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.

Stupidly Fun Lists, Part I

Good morning gamers,

Recently, we had a "longtime reader" send us the following comment:

I have 2 rather stupid but fun list ideas. This is already a suggestion for a category for you guys ;) "Just dumb fun lists" or so.

Anyway: List 1: All artillery gondor (3 Trebuchet,, 3 avenger bolt throwers, flesh out with whatever.

List 2: All fellbeast mounted nazgul, air superiority fighters. Welcome to the black dart missile age.

I always wanted to run this with allied dol guldur nazguls or castellans if somehow possible, but well.

Alternatively: Troll-only Barad dur squad. I still have to paint my trolls though

I began writing a reply when I decided that the "comments section" of an old post wasn't the right place to do it. This got me thinking as well about what lists would be "stupidly fun" to run - and maybe these thoughts will give you things to think about as well. With that, let's kick off a new series on "stupidly fun" lists to run - and how to make them viable (if not competitive). For the sake of starting somewhere, our lists today will all be 650pts - this should mean that you're probably 100-150pts off of whatever game you're playing, since many events are still run at the 500-800pt level.

The New Age Is Begun: The Expedition to the East Army List

Good morning gamers,

This is our second army list that comes to us from the Legacies document (we'll be back with non-Legacy stuff next time for all you who go to GW-official events and can't take these) and we're still looking at Dwarves . . . but this time with Minas Tirith guys thrown in! Yes, it's the army list that harkens back to the old "Shadow in the East" sourcebook that features our favorite wandering Dwarves (Murin and Drar), their unlikely acquaintance (Cirion), and a bunch of cheap plastic core troops for Khazad-Dum and Minas Tirith. Yes, we're diving into the Expedition to the East army list - a list that I think has a lot of play and one that I'm interested in fielding. Let's see what this list has to offer!

Expedition to the East: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

This list is really lean on the units - you have four heroes (three of which are unique) and five warriors (two Dwarf-based, two Man-based). The good news about collecting this list is that all of the warriors come in big plastic boxes and while the heroes can be hard to find, you really just need a Minas Tirith command blister (or convert your own Captain), Cirion, and Murin and Drar. All told, it's a very light bench, but it's also everything I'd expect (though I wouldn't have missed putting Knights of the White Tower in this list - it would probably be a little out of place for them to be here, but golly would it have been fun).

The Citadel of the Stars, Part VIII: Flight to Minas Tirith

Good morning gamers,

This is it - this one is for all the bananas, as they say (or is that just something I say?). This has been a fun series and we're wrapping up the intro missions from the Battle of Osgiliath starter box - we've made the scenario participants Matched Play legal, but we didn't alter the scenario victory conditions. Let's see who we have with us today . . . 

Flight to Minas Tirith (Battle of Osgiliath, p. 10)

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

• Forces of Good: Garrison of Ithilien
• Faramir, Captain of Ithilien 
• Madril, Ranger of Ithilien
• Damrod, Ranger of Ithilien 
• 4 9 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
• 4 8 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears
• 4 Warriors of Minas Tirith with bows
• 8 15 Rangers of Gondor
• 4 2 Rangers of Gondor with spear
• Forces of Evil: The Army of Gothmog 
• Gothmog, Lieutenant of Morgul
• 1 Morannon Orc Captain with shield
• 6 Morannon Orcs
• 6 12 Morannon Orcs with shields
• 6 Morannon Orcs with spears
• 6 12 Morannon Orcs with shields and spears
• 1 Mordor Troll

We gave shields to all the Morannons and added a Captain for the Evil forces and upscaled the Good army to compensate . . . the have +12 models over their original numbers (~50pt handicap?). All I have to do 

The Citadel of the Stars, Part VII: The Fall of Osgiliath

Good morning gamers,

This is our penultimate scenario in our custom Osgiliath campaign and we're playing the Fall of Osgiliath from Gondor At War. This scenario required only minor force adjustments to make it legal under the new edition and was an interesting scenario because it involves cutting through part of the enemy army to escape from the rest of the enemy. Let's see who our participants are . . ..

