Thematic List Building Challenge: The Road to Rivendell

Good morning gamers,

Last time we were in this series (just over a month ago), we looked at a highly restrictive list of units (those defending Minas Tirith in the films) and tried our best to find a way to make it competitive. Whether we succeeded or not is anyone's guess. Before that, we looked at the book-variant of the Defense of Minas Tirith, which means we had two lists from the Return of the King. The two posts prior to those were the book-variant and film-variant of the defense of the Deeping Wall of Helm's Deep . . . which means we had two posts from the Two Towers. Looks like Fellowship is due for a look, eh?

Today, we're looking at a list that I've tried to make work for years - and it involves cherry picking out desired units from SIX different army lists, all centered around the events that surrounded Frodo's departure from the Shire until his arrival in Rivendell. Can these units be run in a competitive setting? Well, let's find out . . .

The Theme

I read the Lord of the Rings every year (and by "read," I mean "listen to audiobooks" - which is kind of like reading if you have long commutes and get car sick . . . or are the one driving . . . as is the case for me). Every year when I relisten to The Fellowship of the Ring, I always come back to a list idea: bring an army that represents Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin (and I usually try to get Fatty Bolger in there too) trying to get to Rivendell. There are a HOST of characters that are introduced in the first book of Fellowship and most aren't revisited when you get to the return journey in The Return of the King.

Sadly, most of these models are also absent from the tabletop - Gildor Inglorion, Barliman Butterbur, Bill the Pony, Fatty Bolger, Tom and Goldberry - whether by player's perceived choice or by tournament regs (usually that's only applied to Tom and Goldberry . . . and sometimes Smaug). I've had many, many, MANY attempts to make a list like this work - but often times, the alliance restrictions get in the way of a good list.

But not today - today, we're putting aside perceptions about these kinds of lists, digging deep in the lore, and looking to see if we can find some pseudo-competitive gold in the midst. Let's see what we have to work with!

The Models

The models we'll be using are as follows:

• The Fellowship:
• Aragorn - Strider on horse with bow (might be required for a Convenient Alliance)
• Gandalf the Grey on horse (might be required for a Convenient Alliance)
• Frodo Baggins
• Samwise Gamgee
• Meriadoc Brandybuck
• Peregrin Took
• Bill the Pony (requires Sam)
• The Rangers
• Aragorn - Strider on horse with bow (required for a Convenient Alliance
• Halbarad on horse
• Dunedain
• The Shire
• Gandalf the Grey (required for a Convenient Alliance)
• Farmer Maggot
• Fredegar Bolger
• Hobbit Militia
• Hobbit Archers
• Rivendell
• Glorfindel, Lord of the West on Asfaloth (required for a Convenient Alliance)
• Elladan and Elrohir with horses and Elf bows
• Gildor Inglorion
• Arwen Undomiel on Asfaloth/horse
• Noldorin Exiles
• Lothlorien
• Wood Elf Captains (really a Noldorin Exile Captain)
• Wood Elf Warriors
• The Wanderers in the Wild
• Tom Bombadil
• Goldberry (requires Tom)
• Barliman Butterbur
• Harry Goatleaf
• Bill the Pony (requires Barliman)

That's . . . rather an eclectic list. I'm not even sure I need to go that deep into what the "distinctives" are for this - it's literally the pile of garbage units that no one would ever run (or good units without the gear that makes them good). So . . . we'd better look at what's good there despite the awful packaging . . .

The Distinctives

Let's begin by talking about the alliance matrix and how that applies to our choices. We have three factions (The Fellowship, Lothlorien, and Rivendell) who are historical allies with each other, so if we only include units from these lists, we can basically run whatever we want and there won't be any overlap between heroes. This is probably the best place to start if you're new to MESBG and want a thematic list (whether it's allying in Boromir/Legolas/Aragorn into a Rivendell or Lothlorien army or . . . just a bit of silliness like this post will undoubtedly be).

The Fellowship gives us six possible units (conditionally seven) who do different things for our list. Aragorn and Gandalf are available in other lists, but if you ally with any faction besides Lothlorien/Rivendell (and Barliman Butterbur from the Wanderers in the Wild), one of them will need to be in the Fellowship list. Aragorn doesn't have Anduril, but if given a horse, he can still pile in the damage - and of course, has Mighty Hero (free Might point each turn) and Heroic March for added speed - always a good thing to have when you have Hobbits on the board.

