New Rules, Part IX: The Free Peoples, Part II

Good morning gamers,

We’ve finally made it through the Armies of the Lord of the Rings (after this post). In this post, we’ll be covering the unconventional lists from the Free Peoples books (aka, the hero lists and the monster lists). Most of these lists haven’t seen great changes since their armies were first published in Legions, but who you can ally them with (and whether that’s even a good idea) is what we’ll focus on here.

1) The New Lists: The Fellowship, The Misty Mountains, Fangorn, and the Wanderers in the Wild

As I just said, the lists haven’t changed very much – especially since Warbands. The biggest change from the Warband books is that the Misty Mountains and Fangorn (along with the Wildmen of Druadan that we covered a few weeks ago) used to be lumped in together in a catch-all list called the “Wanderers in the Wild." The others have remained basically unchanged (can't get Gandalf the White in the Fellowship list anymore).

Terrain Tutorial: Simple Hills, Part 2

Hey Reader!

Welcome back to the TMAT blog! As we are two weeks out from Brawler Bash 2019, I spent some time this week completing the hills that we were building in our last post. We cut and spackled our hills, and now we are ready to turn them from functional hills into more...aesthetically pleasing elements on the tabletop.

Terrain Tutorial: Simple Hills, Part 1

Hey Reader!

I'm working on terrain for Brawler Bash 2019, so I decided to venture out from my usual posts to do a terrain tutorial. I'm not particularly good at terrain (I have my moments), but since I am working on this, I figured I'd show you a bit of what's going on in preparation for the tournament.

Brawler Bash 2019 requires several pieces of terrain: hills for the King of the Hill match in Round 3, as well as lairs for fell wargs and cave trolls in the Living Wild match in Round 2. This means that the next few weeks you'll find me making terrain, requisitioning terrain from the gaming group, and painting up the last model I need for my force (which I'll post on the 17th when registration closes).

New Rules, Part VIII: The Free Peoples, Part I

Good morning gamers,

With only one of the old warbands books left to cover, we’re entering the home stretch. Today we tackle the more conventional armies from the Free Peoples, so prepare yourself for Elves, Dwarves, and Hobbits! As mentioned in our previous posts, you should also check out Mik's Veni Vidi Vici blog for thoughts from the “experts” (at the time of this writing, the Kingdom of Khazad-Dum, Rivendell, and the Shire have been covered).

1) The New Lists: Rivendell, Lothlorien, The Kingdom of Khazad-Dum, and The Shire

The armies you’ll see here haven’t changed very much over the ages – the Shire list in particular reflects what the old Legions of Middle-Earth book had, while Rivendell got a profile (finally) for the knights that were always listed in the Legions book. Lothlorien has also returned to its roots, though with a few changes here and there. The list that has changed the most is the Khazad-Dum list (Dwarves used to be three lists back in the Legions days), consolidating the Dwarves from the era of the War of the Ring to “one” list (which is really two lists). All told, not a lot of changes at the macro-level.

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.