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.

The New Age Is Begun: the Return of the King Army List

Good morning gamers,

One of the most popular Legendary Legions last edition was one of the first Legendary Legions that was released: the Return of the King. This list is really easy to collect - just get the Three Hunters, the King of the Dead with Heralds, and a box of the Warriors of the Dead and you're pretty much golden (especially if you use one of the Heralds as a banner-carrying Warrior of the Dead). When all is said and done, that's not a lot to spend (by wargaming standards) and you have a perfectly functional, durable army. Today, we're looking to see if that inexpensive army is actually worth taking - and if so, how you do it. Let's dive in and see what's cooking in the Vale of Erech!

The Return of the King: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

This list requires us to take both Aragorn and the King of the Dead - these are two heroes that we'd probably want to take anyway (and if you don't want to take the King of the Dead, consider the list that we're looking at next week instead). In addition to these two, we have Legolas, Gimli, and Heralds of the Dead as our heroes (Heralds being the only generic hero option) and we have Warriors of the Dead and Riders of the Dead for our warrior choices.

I think this list lost a real opportunity by not including other options - namely Dunedain/Rangers of the North as heroes in any list and Angbor the Fearless as a required choice (instead of the King of the Dead) and Clansmen of Lamedon if you don't take the Dead. The addition of the Lamedon contingent allows you to do the Book-accurate part of Aragorn and his men arriving at the Pelennor (the Dead help them get the black ships from the Corsairs, but don't actually come to the Pelennor). I guess if you want to play with that list . . . come back next week. :)

Army List Bonuses

There are two army list bonuses that center around Aragorn and one for the King of the Dead. Aragorn gets Anduril for free (a 40pt value) and this helps him keep up with the absurdly low wounding difficulties of the Dead. Additionally, friendly Dunharrow Warriors will get +1 Fight Value while within 3" of him, which means some of your warriors (but not many at all) will be F4 . . . that's something that you used to have to get with spearmen before and now you're getting it for free - yaye!

The King of the Dead picks up a niche rule that allows him to spend a Will point when he Charges to force each enemy model within 3" of him to pass a Courage test or move as far as possible directly away from the King of the Dead. This is what Instill Fear used to do last edition - and if you're not keeping the King of the Dead from being shut down by magic, this gives you a good use for his 6 Will points.

Fantasy Fellowships: The Erebor Reunion, Part 6c

Good morning gamers,

There are some scenarios that feel like they're horribly weighted towards one side (Good or Evil). There are some scenarios that look downright impossible to win for one side. There are some scenarios where you look at the scenario rules and just say, "Yeah, I just gotta kill everything and I'll finish the scenario objectives later." We've seen a bunch of these scenarios in Fantasy Fellowships . . . and this is going to be another one. :) The technical win conditions for the Docks of Harlond scenario is to get your Aragorn character and either your Legolas or Gimli character off the Evil player's board edge . . . but we can do this really easily by just killing everyone. And so, this scenario is yet another example of the best scenarios in Fantasy Fellowships: line up the enemy and smash them! Let's get into our last Pelennor scenario - and get back to the beater heroes in my Fellowship!

The Docks of Harlond

The plan here is simple: because we don't have Heroic March in our Fellowship, we're just here to kill lots of guys. The Orcs don't respawn in this scenario, so it's 40 of them against 30 of us - and we have FAR better heroes (and way more points) than they do! So yeah, we're just gonna kill things - and if they're running away from the back board edge and don't want to engage, we'll have Nori and Dwalin (because he's a diva and I can't trust him) run for the gate . . . because why not . . .

I don't have 20 Warriors of the Dead (with no extra gear!) or 6 Riders of the Dead, so I used my 10 Warriors of the Dead, 10 Nazgul of Dol Guldur/Castellan proxies, and my 6 Ponies of Equestria. To make this post a bit more interesting, I'll make some random comments about how well the ponies do.

