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. We'll see what our options are once the Legacies document drops, but for now, you can get a pretty interesting Isengard army (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, but we don't have any of the named Uruk-Hai heroes.
• 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. 

You don't get Woodland Creature on your Uruk-Hai Scouts anymore, but you do get a free Heroic March on the first turn of the game from any of your Uruk-Hai Heroes (already free for Uruk-Hai Drummers, a free Might point on Uruk-Hai Captains/Scout Captains who might want to call March anyway is always welcome). 

Additionally, Uruk-Hai Captains (the ones with heavy armor and Shieldwall) gain Heroic Strike - which isn't "great" when you're base F5 and can only go up D3, but it's not nothing and there aren't any other Strike heroes to compete with. Finally, all of your Uruk-Hai gain Hatred (Man), which has a LOT of applications, but won't always matter.

Profile Adjustments

There aren't a lot of profiles to review here - and most of them have only been tweaked slightly from the previous edition. One exception to that list is . . .

• Saruman's changes have been covered in our First Impressions article already, but to recap his changes in this particular army list, he dropped in cost by 10pts (breaks-even if he takes a mount), he doesn't get any rerolls to his casting/resisting rolls, but he does apply a -1 penalty to a single hero that attempts Resist tests against Saruman's magic (which is bonkers - but 6s are still 6s, so it's not ALWAYS bonkers), he's still got a Palantir (which can now compete with the Pits of Dol Guldur army list special rule - thank goodness!), and his magical powers have changed, many of which got harder to cast.
• Grima is basically the same, but is harder to lock down by your opponent because he can't be charged while he's deployed with your enemy - but he's still just as vulnerable to magic and downright difficult to deal with if your opponent doesn't have magical damage options!
• Uruk-Hai Captains picked up Shieldwall and went up by 5pts while the Uruk-Hai Scout Captains went down by 5pts but only have a two-handed weapon (instead of a sword and two-handed weapon). Two-handed weapons are more reliable and less penalizing this edition, but because those guys don't get access to Heroic Strike, I'd probably just opt for the Uruk-Hai Captains instead.
• Uruk-Hai Drummers can't give you a 12" walk anymore, but free Heroic Marches on Turn 2 and onward might be useful - frankly, I'm glad for completeness that you can take these guys, but I don't think they're very useful given the free March you get on the first turn from each of your Captains.
• Uruk-Hai Scouts haven't changed and are still the only source of mobile high-strength bows in the list, so I think they're worth taking - but only as archers.
• Uruk-Hai Warriors are exactly as they were before, but those carrying shields now benefit from Shieldwall (which will boost their defense value to D7). For 1pt/model more than Uruk-Hai Scouts with shields, these are probably your go-to front-line troops - and the pikemen/banner-bearers are your back-line troops. If you prefer crossbows to Uruk-Hai bows, you can take the crossbowmen too.
• Uruk-Hai Berserkers are still 15pts and got +1 Fight Value and GARBAGE Intelligence (as they should) with their former defensive bonus against archery being baked into their new fancy "light armor" and their Berserker Blade rule only affects enemy models (which is nice if you have a pike support helping you out).

Those are, for the most part, unimpressive changes - but that also means that if you liked these units in the previous edition, not much has changed for you! Let's look at the strengths and weaknesses of running this list - especially when compared to some of the other Isengard lists out there.

Muster of Isengard: Strengths and Weaknesses

The first strength and weakness of the list is the requirement that you have to take Saruman. Saruman is a super good wizard and his ability to apply a -1 penalty to Resist tests of one hero (probably the enemy General or whatever hero you get VPs from for wounding/killing) makes resisting magical powers even harder than usual in this edition. Not being able to reroll his casting attempt does mean that he probably needs to throw 2 dice at any given spell to cast it reliably, but if you start far away from your opponent, you can get Terrifying Aura up fairly reliably on a single die, you can take your time casting Aura of Dismay on yourself on a 5+ on just your free die, and moving an enemy hero or banner or monster or cavalry model backwards from 18" away with a one-die Compel is quite useful too. Wanna Curse the Fate points off your target enemy hero on a 4+ with two dice? Want to knock that hero Prone with Sorcerous Blast and deal a cheeky wound to score a VP with Sorcerous Blast from 12" away (channel that one with just your free dice, by the way)? Got you covered. Saruman is a nightmare - and when you have to engage the enemy and decide how that shapes up, use your Palantir. Saruman also gives you access to Grima - for just over 200pts together, you can make your opponent's life a NIGHTMARE with these guys (but more on Grima later).

