Top 10 Soup Lists for MESBG v2!

Good morning gamers,

Perhaps the most defining (and divisive) change in the newest version of MESBG is the change from a list of Good and Evil factions that have an alliance matrix that rewards or "penalizes" historically-accurate or historically-impossible list building choices to a set of "army lists" that can't interact at all. Throughout the previous edition of the game, Rythbyrt was a big fan of the "mix up a cool army from multiple army lists" approach to list building, including some that involved Khazad-Dum/Army of Thror Dwarves mixed in with other factions or Camels into just about every Evil list you can think of. This kind of "soup list building" approach was dabbled in by me near the end of the last edition (particularly so I could get Floi and Bombur together for the "eternal Floi" shenanigans that it opened up) and a little bit by Centaur (who, like me, is more of a purist when it comes to list building).

While the first pass through the new edition might make you feel like "soup list building" days are a thing of the past, think again - as we wait for the Armies of Middle-Earth book to drop and eventually the Legacies document (though as has been pointed out to me, there is no money coming off of that supplement, so the more cynical side of me feels like "it'll get done whenever they get around to it"), here is a Top 10 list (yes, Centaur might be our usual Top 10 guy, but he doesn't have a monopoly on those posts!) of armies you can use out of the box today to get cool mixed lists on the tabletop (and maybe even use some of those Legacied/Armies of Middle-Earth lists that we don't have access to yet). 

By "soup lists," I'm referring to armies that can field different mixes of units together in order to get a more interesting play experience - and of course, those that rank higher are going to be those that can have radically different play experiences depending on how you mix them. There will be some where you're a little stove-piped, but each has ways to make them feel different and interesting. Let's start off with . . .

Pick #10: Battle of Fornost

This list has a lot of list building options in it, but of course it differs from some of the other "soup" lists we're going to talk about later because it has required heroes. Earnur and Glorfindel are unlikely to be taken without their mounts, so they're a 320pt tax on the list right out of the gate. With 36 warrior slots between the two heroes, you could run this list with just the two heroes and fill out their warbands with some Elven infantry and a mix of Minas Tirith infantry and cavalry (and someone will clearly have a banner).

Where the "soup" aspect of the list comes in, however, is what you choose to do AFTER you've gotten a solid anvil of men and Elves with some sort of Cavalry hammer to support them. The list has access to Captains of Minas Tirith and Rivendell Captains (on foot) if you want to take "more of the same", but it also has other options that you shouldn't sleep on.

For the same cost as a Rivendell Captain, you can take Cirdan, who is a Hero of Fortitude in the Angmar and Arnor PDF, so we'll see if that's still true when the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement hits (and whether that remains true as the edition continues). While Cirdan isn't the support Übermensch he was before, he's still got Enchanted Blades on a 4+ (great on Earnur and to a lesser degree Glorfindel), Blessing of the Valar on a 4+ (also great on those two heroes - especially Earnur), and Call Winds on a 4+ to blow an enemy unit out of combat and knock them Prone. All told, these are some really useful tools and I wouldn't sleep on including him in a list. Since Cirdan doesn't have Heroic March, however, your list will feel really different with his supporting abilities instead of the March/combat options of either of the Captains.

You can also take Rangers of the North, who can be fielded without armor (as "Dunedain" previously) or with armor (as Rangers of the North have been in previous editions). Taking these Minor Heroes allows you to take up to 6 Hobbit Archers with each of them, which means you can have a 55pt bow-hit-squad with 7 models in it - and if you take 36 Warriors of Minas Tirith/Rivendell Warriors with melee weapons, you could field up to three warbands of Rangers of the North/Hobbit Archers if you wanted to without having to add any other heroes. Admittedly, the units you're adding will be low Defense units, but their bow-armed prowess will rival that of the Elves or Men in the list (and is particularly nice now that Rangers of Arnor aren't in the list, like they were at the end of the last edition).

Finally, if you REALLY want some thematic stuff for the list, you can add Aranarth to the mix. Aranarth is in a slightly better position than he was last edition, since he's a Dunedain Hero and so can lead Hobbit Archers in his warband as well - and he has cap-space for 15 of them, which is the same as 2.5 Rangers of the North (though he costs a bit more than three of them without armor and just under three of them with armor). In trade, he gets to shoot twice with Sharpshooter, has Hatred (Angmar), is treated as a banner by himself and any Rangers of the North near him (unlikely to be used heavily in this particular list - unless you're spamming those Rangers of the North, I suppose), and has Heroic Strike (which isn't what it was, but having a third option for it is pretty neat).

All told, while the list is built for you up to a certain points level, where you go from there provides some really interesting and varied options - and if you have Hobbit models lying around with no list to run them in, consider blue-tacking some bows to them and throw them into a list with your Rivendell and Minas Tirith models!

Okay, on to a list that also has two required heroes, but a lot of customization options available to it . . .

Pick #9: Last Alliance

While we're not as constrained in our hero selection as the Battle of Fornost list is, the Last Alliance does have a pretty steep hero requirement: you have to take either Gil-Galad or Elrond (or both) and you have to take either Elendil or Isildur (or both) in your list. After taking an acceptable mix of these four named heroes, you have Captains of Numenor and Rivendell Captains - this seems like a stove-pipped list if ever I saw one.

