The New Age Is Begun: The Legions of Mordor Army List

Good morning gamers,

In the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game, there are some army lists that have only a few available profiles (like the Harad list we looked at last time or the Depths of Moria list we looked at the week before). The list we're looking at today is not like those lists. There are other army lists that have quite a few profiles to pick from, but they're all limited to a single faction (like the Minas Tirith or Kingdom of Rohan lists). This list is . . . not like those either.

There are a few army lists that serve as a union of what would otherwise be two different army lists, preserving most of their unit choices and hence giving you a really solid list of profiles for both heroes and warriors (like the Defenders of Erebor or the Men of the West). This list . . . isn't like those lists either. There are, finally, a few - very, VERY few - lists that serve as a melting pot of three or more army lists . . . and standing at the very top of all of those lists is the Legions of Mordor army list. That's the one we're talking about today - and frankly, I thought about tackling it AFTER I talked about all of its component parts, but I also think this is a really strong list and so I wanted to give it attention ahead of the other Mordor, Harad, and Easterling lists.

This is one of the few Mordor lists that has really captured my imagination - and that shouldn't be very surprising, since it has such a wide variety of options. I also think this is one of the few Mordor lists that's actually competitive that few people appear to be playing (as of today, September 8,  2025, there were only 102 games logged in Tabletop Admiral with this list and it had a 41.2% win rate with 42 wins and 60 losses - which is higher than the 37.8% win rate back in mid-June when I originally wrote this article). Like the Mordor army lists of yore, part of the reason for this sad win/loss ratio might just be that there is an incredible amount of variability in how these list can be built. As a result, this post will be less of a deep-dive into the army list itself (now that we have several Easterling lists, every unit will have a deep-dive of its own in a different article in this series), but will rather look at the trade space we have to work with and what different units are bringing to the table.

Take a deep breath, guys - I tried to keep this short-ish . . . and I failed miserably.

The Legions of Mordor: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

The profiles we have access to in this list depends greatly on how much money you want to spend on your hobby - if you just have the Armies of the Lord of the Rings supplement (required to run this list), you have 2 Easterling profiles (Captains and Warriors), 9 Mordor profiles (Witch-King, Ringwraiths, Gothmog, Guritz, Enforcer, Morannon Captain, Catapults, Morannon Orcs, Trolls), and 4 Harad profiles (War Leader, Mumak, Chieftain, Haradrim Warriors). Honestly . . . not a bad spread, but also not a very deep spread.

If you also buy the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement you double this - you get 6 additional Easterling profiles (Amdur, Kataphrakt Captain, War Priest, Dragon Knight, Kataphrakts, Black Dragons), 5 additional Harad profiles (Suladan, Taskmaster, Hasharin, Raza, and Haradrim Raiders), and 5 additional Mordor profiles (Black Num Marshals, Orc Shamans, Siege Bows, Black Num Warriors, and Black Num Knights). 15 profiles to 31 profiles? Yeah, now we're cooking with grease . . .

. . . but if your tournament/friendly scene is using the Legacies documents, you also pick up 15 MORE options (eight named Ringwraith profiles, Haradrim Kings, the Golden King of Abrakhan, Goroth, Zagdush, Great Beasts of Gorogoroth, Abrakhan Guards, Watchers of Karna) - that's 46 profiles altogether! That's unbelievably good . . .

. . . and yet, the Legions of Mordor army list is more restrictive than it was in the last edition if you historically allied two factions together. If you allied Mordor with Easterlings, you could get the Dragon Emperor in your list (and war drakes, if you proxied some models) for the Easterlings - and you could get a HOST of Mordor models that aren't present here (to include Shelob, Razgush-with-Bat Swarms, Shagrat, Mordor Orcs, and Troll Chieftains). All told, there was a lot you could do in the previous edition with these two army lists that you can't do now. Similarly, you could field Mordor with the Serpent Horde historically and while the list of profiles you're losing is negligible for the Serpent Horde (Serpent Guard/Riders), those profiles ARE some of the things that made the alliance super powerful (F4 spears or F4 lancers - all on the cheap).

