Thematic List Building Challenge: The Walls of Minas Tirith, Part 1

Good morning gamers,

We're back in our thematic list building challenge series and while we've looked so far at how to capture the film-accurate and book-accurate defense of the Deeping Wall of Helm's Deep, today we're headed to Gondor to look at how to represent the defense of Minas Tirith as described in the book (with special emphasis on Book V, Chapter 4 and informed by the people we know came to Minas Tirith in Book V, Chapter 1).

The Theme

There are passages in the book that I love - and one of those passages comes from Book V, Chapter 4, where we read about Gandalf and Imrahil taking command of the garrison of Minas Tirith as Denethor sat paralyzed by Faramir's side:

So it was that Gandalf took command of the last defence of the City of Gondor. Wherever he came men's hearts would lift again, and the winged shadows pass from memory. Tirelessly he strode from Citadel to Gate, from north to south about the wall; and with him went the Prince of Dol Amroth in his shining mail. For he and his knights still held themselves like lords in whom the race of NUmenor ran true. Men that saw them whispered saying: 'Belike the old tales speak well; there is Elvish blood in the veins of that folk, for the people of Nimrodel dwelt in that land once long ago.' And then one would sing amid the gloom some staves of the Lay of Nimrodel, or other songs of the Vale of Anduin out of vanished years.

I was recently reading this passage and was like, "Man, I should make a list that has both Gandalf the White and Imrahil in it." I've heard of players running Gandalf and Elessar together - and theoretically you can save some points by running Gandalf and Boromir together - but there's a very fascinating synergy that you can get by running Gandalf and Imrahil together, and that's that you can get the high-Fight/average-cost of the Fiefdoms to support your high-Defense/average-cost Minas Tirith warriors. Let's look and see how we can make a competitive list with ONLY the models we know are at Minas Tirith from the book.

The Models

These are the models that we're constraining ourselves to use in this post - the bones of the army are certainly good, as we have a good mix of F4 and D6 - as well as good archers, melee foot, and lancer cavalry available to us:

• Minas Tirith:
  
• Gandalf the White
• Denethor, Steward of Gondor
  
• Peregrin Took, Guard of the Citadel
• Faramir, Captain of Gondor
• Beregond, Guard of the Citadel
• Captains of Minas Tirith
• Ingold, Warden of the Rammas Echor
• Hurin the Tall, Warden of the Keys
• Warriors of Minas Tirith
• Knights of Minas Tirith
• Citadel Guard
• The Fiefdoms:
• Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth
• Forlong the Fat
• Duinhir
• Captains of Dol Amroth
• Knights of Dol Amroth
• Men-at-Arms of Dol Amroth
• Axemen of Lossarnach
• Clansmen of Lamedon
• Blackroot Vale Archers

In the book, there are other Fiefs that sent warriors to defend Minas Tirith in Book V, Chapter 1 - these include Dervorin and the men of the Ringlo Vale, Golasgil and the herdsmen and hunters of Langstrand (in the Anfalas region of southern Gondor), the Fisher-folk of Ethir, and Hirluin the Fair of Pinnath Gelin and his "green-clad men". Sadly, there are no profiles for these particular models (something I'm going to try to rectify - but more on that next week).

Still, we've got basically all of the models from the Fiefdoms at our disposal and most of the models from Minas Tirith. Since these armies are historical allies with each other, it's worth taking a moment to see what we're choosing to leave out by fielding this particular mix of units . . .

The Distinctives

We have basically all of the Fiefdoms models as available choices - everyone except Angbor the Fearless (who is fighting down in Lebennin and will be meeting up with Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli later). Book V, Chapter 1 says that Lamedon sent "a few grim hillmen without a captain" - so I've included the Clansmen profile, but not Angbor. Since we don't have profiles for hillmen, hunters, and fisher-folk, I think the Blackroot Vale Archers and Clansmen of Lamedon are good representatives of these units.

We've lost a good chunk of the Minas Tirith list - for heroes, we don't have Boromir (he's dead), Aragorn (he's not here yet), and I assumed that heroes who are mostly GW constructions (like Knights of the White Tower and Cirion) aren't available either. Similarly, Irolas is a construction of the films (more on him next time), so he's been excluded. Finally, the Ranger heroes from Osgiliath and Ithilien are assumed to not be available to us (they've probably been rolled into the defense of the city).

On the warrior side of the house, we have similar constraints - Rangers of Gondor have been excluded (they're integrated with the normal troops) and Osgiliath Veterans are assumed to just be Warriors of Minas Tirith (this will make only two people in the world sad, I think). The Guards of the Fountain Court and siege engines appear to be mostly film-adapted units, so I've excluded them (but retained Citadel Guard, who are specifically referenced in the book).

The loss of Rangers of Gondor and Guards of the Fountain Court are a big loss - as is mega-Boromir. However, we have access to Imrahil (who is very similar to Boromir) and we have access to Citadel Guard (who can do things like Rangers and Fountain Court Guard, but aren't either of those things exactly). When paired with what the Fiefdoms gives us (Ranger-level shooting and pike support), I think the list works pretty well and can be pretty powerful.

The trick to actually building a list that has both Minas Tirith and the Fiefdoms is figuring out what heroes you're bringing - your hero mix will inform what warriors you can bring and how heavily you want/need to invest in F4 spear supports (mostly from the Fiefdoms) vs. D6 front-line guys (mostly from Minas Tirith - and really ONLY from Minas Tirith). Your heroes will also determine what heroic actions you have access to - most notably March. While Minas Tirith usually has two March Captains with 3 Might (Madril and Irolas), neither of them are available to us today. The Fiefdoms only have Captains of Dol Amroth with March, so unless you're bringing one of these guys or a Captain of Minas Tirith, you're basically waiving goodbye to March and just relying on your infantry arriving in their normal course.

