Nemesis: How to Fight Against Gil-Galad

Good morning gamers,

We're back in our Nemesis series for the next few months and we're going to be focusing on the heroes who fought for or against the Last Alliance for most of the next few posts. Our journey begins with one of the nastiest Elven heroes in the game: Gil-Galad. Back when Heroic Strike wasn't a thing, having a F9 hero was pretty sweet, but even in an age where Strike exists, having a F9 hero is guaranteed to make your opponent cough up some Might (and being guaranteed to get to the all-desired F10 is a nice option). So what makes this guy so hard to deal with? And what tools can you use to fight against him? Let's dig in and find out!

What Makes Gil-Galad So Hated?

Like most combat heroes, we need to start by looking at Gil-Galad's offensive profile. He's one of four heroes who is innately F9-10 (and by far the cheapest - his rivals are the Balrog and the Dark Lord Sauron) and with 3 Attacks, a reroll to his dueling and wounding rolls with the Lord of the West special rule, Aiglos (a spear that confers +1 To Wound without any penalties), and a mount (your stock-standard horse for 10pts), it's not hard to get a lot of damage out of this guy.

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

The pairing of Fight 9 and the Blood and Glory special rule make him particularly dangerous against heroes, most of whom will have to declare a Heroic Strike (if they even have that option) to tie or beat his Fight Value and if he manages to kill the hero (not hard if he can knock the model prone while on the charge or if he's got some help in trapping the target), he gets a Might point back. Striking from F9 can be unnecessary, but if you're going to get the Might point back, it's probably worth doing anyway.

If Gil-Galad was all that was potent or dangerous in his list, he'd probably be okay - but the Rivendell list is loaded with options to make Gil-Galad work at basically any points level. There are some Rivendell heroes that confer no penalties at all to your army building - Elrond and Glorfindel are pricey heroes, but they make excellent wing-men for Gil-Galad (especially Elrond, since he might be able to help you win you priority on a close roll with his Foresight points or knock foes near Gil-Galad prone with Wrath of Bruinen). If you're looking for more budget-restricted killing power, a mounted High Elf Captain or Erestor are excellent choices for 85-100pts. Most players who face Rivendell fear Cirdan with Gil-Galad, since shooting Gil-Galad and charging all those Elves they brought gets harder. Oh, and any Terror you invested in is a lot harder to preserve unless you have Sap Will in your army.

If you want to keep your army bonus, you also have some interesting alliance options from Numenor. If you want to pair Gil-Galad with another great hero, you can add Elendil to your list (who could be your army leader if you want to be a bit more reckless with Gil-Galad - or you can swap it around the other way, whatever works for you). If you leave Elendil at home, you can get access to a Ringbearer for 50+ points less with Isildur. If you're really strapped for points, a 75pt Captain of Numenor on a horse with heavy armor, lance, and your choice of shield or bow is a nice hitting piece that can give your infantry some extra speed with Heroic March. Any of these are excellent options.

If you're willing to forego your army bonus, you have a few options that can help Gil-Galad be better. If you are okay with a pure Rivendell list, you can take some of the heroes who were born AFTER Gil-Galad died - Elladan and Elrohir are a bargain price for 6 Might and two good heroes, Arwen is an incredibly cheap Wrath of Bruinen caster, and Lindir can give Gil-Galad Resistant to Magic (and can make Elrond a long-term caster). I've left Bilbo off this list intentionally - he's a Ringbearer (and that has value), but since he can't lead any troops, you're going to spend the same points on him and another hero who can lead troops as you would on Isildur - who is higher up on the order ranking for carrying the Ring anyway and has a much better profile. Take Isildur instead.

Your convenient alliance options are interesting too - Galadriel can restore Gil-Galad's Fate point should he lose it with either the Mirror of Galadriel or the Blessing of the Valar magical power (and can bring lots of Elves from Lothlorien) or you could grab a big monster model like Gwaihir or Treebeard instead of any of those man-sized beater heroes. If you ally with anyone else (or any of these heroes if you also took Elladan, Elrohir, Arwen, Lindir, or Bilbo in your list), you're going to be Impossible Allies - and I think the boosts that Gil-Galad gives to your team are worth avoiding an Impossible Alliance.