What you couldn't do in the last edition, however, was field Haradrim WITH Easterlings AND Mordor at the same time without losing your army bonuses - which was probably fine for Mordor and the Easterlings, but it was pretty much death for the Serpent Horde if you wanted to lean into the 50% bow limit. There were plenty of competitive list that had Suladan and a hit squad of Serpent Riders for scoring objectives only - and you can still do that now, but you can also do it with all three factions working together. We've lost some stuff, but I think we've also gained some stuff.

Army List Bonuses

This section is going to be short - your only rule that you gain is that you get to reroll 1s when wounding enemy heroes with your heroes. That's . . . honestly kind of a forgettable rule. There are other constraints that you have as well - Mordor leading Mordor, Harad leading Harad, Easterling leading Easterling - but that's not really a "bonus."

What you really get for running this list as opposed to just running a Harad/Mordor/Easterling-only list is that you have access to the tools that the other lists have. Mordor, for example, has S4 spear units - Harad has cheaper spears and Easterlings are the only faction with F4 front-guys if you stick with just the Armies of the Lord of the Rings (if you're using the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement, then Mordor's got 'em too . . . and they're better but slightly more expensive), but Mordor's got the monopoly on S4 spears. Harad has the best bows by far and the Easterlings give you F4/D6 front-liners if you don't have the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement and fairly cheap D6 cavalry if you do have the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement. All in all, everyone is contributing something that you wouldn't get from other army lists - and that's a "bonus" of sorts.

To put a finer point on it, though, consider what this list has: plenty of access to magical powers, access to monsters and war beasts, lots of heroes with access to any heroic action you want, affordable infantry that vary from average Defense to high Defense (all with pretty average Fight Values), siege engines with excellent damage/range, and some cavalry units if you have the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement - in a word, you have access to every kind of tool you could want. That's what you're paying for by taking this list.

Profile Adjustments

We're not going to look at everything in depth here - no one wants to read a review of forty-six profiles in bullet form - but here's the highlights for what's seen big changes that I think make a difference in this list:

• Let's start with the Nazgul - from the Armies of the Lord of the Rings, we have access to The Witch-King (level 3, so he's got 3 Attacks, 3 Might, 18 Will, 3 Fate) but he has to take the Armored Fell Beast and the Crown of Morgul, so he's at LEAST 245pts. He's the only Hero of Legend, so if you take him (like in the old Mordor lists), he's gonna be your General. For 170pts, you can get a Ringwraith on normal Fell Beast (level 3 also, so he's got 2 Attacks, 2 Might, 14 Will, 2 Fate). The 75pt gap between the two accounts for increased +1 Fight Value, +1 Attack, +1 Might, +4 Will, +1 Fate (altogether worth approximately 60pts of value), +1 Defense on the Fell Beast (really not worth it for the price you pay), extra heroic actions/magical powers, the Crown of Morgul buffs (which may or may not matter), and +3 warrior slots. All in all, that's a good deal in the abstract, but 75pts will get you a second hero easily or 6+ warriors - both of which might be arguments for why the generic Ringwraith is the better pick. Not having Heroic March on the Ringwraith makes it less of a no-brainer for me - the Witch-King will hit harder and more reliably than the Ringwraith and you will need a March Captain with either choice - but I think the generic Ringwraith is plenty good and a lot cheaper. If you're playing with the Legacy profiles, you have access to the other eight named Ringwraiths, all of whom can be taken on foot or on a horse but NOT on a Fell Beast . . . this does make them cheaper Heroes of Valour than the Fell Beast options, but I don't know that they all aid you in the same way - and they're pretty expensive for what they're bringing compared to a lot of the other options.
• As an alternative, you could get the Mumak War Leader or a War Mumak of Harad for 400 or 250+ points respectively. I don't know that there's a world where you take a Ringwraith on Fell Beast AND a Mumak in the same list, but these guys will give your opponent something to fight - and unlike the Harad army list we looked at last time, you don't NEED to have Rappelling lines per se, because you don't NEED to have your melee warriors in the howdahs - you can have Easterlings or Morannons or whatever on the ground led by cheap Captains if you want. While I was pretty harsh on the Mumak War Leader in the Harad section, I think he's a good option in this list if you're going to NOT have a Fell Beast flapping around. Alternatively, a generic Ringwraith and a standard Mumak with minimal upgrades cost about the same as the Mumak War Leader . . .
• Great Beasts of Gorgoroth are back if you use the Legacy profiles - and with the updates to war beasts, these guys are . . . well, absolute beasts! The Orcs in the Howdah aren't really Orcs anymore (they function more like the Goblins on the Catapult Troll), but they still get a number of shots equal to the Howdah's remaining wounds (which went up to 9 wounds instead of 4). Additionally, the Orc Commander can apply any wound that would take away his last wound to the howdah instead - which does get dangerous as that value gets lower, but hey, he's dying anyway if he doesn't do that - so you'll cut into your archery, but also you shouldn't lose your Commander to archery. The Great Beast also picked up Dominant (6) and now deals three S6 hits instead of two, so he's pretty dangerous (though doesn't boost your model count like he used to).
• As we move to the man-sized heroes for Mordor, we have access to Gothmog as a Hero of Valour. I'm on the fence as to whether he's better than a Ringwraith on Fell Beast - he's cheaper but not by much if he's mounted and his utility is probably about the same but his punch is lower. For Fortitude heroes, we have Black Numenorean Marshals and Morannon Orc Captainsas generic choices (both are good for their cost - and they have March), Guritz for a named March hero with added tactical boosts in a few scenarios, Gothmog's Enforcer is still as good as he was (he is the only Morannon Fortitude hero who does NOT go up to F5 when fighting men), and Goroth and Zagdush as your beater heroes if you are using Legacies (though I don't know that they hit that much harder than the other heroes at this level - especially if the Black Numenorean Marshal went up to 100pts and got the armored horse and lance). If you care, you can get Shamans and the siege weapons in this list - they're fun and useful in their own way, but the Shaman becomes less useful the more you rely on Easterlings or Haradrim and the siege weapons are probably only going to be taken if you skip on the Fell Beasts and war beasts . . . who I think probably have more overall utility.
• As we turn to the Harad side of the house, we originally just had Haradrim Chieftains available to us before the Armies of Middle-Earth book dropped - and honestly, a 55pt Hero of Fortitude with a bow/poisoned arrows that could lead 12 7pt Haradrim Warriors with bows/poisoned arrows is . . . a pretty great deal. You could even get a Mumak with Tusk Weapons or Rappelling Lines, 12 Haradrim Warriors with bows in the howdah, a Chieftain, and 12 Haradrim Warriors with spears so long as you had a Morannon Orc/Easterling Captain and 12 melee guys with shields in your list and you'd have a properly big list (40 models) and you wouldn't spend that much on the army (more on that in the list building section below)! With the addition of the Armies of Middle-Earth, though, we're spoiled for choices - we have Suladan again (who still has a big banner and only went up in price a little), Haradrim Taskmasters (if you want a cheaper Fortitude option - but I think he's worse than the Chieftain in this list), and Raza . . . who you can take if you want, since he's not an expensive combat hero - but he's also not a great one. If you add in the Legacies document, you have access to the shenanigans of the Golden King (I have hated fighting this guy over the years - but I don't think he's as strong a choice as Suladan), Haradrim Kings (who don't have access to bows but are excellent Heroes of Valor for only a few points more than a Haradrim Chieftain), and Hasharin (who lack in the Might department and so probably don't have much a place in this list - but you could run Gothmog or something to get more actual Might in your list than the numbers would originally tell). All in all, the Harad contingent got a big boost with the addition of the new profiles.
• As for the Easterling heroes, we originally just had Easterling Captains - and these guys are good. Cheap, spammable F5/D7 heroes are hard to come by, and if they're just leading Easterling Warriors with shields (more on them shortly), then they're plenty good in a list like this. Their Courage is . . . fine, but that can be augmented with the addition of War Priests with the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement (they're Fortitude and cost the same as Captains). The Armies of Middle-Earth also gave us access to Amdur (who is a bit pricey, but also a better beater than Gothmog and roughly on-par with Suladan - it's unclear if he's better than a Ringwraith on Fell Beast, but he might be), Kataphrakt Captains (who are 30pts more than their foot brethren and get an armored horse and the Gleaming Horde special rule, which is Shieldwall while mounted), and Dragon Knights as Minor Heroes (who are expensive and can be mounted, but are probably better on foot now that they need to be close to Black Dragon Warriors). All in all, some good choices, but only a few of them might kick the Easterling Captain out of a job.
• For Warriors, your Mordor heroes have access to four excellent profiles: Black Numenorean Warriors for 10pt F4/D6/Terror infantry (as good as they always were, but a point more than they used to be), Black Numenorean Knights (who went up by 2pts to 20pts, but are still good Terror/lancer cavalry), Morannon Orcs (who also went up by 1pt to 8-10pts but are situationally F4 - and are still S4 with access to spears in an era where being S4 matters more than ever before), and Mordor Trolls (whose cost went DOWN by 10pts to 90pts and picked up Dominant (3), an extra wound, and retained F7 in an age where beating F7 with Heroic Strike is not a sure-fire thing - golly, I love these guys!). If you're not looking for bows, these are all excellent profiles - and you could run a pure Mordor list that had D6+ on everyone if you wanted to!
• You probably want archers, though, so for that you're looking to Harad. Originally these guys just have access to Haradrim Warriors, who (as we've said a bunch of times already) give you access to cheap spears and bows that can be fielded with cheap heroes if you want to. The Armies of Middle-Earth supplement added Haradrim Raiders (cheap lancer cavalry who can also have bows) and the Legacies document added Abrakhan Guards (who are NOT Elite, amazingly enough) and Watchers of Karna (who are ALSO not Elite) - both of which give you interesting options for melee units that are not D6 but that roll more dice or hit harder than the Mordor or Easterling warrior options. I don't know that they're better in this list, per se, but it's definitely an angle you could lean into.
• Finally, the Easterling warrior contingent is as lean as it used to be - originally, the list just had access to Easterling Warriors, who are always F4 and have better Courage than Morannons, so for about the same price, they're well worth the investment. Bows shouldn't be taken in this list on these guys - the Haradrim will do it better without paying for Fight Value or Defense - and pikes are probably not necessary since you have Morannons for the same cost. Easterling Kataphrakts were made available with the release of the Armies of Middle-Earth and are more expensive than Haradrim Raiders but cheaper than Black Numenorean Knights (who have lances and Terror but are otherwise very similar). The war drums on the Kataphrakts are 25pts now and appear to be universal, so there may be a place for taking this on an Easterling Kataphrakt over a Mordor Troll (though the Troll will be much harder to kill and could allow you to charge with your non-Mordor units while the Mordor side of the house races somewhere else at speed). Black Dragon Warriors cost 10pts/model (+1pt over Easterling Warriors with shields) and have the +1 Courage and potentially F5 if they're near Dragon Knights, Amdur, or the Dragon Emperor. They're also Elite, so very few units can field them. I think these guys are fine, but if you wanted to just bring Easterling Warriors (or Black Numenorean Warriors for the same cost), I think that's fine too.

