The New Age Is Begun: The Reclamation of Osgiliath Army List

Good morning gamers,

This will be our last Minas Tirith-oriented post for a bit - don't worry, though, we'll be back to tackle the Pelennor army list in the future! Thanks to our Osgiliath custom campaign, I've been able to play with a wide variety of Minas Tirith lists and while I've only played one scenario with this particular list, golly was it fun! The Reclamation of Osgiliath army list is one of those "big hero with a bunch of guys" kind of list and boy does it pack a punch when it gets going! Let's see what there is to know about this one (and in a stunning turn of events, there's been no changes to this list from either the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement or the Legacies document, so what you see in the Armies of the Lord of the Rings supplement is actually what you get) . . .

The Reclamation of Osgiliath: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

I'm not going to lie, this list is REALLY constrained for profiles - eight in total. On the hero side of the house, you have Boromir, Faramir, and Madril as your named hero options, supported by the lowly-but-awesome Captain of Minas Tirith. These four provide you with a good spread of options for heroes, though having one really expensive, one sort-of-expensive, and two cheap heroes can make for awkward decisions (as we'll see throughout this post).

Your warrior options are similarly constrained but good - you have the ubiquitous Warriors of Minas Tirith and Knights of Minas Tirith, who give you solid combat profiles at fairly affordable prices and then you get Rangers of Gondor and Osgiliath Veterans as your specialist options. This is the same corps of warrior choices as you'll find in the Garrison of Ithilien, but you aren't allowed to take 50% bows in this list, so you're more likely to see a dominance of the melee guys in this list instead of the Ranger-heavy list builds for the Garrison of Ithilien.

Army List Bonuses

There was no Legendary Legion like this in the old edition, so our point of comparison is the standard Minas Tirith army bonus of yore - +1 Courage. Yaye. We've traded this for three special rules, the first of which is This City Was Once the Jewel of Our Kingdom, which gives everyone the Mountain Dweller special rule. As was mentioned in the Garrison of Ithilien review, Mountain Dweller is a great rule to add to your army when a lot of them already have Woodland Creature - though I will note that since you're more likely to have models that won't have Woodland Creature in this list, it would actually be quite nice to have the flex option that the Garrison of Ithilien has in this list (but I'll take moving through rubble terrain without penalty and getting +1 to movement rolls for free).

The Remember Today, Little Brother special rule is one of the hallmarks of this list vis-a-vis the Minas Tirith list we talked about last time: Boromir and Faramir can spend each other's Might, Will, and Fate while they are within 3" of each other. Since Boromir is likely to be mounted and Faramir has to be on foot, it is likely to be rare that they'll stay with each other the whole game, but if you're worried about your opponent filling your army leader/banner full of holes, at least you can spend his brother's resources to keep him alive? Also, a 9-Might Boromir sounds pretty devastating . . .

Finally, there's the once-per-game For Gondor! special rule, which is declared at the start of any Fight Phase when Boromir is alive and on the battlefield. Friendly Gondor Warrior models within 6" of him (so not Faramir, Madril, or Captains of Minas Tirith) gain +1 To Wound when making Strikes - this is killer (literally!) and can swing a shieldwall-grind pretty quickly. This +1 To Wound also stacks with other To Wound benefits, such as Boromir's Son of Gondor special rules, lances for Knights of Minas Tirith, or Hatred (Mordor) on Osgiliath Veterans - given the right conditions, a good For Gondor! turn can be absolutely devastating to an opponent!

All in all, the rules aren't game-breaking but they can be very splashy - if you like those kinds of rule sets, this is a good one. If you were hoping for more . . . well, let's look at the profiles to see if there's some things there to convince you that the list is good . . .