So far, we've only looked at heroes who can work well with Gil-Galad, but I think most players fear what he can do for his warriors, particularly High Elf Warriors in his warband. Only a few Elf heroes in the game can upgrade warriors in their warband to be better - and most of them aren't worth it. Celeborn and Galadriel can upgrade Galadhrim Warriors to Galadhrim Guard for 1pt and these guys gain +1 Courage . . . almost no one does it (and I've explored a way to make this more appealing in a previous article). Gildor Inglorion must upgrade Wood Elf Warriors in his warband to Noldorin Exiles for 1pt, which gives them 8" movement instead of 6" movement (which is good, if you don't mind Wood Elf Warriors). These seem pretty conditionally useful (if at all useful).

But for 1pt per model, Gil-Galad can upgrade High Elf Warriors to King's Guard, which boosts them from F5 to F6. Against some foes, being F6 and being F5 makes no practical difference, but against F4-5 foes (of which there are a surprising number across most factions), being F6 can make all the difference - and if Rohan or Isengard are big in your local meta, all those heroes who are locked into being F5 or less are going to GROAN if you have a bunch of F6 spearmen to support your ranks. Whether Gil-Galad is leading 18 King's Guard with shields and spears or 12 King's Guard with shields and spears alongside 6 King's Guard with spear and Elf bows, this guy can mean business and back up any Rivendell (or Lothlorien) troops he wants with a nice wall of F6. Golly, that's rough.

If we dig a little deeper in Gil-Galad's profile, we find some other nice benefits. When we look at the heroic actions he has, we find not only the heroic actions we'd want in a big hero (Heroic Combat, Strike, and Defense), but also ones that provide boosts in very specific situations (Resolve, Strength, and Challenge). While we probably don't want Gil-Galad to have to call Heroic Moves, if he's still mounted, it can still be the most valuable way for him to spend his Might. Most players would probably point to the access to Strike/Defense as his best actions (since they let him flex between challenging something that isn't likely to hit him back hard OR challenge something that would hit him back hard but will only wound him on 6s now), but I think Combats and Strengths are the best calls for him (Combats because he can chew through troops really well, Strength because being S4 doesn't always do it for you - and can keep you from being knocked over in some situations).

Finally, Gil-Galad has a 12" Stand Fast! that affects both friendly heroes and warriors - and because he's a Hero of Legend, should your army break, his first Stand Fast! is automatically passed. With Courage 7, he was probably going to pass it anyway (assuming there are no courage debuffs being applied en masse), but as Rythbyrt is fond of saying, it's nice when you don't have to roll any dice to make sure something works.

So . . . this guy hits hard, costs less than 200 points, gets Might back if he kills heroes . . . I mean, what can you do against this guy? Quite a bit, actually - let's take a look at what our options are . . .

How Do You Fight Back Against Gil-Galad?

We've talked about most of Gil-Galad's stat line already, but there are two things that we haven't mentioned yet: 3 Will and 1 Fate. To say that 3 Will makes you "bad" would be wrong - lots of heroes are capped out at 3 Will (and most heroes in general only have 1 Will, so 3 Will is pretty good), but against a sustained magical barrage, Gil-Galad is likely to get rooted in place. 

If you don't mind losing your army bonus, you could take Lindir to help out with this (Resistant to Magic won't solve most casting, but it at least gives you a fighting chance that you won't be locked out of charging or wounding things) - but if you want better anti-magic options (Fortify Spirit), you'll need to risk an Impossible Alliance. Would allying in Galadriel and Saruman/Radagast/Celeborn/Gandalf/Glorfindel be better? Gandalf the White? I don't think so - you'd be dumping 400-500pts into 2-3 hero models and I don't think that's the game Rivendell wants to be playing (what with its warriors being so expensive).

