New Rules, Part VI: The Kingdoms of Men, Part I

Good morning gamers,

It’s been a while since our last post, but we’re now turning to the Armies of Good from the Lord of the Rings. With the release of the Armies of the Hobbit, expect posts of those armies (Good and Evil) coming out early next year. As we did with the Armies of Evil from the Lord of the Rings, I’ll be using the old Warband books as the means of binning the armies that we have now. In my last post on the Armies of Evil, I said we’d do the Free Peoples as two posts and the Kingdoms of Men as one post, but the more I poured over the armies, I said, “Nope, each of these books gets two posts.” As mentioned in our previous posts, you should also check out Mik's Veni Vidi Vici blog for thoughts from the “experts” (the only army not covered in this post at the time of this writing is Arnor).

1) The New Lists: The Rangers, Numenor, Arnor, and Rohan

I chose in this post to delay covering the four Gondor civs (Minas Tirith, The Fiefdoms, and the Dead of Dunharrow, and the Wildmen of Druadan who live in the northern parts of Gondor that might technically be Rohan...can't remember). The armies we’ll be covering today have changed in some significant ways from their Warbands versions, but have returned to the fundamentals of their older Legions of Middle-Earth armies (so the changes aren’t THAT radical).

2) The Army Bonuses: Courage vs. Damage

The only army that needs to keep its army bonus is the Rangers – the addition of Woodland Creature and +1 Attack when on foot makes their elite archer models incredibly powerful. Unlike previous versions of this list (the “Grey Company”), you can’t include Rangers of Arnor to supplement your heroes anymore, but the bonus attack and Woodland Creature makes up for SOME of the under-cutting of numbers.

The other armies benefit greatly from their special rules, but don’t require them – Numenor’s Army Bonus (like Minas Tirith’s, as we’ll see next time) isn’t NECESSARY for success, but +1 Courage helps in many different circumstances (both in charging terror foes, as well as keeping your models in the field when they’re spread out on objectives). Arnor’s bonus provides auto-passing of Courage Tests so long as your units are near Arvedui (which supplements his own 12” stand fast and the very, VERY poor Courage possessed by Warriors of Arnor) – great if you have the last King of Arnor, but if you choose to leave him at home, you can do without it (Why would you? Wait and see). Rohan’s army bonus makes their cavalry much better (getting Strength +1 on the charge is awesome), but if you’re not running a lot of cavalry, it’s not necessary (though I think the slant is drifting very heavily to cavalry forces these days). Ergo, when we talk about lists for each below, we’ll be showcasing some Convenient Alliances for these three civs (but we’re keeping to Historical allies with the Rangers – that bonus is too good to pass up). With that, let’s talk lists.

3) The Lists: The Rangers

The Rangers have changed the most out of the civs we’re looking at today – back in the Legions of Middle-Earth days, you could field a Ranger of the North or a Dunedain in your force (and since you only needed 1 hero per army contingent, he could be the hero that led that contingent) and field up to 4 Rangers of Arnor to support that mini-hero. 4 Rangers of Arnor with no additional gear, supporting a Ranger of the North (+1 point over Dunedain to gain +1 Defense – seems worth it) meant that for 57 points, you could get 5 bowmen with a 3+ shoot value. With 10 models in base contact and the same bows, you could “volley fire” in previous editions, allowing you to double your range and hitting your targets on the roll of a 6. You could pump out tons of archery for not very much expense.

When the Warbands rules arrived, the army changed a little: first and foremost, Arnor and the Grey Company lists were joined into a single list, giving you access to Grey Company heroes (Aragorn, Arathorn, or Halbarad) AND Arnor heroes (Arvedui, Malbeth the Seer, or Captains of Arnor). The rule about 4 Rangers of Arnor not counting towards your bow limit per Dunedain/Ranger of the North remained, but now you needed to buy some normal heroes in order to field those Rangers of Arnor. This reduced the number of bows that could be fielded a bit, but not by THAT much. In truth, thanks to the addition of Warriors of Arnor, you could actually keep your model count high by using Warriors of Arnor to add to your numbers and allow you to keep some bows in your army (1 Ranger of the North + 4 Rangers of Arnor ~= 5 Warriors of Arnor + 2 Rangers of Arnor).