However, the lists you can build with these guys are . . . surprisingly varied. Both Elendil and Gil-Galad are Heroes of Legend and can't take mounts or shields, which means their raw stats are what need to carry the day (their raw stats are incredibly good in most respects) and they'll need help getting into position to be useful against the enemy. If you field either or both of these heroes, you're looking for a list that will get them where they need to be (probably with Heroic March) and that will survive punishment while they do their work (probably with D6 Elves backed by S4 Numenoreans). All told, if you take one or both of these heroes, you're looking at a very "death-ball" army list that will probably be predictable and devastating where it rolls.

Swapping Elendil for Isildur can save you 25pts if you pay for the horse on Isildur, but gives you a more flexible Numenorean hero due to the added speed you get from the horse and the option to dismount and put on the One Ring to deal with enemy heroes. Isildur is easily the most lethal of the Ringbearers in the game (now that fighting with multiple people in the duel doesn't halve Fight Values while wearing the Ring) and if you were to field him with his dad, he'd have the Shards of Narsil special rule so he can get a +1 To Wound bonus when Elendil dies if he can get near where Elendil fell. This will further encourage a "death-ball" approach (since you don't want Isildur getting too far away from his dad), but also makes the list feel very different (and will be unlikely to have any kind of Heroic March in the list if you have three heroes that cost you over 450pts).

You also have Elrond, who I feel is an auto-take over Gil-Galad because he has a mount, he has priority-manipulating options, he has magical powers that are very useful, he's got more Fate and can reroll failures, and his combat stats are nearly as good. And he's about the same cost (especially if you factor in the King's Guard upgrades that you are likely taking if you have Gil-Galad in your list). I'm sure there will be someone out there who rallies to the defense of Gil-Galad on this one, but I'd take Elrond every day of the week over Gil-Galad - though I will say that if you were thinking about running Elendil, Gil-Galad, and Isildur together, you could have a very strong list by swapping Elendil for Elrond (the costs are once again close to comparable) - and that could give you F6 Elves alongside two mounted heroes (neither of which is your general). This list feels REALLY different from the other death-ball lists because . . . it really doesn't have to function as one! Gil-Galad can be surrounded by the infantry, Elrond and Isildur can harass as outflankers, and you have a Ringbearer and a magic caster to deal with threats of various kinds.

But there's another option for running this list that makes things really interesting: you can run it as an all-infantry Lindon list with Gil-Galad, a High Elf Captain, and Isildur thrown into the mix! The Lindon list hands out Resistant to Magic and rerolled To Hits while shooting and not moving for those within 3" of a hero (pretty small range, but no longer tied to the army general like it was in the last edition) - and the wound-on-a-6 rule you get from the Last Alliance and rerolling 1s on Courage tests from the Last Alliance rule are likely to see far more use than you'd have otherwise! While you certainly could take some Numenoreans in to fill out an odd points level, you could also treat Isildur as a grenade hero who arrives on his own and has the mount to get him to wherever your army needs him (and the Ring to help him survive should he be surrounded). The rest of your list . . . is just Elves. A lot of Elves. At 750 points, the list might look something like this:

Pretty different feel, am I right? This list feels a lot like the Lothlorien + Numenor lists that were popular at the end of the last edition - you throw in your Ringbearer into a list that's got plenty of F6 Elves (all of whom can shield in this list, half of which can support with spears instead of pikes) and hopefully gives you enough numbers to work down the enemy while you smash them up. No Gwaihir in the list, of course - for that, you'd want to run . . .

Pick #8: Men of the West

Now THIS was a list that I was glad to see get a face-lift in the new edition - and I'll be honest, I didn't have the Eagles pegged for the addition (and I don't know why - I guess this heart didn't want to be broken)! This list is sitting at the top of the pile for lists that have a required hero in it (Elessar - who is one of the most flexible heroes in the game and so I'm fine with "having" to take him), but also has one of the finest selections of supporting heroes of any army list in the game as well. While most of these heroes were available in the previous edition, what they can take has been changed in a very, VERY positive way.

By default, you have to include Aragorn in your list and he can lead up to 18 Warriors of Minas Tirith OR Warriors of Rohan (such a good change - and definitely one that I asked for!), so if you want to have all-tin-cans, you can do that. If you want to have some throwing weapon guys or cheaper, lower-Fight/Defense bowmen, you can do that too. You can also add Merry or Pippin to his warband if you want some extra Might - but I have yet to build a list where I have 50pts available for these chaps. AND with one exception, if you want an armored Horse for Aragorn (I think it's a toss-up if you do or don't depending on who your second/third hero is), you can take that for 25pts - all told, it's not hard to get Elessar, a swarm of guys, and a horse for just over 400pts.

After taking Aragorn and before you decide whether to give him a horse, the choice needs to be made whether to include or exclude Gwaihir. This guy was dropped into a lot of lists in the previous edition and in my mind, taking Gwaihir in this list is probably a good idea. However, there's a list building constraint if you do: taking Gwaihir opens up your options for a very strong hero and potentially Eagles to be led by him (which I don't think I'd do - they cost the same as a few of the other heroes in the list, who I think give you more options) OR to take horses on the heroes who have them as options (Eomer, Gandalf, Legolas, and of course, Aragorn). Buying an armored horse for Aragorn and any one of these heroes with a horse will be the same cost as Gwaihir, so taking Gwaihir instead isn't really a cost concern - it's a mobility-on-Aragorn-and-the-other-hero-you-take concern. The other heroes give you the option to boost your model count, but I've gotten pretty used to having Aragorn, King Elessar on foot - and yes, he's more devastating on a horse, but there's very little in the game that feels as devastating as Gwaihir - especially with the changes to Heroic Strike in this edition of the game. I played with the Men of the West before they were cool - and the list feels REALLY different with Gwaihir as an option.