Gil-Galad also only has 1 Fate, which means Gil-Galad is only one fluke roll away from dying from any number of threats. Even against models that can't insta-kill things if they deal a single wound, only being 4 wounds away can be a huge risk if you're up against a S6+ monster with Rend - maybe you should look twice at that Heroic Defense option? Since Gil-Galad is likely to be your army leader (unless you brought Elrond with you or allied in Elendil/Galadriel/Gwaihir - all of which are pricey), having only 1 Fate point means you could be coughing up VPs to a stray arrow or crossbow bolt, which isn't great. Personally, if you have Elrond in your army as well, I'd opt for him to be the leader to give Gil-Galad some leeway.

Gil-Galad only has access to a Defense 4 horse and doesn't have the Horselord special rule (which is probably good, since Horselord with 1 Fate isn't that reliable anyway), so losing your horse to shooting or magical powers is pretty easy. Cirdan can give you some resilience against shooting with Blinding Light and Lindir can give you some resilience against magic (at the cost of your army bonus), but other than that, your go-to move is to put in-the-ways up between you and your opponent's archers. Hopefully, Legolas isn't on the other side of the board . . .

Finally, while Gil-Galad has Aiglos for +1 To Wound - and that is very nice - being Strength 4 isn't that great. Yes, it's pretty normal, but it's also not great. You can boost this with Heroic Strength if you're up against odd-defense foes, but you probably only want to do this if you're fighting an odd-defense hero who can't get to F9 . . . if you happen to have the charge, this should result in a dead foe - but absent this, you could find yourself wounding on "just 5s", and potentially not even with a knock-down if your opponent's Strength stat is high enough (or if it's a monster model). Getting to D7 isn't that hard - and there are a surprising number of models who can reach S6+ with Heroic Strength and have at least D7 to take the bite out of most of your wounding dice. Fight 9 is great but Fight 9 is really only good if you get a 6-high (and sometimes a 5-high) . . .

Okay, let's take a look now at some models you can include in your lists to help you fight back against Gil-Galad . . .

Tiberius's Top 5 Models To Counter Gil-Galad

If you haven't read any of the previous articles in this series, you'll know I couldn't stop at just five, so as we've done before, let's look at an honorable and dishonorable mention, shall we?

Honorable Mention: Anyone with Heroic Defense (or S5+/D7+ models with Heroic Strength - especially Isildur)

Gil-Galad really wants to be running over infantry models - he wants to charge in with 4 Attacks and at least 1 reroll, he wants to knock the models prone, and then he wants to throw four pairs of dice at whoever he beats with +1 To Wound. If you want to keep him from playing this game, have some models with Heroic Defense here or there. Since Heroic Defense changes Gil-Galad's wounding difficulty from a 5+ or a 4+ to natural 6s, the benefits of Aiglos are completely lost (and he can't even Feint down from F9 to something that will still be higher because Aiglos is a spear, not a sword).

Heroic Defense is great and all, but it doesn't do anything for you if you win the duel. As a result, I'd also like to highlight the heroes who are base S5+ and D7+ with access to Heroic Strength. These heroes (Young Dain, Champ Dwalin, King's Champions, Elendil, Isildur, Helm Hammerhand, Azog, Bolg, and Shagrat) could all call Heroic Strike if they wanted to - and a few of them could call Heroic Defense - but they can all call Heroic Strength to boost themselves to S6-8, which will not only shut down the knock-prone bonus from the horse, but will ensure that they will wound Gil-Galad on 4s if not 3s, depending on what they get for Heroic Strength (and whether Gil-Galad took a shield - he usually does). Isildur is particularly good at this maneuver, since he might have the higher Fight Value with the Ring on . . .

Besides Shagrat and King's Champions (and Isildur with the Ring on), all of the other heroes can be mounted as well, which would remove all the cavalry bonuses if their mounts have stuck around, making the Strength call purely an offensive thing - but you get the idea: you can blunt Gil-Galad's damage potential just by not being knocked over (or not being wounded on better than 6s). This is probably the most universal strategy for dampening Gil-Galad's effectiveness, but it does assume that you'll be banking on losing fights to him but sticking around - which may not work as long as you think. Still, it's an option, so it gets the honorable slot today. Now for some scum-of-the-earth options . . .