Saruman is, however, 170-190pts . . . which makes him SUPER expensive in low-points games and will cut into your numbers. The Army of the White Hand doesn't have this problem at low points levels, not only because they can leave Saruman at home (though their army list rules go out the window if he's not there), but they can also supplement his high cost with lots of cheap Orcs or Wild Men of Dunland - and cheap Orc Captains or Wild Man Chieftains to lead them! Saruman is great and gives you some unparalleled support capabilities, but at low points levels, he may be a toll too high for this list.

The second strength of this list is that while your model count is likely to be lower than other lists due to the high cost of Saruman and the elite cost of Uruk-Hai, you don't break until you reach 66% - so your break point is likely to be about the same (if not a little higher) than your opponent's break point, unless he's REALLY spamming guys. The strength of Uruk-Hai has always been that they can chop through enemy troops, no matter what they invested in, and that they can stall out heroes for a very reasonable cost (and threaten them with damage if they don't defend by shielding). Armies that focus on spamming guys tend to have bad troops - and those are the kinds of troops that Uruk-Hai love to munch on. If those troops happen to be men, the munching will be extra-quick.

The third strength of this list is that it has a clear strategy for list building (loose phalanxes protected by shooting units), but there's surprising flexibility in how you build those phalanxes. On the one hand, you could just take Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields backed by Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes - maybe even embed your Uruk-Hai Captains in those formations to give them some extra punch. You could also forego the Shieldwall rule and instead pay 5pts more per front-line guy and make them Berserkers to get F5/2A base and reliably charge any Terror units you have to face. Heck, you can have one of each phalanx if you want! On the shooting side of the house, you can have stationary-but-hard-hitting crossbows or flexible-and-less-hard-hitting-but-still-hard-hitting Uruk-Hai bows to support your phalanxes. Lots of options, season to taste as you want it.

But this does come with a limitation - those are all the units you have. There are no Crebain for holding objectives/stalling out heroes (your other units will have to do that). There are no Warg Riders for shutting down charge bonuses. There are no fast units at all besides the Uruks who benefit from Heroic Marches each turn (which you will have on the first turn if you took at least one Captain and might have on subsequent turns if you took a Drum or if your Captains want to spend Might calling them). There are no cheap back-rank units to flesh out your numbers and no torch-carrying guys to count double in objective missions. This list is taking a big swing away from some of the more toolkit options you'll find in the Army of the White Hand in order to get all-elite units. There's value gained in that for sure, but there's also value lost.

The final "weakness" and "strength" that I'll say about this list is that it's easy to collect - you can run a 400pt list with just the contents of the Isengard Battle Host box. You can run a 600pt list if you then pick up an Isengard Commander box (kind of your choice, but I'd take the ones with heavy armor). This makes them very easy to get started in the game with (the "strength" side of the coin), but the "weakness" comes in the form of not having enough of the units you want. There are 20 Uruk-Hai Warriors in that box - 10 shields, 10 pikes - and the 400pt list we'll look at in a minute does use those models and a banner once you get the Commander box, but once you start growing, you're going to find that you have a lot of Uruk-Hai Scouts with no gear or shields that you don't really want to put in your list and nowhere near enough pikes (and shields if you forsake the Berserkers). The box is a great place to start - but don't stop there, please.

Okay, let's turn now to strategies you can use with this list . . .

