Good morning gamers,
We've looked at the Battle of Edoras Box Set, the Armies of the Hobbit, and the Armies of the Lord of the Rings supplements in this series so far, so it makes sense to tackle the last sourcebook in the list, the Armies of Middle-Earth. This supplement (and the Legacies documents, which I will not be covering in this series) were greatly awaited by us here at TMAT - a good number of our local players had lynchpin characters in most of their lists in one or both of these releases, so we're very happy to finally have "the completed set" for list building.
As has been noted in every post in this series, 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!
List building on a budget THIS time is going to be tricky, since we're assuming that you're spending $60 on a rulebook, $50 on either the Armies of the Hobbit or the Armies of the Lord of the Rings supplement, AND you're spending $50 on the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement, which means that we'll be looking for armies that you can get for $50 to $350 more (between $200 and $500). As always, I'll provide additional thoughts on how to save money along the way - which with this lot has led to a few conversions that aren't hard. With that, let's start with the Good armies . . .
$350 Investment in the Kingdom of Khazad-Dum: Durin and Mardin, Dwarf Commanders, Dwarf Warriors, Khazad Guards, and Dwarf Ballista
I'm going to be honest with you: if Dwarf Kings were on the GW website, I'd have them in place of Durin and Mardin in a heartbeat. Why? Because while Durin is good, he's also the cost of two Dwarf Kings - and THAT means we could have MORE Dwarves in the list (especially when you factor in the 16pts that we spent upgrading our Khazad Guards to Hearthguard) by using the second Dwarf King in place of the Dwarf Captain. All in all, we'd be up ~8 models reaching nearly 40 guys at 600pts, which seems busted (as Dwarves always have been). The list would have slightly less Might in it, but I think it would have more overall punch - Durin/Hearthguard notwithstanding. Still, the list below is "good" if you're just getting started with Dwarves (especially since Khazad-Dum didn't get the Mountain Dweller tax on its Dwarf Warriors that the Army of Thror got):
While I think the Reclamation of Moria list from the Legacies documents might be better than this list (lots of savings from not taking Durin), I think this list is quite solid. If you wanted to put Mardin in the list instead of the Dwarven Ballista, I think that's plenty defensible - and as you increase your points level, you can either pile in more D6-7 Dwarves OR you can get Dwarf Rangers (who up the shooting level of the army) OR you can get Iron Guard (who aren't very cost effective from a dollars-to-points perspective, but are definitely good investments in-game). All in all, there's a lot of ways to take this army . . . something that this long-time Khazad-Dum/Moria player is very happy about.
Also . . . you may notice that we started at $350 . . . there's not going to be anything cheap when you have to buy THREE books and a good chunk of metal models. Our next purchase is mostly plastic and gives you a good baseline for several armies, but is nonetheless expensive . . .
$400 Investment in the Grief of Eomer: Minas Tirith Battle Host box, Rohan Battle Host box, and Prince Imrahil
I want to be honest about a few things here: first, we don't actually HAVE the Rohan Battle Host available in the GW store, but I assume that's a temporary thing, so I've included the purchase here as an option. If you were to buy just Eomer and the new Warriors of Rohan blister, you'd actually save yourself a little bit of money - but if you can find one of the previous Rohan battle hosts (or wait patiently for it to come back), you'll get the 6 Riders of Rohan in it for a song - that's kinda nice.
My second comment about collecting this list is that you can ALSO collect a Defenders of the Pelennor list with the contents of this purchase, since you can field Gandalf the White with the Warriors of Minas Tirith - and this makes the purchase of both the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement and Imrahil technically unnecessary (though with the supplement you can field Imrahil in the Defenders of the Pelennor, so it's still a worthwhile investment eventually).
My third comment is that I'm not sure how good having Imrahil in this list actually is - he's 190pts now fully mounted with a lance, but he's basically got the same profile he had last edition but with the boost to F7 and a smaller banner radius - and in the interest of saving money, I've opted for getting Knights of Minas Tirith/Warriors of Minas Tirith instead of Knights of Dol Amroth . . . which means the banner rule doesn't even come into play. Is Imrahil too expensive without that banner boost? Probably - but we're getting him anyway. The resulting list at 700pts looks like this - and I could be convinced that it's pretty good:
The list is both fast and not fast - it's got 8 cavalry guys who all want to get locked in quick, but its infantry blocks will be moving a LOT slower. Still, you've got 37 guys at 700pts, which seems like a decent number, considering you've got a lot of skirmishing potential and a decent set of tin-cans to hold ground. Is it better than the Defenders of the Pelennor? I don't know - you decide.
