Quick Starter Armies with the Armies of the Lord of the Rings!

Good morning gamers,

We've previously looked at how to take the Army of Edoras box set or the Armies of the Hobbit supplement and get started for $200-$500 USD in the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game. Today, we're tackling the Armies of the Lord of the Rings supplement as a new player - and since we've already looked at the Army of Edoras box set, we'll be assuming that you aren't interested in playing the factions from the War of the Rohirrim film (but might be interested in playing a Rohan/Dunland faction, so the starter set will only be on the table if you are interested in these factions).

As we said last time, GW is not sponsoring us here at TMAT. I get no kickbacks from the way you spend money, I don't have affiliate links, and I'm not associated with a webstore or physical store of any kind. We here at TMAT are just a bunch of gamers trying to play with toy soldiers on a budget. As a result, the recommendations I provide here are the result of much thinking and planning - mostly for myself and maybe my musings and plannings will help you too!

Like we did with the Armies of the Hobbit, we're going to assume that you've spent $60 on a rulebook and $50 on the Armies of the Lord of the Rings supplement, which means that we'll be looking for armies that you can get for $100 to $400 more (between $200 and $500 total). I'll do my best with as many of these as possible to provide stacking ways to get into the more expensive armies at lower points levels (to ease into the purchase structure). With that, let's start with the Good armies . . .

$300 Investment in The Breaking of the Fellowship: the Fellowship, Haldir, and 1 box of Lothlorien Warriors

I could have said, "Just buy the Fellowship", but let's be honest, that's boring. :-) This way, you get not only a Fellowship list (and are on your way to any number of other lists), but you're also starting out a Lothlorien army. Now I will say that the three purchases required for this list - the Fellowship, Lothlorien Warriors, and Haldir is just shy of $300 with the main rulebook and the Armies of the Lord of the Rings in hand, so if you wanted to pick up a mounted Boromir to fill out your Fellowship roster (or the Wood Elf Command blister so you can have a banner), you can do that.

The list provided below is a fun list and you can try it out with just the purchase of the main rulebook, the Armies of the Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship, and the Lothlorien Warriors (if you proxy one of your bowmen as Haldir):

20 models isn't a lot at 650, but 17 Might and counting is CERTAINLY good. Also, 11 arrows go twang! Purchasing three copies of Haldir is pretty pricey - but if you did go all-in on buying him, you'll be a good ways towards collecting a Lothlorien list, so you're getting into at least three army lists with this purchase plan!

The New Age Is Begun: The Muster of Isengard Army List

Good morning gamers,

In the last edition, one of my favorite ways to run Isengard was to have Saruman and Grima leading a ton of Uruk-Hai and utilizing a supporting cast of Thyrdan on a horse and Mauhur leading fast Scout bowmen. You can't run that list exactly in the current edition, but you can get most of the way there with the Muster of Isengard army list. With the addition of Uruk-Hai Shamans from the Armies of Middle-Earth and Vrasku from the Legacies document, you can get a pretty interesting Isengard army with this list (especially if you've purchased the Isengard Battle Host box and a commander pack - or converted an Uruk-Hai Captain for yourself). Let's see what's great about this list!

Muster of Isengard: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

The profiles available to us now, compared to what was in the Isengard army list, is now quite limited:

• We have Saruman and Grima - and unlike the Army of the White Hand army list, this one has to take Saruman (so we'll always have Saruman . . . and likely will always have Grima).
• We have Uruk-Hai Captains/Uruk-Hai Scout Captains and Uruk-Hai Shamans, but we don't have any of the named Uruk-Hai heroes (except Vrasku if Legacies are in play).
• We have Uruk-Hai Drummers thanks to an FAQ, but none of the Orc or Dunland heroes.
• We've got Uruk-Hai Warriors, Uruk-Hai Scouts, and Uruk-Hai Bersekers - but none of the other warriors (no Orcs, no Warg Riders, no Dunland stuff).

This is a lean list - but there are some pros to taking this army list instead of the Army of the White Hand (or even Isengard in the previous edition).

Army List Bonuses

If you ran vanilla Isengard in the last edition, you broke like everyone else after losing more than 50% of your models, but you didn't have to test for breaking until you lost 66% of your models. The updated text for "You do not know pain, you do not know fear" is that "The Break Point for this army is 66% rather than 50%," so now you both break and start testing at 66% - perfect. 

Top 10 Most Improved Good Profiles from The Armies of the Hobbit

 Hey Reader!