In the new rules, Rangers of the North saw a slight price increase and warrior options have fallen out entirely. As a result, the army can’t spam models on its own anymore, though it can still field the same number of bows as a conventional army list. Our first list, therefore, looks at how you can spam a ranger list today:

List #1: Guardians of Eriador
Arathorn – 75

Halbarad with the Banner of Arwen Evenstar – 110

1 Ranger of the North on horse - 40

15 Dunedain with spear - 375

I’ll make a note that you could drop 2 Dunedain to change 10 of the Dunedain to Rangers of the North. I’ve chosen to keep the numbers high for this particular list. In this list, we have 18 bows with a really, REALLY good banner and a F5 3A army leader. With lots of Heroic Accuracy available (though I think you want the Might points for Heroic Combats) as well as lots of spears, your army will be flexible in how it wants to engage the enemy. I included a single model on a horse for objective claiming or running off the board edge in case you need it (plus, it’s a horse archer – who doesn’t want that in their army?).

The greatest weakness of this list, of course, is that the models in it are predominantly D4 (and those that aren't are D5). As mentioned above, we could run 16 models instead and be predominantly D5, but even this is only an average defense army. Any time you run a pure Grey Company army, you’re heavily dependent on the proliferation of Might points and lots of archery. It’s a great list, but be careful. Our next list tries to address this issue of numbers – and I think it does it pretty effectively.

List #2: Protecting the Litlle-Folk
Aragorn/Strider with Anduril, bow, and armor – 210

2 Rangers of the North – 60

1 Dunedain - 24

Ally: The Shire

Meriadoc, Captain of the Shire with shield - 50

Peregrin, Captain of the Shire with shield - 50

Lobelia Sackville-Baggins - 15

1 Hobbit Militia – 4

15 Battlin’ Brandybucks – 75

12 Tookish Hunters – 72

8 Hobbit Shirriffs - 40

Okay, I’m going to disagree with renowned-Ranger-player Devin Moreno here – I think the ideal ally for the Rangers is the Shire (not the Dead of Dunharrow - more on them in the next post in this series). I believe this for a few reasons: first, the Dead of Dunharrow are the only army that is basically as expensive as the Rangers (two warriors in trade for every one Ranger of the North).

Second, while The Shire can get Dunedain, it can’t get Rangers of the North and getting access to Dunedain requires you to get Gandalf the Grey (and thereby forego Merry, Pippin, Frodo, and Sam - some of the best Hobbit heroes you can buy). I should also mention that Shire-based Dunedain only have 1 Attack each (vs. the 2 Attacks that these non-mounted Dunedain and Rangers of the North have) AND don't get Woodland Creature (the Shire Woodland Creature bonus only applies to Hobbits, not Men). To me, they're not even the same units.

Third, because Shire-Rats are so blissfully cheap (even after a 1pt/model increase across the board), their greatly reduced price allows you to easily run Aragorn with Anduril (which, let’s face it, we all want to do). If you REALLY want to have more models, Halbarad will come in at a fraction of Aragorn’s cost, allowing you to run someone like Farmer Maggot or Frodo with ~9 additional hobbits rallying to the cry of the Shire (or 3-4 Ranger models). This list, coming in at 43 models, appears large enough for a 600 point game to be deadly, given that Aragorn will be killing a TON of models, you're getting plenty of archery, and Merry/Pippin got some good buffs to make them even better at fighting (though you could raise that model count over 50 models easily by not bringing Aragorn).

4) The Lists: Arnor

As mentioned above, Arnor in the Warbands books included the Grey Company models that we see in the Rangers list today. While Malbeth the Seer is a great hero, the other options (including King Arvedui) are kind of “meh” – Arnor, like Numenor who we’ll cover shortly, lacks a lot of unit choices and as such can be very constricting to play (to say nothing of the $$$ required to buy the actual models). That said, where Arnor shines is in the sheer number of models you can field – Warriors of Arnor are some of the cheapest F4 D6 models you can find and they all come with spears, making their battle lines very flexible (to say nothing of the new Hatred rule they get against Angmar models). With options for Hobbit Archers (short range bows, slow speed, very cheap) or Rangers of Arnor (long range bows, normal speed, more expensive), you can have good archer support of your heavy battle lines. Here’s a list that showcases some of what you can do with Arnor.