$400 Investment in the Defenders of Erebor: King Dain and Thorin III, King Brand and Bard II, 1 box of Iron Hills Dwarves with shields/spears, 1 box of Warriors of Dale
It hurts me to pay this much for so little guys (that's kind of why I did a conversion project with Erebor Dwarves/Grim Hammers to get my Iron Hills Dwarves) - but hey, this isn't fully a conversion post, right? If you don't want to do any hobbying out of the gate, you can get a small contingent of Dwarves and a host of Dale guys, led by three of the "big four," which in addition to the standard banner we took will give us four banner rules . . . which is pretty great:
I've played this list a lot in the previous edition and it's super fun - I will say it is a LOT more competitive if you have more than 8 Esgaroth bows, you have a March hero (we have a Dwarf Captain in this collection), and a lot more Dwarves in it (which would push this up to a $500 investment, but you could do it and the list would be stronger by taking either Dain and Brand OR Thorin and Bard alongside an Iron Hills Captain). If you wanted to cut out the Dale guys entirely and spend the same amount of money (roughly), you'd want to look at . . .
$400 Investment in the Army of Erebor: King Dain and Thorin III, 2 boxes of Iron Hills Dwarves with shields/spears, 1 blister of Iron Hills Dwarves with crossbows
I'll be honest about two things: first, I think this list would be a TON stronger if we dumped about $200 on the Champions of Erebor and the Three Hunters so we can run Gimli and Gloin instead of the two heroes we have . . . but for under $40 for Dain/Thorin III, I think the more responsible choice is to take the two royals instead of Gloin-and-son. I'll also be honest about genuinely thinking about getting a box of spear/shield Dwarves and a box of mattock Dwarves - this would allow you to two-hand with the front rank and BOTH models would get +1 To Wound . . . but Shieldwall is a thing and it's really good and you need as many shield guys as possible to really make it work. What we're left with is a pretty decent army for $400 spent, considering that $150 of that was spent buying rulebooks:
This list could be fielded at lower points levels by dropping some things OR could go up to 700pts by picking up another blister of Dwarves (or dropping a guy and taking a second banner - you have one, after all). However you do it, the list is solid and would be very fun to run. A little slow and a little low on model count, but nothing that Heroic March and D8 won't solve.
$400 Investment in the Battle of Fornost: King Earnur, Glorfindel, Minas Tirith Battle Host, and Warriors of the Last Alliance
There are a few notes I'm going to make about this "starter army" - first off, in order to have enough shields for this list, you'll need to either a) make shields for the Elves, b) use the Warrior of Numenor shields that come in the Last Alliance box, or c) SKIP on the shields for the Elves and a Warrior of Minas Tirith with bow (in my humble-but-not-commonly-shared opinion, Elves don't need shields #changemymind). Additionally, this list has a Warrior of Minas Tirith with banner in it - we can do this with a little bit of hobbying by converting one of our Warriors of Minas Tirith with bow into a banner guy (choose a guy with his right hand not covering his face, do an arm swap to put the banner in place, cut off the quiver at his waste, and clip off the bow parts so his other arm is "just kinda there". Otherwise, you're good to go - lots of tin cans (many with spears to support the Elves - you have room for an extra spear if you want it), lots of Knights to support Earnur/Glorfindel, and a good chunk of Elven bows to lay down fire as you advance. All in all, not a terrible 700pt list:
I do think getting a Ranger of the North and some Hobbit Archers would be a better investment than the Elf bowmen (and it comes in cheaper too), but we're looking to cut costs here, so the Elves with bows are staying. Think about expanding your investment, though, in the future . . .
Let's see what we have on the Evil side of the house . . .
$300 Investment in the Dragons of the North: 2 Dragons - seriously, that's it
Hey look, I got under $350! This list has some VERY interesting potential in it, since you can get a 350pt leader with 3 upgrades (the ones shown below give him 12" fly, D9/9 Wounds, and a free Might point on a 4+ - you could get the Fire if you wanted to, now that it doesn't cost Will to use) and a 300pt dragon with 2 upgrades (12" fly obviously, Fire for offense). This list will be fun and honestly isn't hard to collect:
The list is also sneaky in how well it can play certain scenarios - it can't be quartered or broken without being tabled, which means that you don't worry about fleeing the board once your army breaks, you don't worry about coughing up VPs for breaking unless things have gone HORRIBLY wrong, and if you're wound-counting or kill-counting, you haven't presented any easy targets for your opponent to pursue. Honestly, this is a very strong mobile monster list in my opinion . . . time will tell if it can crack Dale, though.
$350 Investment in Moria: Durburz and Druzhag, 2 Bat Swarms, 1 Moria Goblin Command blister, and 2 boxes of Moria Goblins
HORDES BABY! Okay, so the list isn't at all inspired - you're getting Durburz with a Drum and a bunch of Goblins, Druzhag with 2 bat swarms and a bunch of Goblins, a Moria Goblin Captain with (surprise, surprise) a bunch of Goblins, and a Moria Goblin Shaman with (you guessed it) a small bunch of Goblins. Together, this is only $200 worth of models (give or take), so for only a little more than the books you're buying, you can field a fantastic array of models who get +1 FV when they trap someone, +1 Courage while the drum is beating (plus Fury on one part of the battlefield), VPs for banners if the drum is being played at the end of the game, and some really fun units!
