Quick Starter Armies with the Armies of the Hobbit!

Good morning gamers,

Last time, we looked at how to take the Army 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 . . . until the Knights of Dale get their profile back).

$250 Investment in Erebor Reclaimed: the Champions of Erebor, 1 box of Iron Hills Dwarves with shields and spears

This involves painting a TON fewer guys than the last set - and this is very much one of those armies that will get better the more you invest in it. Erebor Reclaimed CAN be run with just the Champions of Erebor at up to 1000 points - but I've opted to pick up an Iron Hills Captain, 12 Iron Hills Warriors with shields and spears, and 1 Iron Hills Warrior with shield and banner so you have some screening options in your list. These two purchases will run you a nice tidy $250 (a little more with tax), but you'll have this 800-point list AND a bunch of Dwarf heroes that you're not using yet:

If you like hero-hammer lists, this is a great one to start with - they can all call Heroic Marches and even charge while Marching, so it's fast, has TONS of Might, and everyone but Nori has a chance of fighting two-handed without suffering a penalty - it's pretty great! Basically everyone is or can be D8, which makes it super tough and resilient, but also very fast and hits very hard.

$250 Investment in the Rangers of Mirkwood: Thorin's Company, Legolas and Tauriel (either set), 1 box of Mirkwood Captains, 2 boxes of Mirkwood Rangers

I was a bit surprised that THIS much stuff came in at only $250! You can definitely start by getting Legolas and Tauriel and a box of Mirkwood Rangers, which will give you two full warbands and 100% shooting. In order to bolster out your numbers and give you some speed options, I've included Thorin's Company (Thorin has March and can March any Dwarves he brings with him - but not the Elves), a set of Mirkwood Captains (you really only want the Ranger Captain - consider converting two Mirkwood Rangers to save some cash), and another box of Mirkwood Rangers, which gives you a pretty different 800-point list (that you could definitely grow if you wanted to drop some of the Dwarves):

Bifur gives your Dwarves potentially free Heroic Moves - that could be parted with for 3 Elves easily. Balin gives you rerolls for priority, but that could be parted with as well for 3 Elves (less easily, I think). Ori and the Oakenshield could be dropped for 3 more Elves too - but I don't think "just Thorin" is a good idea. If you're going to go lighter on the Dwarves, I think it would be better to just take the two "Shooting Dwarves" (Kili and Ori) and get to 36 models instead:

In the end, do what you feel - both lists will shoot at lot and hope that they have enough cover to stay alive.

$300 Investment in the Army of Thror OR Erebor and Dale: three sets of heroes, 1 box of Grim Hammer Warriors, 2 boxes of Warriors of Erebor/Warriors of Dale

I know the Army of Thror isn't in a great place right now, but hear me out: the Erebor (and optionally Dale) boxes are some of the most cost-efficient ways to get into the hobby - and the models in those armies are tough and difficult to kill.

If you lean purely into the Army of Thror, you can get Thror and Thrain for $40, Thorin, Balin, and Dwalin for $60, and two Captains (one Erebor Dwarf Captain and one Grim Hammer Captain) for $33 - so less than $150 for the heroes. If you want to run Erebor and Dale instead, the Dale Command blister and Girion (when he's back in the store) are likely to cost less than $60 together, so you can get them instead of Thorin, Balin, and Dwalin.

If you're running pure Army of Thror, your warrior selection is simple: you can have one-third throwing weapons, so you'll want to get one box of Grim Hammer Warriors and two boxes of Erebor Dwarf Warriors. With 24 warriors in each box, you'll have 72 Dwarves, which is WAY more than you'll ever need (getting all of the heroes and all of the warriors is 1461 points . . . no one plays that high). A far more reasonable 800-point list might look like this:

I'm not saying this is competitive, but it is interesting. The selection options you'll have will be great and you can start with Thror/Thrain and a box of Warriors of Erebor, then get the Captains and a box of Grim Hammers, then get the other heroes and another box of Warriors of Erebor . . . or . . .

. . . you can invest in one box of Warriors of Dale, a command blister, and Girion when he's back in the store and run Erebor and Dale instead. With 48 Dwarf Warriors and 22 Dale Warriors, we can get some interesting lists - I've leaned on the Dwarves hard in this list:

Thanks to the weird way that the bow/throwing weapon limits work in this list, we've gotten more Grim Hammer Warriors into the list (and a Grim Hammer Captain because we don't have Balin available to us) and have 4 longbows and 18 throwing weapons in the mix - and we only have 8 models that are below D7! All in all, it's an interesting list idea and I think if you're looking for a different way to play Dwarves or Dale, this might be worth looking at (but beware: the code has yet to be cracked for making these lists competitive).

Okay, now for a big one . . .

$400 Investment in the Rangers of Mirkwood: Thorin's Company, Legolas and Tauriel (either set), 1 box of Mirkwood Captains, 2 boxes of Mirkwood Rangers

For $500 total, we're going full hog into the Battle of Five Armies - and while it's probably better bang-for-buck to leave Lake-town at home, I think it's worth pointing out that you can get a warband for about $100 . . . that's really pricey, I hope you notice, but there it is. This purchase plan gives us a few men, a few Dwarves, and a lot of Elves - perfect for making us have a great, thematic old time.

For the Lake-town contingent, we've gone simple and picked up a Lake-town Captains blister and a Lake-town Militia box, which comes in at $117 - or put differently, $10 shy of a pack of Mirkwood Captains and Mirkwood Elves . . . which is probably the better overall deal.

For our Dwarf contingent, I opted for just the Iron Hills Dwarves with spears box, which conveniently comes with a Captain and banner guy, as we saw with the Erebor Reclaimed list above. This means we can field the Captain, the banner, and 11 Dwarves in a single warband for just over $100 . . . perhaps THIS is the better choice over the Lake-town contingent . . . I'll let you decide.

Finally, we're getting Thranduil on foot because he's "only" $19, we're getting a box of Mirkwood Elves for $84, and then with our final $100, we're getting mounted Legolas and Tauriel along with a box of Mirkwood Cavalry. We could have gotten more Dwarves instead, but this gives us some speed units in the form of Legolas and 2 Knights, which we otherwise don't have. The 799-point list has 41 models in it, which is pretty decent:

Now would this be better without the Lake-town side of the house and with more Dwarves? Quite possibly. Heck, if we buy two boxes of Dwarves, we could even save money and not bother buying Legolas and Tauriel (or turn those savings into Thranduil's Elk, though that comes in at 802pts . . . awkward . . .)! Still, you get the idea - for about $500, you can get a pretty interesting (or even a very competitive) Battle of Five Armies list that I think is worth pursuing. Also, you'll be well on your way to collecting two very expensive armies, so if you WANT to fall further down the rabbit hole, at least you're already committed.

Okay, let's look at Evil!

$100 Investment in the Three Trolls: The Three Trolls . . . obviously

Okay, this one isn't rocket science - you buy the three Trolls. In the previous edition, you could get them all for 400pts and that was it - you'd have to ally them in order to play at higher points levels without giving your opponent a points handicap. Now, these guys can take upgrades to make themselves better at 50pts a pop - and some of them are quite good! They're all heroes, they're all monsters, and at 450pts and higher, they're likely to all have 3 Might/Will/Fate, so giving them a try is a nice way to get into the game and experiment with different upgrades along the way!

$250 Investment in Goblin-town: The Goblin King and Retinue, 3 boxes of Goblins, Riddles in the Dark

I'll be honest, I didn't think you'd be able to collect Goblin-town for this cheap. TECHNICALLY speaking, you can't - the list we have below has 2 Goblin Captains in it and that would require buying two copies of the Goblin King and his retinue and would push us to the $300 investment point. I'm going to encourage using a "tactical rock" to make it clear who your second Captain is to save you money.

Goblin-town is a horde army, so we're going to need a bunch of guys. Thankfully, you can still get 36 of their pesky blighters for $52 - which is INSANELY good value for Armies of the Hobbit and actually rivals the value you can get from the older Lord of the Rings era sets. If we buy three packs of Goblins and the Goblin King, we come in just above $200 with taxes and can get a staggering 96 models at 800 points:

I have 15 Goblins with two-handed weapons in this mix - mostly because I can't remember how many models COME with two-handed weapons. We only have 13 Goblins in the Scribe's warband, so you might be able to add a few models. Because we have some money available to us, I'll recommend picking up the Gollum and Bilbo pack, which is far worse value than what you're getting in the other sets, but does give you access to another hero with a decent combat file who might be able to head-hunt a low-level hero (now that you can't halve Fight Value while fighting with the Goblin-King - but F4 and halving enemy Fight Values means he's beating anyone with F6 or below). You certainly don't NEED this, but it helps, I think.