Profile Adjustments

Most of these profiles have already been reviewed in this series, but a few of those have been updated for specific rules/options in this army list. Here's the overview of everyone:

• Boromir got some nice updates in this edition - like his Fellowship version, he's got F7 with Strike, his horn counts as a war horn (which won't be giving him Dominant (2) because he's your General!), the ability to lead Citadel Guard (which doesn't matter in this list), and +1 To Wound when he charges . . . and no points increase! He has access to a horse and a shield like in the Minas Tirith list, but also has the option for the Banner of Minas Tirith in this list, bringing him to a nice tidy 225, which is about where he was in the last edition. The banner works a bit differently now than it did (makes his warriors F4.5 instead of F5), but it's still pretty good - and now can be paired with the +1 To Wound when charging! I ranked the lance the better option in the last edition, but now you get the best of both worlds, which is awesome.
• Faramir has undergone a lot of changes, but his notable boosts are the upgrade to F6/3A, Resistant to Magic/3 Will, built-in-bow with Sharpshooter, rerolling all failed To Wounds/free heroic resolve once your army breaks, and a special rule that gives him and friendly Warrior models within 3" of him Dominant (2) if you give your opponent Priority (which is VERY situationally useful). For all this, he only went up 15pts (after factoring in the built-in bow), which is a pretty good deal. You don't have access to a horse anymore, which is a bit of a downer since his melee profile got better, but on the whole, I think he's still a net-positive. He's also a resource battery for Boromir (and that might go both ways - more on that later), so taking him is not just giving you a decent infantry hero who happens to have a bow - it's also giving Boromir more juice to do Boromir-y things;
• As mentioned in the First Impressions on Minas Tirith characters, Madril is basically unchanged - he costs a little bit more now and, in this list, he functions slightly differently than before as he's not just bringing 12 more bows to the fight (he was an auto-include before a Captain every time before - and that may be true now, but the decision tree is a lot tighter). He's got 3-Might-and-March in an all-Infantry army and costs the same as a 2-Might-and-March Captain (though the Captain has advantages over Madril as we'll see next);
• Captains of Minas Tirith are some of the big winners of the new edition - and losers, depending on your opinion of lances and horses on F4 heroes. While the horse and lance helped these guys kill things reliably last edition, the F4 was always a bit of a let-down unless they had help from another hero (probably one that couldn't take a horse). Now these guys are on foot, but they're 60pts instead of 55pts, they're F5 instead of F4, and they still have Shieldwall, which makes them reliable tanking heroes at low points levels. He's the only source of Heroic March in this list, but he is competing with Beregond, Irolas, and Ingold for time in the sun, so I don't think he's a shoe-in necessarily for your cheap-hero slot (though with Denethor, Boromir, and Faramir in the list, it's questionable whether you're even taking a cheap hero besides Denethor).
• Warriors of Minas Tirith are also big winners this edition for this list - they're still great front-line troops and are even more reliable in that role now that they're F4. They do cost more than they used to, but at 9pts/model with shield or bow, they're not THAT pricey (but you have Rangers in this list, so don't take these guys with bows). If you're paying 18pts/file for a Warrior of Minas Tirith with shield backed by a Ranger of Gondor with spear or 19pts/file for two Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields (one with spear), you're doing pretty well for yourself. Take these guys - take a lot of these guys - and call it a day.
• Knights of Minas Tirith have become some of the best shock cavalry for price in the game - F4 is pretty common now, but they're not F3 and they're not that expensive for D6 troops. Knights are nothing to write home about, but they're still plenty good and I love them - and since they'll will tied fights while near Boromir against other F4 troops, they make excellent mounted escorts to your smashy big hero!
• Rangers of Gondor are unchanged, except that they got Woodland Creature for free - hooray! They're still a great deal as far as archers go, albeit a little bit squishy (as most archers are); and
• Osgiliath Veterans had three big changes: their points cost went up by 1pt to accommodate the jump to F4, their +1 Fight Value while within 6" of Boromir or Faramir got changed to rerolling 1s To Wound which is fine but not great (though it's better in this list when you get the +1 To Wound for For Gondor!, as rerolling 1s gets a lot better as your wounding difficulty drops), and they picked up Hatred (Mordor) for free, which is likely to see some utility as Mordor got a bunch of its toys back with the drop of the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement. If you find Shieldwall to be a bit clunky, paying +1pt/model to lose Shieldwall and pick up 1-2 wounding rules and +1 Courage isn't bad - especially in a list that isn't getting a boost to its Courage except after the army breaks.

Sheesh, that's a tight list! Despite the limited depth chart, I think there's a lot to this list, even when compared to its other Minas Tirith ilk. Let's see what this list does well (and where it can struggle) in our next section . . .