Gandalf provides us with anti-archery and anti-hero spells that can be easily cast, though he's pretty expensive, so you probably want to always pay the 10pts required to give him a horse (not only so he can get the casting angle he wants for Sorcerous Blast, but also to up his damage output that's limited by having 1 Attack base).

The Hobbits are an interesting tactical play - Frodo is a Ringbearer (and at the very least will keep Gollum from having the Ring should you run into a Goblin-town list) and Sam can proctor free Heroic Combats if Frodo is fighting nearby (though to get these to succeed, you usually need a spear-support behind him and probably someone else in the fight). Merry and Pippin don't seem to have much of a place - and in truth, they really don't in this kind of list - but they cost as much as a Wood Elf Warrior/Noldorin Exile, if not a little less, and have the same Defense/Wounds but have a cheeky Fate point that may or may not make them last a little longer. In practice, though, I've never seen much of a use for having them in the list, except perhaps as an independent warband for one or two extra drops.

If you take Sam, you can also take Bill, who is really helpful if you've taken the Hobbits and Gandalf (and to a lesser degree, Aragorn). The Hobbits are pretty bad combatants with only 1 Attack and Fight 3, but a 40mm base that counts as a banner for them is pretty useful - as is the ability to get resources back when spent. Generally speaking, I'd try to get resources back on Gandalf (Might points, Fate points, or Will points - usually in that order) because if he's in your list, he's going to burn right through his reserves. For 25pts - the cost of a full banner - you might consider taking him if you've already got Sam.

When we turn to Rivendell, we really have two kinds of heroes: the hero who can lead troops (Gildor Inglorion) and the heroes who can't (Glorfindel, Arwen, and the Twins). If you want to take Rivendell with anyone besides Lothlorien or the Fellowship, you'll need Glorfindel in the list. Glorfindel has Asfaloth (easily his most important piece of war gear), but he doesn't have the Armor of Gondolin, so he'll be a low Defense model. If you don't get shot to pieces, he probably doesn't NEED his armor - though tackling a monster is a far greater danger without it than with it.

Taking Gildor Inglorion is a great option for basically any list - mostly because he can give you fast infantry (which is better than having to just rely on March), he's a niche spellcaster with Immobilize, and his whole warband can probably clock in at under 200pts. With Glorfindel in tow, this is probably around 350pts, which isn't going to net you very many guys, but it will give you a solid speed base for your list - so you can populate the rest of the list with whatever you want.

I also included the Twins, Elladan and Elrohir, because they were searching the area for Elrond in the book. I included Arwen because she replaced her brothers and Glorfindel in the film. All three are cheap punchy heroes who can't lead troops - lean hard into them if you want to do a hero hammer list.

Lothlorien is really just a bunch of cheaper Noldorin Exiles in disguise - the Fellowship doesn't make it to Lothlorien until far later, but since there's no generic Noldorin Exile Captain in the Rivendell list (and since the Wood Elf Warriors who have to be upgraded to Noldorin Exiles come directly from the Lothlorien list), I didn't think it was wrong to include them as an option. You'll only be able to field warbands like this if you're running a historical alliance - I didn't include Haldir for a reason in this list. Allying them historically does mean that your Noldorin Exiles (since they retain their Lothlorien keyword) will have the Resistant to Magic special rule, which is nice to have.

The Wanderers in the Wild give you five niche options - if you take Barliman Butterbur for 40pts, you can get Bill the Pony (without having to take a 40-point Sam) for 10pts - that's a pretty good deal. Barliman is a healer and can both treat Bill as a banner AND can regrow his stats (like those Will points that can be used for healing). If you're taking at least some Hobbits, you should consider getting Barli and Bill.

You can also get Harry Goatleaf as a historical ally with the Fellowship/convenient ally with everyone else, but for 40pts, there's probably better options than him. Rooting someone in place (potentially more than 3 times if you have Gandalf in the same list) is great and all, but his combat profile isn't much better than that of Merry or Pippin - and you can get both of them for half his cost. When you compare him to 3 Noldorin Exiles/4 Wood Elf Warriors . . . I mean, I'm not sure even I can justify taking him. Still, for the sake of theme, he's on the list.