Dishonorable Mention: Anything that has an Insta-kill

Many players feel like siege engines shouldn't be in Matched Play - and I get why: insta-killing big, expensive heroes is often a cheap shot (see what I did there?). Naturally, then, if we're talking about countering a 1 Fate mega-hero like Gil-Galad, we have to talk about siege engines. If you have a high-Strength, long-range shooting weapon that can hit the guy (not hard if he's left his infantry escorts behind), you can knock him clean off his horse and will probably wound him on 3s or 4s, depending on the type of siege engine you're using. If he fails his Fate roll (he'll be sure to burn as much Might as is needed to make it work) or gets wounded when he's out of Fate, he's gone. Poof. No more Elf lord. What a shame . . . what a shame . . .

Of course, there are other ways you can insta-kill a model - fire from Dragons/Smaug comes to mind (Cirdan can make that harder to do with Blinding Light), as does being wounded by the King of the Dead (kinda hard) or the Necromancer of Dol Guldur (probably less hard if he has channelled Shroud of Shadows on himself in his Legion - your Fate point is probably gone before he engages). The most dangerous of these threats is probably a Castellan spam (which could show up with the Necromancer in his Legion) if each of them has Morgul Blades - for 45pts each, it's not hard to get 4-6 of these guys in a list (and if any of them can beat Gil-Galad, he's just one or two lucky 6s away from dying). This sure makes Galadriel look like a good alliance option, huh?

Insta-killing is cheap, so I gave them the dishonorable slot today. As is usually the case, this might be the best way for anyone to deal with Gil-Galad, but it also FEELS wrong. So, the rest of the list takes more traditional approaches to dealing with this Elven monstrosity. We'll start with a particular favorite of mine . . .

Pick #5: The Balrog (especially in his Legion)

There are very few heroes or monsters in the game that Gil-Galad fears - most of them are going to start well below his Fight Value and even if they declare a Heroic Strike, they'll have only a 50/50 chance (or slightly better) of TYING Gil-Galad's Fight Value. There are a few models ("the Fight 8 club") who are guaranteed to tie his initial Fight Value and are quite likely to get to F10 and only one other model who begins tied with him at F9 (the Dark Lord Sauron). But there is one model who will force Gil-Galad to declare a Heroic Strike if there's no Ringbearer to help him: the Balrog.

If the Balrog was only F10, he wouldn't make the list - Gil-Galad is one of three characters who can guarantee they'll reach F10 with a Heroic Strike and with an Elven-made weapon, he has the advantage on any roll-off that happens (may the odds be in his favor - because if the Balrog wins on a 1-2, Gil-Galad is in for it!). What sets the Balrog apart from most other monsters is that he's also D9, which means that Gil-Galad doesn't wound him well EVEN with Aiglos (5+/3+). A 22% chance is better than many heroes, but if you're only converting one-in-five rolls (which with 4 Attacks on the charge and a reroll from Lord of the West, you should be able to roll five dice each time you win), you're only expected to deal 1 wound a turn to the Balrog . . . and with only 3 Might for Strike, that's just not enough damage to last in a punching match with the Balrog! From experience using the Balrog against Gil-Galad, it just doesn't work . . .

Gil-Galad can mitigate this some if he has the help of a Ringbearer (removing his need to declare a Strike each turn) or he can try to have a friend help him get a trap, but without either of these, he's really not equipped to actually KILL the Balrog before he runs out of steam. In most situations, he's better off trying to run all of the Balrog's buddies into the ground and avoid the evil demon as much as possible.

