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

Good morning gamers,

Editor's Note: this article does reflect the new gear options for Wild Men of Dunland, but the army lists do not - feel free to retool the lists if you want to.

We're back in the Legacy documents today with a review of the Army of Dunland (which is the last "wild man" list we need to cover this month - next week's article is a by-request article). This list features the way Dunland lists looked in the last edition, with heroes who were released in the War in Rohan supplement joining the ranks of the OG Dunland creations by GW a long, long time ago. This army list features a lot of profiles that are only available in the Legacy document, but there are a few familiar faces. Let's see how this list has changed from its Legendary Legion version last edition . . .

The Army of Dunland: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

This list has ALMOST all of the Dunland profiles in the game - it has the named heroes from the last edition (Thrydan, Gorulf, Frida, and the Oathmaker), Dunlending Chieftains as your generic hero option, and Wild Men, Dunlending Warriors, Dunlending Cavalry, and Crebain for your warriors.

The profile it's missing, however, is the generic Wild Man Chieftain - a profile that you'll find in the Army of the White Hand (and a mirror profile for Hill Tribesman Chieftains is available in the War of the Rohirrim lists that we viewed earlier this month) but that is absent here. In a way, it's weird that this option isn't available here . . . and in another way, it's good that it doesn't appear in this list, as it would probably ace the Dunlending Chieftain out of a job (more on that in the profile discussion below).

The New Age Is Begun: The Besiegers of the Hornburg Army List

Good morning gamers,

In last week's article, we looked at the Usurpers of Edoras. Today, we're continuing "Dunland" month and looking at the Besiegers of the Hornburg. This list has a lot of familiar faces from the last list, but it's missing a lot of its previous identity. In trade . . . it gets one of the most interesting and fun profiles in the game! Let's see what this list has to offer (and whether it's any good).

The Besiegers of the Hornburg: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

We have fewer options, but surprisingly the same number of profiles in this list as we had in the Usurpers of Edoras last week. We still have Wulf, Target, Hill Tribes Chieftains, Hill Tribesmen, and Crebain, but we've lost Freca, Lord Thorne, and Rohirrim Traitors. In trade, we gain, Shank, Wrot, and their Snow Troll "pet". The list feels like it has a lot less going for it - the Rohirrim Traitors were the only means of getting a banner and war horn (also throwing weapons) into an Usurpers of Edoras list, so our Hill Tribesmen are going to be patently worse than before (oh, and there's no Freca to make them F4). Yep, our bench is thin, but hopefully we have some slick special rules to equal things out?

The New Age Is Begun: The Usurpers of Edoras Army List

Good morning gamers,

This July, we'll be digging into the wild men of Dunland - we've already looked at the Army of the White Hand (which is really mercenary Dunland to Isengard), but this month, we'll be pivoting to Dunland as a primary faction and mostly focusing on the armies from the War of the Rohirrim. These guys are really fun to run and the new sculpts that they have are gorgeous! Let's dig in and see the first of these lists (and one that has been very strong in the international meta): the Usurpers of Edoras.

Editor's Note: this article has been updated for the 2026 July FAQ. I have not updated the lists at the bottom, but you could easily move the banner and war horn to other models if you want to.

The Usurpers of Edoras: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

Before the July FAQ, this list only had five hero profiles and three warrior profiles. The good news is that these profiles, generally speaking, are just fine for what we need. We have Freca and Thorne who provide tactical bonuses, we have Targg for some tactical and some combat bonuses (more on him throughout), Hill Tribes Chieftains for Marching your army around, and Wulf for hammering through the enemy.

From a warrior profile perspective, we have fast strategic units with Crebain and we have two very flexible unit options for our grunts with Rohirrim Traitors (max of 12) and Hill Tribesmen. With the changes that have been made this edition to the old Wild Man of Dunland profile, these two unit options give us basically everything we'd want except mounted warriors (and heavy infantry - that was never going to be on the table). The bench was light, until the FAQ provided the option for a Mumaks and up to six Haradrim (all of whom can have bows if you take at least ten melee troops) if you don't have Freca. This means there are slightly more profiles than before, but still not many.

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 . . .

First Impressions: The Hill Tribes

Good morning gamers,

We're doing "part three" of the Isengard faction, specifically focusing on the Hill Tribes profiles from the new War of the Rohirrim film. These models "sort of" replace the GW-created Dunland profiles that have existed for a while (Thrydan Wolfsbane, Dunlending Chieftain, and Dunlending Warriors) or that were introduced in the War in Rohan supplement (Gorulf Ironskin, Frida Tallspear, Dunlending Huscarls, Dunlending Horsemen). We'll look today at how these new profiles compare to the old ones (trying to find profiles that "do similar things") and see what the new face of Dunland looks like.