Tom and Goldberry are there for shenanigans - and honestly, if you lean hard into the Shire (who we'll be addressing next), you can get a lot of use out of them. Not only can Tom and Goldberry regrow your stats, but if you're leaning into the Shire element, you probably don't have much of a big hero - so it helps to take two heroes who can automatically win against whatever big threat is on the other side of the board. Gildor LOVES being in the same list as Tom/Goldberry because he never has enough Might or Will. If you're facing a horde with no real threats to speak of, giving Might/Will/Fate back to Gandalf, Aragorn, or Glorfindel means they can be a bit more reckless with their resources (though true recklessness is rarely beneficial in the long run in MESBG). Speaking of Gandalf . . .

Our second to last contingent is the Shire - and if you plan to run these guys with anyone, you probably need Gandalf (unless you're working with the Rangers, who we'll cover next). Gandalf does a lot for you as we've already mentioned, but if taken from this list, he can lead up to 15 Hobbit Militia/Archers - I intentionally left Hobbit Shirriffs of the list because the Shirriffs and Bounders never officially helped Frodo leave. However, the residents of Crickhollow and Farmer Maggot's family were more than willing to help Frodo (and Fatty) out, so it felt right to include these Hobbit options in the list.

Assisting Gandalf are the two Hobbit heroes who don't get nearly as much credit as they should for their work in helping the Ring get to Mordor - Farmer Maggot (who gives us fast troops in the form of dogs, as well as a heavy hitting profile if he can just win his fight) and Fredegar Bolger (who is objectively one of the worst heroes in the game - and also one of the worst heroes in Fantasy Fellowships, come to think of it). In this list, Maggot has a clear purpose - an actual warband, a few fast models, and all that for less than 100pts. If paired with Gildor's warband of fast Elves (and naturally Gandalf/Glorfindel to make the alliance structure work), you can get a decent number of bodies in your list and plenty of fast attack options/shooting models to make the game interesting - but more on that shortly.

Our last list option is the Rangers - and this is a bit of a stretch for theme if you go strictly by the movies but is totally on point thematically if you are reading the books. Aragorn is available in this list as well, but since the Rangers really want to keep their army bonus, he's probably only being allied in with Dunedain (and possibly Halbarad) if you've only taken Shire models. Aragorn himself costs 175pts with the horse and bow, which means you can just start adding 25pt Dunedain and eventually come out to a round 100- or 50-point list . . . and everyone will be a hero and have a bow. Halbarad is bannerless and I have included him for completeness, but I wouldn't take him.

. . . and then you can ally with Gandalf on his horse and Farmer Maggot leading three dogs and twenty-four Hobbits to flesh out your numbers. Centaur and Rythbyrt love running lists like this - and golly it ends up being a scary list!

Example Lists

Warning: we've got a lot of lists today. :-) Our first list is a 28-model 500pt list that features Frodo and Sam and the Noldorin Exiles that they meet early on in their journey. To fill out the numbers, we've added a Wood Elf Captain from Lothlorien (since Lothlorien, Rivendell, and the Fellowship are all Historical Allies, we can get away with Fortitude heroes across the board). Everyone shoots (except Gildor, who has a 12" Immobilize spell). We could have traded Frodo and Sam for some more Elves, but we'd only get a few more models and we'd be trading an opportunity for the One Ring and extra Might:

• Frodo Baggins [ARMY LEADER?]
• Samwise Gamgee [ARMY LEADER?]
  
• HISTORICAL - Gildor Inglorion [ARMY LEADER?]
  
• 4 Noldorin Exiles with throwing daggers
• 4 Noldorin Exiles with throwing daggers and Wood Elf spears
• 4 Noldorin Exiles with Elf bows
• HISTORICAL - Wood Elf Captain with Elf bow [ARMY LEADER?]
  
• 4 Wood Elf Warriors with throwing daggers
• 4 Wood Elf Warriors with throwing daggers and Wood Elf spears
• 4 Wood Elf Warriors with Elf bows
  

28 D3-4 models with no Blinding Light could lead to some issues, but with Elven Cloaks on almost all of our models, we've got some play if the enemy tries to shoot us out. As with any Wood Elf-heavy list, learning how to skirmish well is an art that will take some practice - so if you take this out for a stroll, please expect to lose a lot of guys while you're learning how it works!