$300 Investment in the Rise of the Necromancer: The Necromancer, the Nazgul of Dol Guldur, and 1 box of Spiders of Middle-Earth

This recommendation is kind of like the Erebor Reclaimed recommendation above - let's get a really expensive set of guys that give us a fun way to play and then buy a few things to supplement. While the Rise of the Necromancer can certainly be played with just the purchase of the Necromancer and the Nazgul of Dol Guldur (just under $250), my recommendation is to also pick up some Spiders - mostly because now that the Ringwraiths are all 80pts, you're going to want to have some models that can fit in the spaces in between (and spiders seem like a good way to go):

For about $10 less, you could replace the Spiders with Hunter Orcs - and for about $10 more, you could get two packs of Fell Wargs. However you choose to do it (spiders, Orcs, or Wargs), you'll want something to fill in the corners of your poits level. The units that are shown here include my favorite of the Nazgul (in order: 2 Abyssal Knights, Khamul, the Witch-King, 2 Slayers of Men, the Lingering Shadow, the Dark Headsman, and the Forsaken) - but I've only left two of the Nazgul out of this 800pt list, so experiment a bit and see what you like.

I will say that if you're looking for Hunter Orcs, you might be better served by investing in a different list that comes in at about the same price point . . .

$300 Investment in Azog's Hunters: new Bolg model, Narzug and Fimbul, 1 box of Fell Wargs, 1 box of Warg Riders, 2 boxes of Hunter Orcs

I'm making the assumption in this buyer's guide that the new Bolg model that's been previewed is going to cost about the same as the current Azog model ($52 for the model on foot and mounted). That's . . . hopefully reasonable. There are existing Bolgs that you might be able to find on his stretch-limo-Warg, but the base size for that one is all wrong with the new edition, so I'd hold out for the new model when it arrives.

Assuming that this guy comes in at about $50, you can get Narzug and Fimbul for $63, a pack of Fell Wargs for $35, a pack of Hunter Orc Warg Riders for $45 and two boxes of Hunter Orcs for $52 each - and to get started, you really just need Bolg, the mounted Hunter Orcs, and a box of the normal Hunter Orcs. You'll need to convert up a Captain from the mounted set (and a dismount, of course), but that can get you into the army for about $150 - then pick up the other named heroes, more Wargs, and more dudes once you've gotten the hang of the list:

48 models with 24 bows is pretty good, I feel - the list is low Defense and pretty low Fight Value, but if they can whittle down an opponent and get the charge on a big turn, I think they're more than dangerous.

If you think Hunter Orcs are garbage and Gundabads are much better, I'd recommend instead that you look at dropping a little more cash on . . .

$400 Investment in the Pits of Dol Guldur: ???

I will say straight out that this list has Hunter Orcs in it - not only because you can get the infantry box and the cavalry box for the same cost as half-as-many Gundabads, but because they give us good cavalry options AND the Pits of Dol Guldur army list gives us a turn when we're guaranteed to get a charge on our opponent (unless he brought a Palantir or some similar rule). This makes Hunter Orcs a lot more reliable and by purchasing Azog, 24 Hunter Orcs, and 6 Warg Riders (one of whom is going to be converted into a Captain), we can actually start out with an Azog's Hunter's list and build into a Pits list if we want.

We'll add to these units two boxes of Gundabad Orc Warriors (at $92 a pop, this is SUPER expensive) and a Gundabad Upgrade Set so we can convert up a Captain and a banner easily. For those trying to save some money, I've heard that this blister can also be used to convert up Uruk-Hai Warriors into Gundabads (by head-swapping, sword/shield-swapping, and adding other gribbly bits to make your Uruks look more like big Orcs), but I'm not sure that there's going to be any savings there in the end (8 heads/6 swords/4 shields per $35 means that for a 20-man box of Uruk-Hai Warriors, you'd need 3 upgrade blisters, which would result in 4 fewer models and $30 fewer dollars . . . that's not nothing, I suppose).

If we use all of our Gundabads and most of our Hunter Orcs, we can get the following list, which has 45 models at 800pts:

I don't know if the pound-for-pound investment in this list is better than what you'd be getting in a Battle of Five Armies list, but it's definitely interesting and over time, it's actually quite affordable. Don't feel the need to buy this whole thing all at once, though.

Conclusion

And that's Tiberius's buyer's guide for getting started with the Armies of the Hobbit. In a few weeks, we'll be back with the buyer's guide for the non-War-of-the-Rohirrim Armies of the Lord of the Rings (as we've already done that with the starter set), so be sure to check that out when it drops! Until next time, happy hobbying!