Good morning gamers,
Last time we were in this series, we looked at how to replicate the defense of Minas Tirith from the books by seeing what kind of alliances we could build with Minas Tirith and the Fiefdoms. Today, we're looking to the defense of Minas Tirith in the films, which gives us far fewer profiles to work with - and whether you can make this build "competitive." Let's see what our theme is . . .
The Theme
I remember well where I was at 12:01am on December 17th, 2003 - I was sitting in the middle of a crowded movie theatre with about a dozen friends (and two dads, who drove all of us) watching the ads run before the Return of the King midnight debut in Hawaii - it was a glorious night and I'll never forget it. I remember being incredibly pumped when Gandalf assumed command of the defense of Minas Tirith and the trebuchets began to shoot back at the hordes of Mordor. While this scene got a lot of amping up with the release of the extended cut about a year later, there's plenty to enjoy about the theatrical version - and to this day, whenever I watch the films, I'll stop what I'm doing and enjoy again the masterful work that went into making that scene.
Well, in MESBG, the lowly Warrior of Minas Tirith is a "fine" profile - the bowmen are uninspired (and sub-par to their Ranger/Citadel Guard counterparts), the shield guys are good but can be eclipsed by Guards of the Fountain Court in the front rank and Guards of the Fountain Court, Citadel Guard, and Rangers with spears in the second rank. Unfortunately, while there are Guards of the Fountain Court and Citadel Guard in the films, none of them are seen actually defending the city . . . so for our purposes today, we're going to skip them.
We're also going to skip on the knights - and basically everything from the Minas Tirith list except Gandalf, Pippin, and the absolute most basic units in Minas Tirith. No fancy bells and whistles . . . can such an army be good? Let's look at the models we have and what they're going to force us to do . . .