We can take the "pajama party" a bit farther, though, if we up the points level to 700 - this gives us the ability to take a few more useful units, including a heavy hitter:

• Aragorn - Strider on horse with bow [AL]
• Frodo Baggins
• Samwise Gamgee
• HISTORICAL - Gildor Inglorion
• 4 Noldorin Exiles with throwing daggers
• 4 Noldorin Exiles with throwing daggers and Wood Elf spears
• 4 Noldorin Exiles with Elf bows
• HISTORICAL - Wood Elf Captian with Elf bow
• 5 Wood Elf Warriors with throwing daggers
• 3 Wood Elf Warriors with throwing daggers and Wood Elf spears
• 3 Wood Elf Warriors with Elf bows
• 1 Wood Elf Warrior with Elf bow, Wood Elf spear, and banner

Getting to 29 models isn't bad - though again, having low defense means this is going to be a trickly list to run. However, we have plenty of Might/speed in the list thanks to having Aragorn, Gildor/Noldorin Exiles, and LOTS of throwing weapons that can move their full distance and shoot. If we're patient, we can do quite a bit with this list.

Alternatively, you could run a list with slightly fewer models at 700-points and pick up two of the best heroes in this list: Aragorn and Gandalf . . . along with a host of Hobbits (with a war horn!) and some Dunedain to provide some muscle and Might!

• Aragorn - Strider on horse with bow [AL]
• 6 Dunedain
• 1 Dunedain
• 1 Dunedain
• 1 Dunedain
• 1 Dunedain
• HISTORICAL - Gandalf the Grey on horse
• 10 Hobbit Militia
• 4 Hobbit Archers
• 1 Hobbit Archer with war horn

This list comes in at 27 models, which is pretty impressive, considering all the heroes you have - and you have a war horn. You could ditch the war horn to get +1 Dunedain and 5 spears, but I think the extra courage will go a long way (Dunedain are only C4 after all). With each of the Dunedain getting their army bonus boost of +1 Attack and Woodland Creature (and the Shire models having Woodland Creature as well from their army bonus), you actually have a lot of options with this list. Rythbyrt would probably build this list differently (Centaur too - I think both with take Anduril on Aragorn for one thing, Centaur would probably try to get a cart in there and probably Farmer Maggot), but the bones of it have been tested a lot here at TMAT and it works out pretty well.

As we scale up to 800pts, we can cover more of our bases - in part by getting rid of Frodo and Sam . . . sadly enough . . .

• Gandalf the Grey on horse [ARMY LEADER]
• 3 Hobbit Militia
• 11 Hobbit Archers
• Farmer Maggot
• Grip, Fang, and Wolf
• 9 Hobbit Militia
• Fredegar Bolger
• 6 Hobbit Militia
• CONVENIENT - Glorfindel, Lord of the West on Asfaloth
• CONVENIENT - Gildor Inglorion
• 3 Noldorin Exiles with throwing daggers
• 5 Noldorin Exiles with throwing daggers and Wood Elf spears
• 3 Noldorin Exiles with Elf bows
• 1 Noldorin Exile with Elf bow, Wood Elf spear, and banner

Well, look at that - we have a 49-model list with lots of shooting, anti-archery protection, some niche speed (Gildor, 12 Noldorin Exiles, 3 dogs, and 1 Might for March on Gildor), and a double-caster list. Glorfindel doesn't have his armor (unfortunately), but it's got a high-ish model count for 800pts and lots of ways of dealing with big heroes. And I got Fatty Bolger in the list which is awesome.

The list is predominantly D3 and has very few spears - but again, our goal is to not get caught and maneuver a lot. Gandalf should keep us relatively safe from archers (and help fuel the Immobilize game of Gildor/himself) while Glorfindel does what he can to chop through the enemy (supported by a horde of archery and bodies for screening). This isn't the most competitive list, but I guarantee you it'll be fun and your opponent may not have any idea what to do against it.

Conclusion

That was quite fun - and is basically a brain dump of various things I've tried for the past few years. If I had access to High Elf Warriors, I'd probably show off my Gildor/Glorfindel/Arwen/Tom/Goldberry list, but this will probably be a thing of yester year now that the new edition is here. :) Hopefully you enjoyed this bit of fun - and hopefully there was something from this thematic list challenge that you took away to try on your own! This is the last post in this series for now, but if creativity strikes, we'll be sure to start it up again next year (within the constraints of the new edition, of course). Until next time, happy hobbying!