The New Age Is Begun: the Defenders of the Pelennor Army List

Good morning gamers,

This month is "Pelennor month" and we've covered the Fiefdoms (lots of Gondor units with special take-this-hero-to-get-these-warriors rules), the Grief of Eomer (a mix of Gondor and Rohan units, led by two smashy heroes), and the Return of the King (all of the ghosts with the Three Hunters thrown in). Today, we're taking all of those units - plus a bunch of others who show up in the Atop the Walls list - and putting them into one monster list! In trade for this greatly expanded roster, we're going to have a single special rule . . . but don't let that knowledge cramp your style. The list is very strong and gives veteran players a lot of options for list building. Let's see what we have to work with today!

The Defenders of the Pelennor: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

There are a ton of profiles in this list - the full list is provided in the profile adjustment section below. Suffice it to say that if you're looking for someone from Minas Tirith, the Fiefdoms, Rohan, or the Rangers who was fighting in the War of the Ring, chances are good that you'll find them in this list.

Army List Bonuses

This list has some army building restrictions - none of which are unique to this list. Your Rohan Warriors have to be led by Rohan Heroes, your Gondor Warriors need to be led by Gondor Heroes, and your Dunharrow Warriors have to be led by a Dunharrow Hero or one of the Three Hunters. The omission in this list is that the Rangers don't have the ability to lead anyone - they're included because of their appearance in the Return of the King book, where they led Clansmen of Lamedon (and other Fiefdoms militia from the coast), so it seems to me that they should be able to lead other units (maybe if there are no Dunharrow units in your list to be book-accurate?).

Beyond this, there's only one rule: each Hero in your army gets to declare a free Heroic Combat once per game. This is a really great rule since a) it's free, so Grima can't make it cost extra Might, b) it affects all heroes regardless of their affiliations, and c) it's easy to keep track of for both you and your opponent. On its face, this is weaker than the Riders of Theoden army list (where you get a once-per-game Heroic Combat on a single turn if Theoden is still alive, but also get +1 Strength on the Charge) and probably weaker than the Return of the King (where you get Anduril for free and F4 on some of your Warriors), but overall, it helps this list a lot in that you can take the list in any direction and you won't be fighting against the army list bonus.

Profile Adjustments

We have a LOT of profiles in this list, but most of them have been covered already by other Pelennor lists, namely the Return of the King, Atop the Walls, the Fiefdoms, and the Riders of Theoden. Let's look at what each faction is bringing you at a high level:

• For the Dunharrow side of the house, you have access to Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, the King of the Dead, and Heralds of the Dead who can lead Warriors of the Dead and Riders of the Dead. This list differs from what you get in the Return of the King list in that you won't get Anduril for free or F4 Warriors of the Dead near Aragorn, but you will get free Heroic Combats once per game on each of these heroes and access to cheaper heroes/warriors from the other factions (specifically the Gondor side of the house for infantry and the Rohan side of the house for cavalry). The warriors in this list are certainly your hardiest front-line infantry troops - and if they have F4 spearmen to back them up, they can cause a LOT of problems for your opponent.
• For the Rangers, we have Elladan, Elrohir, Halbarad, and Rangers of the North. These heroes won't be bringing traditional warbands of models, but they can push your Might points up. Personally, I think the biggest draw of any of these characters is Halbarad, as he's a pretty cheap 6" banner for infantry (but I don't know if that's worth paying 110pts without warriors in tow).
• The Gondor side of the house includes both Minas Tirith units (Hurin the Tall, Irolas, Ingold, Beregond, Knights of the White Tower, and Captains of Minas Tirith - some of these guys are pretty good), Fiefdom units (Imrahil, Forlong, Angbor, Duinhir, and Captains of Dol Amroth - Angbor and Duinhir are downgraded to Heroes of Fortitude in this list), and Gandalf with Pippin (you'd never run Pippin off of Shadowfax, I think). Unlike the Fiefdoms army list, any Gondor Warrior model (Minas Tirith has Warriors of Minas Tirith, Knights of Minas Tirith, and Citadel Guard for Irolas only, while the Fiefdoms has the full complement of Knights of Dol Amroth, Men-at-arms of Dol Amroth, Clansmen of Lamedon, Axemen of Lossarnach, and Blackroot Vale Archers) can be led by any Gondor hero (Minas Tirith or Fiefdoms) or by Gandalf. You also have access to Trebuchets and Bolt Throwers if you want some extra shooting power - personally, I don't think you'll have the points for leaning into these! I think the strongest choices in this list are Citadel Guard or Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears to back up either Warriors of Minas Tirith (D6 + shieldwall) or Warriors of the Dead. I come down hard on Hurin in most of the lists that he's in - this is probably his most playable list, but you need to ALSO have Imrahil or Forlong in the list to be your General (so . . . Hurin and Imrahil most likely).
• Finally, on the Rohan side of the house, we have all of the heroes from the Riders of Theoden (Theoden, Eomer, Eowyn with Merry, Deorwine, Elfhelm, Gamling, and Captains of Rohan) with Rohan Royal Guards and Riders of Rohan. The profile list is pretty lean here, but they're all mounted, they're all pretty affordable (Eomer nears 150pts when maxed out, the Captains can be fielded at 70pts) and the cavalry are your only skirmish cavalry options - and come in around the same cost of Knights of Minas Tirith and come in FAR below the cost of Knights of Dol Amroth or Riders of the Dead. The big consideration for any Rohan contingent in this list is that if you field Riders of Rohan or Rohan Royal Guards, you want to have a Rohan hero as your General - and that probably means you're taking Theoden (if you also have Aragorn, Gandalf, or Imrahil) or Eomer (if you have Forlong, Legolas, Gimli, Hurin, or the King of the Dead) . . . and you're not taking Hurin.