The Reclamation of Osgiliath: Strengths and Weaknesses

As with all of the other Minas Tirith lists we've looked at over the past few weeks, this list features solid unit choices. The warrior selection is fantastic (Warriors of Minas Tirith for heavy infantry, Rangers of Gondor for archers, Knights of Minas Tirith for heavy cavalry, Osgiliath Veterans if you want a higher-Courage, more flexible heavy infantry option) and all of the hero choices are good (and bring different strengths to the table). Boromir is required, but there's no way you'd leave him at home in a list like this. We'll talk about Boromir more in a moment, but suffice it say right now that the only thing this list is really lacking is a magic caster option - other Minas Tirith lists are short of that too, but this list wouldn't mind having a caster like Gandalf to cue up Boromir for a massive hitting blow. Still, Boromir is the kind of hero who could go up and over the top of a big hero if he's got a Strike and more Might than the other guy and while that isn't as reliable as fighting a Transfixed model, it's still pretty strong.

A mixed bag of strengths and weaknesses can be found in unit costs in this list. As is the case with Minas Tirith units in general, Gondor guys are well-costed for their stats and despite being 8-10pts for infantry, their relatively low-cost hero options allows you to get good numbers at basically every points level. That being said, since Boromir is required in this list, there are certain points levels that this list works pretty well at and others where all you can really fit is "another hero". If you're playing in the 500s, you're probably doing okay - and similarly if you're at/above 700pts, you're probably doing just fine too - but if you're playing in the 600s, buying Boromir and a Captain/Madril is going to cost you almost 300pts and they can't take 300pts worth of warriors unless you're buying a lot of cavalry, a second banner, or a war horn. However you cut it, you probably want more models than that - and taking another hero probably means you're sitting in the low 30s at best at 650 (see one of the sample lists below).

Your weird model count might be just fine, though, because you have Boromir in the list. He's ticking off a lot of boxes for you - though this is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, he's your General and so picks up Dominant (3) and with his banner and For Gondor!, he's going to help your army absolutely CRUSH one side of an enemy F1-4 shieldwall on one turn of the game (and may also help you crush a shieldwall that's F5). With +1 To Wound, he hits like a truck and if he can keep his horse under him, his flexibility in movement will hopefully allow him to be where you need him to be. He's also worth VPs both as your banner hero and your General, so if he's caught in the open . . . yeah, not so great. As with any big-hero list, make sure his matchups are good and you should be golden.

Since this is a big-hero list, it shouldn't come as a surprise that one of the big let-downs of this list is that besides Boromir, there isn't really a good supporting cast of hitting heroes to back him up. Faramir's fine as a F6/3A infantry hero and Captains of Minas Tirith can put in work as F5/2A infantry heroes, but neither of these profiles on their own are going to shape a board in the way that multiple mounted heroes with good stats would do (take a look at lists like the Army of Edoras or the Riders of Theoden for how you'd want that to look). As a result, while you'll definitely be counting on Boromir doing the work in this list, you also want to lean hard into having your warriors do most of your killing - you'll take a kill from Faramir or Madril at range or any hero in melee if you can, but you don't want to be Heroic Combatting through people with them just to get some additional damage out there unless it helps you fold a flank quickly. These other heroes don't really work that way - they're reliable damage over time, while Boromir is the Heroic Combatting monstrosity.

Finally, this list has a good archery option in Rangers of Gondor, but this isn't a shooting list. If you want a shooting list, play the Garrison of Ithilien - most of the units are the same, you have more shooting-oriented heroes, you have ways of getting free VPs with Frodo, Sam, and Smeagol, and you have a 50% bow limit (which your heroes don't contribute to). You can get all of this for the low-low price of . . . not having Boromir. Yes, that's a big cough-up, but it's an option. This list benefits from having some bows in it - heck, 33% bows if you want them in your second-rank with spears or as floating skirmish triangles - but you aren't focused on shooting. If you need to get somewhere, move full with your archers to get there and fight - that's what the list does well.

Okay, let's talk about strategies now . . .

The Reclamation of Osgiliath: Strategies for the Tabletop

Let's begin here: Boromir's banner (and really the rest of his gear) is not optional. Boromir is the life and soul of this list and in most cases, this list will live and die based on how well Boromir performs. Give him every opportunity to succeed by giving him all of his stuff. The horse makes him a fast, flexible attacker and increases his probability of winning fights and SUPER increases his likelihood of killing everyone he can. His shield will make sure he doesn't catch as many stray arrows as he might otherwise (Strength-of-bow-dependent, of course) and gives him an interesting option if he's dismounted for blunting a big hero on the other side. His banner helps make sure he doesn't botch often, helps his friends near him avoid botched fights too, gives you VPs in a lot of scenarios, and works better than an Elven-made weapon against F4 foes for your warriors - it's all worth the investment, so take them all!