The Balrog in his Legion becomes an even greater threat, since he can Set Ablaze Gil-Galad on a 2+ at the start of a Shoot Phase with the "...and Flame" Legion special rule. It's important to note that this is not a shooting attack, so Cirdan or Galadriel can't force the roll to a be a 6+ with Blinding Light. If the Balrog is ever within 3" of Gil-Galad (even if he's engaged), he can force Gil-Galad to take a S9 hit (wounding him on 4s if he has a shield and 3s if he doesn't), wounds his horse on a 3+, and will force Gil-Galad to suffer a S5 hit at the end of each round (wounds on 6s with a shield, 5s without a shield). In order to put it out, Gil-Galad will need to find a water feature (his heavy armor and shield will work against him if it's deep water) or lie prone and crawl 1" (which will keep him from wounding anything - and cause him to be trapped if he's engaged on the ground). Yeah, it's a problem.

This threat is also limited to one Legendary Legion in the game and a 350-point model (which SOUNDS like far more than Gil-Galad is worth, but is not too much higher than Gil-Galad with Isildur or Gil-Galad with Galadriel). As such, while I think this is a perfectly fine way to scare off Gil-Galad, I couldn't rank it higher than fifth. Now on to another big threat (mostly in one Legendary Legion, but potentially alliable into a lot of others) . . .

Pick #4: Isengard Demolition Team

Since these guys aren't technically siege engines, I decided to give them their own billet - yes, it's the dreaded demolition team from Isengard! While these are optimized in the Assault Upon Helm's Deep Legendary Legion, they can be fielded with Lurtz in basically any Isengard allied contingent and gives you a hard-out against any big hero who happens to have a wingman nearby. Gil-Galad could get past these guys by riding alone . . . at which point, he's facing a horde of Uruks by himself. Maybe that'll work . . . but he'd better not whiff his roll. 

If Gil-Galad is supporting a flank, the bomb has the advantage of being able to race to where he is, attempt a detonation at the start of the Fight Phase before Gil-Galad can gallop away, and EVEN if it doesn't get the cataclysmic explosion result, it'll have a 50% chance of outright killing a completely healthy Gil-Galad. With the cataclysmic explosion, it has just over a 90% chance of outright killing Gil-Galad . . . and besides manage his positioning, he can't do anything about it.

This strategy works really well against a wide variety of heroes, but especially those with low Fate and an average number of wounds (2-3). Yes, the bomb can dud-out sometimes and leave a 2 Wound/1 Fate hero standing, but most of the time, you expect to see that hero you dread going up in a lovely (for you) plume of smoke. Even if you never detonate it, having the bomb on the table will force Gil-Galad to change the way he plays - he'll need to engage carefully, he'll need to rely on Heroic Combats to keep himself out of range of the bomb, and if there are Heroic Marches in play on the Isengard side of the table, he'll need to account for even greater movement opportunities for the bomb . . . it's a nightmare and can be far harder to predict than the Balrog (and more devastating, since there's no dueling going on). 

Still, the availability of a demo team is very restrictive, so while the bomb beats the Balrog, it falls short of the more generic options we'll see later in our list. Perhaps the most pervasive answer to Gil-Galad can be found in . . .

Pick #3: S3+ shooting (or LOTS of shooting), especially from heroes

Gil-Galad is a great hero - but he really wants to be mounted. While D8 is great for keeping the arrows off of himself, a D4 horse is easy to kill (if the random-roll to see who gets hit rolls low and you actually hit the horse). If you can shoot at Gil-Galad and take out his horse - or even chip a lucky wound off of him to force out his Fate point - Gil-Galad has to play very differently than he'd like (and his damage output goes WAY down). If you're fielding at 12-18 bows, you have a good chance of wounding the horse in a single volley - and if you also have siege engines (that aren't an Iron Hills Ballista), be sure to shoot with your bows first so you can force out the Fate point BEFORE your insta-kill shots come crashing down.

If you're playing as a Forces of Evil army, you have another trick up your sleeve: you can shoot into Gil-Galad's combat. If you've invested in enough archers (or for a select number of factions, throwing weapons), you can get the spearmen out of the way and just throw dice at Gil-Galad and his current foes. If you kill your own models, it's fine - they were dying anyway and Gil-Galad can't perform a Heroic Combat off of them - and if you hit him, you can take out his horse or slap a wound off of him. In any event, it's a good day for you!