The Fall of Osgiliath (Gondor at War, p. 16)

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

• Forces of Good: Garrison of Ithilien
• Faramir, Captain of Ithilien 
• Madril, Ranger of Ithilien
• Damrod, Ranger of Ithilien 
• Anborn, Ranger of Ithilien 
• Mablung, Ranger of Ithilien 
• 4 8 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
• 4 8 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears
• 4 Warriors of Minas Tirith with bows 
• 12 Rangers of Gondor
• 4 Rangers of Gondor with spear
• Forces of Evil: The Army of Gothmog
• Gothmog, Lieutenant of Morgul 
• Gothmog's Enforcer
• Guritz, Master of Reserves 
• 6 9 Morannon Orcs
• 6 9 Morannon Orcs with shields
• 6 9 Morannon Orcs with spears
• 6 9 Morannon Orcs with shields and spears

This is our first scenario with Gothmog, who I know a lot of people critique in his new state. The improvements to Morannons against Men and the reduction in cost for Gothmog (if you don't take the Warg) means the cost of this list in this edition compared to the previous edition is only about a 25pts difference - pretty negligible. Let's look at how our board looks . . .

The Citadel of the Stars, Part VI: Hunter or Hunted

Good morning gamers,

We're continuing through our custom campaign in Osgiliath and playing through the third scenario from the Battle of Osgiliath starter set: Hunter or Hunted. The scenario victory conditions are . . . a little weird, but could also be really fun. As we have been doing, we're adjusting the participants so the game will have street-legal lists for the new edition.

Hunter or Hunted (Battle of Osgiliath, p. 6)

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

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

In order to win this game, Good needs to kill the Troll and Evil needs to kill Faramir . . . needless to say, I intend to be a coward and hide with my bows drawn and shoot for as long as I can.

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 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.

The New Age Is Begun: The Reclamation of Osgiliath Army List

Good morning gamers,

This will be our last Minas Tirith-oriented post for a bit - don't worry, though, we'll be back to tackle the Pelennor army list in the future! Thanks to our Osgiliath custom campaign, I've been able to play with a wide variety of Minas Tirith lists and while I've only played one scenario with this particular list, golly was it fun! The Reclamation of Osgiliath army list is one of those "big hero with a bunch of guys" kind of list and boy does it pack a punch when it gets going! Let's see what there is to know about this one (and in a stunning turn of events, there's been no changes to this list from either the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement or the Legacies document, so what you see in the Armies of the Lord of the Rings supplement is actually what you get) . . .

The Reclamation of Osgiliath: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

I'm not going to lie, this list is REALLY constrained for profiles - eight in total. On the hero side of the house, you have Boromir, Faramir, and Madril as your named hero options, supported by the lowly-but-awesome Captain of Minas Tirith. These four provide you with a good spread of options for heroes, though having one really expensive, one sort-of-expensive, and two cheap heroes can make for awkward decisions (as we'll see throughout this post).

Your warrior options are similarly constrained but good - you have the ubiquitous Warriors of Minas Tirith and Knights of Minas Tirith, who give you solid combat profiles at fairly affordable prices and then you get Rangers of Gondor and Osgiliath Veterans as your specialist options. This is the same corps of warrior choices as you'll find in the Garrison of Ithilien, but you aren't allowed to take 50% bows in this list, so you're more likely to see a dominance of the melee guys in this list instead of the Ranger-heavy list builds for the Garrison of Ithilien.

Army List Bonuses

There was no Legendary Legion like this in the old edition, so our point of comparison is the standard Minas Tirith army bonus of yore - +1 Courage. Yaye. We've traded this for three special rules, the first of which is This City Was Once the Jewel of Our Kingdom, which gives everyone the Mountain Dweller special rule. As was mentioned in the Garrison of Ithilien review, Mountain Dweller is a great rule to add to your army when a lot of them already have Woodland Creature - though I will note that since you're more likely to have models that won't have Woodland Creature in this list, it would actually be quite nice to have the flex option that the Garrison of Ithilien has in this list (but I'll take moving through rubble terrain without penalty and getting +1 to movement rolls for free).

The Remember Today, Little Brother special rule is one of the hallmarks of this list vis-a-vis the Minas Tirith list we talked about last time: Boromir and Faramir can spend each other's Might, Will, and Fate while they are within 3" of each other. Since Boromir is likely to be mounted and Faramir has to be on foot, it is likely to be rare that they'll stay with each other the whole game, but if you're worried about your opponent filling your army leader/banner full of holes, at least you can spend his brother's resources to keep him alive? Also, a 9-Might Boromir sounds pretty devastating . . .