For my part, I view Imrahil as the most necessary member of any list that's built like this - even in a normal Minas Tirith/Fiefdoms alliance, he's a good bit cheaper than Boromir, has a 12" banner that will affect any fight with a Fiefdoms model, and gives you a great overall profile (F6, S4 with a lance, D7, and 3s in all the right places). Who you support him with depends very much on your preferences - though there are two heroes that I really like. We'll look at them in the example lists below . . .

Example Lists

Our first list is a 500-point list and its focus is the sallie that happens at the beginning of the fighting on the Pelennor. One of the key moments in the book (that didn't make its way to the film) is the fighting over the Rammas Echor, which secured the external borders of the Pelennor and the charge that Denethor led to rescue Faramir and the beleaguered defenders of the Rammas wall. Chief among the men in the sallie were Denethor and Imrahil, and while we won't be fielding a horde of Swan Knights, we will be featuring a solid anvil of infantry (something Minas Tirith and the Fiefdoms do well) and some fast heroes to run down the enemy:

• Hurin the Tall, Warden of the Keys on horse
• 9 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
• 4 Citadel Guard with longbows
• HISTORICAL ALLY - Prince Imrahil of Dol Armoth on armored horse with lance [ARMY LEADER]
• 10 Men-at-Arms of Dol Amroth
• 6 Blackroot Vale Archers

We've gotten to 31 models at 500 points and have a very capable army leader in Imrahil and a solid second choice fighter (who can keep us from giving up VPs, since Imrahil is a Gondor hero) in Hurin. We could have gone with a Captain of Minas Tirith on horse with shield and lance if we wanted March (we could call him Denethor if we wanted to - though we'd need to convert 1 Warrior of Minas Tirith with shield into a Fiefdoms warrior and use our 20pt savings on upgrading some of the guys we have), but having a second Strike hero 3 Might (and +1 To Wound) is pretty nice to have. At 500 points, a solid front-line of Warriors of Minas Tirith (and 1 Citadel Guard) backed by an open phalanx of Men-at-Arms is pretty solid - and we've got LOADS of shooting from the Blackroot Vale Archers and the Citadel Guard (who have the same shooting complements that you find in a Khazad-Dum list - except both bows have 24" range).

If we raise the points level to 700pts, we can get to where things really get fun - when we can have both Gandalf and Imrahil in the same list (which was my goal all along). This features many of the same units, but leans harder into the theme of actually defending the walls of Minas Tirith. If you didn't want any Knights of Minas Tirith in your list (though I think they're great for objective work), you could try to squeeze a banner into the list, but you want the pikes from Dol Amroth supporting in as many fights as possible, so it probably won't be helping the anvil (it'll be helping the archers):

• Gandalf the White on Shadowfax
• 8 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
• 2 Knights of Minas Tirith with shields
  
• 5 Citadel Guard with longbows
• HISTORICAL ALLY - The Fiefdoms: Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth on armored horse with lance [ARMY LEADER]
• 12 Men-at-Arms of Dol Amroth
• 4 Blackroot Vale Archers
• 2 Blackroot Vale Archers with spears
  

This list has 4 mounted models, 35 total models, most of our troops are D4-5, but 10 of them (8 on foot, 2 mounted) are D6 with shieldwall, so that gives us some punch. We don't have any March in this list (and unlike the last list, there isn't a clear way to get it into the list), but we've got four cavalry and they're the kind of cavalry that can be a threat if our opponent just races forward with grunts instead of with hero support.

The open phalanx is still a thing, with 8 Warriors of Minas Tirith/4 Citadel Guard backed by 12 Men-at-Arms - it's a pretty solid anvil for our heroes to work around. If Imrahil is supporting it in the center and Gandalf is working the sides (after buffing up Imrahil), this army can do a lot of work - ignoring the 11 bow shots it gets each turn (supported by Sorcerous Blast/Banishment from Gandalf). There's a lot going on here and the list can hold quite a bit of ground.

It's also very much a death-ball list - you don't want Gandalf and Imrahil splitting up and if you're up against a shooting-heavy list, both Imrahil and Gandalf are going to be tucked into the anvil. This army will also be moving very slowly up the board, so you'll need to be patient with it in order to succeed. Once you've engaged, you've got a TON of dice that can be dropped into half of your fights and you can get support from two very good heroes. This list has the makings of a solid defensive list and I really enjoy using it.

If you didn't want to spend the points of Gandalf, you could take Hurin and your choice of Ingold/a Captain of Minas Tirith if you want more Minas Tirith troops or a Captain of Dol Amroth/Duinhir if you wanted more Fiefdoms troops (55-85pts depending on who you pick), which would leave you with 65-95pts for additional troops. This would probably boost your numbers by 6-11 (depending on how hard you lean into cavalry), which puts your army in the low-to-mid 40s at 700 points, which is pretty big all things considered (and while most of your list is likely to be D5, having a D6 frontline can save you from a lot of pain). Personally, I like the anti-archery/anti-magic/sniping damage/resiliency that you can get from Gandalf, but more numbers could also be really good.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed this post - I've been itching to write this one for a while! If you have thoughts on it (or changes that you think should be made), let us know in the comments below! Next time, we'll be looking at the defense of Minas Tirith, but this time, we'll be constraining ourselves to what's available from the film, not the book. It's a very different kind of list, despite some of the units being the same. We hope to see you then - and until then, happy hobbying!