You can also take Gandalf in the list - and unlike the last edition, Gandalf doesn't count as having his staff of power, but he does get nearly the equivalent of a free Will point via a special rule that allows him to reroll one of his casting dice. Heroic Channelling will be his friend, as he can guarantee that his Will point works at the cost of 1 Might point (which is fine since you've got Aragorn and his infinite Might point thing). Gandalf can lead troops (Rohan and Gondor types) now, auto-passes Courage tests, has and gives Dominant (2) to nearby warriors, and he can be F7/Reroll 1s when making Strikes for one turn if he's within 6" of Aragorn (that range got smaller, but I'm not complaining). There's a lot that has changed in this list and I like it - but I don't think you're taking both Gandalf and Gwaihir with Elessar, so pick which of these two beasts you want in your list (and boy do they feel like different things altogether).

You've also got three mid-tier heroes in Eomer (120pts with shield/throwing spears and the option for a 20-25pt horse if you don't take Gwaihir), Legolas (110pts with Elven Cloak and armor and the option for a 20pt horse if you don't take Gwaihir), and Gimli (who is 105pts with Elven Cloak - that might be optional, but the -1 penalty to shooting is nice). Any of these heroes can lead any Warriors of Minas Tirith/Rohan that they like and they're all Heroes of Valour, so you can pile in 15 guys with any of them if you want to. Legolas probably has the dominance over the other two in my book since he can shoot more reliably now and can be taken with or without his horse equally well. Eomer probably wants the horse (and so wouldn't be with Gwaihir) and Gimli is slow, but only so much as someone can actually be slow when Elessar is nearby. Taking two of these heroes without Gwaihir or one of these heroes with Gwaihir gives you some very interesting options indeed.

And then there are the Captains - I don't think I'd take the Captain of Rohan under any circumstance because you don't need him to get Rohan units anymore. The Captain of Minas Tirith is a hard sell for me since Elessar has a free Might point and Heroic March each turn - but if you wanted to do a "left hill" list where you ran Elessar, Legolas, and a Captain of Minas Tirith . . . well, that list would be cool and excellent:

This list is very similar to what you used to be able to do with Men of the West (no Twins option in the current iteration of the list, but who knows what we might see in the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement - and in the meantime, we have mounts of Aragorn, Eomer, and Legolas that might cover what the Twins were doing). All in all, there are a lot of ways you can go with this list - and while you can't do the Elessar/Gwaihir/Bolt Thrower thing that Rythbyrt did at one of our events once upon a time, you can get pretty close to it with Elessar (on foot), Gwaihir, and Legolas now.

Okay, enough with the required heroes - we want some real soup lists, so we'll start off with something Evil . . .

Pick #7: Rise of the Necromancer

I have been pleasantly surprised with this list. In the previous edition, the Dark Powers of Dol Guldur army list was the most varied army that Evil could take from the Armies of the Hobbit book and it could ally Conveniently with basically everything in that book. However, it seemed to lack the undead synergies that eventually got met with the Rise of the Necromancer Legendary Legion, but in that Legion, you lost all of the flexibility that came from having Warrior options (and historically-allied warbands of Goblin Mercenaries from Azog's Legion). In the current edition, the Rise of the Necromancer army list melds the best rules from the Rise of the Necromancer Legendary Legion (though until we get the Legacies document, it did lose one of the most important profiles from that Legion) with most of the unit selection options from the original Dark Powers army list. It's actually a pretty great list.

For starters, you don't have to take the Necromancer if you don't want too - many of the special rules are tied to him being in your list, but if you just want your "old school" Dark Powers lists that use cheap Nazgul as your General/shenanigan pieces, you can do that. If you want web-slinging spiders (and ever-so-slightly-punchier combat spiders), you can take those. If you want a horde of Hunter Orcs, you can take those too. The only things you can't take from the previous list are the Gundabads, which is a shame, but also means you can lean into the Hunter Orcs/Spiders/Wargs more instead.

Alternatively, you can replicate an old-school Dark Denizens list that doesn't have the Spider Queen in it, but might use 2-4 of the Nazgul or even the Necromancer to do the Spider-Queen-tactical-stuff, while also having plenty of Wargs or Spiders in tow to race across the board (the technical term might be "skittering") to clog up space, pounce on unsuspecting models, or just spread your opponent out. And while you certainly can rely on the Necromancer to do some of the tricks in this list (like not dying), you can also take two Abyssal Knights and the Lingering Shadow to "blink" around like the Broodlings used to, maybe with the Witch-King sitting safely in your backfield as your army General. Whatever your plan is, there's a lot of list building options in this one - and while we can't get the Spider Queen back, it remains a strong contender for Spider-heavy lists that might have wanted some Orc allies.

Our next choice is probably the largest surprise of the whole day - and I was VERY pleased when I saw the options for this list . . .