Finally, there's the once-per-game For Gondor! special rule, which is declared at the start of any Fight Phase when Boromir is alive and on the battlefield. Friendly Gondor Warrior models within 6" of him (so not Faramir, Madril, or Captains of Minas Tirith) gain +1 To Wound when making Strikes - this is killer (literally!) and can swing a shieldwall-grind pretty quickly. This +1 To Wound also stacks with other To Wound benefits, such as Boromir's Son of Gondor special rules, lances for Knights of Minas Tirith, or Hatred (Mordor) on Osgiliath Veterans - given the right conditions, a good For Gondor! turn can be absolutely devastating to an opponent!

All in all, the rules aren't game-breaking but they can be very splashy - if you like those kinds of rule sets, this is a good one. If you were hoping for more . . . well, let's look at the profiles to see if there's some things there to convince you that the list is good . . .

The New Age Is Begun: the Minas Tirith Army List

Good morning gamers,

Today we're tackling the Minas Tirith army list, which has some distinctives among the Minas Tirith factions of the game, despite starting with a pretty limited set of profiles (the Armies of Middle-Earth and Legacies supplements fleshed out the list a lot more). If you're just getting into the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game and have the Armies of the Lord of the Rings in hand, this is a pretty good army to start with for several reasons which we'll get into today. Let's see what the list has to offer (and in case you're new to this series, anything in red is tied to using the Legacies document)!

Minas Tirith: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

This list has most of the "tin can" units that were available to Minas Tirith in the last edition. You only have one of the "big three" beater heroes (Boromir, no Elessar or Gandalf), but you have a nice supporting cast of Denethor, Faramir, Irolas, and generic Captains of Minas Tirith from the Armies of the Lord of the Rings book. When you add in the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement, you have access to Hurin, Ingold, Beregond, and Bolt Throwers, which gives you some alternate options to Faramir, Irolas, or Captains - as we'll see a little later, I don't think there's a substitute for Boromir . . . that's probably as it should be. If you expand your horizons to include the Legacies profiles, you add in Cirion and Knights of the White Tower, which means you're glutted for hero options, many of whom are living in the F5/2A/no horse realm, so it's very much a "season to taste" based on your play style or preference for models. Besides Pippin, the only model that I feel should be here but isn't is the Trebuchet option . . . I'll whine about that more later, but everything else that should be here is here.

On the warrior side of the house, we have four profiles: Warriors of Minas Tirith and Knights of Minas Tirith can be taken by anyone, Citadel Guard can be taken by Denethor, Boromir, Faramir, and Irolas (but in practice, probably just Irolas), and Denethor can take Guards of the Fountain Court (read: he should probably JUST take Guards of the Fountain Court, maybe some Warriors of Minas Tirith to stand in front of them, but I'm not sure that you want to do that). While you don't have Rangers or Osgiliath Veterans (Hatred (Mordor) would be pretty sweet here), you have basically everything else - and since a lot of heroes can take Citadel Guard with longbows, you have decent bow options and very good heavy infantry options. All in all, it's a pretty good list!

The Citadel of the Stars, Part III: Osgiliath

Good morning gamers,

This scenario is sort of deja vu for us here at TMAT - Centaur and I have played this scenario twice during our Fantasy Fellowship campaign (once with me controlling my Fellowship and once with him using his fellowship). This will be the third time we've played the scenario - and like the last two times, we will not be using the exact units in the scenario. :)

Osgiliath (Quest of the Ringbearer, p. 54)

We've decided to use the following models in today's game - due to Anborn and Mablung moving to Legacies (and the already 200pt advantage for Good), I've removed them from this mission . . . but for a bit of foreshadowing, I think I could have used a few more bodies:

• Forces of Good: Garrison of Ithilien 
• Faramir, Captain of Ithilien 
• Madril, Captain of Ithilien 
• Damrod, Ranger of Ithilien 
• Frodo Baggins with Sting, Mithril Coat, and Elven cloak
• Samwise Gamgee with Elven cloak
• Smeagol
• 4 5 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
• 4 5 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears
• 4 2 Warriors of Minas Tirith with bows
• 1 Warrior of Minas Tirith with banner
• 8 Rangers of Gondor 
• 4 Rangers of Gondor with spears
• 2 Osgiliath Veterans with shields 
• 2 Osgiliath Veterans with spears 
• 2 Osgiliath Veterans with bows
• Forces of Evil: The Army of the Great Eye 
• 1 Ringwraith of Fell Beast with 2 Attacks, 2M/14W/2F
• 3 Mordor Orc Captains
• 12 Mordor Orc Warriors with shields 
• 12 Mordor Orc Warriors with spears
• 6 Mordor Orc Warriors with two-handed weapons 
• 6 Mordor Orc Warriors with Orc bows
• 1 Mordor Orc Warrior with banner 

Evil is unchanged (except that the Ringwraith has 2 Attacks base now - huzzah!) and good has lost the Legacied Ranger heroes and traded only two Warriors of Minas Tirith with bows to get melee guys. Some of the hero profiles have changed a bit, but otherwise we've got more or less what we used to have.

