The New Age Is Begun: the Army of Gothmog Army List

Good morning gamers,

This February will be "Mordor Month" and we're kicking off our review of four Mordor army lists by looking at the Army of Gothmog. This was one of two Mordor-oriented Legendary Legions that hit the meta when it came out . . . and it really struggled to go anywhere because you could run basically everything in it (without the "big man" you were required to take) in the generic Mordor list last edition. In this current game, this list might suffer from a similar fate with the appearance of the Army of the Great Eye army list from the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement, but time will tell if this old list still has some life in it. Let's see what it does and why you would want to run it over other Mordor lists.

The Army of Gothmog: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

The list of models you can take in this list is not that different from last edition - you still have the quad-fecta of Gothmog, Guritz, Goroth, and Zagdush (if you're playing with Legacies) for your named heroes, "Gothmog's Enforcer" for your named-without-a-name hero option, and Morannon Orc Captains, Mordor Orc Shamans, and siege veterans for the siege weapons as your generic heroes. What we've lost in this edition are the Orc Taskmasters and Orc Drummers that you could take. For warriors, we have Morannon Orcs and Mordor Trolls . . . and if that seems like a scant list, that's just because it is - not having Mordor Orcs actually punishes this list a bit from how I was running it last edition, since the Orc Warriors provided you with the option for cheaper bowmen or spear supports for your Morannon Orc frontline. Still, Morannons are good and Mordor Trolls got a lot better, so this list is . . . well, it was never in a great place, but it's in an okay place now.

Army List Bonuses

Most of the bonuses you get in this list are the same as in the Legendary Legion of yore: Gothmog's Age of Men is Over rule is increased to 12" from 3" (which gives you Hatred (Man) - a rule that pairs nicely with the +1 Fight Value that most of your units get) and his Time of the Orc Has Come rule extends battlefield wide instead of 12" around him. Additionally, friendly heroes can benefit from Gothmog's Stand Fast (which is still a 6" Stand Fast). All three of these boosts existed in the last edition.

The new army list adds a rule that allows your Orcs to reroll 1s To Wound when fighting Trapped models. This rule, like all of the other ones, means that your Trolls don't get any help (and boy would rerolling 1s with those guys be useful) - and on the turn you use The Time of the Orc Has Come, you won't need this rule. However, the rest of the time, you're basically getting the old Feint special rule against trapped models . . . and while that doesn't sound great, anything that turns a certain-failure against a trapped model into a potential death, that's a good thing.

Profile Adjustments

There have been some changes to every profile - and boy do some of them not feel good at first blush:

• We are required in the list to take Gothmog as a Hero of Legend. Gothmog's combat stats have dropped this edition, but so has his base cost - and because he's not as great in combat, I think the Warg is a bit of a trap. Yes, I know he's clocking in at about the same cost as Bride-Hera and without a mount, I think he struggles from many of the same problems - but he's also not investing in combat stats the way Hera is, so the fact that he's not incentivized to be leading from the front is fine. Equipped with a shield so he gets D7 and the ability to defend by shielding if attacked with 3 Might/Heroic Defense, I think he's a perfectly serviceable Hero of Legend/General.
• For Fortitude heroes, we have Morannon Orc Captains as our generic choice - these guys are good for their cost and have March. If equipped with a shield, these guys are great tanks into enemy heroes (D7 with 4 dueling dice when they defend by shielding) and with F5/S5 against men, they're pretty decent threats against warriors who happen to be men (and there are a lot of those running around).
• We also have Guritz as our named March hero with added tactical boosts in a few scenarios. He fell to being a 2-Might hero as well this edition, which is probably for the best (it's provided some breathing room for the other Morannon heroes). He's still a decent hero for his cost - and if you plan to run siege weapons, it's probably good to include him before a Morannon Orc Captain just so you can arrive near your pre-deployed siege weapons more easily.
• Gothmog's Enforcer is still as good as he was - which for some players (like me), that means he's still not worth taking. He is the only non-Legacy Morannon Fortitude hero who does NOT go up to F5 when fighting men. With a cap of F4, 1 Might point, and his only special rule being the ability to spend his 3 Will points to allow Gothmog to declare Heroic Moves/Marches without his own Might points (admittedly, that could be quite nice in the early game or when you lose priority and have to declare a Move first - but I've always opted for Morannon Orc Captains for 5pts more), I think there's a lot working against this guy.
• 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 since both are now 2 Might heroes and neither get +1 Fight Value against Men). If you're allowed to take Legacy profiles, consider taking one of these guys if you really want a beater hero - though I will note that Goroth is roughly the same cost as a Mordor Troll and with the profile adjustments to those guys, I don't know that Goroth is as good of a choice anymore. 
• You can get Shamans in this list, which is great for making sure your Courage 8+ Morannon Orcs (and their Courage 7+ Orc hero handlers) charge into Terror walls - though it will do nothing to help your Courage 6+ Mordor Trolls.
• You get access to both siege weapons in this list - they're super fun and both are useful in their own way. The War Catapult is still my favorite - its cost is high, but that's because you're buying a 90-point Mordor Troll with it that you don't have to keep near the siege weapon if you don't want to. Yes, he helps it shoot better - and sometimes you'll need that - but at other times, you can advance these guys up and threaten your opponent with them. The Siege Bow is better this edition than it was last edition (4+ shoot value on its crew now) and is much cheaper - but it also fires directly, so you have to get your firing lanes set up more intentionally and you need to not cut off said firing lanes with your advancing troops. Also . . . the Troll is sold separately.
• For Warriors, your Mordor heroes have access to only two profiles: Morannon Orcs and Mordor Trolls. Morannons went up by 1pt to 8-10pts each (33pts with a banner) but are now situationally F4 (vs. men). They still give you S4 with access to spears in an era where being S4 matters more than ever before - and now that they can be F4 against a lot of factions that got access to F4 on their standard troops, I think they're still very reliable troops (though against Dwarves, Uruk-Hai, Gundabad Orcs, and Elves, you're going to feel like you overpaid on these guys . . . because you did). Still, they're efficient fighting machines and they're still some of the cheapest S4/D6 units in the game.
• Mordor Trolls went DOWN in cost 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! The drum got cheaper and different-maybe-better and I would always field one. Whether you field any Trolls other than the obligatory Drummer Troll is very much determined, I think, by whether you're taking siege weapons (these guys are great for making sure Gothmog actually gets Heroic Strike, since most heroes who have Strike will need it against F7 monsters).

Is there enough in this list to make it better than other Mordor lists (like the Army of the Great Eye - more on them later this month - and the Legions of Mordor)? I don't know - but there are some good things (and some losses) in this army list. Let's look at what those are now.

The Army of Gothmog: Strengths and Weaknesses

The Army of Gothmog can't horde out quite as well as they could in the last edition, but with Gothmog dropping in price and his Warg being a lot less useful, you can still get quite a few bodies in your army. Gothmog, a drummer Troll, and 17 guys with shields or shields/spears (one with banner) comes in at 400pts - and additional Captains/warriors will come in around 150pts/warband. 30+ models at 550pts and ~40-45 models at 700pts isn't bad - especially when everyone is D6+. You can always forego the Troll if you want to, but I feel like having "just a pile of Orcs" is a recipe for disaster (I've run that list a few times and it works a lot better when you're not paying "the Gothmog tax" and you're running the Legions of Mordor list instead).

On the flip side, this is one of the most profile-restricted lists in the game - and with that comes limits on its ability to threaten opponents with archery and mobility. True, free Heroic Marches with a War Drum are good for mobility (the reach of those things is huge) - but not having Warg Riders in the list (or any mounted units besides Gothmog) and not having archers in the list (even bad ones, like Orc Warriors) is an undercut to your list. Yes, you can sort of make up for not having archers by taking siege weapons (siege bows if you're on a budget, war catapults if you can afford two of them), but speed isn't your friend besides the 9" movement you can make (and reaching out and threatening enemies at a distance is really limited). You also lose a lot of the specialist melee warrior profiles - to say nothing of the Ringwraiths or Great Beasts that should be in this list - but there are probably only a few of these profiles that you'd be looking to add (Black Numenoreans are more expensive now, but still provide native F4/D6 with good Courage plus Terror).

That being said, your heroes are good for their cost. While I may gripe about Goroth and the Enforcer (golly that guy needs a name - I'm going to call him Steve for the rest of the article), the other heroes are good bargains. For 60pts or less, you get the option for increased reliability in maelstrom with Guritz, D7 "rock hero" stuff with the Morannon Orc Captain, competent combat potential from Zagdush, and courage passing from the Orc Shaman. Gothmog is about twice as expensive as these other guys, but as a sit-in-the-third-rank Hero of Legend for 125pts (with shield), he's D7 with 3 Wounds (and access to Heroic Defense), no reason to be in danger, and helps those around him deal extra pain on at least one round of the game. Also, if you want to manage his fights, he can get free Heroic Combats if there's an enemy hero that's trying to cut through your guys on a 2+, he can get free Heroic Strikes on a 2+ if one of your opponent's heroes is fighting one of your F7 Trolls, and he can declare Heroic Defense if he's in trouble (naturally or on a 2+ if someone else is trying to not die to a Troll). All in all, the group is perfectly functional, albeit not flashy.