Pick #6: Army of Thror

"WAIT," I hear you say," The Army of Thror is not a SOUP LIST! It's literally the opposite of a soup list! There's no way you can make anything from that AWFUL list that looks like ANYTHING other than an Army of Thor list!" Gauntlet thrown and received - so let's get this out of the way from the start:

The Army of Thror is only a soup list . . . if you want to play with your Khazad-Dum models in the current state of the game.

"Wait," you say, "You can make a Khazad-Dum list with the Army of Thror?" Why yes, yes you can - clear it with your local TO first, but until we get the next supplement (and even maybe after that one drops, depending on how they do it), this is the best way to run the Kingdom of Khazad-Dum. Let's see how.

The Army of Thror is in desperate need of the updated Matched Play Guide so it can use its Erebor Treasure Hoard special rule and the only other special rule it gets is one that makes Thror be treated as a 6" banner (and it affects him, which is nice). This means you probably want to have Thror, Thrain, Thorin, and an Erebor Dwarf Captain in your lists becuase they're not that expensive (445pts for all four of them), together they can field 60 Dwarves (which you can't do below 1000pts - so let's just assume these are all the Dwarves you'll ever need), and they all have 3 Attacks and one of them (Thrain - more on him shortly) gets +1 To Wound. Oh, and if you remember and have your guys in a tight enough block, Thorin might be able to give your S3 warriors S4 for a turn (which could be really, really good). All told, that's your usual Army of Thror nonsense that isn't working too well in this edition of the game, now that the Erebor Dwarf Warrior profile went up a point (ostensibly because of the addition of "Mountain Dweller", but probably to make up for the free point of Defense they used to get in the previous edition).

But you also have access to Dwarf Kings now - and Dwarf Kings were previously found in two army lists: the Kingdom of Khazad-Dum and the Kingdom of Moria. And THAT gives us an opening for something very, very soupy: using our Kingdom of Khazad-Dum/Moria models as Erebor Dwarves. Let's see how we'd do that.

For starters, the Army of Thror has two warrior models available to it: Erebor Dwarf Warriors and Grim Hammer Warriors. Erebor Dwarf Warriors have always had a similar profile to the Dwarf Warriors we had in Khazad-Dum: Dwarf Armor, axe, and then the option for a shield (which Khazad-Dum had) or spear (which Khazad-Dum didn't have). So obviously, this means we can run as many of the shield guys as we want with our Dwarf Kings in order to be an "Erebor" list, right? Well, sure, we can start there - but let's admit that we want more than that, right? We definitely want spears - and to get this, we need to lean into a close reading of the wargear options that are on Erebor Dwarf Warriors.

Erebor Dwarf Warriors have "Heavy Armor" and a "Hand Weapon" and start at D6. They can then take a shield (as we know - Dwarf Warrior with shield, check), a spear and shield (no Khazad-Dum model has that), or a spear (which we CAN get in Khazad-Dum . . . from the Foe Spear of a Vault Warden team). Since there are no rules for Foe Shields in the game as of yet, we could use Vault Warden Teams (formerly 25pts each with some neat anti-monster rules) as a pair of Erebor Dwarf Warriors (one with shield, one with spear) for 20pts - and yes, not being S4 and immune to Brutal Power Attacks will be missed for those 5pts, but we can also use all our cool Vault Warden models right now (and all you have to do is play with the Army of Thror . . . a tax, I know).

We don't have the options for bows on our Dwarves (that would probably require intense proxying with the Dale profiles from the Erebor and Dale list - someone smart can pull that one if they want to ) and we can't get banners, war horns, or two-handed axes on our guys either - but we can get shields or spears on our Erebor Dwarves if we want to and that's something. Our second stop pivots to getting Grim Hammer Warriors in our list - and Grim Hammer Warriors are tricky in that they have throwing axes (small ones, usually at their belts) and mattocks (two-handed weapons). If only Khazad-Dum had models with two-handed weapons in their hands and small axes at their belts . . .

. . . oh wait, they do - Khazad Guards! There are probably only a few people out there who have more Khazad Guards than they have Dwarf Warriors and Vault Warden Teams, but since you can run up to 33% of your list as Khazad Guards (or heck, Dwarf Warriors with two-handed axes, so long as you add an axe to their belts from Dwarf Rangers with throwing axes, Grim Hammer Warriors, or Warriors of Rohan), you can field a pretty impressive array of warriors to support your Dwarf Kings.

But it would be really sweet if we could get heroes other than Dwarf Kings in our list. Sure, the Dwarf King profile is really good, but there's another hero who got an interesting set of changes this edition: the Erebor Dwarf Captain. While I'm a big fan of Grim Hammer Captains (I defended them in the past edition and they're still good this edition), you'd have to get pretty creative with a hero to represent them - I think there was a Dwarf Captain profile with a two-handed axe, but otherwise you're looking at a Dwarf King and saying, "He's not actually a Dwarf King," and I don't think that's a good idea. Erebor Dwarf Captains got boosted to 3 Attacks (something Dwarf Kings don't have), so it would be good if we could field this guy for 10pts less than a Dwarf King and get a pretty solid profile. For that, though, we'd need a Khazad-Dum hero with two axes . . .