The New Age Is Begun: Atop the Walls Army List

Good morning gamers,

We're continuing our walk through the Gondor army lists and we're turning to a list that's sort of like a list I used to run in the old edition - and if you've played through the Gondor at War supplement or Fantasy Fellowships, you'll recognize the name of this army list right away: it's the Atop the Walls army list, which means the most important units you can take are Gandalf on Shadowfax and . . .

TREBUCHETS!
Photo Credit: Guerre-Anneau

This isn't the only list that has access to trebs, but it's certainly the list where they are the most effective (and thanks to having such a limited selection of profiles, you're most likely to field them here). This list is basically a streamlined version of the pure Minas Tirith list from yester-year, but with a few special rules tacked on to make things interesting. Let's see what's in store on the white walls of Minas Tirith, shall we (as we have been doing, anything related to the Legacies document will be highlighted in red)?

Atop the Walls: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

Our heroes of Legend and Valour are simple: Gandalf and Hurin respectively. The addition of Hurin is great - he's in Minas Tirith in the books and governs in Aragorn's stead after the battle of the Pelennor is over, so he'd be here for sure. We'll dig into the profiles more in a moment, but suffice it to say that we have two solid beater heroes available to us. On the Fortitude side of the house, we have access to the two heroes that you got with Gandalf (and Pippin) in the Atop the Walls scenario from Gondor at War in the form of Beregond and Irolas - both of whom remain solid choices in this edition (and Beregond got QUITE the glow-up with the rules changes). You also have generic choices in the form of Captains of Minas Tirith (very reliable March heroes) and Knights of the White Tower (F6 generic heroes with Heroic Strike). You also have Pippin, who you will never take just for himself.

In addition to these traditional hero options, you have access to both Gondor Avenger Bolt Throwers and Gondor Battlecry Trebuchets. As we'll see next in the army special rules section, these guys can be a tad more effective in this list than in other lists and the way that they're helped can make them reliable means of forcing your opponent to play the game the way you want. There will be some times when they're also just like all other siege engines, so there's that.

The New Age Is Begun: the Men of the West Army List

Good morning gamers,

Google informs me that this post is the 1000th post on the blog . . . apparently, we've had a lot to say since March 2011. :) From all of us here at the TMAT blog, thanks for reading our stuff, bearing with any inaccuracies we've had (always tell us if we've messed something up - we try to go back in a timely manner and clean them up!), and just generally encouraging us by engaging with our platform. It means the world to us that people read our stuff!

Today is a post I've been looking forward to for a LONG time. There was no way I was going to write this article before the Legacies document dropped and boy was I happy when it did! Since about 2020, I've been playing on and off with what is now the Men of the West army list - and much to my disappointment (despite email after email before the errata documents were released semiannually), the list never received any of the love that I thought it deserved. With the release of the new edition, this army list encapsulates so much of my feelings for what the design team did:

They listened to us - and specifically, they listened to me.

Now I'm not vain enough to think that I was the only person asking for updates to this list - there have been others who did quite well with the Men of the West LL in the previous edition and our own competitive player friend-of-the-blog Sharbie has touted the army list's credits in the new edition. But I've been playing the game for a long time and been writing about how that list wasn't a bad Legendary Legion (though it could have used some updates) for a long time too - and they listened. They listened to me. And maybe you don't care and haven't cared about this list at all in your life, but there's probably a corner of the game where they listened to you too. So walk with me as we explore how this list as changed from drool to cool (though it's always been cool to me) as we stand alongside Aragorn and the brave men of Gondor and Rohan at the Black Gate . . .

The Men of the West: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

There have been very few adjustments to the profiles available in this list - though there have been a few notable additions, nothing has been lost. You still have to take Elessar, but now you can (usually) take an armored horse on him as well - which solves one issue that Rythbyrt always had with this list. For big power heroes, you still have Legolas, Gimli, the Twins (now that the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement is here), Prince Imrahil, Eomer, and Gandalf the White - which gives you a stronger all-hero corps than most of the all-hero armies that you find in the sourcebooks (see my thoughts on the Fellowship and anticipate my thoughts on Thorin's Company).

