The New Age Is Begun: The Shire Army List

Hey Reader!

Today we're discussing what was one of my first (and still my favorite) armies when I joined this hobby: hobbits! Naturally the list has changed a bit since last edition (as this was not one of the old legendary legions), and some of the profiles have changed, but on the whole, it still plays similarly (albeit sometimes with different models) from the last edition.

The Shire: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

The list of models you have in this army list hasn't changed from the previous edition, other than the fact that, naturally, you lose the alliance matrix. And this is a big loss: with a good Green Alliance with The Rangers and an army special rule that didn't always come up (thus opening up a lot of options for convenient alliances), not having access to Aragorn (for your everyday beatstick while still having solid numbers), Dunedain (for good fighters interspersed in the lines), Fellowship members (in case you want some good fighters, beefy tanks, etc. for pretty cheap), ents (for big bruisers that also throw stones!), the Dead of Dunharrow (for a durable front line that can slay!), the Eagles (if you're okay with losing some punch on your eagles in exchange for vastly greater numbers), and various elves (for great Courage, great shooting, and good heroes), you lose a lot by not having an alliance matrix.

But with the release of Armies of Middle Earth, we have all of the hobbit profiles (including warriors!) from the Scouring of the Shire book back in the list, so the army is quite fleshed out now. And as we look at the army special rules, you'll find that the list on the whole has gotten a glow-up with the loss of the alliance matrix (which it needed).

Army List Bonuses

There are four army bonuses tied to this list, all of which are great. The first is a simple clarification on equipment: Bilbo carries the One Ring, as he hasn't handed it off to Frodo yet. So you only have access to one Ringbearer (more on that later), but you do have access to a Ringbearer (assuming that you aren't playing someone higher on the hierarchy).

Second, friendly models may reroll failed Courage Tests, and cannot have their Courage reduced. In an army that is overwhelmingly Courage 7+ and 6+, this is a really nice bonus: you lack a "shaman model" to provide auric benefits to your Courage, so having a roughly 50-60% chance of passing, followed by a reroll, is really nice. Note that this does not apply to Intelligence checks: only your Courage is left as-is (not that Intelligence checks will come up often for this army).

Third, Gandalf gets integrated into the army more than last edition: friendly models (not just warriors, but all friendly models, including heroes) may benefit from his Stand Fast, and Gandalf can shoot 2 different fireworks each turn (instead of 1). This is a big change from last edition, and one of my favorites, as it makes for thematic elements to the list that provide utility and needed damage output to the list that it badly needs (and was typically filled by the alliance matrix).

And finally, friendly models pass Fate Rolls on a 3+, and may reroll failed Fate rolls. In an army that is overwhelmingly D3, lacks the ability to ally in more durable troops, and has overwhelmingly 1 Wound models (including heroes), rerollable Fate is really nice. The reroll is wasted on Gandalf (as he already has Narya), but him passing his Fate rolls on a 3+, plus the reroll, makes his D5 and 3 Wounds pretty reliably D5 and effectively 6 Wounds, which is much better.

So all in all, small things, but they really add up, as you'll soon see.

Profile Adjustments

There have been a lot of changes since the last edition, most of them small, but some of them very big (to the point of taking models we used to pass over to making them models you never leave home without):