This strategy relies on a lot of luck, deploying far enough back that you can shoot at least once, and can also involve collateral damage from your own archery if you're Evil. If we want something a bit less punishing, we should probably turn to . . .

Pick #2: Immobilize/Transfix casters with 4+ Will (especially Ringwraiths)

Big heroes want to kill things - and most casters can keep them from doing that by casting Immobilize or Transfix on them. This spell is usually cast on a 3+ (but can be cast on a 2+, 4+, or 5+ by a handful of models) and can be reliably cast on 1-2 dice (usually 1-2 Will, but sometimes this will be 1 Will point if you get a reroll or a free die). With 3 Will in store, Gil-Galad will have to decide how many Will points he wants to burn to resist a successfully cast spell, based on what its final casting value is. If it's a 5- or 6-high, throwing 3 Will points is pretty likely to stop it (approx. 40-70%), but he'll be out of Will on the next attempt (either next round if you only have one caster or this round if you have two). By throwing 2 Will points, he's less likely to stop it (approx. 30-56%), but it's certainly still possible - but again, his next attempt is going to be rough. If the spell is barely cast on a 3- or 4-high, he might be able to get away with 1-2 Will points to resist it, but even so, he's going to be hard pressed to get 3 resists in before he's helpless to resist spells.

As such, having a caster with 4+ Will points (or a free Will point each turn) and either Immobilize or Transfix is a nasty prospect for Gil-Galad - especially if Lindir is at home. Once Gil-Galad is out of position, if the caster also has Compel (most do), you can force Gil-Galad into disadvantageous positions and make him vulnerable to your stronger pieces (units he normally wouldn't mind fighting, but if he's locked in a F9 and can't wound anything, he's going to feel a little nervous).

Some of the best models in the game for this are Ringwraiths - the named ones have 12-18 Will points (the Witch-King CAN get to 20, but almost no one gives him that many) and usually cast Transfix on a 3+, so you should be able to spend 6-8 Will points on them to Transfix Gil-Galad if they plan to avoid combat and rely on their "special tricks" for the rest of their Will. If you can keep Gil-Galad out of combat for 3-4 turns, that's probably enough to turn the tide with whatever else you have in your army. Alternatively, you could field two budget Ringwraiths in your list (my 90-point preferred build is a Ringwraith on horse with 2M/9W/1F - you can get two of these for the cost of Gil-Galad) and pin him down for 3-5 turns and give him no opportunity to deal damage. It's nasty what happens when you start compounding casters in your list - and generic Ringwraiths are some of the cheapest models for this strategy!

I would like to make a caveat about Gildor Inglorion here: Gildor technically falls under the criteria we laid out (4 Will and Immobilize on a 3+), but unless he spends 1 Will per cast (only supposed to succeed 2-3 times), he's likely to just burn out Gil-Galad's Will (and maybe a Might point) before he's out of juice. If you want to use Gildor as your anti-Gil-Galad tool, I'd recommend pairing him with another caster as a threat (like Arwen) OR find a way to get Will back on him (like Bombur or Gandalf). Speaking of Gandalf . . .

Pick #1: Damage casters (especially Sauron and Gandalf/Saruman)

If there's one thing Gil-Galad hates more than magic that keeps him from killing things, it's magic that hurts him and keeps him from killing things. Chief among these threats is Sorcerous Blast, since it can either target him directly and knock him flying out of the way OR it can target a nearby friendly model and hurtle him into Gil-Galad (and Gil-Galad can't resist on behalf of the target). Whether it's cast by Gandalf (all versions have a 12" range and a casting difficulty of a 4+ or 5+) or Saruman (both versions have a 12" range and a casting difficulty of 4+), this spell requires Gil-Galad to watch his approach and closing with this caster is incredibly hard. Both of these guys also have access to Immobilize and Command, so if you want to soften of Gil-Galad before targeting him directly, you certainly have options.