List #1: In Defense of Arnor
Arvedui, Last King of Arnor – 80

Malbeth the Seer – 70

2 Captains of Arnor – 110

29 Warriors of Arnor – 232

1 Warrior of Arnor with Banner – 33

15 Hobbit Archers - 75

The great thing about Arnor is that you can have truly massive armies – this list has almost 50 models in it! We could have broken 50 models by dropping the banner, adding in a few more warriors, and upgrading some of our Hobbit Archers to Rangers of Arnor. Instead, we’ve decided to focus on two kinds of units (Warriors of Arnor as heavy infantry and Hobbit Archers as light infantry). The problem, of course, with this list is its predominantly low Courage. While Arvedui can supplement this a bit, Courage 2 is really bad (fight the Dead of Dunharrow with this list some time and you’ll see what I mean). If Courage is a big fear of yours, consider this list instead…

List #2: Guardians of the North
Malbeth the Seer – 70

2 Captains of Arnor – 110

20 Warriors of Arnor – 160

11 Hobbit Archers - 55

Ally: Rivendell

Cirdan – 80

8 High Elf Warriors with shields - 80

4 High Elf Warriors with Elf bows - 44

At 47 models, this is still a pretty big list (only slightly smaller than the last one)! Cirdan got much, MUCH better than he has been in previous editions, since he can now cast Aura of Command with his free die the first turn, cast a Heroically Channelled Blinding Light on a free die (though I’d throw in an extra dice just to make sure your only Might point isn’t wasted), and still have 2-3 Will left over to cast Aura of Dismay (all three of which are Exhaustion spells, so they'll stay up to protect your models all game provided you don't get hit with Sap Will). On later turns, casting Enchanted Blades on one of your High Elves (or a Captain of Arnor) can make you more likely to wound your targets.

Supplementing the handful of Elves you have in your army are 34 Arnor models, including Malbeth the Seer (a must-have for resiliency in your list), 2 Captains to do some damage, 20 heavy troops, and 11 Hobbits. All told, this combined list sports a lot of models, good Fight value and Defense (excusing the Hobbits), and resilience to most kinds of threats. In addition, models near Malbeth the Seer have a shot at avoiding Wounds, while models near Cirdan will be almost immune to archery, cause Terror, AND pass any Courage tests they need to take. What a list (note: I can't take full credit for this list, as it's patterned after a list I read about by a guy who went to a Chicago tournament years ago - had a great time with it)!

5) The Lists: Numenor

Ah, Numenor. I love these guys. The greatest limitation to them (especially in previous editions of the game) was their limited profiles – two named hero profiles, one generic hero profile, one warrior profile. With the new rules, Numenor not only got good boosts to magic defense, but they also got increase Strength (except on the Captain of Numenor – why?!?!?!?!), making their models effectively Uruk-Hai Scouts with different equipment options (SPEARS!). For those thinking “but I don’t want to have to buy those metal spearmen and bowmen – why would I run this list?” see my post that I did last year on converting Numenorian warriors with swords and shields into bowmen and spearmen. The list below showcases what you can do with the full Might of Numenor. . . .

List #1: The Grand Might of Numenor
Elendil, High King of Gondor and Arnor – 185

Isildur – 120

15 Warriors of Numenor with shields – 135

5 Warriors of Numenor with shields and spears – 50

11 Warriors of Numenor with spears and bows - 110

Clocking in at 33 models, this list is almost as big as you can get it without adding additional heroes. If you’re playing games larger than 600 points, you can add a Captain of Numenor (I recommend going all-out and giving him a shield and heavy armor, possibly a lance and horse if you need a fast model). What would really be useful in this list is a banner – they’re great when supporting Elendil (or Isildur or anybody), but the cost of putting one in this list would have cost us a few models. Because numbers are important when you've got an average defense army, we’ve got no banners here.