To me, it seems like there are several ways you can take the list - and I've made some recommendations for a friend who took this list to a doubles event and had some pretty good success with it! Let's probe your options as we examine the strengths and weaknesses in this list.

The Defenders of the Pelennor: Strengths and Weaknesses

I think it's fair to say that this list has a lot of units that can fill nearly any role you want. If you want powerful mounted heroes, this list has you covered. If you want heavy infantry, light infantry, solid archers, lancer cavalry, or skirmish cavalry, this army has multiple options. If you want lots of Might with a hero-heavy list, you can do that. If you want cheap-as-possible heroes and lots of bodies, this list has that too. If you want to run thematic lists that you aren't able to field in other lists (all-Dunharrow, mixed Fiefdoms, Rohan cavalry spam, or "Ranger-danger" spam), you can do that with this list! Part of what aids in this is that there are no required heroes and the only constraints are having heroes of one faction to lead warriors of the similar faction (a few exceptions exist for the Hunters and probably should exist for the Dunedain/Sons of Elrond).

On the flip side . . . this list has an overwhelming number of options. Yes, you can have incredible killing power with Aragorn, Eomer, Imrahil, and Gandalf - but you will never have them all in the same list. You can field a lot of warriors by spamming out Fortitude heroes - but trying to get all of the warrior units you want will probably be difficult if not impossible. There are siege weapons in this list - but good luck fitting them in! Elladan and Elrohir are amazing, but do you have 160pts for two heroes who can't lead warriors? This isn't really a weakness, but you should be prepared for some analysis paralysis as you're experimenting with what you like about it.

Back to the good things: this list has advantages over all of the component army lists (which might be why the component lists are not as commonly seen at events). The Return of the King list (that we looked at last week) has some clear advantages over this list - Anduril is free, you have F4 Warriors of the Dead, and the King of the Dead can "scream" to make people flee. Anduril will cost you 40pts in this list, but you don't have to take the King of the Dead in this list - you can instead just take Irolas for 65pts, which saves you 35pts. To make the comparison clear, the 16-model 500-point Return of the King list we looked at last time featured Aragorn with Anduril/Elven Cloak, the King of the Dead, and 14 Warriors of the Dead (12 shields, 1 shield/spear, 1 banner). In this list, you can get Aragorn with Anduril/Elven Cloak, Irolas, 10 Warriors of the Dead with shields, 3 Citadel Guards with spears, 2 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears, and 1 Warrior of Minas Tirith with banner - that's 18 models at 500pts and you could opt to lose a few points to turn the Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields/spears into more Citadel Guard (who near Irolas will get +1 To Wound). All of those Minas Tirith spearmen are F4, so we're replicating what we had before but with a few extra models. The benefit of the savings will only get more stark as the points level goes up (or will allow us to take cavalry - something we can't really do in the Return of the King list).

I could go over the benefits that having heavy infantry and lancer cavalry over all-Rohan-cavalry in a Riders of Theoden list is (and the benefits of each hero in your army - Rohan or otherwise - being able to cry Death! on whatever turn seems best for them) or how the addition of Warriors of Minas Tirith and Rohan Cavalry makes the Fiefdoms better (we saw that in the Grief of Eomer - but we have a LOT more hero choice in this list than we did in that one), but I think the point has already been made: this list gives you options that the component lists don't have. Yes, they have extra rules, but most of those are mitigated by the generally useful special rule that this list has.

