The New Age Is Begun: The Rivendell Army List

Good morning gamers,

I got started with Rivendell by accident - I got a bunch of Rivendell heroes for my White Council list . . . and then I was like, "You know, I can ally the White Council into a Rivendell list" . . . and then I was like, "You know, I could use some more Elves to support my Numenoreans", and then I finally said, "What the heck, let's flesh this thing out." Rivendell has always been a solid and popular choice - perhaps because of that awesome sequence at the start of the Fellowship of the Ring where the Rivendell Elves are fighting alongside the Numenoreans in a cool battle sequence. I knew I always wanted this army in my collection and they're in a really interesting place this edition. Let's see both what's cool about these guys, what's competitive about these guys, and how they've changed in this new version of the game!

Rivendell: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

This list has most of the Rivendell models available in the last edition - you have Elrond and Glorfindel as your beater heroes (no Gil-Galad though), you have Rivendell Captains for Heroic March, you have Elladan, Elrohir, and Erestor as your cheaper beaters, and Arwen, Lindir, and Bilbo for support work (no Cirdan). Losing Gil-Galad and Cirdan (and Gildor for a very select few of us) does change the list a lot from the last edition, but these two heroes don't function the way they used to, so that change is to be expected. You still have Rivendell Warriors and Rivendell Knights, but with the loss of Gil-Galad, you also lose access to King's Guard, so you're "stuck" at F5 on the warriors. This is a minor change, but having F6 Elves to support your lines isn't a bad thing.

Army List Bonuses

Last edition, Rivendell had a rule that helped them with their archery if their bowmen were near their Army Leader (now General) and didn't move . . . while the Lindon army list kept that rule, this list traded it for three other rules - all three of which are situationally good. The simplest is the Protection of Imladris rule, which gives all of your models +1 to their Courage Tests. Elves already have good Courage, but no matter how good your Courage is, there's usually a chance that you'll mess things up. Having Courage 4+ across the warriors in this list is great and your top-tier heroes might have a 2+ Courage stat, which is fabulous. Sometimes this rule will matter and sometimes it won't - but it's good to have. 

Similarly situational is the Defensive Stance rule, which is the design team's attempt to represent the "windmill" thing we see at the start of the Fellowship of the Ring - friendly Elf Warrior models get to reroll 1s To Wound if they didn't move in the Move Phase. This is great for players like me who used Feint a lot in the last edition and probably doesn't look like much to others - whatever. When two-handing with your frontline Elves and you're responding to enemy charges, this is a really strong rule and can turn definitely failed rolls to potential successes. Since Might might be limited in your list (see what I did there?), this does "reward" you for stemming an assault, but only if you intend to not defend by shielding. So . . . is this a good rule? It can be, but it isn't always going to be invoked - and I think it's markedly worse than the Last Alliance "wound enemies that charge you on a 6" rule.

The New Age Is Begun: The Lothlorien Army List

Good morning gamers,

I had been playing SBG for about a year before my wife got me an eBay lot of Galadriel, Celeborn, and unarmored Haldir with no bow (that sculpt did not age well). I had been playing with Wood Elf Warriors (not called Lothlorien Warriors) in the Thranduil's Halls list (before the Hobbit films changed that list A LOT) and had Legolas leading a bunch of Elves, all of whom couldn't be shot. I used to ally in Gandalf into the list to keep them alive while crossing the inevitable no-man's-land, until our good mate Zorro told me, "You know you can ally Legolas with Galadriel and run all those Elves for like 40pts less, right?" And I basically never looked back. :)

Today, we're tackling Lothlorien - a list that I think has been good throughout the ages, but has gotten particularly good with the return of its cavalry and super-elite infantry with the release of the Armies of Middle-Earth book. I'm also not the only person who thinks this - Lothlorien doesn't have more profiles than a lot of other lists (and it certainly doesn't have a lot of army list bonuses), but the units it has are good, they're very well costed, and the whole list can play incredibly asymmetrically into big-nasty lists or horde lists. Let's see what's baking in the Golden Wood, shall we?

Lothlorien: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

This list both does and doesn't have the same profiles from the last edition: you have Galadriel (caster form, not war form), Haldir, Orophin, Rumil, Galadhrim Captains, Lothlorien Captains (nee Wood Elf Captains), and Lothlorien Stormcallers. The list also has Celeborn, but this version of Celeborn is vastly different from his previous version and has to be taken in his pajamas. I converted an armored Celeborn from one of the old metal Haldir's Elves sculpts . . . that guy isn't seeing much use these days. The warriors are all the same, so the only real profile change is the overhaul of the previous Celeborn (who was awesome) and the arrival of the new Celeborn profile (who is also awesome, but for very different reasons).