• Gandalf the Grey remained at 170pts with access to his cart, which also remained at 25pts. So his cost has remained the same (no horse option in this list, but those went up in cost, so dodged that one!), but his profile improved. He has 2 Attacks Base now (which is big), his cart still counts as a mount (so you can get charge bonuses, albeit with that 8" Move instead of a horse's typical 10" Move), and he gets 2 fireworks each turn, which also improved from last edition. Instead of just a single S2 shot in the Shoot Phase, you now get three choices: the old edition firework, a knock prone ability that doesn't affect monsters (and war beasts, thanks to their rules), a -1 to duel rolls for the following turn, and a once per game firework that deals a S8 hit and, if it survives, knocks it prone. And with new spells like Foil Magic, he's just as good as ever, and much improved.
• Samwise Gamgee is still 40pts, but he added his frying pan, which allows him, after winning a duel to roll a 4+ against a non-monster infantry model: if he succeeds, the model can't move next turn (though otherwise it acts normally). When combined with the new rule from Rosie and his pre-existing rule for free Heroic Combats when near Frodo, Sam got some nice small changes that add up to make him both a decent fighter in your list and a debuff/control piece. Which is cool.
• Merry and Pippin both went up to 2 Fate, which is nice because it helps them stay on the board longer (and with a 3+ success rerollable, they could easily be 3-wound models for 10 points, which is cool).
• Old Bilbo Baggins is the same as last edition, but in an edition where generally you have to be alone in a combat with the One Ring to halve their Fight Value, the presence of his Slip Away special rule (that allows him to still halve Fight Value when joined by allies), while not new, is really nice.
• Lobelia Sackville-Baggins was something of a meme character last edition (that also had niche applicability against Terror models and low-Courage enemy warrior models thanks to denying them access to Stand Fasts). But she also added A Stern Scolding to her list of abilities, which allows her, once per turn, to spend a Will Point and target an enemy model (that is not a Monster, Chariot, or War Beast) within 6" and LOS: on a 2+ roll the target cannot activate this turn, and its Attack characteristic is reduced to 1 if it fights in a combat. This is huge: it means you can turn Boromir, Azog, Thorin Oakenshield, Thranduil, Aragorn, Elendil, etc., into a pillar for up to 4 turns (as she's up to 4 Will now!), buying much-needed time for your fragile army to do their job. The meme character has now become a solid contender for a place in your army, which is great game design.
• Farmer Maggot gained the ability (for +5pts, bringing him to 50pts) to ignore the -1 penalty for fighting with a two-handed weapon while within range of an objective (very useful), and also picked up a rule for his dogs: while within 6" of Maggot, his dogs treat him as a banner (which is nice, because they used to be excluded from hobbit banners before since they didn't have the hobbit keyword), and they can reroll failed To Wound rolls (which is also nice, since they are also some of the few models above S2 in your army). So for 5pts, this is a small but very wonderful change.
• Hamfast Gaffer Gamgee is still sitting at 35pts, but he got a reworking of his flowers, which is for the best both from an ease of mechanics perspective and a power curve perspective. First, the flowers benefit every friendly model within 3" of the flowers (and isn't gaited by profile), and more than that, it affects shooting attacks and combat wounding rolls, which is awesome. But in addition, the flowers can't be destroyed anymore! So you get to use them all game! This makes them far more useful in objective play, and you can setup attacks far better because you have three invincible 25mm tokens that grant you a reroll on failed wounding rolls for your shooting as you approach, and then added damage potential once your close.
• Rosie Cotton is one of the most improved characters of this edition in my mind, going from "include her and keep her near Samwise if you plan to use Samwise" to, "If you're playing a 100pt game, consider spending 20pts on her," which is a huge step-up. First off, she's still great to have with Sam: while Samwise is within 3" of her, he can reroll failed to wound rolls in combat, which makes his combo with Frodo a good bit more reliable (as you can get a free Heroic Combat, ideally win the duel, reroll failed wounds to slay the person(s) in his fight, and then rush toward Frodo). Second, and the big reason she's on the short list of auto-includes, friendly hobbits treat her as a banner, and she counts as a banner for victory conditions. So this doesn't help Gandalf or the dogs, but it helps everyone else.
• Fredegar Bolger is still 10pts, which is not bad for effectively being a hobbit militia (4pts) with +1 Fight Value, +1 Wound, +1 Will, +1 Fate (on a 3+ rerollable, mind you), Dominant 2, and the ability to move on a turn where he fails a Terror test, though he still can't charge anyone. All of that is great, and most of that is a bump up from what he had last edition.
• Paladin Took got two major changes from last edition: first, Tookish Hunters add +1 to wound in close combat within 6" of him (which is nice), and second Tookish Hunters no longer add +1 Fight Value, but instead can reroll 1s to wound with shooting attacks (which is arguably better, as F3 is not that useful this edition considering how many models bumped up to F4-5).
• Will Whitfoot has changed, and possibly for the better this edition, though possibly not; last edition he was a 6" banner when he spent a Will Point, offering you a banner option that was not Frodo (in case you wanted to run Gandalf). This edition, he can spend a Will Point to add +1 to the Fight Value of your warriors within 3". It's a useful thing, as you can get F4 Shirriffs (more on that later), but with only 3 Will, it's not something you can do forever (unless Gandalf casts Strengthen Will on him, which is a solid play, though it competes with Lobelia's ability, so choices, choices). The big thing he has going in his favor is that he's a Leader (Shirriffs), which means you can actually take Hobbit Shirriffs in his warband, and he's the only one in this list that can field them, so even if you don't like that he's no longer a 6" banner, he's probably still a top choice purely because he's a pre-requisite for taking shirriffs.
• Folco Boffin went up by +5pts (to 25pts), but he picked up a new rule that is probably worth it (especially in this army): when a hobbit hero (so not Gandalf) within 6" spends a Might Point, they can roll a D6 and on a 6 the Might Point is free and is not reduced from their store. For an army that needs to be moving first, this is a really good bonus. It means that, since Frodo spends Folco's Will Points to call Heroic Moves with Folco's other ability you can't trigger this new rule with that rule, but that's fine: it means that Folco is your Might Preserver, and that's really good.