One other clear weakness that the list has is that unlike a lot of the other omnibus lists (the Battle of Five Armies, the Army of the Great Eye, and the Legions of Mordor specifically), this list has an absence of monster models. Monsters aren't strictly necessary to play MESBG well - but it's pretty clear that they open up other options that a list like this wouldn't mind having. Yes, Gwaihir has been toned down a bit by a rightly-deserved price jump - and yes, Fell Beast Ringwraiths aren't quite as good as they were last edition with the lack of customizability of their riders - but having the option for Hurl on an intelligent monster, being able to Barge out of combat with someone boring to get into a fight with someone interesting, or Rending a high-Defense, normal-Strength hero will always have benefits. Additionally, monsters have an uncanny way of draining enemy resources (especially Might) because of the fear that the monster will mess them up. When you get free Heroic Combats, it's nice to know that your opponent might want to burn through their own resources faster.

That said, while this list doesn't have monsters in it, there are a LOT of hard-hitting or generally useful heroes. You have Gandalf the White on Shadowfax with Pippin, Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth, Eomer, and Eowyn with Merry as your heavy-hitting cavalry heroes, there are a TON of mid-tier mounted heroes from the Rohan side of the house (and Hurin . . . if you remember that he's a thing), and a fantastic array of infantry heroes from the non-Rohan sides of the house (my favorites are Angbor, Beregond, Captains of Minas Tirith, Halbarad, Irolas, the oft-discussed Legolas, and optionally Gimli). This covers most of the heroes in the list - and while I don't know if going hero-heavy is the best idea with this list, you certainly have a lot of heroes to choose from so that you can mix/match combos throughout a season to keep things interesting.

Okay, let's talk strategies . . .

The Defenders of the Pelennor: Strategies for the Tabletop

This is probably the most important question you want to ask during the list building stage: who are the most efficient heroes to get the warriors I want in the list? If you plan to run Dunharrow, you probably want Legolas (Valour, 105-110pts with armor and maybe Elven Cloak) or possibly Aragorn (160-205pts). If you plan to run Gondor (to back up Dunharrow or to form your entire infantry block), you probably want a Captain of Minas Tirith, Irolas, or Angbor (Fortitude, 60-70pts - Irolas doesn't have March but the other two do) to be with your troops and possibly Imrahil or Gandalf (Legend, 170-250pts) if you want a heavy-hitter (as the Fortitude heroes aren't filling that role). If you plan to run Rohan, your hero depends very much on who else you're taking, but as was mentioned above, you can probably get away with just Theoden or Eomer (Legend, 110pts or Valour, 145pts), though I could see the argument for Elfhelm (Fortitude, 60-80pts - he can be taken on foot?) as a solo-drop or as part of a Fortitude-only force as your General (with Riders of Rohan). I think the Minas Tirith contingent is a must-have somewhere in your list and having a mix of all three is certainly a strong option if you have the points for it. The Ranger contingent seems to be something you can add-to-taste - Halbarad's 6" banner for 110pts is a bit pricey, but also grants Fearless to models within 6". Rangers of the North are cheap Might points, but can't be used in this list as independent hero warbands to gain deployment knowledge over your opponent.

I'd settle early on in your list building on what kind of battle line you want. Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields are only 9pts/model and with D6 and Shieldwall, they're very efficient for their cost (and as I've written about recently, you can field 4 shields and 5 shields/spears with a Captain of Minas Tirith who also has shieldwall for a very nice 2x5 brick of heavily armored beef for 146pts). Like in the Grief of Eomer list, we do have some competition for the battle line: Warriors of the Dead are more expensive (15pts with a shield), but give us D8 all the time (no dependency on other units like Shieldwall does) and have Terror/better expected wounding potential. As has already been discussed, a Gondor hero can bring 9-10pt spearmen (which include Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears, Citadel Guard with spears if you brought Irolas, Axemen of Lossarnach, or Blackroot Vale Archers with spears - the Blackroot Vale Archers are the only models that aren't lending F4 to the Warriors of the Dead) to back up these Terror monstrocities - at 24-25pts/file, that's not that bad for an elite battle line. Rohan isn't contributing to this except maybe with Elfhelm, but they have a different job.