There is a functional difference in this list, however, when it comes to profiles: in the last edition, you would usually use Lothlorien as part of an allied list, instead of as a mono-list. While there aren't any "bad" profiles in Lothlorien, the list gave you access to a cheap "unlimited" caster in Galadriel, F6 supporting models with Guards of the Galadhrim Court, 10pt D6 front-line guys, and 18-21pt cavalry models - all of which were appealing to lists with limited unit choices, like Numenor (which brought S4 to the mix), Fangorn (which was really profile-constrained), the Misty Mountains (the dreaded "birdbath" list with the eternal Gwaihir model), and the Fellowship (Boromir/Legolas/Aragorn would love to slot in and help out their Elven friends). Not only is allying a thing of the past, but these heroes provided something that Lothlorien definitely no longer has: a fast-moving/hard-hitting Strike hero. Yes, there are some heroes with Heroic Strike in the list, but none of them are toting more than 2 Attacks, one of them is Unarmed with 1 Attack, and their only 3 Attack hero is "stuck" at F6 . . . in that comparison, having a F7+ hero with 3 or more Attacks (Boromir, Aragorn, Gwaihir, Treebeard, Isildur, and Elendil - JUST from the list of profiles above) would be most welcome.

It's a new era, but the bones of the list are still good and so I think the list itself is definitely worth a try. Let's see what our army list bonuses are.

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 Rangers of Mirkwood

Good morning gamers,

This post officially kicks off Elf month and we're doing so by talking about more Dwarves. :) Yes, we're tackling a really fun list from the last edition that's seen a greatly expanded roster . . . many of which you will probably not be able to throw into your final list unless you're playing at a very, VERY high points level (at which point, I'd like to direct your attention to the Battle of Five Armies army list that we'll look at later this year). Welcome one of the big powerhouses of shooting: the new imagined Rangers of Mirkwood.

Rangers of Mirkwood: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

Last edition, this list had five profiles in it: Legolas, Tauriel, Mirkwood Ranger Captains, Mirkwood Rangers, and Wood Elf Sentinels. Four of these profiles (not Wood Elf Sentinels) stayed in the list, but the list picked up fourteen new profiles: Bilbo and the thirteen Dwarves of Thorin's Company (a bit awkward for a band name, but their music is alright). This gives the list some much-needed diversity and introduces another angle that you can lean into in order to expand the list to higher points levels (and honestly, I think some kind of Thorin's Company element is necessary in any list, but more on that later).

The list has two composition rules that bear noting when talking about this make up: Mirkwood Rangers can only be led by Mirkwood heroes (Legolas, Tauriel, and Mirkwood Ranger Captains) and Mirkwood Rangers don't count towards your army's bow limit (which is a much-needed carry-over from last edition). I will note that unlike Thorin's Company and to a much lesser degree the Army of Lake-town, you can't field the Thorin's Company members as part of a single warband, which makes your warband count high (good for some scenarios, bad for others).

Army List Bonuses

Besides the two list building rules that were mentioned above, we have two other general rules: you need to include at least one Unique Elf hero (so, Legolas and/or Tauriel) and if you choose Legolas, he must be your army leader (Tauriel otherwise). Both of these heroes are Heroes of Valour, so you'll get 30 warrior slots (625pts for both heroes with max gear and max warbands) - this seems like a pretty decent collection of models for 625pts, but let me assure you, this is probably all you need for this list. If you choose to take Thorin (more on him in a minute), he will only be a grenade hero . . . something he's very, very good at. The other Dwarves will likely be grenades, which can be helpful too.

The New Age Is Begun: The Army of Lake-town

Good morning gamers,

One of our readers asked when we'd do the Army of Lake-town - and I mentioned that I needed to do Thorin's Company first. This post closes out "Dwarf month" and it features . . . exactly four Dwarves. It also has one Elf and that makes it an interesting bridge into the month of May, which will be Elf month. Yes, we're reviewing the Army of Lake-town today - an army that used to be super powerful in the last edition and now really does need to lean into the non-Lake-town elements of the list (which, if we're honest, was always the strength of the Army of Lake-town last edition - see our Bare Necessities post for more on that, which did cover adding in Gwaihir, but not from the Misty Mountains list so he didn't have to be your army leader).

Army of Lake-town: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

This list has all of the old profiles that you'd expect - the Master of Lake-town, Alfrid, Braga, and Lake-town Guard Captains for your conventional heroes, Lake-town Guard as your only warrior option, and then Alfrid, Bard, and Bard's kids as "the rest of it." This edition, however, we have the guests of Bard's home as well - Tauriel, Kili, Fili, Oin, and Bofur (though notably . . . not Legolas . . . I guess he didn't stay long enough?). These additional heroes are the only way to "ally in" non-Lake-town bodies, which is good because Lake-town has always had fine-not-great profiles that you can buy on a budget to make space for something really strong (and something that's usually better than Bard).

Army List Bonuses

This list has some of the standard rules constraints for mixed-list armies - your Lake-town Guard can only be led by Lake-town Heroes and Bard's Family can be included either in Bard's warband or in Tauriel's warband. Tauriel's warband can also take the Dwarves, which could be useful if you know maelstrom might be a thing.