While this list keeps Numenor’s army bonus, you don’t really need it – Courage +1 is nice, but nothing you’d lose sleep over. While I COULD make a Convenient allies list, I couldn’t stay away from this one…

List #2: A Last Alliance
Isildur – 120

6 Warriors of Numenor with shields – 54

3 Warriors of Numenor with shields and spears – 30

5 Warriors of Numenor with spears and bows - 50

Ally: Rivendell

Gil-Galad, High King of the Elves – 170

8 High Elf Warriors with shields – 80

3 King’s Guard – 30

6 High Elf Warriors with Elf bows - 66

I looked at the Convenient alliance choices and they were either Elf armies (Thranduil’s Halls, Lothlorien) or monster armies (Fangorn, Misty Mountains) or hero armies (Wanderers in the Wild). Thematically, Rivendell is a great choice for Numenor, but functionally, the benefits you get from either of the other Elf armies (now that heavy armor comes standard on the heavy infantry choices for all Elven armies) are just about the same as you get from Rivendell. Getting monsters/heroes doesn’t make a lot of sense either, since heroes from Rivendell are some of the punchiest heroes in the game (Elrond, Gil-Galad, and Glorfindel) – veritable monsters in their own right. So, we did the thematic choice and decided to keep our army bonus and bring some Elves along for the ride.

As you scale the list out, upgrade Isildur to Elendil – there’s nothing quite like running Elendil AND Gil-Galad in the same list! Gil-Galad’s F9 means he can charge into combat with the toughest opponent and call a Heroic Challenge with a decent shot at staying alive against the inevitable Heroic Strike that’s called. While Gil-Galad is causing panic on one side of the board, Elendil can tear a new one into the rest of your opponent’s force with free Heroic Combats pushing him deep into the enemy lines (though don’t underestimate the power of a good Heroic Defense if you’re out-gunned). Warriors of Numenor are less important in this fight than High Elves – some of whom we’ve upgraded to King’s Guard because having smatterings of F6 in your battle line can greatly aid you when running up against other Elf armies (or against Uruk armies, where their Captains can be so lethal).

6) The Lists: Rohan

Our final list today is Rohan – Rohan is finally the cavalry army we all hoped it would be (though their strategy has changed a lot). In prior editions, Rohan cavalry were viewed as skirmishers, with Sons of Eorl being able to do more damage on the charge than the rest thanks to 2 Attacks and fast, heavy horses. For the most part, Rohan battle tactics encouraged you to skirmish with your opponent, softening him up with archery to weaken him and then charge when their numbers were dwindled. Now, thanks to the “scoot-and-shoot” penalties that archers face, Rohan isn’t as good at this anymore (though they can still do it) but have been rewarded instead with the ability to increase their Strength when they charge. Our first list today looks at an all-cavalry force with everything it can provide:

List #1: Ride of the Rohirrim
Theoden, King of Rohan with heavy armor, shield, and armored horse – 100

Erkenbrand, Captain of Rohan with horse – 85

4 Riders of Rohan - 56

12 Redshields – 180

9 Rohan Royal Guards with horses and throwing spears – 153

2 Rohan Outriders with horses - 26

I’ve avoided taking Eomer in this list – some will obviously object to this. While Eomer is fantastic and “you should always take Eomer,” we’ve skipped him at this point level. There’s a nearly-equal balance between Redshields and Rohan Royal Guards/Riders of Rohan – this is because the Redshields can benefit from Erkenbrand (banners for horsemen are great, though you can admittedly not get THAT many people benefiting from it) and the Rohan Royal Guards become F5 when charging near Theoden (and F5 S4 cavalry are amazing). The normal Riders of Rohan/Redshields become F4 when charging near Theoden (F4 S4 cavalry are a little amazing), so even if your Royal Guards are needed elsewhere, you've got some benefit coming from these guys. I’ve chosen to forego giving throwing spears to the Redshields and Riders of Rohan – it would cost us 2/model more - though I’ll admit that it would be helpful (since you don’t suffer the -1 penalty for “scoot-and-shoot” when you cast the spear on the Charge).