I'd also consider how many cavalry models you want. I think having some cavalry is a good idea - and if you're not able to afford a good Rohan hero, Knights of Minas Tirith are perfectly serviceable (and you probably have a Minas Tirith hero in your army anyway). Riders of Rohan and Rohan Royal Guards are a little less punchy than normal in this list, not only because they aren't S4 on the charge, but also because the Riders of Rohan will count towards your bow limit in this list (not usually a problem if you're running a melee-only battle line - but could be a problem if some of those spearmen are Blackroot Vale Archers). Even if you have Heroic March in your list (from Aragorn, Captains of Dol Amroth/Minas Tirith, and I guess technically the King of the Dead or Angbor), you probably want some units that are faster than 9" infantry and for that, your best bet is cavalry. I wouldn't bother with a Captain of Rohan to lead a cheap contingent - if you want Rohan cavalry, pay for the hero.

Finally, I'd recommend that you think more about how your warriors interact than how your heroes interact. If you're interested in running someone like Deorwine with Theoden, there are better lists for that (the Kingdom of Rohan and the Riders of Theoden both give better bonuses that they can utilize) - you won't have the points to spend on two Rohan killing heroes without seriously undercutting your other strategies. Similarly, having Aragorn and Legolas would be awesome in this list (heck, Legolas and Gimli!) but with 15pt warriors in their warbands, that's going to undercut the rest of your army even more than Theoden and Deorwine will! Instead, the biggest advantage of taking this list is that you can grab one (maybe two) heroes from each faction to bring warriors (and capabilities) to the overall army that you can't get from bringing any of the other ones. Gondor spearmen backing up Warriors of the Dead and flanked by Rohan cavalry seems like a very solid anchor - and you can't run that in any other list.

So, with all this in mind, let's look into some lists, shall we?

Sample Lists

I'm going to depart from my usual escalation build format and just showcase four lists that you can run at various points levels that I think show off the diversity that's available in this list. To start with, we're looking at a 500pt list that is basically just a solid shieldwall - it sports Legolas, Angbor, and a host of heavily-armored dudes:

Would this list be better with Gimli instead of Legolas and an extra guy? Maybe. Would this list be better with some Fiefdoms supporting models (Blackroot Vale Archers with spears and Axemen of Lossarnach) to get an extra guy? Possibly yes. Whether you field 24 or 25 guys, I think this list presents a lot of problems for low-Courage armies and has some interesting options against horde armies since you can use the Warriors of Minas Tirith to extend your battle line and shield instead of supporting the Warriors of the Dead. I brought Angbor for March, but could have saved 5pts by taking a Captain of Minas Tirith instead - it's your choice.

Next, we've got a three-ring-circus 650-point list that features Eomer as our General (with a handful of Riders), Legolas with more Warriors of the Dead, and Irolas with some +1 To Wound Citadel Guard and some Blackroot Vale Archers. This list doesn't have March for the infantry, but you could get that with a Captain and Warriors of Minas Tirith and land right on 650pts. The numbers are a little low at 28, but we've got a lot of options:

At 700pts, we could run a book-collides-with-film version of Aragorn getting off the Corsair boats with Aragorn, Angbor, and Halbarad - you get the best banner in the list, three decent-to-good combat heroes, 28 total models, and . . . admittedly, not a lot of shooting. If you wanted to up the competitiveness of this list, you could swap Aragorn and Angbor for Imrahil and Legolas (heck, you could also swap out Halbarad and the Ranger for a March Captain and a few more guys, including a banner in someone's warband):

Finally, this list can be run as a Fortitude-only list, which means you can spam out the heroes you want with the warriors you like. We have Elfhelm as the General and, unfortunately, no Warriors of the Dead because I don't like the Heralds. This list hits :

Conclusion

And look, another post without Hurin in it. :( I will say that you definitely COULD run Hurin if you wanted to, but as is noted above, you'd need to do that with Imrahil or Forlong . . . so maybe you could take Imrahil and Hurin over Imrahil and Legolas (or Aragorn and Angbor) in the 700pt list? Hey, getting the value out of Hurin's rules is hard, what can I say?

If you've played with this list, let us know what's working for you! There's a lot of room to work in the list and each of the contingents brings something valuable to the table. Next month, we're going back to Rohan for the last truncheon of Rohan lists (man, there are a lot of those) and we're leading off with a list that typifies my first foray into Rohan: the Fields of Celebrant. This list doesn't get a lot of publicity because it's a Legacy-only list and it lacks most of the named heroes from Rohan and Minas Tirith that we like. Still, it has some interesting and unique tricks up its sleeves - and we need to have a talk with Eorl about all these people claiming to be his sons. Find out the fun that you can have with an iconic Rohan/Minas Tirith list next time - and until then, happy hobbying!