. . . and of course, the first team of models all of us selected for our Khazad-Dum lists last edition was the King's Champion - and he comes with 2 axes in hand and a profile not unsimilar to the Erebor Dwarf Captain (better in some stats and lots of extra rules). This means that if we have 2 Dwarf King models, a King's Champion model, and a bunch of Dwarf Warriors with shields, Vault Warden Teams, and Khazad Guards, we can have a wargear-legal Army of Thror list at 650pts that might look something like this:

Okay, now for the piece de resistance: we're not guaranteed to get a Kingdom of Moria faction until the Legacies document comes out (though I'm hopeful that there are rules in the Kingdom of Khazad-Dum army list for bringing in the Champion of Erebor versions of Balin, Oin, and Ori from Erebor Reclaimed), and so it would be great if we could use our Balin model to lead our army. While we could certainly just use him as a Dwarf King, I'd like to draw your attention to the wargear available to Young Balin the Dwarf: "Armor" and "hand-and-a-half weapon". While Durin's Axe was a master-forged two-handed weapon in the last edition, Balin's "weapon" can be used two-handed, so there's a strong argument that could be made to a generous TO that you could use your old Balin model as the new Balin model. His combat profile is weaker, but not as weak as it was in the previous edition. If you want to use your Durin model, however, we'd have to take another approach.

Durin in the last edition of the game had 3 Attacks, 3 Wounds, 3 Might, 3 Will, 1 Fate, a master-forged two-handed weapon that also gave him a dueling reroll, and the Ring of Durin (among other special rules). We can get basically all of these things (with more Fate and fewer rules) from Thrain - and if you were to ask a generous TO if you could use your Khazad-Dum models that are still waiting for their supplement drop date to be announced as the Army of Thror led by Thrain and supported by a Dwarf King and an Erebor Dwarf Captain, I'd be hard pressed to think of a reasonable TO that would say, "No." Thrain and Durin play very similarly and always have (making Thrain a better overall combatant in my book since he's cheaper with more Fate, but he doesn't have the War Horn/Terror/Fearless rules that you find on Durin).

So yes - bringing up the middle of the pack today is the Army of Thror . . . who knew. Maybe you're not convinced that this is a soup list - and maybe it's not. But I think it's interesting and if five people who read this article decide to give it a whirl at a local meet-up with a friend, I'll be particularly thrilled.

Okay, time for a real soup list again . . .

Pick #5: The Battle of Five Armies

There are three army lists that represent the "guys who worked together in the big battles" scenes from the films - the Battle of Five Armies, the Defenders of the Pelennor, and the Legions of Mordor. We're about to get a few more with the next supplement, but right now, these are the three that involve most of the three-way or four-way historical alliances that used to be available in the alliance matrix before. Of those three, I think the most list-constrained choice is the Battle of Five Armies.

This list represents what used to be the Erebor Reclaimed, Iron Hills, Survivors of Lake-town, and Halls of Thranduil alliance, which couldnt' all be allied together historically, but any pairing of Elf-Dwarf-Man could be allied historically. This list also includes the Radagast's Alliance units (Radagast, Beorn, Gwaihir, Fledgeling/Great Eagles), which were previously convenient allies, so glad that got corrected. It does not have an option for the "champ chariot", which I feel is a missed opportunity.

Historically, this kind of alliance had three roles in it that needed to be filled: High Fight Value units (Elves), High Defense Units (Dwarves), and Cheap Filler Units (Men). It wasn't uncommon for there to be two big heroes (some mix of Thorin, Dain, Thranduil, or Bard - possibly Dwalin) and then there would be a Captain of some sort (probably from Lake-town) for Heroic March and to bring in a contingent of guys. Having 2-3 armies allied together could offset the limitations that leaning too hard into one of these factions might bring (no cavalry or F4/D6 units for Lake-town, expensive units that don't have F5 for Dwarves, expensive units that don't have D7+ for Elves).

The current list gives us a lot of options - the best Lake-town hero is probably Gandalf, but given the other units you can take, your most likely Lake-town hero (if you take one at all) is a Lake-town Militia Captain (who comes in at 50pts and can lead 10 spearmen for 110pts). The only army list special rule that you have allows people to reroll 1s when making Strikes if there's a model of a different race "involved in [the] Combat", so spear-supporting also allows you to reroll 1s. Yaye.

Your front-line is likely to be Elves or Dwarves (possibly both) and for the Elves, we have Thranduil, Legolas, Tauriel, and Mirkwood Elf Captains as our options. You could go a lot of different ways with this, but my default inclination is to take Legolas or Tauriel (your preference) and max out on bows, max out on Glaives, or do a mix of both. You might get some cavalry, but I'd stick to infantry.