Supporting this cast of named man-sized heroes are the same generic heroes we had before (Captains of Dol Amroth, Captains of Minas Tirith, and Captains of Rohan), the same lesser named heroes of Beregond (some serious updates to this guy were made this edition), Merry, and Pippin, as well as Gwaihir (the new "kid" on the block) if you choose to not take any horses on your heroes (which complicates a list that Rythbyrt liked to take in the last edition). We'll talk about the decision to take Gwaihir or not a little later, but suffice it to say for now that the option to have Gwaihir in the list (and potentially Eagle warriors - though unlikely in my opinion because of the heroes you have access to for about the same number of points) is a welcome change.

On the warrior front, we still have Knights of Dol Amroth (on foot only), Warriors of Minas Tirith (now F4 and slightly more expensive), and Warriors of Rohan (better skirmishers than they were in the last edition now that their throwing spears can be used as standard spears in all lists), but if you include the Legacies document, you also have access to Men-at-Arms of Dol Amroth - which I BEGGED for so . . . many . . . times . . . #TheyListened. All in all, there are no cavalry warrior options, but the options you have in this list have always been good/fine and now they're good/better.

The Citadel of the Stars, Part II: The Retaking of Osgiliath

Good morning gamers,

We're back for Part 2 in our custom Osgiliath campaing and we're back in Gondor at War to see if Boromir - without his horse or shield - can retake Osgiliath! As we said last time, we're going to change up the scenario participants to make it Matched Play legal for the new edition - and while we could have been truer to the listed participants by sticking with the Army of the White Hand (now that they have access to Trolls), we decided to shake things up a bit and make it a roughly 525pt game between the Reclamation of Osgiliath and the Legions of Mordor!

The Retaking of Osgiliath (Gondor at War, p. 10)

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

• Forces of Good: The Reclamation of Osgiliath
• Boromir, Captain of the White Tower with the Banner of Minas Tirith
• Faramir, Captain of Ithilien
• 8 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
• 8 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears
• 9 Rangers of Gondor
• Forces of Evil: The Legions of Mordor
• 3 Morannon Orc Captains with shields
• 6 Morannon Orcs
• 8 Morannon Orcs with shields
• 8 Morannon Orcs with shields and spears
• 6 Morannon Orcs with spears
• 1 Mordor Troll

I wanted to make two notes about the Legions of Mordor list (which we reviewed recently in our New Age is Begun series): this list can be run with just the Armies of the Lord of the Rings book and has 32 models at 525 - and so at 550, you could add a banner to it and it would be quite strong, in my opinion. You could also drop 1 Morannon Orc with no extra gear to get shields on 8 people - that would be good too.

The New Age Is Begun: The Garrison of Ithilien Army List

Good morning gamers,

We're kicking of a review of several Minas Tirith factions today and we're starting with a faction that I've been playing a bit with mostly in the context of scenario play in our custom Osgiliath campaign. The Garrison of Ithilien army list, which is the rebranded version of the Rangers of Ithilien Legendary Legion (which was first introduced in Gondor at War but was then updated in Quest of the Ringbearer and was adjusted in several FAQ releases), is still a powerful shooting list on the tabletop, though some nice adjustments have been made to the army list in order to reduce opportunities for a negative play experience. This list hasn't lost all of its teeth, though, and I think it's a bit of a sleeper list in the current meta. Let's see what Faramir's shooty boyz have going for them this edition, shall we? As we've done in recent articles, anything related specifically to the Legacy profiles will be highlighted in red.

The Garrison of Ithilien: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

When we're looking at profiles available to us, we have basically everyone we had last edition: on the Ranger hero side of the house, we still have Faramir, Madril, and Damrod - and if you are able to include Legacy models, you also have Anborn and Mablung. These guys have had some changes to them, but by and large, they are either more-or-less what they always were but 5pts more expensive OR they got some nice buffs for a 15pt cost increase. All in all, not bad. For non-Ranger heroes, we still have Captains of Minas Tirith (who changed a bit) and Frodo/Sam/Smeagol, who can still be their own warband or part of Faramir's warband - which they might have an easier time being in now that the bow limit rules have changed (more on that shortly).