Turn 1-3: Priority Good, Good, Good 

Good automatically starts with priority in most scenario missions and I won the priority roll on rounds two and three, so I advanced with my guys while Centaur held on the center for a turn and then retreated towards the more restricted deployment of the Rammos Echor gate . . . here are some pics:

The army of the Dunharrow advances towards the enemy, with the ponies driving up the right flank

We continue to press forward as the Orcs begin to fall back - the ponies stayed outside of 12" (so they couldn't be charged) . . .

The infantry continue to advance as the Morannons back up towards the gate - the ponies once again stay outside of 12" to avoid being charged on Turn 4 . . .

The Stuff of Legends: The Return of the King

Good morning gamers,

Today we're back in Gondor at War to review one of the first Legendary Legions released (and still a popular Legion): the Return of the King. Any Legion that gives you Anduril on Aragorn for free is going to be popular, but pairing this with high Defense models (many of which you probably have in the Pelennor Fields starter kit) makes this army fun for new players and veterans alike.

While I'm not a big fan of this Legion, Rythbryt is - so he's bringing the list review for us today while I interject here and there from the sidelines. Have at it, man!

Heirlooms of Ages Past: Battle Report

Good morning gamers!

Well, the world might be paralyzed by the Barrow-Wight that is COVID-19 at the moment, but my good mate Centaur and I recently rolled a 6 and decided to use our movement to get up and use our movement to get a battle report in. :-) This game will be between a 750-point variant of one of the armies I recently presented in my List Building series (the Bare Necessities) and Centaur's go-to force this year, the horde that is Azog's Hunters. Here are the forces:

The King Arrives: 750 points

Aragorn, King Elessar on armored horse - 240 points

8 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields - 64 points

6 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields, spears, and bows - 60 points
4 Knights of Minas Tirith with shields - 56 points

The King of the Dead - 100 points

5 Warriors of the Dead with shields - 75 points

4 Warriors of the Dead with shields and spears - 64 points

1 Warriors of the Dead with shield, spear, and banner - 41 points

Damrod - 25 points
1 Warrior of Minas Tirith with shield - 8 points
1 Warrior of Minas Tirith with spear and shield - 9 points
1 Ranger of Gondor - 8 points

34 units, 8 bows, 3 heroes, 5+ Might points

Azog's Boys: 749 points

Azog on the White Warg - 215 points

1 Hunter Orc with banner - 33 points

3 Hunter Orcs with two-handed picks- 27 points

8 Hunter Orcs - 64 points

Narzug - 50 points

8 Hunter Orcs with Orc bows - 72 points

Fimbul on Fell Warg - 60 points

5 Hunter Orcs on Fell Wargs - 80 points

4 Fell Wargs - 32 points

Hunter Orc Captain with two-handed pick - 50 points

2 Hunter Orcs with two-handed picks- 18 points

6 Hunter Orcs - 48 points

41 units, 8 Orc bows, 4 heroes, 14 Might points

The scenario we will be playing is an Heirlooms of Ages Past game on a board that is 48" x 48". We have a hill in the middle (still working on it) with a smattering of woodland patches, some field boundaries, and a bog nearby (can you smell it?). We rolled to place the objectives - Centaur placed the three red objectives (represented by Bilbo Baggins, Farmer Maggot, and a Hobbit Militia that I call Wilcome Tunnelly), while I placed the three blue objectives (represented by Grip, Fang, and Wolf).

The Hunter Orcs won the first turn priority and will begin to roll for his warbands to arrive first.

The Bare Necessities, Part XVII: The Dead of Dunharrow

Good morning gamers,

At this point, we’ve seen many different factions analyzed for how you can build the list to best maximize the different ways you can score points in MESBG matched play games. Today, we look at a faction I’ve just started to use (but have played against a lot): the Dead of Dunharrow. 

