Good morning gamers,
We've already viewed the Muster of Isengard and Army of the White Hand lists for Isengard - or in short, the two lists you can run Saruman in. Today, we're poking at a list that was very strong in the last edition and has fallen from grace a bit (in my opinion, at least) in the current edition: the Assault Upon Helm's Deep. This army list has retained many of the units and rules that it had in the last edition, it's received a few nice buffs, but it's also lost some things, so there's not all good news for Helm's Deep players. There are no Legacy profiles in this list (and only a few things were added with the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement), so let's take a look at what Helm's Deep players have to work with now!
Assault Upon Helm's Deep: Changes for 2025
Profile Selection
Like in the last edition, your options for units is incredibly limited - you have Uruk-Hai Captains/Shamans as well as Siege Veterans for your Ballistae as your heroes, and the sturdy-and-reliable Uruk-Hai Warrior and power-house Uruk-Hai Berserker for your standard-cost warriors and Isengard Trolls and Uruk-Hai Demolition teams (besides the ballistae) for your warriors. And that's it - no seriously, that's it!
When you compare the line-up to the Muster of Isengard, this comes in about the same - you get a small selection of units, but everything is elite (and as a result, it's all expensive). The upside that this list has over the Muster of Isengard is that you don't have to take Saruman - you can instead take 2 Captains and a Shaman/Ballista/a third Captain for the cost of Saruman and Grima. The downside of this list is that . . . well, you don't have access to Saruman (or cheaper Uruk-Hai Scouts as an alternative to Uruk-Hai Warriors). The profile selection alone isn't enough to scare me off this list, but as we look at the army list bonuses, I'm kind of concerned about how good this list is now . . .
Like in the last edition, the Assault Upon Helm's Deep Legendary Legion didn't break until it lost 66% of its models and it retains this rule in this army list. The former Legendary Legion also allowed Isengard Assault Ballista to reroll To Hit/Scatter rolls of 1 and allowed Demolition Teams to roll two dice and pick the highest to determine the explosion result - both of these boosts have been kept as well. Finally, your General (who we here at TMAT affectionally call the "Uber-Captain") gets an extra Attack/Wound, which makes him a pretty impressive F5/S5/3A hero on offense and D7+/3 Wound/1 Fate hero on defense, considering he's only 65pts. All in all, these are good rules to have - nothing ground-breaking, but solid rules for solid units.
This army list did lose a rather important rule, in my opinion: this list no longer gets +6 warriors in each hero's warband. While I think boosting the Uber-Captain to Hero of Valour would have been a nice concession to the old rule, the ability to take almost 20 models/warband in the previous edition was what made a lot of Assault lists work - the ability to forego one hero in favor of getting a ballista or bomb team was incredibly good (as was getting a LOT of bodies at low points levels where you might not want to take a single ballista or a single bomb). Without a rule like it, each warband in this army list is living around 200pts, which means that a Captain/Ballista pair (with things like a banner, crossbows, and Berserkers in the mix) will run you close to 300pts for "only" 16 models . . . that's not great. Previously, you could field the Captain/Ballista pair for just over 300pts, but you'd get 22 models instead. For me, this means that you are either a) passing on 2 ballista to get a Shaman/additional Captain and some extra guys, which won't actually raise your model count very much, or b) you're opting to have fewer units but more bombs/ballista in your list so you can deal devastating blows. Before you could have both - now you have to choose.
Profile Adjustments
The profiles have seen some small adjustments - on the whole, the improvements have been good (though some are sad):
- Uruk-Hai Uber-Captain has to take a shield now (which is sad for me, because I used to run him with a two-handed axe in the last edition and boy was that guy good at chopping through troops), which is good considering he has Shieldwall now. With 3 Attacks/Wounds, he's pretty resilient, but
- Uruk-Hai Captains picked up Shieldwall and went up by 5pts (which is fine). Unlike the Uruk-Hai Captains in the Muster of Isengard list (who get access to Heroic Strike and a free Heroic March on the first turn of the game), the profile for these guys is exactly as you see it in the book . . . which is fine, but not as great as the Muster of Isengard list.
- Uruk-Hai Shamans still provide Fury on a 3+ (great if you haven't leaned into Berserkers) and now grant Bladewrath on a 4+ . . . which would be super sweet if Uruk-Hai Captains didn't start at S5 (often the same as S6). Boosting a Berserker who is two-handing to S6 will see a +1 pip improvement in wounding difficulties, but unless that Berserker is part of a Heroic Combat and getting to fight twice, I think the 3 Will points on the Shaman really make that spell a clutch/hopeful play. Channelling Fury and having a 1-die option to resist a spell or hope for Bladewrath seems like the go-to play for me when I haven't delved deep into Berserkers, but see what you like.