Muster of Isengard: Strategies for the Tabletop

We need to begin by talking about deploying Grima. Grima is a very useful tool - but please check your opponent's list before you deploy him with your opponent. If the enemy  list has Sauron in any form, Saruman in any form, Gandalf in any form, or Elrond in any form, do NOT deploy Grima on the other side of the board. Grima will be vaporized very, VERY quickly with the only consolation being that he might prevent your opponent from channelling their damage spell if Grima starts the game within 6" of the hero (because the Channel will cost 2 Might points instead of 1). A small consolation, perhaps, but one all the same. Instead, you want to make your opponent skip casting something on the first turn and instead wait until your army is approaching and he's got competing priorities for what to do with his only cast that turn.

If your opponent doesn't have a good damage spell, deploy him in the warband of the hero that you intend to target with Saruman's "Saruman's Deceit" special rule. This should make sure that the hero doesn't do anything interesting for the game - and also is a clear signal to your opponent that you mean business. Anything that will make that hero less effective against your troops (or just easier to kill if it's a support piece) is a good day.

Next we have Saruman's spell priority - as has already been alluded to, cast Terrifying Aura and Aura of Dismay on yourself if you have spare time at the start of the game, but transition immediately into slowing down the enemy's most important pieces with Compel once you're within 18". You could cast Transfix as well, but now that Compel and Transfix are cast on the same difficulty (3+, 67% chance of success on your free die) and Compel doesn't reduce the target's combat capability, you should basically always choose Compel if your goal is just to slow the arrival of someone and not to jump on them.

The more targeted spells for your use are Curse, Transfix, and Sorcerous Blast - Curse to remove Fate points, Sorcerous Blast to deal damage, and Transfix to keep a target from getting kills. Depending on your situation, one of these is likely to be very useful once you're within 12" of the enemy.

Finally, Saruman does have Foil Magic with an 18" range - which is a FANTASTIC way to get rid spells like Fortify Spirit, Terrifying Aura/Aura of Dismay if you didn't take Berserkers, and Fog of Disarray if . . . for some reason . . . you have to take Intelligence tests . . . maybe. Yeah, mostly this is to shut down Fortify Spirit so Saruman can blast people apart. If you find yourself in this highly situational use case, consider taking it down.

Next, read the article on loose phalanxes with Uruk-Hai that came out a few weeks ago - there are pictures there of how to set these up with either Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields or Uruk-Hai Berserkers backed with pikes. We want to make this formation because a) anyone who is supported by the two pikes that are touching him will have 3-4 dice to win the fight at F4-5 - and that's really good, b) whoever isn't supported by the two pikes because they supported the buddy who was also touched by the pikes can fight normally or defend by shielding to get 2 attack dice, and c) our frontage and our opponent's frontage ought to be about the same instead of being smaller if we tried to double-stack pikes on every front guy. This gives us incredible power that we can project in half of our fights and reasonable power in our other fights. Also, we don't trap ourselves this way and Heroic Combats that smash into our back rank are far less devastating and harder to pull off.

Next, use skirmish triangles to get 360-degree visibility out of your bowmen. Regardless of your preference for crossbows or Uruk-Hai bows, your bows can stand three-Uruks-together so that they're all in base contact and ignore each other for the purposes of in-the-way rolls - perfect for making sure that you aren't outflanked and can bring your S3-4 projectiles to bear effectively. As was mentioned in the formations article above, avoid this formation only if you have horizontal cover that you can use and you're looking down a valuable firing lane.

You will want to maximize your use of Heroic Marches on the first turn to get good positioning for your troops. Sometimes, you'll be able to start halfway up the board or even in your opponent's face and you won't need the March - but other times, there will be a long stretch of ground between you and your opponent and you want to be able to surge up the board as quickly as possible. I don't think you can declare Heroic Marches if you're not on the board yet, so maelstrom missions and Recon won't allow you to get the free March - but if you can use it, make sure it sets you up to be in a good position on Turn 2 (where you can either March at the normal cost of Might OR just walk and save your Might for Heroic Moves/Strikes).