And that's about all I have to say about it - oh sure, I could probably find more things to critique, but when it comes down to it, this list is only your best option if you want to run a lot of guys with cheap bodies and don't want much variety in what they are (oh, and if you really want siege weapons, since all of the other lists with them have other more compelling options for the same points). Let's look at what your strategies are with this list!

The Army of Gothmog: Strategies for the Tabletop

My first recommendation for this list actually begins in the list building phase: bring siege weapons when you get above 600pts. Yes, you could just pile on the Orcs - but Morannon Orcs are very good against Men and good-not-great against everything else. Now the Man keyword happens to be a very common one (you'll find them in almost every list - competitive or otherwise), but they won't help you against the likes of Rivendell, the Shire, Khazad-Dum, or Ugluk's Scouts - all of which are incredibly competitive lists. Against armies of Elves, Dwarves, and Uruk-Hai, it helps to have something that can punch holes in their lines to get you some quick kills so you can double-up with your Orcs in some fights. Speaking of which . . .

Be sure to double-up your Orcs so you get 2:1 odds against as many models as possible. Not only does going 2:1 give you a better than 50% chance of winning the fight (the odds might swing if there's a banner helping your opponent and he has the higher Fight Value), but doubling up might mean that you've trapped your opponent, which doubles your odds of wound AND triggers your reroll-1s special rule (which is gravy on top). If your opponent has a shieldwall and you don't feel good about cracking through it, be sure to use your shield-carrying Morannons to charge two files and then wrap-and-trap guys on the ends so you'll definitely lose some fights, but also put yourself in a good position to win others. If you can keep your numbers high before you engage, you have a good chance of cracking through better shieldwalls by giving your troops better matchups than your opponent gets for his.

Be conservative with Gothmog, but don't hide him in the back unless that's the best way to secure VPs. You don't want Gothmog leading any charges, but to get the most out of Master of Battle (2+) and Dominant (3), he needs to be where the game is being played. He's decent in combat but not stellar, so make sure he's hacking through warriors a few at a time - and use him to make sure your army is moving to where it needs to be to win, not necessarily where he can do the most damage. If you brought siege weapons and you're playing a scenario that doesn't require you to go anywhere . . . I mean, hide him in the back - but otherwise, make sure he's near/slightly-in the action!

Finally, take a drummer Troll. This should go without saying, but the Trolls in this list got cheaper, harder to kill, and they matter more on objectives now. They've always been good at tarpitting most enemy beater heroes and while they can be locked down by magic pretty easily, magic itself got harder to cast (and resist) in this version of the game. The drum is a valuable piece of gear for 15pts early in the game and the Troll chassis is about as tough as they come. At any points level, I'd take this guy - definitely take thim.

Okay, let's look at some lists!

Sample Lists

Our first list is a 500pt list that features Gothmog, a Morannon Orc Captain, and a drummer Troll. It's also got a banner and 22 total models - you could get to 25 models if you passed on the banner and dropped some shields:

Scaling up to 650pts, we are just adding two siege bows and a few warriors - you could add just a War Catapult, but I wanted the extra bodies:

At 800pts, we're upgrading our siege bows to one War Catapult, locks us in at only 34 models, but also gives us two Trolls and some potentially game-altering shooting:

I tried to get two Catapults into the list, but without Mordor Orcs to buff out your numbers, you might be limited to one at 800pts . . . which begs the question if 3 siege bows would be better, but I'll let someone else answer that question.

Conclusion

This isn't my favorite army list (it has never been), but it's pretty interesting at low points levels and gives you a reason to run the "fun toys" at higher ones. If you have found success with this list (especially if it involves Steve!), let us know in the comments below! Our next post takes us to the tower of Cirith Ungol, where we get yet another very restricted Mordor list - but one that has a lot of teeth in it (and some nice upgraded profiles that can prove to be a trap). Find out what's to love about this list next time, and until then, happy hobbying!