Your supporting heroes - Faramir, Madril, and Captains - all have specific jobs to fill. Madril's job is the easiest: Heroic March with better control over your deployment in maelstrom scenarios, all while shooting with a bow and keeping your boys in line if you break. I usually embed him in a skirmish triangle which allows him, two friends, and occasionally other skirmish triangles to maneuver around the board to deal with objectives that will be too far away for your battle lines to deal with. Captains of Minas Tirith can March your shieldwalls up if you need to do that (I like embedding him in a warband with 4 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and 5 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears so you can have 5 files of D7-8 guys, sometimes supported by a Knight or 3 Rangers if I have the points). Captains in this list make great blunting options against enemy heroes, as defending by shielding can give them a lot of dice and a high chance of getting a 6-high if there's a Might point available. This can eat up extra resources on your opponent if they don't get a 6-high naturally, and remaining D8 even if he's knocked Prone makes it a tall order for most enemy heroes to chew through.

Faramir's job is . . . a little harder to see than Madril's and the Captain's jobs. Faramir has a bow and some special rules like Sharpshooter that would encourage you to use it. However, he still only gets 1 shot/turn and it's a S2 bow, not a S3 bow. As a result, killing things with his bow is actually quite hard (unless you're willing to pour Might into the shot - which sometimes you will want to do). If you want to target a horse via Sharpshooter, do that. If you want to kill a banner that isn't touching any friends, do that. If you're "just shooting," consider full-moving with a squad of melee guys and just use his F6/3A (occasionally shooting if you're already where you want to be). Faramir is basically the happy medium between Madril and a Captain - which usually means I avoid taking him in this list until the points level reaches 700pts (sorry, kid - I know I sound like your dad).

If Faramir is in your list, you also need to think about how to spend his resources and Boromir's resources if they're near enough to each other to borrow. In general, I think Faramir always wants to keep 1 Might point for Heroic Defense - Faramir's expensive and a bit squishy, so you don't want him to be trapped and killed because he ran out of Might! Faramir doesn't need his Will as much as Boromir does because he's got Resistant to Magic and might be able to call a free Heroic Resolve once your army breaks, so Boromir can take all of Faramir's Will if he wants to (which is good, because most of the magical barrage is probably going Boromir's way!). Finally, I'd leave Faramir with 1 Fate point just for insurance, but I'd only give Boromir a Fate point from Faramir if it's absolutely necessary. The less defensible you make Faramir, the more your opponent will try to kill him. In an ideal state, you keep both brothers alive by managing their match-ups, but if you can't do that, make sure Boromir survives, but do what you can to keep Faramir alive too.

Next we have to talk about the two kinds of "shieldwalls" you can make in this list. This list is VERY much a line-them-up-and-smash kind of list, not only because Warriors of Minas Tirith have shieldwall baked into their profiles, but because Osgiliath Veterans and Rangers of Gondor are also rewarded for making a solid line and out-performing the enemy. Since you can get 30 warriors (including some Knights) for 300pts, it's not hard to get good numbers at most points levels (see a previous note about how the 600s get a little awkward) - and that means that if you can get one-on-one or two-on-two match-ups, you can start to swing things your way pretty quickly.

The first kind of shieldwall is the pure Warrior of Minas Tirith one - this relies on the Shieldwall keyword carrying the day and you'll likely have at least one of these shieldwalls just because of how bow limit works. If you have the following warriors in your list for just under 300pts, you'll see two shieldwalls forming right away with a squad of Knights and some Rangers to skirmish around:

• 6 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
• 6 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears
• 5 Osgiliath Veterans with shields
• 5 Rangers of Gondor with spears
• 3 Knights of Minas Tirith
• 5 Rangers of Gondor

This list has a 33% bow limit (10 Rangers, 20 tin-cans) and 12 of the models are Warriors of Minas Tirith who can form a six-file shieldwall. You'd want to run this mix of guys if you had Madril in your list (he and the 5 Rangers without spears can make two skirmish triangles), but you could change a few things to run a Captain of Minas Tirith if you wanted him in there instead of Madril. The Warrior of Minas Tirith shieldwall can be run as 6-files of two-deep fighters, but can also be extended to be 12-files of units willing to defend by shielding - both of which can pose serious problems for your opponent.