Speaking of Heroic Strikes, do not be tempted to save your Might points for Heroic Strikes in this list. Yes, Heroic Strikes can be very useful. Yes, being F6-8 might be what you need to make your opponent cough up some resources on his power hero. No, this is still not a better use of Might points than Heroic Moves and sometimes Heroic Combats. Saruman is your answer to at least one hero (if not the enemy's big hero), not your Uruk-Hai Captains. A shielding Captain who is in Shieldwall will be difficult to handle - but saving his Might point to boost a dueling roll or a Fate roll might have as much effect as calling a Strike. So don't be fooled - it's nice to have, but you don't have a host of Strike Captains at your command.

Okay, let's look at some lists!

Sample Lists

I think the lowest you'd want to go with this list is 500pts, but you can TECHNICALLY run it with Saruman and Grima at 400pts if you  just lean into the Uruk-Hai Warriors:

• Saruman on horse [General]
• INDEPENDENT: Grima Wormtongue
• 7 Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields
• 8 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes
• 1 Uruk-Hai Warrior with banner

399pts, 18 models, 7 D6+ model, 1 cavalry, 3 Might points

I don't know if this list is any good, but Saruman can weaken things from far away while you advance a nasty loose phalanx to chew through your opponent. Most of your front line will be D7 against enemy archery, so hopefully you can mitigate your losses (but I'm not convinced that this list is better than the Army of the White Hand and its cheaper Dunland/Orc models or the Assault Upon Helm's Deep, which can get close to two full warbands and roughly 5 more models).

At 600pts, we can get up to 31 models - a ten-file loose phalanx that can have two skirmish triangles of Uruk-Hai Scouts with Uruk-Hai bows to cap off the flanks and two crossbows guarding important points you leave behind. With a banner and Saruman to assist safely in the rear (and Grima to assist in the enemy ranks), you're good to go - and if you don't want the horse, you have 2 warrior slots free in Saruman's warband:

• Saruman on horse [General]
• 4 Uruk-Hai Berserkers
• 4 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes
• 2 Uruk-Hai Warriors with crossbows
• 6 Uruk-Hai Scouts with Uruk-Hai bows
• Uruk-Hai Captain
• 5 Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields
• 6 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes
• 1 Uruk-Hai Warrior with banner
• Grima Wormtongue

600pts, 31 models, 6 D6+ models, 1 cavalry and 3 Might for Heroic March, 5 Might points

This list feels a lot better and maximizes on the bonuses we're seeing in the army list special rules by including the Captain. If we push this list up to 750pts, we can get to 40 models and flesh out what we had in the previous list with a second Captain:

• Saruman on horse [General]
• 6 Uruk-Hai Berserkers
• 6 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes
• 1 Uruk-Hai Warrior with banner
• 3 Uruk-Hai Scouts with Uruk-Hai bows
• Uruk-Hai Captain
• 3 Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields
• 4 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes
• 3 Uruk-Hai Scouts with Uruk-Hai bows
• Uruk-Hai Captain
• 3 Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields
• 4 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes
• 3 Uruk-Hai Scouts with Uruk-Hai bows
• Grima Wormtongue

750pts, 40 models, 8 D6 models, 1 cavalry and 6 Might for Heroic March, 7 Might points

This list is surprisingly big, actually - 40 models is pretty good and everything is elite. We have a six-file Berserker phalanx and an eight-file Shieldwall phalanx with three skirmish triangles of Uruk-Hai bows to help us out. Saruman and Grima will do their worst to mess with the enemy - and if you want 2 more models, you can (again) drop Saruman's horse. I like the thought of getting some extra threat range, the escape option, and occasionally better casting angle - but if you want 42 models instead, he's perfectly fine on foot.

Conclusion

I like this list - and I'm excited to play it more this edition! If you enjoyed this post and have used the Muster of Isengard list, let us know in the comments and whether or not you agree or disagree with the strategies laid out here. Until next time, happy hobbying!