As I mentioned at the close of our last post, the Dead of Dunharrow have a lot of people looking at them now – not only are they one of a handful of Forces of Good armies that can have army-wide Terror, but with the King of the Dead getting Harbinger of Evil so long as you keep the army bonus (or run the Legendary Legion) and with Heralds of the Dead giving out Resistant to Magic to a group of people nearby, a Dead of Dunharrow army can be really, REALLY hard to take down by a mass-spam of warriors approach (true to the movies). That said, there are several different ways that Dunharrow can be played – and today, we’ll be looking at one of them in particular (though we’ll address the other two at the end).

Dunharrow: Pure Force or Legendary Legion or Allies?

There are three different ways you can run a Dunharrow list (thanks in large part to Gondor at War): you can run them a) as a pure “vanilla” Dead of Dunharrow list, b) with the “Return of the King” Legendary Legion, or c) as an allied force of the Dead of Dunharrow and some faction that includes Aragorn (historical allies that fit this bill would be the Rangers or Minas Tirith - and you want historical alliances to keep your army bonus). Let’s look at each and see what they give us:

• A pure Dunharrow list has four kinds of models you can include: the King of the Dead, Heralds of the Dead (you want 1-2 of these), Riders of the Dead (you want a few of these), and Warriors of the Dead (you want as many of these as you can after getting the other models). This list will be limited on Might (just 1 Might on the King of the Dead), but the Heralds can provide Will to the King of the Dead that can be used to call Heroic Actions (Move/March, Shoot, Combat/Strike). The King of the Dead and Heralds of the Dead are inextricably tied together, but are very, VERY powerful as a team.
• The Return of the King Legendary Legion adds Aragorn - Strider, Legolas, and Gimli to the Dunharrow list and gives Aragorn some nice buffs (Anduril for free, 6” banner for friendly Spirit models). In addition, the three Hunters can also lead warriors like normal heroes, but you’ll be fielding far fewer numbers than the vanilla Dunharrow list we viewed above because of the expense of these heroes (Aragorn is required, Legolas is often preferred, Gimli receives the short straw most of the time).
• An alliance with the Rangers/Minas Tirith and Dunharrow (taking Aragorn - Strider with the Rangers or King Aragorn - Elessar with Minas Tirith) might be able to address the numbers problem, but they’ll bring an important benefit to your army: they can bring cheaper heroes that have Might points. The Rangers are a nice thematic choice, but with Rangers of the North/Dunedain costing more than Warriors of the Dead, you’re still looking at suffering a lot in the numbers department (though you’ll be gaining warriors) – see my write-up on them back when the new rules came out for more info. With Minas Tirith, you’ll have access to warriors that are half the cost of the Warriors of the Dead, so you can boost your numbers more than the Legendary Legion can (despite having a more expensive Aragorn option).

In today’s post, we’re looking at which force allows you to maximize on scoring potential and give you the most options for dealing with enemy problems. Prepare to disagree with me (or at least, I’ll be disagreeing with the thoughts presented by my fellow admins in Centaur’s write-up on the Dead of Dunharrow)!

Army of the Dead Army Review

Hey Reader!

In today's post we will be examining the Army of the Dead, a force that has existed for a while in the game, and has had a new addition with the Gondor at War book. So now that we have miniatures coming from Forgeworld, it's fitting that we should look at the Army of the Dead and what they offer your army.

The list is not as extensive as Rohan, Gondor, or the Fiefdoms (which we've shown recently on the blog - check out the links to those, as they are great reads!): there are only four profiles total for the army (2 heroes as of the release of Gondor at War, 2 warriors). So we will begin with a quick discussion on the profiles available to you, and then move on to the 6 strengths and weaknesses of the list (didn't plan for there to be six of each - just kinda worked out that way, but I'm not going to argue with it).