- Isengard Assault Ballista are 75pts each, have an actual base now, and functionally work as they always have. You still need to have at least 1 Hero of Fortitude to field each of them, so to field 3 Ballistas (as some people did last edition), you need to spend 420pts just on the ballistas and heroes (packing in 36 warriors will bring you to nearly 800pts if you forsake a banner and any Berserkers).
- 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. Unlike the Muster of Isengard list, you don't get Hatred (Man) in this list . . . which won't matter all the time, but golly is it nice to wound most Man models on 4s or 3s when you face them!
- 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).
- Uruk-Hai Demolition Teams have gone back to "just dudding out" on a 1 (which is where they started last edition, but it changed to "try again next time with a +1 to your roll"). This will hardly ever matter since this is the only list where you can field Demolition Teams and you get to roll 2 dice and pick whichever result you want (which means . . . you won't pick the "1" unless you get two "1s"). They're still very effective at dealing with 2+ enemy models and work basically the same way as they always have. You cannot, however, give the bomb carriers torches anymore (which is sad for me, as a Shaman and two torch-carrying bomb carriers used to mean that you didn't need to sacrifice the Berserker to blow up the bomb).
- Isengard Trolls are 100pts now with 4 Wounds and Dominant (3) - and I know some people really like these guys in this list, but I'm not convinced that they're worth taking. Still, with Heroic Strike being reduced to a D3 boost in Fight Value, being base F7 with D8/4 Wounds means that most heroes are going to be declaring a Heroic Strike instead of a Heroic Strength in order to hope to beat you in combat - and most that do Strike over your F7 are probably not going to be wounding you on better than 5s. As a result, if you can keep this guy from being trapped, he's a pretty reliable way to burn resources off enemy heroes (and presents a nice threat to heroes who are trying to charge in solo to avoid getting bombed off the board - but I think in general I'd prefer a bomb and save 20pts over this guy). I'm not sure that taking the War Drum is a great idea in this list - not only because you can declare Heroic Marches with all of your Captains, but because it costs you the shield and STILL costs 25pts . . . I really like the Mordor Drummer Troll, not really crushing on this guy.
I don't know that anything above was actually "bad" - these units all went up in value and most of them stayed at about the same price (some important units did see a slight points hike). While I've been a bit of a downer so far, let's see what these guys are good at and where they struggle a bit.
Assault Upon Helm's Deep: Strengths and Weaknesses
The first bulk purchase of second-hand Lord of the Rings models I ever did was buying a portion of a massive eBay lot that my good mate Zorro picked up when we were just getting started in the hobby: 18 Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields, 16 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes, 1 Uruk-Hai Captain, and 1 Uruk-Hai Warrior with banner. There are a TON of battle reports that I did with these guys when I got them and I've got to say, the first thing I learned about these units is that they're very good at attrition damage against heroes. While not as good against Man heroes as the Uruk-Hai in the Muster of Isengard list, being F4/S4/D5-6 is a sweet-spot for being annoying to deal with and threatening to heroes if they lose. If you bought a hero who is only D6, you really don't want 2 Uruk-hai Warriors (let alone Berserkers) supported by 2-4 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes looking for 5s to wound you! At 10pts a model, these guys aren't cheap, but in large numbers, they'll take your horse out from under you (especially if a cavalry model charges a pikeman, as you now get +1 To Wound the mount if the pikeman wins the duel!) and could go up and over high Defense stats with the sheer weight of their dice. I've played with and against these guys a lot and I'm always a little uneasy if my opponent has an Uruk-Hai shieldwall on the other side of the table.
This mass hording of units does come at a cost: because all of your units are elite and dangerous, they're also expensive which means your model count is going to be average at best and often lower than your opponent's model count. This is an oddity, since it was precisely the numerical advantage the Uruk-Hai had that made the assault upon Helm's Deep nearly succeed in the book and film! Back when you could field almost 20 models for 250pts, it wasn't hard to get absolutely HUGE model counts as low points levels (which is pretty oppressive) and pretty good model count as the points level increased. Now it's possible to get 26 models at 400pts (which is good-ish), but that's without any of the anti-hero options this list has (bombs and ballistae) and your ability to fight spam lists is going to be very much dependent on using shielding to even out the odds in some fights while supporting with overwhelming force in other fights. It's a possible strategy, but it might not work.
