Quick Starter Armies for the Battle of Edoras Box Set!

Good morning gamers,

The new edition has been out for just over 6 months, and while we don't have all of the models that are in the Armies of the Lord of the Rings/Hobbit supplements, we do have enough to get started in the game. As I did with the Battle of Osgiliath box set, I'll be looking today at the very practical question of how to turn your collection of models from the Battle of Edoras starter set into an actual army on the tabletop at different price points.

Before we dive in, I'd like to reiterate something that I do from time to time on this blog: 

GW is not sponsoring us here at TMAT. 

I get no kickbacks from the way you spend money, I don't have affiliate links, and I'm not associated with a webstore or physical store of any kind. We here at TMAT are just a bunch of gamers trying to play with toy soldiers on a budget. As a result, the recommendations I provide here are the result of much thinking and planning - mostly for myself and maybe my musings and plannings will help you too! With that, let's start by looking at the Forces of Good from the starter set . . .

400-point Army of Edoras for $200: The Battle of Edoras Box Set

Our first stop is . . . well, just the contents of the box set. This is technically more than $200 USD in the GW store, but it's less than $200 if you buy it from an independent retailer - it also isn't going to be a great army, but it can be yours with just the purchase of the box set (which not only gives you the rulebook and a cheat sheet of the profiles for the units in the box set, but also gives you some terrain, some dice/measurement sticks (get a tape measure, of course), and a paper mat to put on your table . . . all good things).

The list writes itself since we only have two heroes and 24 Warriors of Rohan - all of which we can field at 400pts:

Haleth is a good beater hero, though a bit fragile. Hama is . . . fine as a shooting hero, but probably a bit overpriced. Still, they're yours and they will get you into the game with enough of an experience to help you figure out what you want - exactly what a starter box should do.

Now as we add some money to our price point, we can get an "actual" army . . .

The New Age Is Begun: the Road to Rivendell Army List

Good morning gamers,

We're delving into another army list today and this one I'm SUPER excited about. Why? Because the Road to Rivendell army list (our topic for today) is a list that I have been running for AGES. I've run them as:

• A battle company (the Wanderers in the Wild);
• A low-points level historical alliance between the Fellowship and Rivendell;
• A mid-points level historical alliance between the Fellowship, Rivendell, and Lothlorien;
• A mid-points level convenient alliance between the Fellowship, the Shire, and the Wanderers in the Wild (Barliman and Bill); and
• A high-points level convenient alliance between Rivendell (Glorfindel, Gildor, Arwen), the Fellowship (Aragorn, Hobbits), and the Wanderers in the Wild (Tom and Goldberry) . . .
• . . . oh, right, and I made up a custom legendary legion for them a few Christmases ago.

Yeah, I've played this list kind of a lot. When I saw that it was becoming its own thing, I was both very excited AND very pleased that this list got Gildor and Noldorin Exiles from the Legacies document and picked up Tom Bombadil and Goldberry from the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement! All told, this began as a low-points level, all-hero list and with the two newest adds, it can now reach high points levels too! Let's see what's new in 2025 with this army list . . .

The Road to Rivendell: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

Five of the heroes in this list have already been reviewed not once, but twice in the Fellowship and Breaking of the Fellowship articles - check those out for the full run-down. One other hero has been reviewed once, and the remaining three profiles are "brand new". Here's how the profiles have been adjusted without rehashing all that I've written there:

• The list is focused on the Fellowship coming to Bree, leaving Bree, and journeying to Rivendell - so naturally, we have Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin with very little gear available. Amazingly, Frodo has access to Sting and the Mithril Coat, which he certainly didn't have in the films (Weathertop would have gone VERY differently, I think, if there was Mithril between Frodo and the Morgul Blade - or was it a spiritual piercing?);
• You also have Aragorn in the list, which is good because without him, you couldn't kill much of anything with this list (one model excepted);
• From the Bree contingent, we have Barliman Butterbur, Harry Goatleaf, and Bill the Pony - all of which were either previously in the Fellowship army list or were part of the Wanderers in the Wild list and historical allies with the Fellowship;
• We have Arwen, who was both historical allies with the Fellowship in the Rivendell list and was later errata'd to be part of the Fellowship list if you had Aragorn in the list:
• New to the scene are Tom and Goldberry, who were Convenient Allies with everyone in the old edition - they were an expensive dynamic duo, but oh so much fun; and 
• If your tournament setting allows the Legacy documents, you have access to Gildor Inglorion and up to 12 Noldorin Exiles (because they are the only Warrior models in the list, if you have at least 10 of them, you can have 4 with bows and 4 with throwing weapons).

The original nine characters come in with all their available upgrades (bow for Aragorn, Sting and Mithril Coat for Frodo) at a tidy 500 points, but Tom and Goldberry allow you to hit 700 points and Gildor and Company can hit 222 (very satisfying) with a banner, 3 Wood Elf spears, 4 throwing daggers, and 4 Elf bows. 