On the warrior side of the house, the list retained Warriors of Minas Tirith (who had one minor change), Rangers of Gondor (who had one minor change), and Osgiliath Veterans (who had three changes - ultimately all ending as a net positive). In addition to these, the list got access to Knights of Minas Tirith, which means you can have fast units without paying for a horse for Faramir or Captains of Minas Tirith (which you had to do last edition). While March is probably embedded in your list, it's always nice to have some fast units that can Charge - or fast units that can run REALLY far to meet an objective condition if they're benefitting from a March/Heroic Combat. All in all, the list is more or less what it was, but the one option they got makes the list as a whole a lot better.

Army List Bonuses

Like in the previous version of the game, you have to take Faramir in this army list - but unlike the errata'd version of this list late in the previous edition, you don't have to take Frodo, Sam, and Smeagol anymore. This requirement was added when Rangers of Ithilien lists at lower points levels were clocking in with 30+ bows and they've made a different list building constraint to make sure that negative play experience is toned down.

Instead of having Rangers of Gondor not count towards your bow limit in warbands led by the five Ranger heroes, the entire list now has a 50% bow limit. This means that for every Ranger with a bow that you want to field, you'll have to field a tin can as well. Functionally, this means that cavalry and shieldwalls of some kind are going to be common, but it also means that Warriors of Minas Tirith and Osgiliath Veterans with bows are not going to show up in this list. There are other lists where they might find a place (though nothing is certain), but it won't be this one - you want Rangers in this list, as many as you can field.

The Citadel of the Stars, Part I: The Defence of Osgiliath

Good morning gamers,

Centaur and I are pleased to be bringing you another campaign series this year, running on alternate Thursdays through the rest of the year! While we've done Fantasy Fellowships as well as the Scouring of the Shire, we decided this year to show off the Kingdom of Tor Ithilas terrain that I picked up last year and play through eight scenarios centered around the city of Osgiliath (home of the Citadel of the Stars). Three of these scenarios will be from the old Gondor at War supplement (including today's scenario), four will come from the Battle of Osgiliath starter box, and we'll be replaying the Osgiliath scenario from Quest of the Ringbearer as well.

Normally, we follow the scenario participants list closely, but we decided to have some fun with this and a) use the new ruleset instead of the old one, and b) use the scenario participants to provide a baseline for two game-legal army lists from the new edition. As such, the models we'll be using might change slightly from the original list - but where we could stick to what was originally given to us, we have. Let's see who we have for the Fall of Osgiliath scenario!

The Defence of Osgiliath (Gondor at War, p. 8)

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

• Forces of Good: The Garrison of Ithilien
• Faramir, Captain of Gondor
• Madril, Captain of Ithilien
• Damrod, Ranger of Ithilien
• 6 4 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
• 6 4 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears
• 4 Warriors of Minas Tirith with bows
• 8 Rangers of Gondor
• 4 Rangers of Gondor with spears
• Forces of Evil: The Army of the White Hand (I know, right?)
• 3 Orc Captains
• 12 Orc Warriors with shields
• 12 Orc Warriors with spears
• 6 Orc Warriors with two-handed weapons
• 6 Orc Warriors with Orc bows

The board is a 48"x48" setup, with the Orcs within 12" of one side of the board, and the Gondorian models within 6" of the center of the board. There are three objectives that the Orcs are going to try to destroy (in base contact without fighting or shooting) before 10 turns have passed - one objective is set up in the center and the other two are space equidistant from the center objective and the left/right board edges:

Damrod is up on the second level of the building near the center (this was a mistake - I forgot he had 2 Attacks!), Faramir was right in the center, and Madril was over to the left, ready to lead some of my troops towards that objective. Centaur deployed his Orcs with the majority in the middle, but a solid hit-squad of guys ready to attack each of the side objectives (the Captains don't have the whispy bases). The Orcs can come back in this scenario on a 5+, so the model disparity is going to be seriously high by the end! With the units deployed, we started Turn 1!

Turn 1: Priority Good

I had three of my Rangers stand and shoot while the other units began to fade towards the side objectives. I don't have any cover near the center objective, but I'm counting on those bows not being very effective. Centaur pushed up the board but didn't March towards me.

I shot a lot of bows (15 in total) and killed . . . two guys. Not bad, all told, but . . .

. . . those dang Orc bows hit with like four guys (out of SIX!) and killed two of my Rangers in the middle . . . not what I wanted when starting this game! Without any fights to resolve, we moved to Turn 2!