Other casters like Kardush or Barrow-Wights (who can't actually do damage with Paralyze, but golly do players treat it like it does) can be dangerous once Gil-Galad is very close (6" range), but if you don't get off a lot of these really quickly, you could find Gil-Galad running over these casters - believe you me, I have experience with this! While these guys are certainly an option for deterring Gil-Galad, I wouldn't trust them to finish Gil-Galad unless someone else is working him down.

You could also rely on Ringwraiths to deal damage to him with Black Dart, but Black Dart is INCREDIBLY finnicky. Since this is cast by most Ringwraiths on a 5+ (some on a 6+), your final result is probably high enough that Gil-Galad will have to throw 3W at it or 2W and be willing to boost with Might. While this will definitely drain his resources quickly, you're going to wound him on 4s if he has a shield and 3s if he doesn't - which means every other successful cast will fail to wound. If you're running anything short of 3-4 Ringwraiths (which is probably limited to the Black Riders Legendary Legion), you're probably not cracking through Gil-Galad in any meaningful way.

But Sauron is the bee's knees when it comes to threatening Gil-Galad with magic. Whether he's in his "Dark Lord" form or his "Necromancer" form, Chill Soul is a nasty spell - resist it or suffer a wound! Since it's cast on a 4+ by the Dark Lord Sauron, you can reliably cast it with just your free Will point and 1 Will from your store - and with an 18" range, it's pretty hard for Gil-Galad to stay away from this. Should he choose to rush Sauron, he'll be faced with a high-offense foe that he can't knock over . . . and if you thought wounding a D9 Balrog on a 5+/3+ wasn't great, wounding a D10 Sauron on a 5+/4+ with a 2+ save on his last wound is going to be all but impossible without a trap.

What's more, Sauron can target Gil-Galad's mount with Chill Soul and unless Gil-Galad has Resistant to Magic/Fortify Spirit, he can't resist on behalf of his mount! Ringwraiths can Black Dart the mount in a similar way, but they'll fail to wound one-third of the time - Sauron skips this and always succeeds with the wound. BOOM! If Gil-Galad has to leg-it to Sauron, he has no chance of dealing with him . . . which is both thematically appropriate and incredibly frustrating if you're Gil-Galad. Sauron is also 400pts, but that's 400pts you're unlikely to crack through if Gil-Galad isn't able to reach him.

Okay, let's wrap this up and look at some lists!

Sample Lists

As a backdrop reference list, we have the following 700-point/36-model force that features Gil-Galad with Galadriel:

• Gil-Galad, High King of the Elves on horse with shield [ARMY LEADER]
• 12 King's Guard with shields and spears
• 5 King's Guard with Elf bows and spears
  
• CONVENIENT ALLY - Lothlorien: Galadriel
• 11 Galadhrim Warriors with shields
• 6 Galadhrim Warriors with Elf bows

Honestly, this is a pretty threatening list - it has good numbers, F6 spears with lots of shooting, good protection from archery (and the ability to restore Gil-Galad's Fate point) - it's really only lacking in speed (which you might be able to make up for if you keep your eye on the prize - or drop a few models to upgrade some of your infantry into cavalry). Let's use this list as our reference list as the one to beat . . .

Our first stop is a 700-point/42-model Mordor army, which sports a double-caster threat in the Shadow Lord and a generic Ringwraith, as well as a punchy hero in Shagrat. It's also got a mix of my beloved Mordor Uruk-Hai and Morannon Orcs - people who don't like the shooting coming off the Mordor Uruks are welcome to swap them point-for-point for Black Numenoreans if they like (but I like the universal S4 - and the shooting):

• The Shadow Lord on horse [ARMY LEADER]
• 7 Mordor Uruk-Hai with Orc bows
• 1 Morannon Orc with spear
  
• 7 Morannon Orcs with shields and spears
  
• Ringwraith on horse with 2M/9W/1F
  
• 6 Mordor Uruk-Hai with Orc bows
• 4 Morannon Orcs with spears
• 2 Morannon Orcs with spears and shields
  
• Shagrat, Captain of Cirith Ungol with heavy armor and the Shield of Cirith Ungol
• 6 Morannon Orcs with shields
  
• 5 Morannon Orcs with shields and spears
• 1 Morannon Orc with shield, spear, and banner
  

700 points, 42 models, 13 Orc bows hitting on a 4+, 29 D6+ models, 2 cavalry and 2 Might for Heroic March, 7 Might

A six-model advantage isn't much, but both armies have anti-archery bubbles to reduce the effectiveness of their opponent's shots, but this list has opted for the lower Fight Value in order to get the higher Strength (wounding on 5s) - and while our Mordor Uruks will be wounded on 5s as well, we're likely to chop through anyone we beat with our Morannons and Uruks.

