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.