Sheesh, even that non-exhaustive list of updates was long! Let's get into the strengths and weaknesses section then!

The Legions of Mordor: Strengths and Weaknesses

The only real "weakness" of this list is that it doesn't have a lot of army special rules to make your units "better". The one rule it has (rerolling 1s To Wound with your heroes against other heroes) may not happen at all and when it does happen, it will be most useful when those heroes have really high Strength values (which the Fell Beasts and anyone who can declare Heroic Strength will have, but that's not most of the heroes that you're likely to have in your army). When compared to most of the other Mordor, Harad, and Easterling army lists, the bonuses here just seem to be a little bit flat.

Another conceivable weakness is that the Witch-King has to be on an armored Fell Beast. There were many players at the end of the last edition who thought a Fell Beast of any kind was a bad play for the Witch-King - and fair enough. Rythbyrt was the first to make me a believer in the Fell Beast and it only took a few games for me to really like the mobility and devastation that it provided (even if the Witch-King himself was and still is a bit fragile to be on such a large target). While I would much prefer the option to upgrade the Fell Beast into an armored Fell Beast, paying 20pts extra for +1 Defense just doesn't seem worth it - now if it had an extra wound, lost the Feral rule, had Dominant (4), base F7 or S7, we'd be having a very different conversation. As it is, this just seems like an unnecessary tax - but if you really like the guy, field him instead of a normal Ringwraith.

