The New Age Is Begun: the Barad-Dur army list

Good morning gamers,

We recently had our annual THRO tournament here at TMAT and we had three guys who participated in five game days for Star Wars Legion (a four-part tournament and a single-day three-game Recon event) and one intro-to-Bolt-Action game day who joined us for their first Middle-Earth event. One of them expressed an interest in running Sauron . . . and I was like, "Well, we know the three scenarios you're going to play and he's not a bad take." So that got me thinking faster than normal about how the Barad-Dur list has changed in this edition - and as a result of much thinking, here's an article. :) Also, there's only one Legacy profiles to examine, so any discussion of that profile is marked in red, per the usual for this series.

Barad-Dur: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

The profile selection is more or less what it was before - we still get access to Sauron, the Witch-King, and generic Ringwraiths for our spirit contingent, we still get access to Troll Chieftains and Mordor Trolls (both of which saw glow-ups to help them out this edition) for our supporting monsters, we still have access to siege weapons (both kinds) to provide long-range support, and we still have access to basic Orcs and Black Numenorean heroes/warriors, like we did in the last edition.

What we've lost in this edition is Shelob and Orc Taskmasters - and honestly, if that's all you're losing, you're in a pretty good place. Shelob is a very maneuverable piece and she added a bunch of the special rules she used to get only in the Cirith Ungol list into her base profile, so it's a bit sad that she's not available here. Not being able to whip Sauron into getting a free Might point when he declares Heroic Moves may not have been much of a thing in the last edition, but it could have been a thing . . . and now it's not.

All told, the world is still a pretty good place for this list and if you were used to running it previously, not much has changed (though some of the profiles and options have changed, so pay close attention when list building and invoke that arcane art of "reading").

The Citadel of the Stars, Part V: Ambush

Good morning gamers,

We're past the half-way mark in our custom Osgiliath campaign and we're in the second scenario from the Battle of Osgiliath starter set. We've adjusted the scenario participants quite a bit here - instead of all-Rangers vs. a mix of Morannons, we've got a half-Rangers/half-tin-cans Ithilien list against yet-another-Legions-of-Mordor list!

Ambush (Battle of Osgiliath, p. 4)

We've decided to use the following models in today's game:

• Forces of Good: Garrison of Ithilien
• Faramir, Captain of Ithilien 
• Damrod, Ranger of Ithilien
• 3 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
• 3 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears
• 8 6 Rangers of Gondor
• 4 1 Ranger of Gondor with spear
• Forces of Evil: The Legions of Mordor
• 2 Morannon Orc Captains with shields
• 4 6 Morannon Orcs with shields
• 4 8 Morannon Orcs with shields and spears

In the actual scenario, there are 12 Rangers of Gondor and Damrod against 16 Morannon Orcs (which is actually pretty cost-comparable, Good is favored slightly). We've basically taken the original Orc participants and upgraded two of them to Captains and equipped everyone with shields - nothing too drastic there (except the addition of heroic resources and F5 vs. men on two of the models). Good has changed a lot, adding in Faramir and an extra dude and swapping out 6 Rangers for 6 Warriors of Minas Tirith. This will be different, but understand that the promotion to D6 doesn't make the death-by-archery any better for the Morannons in this fight (it just makes them harder to kill in melee).

The New Age Is Begun: the Army of the White Hand Army List

Good morning gamers,

If Ardacon is any indication, then the Army of the White Hand is a good list - all three people who podiumed in the Invitational Masters event were running the list and that probably says more about the view of this list that the highest competitive minds have rather than how good the list is at your local tournament scene. That being said, everyone's talking about "the White Hand" list and whether Crebain are broken because of it. The list is more than just about Crebain - but Crebain are also very important to it working well. Let's see what's up with this list and some thoughts for running it, shall we (and as always in this series, anything related to Legacies will be highlighted in red for whatever players or tournaments don't allow Legacy models)?