First Impressions: The Kingdoms of Men, Part V

Good morning gamers,

It is probably a little ambitious to try to tackle close to twenty profiles in a single post, but I couldn't find a good way to break up the Minas Tirith faction (like I did with Isengard, Mordor, or Rohan with Red Jacket's help). So, today we close out the last of the "big four" and cover ALL of Minas Tirith in one fell swoop. There's a lot of overlap between army lists in the warrior department, but many of the heroes appear in only 1-2 army lists - let's see who the big winners in the new edition are!

Minas Tirith, Osgiliath, & Ithilien: How Have They "Changed?"

Last edition, almost all of my Minas Tirith lists had Denethor in them - for 35pts, he was a SUPER cheap Hero of Valour who had enough Courage/Will points to almost never fail his Broken Mind test and his combat stats - while unimpressive - were not bad at all (F5/S4/2A, the kind of stats you'd find on upper-end mid-tier heroes who cost twice as much as he does and usually lead fewer troops). In the new edition, Denethor has gotten a price hike and a few very cool upgrades.

Photo Credit: Giphy

For 50pts, Denethor joins the Minas Tirith regulars and has heavy armor instead of normal armor, pushing him to D6 (which is great in a world where Piercing Strike is not a thing). He also picked up 2 Might/1 Fate, which means he finally has the ability to boost his arrival rolls in maelstrom missions or calling Heroic Moves/Combats - nothing special, unless you were used to him needing an escort to go where you wanted him and when you needed him to move.

He's also got a 5+ Intelligence stat, which is important because now the Broken Mind rule requires you to pass an Intelligence test instead of a Courage test (and since Intel tests can't be boosted with Will, this means you'll need that raw stat to be as high as possible - and a 5+ is pretty dang high). Assuming you remember to roll for this special rule and you don't have Boromir in your list and alive on the board, Denethor remains well-positioned to pass this test, so if it's contributing to a lower price point, I'm good with it. The Broken Mind rule itself is largely the same, but now that Denethor has Might/Fate points, there is a clarification that the opposing player can't force you to burn those resources while Denethor is under enemy control - that's nice!

Thematic List Building Challenge: The Walls of Minas Tirith, Part 2

Good morning gamers,

Last time we were in this series, we looked at how to replicate the defense of Minas Tirith from the books by seeing what kind of alliances we could build with Minas Tirith and the Fiefdoms. Today, we're looking to the defense of Minas Tirith in the films, which gives us far fewer profiles to work with - and whether you can make this build "competitive." Let's see what our theme is . . .

The Theme

I remember well where I was at 12:01am on December 17th, 2003 - I was sitting in the middle of a crowded movie theatre with about a dozen friends (and two dads, who drove all of us) watching the ads run before the Return of the King midnight debut in Hawaii - it was a glorious night and I'll never forget it. I remember being incredibly pumped when Gandalf assumed command of the defense of Minas Tirith and the trebuchets began to shoot back at the hordes of Mordor. While this scene got a lot of amping up with the release of the extended cut about a year later, there's plenty to enjoy about the theatrical version - and to this day, whenever I watch the films, I'll stop what I'm doing and enjoy again the masterful work that went into making that scene.

Well, in MESBG, the lowly Warrior of Minas Tirith is a "fine" profile - the bowmen are uninspired (and sub-par to their Ranger/Citadel Guard counterparts), the shield guys are good but can be eclipsed by Guards of the Fountain Court in the front rank and Guards of the Fountain Court, Citadel Guard, and Rangers with spears in the second rank. Unfortunately, while there are Guards of the Fountain Court and Citadel Guard in the films, none of them are seen actually defending the city . . . so for our purposes today, we're going to skip them.

We're also going to skip on the knights - and basically everything from the Minas Tirith list except Gandalf, Pippin, and the absolute most basic units in Minas Tirith. No fancy bells and whistles . . . can such an army be good? Let's look at the models we have and what they're going to force us to do . . .

Thematic List Building Challenge: The Walls of Minas Tirith, Part 1

Good morning gamers,

We're back in our thematic list building challenge series and while we've looked so far at how to capture the film-accurate and book-accurate defense of the Deeping Wall of Helm's Deep, today we're headed to Gondor to look at how to represent the defense of Minas Tirith as described in the book (with special emphasis on Book V, Chapter 4 and informed by the people we know came to Minas Tirith in Book V, Chapter 1).

NOTE: a change has been made to this post based on a thread in the comments - changes are in parentheses/red.