This list has several tools to deal with big hitters - bomb teams are REALLY bad for most heroes, as they have a 30% chance of dealing 2D6 wounds to all enemy units within 2" of the bomb and a 67% chance of dealing D6 wounds to all enemy units within 2" of the bomb. All in all, that's pretty reliable and with Heroic March to help you get the maneuverability you need to get the bomb placed properly, you can deal absolutely devastating damage to even the toughest of heroes (though you will occasionally whiff the number of wounds suffered, even when rolling two dice). Ballistae can insta-kill like most siege engines and they are incredibly hard to break (which not all siege engines are). These are also long-range threats that just have to get lucky in order to be dangerous. They will often force your opponent to change his formations to avoid dealing lots of damage to his men because of the direct-fire nature of the ballistae (though that does also limit their targeting options). Finally, Isengard Trolls can roll 6 dice when defending by shielding OR 3 dice when attacking normally if they think their F7 will carry the day (and you can choose which weapon you want to use after seeing if an opposing Heroic Strike got the higher Fight Value). They're super durable, so even if they lose, they're unlikely to suffer that much damage in return unless they're trapped. They're expensive and only giving you 1 model (instead of 3, like the bomb team and ballista), but with Dominant (4) and 4 wounds, these guys will often stay on the table and do more in control scenarios if they can be properly protected (or left alone).
These tools do come with a nasty downside: the anti-hero tools are very hard to fit into your lists without sacrificing on numbers. In part this is because they're expensive - ballistae cost 75pts, bomb teams cost 80pts and Trolls cost 100pts - but it's more how they determine your other purchases. Ballistae cost 75pts and give you a siege veteran and 2 men - which is good value compared to a Captain and a single Uruk-Hai, but is bad value when you consider that the Captain can then spend 110+ points getting 11 more Uruks in your list. The Ballista provides very useful value, but it can't take up to 6 crew anymore, so you can't flush out your numbers more than by 3 models by taking them (not that people were taking extra crew when they could take +6 warriors in each of the required Fortitude warbands in the previous edition).
Bomb teams can't be purchased on their own - they're a good 50pts more than 3 Uruk-Hai are in a warband that can only hold 12 guys, so they're a tax to be sure (but slightly cheaper than an extra Captain). Since a standard warband of Captain + 12 Uruk-Hai Warriors costs just under 190pts, taking a bomb team puts you closer to 240pts/warband - which is "fine" if you're playing a game at 500pts or even 750pts, but at any other points level, you may have a Captain with a few followers in your army because the points worked out that way. Trolls suffer from much the same problem, in that the 190pt warband now becomes a 280pt warband, which would be great if we had Dunlendings to offset the cost of our Uruk-Hai (like we find in the book?!?!?!?!?!), but since we don't, we're looking at dramatically lower numbers by fielding a Troll (and maybe 1-2 of these Trolls would make up for the reduction in numbers, but I'd be more inclined to think that's true if they were heroes with Might than some locked-down-by-magic warrior models). These critiques aren't to say that you should steer away from these options - run what you like and learn to make what you like work for you - but I think it's a real hindrance to list building because there's no offset for the high price of these very valuable tools (this may be why the Army of the White Hand and Ugluk's Scouts army lists are so popular - they have some expensive units (not THAT expensive for Ugluk's Scouts), but they can offset that cost with lots of cheap units.
Finally, this list is a great starter army for the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game. Like the Numenor list, you don't have a lot of profiles to keep track of, your units are elite (which rewards good rolling), and the list is easily recognizable from the films. The units are very forgiving, they can win fights pretty well and wound pretty reliably when they win, which won't be true of every army. Their heroes aren't the best, but they're also not bad in any respect. You can have fun with a bomb or ballista if you want to add some complexity to the list, but you can also just throw a Troll or a half-dozen more guys in your list as well. However you want to cut it, this list has good units that will make a new player feel like they can be in the driver's seat if they want to . . . but I also feel like there are three or four other Isengard lists that stand above this one as "better lists". That said, let's look at strategies you should use when using this list.
Assault Upon Helm's Deep: Strategies for the Tabletop
We need to start off by talking about crossbows and my long history with and without them. I said this in my review of the Muster of Isengard list, but I'm not a big fan of crossbows. On the one hand, crossbows are great because the restriction on moving-while-shooting means they'll always hit on 4s (unless someone's got an anti-archery special rule) and with S4 and 24" range, they're probably able to wound their foes on 4s or 5s if they're warriors (6s for some heroes) - and they'll wound almost all mounts on 4s or 5s as well. If you have 12 crossbows in your list (probably not happening until you have 3 warbands - more on that in a minute), you should hit with about 6 each round and that should result in 2-3 dead units - which I admit is not bad. However, this assumes that a) you have 12 crossbows who didn't have to move (and a LOT of the scenarios require movement), and b) all 12 crossbows have targets that they can shoot at, which is likely to be terrain dependent and scenario dependent. If either of these conditions aren't met, then at least some of the crossbows will be moving, which means that you're likely to kill 0-2 models each turn - this could be fine, but could also not be great.