The second shieldwall is far more flexible in its design: no one has to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, because Rangers of Gondor and Osgiliath Veterans don't have Shieldwall. As a result, they cost the same per-file as the Warriors of Minas Tirith do, but they can adapt to terrain better and they can shoot at poeple on approach. This doesn't make them the better shieldwall, necessarily, since the Rangers can't defend by shielding and so any of them that get caught alone are going to be rolling 1 die each. Still, you could have four of the Osgiliath Veterans defend by shielding and have their 4 Rangers extend the fight by two more files of Ranger-supporting-Ranger - a seven-file "shieldwall" is still pretty good.

Finally, we need to talk about your "For Gondor!" turn. I usually call "For Frodo!", "Death!", "The Sun is Rising!" and "For Gondor!" at the same time with whatever army I'm using: on the first big charge! Why? Because this is usually going to be when you're at your strongest and because early gains often have huge late-game benefits. This bonus is bonkers - +1 To Wound on all of your warriors supplements the one thing Minas Tirith lists can struggle with: chopping through D6+ shieldwalls. Normally, a shieldwall grind can run all game, but in my limited experience with this list . . . this rule helps them dramatically. I'd do it with a Heroic Combat from Boromir so you can get maximum killing power from him that round too, which will hopefully allow you to wrap-and-trap some elements of the shieldwall and ensure that pockets of the enemy line are completely gone instead of just some of the guys from the front line. After this turn, you want to wrap-and-trap as best you can, relying on Boromir's banner to give you an edge over anything that isn't F5 and making sure your rolls are as high as possible.

Okay, let's wrap this up with some lists!

Sample Lists

Our 500pt list for today features Boromir and Madril - you still want Heroic March to move up your boys and while Faramir is great, he's a 40pt tax over Madril. This list has a few Knights to escort Boromir and two small shieldwalls that can guard his flanks or be pushed up by Madril. There are Rangers both placed in the battle line AND reserved for floating, depending what you want to do. With 24 total models, 9 bows, and a heavy-hitting hero that's also your banner/leader VPs, this list is hoping for a good smashing turn (or everything will burn in flames, all will come to darkness, and the White City to ruin):

As I said above, 650pts is . . . a bit awkward for adding in Faramir, so I've opted for a Captain of Minas Tirith instead to lead Madril's shieldwall squad and relegated Madril to a small band of Rangers instead. Boromir leads an expanded warband of OsVets backed by Rangers and an extended company of Knights. With 33 models, this list has an impressive amount of shooting in two warbands and a stubborn shieldwall in the third (and it's surprisingly mobile):

At 700pts, you can grow the previous list very slightly by upgrading the Captain to Faramir - he's going to inherit the shieldwall warband, though he'll be expanding it with a few Osgiliath Veterans because we had the points and because a little extra damage never hurt anyone (that you like - hopefully it hurts plenty of people on the other side). I will note that you could downgrade all of the Osgiliath Veterans to Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and drop one spear on someone if you wanted to get one additional Warrior of Minas Tirith with shield - personally, I like the increased Courage and situationally higher damage:

Conclusion

This is the kind of list that, I feel, sort of writes itself. Whether you think you should have Rangers embedded in your shieldwall, Osgiliath Veterans in the mix at all, and the amount of Knights that you have (I've stuck to 2-4). The list is going to be highly dependent on how much damage it can deal on the turn when Boromir calls For Gondor! just like Men of the West lists are counting on a good For Frodo! turn or the Riders of Theoden are counting on a good Death! turn. Still, the bones of the army are Minas Tirith and that makes it pretty resilient and strong.

If you've used this list and have list archetypes that you like that weren't listed here, let us know in the comments below! We'll be leaving Minas Tirith for the Elven haven of Lindon next week where we'll have a look at an army list that . . . frankly, a lot of people are pretty down on. Is this list the lesser cousin of both Rivendell and the Last Alliance? Is there value in fielding a foot-only Gil-Galad? And how the heck do you make a decent list with such a limited set of profiles? Find out the answers to these and other questions next time - and until then, happy hobbying!