For Strengths, we have to start with the wealth of options you have. 46 profiles is a lot - and they allow you to do basically anything you want in the game. We've already seen that there are multiple options for casters (of the Fury and non-Fury varieties), monsters, war beasts, siege weapons, heavy infantry/cavalry, light infantry/cavalry, sword-and-board, bow-armed, Terror-causing, and banner-toting units. If you want something, you can find it here.

Another strength that you have is the ability to mix-and-match between the factions. Mordor in general doesn't have good archery (the addition of Orc Trackers in the Legacies document helps a few lists, but you've got access to Orc bows and that's it) - the Serpent Horde supplements that really well. One could make the argument that Easterlings aren't needed with the addition of Black Numenorean Warriors/Knights, but Easterlings will give you similar stats for lower cost by giving up Terror (and lances in the case of their cavalry), which means if you don't have a Ringwraith to generate Harbinger of Evil, you might want to just take the Easterlings instead of taking another Mordor hero to lead Black Numenoreans. Harad units are cheap and light - which might be fine in the context of archers and might be less fine if you need higher Defense troops (and boy are they happy to have a durth of D6 options available to them).

This list is also very easy to horde out with OR run elite - a decision tree that most lists can't do. While you certainly could run an all-monster or all-Fell-Beast army with this list, there are other army lists that can probably do that better. You could also run a spam on Haradrim, but the Harad (and Serpent Horde) army lists can probably do that better too. What these army lists can't do, however, is give you a horde of Haradrim with a cheap contingent of Morannon Orcs led by a Morannon Orc Captain or your choice of a cheap named Orc hero. You may get fewer bows, but you'll get much higher Defense on your front line - and you'll still end up with a lot of bows. At the end of the last edition, Rythbyrt was running all Black Numenorean Warriors/Knights (Morgul Knights in the last edition) led by the Dark Marshal and the Mouth of Sauron - all terror, all F4/D6. You can run that here for sure - though you can also pile in other options if you want archery (which that list didn't have) or spear supports (which that list didn't have). All in all, there are lots of ways you can run this list and that means a lot of options exist in the trade space.

Finally, there is a HOST of heroes that you can take that will do different things. Amdur is a F7 cavalry hero, Suladan has a 6" banner, Gothmog has Master of Battle (2+), Ringwraiths/the Witch-King have magic and flappy monster mounts, Mumaks stomp on stuff, there are a ton of 60-point-or-less March Captains, Goroth and Zagdush (if you have access to them) are cheap combat heroes, Gothmog's Enforcer does . . . whatever that guy does (seriously, I don't get the scattered hype for this guy?!?!?!?! Someone explain this in the comments below if you know!). Lots of options exist - and while there are certainly expensive apples in the bucket, most of them can be bought for cheap so if you are trying to boost your numbers or fill in holes, you can probably find something that works for you.

The Legions of Mordor: Strategies for the Tabletop

The strategies for using this list are, obviously, going to be heavily dependent on the list archetype that you're running. As such, I'm going to make some broad-stroke recommendations for list building here instead of actually using the models on the tabletop since the choice for what to bring is going to necessitate certain strategies. First off, I think about one-third of your warriors should be Morannon Orcs with shields, Easterling Warriors with shields, or Black Numenoreans and in most cases, I think one-third of your warriors should be Haradrim Warriors with bows. The Haradrim bowmen are really good and if you're going to field them and NOT take one of the Harad lists, you want the heavy infantry options available here. This will result in up to two-thirds of your warrior allotment - the remaining one-third or so will be composed of your cavalry units to protect your shieldwall flanks and your spears, for which you have a few choices.

If you took Morannon Orcs with shields, I would recommend either doubling-down on Morannons for your back line or saving some points and taking the lighter Haradrim Warriors with spears. Both are giving you "just a spear die", though the Morannon is also giving you S4 with that spear (and higher defense should your front-line buckle). If you took Black Numenorean Warriors, I would take Morannon Orcs with spears and optionally shields (if you have to save points, drop shields on these guys). You have to assume that your opponent is showing up with at least a D6 front-line, so someone in your shieldwall should have S4 so you aren't wounding on 6s. Haradrim are great and Haradrim are cheap, but I think you want to pay the extra 2-3pts for Morannons on this one. If you took Easterling Warriors with shields, you COULD take pikes as your second rank, but once again, I think the S4 of the Morannons is just going to be better. First principle then: your shieldwall should have Morannons in it.