The New Age Is Begun: The Breaking of the Fellowship Army List

Good morning gamers,

We're back in our in-depth reviews of the new army lists for MESBG and today we're looking at "the other Fellowship list" (really it's one of four, but we'll get to the others soon): the Breaking of the Fellowship. This list has kept a lot of what the old Legendary Legion had, but it's been changed in a few profound ways to give those of us who enjoyed using it something new to tinker with.

I covered the Breaking of the Fellowship Legendary Legion in our Stuff of Legends series back in April 2021 and I gotta say, there are both not a lot of changes to this list and some very BIG changes to this list. Let's dig into what's new in 2025 . . .

The Breaking of the Fellowship: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

In the previous edition, we had eight profiles - the Fellowship members who were alive when the fighting at Amon Hen started. For the most part, the wargear they had in the films was accurately conveyed in the wargear options for the models (Aragorn's bow was at the boats with Boromir's shield, but Boromir got his shield and Aragorn's bow was noticably absent). I mentioned this to GW several times and in this edition of the game, Aragorn has his bow. Yes, I am taking credit for that change (though hopefully not sole credit for it - surely someone else was thinking the same thing I was).

Unexpected Military Formations: Epic Movie Moments, Revisited

Good morning gamers,

Back in 2021, I ran a four-part series where I took four classic fighting scenes from the Lord of the Rings/Hobbit films (I added a fifth one in 2022) and looked at how you might bring that scene to life on the tabletop with MESBG. The first of those posts looked at an Uruk-Hai pike block formation (what I've since called a "loose phalanx") and how/why you might best use your pikes in games of MESBG.

The army list (Legendary Legion, really) that was most inclined to use that strategy was the Assault Upon Helm's Deep list - and with the various changes that I think have made that army list worse in this edition, I figured it would be good to review different formations you can run in order to get the most out of the classic Uruk-Hai assault force. For context, we'll be using the following 600-point force:

We'll begin with the most basic of the formation elements: the loose phalanx.

Formation #1: The Loose Phalanx

Like we said in the article back in 2021, the value of this formation is that we're spreading out our formation to provide a larger frontage and we're going to have models in the front-rank this time that either have 2 Attacks base (Berserkers) or can have 2 Attacks if they defend by shielding (Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields). There's a new cause for concern in this set-up, however: Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields can now benefit from Shieldwall. While there was definitely a case before for alternating shield-Berserker-shield-Berseker-etc., you'll now want to have two distinct phalanxes: one with Berserkers and one with Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields:

two six-file phalanxes, banner/3 captains nearby

I have intentionally made three choices with the disposition of these phalanxes: first, as mentioned above, I've created one beater phalanx with six Uruk-Hai Berserkers in it, backed by six pikes. This formation will have no problem charging Terror-causing units but is only D5, so you'll want to be careful with its engagement. Whatever Berserker isn't supported in each file will have 2 Attacks at F5 (pretty good) and the supported Berserker can two-hand with 2 pikes backing him up. This seems like a solid fighting force to me and could certainly benefit from the banner, but I don't think it needs it.

The New Age Is Begun: The Fellowship Army List

Good morning gamers,

In case you're new here, the TMAT team loves to do list-building. Back in October 2018, I embarked on a "first impressions" series to evaluate the factions from the revamped Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game (aka, the previous edition - and hereafter MESBG). In July 2019, Rythbyrt began his Armies of Middle-Earth series, walking through many of the factions in MESBG. In January 2020, I started my "Bare Necessities" series, which walked through how to build balanced lists that optimized for possible VP scoring with each faction in the game. In 2021, I started our "Stuff of Legends" series, where we walked through most of the Legendary Legions that were released in the various sourcebooks (we're getting the last few out this year, despite a new edition eclipsing our timeline).

So naturally, when the new edition of MESBG dropped last December, I started planning out the next series of list-building reviews by "faction" (or more appropriately, "army list") and so begins a new series specific to the 2024 revamp of MESBG. I've entitled it "The New Age Is Begun," which comes from a line in the Return of the King, where Aragorn is talking with Gandalf about rebuilding Middle-Earth after the defeat of Sauron. While overlooking the realm of Gondor, Gandalf says,

This is your realm, and the heart of the greater realm that shall be. The Third Age of the world is ended, and the new age is begun; and it is your task to order its beginning and to preserve what may be preserved. For though much has been saved, much must now pass away . . .

The new edition does feel like the older edition, but it also feels new (and some things have been lost), so the quote above seemed to be a fair summation of where we're at. In this series, I'll be walking through the various army lists that are now available to us (roping in my fellow admins to weigh in on their favorites) and talking not only about how the list works, but also how it's changed from the previous edition of MESBG. We start off where it all began for me: with the Fellowship of the Ring.

I covered the Fellowship of the Ring previously in a tandem Bare Necessities post with Thorin's Company back in April 2020 and Rythbyrt covered them in the Armies of Middle-Earth series WAY back in July 2019 (basically when he started the series). Despite their ages, both articles aged well with very little changes that affected them since their writing (which is also a bit of an indictment, but whatever - we're in a new age right now, remember?). I got my start with the Fellowship back when I started playing SBG in September 2010, so these guys have always been near and dear to me. Let's see what they're up to and how the list has changed . . .