I don't like crossbows when I have the option to take something else - Uruk-Hai Scouts with Uruk-Hai bows are able to scoot-and-shoot with bows that are nearly the same strength as crossbows and they're just as good in melee (and have more reason to get into melee because they can move and shoot towards the enemy). Unlike the other "big three" Isengard lists that I've mentioned already (Ugluk's Scouts, Army of the White Hand, and the Muster of Isengard), we don't have that option here, so we're going to rely on our crossbows to do two things for us: force enemy heroes to spend resources protecting their mounts (or just to chip off wounds if they're on foot) and pelting lone enemy models off of objectives. Yes, you can use your crossbows to punch a hole (or try to punch a hole) in an enemy line, but it's rarely going to tip the scales in favor of your shieldwall over theirs. Instead, you want your crossbows to do things that your static shieldwall can't do: make the enemy heroes less potent/more cautious and remove the units that your shieldwall is going to have trouble getting to.
Next, we need to talk about pikes. I wrote an article AGES ago that I've linked to many, many, many, many, many times on how to run a "loose phalanx" with your pikemen. This strategy relies on doing the double-supporting that pikes allow, but instead of running a 3-by-X block like Easterlings do (whose Phalanx special rule allows two models to make way for a third one), we run 2 pikes supporting 2 front-line models that either have shields (Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields OR Uruk-Hai Captains) or have 2 Attacks natively (Berserkers OR Uruk-Hai Captains). This allows us to throw 2 pike dice into whichever fight is resolved first (chosen by you if you have priority and by your opponent if he has priority) and shield/attack with two dice in the second fight. There are ways your opponent can game the system if you don't get to choose the order of fights, but it ensures that you'll have 2-5 dice in any given fight, which is roughly what your opponent is hoping. This also maximizes on how shielding/multiple-attacks work in the game in a way that's better than just having one pikeman supporting each guy. Also, the way the pike "tails" flair out can make wrapping around you much, much harder.
This strategy, however, does rely on your crossbowmen not being in the front. You can certainly have one warband of crossbowmen backed by pikemen if you want to, but one out of every two fights will involve a one-die crossbowman fighting for his life - it's far less effective. Crossbows have their place, but not necessarily in shieldwalls. One additional note about supporting your heroes: while Heroic Combats can be very risky with F5 heroes, if that hero has 2 Attacks natively and 2 additional dice supporting him, the hero has a much greater chance of killing his target(s) and getting a Heroic Combat to work, so don't overlook the opportunity to support a hero so you can get some extra carnage on the foe (especially if it means you can strip the supporting die from a fight that you were going to have to shield in so you can fight normally).
Next, we need to talk about your shield troops. As a general rule, my default warband for my non-Uber-Captain warbands looks like this:
- 3 Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields
- 4 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes
- 5 Uruk-Hai Warriors with crossbows
With 1-2 warbands like this, you get a decent amount of shooting and a 4-file loose phalanx to support your Uber-Captain's warband (who will be offseting the too-high number of crossbows). Since the Uruk-Hai Captains and Uruk-Hai Warriors have shieldwall, we're presenting a D6-8 front line with D5 supporting models and a strong contingent of archers that I can drop on sites that I want to hold (usually in a skirmish triangle and 2 floaters). The shield boys were my favorite Uruk-Hai option for a long time (D6 is good!), but I've since slanted more towards the pikemen, who offer a LOT of flexibility in ganging up dice where you want them (though they're easier to kill and harder to use to hold ground). With shieldwall wasted on anyone who doesn't take a shield, taking a strong group of Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields is a great start for any list.