Most of the units you're likely to take with this list are Dwarves - and it's sad that you have to take the spear to get the shield now, but they're still your best front-line option (D6 Elves are good, D8 Dwarves in shieldwall are always going to be better). If you take Thorin (really cheap, still has a way to get free Heroic Combats) and Nori (cheap 3 Attack hero with D9), you can field a lot of Dwarves (including a few Goat Riders for objective grabbers - a bit pricier than Mirkwood Knights, but the Goat Riders will always be D6 whether you field Thranduil or not) and can support them easily with the rest of your guys. You can get to 43 models at 800pts with all three factions in the mix:

Of course, you could also drop one of the contingents and add Gwaihir to the mix. Or you could change up the Dwarf hero selection. Or take Thranduil or Dain instead of Thorin. Or you could take one fewer hero and more warriors (we have some space). There's quite a bit of room to work with, but many of the lists will eventually become the same - I don't know that there's a world where you'd leave all the Dwarves at home, but maybe you could (if you had Gwaihir to support the Elves and Men). With Gandalf, you can actually run something like the Gwaihir/Lady of Light/Lake-town nonsense that used to be all the rage (but you'd be running F4 Dwarves instead of F4 Lake-town Guard . . . smaller numbers than before, but you'll live longer):

All told, there are some interesting options you can run with this list, but I'm not sure they're actually as interesting as some of the other lists we're about to look at. So, I give these guys a nod over the Army of Thror and the Rise of the Necromancer, but no higher than that. Now for some real fun . . .

Pick #4: The Army of the White Hand

This army is BANANAS crazy in its flexibility to make army lists! While all of the army list special rules are tied to Saruman being in the list (and he's definitely good in the list, don't get me wrong), Saruman isn't required in the list - and this means that you can get combos of units that you otherwise wouldn't be able to get, whether you take Saruman or not. Let's explore a few of these options.

First off, this is the only "War of the Ring Dunland" list you can run in MESBG - yes, there are "Hill Tribes" lists that you can run, but the Usurpers of Edoras heavily incentivizes you to run characters from the War of the Rohirrim film (at least Freca and Thorne, maybe Wulf as well) and the Besiegers of Helm's Deep does require you to run Wulf, so if you're going to run either of these lists, it isn't going to be a War of the Ring-era Dunland list. The Army of the White Hand can allow you to run an all-Dunland army - The Oathmaker/Wild Man Chieftains as heroes, Crebain/Wild Men of Dunland as your warriors - and while you won't get any army bonuses without adding Saruman to the list as well, what you will get is a big horde of guys who can be fielded 33% as Wild Men with bows, 33% as Wild Men with spears (to back up the bows, potentially), and 33% as Crebain or Wild Men with flaming brands (for getting off the board in Recon, contesting objectives in Hold Ground/Domination, wrapping-and-trapping or running in front of spears in the other scenarios). The list gets huge pretty quick and if you REALLY want bonus Courage/cool casting rules for Saruman, you can throw him in to urge the Dunlendings on.

In addition to the Dunland stuff, you can run Warg Riders, Orcs, Uruk-Hai Scouts, and Orc/Uruk-Hai Scout Captains. These give you a basis for some interesting mixed armies (though Wild Men fill many of the roles that Orcs used to fill), whether that's upgrading your Wild Men with bows into Uruk-Hai Scouts with Uruk-Hai bows or throwing in some Warg Riders for mounted units that can engage with objectives instead of some of your Crebain (who can't, thanks to the Beast keyword). Both Centaur and I have run Uruk-Hai Scouts/Warriors backed by Orcs in the past, and you can run Uruk-Hai Scouts with Orcs/Wild Men backing them up in this list - and potentially still rely on those cheap Wild Man Chieftains to field them!

While this list won't give you as good of a pure Warg Rider list as the Wolves of Isengard list does (no mounted Orc Captains here - plus no Sharku), it will allow you to use Warg Riders like you used to use them in Isengard lists as your cheap cavalry supplement to an otherwise infantry-heavy list. Similarly, you'll get better work out of Uruk-Hai Scouts and Orc Warriors in an Ugluk's Scouts list or pure Uruk-Hai Scouts out of a Lurtz's Scouts list, but you'll also get a bunch of utility pieces that you won't get in those lists by running this one (flaming brand on Dunlendings, Crebain for archer-hunting, and of course Saruman and Grima). While you can get Saruman in a Muster of Isengard list as well, you won't get the non-Uruk-Hai stuff in that one (to include the cheap spears/brands of the Dunlendings, but also the fast troops in Warg Riders and Crebain). All in all, this list allows you to tap into a lot of the flavors of the other Isengard lists and the parameters are WIDE open.

As much as I like how open this list is, there are some clear achetypes that seem to work for it. Our podium contenders do not appear to have such a cut-and-dry formula though . . .

Pick #3: Defenders of the Pelennor

Unlike the Men of the West, this list has faction-based restrictions for which warriors can be brought by which heroes. The summary is simple: Aragorn/Legolas/Gimli/the King of the Dead/Heralds of the Dead can bring Warriors/Riders of the Dead, Gandalf/Irolas/Captains of Minas Tirith can bring Warriors/Knights of Minas Tirith (and Citadel Guard for Irolas, thank goodness), and Theoden/Eomer/Eowyn/Gamling/Captains of Rohan can bring Riders of Rohan/Royal Guards (not Eowyn/Captains of Rohan). And you can take trebs on their own, which is nice. This is basically the old historical alliance between Rohan and Minas Tirith with the ability to bring in the Dead of Dunharrow with Aragorn (not Elessar) instead of the Fiefdoms.