It's gonna take a while to get to this guy, but he's really what it's all about . . .
Photo Credit: Reddit

Dunland Profiles: How Have They "Changed?"

Our first stop is the lead antagonist from the new film, Wulf. This guy has pretty decent stats for being a Dunlending/Rohan guy - though Fight 6, 3 Attacks/Wounds, and 3 Might/3 Will/2 Fate are pretty good no matter who you are. The closest comparison I have for this guy - since he's just designed to be a beater - is Gorulf Ironskin, who sported an excellent profile for his cost - he was only F5, 2 Wounds, and 1 Will/1 Fate, but otherwise matched Wulf in all of his other stats AND bested him in Strength with S5 instead of S4 (and he got free Heroic Defenses against heroes - which was really helpful when you're only Defense 5). 

Speaking of Defense 5, Wulf's just wearing normal armor, so with Defense 5, he's a pretty squishy leader, but he has access to a horse, he has the Hatred (Rohan) special rule (when that applies, it'll be awesome), and he has a cool new special rule that gives him a personal banner reroll and the ability to reroll 1s To Wound against heroes. The banner part of that is always gonna be great and you'd think that getting a bonus when fighting heroes would make him slot into a hero-hunter kind of guy (especially with General Hunter giving him a Might Point back if he kills an enemy general). However, with "only" Fight 6, "only" Strength 4, and "only" 3 Attacks (and no bonuses To Wound except against Rohan and whatever rerolling 1s does for you), he's not going to reliably fight heroes well - especially if they still have stats. Sure, he can have the Fight Value advantage against a lot of generic heroes, but if your opponent reaches D5 or higher, you're not THAT likely to deal damage to them. This is something Gorulf used to struggle with only occasionally, but I'm afraid Wulf is going to blunt off a lot of heroes if they have stats to make things interesting.

Still, Wulf has a mount, is a little expensive with or without it (130pts with/110pts without - so just take the horse), and that will probably make sure he gets the matchups he wants and I think he'll be fine at killing troops (and eventually a beleagured general/enemy hero). With stats roughly similar to Eomer (except in the Defense and Fate departments), I think Wulf is fine (but unspectacular).

MESBG Christmas Lists, List #7: The Army of Dunland Legendary Legion

Good morning gamers,

Tiberius: This week, we've seen Christmas lists from Mitchell and Markus Hammond from the Durin Show - what better way to wrap up the week than to have Matt Hammond, the third member of the Durin Show, send in a list he enjoyed using this year! What do you have for us today, Matt?

Matt: I like lists that center around heroes. Special abilities and rules that accompany most of these characters add flavor, and the potential to enjoy strategic ploys that make the army unique to your playstyle. As a result, most of my MESBG games take on a “Warriors hold the line while the big fellas do the work” kind of approach. Let’s talk about a new army that I have been playing with that completely changes that dynamic.

Vikings... uh, I mean the Army of Dunland.

I picked up this army on an impulse (I am prone to those). On the surface, low fight, low defense, high strength, and high numbers make it look not too dissimilar to playing other trending toward horde lists. However, it is the heroes and the elite troops that make this army so much fun to play and make it very different than most Middle-Earth armies. 

War in Rohan Inspired Lists: The Army of Dunland Revisited

Good morning gamers,

Last time we mentioned there are lots of ways you can run your Isengard faction models in Matched Play - and while Uruks do make up the mainstay of most of the missions, the other prominent subfaction of the Isengard models in War in Rohan are the models from Dunland. Dunlendings got new life with War in Rohan and the Army of Dunland Legendary Legion has been a force on the tabletop since its release. In War in Rohan, we get almost all the Dunland models - and in general, we get them in good quantities:

• Gorulf Ironskin
• Frida Tallspear
• The Wild Man Oathmaker
• Thrydan Wolfsbane on foot and mounted
  
• 3 Dunlending Chieftains
• 12 Wild Men of Dunland
• TECHNICALLY, we have 12 vanilla Wild Men of Dunland and 12 Wild Men of Dunland with two-handed axes
  
• 16 Dunlending Warriors (6 shields, 6 bows, 4 two-handed axes)
• TECHNICALLY, we have three boxes of these guys since we have 3 Chieftains, which means we have 12 shields, 12 bows, 12 two-handed axes, and 3 banners
  
• 6 Dunlending Huscarls
• 6 Dunlending Horsemen
  

Photo Credit: War in Rohan

This is a rather large collection of models, but there's a glaringly obvious model missing: Crebain. Despite being released in War in Rohan, Crebain don't show up in any of the scenarios - and the penalty they apply to hitting them with ranged weapons, their Fly special rule, and their multiple Wounds makes them great for holding objectives and sneaking to get artifacts. Yep, they're a really good model - and thanks to us applying these stupid list building constraints, we're going to build a list today without them.