If you're willing to drop $35 more, you could upgrade 5 Moria Goblins to Prowlers - they're real good in this list and I think they'd be really good in this list, but alas, we're trying to save money, remember? :) If you want almost the same number of guys but with a proper beater hero, you might want to look into . . .
$350 Investment in the Host of the Witch-King: Mordor Battle Host box, 1 box of Orc Warriors, 1 Mordor Orc command blister, 1 blister of Barrow-Wights, 1 blister of Spectres
This list is built around the Mordor Battle Host, which is excellent value if you're interested in getting started with any number of War of the Ring-era Evil lists. The list allows you to run a high-powered Witch-King without an armored Fell Beast (great for saving both dollars and points), lets you take a host of warriors (I nearly maxed out my warbands)
If you want to use those last two points better, you can swap out the Morgul Blade and 2 Orcs with two-handed weapons for Warg Riders with Orc bows - I personally think having the option for a Morgul Blade is a good play, but if you're like Sharbie and aren't convinced it's gonna pay dividends for you (though maybe in this brave new world we're in where Monsters are such a force to be reckoned with his tune has changed?), by all means get more cav and leave it at home. With the exception of the Barrow-Wights, this is also a great start into Minas Morgul, which can't field the Barrow-Wights, but can field the Taskmaster that you have and can field a Shaman (who would be super useful in this list too, but I was on a budget).
$350 (150+50+30+104) Investment in Umbar: The Lords of Umbar, Haradrim Command blister, 1 box of Corsairs of Umbar, 1 box of Haradrim Warriors
We looked at the Corsair Fleets in the Armies of the Lord of the Rings post last time and this is basically the same list - except that we're getting a mix of Haradrim and Corsairs, along with Dalamyr/Hasharin/Haradrim heroes instead of 2 Corsair Captains/Bosuns. What this list gives us that we didn't have last time is an actual banner - though we've "lost" the ballista for the Corsairs:
At 650 with Stalk Unseen on everyone, I feel like this is a far more survivable list - and in many ways, it's also a lot more dangerous at a distance because those Haradrim bowmen are cheaper than the Corsair bowmen (and WAY cheaper than the Corsair crossbowmen). It's unclear to me whether we actually need the Corsair troops in this list, besides to make the bow limit work? There might be a place for picking up yet another box of Haradrim so we can replace all of the Corsairs with spears for Haradrim Warriors, though the F4-on-a-stick on those guys is pretty good. If you wanted to dump more money into this list, the Black Numenoreans look pretty good too . . . but they're not very cost-effective for the money you're paying. Speaking of which . . .
$450 Investment in the Army of the Great Eye: Witch King on foot/mounted, Morannon Command blister, Shagrat and Gorbag, 2 boxes of Mordor Uruk-Hai, 2 boxes of Black Numenoreans, 1 box of Morannon Orcs . . . and 6 cocktail skewers/pieces of brass rod
This is the "all the Mordor stuff" list in the new book - and to be completely honest, this list makes me very happy because at the end of the last edition, I was running a lot of "Mordor soup" lists that sported one-third Mordor Uruk-Hai (with Orc bows - something I still can't get now), a Mordor Troll with war drum, and the rest Morannon Orcs (front-line guys had shields, some of the spearmen also had shields - but not all of them did), the Witch-King on a Fell Beast (sometimes a horse), a supporting generic wraith (usually on a horse) or the Shadow Lord/Dark Marshal, and "dealer's choice" of Shagrat, Gothmog, or Morannon Orc Captain (depending on the points level). It was really fun - and for about $450 (a little over that with all three books in tow), you can get a pretty comparable army - you will need 6 "spears" for some of your Morannons though to make this list work:
Immediate savings can be had if you skip on either the Black Numenoreans (saves you $60) or 6 of the Mordor Uruk-Hai (saves you $45) and run the 6 Morannon Orcs with shields that you don't have in your list yet. Depending on whether you go with Black Numenoreans on Mordor Uruk-Hai, there will be some points left over, so the Witch-King can get himself a Morgul Blade if he wants (or a two-handed weapon, I guess - that's not as bad a choice as it used to be, especially on the turn you get Enchanted Blades off with the Crown). This list isn't fast - and it doesn't have my Drummer Troll in it because cost-savings - but it's got a lot of D6 (especially if you drop 6 of the Mordor Uruk-Hai) and it has some pretty thumpy heroes in it.
Conclusion
I don't know about you, but even though I have a pretty diverse collection of SBG models, writing this up has kinda made me hunger for some new ones. :) I shall attempt to restrain myself though - but if you're just getting into the hobby or are looking to start something new, ignore my restraint and dive right in. ;) If you enjoyed this mini-series on getting started in SBG, drop us a comment below. We've got a new series kicking off next week that will run through the Fall, so be sure to check in next time - until then, happy hobbying!
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