But there are a lot of options in this list - for starters, this is the only way you can run pure Dunharrow. The Return of the King army list gives you the Three Hunters, but you have to at least take Aragorn and because you can't run leaderless warbands in that list, you'll probably be taking one of the other Hunters before you take a Herald of the Dead. You can't take leaderless warbands in the Defenders of the Pelennor list either, but you might not want to - but if you were playing at 600pts, you might opt for a list like this instead of a Return of the King list:

Let's assume that you want to play higher than that though - the Herald of the Dead can easily be dropped for Irolas, who can then lead a bunch of Citadel Guard to give you spears that get +1 To Wound while they support the Dead of Dunharrow AND can even give you a few bowmen with S3 bows. This anvil could be supported by your choice of Eomer or Theoden (who can be your army General to trigger Arise, Riders of Rohan)! At 700pts, this list hits 32 models and has a great mix of heavy infantry, good Fight Value, and cavalry to back up the infantry lines:

This not only feels really different, but it was also not possible to field under the old edition of the rules since a) Aragorn isn't in the list, so you'd be Impossible Allies, b) Eomer wouldn't trigger Arise, and c) Irolas didn't do anything to make your Citadel Guard better - you'd be far better off running squishier Rangers of Gondor instead. As it is, this list could also lean harder into the spears if you didn't want to give up on the shooting game (I think you could swap the 3 longbows for spears easily), but the list looks and feels different and soup-listy.

Final idea: while I think the Riders of Theoden and Atop the Walls list are excellent on their own, they both struggle with problems - speed for Atop the Walls and covering fire for the Riders of Theoden. If only there was a way to blend the two lists together . . . oh wait, we can do that with this list! Adding in Eowyn with Merry to lead 7 Riders of Rohan is an easy shoe-in for mobility, and bringing in Gandalf with Pippin and Irolas (and optionally a Trebuchet if your points level is high enough or you're willing to go under 30 models) with Warriors of Minas Tirith and Citadel Guard to offset your bow limit constraints from the Riders of Rohan, you've got some incredible power, good mobile threats, a solid anvil line of Warriors of Minas Tirith backed by Citadel Guard/Irolas, and a pretty healthy 36 models at 750pts:

And I haven't built a single list with the Three Hunters yet, or that has leaned into the Rohan side of the house very hard, or that ran a few siege engines to back up a Minas Tirith shieldwall - the lists go on! The only special rule in this list is that each hero can declare a free Heroic Combat once per game - which is kind of like Death, but not tied to a hero being alive and not being flexible in the kind of heroic that's called. Still, the heroes in this list can probably get Heroic Combats off (the infantry heroes probably need to manage their fights), so it's a good special rule (and feels a lot stronger than the rerolling 1s when you're helped by a different race that the Five Armies list gets).

But as great as the options are in this list, I think there's more ground to be explored across the Pelennor with the . . .

Pick #3: Legions of Mordor

I have high hopes for the Armies of Middle-Earth corollary to this army list (the Army of the Red Eye, apparently - I HOPE it's the corollary at any rate), but there's a lot of room to work with this one! At first blush, you're probably thinking, "No, there's less room to work for sure." The list of profiles is indeed smaller - you have the Witch-King/Ringwraiths on Fell Beasts who can lead Mordor stuff (along with Gothmog, his Enforcer, Guritz, and Morannon Orc Captains), The Mumak War Leader/other Mumaks/Haradrim Chieftains who can lead Haradrim guys, and Easterling Captains who can lead Easterling Warriors. Oh, and you can take catapults. Not a very impressive array, right? Well, not so fast . . .

There was a list that I was running in the last edition which was a "Fortitude Spam" list for Mordor. The list was simple: Goroth was my army leader and he was aided by a bunch of cheap Captains who allowed me to bring a lot of bodies at a very low points limit (52 models at 650pts, to be exact). I tested it against one of Rythbyrt's many Goblin-town lists and actually did pretty well considering I was outnumbered (though not as outnumbered as I should have been), and you can do something similar with this list, relying on Guritz to make sure your army arrives where you want it to and leaning on the F4 of the Easterlings backed by the S4 of the Morannons (who might also be F4 against Men), all while covering fire is being laid down by a host of cheap-but-good Haradrim bowmen. Due to the increase in prices that Morannons (and Easterlings) saw in this edition, I now have to play at 700pts to get to 52 models - but darn it, I can get there and now I have F4/D6 Easterlings instead of F3/D6 Morannons as my front line and 4+ shoot on Haradrim instead of Orc Trackers:

This is a silly edge case way you can run a Legions of Mordor list - but let's be honest, there's value in getting over 50 models at 700pts and if they're giving you a F4/D6 frontline backed by Morannons or Haradrim, that's gonna do okay in a scrum against most things (especially if there are 18 bows wrecking havoc before they get there). Now if you want to have some options in your list, there are a few different ways you can go. The first thing you can do is build a "better" Army of Gothmog list, since you still have access to the siege weapons that make the Army of Gothmog "good," but you also have access to cheap bowmen who can force your opponent to come to you if the catapult or two isn't enough of a suggestion:

And let's not forget that we have Ringwraiths on Fell Beasts (I'm partial to the generic guys over the Witch-King because he has to take SO much stuff by default, but to each his own), Mumaks (who have a much better supporting array in this list than in the Harad list), and the ability to run just Mordor/Easterling, Easterling/Harad, or Mordor/Harad lists - all in all, there's a lot of room to maneuver. If you run pure Mordor, you stand to be ahead of lists like the Army of Gothmog or Wraiths on Wings because you can bring all of the stuff that they can, BUT you can also get better stuff (like Easterlings for your front line or the flappy/catapulty bits that make those lists fun). This list has a lot of options in it, despite its light bench and while I miss Suladan (with great expectations for that new sourcebook), I think there's enough here to work with to make life interesting and give your opponent a tough match-up.