We're back with another Top 10 post, today looking at the top ten most improved profiles in the Armies of the Hobbit book from the Forces of Good. Now that we know all the armies that someone can be fielded in, potential models that they can pair with, and special rules, we're set to rank the top ten most improved models for the Forces of Good in the Armies of the Hobbit book.

As we did in the top ten most improved profiles for the Forces of Good, a few caveats before we look at the list: 

• We're ranking the most improved profiles in The Armies of the Hobbit book, so we won't be looking at profiles beyond that book. Never fear, though, we plan to go through all the books!
• We're ranking the top ten most improved profiles for the Forces of Good in the book, so only good profiles will be considered here.
• We're ranking the most improved profiles, not the strongest profiles: Dain is incredible, always has been, and he remains incredible in this edition. But he stands mostly where he did last edition (near the top of the slayer heroes for the Forces of Good, maybe higher since most axes can't add +1 Strength anymore, and via his Headbutt rule he can still knock people prone, so he hasn't technically lost the benefit of a hammer from last edition), so he doesn't make the list. No shade: some of the greats are still great, but that's a post for another day.
• The "Most Improved" means that the profile had to exist last edition, which is not really an issue with the Hobbit books (there's a comment coming, I'm sure, about how GW doesn't really do much with this part of Tolkien's timeline, and they're not wrong to be disgruntled about that), but it is a disclaimer we're making: you do have to step above where you were last edition.
• There were more profiles than this list can hold, so yes, I couldn't include all of the ones that I thought were interesting/useful. There will be some honorable mentions, but suffice it to say, if you really thought that someone should have made the list and didn't, there's a good chance that they were considered and just didn't break the top ten.

And so with that, let's look at some cool profiles!

Honorable Mention: Mirkwood Elf Knight

All images from
the new book!

Mirkwood Elf Knights were my least favorite elven cavalry last edition, in part because they lacked the punch and mobility of Rivendell and Lorien cavalry (unless they were right next to Thranduil, like so many other models in the Halls of Thranduil list), but they got a nice new bonus this edition. The King's Knights special rule changed from a banner bonus to a +1 FV and +1 Defense within 6" of Thranduil, so they're now F6 D6, which is really good, especially since you can still buy a banner, and you may not always need the banner reroll if you're rolling 2 Attacks with F6 (whereas the bump from F5 to F6 is a big step considering how much more common F5 is now - even hobbits can get up to F5 in the right configuration).

Not a huge jump, but it does make them more than just "the one swift option you get beyond heroes," which is really nice.

Quick Starter Armies with the Armies of the Hobbit!

Good morning gamers,

Last time, we looked at how to take the Battle of Edoras box set and get started for $200-$500 USD in the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game. Today, we're answering the all-too-familiar question:

I don't want the start box - I'm not interested in those armies - so how do I spend my money and get into the game?

Well, fear not - today we're looking at the Armies of the Hobbit book and finding armies that you can scale up into the hobby with. As we said last time, GW is not sponsoring us here at TMAT. I get no kickbacks from the way you spend money, I don't have affiliate links, and I'm not associated with a webstore or physical store of any kind. We here at TMAT are just a bunch of gamers trying to play with toy soldiers on a budget. As a result, the recommendations I provide here are the result of much thinking and planning - mostly for myself and maybe my musings and plannings will help you too!

We're going to do this a bit differently this time - we're going to assume that you've spent $60 on a rulebook and $50 on the Armies of the Hobbit supplement, which means that we'll be looking for armies that you can get for $100 to $400 more (between $200 and $500). I'll do my best with as many of these as possible to provide stacking ways to get into the more expensive armies at lower points levels (to ease into the purchase structure). We won't be looking at all armies in the book, but I'll be laying out different options for the factions of Dwarves, Men, Elves, and Orcs so you can determine what your best point of entry is. 

I will start off by saying that these models are newer, so getting into these factions is going to be a bit more expensive than you'll find with armies from the Lord of the Rings. We'll start with the Good armies . . .

