make him better, but like the Uber Troll, he gets improved to a Hero of Valour.

The Stuff of Legends: Army of Carn Dum

Hey Reader!

We're back, looking at more legendary legions, and today we're looking at The Army of Carn Dum from the Rise of Angmar supplement. This legion is interesting: it has very strong Dunland vibes, both in terms of warrior/hero profiles as well as in non-magical support characters. But the special rules do make it feel a bit different from Dunland, and by extension quite different from Vanilla Angmar as well.

Part 1: What Do You Need?

The Legion requires you to take Aldrac, Warlord of Carn Dum, which is 120pts. This is not a bad tax: it's not the smallest, but it's not the largest either. It's more than Theoden, but less than the Dragon Emperor, so not bad. It means I'd probably never play this legion below 400pts (and for reasons you'll see I'd probably not play it above 600pts), but the tax is not bad.

Of course, in reality, you need more than that: one of your special rules involves Fraecht's Incantations of Power, so if you don't take him (65pts), you're leaving special rules on the table. You also have a special rule (and a cool special rule!) involving banner ranges, so if you don't take a banner (25-50pts if you take 1-2 banners), you're also not taking full advantage of your special rules. So the "True Tax" of the legion is 210-235pts, not 120. Which...for a F3 army, is quite high. You get pretty good value out of this, but it is a high tax.

The Stuff of Legends: Army of Arnor

Hey Reader!

We're back, looking at more legendary legions, and today we're starting our deep dive into the Army of Arnor from the Rise of Angmar supplement. This legion is similar to some of the other legendary legions that have come out where they are "the legendary legion for that small minor army, so that all of them get at least one," and yet it's not for reasons that we'll discuss below. But if you are getting Army of Dale / Chief's Ruffians / Army of Dunland vibes from this legendary legion, I don't blame you!

Part 1: What Do You Need?

The Legion requires you to take Arvedui, Last King of Arnor, which is only 80pts. This is one of the smallest "Legion Taxes" for any legendary legion (Sharkey's Rogues, Wolves of Isengard, and Ugluk's Scouts come in lower, but this is still quite impressive), meaning you can technically play this legendary legion at almost any points level.

Of course, in reality, you need more than that: two of your three legion bonuses are tied to Malbeth the Seer, so effectively you need to take another 70pts to actually use all of your legion bonuses. That being said, a 150pt "True Tax" is not bad at all for a legendary legion.

Beyond this, you need "Arnor" models: Warriors of Arnor, Rangers of Arnor, the new Knights of Arnor (I recommend taking a mix of all three of these), and you can even throw in Dunedain and Rangers of the North if you like. 

You can also include Aranarth (the son of Arvedui) and Argadir (the right-hand man of Arvedui, and an auto-include in my book), and Captains of Arnor (which I'd take at least one of these guys if you can) to round out your hero choices.

The Stuff of Legends: The Battle of Fornost

Good morning gamers,

Before we get started with today's post, I just wanted to note that thanks to viewers like you, this little blog just passed 3,000,000 page views . . . so from all of us here at TMAT, thanks so much for your viewership - it means the world to us!

When we here at TMAT heard that the Rise of Angmar supplement was going to drop shortly before the new edition of MESBG was going to come out, we were like, "Yeah, there's no way we can review all of the changes that have come with this before the new edition drops." As a result, we decided to close out 2024 with an homage to the outgoing edition of the game, getting in all of the Legion reviews and army updates based on the changes that were provided for this beloved edition of the game. More old-school MESBG will follow in 2025, but intermixed with the new stuff.

We're starting off this seven-part series with a review of the Legion that I was most surprised by in the Rise of Angmar book: the Battle of Fornost LL. Obviously, this list was going to be in the book - that wasn't the surprising bit - but I was rather stunned by the options available for list building. While there are some elements of the army that I don't like, the list itself is . . . actually quite interesting. Let's take a look at what you need to run this list and what list building styles you can do with it.

Part 1: What Do You Need?

Legion Tax: 245-290pts

This list has one of the highest Legion taxes in it, since you have to take Earnur (who is probably mounted with a lance - but doesn't have to be) and Glorfindel (who is probably mounted with the Armor of Gondolin - though he doesn't have to be). On foot and with Glorfindel in his pajamas, these two heroes come in just shy of 250 points - maxed out, however they "only" cost 45pts more, so it's probably a safe bet that both will be mounted and armored.

Both are Heroes of Valour and unlike other Legendary Legions with required heroes that are the same tier (like Cirith Ungol or the Return of the King LL), you have the full flexibility of picking which of these heroes will be your army leader. Glorfindel has 3 Fate points, Fortify Spirit, an Elven-made weapon, and Lord of the West, which makes him a pretty compelling choice for your army leader, but without the lance and as the better stall-someone-who-is-big option, his place as army leader might not be a given.

Thematic List Building Challenge: The Road to Rivendell

Good morning gamers,

Last time we were in this series (just over a month ago), we looked at a highly restrictive list of units (those defending Minas Tirith in the films) and tried our best to find a way to make it competitive. Whether we succeeded or not is anyone's guess. Before that, we looked at the book-variant of the Defense of Minas Tirith, which means we had two lists from the Return of the King. The two posts prior to those were the book-variant and film-variant of the defense of the Deeping Wall of Helm's Deep . . . which means we had two posts from the Two Towers. Looks like Fellowship is due for a look, eh?

Today, we're looking at a list that I've tried to make work for years - and it involves cherry picking out desired units from SIX different army lists, all centered around the events that surrounded Frodo's departure from the Shire until his arrival in Rivendell. Can these units be run in a competitive setting? Well, let's find out . . .

The Theme

I read the Lord of the Rings every year (and by "read," I mean "listen to audiobooks" - which is kind of like reading if you have long commutes and get car sick . . . or are the one driving . . . as is the case for me). Every year when I relisten to The Fellowship of the Ring, I always come back to a list idea: bring an army that represents Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin (and I usually try to get Fatty Bolger in there too) trying to get to Rivendell. There are a HOST of characters that are introduced in the first book of Fellowship and most aren't revisited when you get to the return journey in The Return of the King.