Speaking of “scoot-and-shoot,” we’ve included 2 Rohan Outriders in order to provide us with a small pocket of riders that we can reliably shoot while moving (since their shoot value stays at an acceptable 4+). While the 2 Outriders are the only good skirmish units, you get a not-terrible-because-there’s-a-bunch-of-them amount of archery from the 16 bows of the Redshields/Riders of Rohan and the 9 throwing spears on the Rohan Royal Guards – that’s 25 skirmish shots hitting on 5s and 2 skirmish shots hitting on 4s!

The obvious difficulty with this list is its numbers – you only have 29 models. While all the warriors can shoot, any army that has a lot of S3 bows (or higher, naturally), anything that uses magic, or armies with LOTS of guys in it will prove a little difficult to deal with (not impossible to beat, but definitely requiring some practice). With only 6 Might across your 2 heroes, getting Heroic Moves will be very important (you NEED that Charge). Our final list for this post is an alliance that I really like and is basically taken straight from the Book, the Two Towers . . .

List #2: In Defense of the Hornburg
Theoden with heavy armor and shield – 85

Hama with shield - 60

18 Warriors of Rohan with shields and spears – 162

7 Warriors of Rohan with bows – 49

3 Rohan Outriders - 24

Ally: The Fellowship

Legolas Greenleaf with armor - 105

Gimli, Son of Gloin - 100

Yep, it’s an infantry list. Why run this list (instead of the cavalry above)? Like in the previous list, all of your warriors can skirmish, allowing the warriors to not engage openly against their foes. With 8” range on their throwing spears, it’s possible to stay just outside of the charge range of your opponents, allowing you to weaken slow, infantry-only armies before they launch themselves against you. I’ve chosen to go with Warriors of Rohan with bows to save points, but realize that you could instead swap in some Outriders on foot for some Warriors of Rohan with bows (you’d get a better Shoot value and better benefits from Stand Fasts), but I’ve chosen the extra number here instead of the better Shoot value (maybe that’s a bad idea, you decide).

If you’re going to abandon the Rohan army bonus, you should at least get something you don’t normally get out of the deal. In this case, we get two incredibly powerful F6 heroes. Legolas and Gimli’s new rules (which we’ll get into when we cover the Free Peoples armies) are fantastic, allowing the two friends to get better in combat if the other one has killed more models than they have. Gimli can get +1 to his To Wound rolls while rolling 3 Attack dice (or +2 To Wound with 2 Attack dice) if Legolas is winning the contest, while Legolas can shoot three times hitting on 2s if he stands still (3s if he moves) with all the power that comes from his Elf bow! Together, they assist in the skirmishing potential that Rohan loves (though Gimli's relatively bad Move stat may mean he gets locked into combat somewhere before the rest of your army is ready to engage...oh darn).

I’ve avoided highlighting a particularly good ally for Rohan: Lothlorien. Lorien is a historical ally, allowing you to run some cavalry alongside Galadhrim Warriors in heavy armor. I’m certain there’s a better list than what is shown above (something like this perhaps – I know, I said the last one was the last list, but you didn’t REALLY expect me to stick to that, right?):

Bonus List: We Come To Honor That Allegiance
Theoden with heavy armor and shield – 85

Hama with shield - 60

17 Warriors of Rohan with shields and spears – 153

1 Warrior of Rohan with shield - 7

9 Warriors of Rohan with bows – 63

Ally: Lothlorien

Haldir with heavy armor and Elf bow - 85

8 Galadhrim Warriors with shields and spears – 88

4 Galadhrim Warriors with Elf bows - 44

This list gives all of the Galadhrim melee-only models spears – this supplements the complete lack of normal spears that Rohan has. With 27 Warriors of Rohan in this list and 12 Galadhrim Warriors, we’ve got a whopping 42 models - and only a quarter of your models (Theoden, Hama, 1 Warrior of Rohan, and 8 Galadhrim Warriors) can’t shoot. Haldir gets to use his niche special rule, providing him a banner bonus if he’s within 12” of Theoden – while you want to get as much shooting out of him as possible, send him to the front of your army and watch him carve up the enemy alongside Theoden. While this isn’t the most competitive list (though the model count is good), it’s thematically very fun to use and would be decently hard to chase down on a board if your opponent predominantly has infantry models.

Well, that's it for these factions. In our next post, our gaze turns to Gondor. Hoping to get it up before Christmas, but we'll see. Until next time, happy hobbying!