My Uber-Captain warband runs something similar when I'm running low on points and something different when I've got more room to work. The cheaper version runs Uruk-Hai warriors with shields, but instead of getting crossbows, we're extending the shieldwall and adding a banner:
- 5 Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields
- 6 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes
- 1 Uruk-Hai Warrior with banner
I am REALLY missing my 6 extra units and the pike on that banner from the last edition, but oh well. This warband, along with one of the previous ones, gives you a solid anvil of 10 models supported by 10 models, a banner to stay within range of both heroes, and 5 crossbowmen to leave behind on objectives (and threaten others). These two warbands could be joined by more infantry OR by a pair of ballista OR a Captain/Shaman leading a bomb team - however you want to do it, these two warbands give you a solid start. If you don't care about the Shieldwall rule that much, however, you can drop 25pts more to upgrade those Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields into Berserkers:
- 5 Uruk-Hai Berserkers
- 6 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes
- 1 Uruk-Hai Warrior with banner
Berserkers were big winners in the new edition and the addition of F5 in particular helps them stay a cut ahead of the rising number of F4 units (but still probably won't go hacking through 3-4 Elves like they do in the films). Since Berserkers and Uruk-Hai Captains are all F5, you get something akin to the Werewolf-heavy Wolf Pack army lists by running this - except that your cheaper units can support your expensive ones, your Courage is better, and your army is a bit slower. Still, these guys are tough and hit very, very hard - I'd look and see how your points are shaping up and if you reach an awkward points level where you can't add more units, consider upgrading shield guys to Berserkers instead of forcing in another hero.
If you're going to buy a Shaman (and I don't think you have to), you're doing it primarily because you've left your Courage 2+ Berserkers at home and you expect to have to pass a lot of Courage tests (either to stick around or to charge Terror units). Regardless of the reason, a Shaman is a fine choice, but understand that his primary aim is to make sure that as many people as possible are acting as they want to and sticking around when things get dire. Besides that, he's "just a spearman". Uruk-Hai Captains cost a little more and are a lot better in my opinion - they're very tough to kill with grunts, they chop through grunts pretty reliably, and they're cheap enough that you can get a few of them for the cost of one big hero on the other side.
If you want to pick your favorite flavor of bomb teams (my favorite), ballistae (Centaur's favorite), and Isengard Trolls (someone's favorite), do that - or just pick more guys (Gorgoroth's favorite). We'll show off some of these in the lists below, but I think you can skip them if you want to just use your Uruk-Hai Warriors to contain enemy heroes.
Sample Lists
I'm going to get my Isengard Troll list out of the way at the 500pt level because a) I think a big hero that doesn't mind running into an Isengard Troll is less likely to see at 500pts unless your opponent is skewing into Eagles and b) the "lower" model count is mitigated somewhat by the fact that EVERYONE will have smaller lists when the points levels are low. Getting 26 models at 500pts isn't bad - and because we have maximum warbands, we actually couldn't add too many more models within our points limit without buying a Troll:
Scaling up to 600pts allows us to drop the Troll for a crossbowman and then copy/paste the second warband so we have 12 models with shieldwall and 2 Berserkers for our front line and 10 crossbows to pelt the enemy - I think this is the sweet-spot for Assault Upon Helm's Deep lists, personally:
Alternatively, we could turn this second warband into 2 ballistae, which does funny things with our points available and warrior slots, which means we can run fewer crossbows and TEN Berserkers:
If you want your numbers higher and your Berserker count more moderated, you can have a 33-model list at 600pts that still has a lot of Berserkers but has a bomb team instead of two ballistae - and notice that we've showcased three 600-point lists that live in the 32-39 model range, which is great when your profiles are elite:
At 700pts, we've got the following 39-model double-bomb list which forces your opponent into some tough choices if they have to move first (and if you're willing to sacrifice one or two of your guys, you can make some tough choices happen if you move first instead):
If you push the list up to 800pts, you can get a very similar list with 2 Isengard Trolls instead of two Demolition Teams - and while I'm not a big fan of Isengard Trolls, I think having two of them forces your opponent to have to deal with them because they can't be avoided as easily. If you've used these things at points levels below 800pts to great effect, let me know in the comments below and include your list because I want to see it:
Our last list ends where it all began: with the triple-Captain-triple-
Is this better than running 2 Trolls (or heck, 2 bombs)? Is this playable at 700pts where you're going to be down 10 guys? I don't know - time will tell. I'm solidly on the bomb-train right now, but to be fair, I was on that train last edition too. :)
Conclusion
So there you have it - I put this list well below several of the other Isengard lists, but I think it could still be fun for players who are learning the game and want to build up to using Saruman. I think there are scenario shenanigans that Grima and Saruman can help you with that makes the Muster of Isengard list outshine this one, but I think the edition is still very young and much has yet to be explored with this list. If you've used it in the new edition and have thoughts that I didn't cover here, let us know in the comments below!
Next time, we're delving into one of my favorite Isengard lists (and whether it's overpowered or underpowered depends very much on who you talk to!): Lurtz's Scouts. I know, they're not as glamorous as Ugluk's successors, but they're plenty good, they're fast, and they're SUPER fun to use. Find out how to use them next time - and until then, happy hobbying!
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