As for cavalry, there are several good mounted heroes (Amdur, Ringwraiths, Suladan, not-Gothmog) and any of the mounted warrior options can be good (Black Nums are expensive, Kataphrakts are less so, Haradrim are pretty cheap). Get a few cavalry models if for no other reason than you want to be able to get to places your shieldwall can't reach. Also, Suladan gets a larger area of banner coverage if his base is larger.

I'd pass on siege weapons and with one very unique exception, I'd probably pass on war beasts as well - this list has these as options if you want to tap into them, but honestly I'm not sure it's worth the investment when there are such good value units you can take for far fewer points. If the heart wants these things, of course, you should take them. But also . . . there's a lot of good stuff here and I don't know that these units are worth the squeeze.

Finally, I'd stay away from most of the heroes - if you want a Mordor hero, check out Ringwraiths on Fell Beasts (Valor), Guritz, Zagdush, and Morannon Orc Cpatains. If you want a Harad hero, check out Suladan (Valor), Haradrim Kings (also Valor), Haradrim Chieftains, and MAYBE a Mumak Commander. If you want an Easterling hero, check out Amdur (Valor), Easterling Captains (I don't know that the Kataphrakt Captain is worth the 30pts more, but to each his own), and War Priests (definitely consider taking this guy on foot - he doesn't need the mount). All of the other profiles are trying to do what these guys do but for more points - I'd just skip. If one of the guys I didn't mention is your jam, take him - by all means, ignore me and take him. But I think everyone else (except for maybe the Shadow Lord if you're using Legacies) brings the same kinds of stuff that the list above brings but doesn't do it as efficiently. In my opinion, this list has ten hero profiles in it.

Okay, I know this article has gone on FAR too long, but stay with me - we're looking at lists now!

Sample Lists

Our first stop is a 500-point list - yes, I know, you can run this list at 500 points! I hinted in the article that you could run pretty efficiently-costed warbands with a cheap Haradrim Chieftain/pile of Haradrim bows, a cheap Easterling hero/pile of Easterlings with shields, and a cheap Orc hero/pile of Morannon spears - and this list hits 38 models (all infantry, sadly) with a banner at 500 points:

Any of the heroes can be your General but your plan with them is simple: Zagdush and the 11 Easterlings make up the front line, 11 Morannons and the War Priest support them (with Fury cast to help the Easterlings tie down Terror foes), and 13 poisoned bows sail in to provide cover fire. Most of the melee guys are D6, so the list is pretty resilient to enemy archery. If you only have the Armies of the Lord of the Rings supplement (or aren't playing with Legacies to get Zagdush), you can substitute Zagdush and the Easterling War Priest for an Easterling Captain and a Morannon Orc Captain with shield for the exact same points cost.

As we build the list to 700pts, we can upgrade the Haradrim Chieftain to Suladan, swap out the Easterlings for a Ringwraith on Fell Beast and some Black Numenoreans, and add a Haradrim Raider to help us play for fast objectives (with the Ringwraith and Suladan as other fast models):

Our final list is an 800-point list - and there are a LOT of ways you could take this list. My take is that at this points level, you can get a cheap Mordor hero (Zagdush or a Captain/Guritz), Suladan with some Haradrim with spears, and a Mumak with a howdah full of Haradrim bowmen. Suladan's warband has a war horn in it - you're gonna need it, son - though you could skip on that if you relied on an Easterling Captain/War Priest to lead Easterlings as your front line instead of Morannons (though you'd have a S3 shieldwall and again, I don't know that a S3 shieldwall is a good plan):

There are TONS of options with this list, but hopefully these three lists gave you some things to think about - they're definitely the lists I'm testing right now. :)

Conclusion

I could probably say more about the list, but I'm tired. :P Hopefully you stuck around to the end, but if you didn't, no sweat - I talk a lot, I get it. If you enjoyed this and are keen to give the list a try, let us know in the comments below! We're turning back to the Forces of Good next time, but hopefully you're enjoying the series and getting in lots of games with the new stuff. Until next time, happy hobbying!