But as fun as this is, there was always going to be a hard hurdle to get over to be #1 - and I kind of knew what list that was going to be from the moment I opened the Armies of the Lord of the Rings book for the first time. Our top soup list is . . .

Pick #1: The Realms of Men

I have long believed that THIS is the sleeper list in the MESBG revamp - it gets a two-page spread that doesn't even list all of the units you can take because the list itself would be WAY too long to display on a single page. From the get-go, this is a REALLY good candidate for a soup list, but the options you have are driven by what toolkit you want in your list. Let's see what's to like about this list . . .

First off, there are five kingdoms of men that you can pick a "King" from - and you can throw in as many of these "Kings" as you want, just so long as you don't pick two with the same keyword: Arnor, Dale, Gondor, Numenor, and Rohan. For starters, many of the soup lists from the last edition that seemed to be targeted with the army list creation revamp were deemed "bad" because they broke the timeline - but you can literally have Arnor or Numenor (late second age/early third age) Kings fighting alongside Dale or Rohan Kings (who wouldn't arise until many, many centuries later), so this list gives you the ability to break the timeline with what were previously five factions (so long as you aren't tied to any of the named heroes from those factions).

These kings start off at 75pts, but if you assign each King a horse, upgrade to heavy armor, and equip a lance and a shield, you're only out 110pts for a Hero of Legend that can lead warriors that share their faction keyword. This means that the following Kings can take the following warriors:

• Arnor:
• Knight of Arnor (costs the same now as Knights of Minas Tirith, might not have better buffs than them but still very solid heavy cavalry)
• Ranger of Arnor (excellent bowmen, F4 with access to spears)
• Warrior of Arnor (cheap F4/D6 spearman)
• Dale:
• Warrior of Dale (cheap S3 bowman, but only has a 4+ shoot in this list - might be outclassed by Citadel Guard with Longbows)
• Gondor:
• Citadel Guard/Guard of the Fountain Court (good F4 spearmen, can only be fielded by Kings of Men and Denethor currently)
• Knight of Minas Tirith (as was said above, very good F4 heavy cavalry)
• Osgiliath Veteran (interesting front-line option in front of Warriors of Arnor to get Hatred vs. Mordor/Angmar units if that's your meta)
• Ranger of Gondor (same as Ranger of Arnor, good bowman with F4/spears)
• Warrior of Minas Tirith (might be the best front-line troop in the list besides Osgiliath Veterans)
• Numenor:
• Warrior of Numenor (F5/S4/access to spears, could be worth more than running cheaper Arnor infantry as second-rank units)
• Rohan:
• Rider of Rohan (good skirmish cavalry, about as expensive as Knights of Minas Tirith/Arnor though)
• Rohan Royal Guard (good skirmish cavalry, passable shieldwall complement)
• Warrior of Rohan (cheapest infantry, access to throwing spears that can be used as standard spears, bowmen are worse than the Rangers of Arnor/Gondor)

Technically speaking, you can also take Captains in this list, but since you can only take Captains that have the faction keywords of a King that's already in your list, you have to REALLY want more of the warriors you already have access to instead of wanting another King with access to a whole slew of new units that might do what you're trying to do better. If you take a King of Men from Gondor or Dale, you can also include a Windlance or Trebuchet - both of which are interesting force-the-enemy-to-engage pieces, though both can also be fielded to greater effect in other lists.

The pairings you can do in this list are quite interesting - you have access to cavalry in three of the subfactions (Arnor, Gondor, and Rohan), with Rohan providing the only skirmish cavalry but the other two providing lancer options. You have good foot bowmen in three or four of the subfactions (Arnor, Dale/sorta, Numenor, and Gondor/with several options) many of whom can be used as second-rank units in a battle line or as the option for a spear support in a skirmish triangle. Heavy infantry can be found in three of the lists (Arnor, Gondor, and Rohan), but F5/S4 infantry are hard to come by and you have access to those through Numenor. Every faction except Numenor has options for a banner, so you're not locked out of scoring those points by taking this list (unless you're playing pure Numenor - and there's a better list for you if you want to play that).

If I were to try to "optimize" my options, I'm inclined to think that a Numenor-Gondor pairing works the best at points levels at/below 600pts (and if you take a Treb, you can even run full warbands at 700pts if you want - but if you're playing at 800, I'd take another King and some guys):

You might get better mileage for a Minas Tirith/Rohan list out of the Defenders of the Pelennor - but not if you want Rohan infantry or elite Gondor infantry. Any of the other combos you can try to make are impossible under any of the other army lists except this one. I feel like there's a lot of untapped territory with this list and it certainly feels like it has more options in it than most of the other lists in the game (which can often feel stove-piped into one or several ways to play - some of the lists in this post excepted).

Conclusion

Hopefully this was a fun jaunt for you through some of the different ways that some lists open up the list building can of worms. If anything here opened up some new ideas for you (or if there was a list that I didn't include that should be here), let me know in the comments below! Until next time, happy hobbying!