The Theme

There are passages in the book that I love - and one of those passages comes from Book V, Chapter 4, where we read about Gandalf and Imrahil taking command of the garrison of Minas Tirith as Denethor sat paralyzed by Faramir's side:

So it was that Gandalf took command of the last defence of the City of Gondor. Wherever he came men's hearts would lift again, and the winged shadows pass from memory. Tirelessly he strode from Citadel to Gate, from north to south about the wall; and with him went the Prince of Dol Amroth in his shining mail. For he and his knights still held themselves like lords in whom the race of Numenor ran true. Men that saw them whispered saying: 'Belike the old tales speak well; there is Elvish blood in the veins of that folk, for the people of Nimrodel dwelt in that land once long ago.' And then one would sing amid the gloom some staves of the Lay of Nimrodel, or other songs of the Vale of Anduin out of vanished years.

I was recently reading this passage and was like, "Man, I should make a list that has both Gandalf the White and Imrahil in it." I've heard of players running Gandalf and Elessar together - and theoretically you can save some points by running Gandalf and Boromir together - but there's a very fascinating synergy that you can get by running Gandalf and Imrahil together, and that's that you can get the high-Fight/average-cost of the Fiefdoms to support your high-Defense/average-cost Minas Tirith warriors. Let's look and see how we can make a competitive list with ONLY the models we know are at Minas Tirith from the book.

Top 5 Profile Changes - Minas Tirith Edition!

Good morning gamers,

So apparently, we have a new edition ahead of us - and while I originally mocked up some thoughts for this mini-series to be posted next year, it seems like it would be good to get ahead of the "eight ball" as it were and get these ideas into the cyberspace and see what you all are thinking. One of the things GW has said about the new edition is that profiles are being reworked to better reflect what they did in the films (and I assume this also applies to the books), so I figured Minas Tirith would be a good faction to begin with a face-lift. I'll do a few more of these before the new edition releases (I hope I get all these through before the deadline!), so if you have thoughts on other factions that you'd like to see, drop a note in the comments!

For the sake of this series, I'm going to assume that GW is going to perform minor surgery on most of the profiles (and I expect some profiles will get by with little to no changes), so for my purposes in this post, I'm going to limit myself to a SINGLE change per profile that I think would bring the model from its current place of obscurity into a place all its own. When the last edition change hit, some profiles (like Theoden and the Balrog - both of whom had a renaissance in this edition of the game) got massive reworks, but for the most part, the profiles got minor edits across the board (like Warriors/Knights of Minas Tirith getting shieldwall or Riders of Rohan/Rohan Royal Guards getting Arise, Riders of Theoden). This is what we're going to do today. Let's start with one of my favorite Gondor heroes in the books/films . . .

Profile #1: Faramir, Captain of Gondor

Photo Credit: The Armies of the Lord of the Rings

In some respects, the current profile for Faramir is fine - if equipped with a horse, lance, heavy armor, and shield (a standard kit-out for a hard-hitting hero), he costs 35 points more than a Captain of Minas Tirith with a similar loadout and has +1 FV, +2 Courage, +1 Might, +2 Will, +1 Fate, has a different array of Heroic Actions (Strike/Defence/Accuracy/Resolve instead of March), Woodland Creature (which doesn't matter when he's on a horse), a slightly better shoot value (if you want him to be using his bow - definitely the case in his Legion, probably not in a normal Minas Tirith list), and a special rule that makes him charge things if Denethor is also in his army (could be a problem, but only if you take Denethor). All told, getting +1 FV, +4 heroic resources, some extra Courage, and more heroic actions is probably worth 35pts, but only barely.

However, Faramir isn't the only Hero of Valour or hard-hitting hero in the Minas Tirith list. For 15 fewer points, you can get Hurin the Tall on a horse and most players agree that he hits as hard if not harder than Faramir does, all while potentially denying VPs for killing your army leader if you can keep him alive (which matters more in some scenario pools than others). Additionally, you could just NOT get Faramir and ally in any number of sub-100-point heroes from the Fiefdoms or Rohan to get similar or better damage output than Faramir (all while keeping your army bonus). If you throw in the convenient alliance Heroes of Valour/Legend (like Gwaihir, Galadriel, and Haldir if you were looking for a bow-armed Faramir), the reason to take Faramir just kind of patters out. OH, and there are Minas Tirith Fortitude heroes who are threatening his place for far cheaper price points as well (admittedly, all of them are on foot, but they're also a ton cheaper, so there's that).