We also have not one but two Ringwraiths, so we can hopefully stun-lock Gil-Galad in one turn and then keep him locked down on subsequent turns while we work down Galadriel. She'll probably be focused on containing Shagrat, who can Strike three times if he double-charges some Elves in order to clear out a good chunk of the warriors (who will wound him on 6s). The Elves on the other side of the table are going to have the higher Fight Value than our soldiers, so I didn't even try to dump points into Fight Value - I got numbers instead. This army might crumble if we get caught in a prolonged slog or if we fail to lock down Gil-Galad, but I like our chances overall.

Our second list is a Ringbearer list - and why not, let's throw in some Galadhrim Elves for a F6 shieldwall of our own (but ours will have S4 in the front line, thanks to our Numenor allies). If you'd like to have Isildur on the horse instead of the Captain, you can actually save yourself 5 points (which can turn into 1 extra Numenorean if you drop the spears on the Numenor bowmen):

• Galadriel [ARMY LEADER]
• 3 Galadhrim Warriors with Elf bows
• 3 Galadhrim Warriors with Elf bows and spears
• 12 Guards of the Galadhrim Court
  
• CONVENIENT ALLY - Numenor: Isildur with shield
• 7 Warriors of Numenor with shields
• 2 Warriors of Numenor with bows
  
• CONVENIENT ALLY - Numenor: Captain of Numenor on horse with heavy armor, lance, and bow
  
• 4 Warriors of Numenor with shields
• 4 Warriors of Numenor with bows and spears
  

700 points, 38 models, 6 Elf bows hitting on a 3+ AND 7 bows hitting on a 4+, 2 D6+ model, 1 cavalry and 2 Might for Heroic March, 8 Might

Our last list is (of course) a Balrog list - because this is my post and I like to do that. :) At 700 points, there are LOTS of ways you can run a Balrog list, but I've chosen a variant a list I did earlier in the year when I talked about Blackshield Captains - the list has dropped the Prowlers and picked up more Goblin bodies instead. This army is going to struggle to not be cut down with archery, so be careful on the approach and use the Balrog to shield your troops from the worst of it:

• The Balrog [ARMY LEADER]
• 9 Moria Goblin Warriors with shields
• 9 Moria Goblin Warriors with spears
  
• Moria Goblin Captain
• 3 Moria Goblin Warriors with shields
• 3 Moria Goblin Warriors with spears
  
• 4 Moria Goblin Warriors with Orc bows
  
• 2 Moria Goblin Drummers with Moria Goblin Drum
  
• Moria Blackshield Captain
• 4 Moria Goblin Warriors with shields
• 5 Moria Goblin Warriors with spears
• 2 Moria Goblin Warriors with Orc bows
  

700 points, 44 models, 6 Orc bows hitting on a 5+, 2 D6+ models, no fast models but (effectively) 2 Might for Heroic March, 4 Might

Of the three lists I've presented today, this last one is probably the weakest, but I also like it the most so . . . there's that.

Conclusion

Gil-Galad is one tough nut to crack - but if you don't play his game, you can do just fine. In our next post, we're looking at Gil-Galad's foil on the human side of the Last Alliance: Elendil. If you planned to take down Gil-Galad with magic, you're going to be greatly underprepared to fight Elendil. If you think think you can just shoot him to death like you would Gil-Galad, you might be on to something - but taking this guy out is going to require a completely different approach (even if the macro-level strategies might be similar). Find out what your options are next time - and until then, happy hobbying!