In Defense Of: Dunlending Chieftains

Good morning gamers,

War in Rohan is one of the best supplements that has been released for the game - it not only provided a host of really great scenarios featuring iconic moments from the Two Towers film and historical battles that weren't really featured in the film (like the two battles for the Fords of Isen and the defense of Edoras), but it also released a TON of models. While Rohan and Fangorn got some neat drops, the biggest winner was Isengard - and most of those models fleshed out the Dunland sub-faction of the larger Isengard army.

With new heroes and warriors to use, Dunland surged in popularity among long-time Dunland players (who played with Dunland for thematic reasons, not for competitive ones) and new players alike - and while heroes like Thrydan kept their stock, there was one hero profile who seemed to get snubbed pretty hard by the arrivals of Frida Tallspear, Gorulf Ironskin and the Wild Man Oathmaker: the generic Dunlending Chieftain.

Theoretically, the Chieftain still has a place (eventually you'll max out the four named heroes' warbands), but time and again the Dunlending Chieftain seems to be passed over for the other named heroes. While Thrydan is a required model in the Army of Dunland Legendary Legion, it seems like everyone wants the named heroes before the unnamed guys. Is that fair? Well, let's look at some of the criticisms of the profile before we make the case for this underrated profile.

Why NOT To Take Dunlending Chieftains

Photo Credit: Games Workshop

The biggest reason to not take the Chieftains is because of the four named Dunland heroes: Thrydan is the most expensive of the bunch (85-95pts), but packs such a punch on offense (as the only mounted Dunland hero and with Mighty Blow with either his one-handed sword or his two-handed axe) that most players view his inclusion as a given regardless of the Dunland force you're trying to marshal. The usual second-place choice is Gorulf Ironskin (and in Isengard "soup" lists, he's usually the first Dunland hero taken), who for 70pts gives you F5/S5/3A with 3-Might-and-Strike (if you don't take the free Heroic Defense against heroes/monsters). Like most Isengard named Uruk heroes, Gorulf isn't that incredible on defense (D5 with 2 Wounds/1 Fate), but with the potential for Heroic Defense blunting your worst opponents, Gorulf is about as tough as they come for Dunland.

Army Concept: Girls Night Out

 

Hey Reader!

As I'm kicking around a few ideas for an army for our next tournament, an idea struck me that led me down a very deep rabbit hole (considering the army build restrictions) one night, and that meant I had to write a blog post for you all to talk about this very strange but very interesting concept. It's not a "meta" way to build an army, but golly is it a fun idea, so I thought I'd share it with you.

The army is a "Girls Night Out" army, and has a simple rule for army building: all of the models must be female. This means we have a very short list in our game, and it's probably only a Forces of Good army (but NOT ALWAYS - MORE ON THAT AT THE END!), but the models you get access to are actually really good, and you can build some pretty competitive lists with them.

So with no further ado, the rules and the profiles we can use.

I.  Defining a "Girls Night Out" Army

As mentioned earlier, our choices of models is very limited: even if you convert up unnamed captain models, you don't have a lot of choices. Assuming that you can turn any captain, King of Men (Queen of Men? Kind of a cool concept, and we know of at least three Numenorean queens who ruled), or warrior choice into a female character, here's the named profiles we can choose from:

Galadriel: Arguably the strongest of the characters we have to work with, we can either take her as a support caster who can regrow our Fate Points (assuming the Mirror is close) or as a decent close combat hero who can give us exceptional magic defense. The former is not as powerful in combat, but does have a stronger ally matrix, so keep that in mind.

Arwen: We get access to another F6 character with magic! This is very useful, as it also gives us a way to knock people down (through Wrath of Bruinen and charging people with Asfaloth) which should increase our killing power. We have the typical low Strength, low Defense issue that this army will generally struggle with, but whatcha gonna do.

Tauriel offers us a reliable infantry hero both at range and up close, which is really nice, and I think challenges Galadriel for the place of "Most Valuable Player" in our list. She still suffers from low Defense, but honestly that's just standard Mirkwood, so we're fine with that. Tack onto this that some of her fellow rangers already have female sculpts, and it's easier to add a Mirkwood contingent than it is for other armies in the line as we don't have to do as many conversions.