Army of the White Hand: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

This list is the closest thing to a "normal Isengard list" from the last edition. You have access to Saruman and Grima, most of the Uruk-Hai profiles, most of the Orc profiles, and all of the Dunland profiles from the last edition (especially if you include the models that moved to Legacies). The primary profiles that you're missing are Lurtz, Ugluk, Mauhur, and Uruk-Hai Drummers from the Uruk-Hai hero side of the house, Uruk-Hai Warriors and Berserkers for the Uruk-Hai warriors, and the ballistas and bombs (which are oddballs, but still Uruk-Hai). You're also missing Snaga and Sharku from the Orc contingent - but that's literally it. Everyone else and their brother shows up in this list - and that means there are a LOT of options.

The list also doesn't have required heroes, so you can technically run whatever you want in it - Centaur used it for the first scenario of our custom Osgiliath campaign because it is LITERALLY the only list where you can get just Orc Captains and Orc Warriors in your army! Now, all the army list bonuses are all tied to Saruman, so you should probably run him, but you don't have to - and that's great. There's also a wide variety of subfactions that are represented in this list - Dunland, Uruk-Hai, Orcs, and of course Saruman and Grima - so depending on the theme you want to run, this list provides a nice canvas for your play (if you have a competitive bent, the options are probably less, but there's still some variety).

The New Age Is Begun: The Lindon Army List

Good morning gamers,

I mentioned to Red Jacket a while ago that I was interested in writing the article on the Lindon Army List. He's our resident Elf expert and he was like, "Please do - I have nothing good to say about it." :) Well, here I am, doing my best then to defend what a lot of Elf players have probably dismissed. Yes, this list has issues - and yes, you're probably better off with the Last Alliance or Rivendell army lists - but in a way, this list in incentivized to do the one thing that I've always thought Elves were really good at: spam out guys and beat the enemy down with numbers. Having played quite a few games of that with a film-accurate Helm's Deep convenient alliance in the last edition, I feel a little at home looking at this list and I wanted to share some of my thoughts on how it might work here. Let's dive into another one of Tiberius's mad dreams (with anything related to Legacies in red), ayuh?

Lindon: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

When the Armies of the Lord of the Rings book dropped, we were given a very thin number of profiles: Gil-Galad and Elrond as our big heroes, Cirdan and Rivendell Captains as our supporting heroes, and Rivendell Warriors and Rivendell Knights as our warriors. That's all. Thankfully, these heroes did cover most of the bases you'd want, but it also seems a bit dry on paper relative to the Rivendell faction we had in the last edition.

With the arrival of the Armies of Middle-Earth book, we added . . . Glorfindel. Just Glorfindel. The Legacies document then shook things up by giving us Erestor and a Stormcaller . . . that's it. Yes, the list is pretty unchanged from its original release, but the addition of a different power hero and potentially a mid-tier beater and a backup caster leads to some interesting decision-making options. Still, no one's going to argue that this isn't a light bench - it is - but the bones of the list are still solid and I think it lends itself to a streamlined approach to army building that can do quite well.

The Citadel of the Stars, Part IV: The Orcs Cross the Anduin

Good morning gamers,

We're here for Part 4 of our Osgiliath campaign and we're opening up the scenario booklet from the Battle of Osgiliath starter box. This scenario originally has no heroes and helps totally new players understand the basic mechanics. There's even a printed strategy section in the book, which boils down to "use shieldwall" for Good and "wrap-and-trap" for Evil . . . duly noted 

The Orcs Cross the Anduin (Battle of Osgiliath, p. 4)

We've decided to use the following models in today's game:

• Forces of Good: Minas Tirith
• 1 Captain of Minas Tirith
• 4 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
• 4 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears
• 4 Warriors of Minas Tirith with bows
• Forces of Evil: The Legions of Mordor
• 1 Morannon Orc Captain with shield 
• 3 Morannon Orcs
• 3 Morannon Orcs with shields
• 3 Morannon Orcs with shields and spears
• 3 Morannon Orcs with spears

We just added a Captain to each list - nothing fancy. The Minas Tirith list would be much better with Denethor in it (and maybe some Citadel Guards or Guards of the Fountain Court), but we're sticking to the participants as much as we can here.