New Rules, Part VII: The Kingdoms of Men, Part II

Good morning gamers,

Today we continue our discussion on the armies of the Kingdoms of Men – focusing on the Gondor-based civilizations. Most of the armies in this book have remained true to their Legions of Middle-Earth and Warband versions, with a few slight changes. As mentioned in our previous posts, you should also check out Mik's Veni Vidi Vici blog for thoughts from the “experts” (the only army that has been covered at the time of this writing is “Gondor”, which is predominantly focused on Minas Tirith, but includes a Fiefdoms list).

1) The New Lists: Minas Tirith, The Fiefdoms, The Dead of Dunharrow, The Wildmen of Druadan  

Let’s begin by looking at the lists – most of which stick to the old Legions of Middle-Earth builds. The Wildmen of Druadan (who had their own list in Legions and got lumped with “Wanderers in the Wild” in Warbands) and the Dead of Dunharrow (who also had their own list in Legions and got lumped into “The Fiefdoms” in Warbands) are back to having their own lists. Like Sharkey’s Rogues, they got a special rule that allows them to field warbands without a hero to lead them – which is not only really cool, but encourages us to play a mono-focused list with each of them, instead of having a Captain of Dol Amroth leading the Dead of Dunharrow (or Bilbo Baggins or Bullroarer Took leading Woses). We’ll delve into the fun this provides later.  

For Fiefdoms, they’ve returned to their Legions roots (losing Dunharrow guys) and relying instead on the strength of men. Unlike Dunharrow and Druadan, you need to buy more than one hero for them, but many of their heroes can field more than 12 warriors (Imrahil, Duinhir, Angbor, Forlong). All told, it’s pretty great. 

Back in the Legions days, there were many Minas Tirith lists – a generic “Minas Tirith” list to cover the early Third Age kings/stewards of Gondor, the Rangers of Ithilien with Faramir, Damrod, Madril, and Cirion, and the White Tower of Icthelion with Gandalf the White, Mega-Boromir, Mega-Aragorn, and Denethor. What has basically happened to the lists today is that all of these have been wrapped up in a single list (patterned mostly after the White Tower of Icthelion list from Legions) with all of the other heroes (including the Kings of Men) added to their number. The joining of all these lists gives you flexible choices for expensive and cheap heroes and many, MANY different ways you can play them. All told, Minas Tirith remains a good starter list for the hobby, though its competitiveness I think is greatly determined by your gaming meta. 

Battle Report: THRO 2018, Game 3

Hey Reader,

Welcome back to TMAT! We are back with Game 3 from this year's THRO Tournament! This match places me against my brother Tiberius, who sports a dwarf army that did really well against my army in testing. Tiberius boasts an army completely comprised of axe-wielders, allowing him to use the special strike for axes with impunity since no one in my army attacks against Defense (the ironic disadvantage stemming from my advantage of wounding against Courage Value). So while he boasts a primarily S3 army, he will be wounding my D8 on 6s (because AXES).

Battle Report: THRO 2018, Game 2

Hey Reader,

Happy Friday! Sorry for the delay: between a busy Thanksgiving weekend and preparations for the recently announced Brawler Bash tournament, I am running behind on battle reports. But here we are with Game 2 from this year's THRO Tournament!

This match is against my good friend Zorro (yet again - I'm sure we've faced at virtually every tournament so far, and I enjoy facing him), sporting an Isengard Uruk-Hai force. There were two uruk forces at this tournament, and the higher Fight Value of Uruk-Hai was something that concerned me going into the tournament. But with his entire force wounding me on 6s and my whole force wounding him on 4s, I figured this would be a decent fight, if not a steamroll for my men (as I actually bring banners, so low rolls can be fixed!).

Battle Report: THRO 2018, Game 1

Hey Reader!

Welcome back to TMAT! This is the battle report for my first match of the annual THRO tournament, and my first match is against my good friend Kirk, sporting an army of dwarves. There were two dwarf forces at this tournament, and of all the armies I was arrayed against, this was one of the few that I was really afraid of facing, as they are a good counter to my force (passing Courage automatically for over half the force, wounding on 5+ for over half the force, and almost half the force have 2+ attacks).