Eowyn: So to start off, we cannot take Dernhelm, as Merry is not "Mary," so that's a loss. But on her own Eowyn is a decent captain-level model, sporting F5 and 2 Fate instead of the traditional 1, all while still being around the same cost as a Rohan Captain thanks to that S3 reduction. And since she can take throwing spears and potentially benefit from the Rohan army bonus, she's a decent slayer. Not great, but decent, especially for her points cost. She can also get up to D5, which is more than Galadriel and Arwen can claim, but still not great.

Hilda-Bianca: We can get access to dirt cheap (and decent) spear support, so that's nice, and a useful special rule as well. She's nothing to write home about, but she gives you access to a small retinue of cheap spears. The other thing she does for you: she's a Fortitude hero for 30 points, so allying with historical allies is very, very easy.

You would have access to Sigrid and Tilda if you could take Bard, but alas, it's not possible. So we will not be looking at them today.

No comment on whether Alfrid in the dress should count in this list.

Rosie Cotton and Lobelia Sackville-Baggins offer us two Shire heroes, which means we could take a small contingent of two-handed weapons and/or bows to support the main lines, and for dirt cheap (easily under 50pts for almost 10 models). The trick is that these are Minor and Independent heroes, so getting them in an army is going to be hard. More on them in the next post in our series.

It's also worth noting that we have an option on the Forces of Evil side, as Dunland has one female hero: Frida Tallspear. She's not the most amazing hero ever, but hey - we have a hero! And that may be all we need. More on her later, though it's also worth noting that unnamed heroes for Forces of Evil also include (assuming there are female verions of these) dragons and cave drakes for Moria (and the presence of eggs makes me think the cave drake model is female), wild warg chieftains for Angmar (she-wolf matriarch that leads the pack), unnamed spirit models for Angmar, and (if there are female versions) trolls, though this is a hotly debated topic by the few who really care. 

So...yeah, there are some very interesting options, though not all of them may present many options for warrior choices, thanks to the fact that, as far as we know, all orcs, goblins, and uruk-hai are male.

With this in mind, the rules are simple: all models must 1) be female, and 2) still follow all the normal rules for list building. This means if we want a convenient alliance we need a Valour or Legend hero from all forces involved. If we want a historical alliance we need a Fortitude or higher hero from all forces. That makes things tricky (as we have Galadriel and a Queen of Men for Valour, and Tauriel, Arwen, and captains for Fortitude), but them's the rules.

So with these restrictions, let's look at five army lists: three historical alliances (I thought about doing a pure list, but I wanted to show off more of the models), and two "Kicks and Grins" pure armies for the Forces of Evil (because we don't have nearly enough green alliances/unnamed Valour heroes in Forces of Evil to make alliances work).

The Stuff of Legends: The Army of Dunland

Good morning gamers,

PSYCHE - I know last time I said we'd be covering the Black Gate Opens, but Rythbyrt needed some extra time to write his thoughts down, so today we are jumping ahead to the Army of Dunland.

We've covered a lot of ground in this series and today, we wrap up the last of the Legions from War in Rohan by examining the vicious and furious warriors of Dunland. Finally receiving love from the GW team is a subset of Isengard that has a cult following almost as large as the Easterlings of Rhun. Dunland has exactly one hero from the movies and three named heroes that were machinations of GW - and with a healthy list of warrior profiles and access to pretty much every piece of ordinary gear, Dunland is a powerful army that can be run as a horde or as an elite army. Let's delve in and see what we can build!

Part 1: What Do You Need?

Legion Tax: 85-95pts
Also, Dunland needs better GIFs...

In this list, you NEED to take Thrydan Wolfsbane - and because he's your only mounted hero (and his Mighty Blow rule gets better when he's mounted), you might as well give him the horse. With his horse, he's a pretty affordable 95 points, which makes him an easy inclusion in any army - be it this Legion or an Isengard army.

On his own, however, Thrydan doesn't help his team get better (and he's going to need help dealing with the biggest and baddest models your opponent has in his force). One way you can help him is by taking Gorulf Ironskin, who can either be a 3A model with F5-and-Strike OR a 3A model with a free Heroic Defense and 2 Wounds/1 Fate, so long as you're fighting against an enemy hero. He can also spend his 3 Might to call Heroic Defense against warriors, but usually you want this guy either chomping through grunts OR stalling enemy heroes. Gorulf is good, but honestly for me, he's the fourth hero choice, because there are two other heroes you want to buy first.