There are models that got no changes: Farmer Tolman Cotton (your only access to a spear, and a 2 Might hero for 35pts, and a reroll of 1s to dueling rolls, all of which is great), Lotho Sackville-Baggins (still a useful way to provide a +1 Fight Value to any of your hobbits, including heroes), Baldo Tulpenny (still great at adding traps, which this list cannot get otherwise, and throwing stones with excellent accuracy), Hobbit Militia (a super cheap 4pt warrior with a good ranged attack and magic defense), Hobbit Archers (cheap archers with a good Shoot Value, but only an 18" range and S2), and Hobbit Shirriffs (cheap F3 infantry with hand-and-a-half weapons). And with that, you have your options: a very, very wide range of heroes, quirky and fun in their own ways, and a lot of cool stuff given out this edition. My simple soul is so happy, :)

The Shire: Strengths and Weaknesses

This list does numbers - with heroes that overwhelmingly cost 50pts or less, and warriors that cost only 4-5pts per man, you can easily run a 13-man warband for under 100pts multilpe times in this list (and with useful abilities on those heroes). Sure, they die in droves, but hitting 60, 80, or even potentially 100 models is not impossible for this army list.

The primary weakness of this list is, of course, its resilience. With the overwhelming majority of the force being D3, even with 3+ rerollable Fate Points, you're going to burn through wounds very quickly with this list. So just be aware: models are going to be lost, heavy shooting armies can really hurt your model count, so be prepared for it.

On the positive side, you have a lot of tricks and tools: between being able to deny power pieces the ability to activate (with Lobelia), Stand Fast denial to your enemy (also Lobelia), access to magic spells (with Gandalf), the ability to boost Fight Value in multiple ways (with Will and Lotho, giving you 5pt F5 S2 with +1 to wound models - crazy!), a 6" banner (from Rosie and Maggot for his dogs), access to free Heroic Combats (with Sam), resource regeneration (with Folco), and rerolls for dueling and wounding rolls in various ways and phases (with Farmer Cotton, Gaffer Gamgee, Baldo, Maggot for his dogs, and Tookish Hunters), not to mention Stand Fasts all over the place.

This list has shocking amounts of shooting, mostly because, while other armies got restrictions on the number of throwing weapons they can combine with ranged weapons, hobbit throwing stones are not counted as throwing weapons. So beyond Gandalf (who has fireworks) and Maggot's dogs, everyone else has a ranged attack. It's not great (8" range, S1, no moving and shooting to use it), but hey: it's an attack, and for the round before the lines clash, you have a high ceiling for danger.

Finally, there's a lot of flavor in this army. You've got your "Waistcoat Brigade" full of fun and interesting characters, all helping out to make for a wildly unique army list. Sure, it's a lot of keep straight (so you'll need mental fortitude for multiple games in one event day), but if you give it time, it's a thing of beauty.

The Shire: Strategies for the Tabletop

First things first, let's talk about army composition: in general, I'd recommend c. 25-33% bows: a lot of commentators will probably tell you to max out at 33%, but my experience is that the average board's terrain density has increased, so archers are useful, don't get me wrong (and the bump to Tookish Hunters under Paladin Took is good this edition), but their effectiveness is going to be heavily tied to the severity of terrain density on the board. So you can totally take a lot of these guys, but your ROI on them will vary.

I do recommend maxing out Hobbit Shirriffs if you can; there's only 12 of them (as the only character that can take shirriffs in this list is Will Whitfoot), so it's not a huge investment, but the extra punch and the F3 access is really nice.

With these in mind, your top choices for heroes are going to be Gandalf, Rosie Cotton, Farmer Maggot, and Lobelia Sackville-Baggins (crazy, right, for those of us who used Shire last edition!) in that order. Beyond this, Will Whitfoot is a strong choice because of Shirriff access (plus a Fight Value bump), and Lotho, Bilbo, Gaffer Gamgee, and Paladin Took are all good choices depending on how much you want to lean into archers, Fight Value bumps, the One Ring, and potential wounding rerolls.

Which means that, for those who are looking for our four hobbits from the Fellowship...yeah, like Sam is actually pretty good, and is great near Rosie and Frodo, but it's not like a huge requirement to take them. If you take Frodo you might as well run Folco, but in general, if you find you don't have points for the Fellowship heroes, you're not missing much.