$250 Investment in the Garrison of Dale: 1 Windlance, 2 Dale Commanders, 2 boxes of Warriors of Dale

I know, I know, there's no Girion in this list - that's intentional, actually. Girion isn't currently in the GW webstore, so I have a Windlance taking his place temporarily - pick up Girion when he arrives again and he'll probably be cheaper than the $62 Windlance in my calculation. Dale Commanders only cost $38 for the set and 20 Warriors of Dale can be purchased for $52, so doubling up on both of these options means that for less than $200, you can get two Heroes of Fortitude and full warbands for them with 16 guys left over (plus two banner/war horn carriers) for Girion to lead. We can max out our warbands and get 45 models with something like the following list:

You could drop the second banner and get a war horn, but we don't have any extra warrior slots and no equipment that we can manipulate on our heroes besides getting a Windlance for Girion. If you allow the purchase of a Windlance (either on Girion or separately), the list jumps right up to 650, which is pretty good. For each additional $130 you invest (give or take), you can add another 2 Captains of Dale and 24 Warriors to your collection, but honestly you probably only need to do this once more and you're good to go (so at $400, you're all set for Dale . . . unless you want to get Knights of Dale now that they got their profile back).

The New Age Is Begun: The Last Alliance Army List

Good morning gamers,

A few weeks ago, I walked through the Numenor army list in the new edition of MESBG. That army list has four profiles in it and poses a significant threat at low points levels (especially if they can kill enemy banners or if the scenario doesn't give you VPs for having a banner). Today, we're looking at the more robust army list of the Last Alliance, a historical alliance I ran a LOT in the last edition, which has both advantages and trades that it needs to make when compared to the Numenor army list. Let's see how things have changed since last year . . .

The Last Alliance: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

In the previous edition of the game, Numenor had access to all of the same profiles that it has now - Elendil, Isildur, Captains of Numenor, and Warriors of Numenor. The Rivendell contingent has changed significantly, however:

• You still have access to Gil-Galad and Elrond as your "big heroes", but you've lost access to Glorfindel (a crowd-favorite as a second anti-magic hero alongside Elendil) and if you left Gil-Galad at home, you COULD ally Elendil with Elladan and Elrohir and still have a historical alliance (because loopholes in the rules).
• You still have access to Rivendell Captains, but you lost access to the other mid-tier Rivendell heroes - Erestor (cheap combat hero/throwing weapons), Gildor Inglorion (March/caster), Cirdan (auric caster), Lindir (Elrond-augment/anti-magic auric boost), Arwen (caster), Stormcallers (very, VERY situational magic support), and Bilbo Baggins (ringbearer alongside Elendil) - all but Cirdan, Erestor, and the Stormcallers that nobody took would mess with your historical alliance status if you had Gil-Galad in the list (but leave him at home and you're fine - again, loopholes).
• You still have access to Rivendell Warriors (nee High Elf Warriors), but lost access to Rivendell Knights, which means you're legging it this edition - and only if you can afford a third hero with Heroic March.
• If you're playing with the Legacies document, you also add Erestor to the list - which is great, because having a cheap Unique Rivendell hero is NECESSARY to get this list to play at lower points levels. I wrote this article before the Legacies documents dropped, so I'll be adding text in red that clarifies how the list changes if Erestor is allowed in the list.

With an army list rule that requires you to run at least one of the named men (Elendil or Isildur) and at least one of the named Elves (Gil-Galad or Elrond), your "army list tax" is quite high with these guys, hitting at least 300pts but more likely closer to 350pts. Tack on a March hero and you're somewhere in the 375-465pt range - that's a LOT of points for three heroes! With warriors that will cost you 10-12pts without counting more expensive gear like banners, you're looking at a hefty starting price and should probably steer clear of this list until you reach 700pts (but you CAN make something sort of work at 600pts).

With these limitations in mind, let's see what army list bonuses you're gaining (especially vis-a-vis Numenor).

Top 10 Most Improved Good Profiles from The Armies of the Lord of the Rings

Hey Reader!

We're back with another Top 10 post, today looking at the top ten most improved profiles in the Armies of the Lord of the Rings book. I waited to post this until after we got the Armies of Middle Earth book and the legacy PDF (as I suspected that some of the models would feature in those supplements, and they do), and now that we have the full line of army lists, potential models that they can pair with, and special rules, I wanted to take a moment to rank what I think are the top ten most improved models for the Forces of Good in the Armies of the Lord of the Rings book.

So to clarify, a few caveats before we look at the list: 

• We're ranking the most improved profiles in The Armies of the Lord of the Rings book: we will be reviewing profiles for the Armies of the Hobbit, Armies of Middle Earth, and the Legacy PDF in separate posts, so no fear: those are coming! But in the words of Elessar, "it is not this day!"
• We're ranking the top ten most improved profiles for the Forces of Good in the book; there will be a separate article for Forces of Evil, "but it is not this day!" So tune in later for a peak at those!
• We're ranking the most improved profiles, not the strongest profiles: Elendil is fantastic this edition, and he went up to Fight Value 8, which is incredible! But that's literally the only change that happened to him (other than the loss of an alliance matrix, and the shield), so he didn't make the list. What we're trying to rank here are the profiles that have undergone the most changes for the best (changes for the worst will come in a future post, possibly, if you guys want that), not which models are now the best. It also means expect that the top of the list is going to be comprised of models that didn't have a lot of special rules before, but now have special rules that give them useful synergies with others and/or make them a vibrantly new profile in their own right (and often weren't that good/had glaring downsides, but now are auto-include models).
• The "Most Improved" means that the profile had to exist last edition, so the new War of the Rohirrim profiles were not reviewed, as they weren't part of the last edition. Hera is great, Old Helm would not have made the cut any which way you cut it, and the others are all actually quite interesting, but none of them made this list because of a technicality. I've been toying with a Top Ten post ranking the War of the Rohirrim profiles, but since I've yet to play with any of them and have seen very few battle reports from others on their performance on the table, I've been putting it off. If you'd like to see it, let us know!
• There were 38 profiles that made the cut of, "Things changed that make this profile functionally different and/or materially better than it was in the previous edition," so I had to cut that list into almost a quarter. We won't be doing an "honorable mentions" listing for all of them (we will list a few that are noteworthy), but suffice it to say, there's a lot of profiles that were considered! So bear in mind that we can't give time to all of them here.

And so with that, let's look at some cool profiles!

Honorable Mention: Warriors of Minas Tirith / Knights of Minas Tirith

Images all from the
new book!

The big thing we want to highlight here is that these profiles both got a bump up to Fight 4, which is huge: still great cost and value, still defensible, but now they have a Fight 4 which, when near Boromir, also automatically wins ties with other F4 models, which is even better than having an elven-made weapon. So this is really good! 

Not much else changed for them (situationally you can get F5 troops based on the army list, but that's list-specific and not always the case), so they didn't make the top ten, but it is worth highlighting because it's a very nice change.

Unexpected Military Formations: The Irolas "Shieldwall"

Good morning gamers,

Editor's Note: anytime you play a game for a while, double check your work - to get the speed you want in the list below, you need to run a Captain of Minas Tirith with or without Irolas (as Irolas doesn't have March anymore). What's provided below is still accurate if you have both in your list - consider swapping out for Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears if you leave Irolas at home.

We had a reader reach out to us via Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/tmatsbg) and ask us about a doubles tournament he's headed to and for some advice on a Defenders of the Pelennor list. I sent several suggestions to support an Army of the Dead contingent led by Aragorn (for his doubles partner), but I recommended taking the following warband from Minas Tirith:

The event is, apparently 800pts, which means there's 400pts up for grab for each player - and this warband comes in at just under half of one of the lists, so there's plenty of room to expend (especially in the Defenders of the Pelennor list!). After presenting this idea, however, I was asked "how do you play it?" And instead of trying to use words to describe why you'd want to use this for doubles and how this formation works, I decided to just turn it into a post with pictures. :) I still have to convert 2 Numenoreans into Citadel Guard to have the models, so ignore the two Numenor guys standing in for Citadel Guard in the pictures below.

Why Run This Formation?

To understand why this is a good warband for doubles games, we need to understand how doubles deployment/scoring works in the six scenarios we had in the previous edition (yes, I know the new Matched Play Guide is out, but I don't have a copy yet and I don't think those scenarios are going to change very much). Previously, the rule for doubles (and I assume it will still be true in the new edition) is that speed is king. Most of the time, both allied forces will deploy in separate parts of the board, usually with 24" to cross to get to the other person's army (sometimes more, sometimes less). This means that two armies that have foot-slog across the board at 4-6" speed are unlikely to meet up and if your opponent has two fast armies, they can both engage one force, beat it to a pulp, and then about-face and take on the other force. This . . . is a recipe for disaster.

If you're not going to run all-cavalry, then you want Heroic March in your list - and Irolas has Heroic March. He doesn't have 3 Might anymore, but he's got 2 Might and if he's pushing up a wall of infantry - possibly in tandem with a Captain of Minas Tirith and MORE infantry - then he's doing his job and making sure your units arrive alive.