Next, let's discuss battle line, because this is hard to do. To start, you can put archers on the wings, and it's not a bad idea in a vacuum, but in practice you may not get a lot of shots that way. I recommend interspersing them into your ranks, so that they can take useful positions to cover approaches toward your force.

Related to that, if you have shirriffs, you'll want them near the front, and kept together near Will Whitfoot for that Fight Value bump (or split them near Lotho if you have him). So plan on only having decent Fight Value in 1-2 places on the board: it will help with planning on where to fight and where to skirmish.

In general, since you don't have any spears (beyond Farmer Cotton), try not to let the enemy charge 5-6 of your men at a time: you want the enemy fully committed along your line (so you have higher chances of winning fights), or only a small number of your men of your choosing are engaged in close combat. You're likely to lose a lot of duels, and a lot of your men will fall if you lose a duel, so try not to get whittled down by the enemy as best you can.

On throwing stones: you're likely to get 1-3 wounds per game with these, so don't plan on them doing much, but hey: quantity has a quality all its own, and it's basically free on your men, so yay!

For speed and mobility let's note first that, since the shirriff captains (Holfoot Bracegirdle and Robin Smallburrow), you have no access to Heroic March, which means you're always running Farmer Maggot because his dogs move fast, and I'd recommend you always run Gandalf on his cart, both because you get the fireworks, which is good, but also because he moves 8", which is incredible for the Shire.

And on that point, plan your movement a few turns in advance. Since you only have a 4" move, breakthroughs aren't really possible (except inasmuch as a tide of troops can push thruogh), so if you know you need to get to a place, be planning several turns in advance how far you need to move, because your margin for error is very low.

Sample Lists

To start off, we'll take a look at a 500pt "Budget" list for The Shire, focusing on numbers with enough tools to carry the day:

The list begins with Gandalf: a useful inclusion because 1) we need someone who can fight he enemy reliably, 2) we need his supporting magic and fireworks, and 3) we need someone who can move more than 4" on a turn, so he's an auto-include, in my book, at every points level. We have to leave some tools (like Bilbo and Lotho) at home, but the list still sports a lot of what we love and need: a 6" banner that counts for VPs (Rosie), good volume of archery (11 bows, 2 fireworks per turn, and if needed another 31 throwing stones if push comes to very desperate shove), fast moving troops (the dogs), a decent frontline (12 Shirriffs) that can get to F4, two "stun lockers" for dealing with big heroes (Gandalf's Transfix and Lobelia). And with 5 Might spread across the battlefield, 4 warbands for deployment advantage, and almost a 1:10 ratio of models to points, this army is a proper horde army that still sports F4 (albeit situationally). Not bad!

At 650pts we can afford to bulk out some of the utility and focus on improving our ability to win fights and reliably wound models:

We've added Hamfast "Gaffer" Gamgee and Bilbo (with the Ring, Sting, and his Shirt of Bling!), giving us a way to reroll some failed wounds (including with ranged attacks), a Ringbearer, and most importantly, a Ringbearer who can be joined in combat and still apply the Ring bonus of halving the opponent's Fight Value. That should help us deal with big guys (which is important, since at 650 you're more likely to have more than one threat, and Lobelia and Gandalf can't hold things down forever) a bit more reliably.

And as we look at 800pts, we culminate with MORE SHENANIGANS: we're adding Farmer Cotton for rerolling 1s to duel (so keep him beyond his daughter Rosie's bubble and you have a semi-banner reroll, or you can overlap them for the chance to reroll 2 dueling dice so long as one of them is a 1) and Lotho Sackville-Baggins for bumping up the Fight Value on some of our Shirriffs to F5, and extending the length of the line where shirriffs can be F4 (both of which are great). Add in a few more bodies, and you've got an 80-strong army (can make it 81 if you want to drop 2 archers to take 3 more militia; I'm not sure if that's better, but you can):

This list presents a lot of challenges to an opponent: a very high body count, a lot of dice at range (potentially rerolling damage rolls if the target is near Gaffer's flowers), a lot of support abilities, and a surprisingly high Fight portion of the main line.

Conclusion

Is this as powerful as the previous edition? Probably not because having Aragorn as your army leader was really, really strong. Is it still good? Yes - and in some ways far better, as you don't need to pay Will Points for banners anymore (assuming you wanted to take Gandalf, and thus can't take Frodo of the Nine Fingers). So I'm still running it: it's hard, but not impossible, and there are a lot of neat tricks with the new edition. You should give them a try!

Watching the stars,

Centaur 

"We watch the skies for the great tides of evil or change that are sometimes marked there." ~ Firenze, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix