First Impressions: The Elven Kingdoms, Part II

Good morning gamers,

Tiberius: Today's article is provided by Red Jacket (the TMAT team's biggest Elf fan) and he's diving into the "Rivendell" faction - which will cover both the profiles available to  the Lindon, Rivendell, and Last Alliance army lists. Red Jacket has been playing with these guys from the beginning of his venture into SBG and boy have they undergone some changes over the years.

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Today, I’m comparing and contrasting the Rivendell profiles in the 2024 edition with their

counterparts in 2018. While I learned to play the game with Isengard, Rivendell was the first

faction I invested in on my own. They are my favorite. Peter Jackson’s take on the high elves struck my fancy from the very first moment I saw them on screen, and they are a challenging and rewarding faction to bring to the table. I’m very excited to dig into the new edition’s treatment of this, the best of factions.

Before diving in, a few housekeeping things. First, as per my last article on the carry-over Rohan profiles, I won’t be commenting on the new intelligence stat. Second, all profiles switched to hand weapons, and removed special strikes. I will only be commenting on this in as much as I feel it truly impacts how the model regularly interacts with the game on the tabletop. Finally, in the case of heroes, I will not be commenting on heroic tiers.

So without further ado, let’s take a look at these new profiles.

Gil-Galad, High King of the Noldor

Photo Credit: Pinterest

Stats:

Gil-Galad didn’t receive any change in his stats, though his fight value was functionally buffed quite a bit, as I will outline later in the heroic actions section.

Wargear:

No functional change to his wargear, including Aiglos’s special rule.

Heroic Actions:

• Heroic Challenge
• Heroic Resolve
• Heroic Strength

This is where we start to see the first differences in the profile, most obviously, removals. In the 2018 edition, Gil-Galad also had access to Heroic Strike and Defense. I don’t mind the loss of Strike in this new edition. With the vast majority of heroes capping out at F6, and Strike now only being a D3 role, his F9 is actually much more powerful now than it was

in the previous edition. It was often hard to justify spending might on Strike before, and now, it’s even less worth it. While technically it’s a loss because you can’t match some of the biggest models in the game, (the Balrog, Sauron if he Strikes, and a handful of monster heroes with a chance to reach F10 if they Strike), in general you are actually much more likely to find yourself secure in the face of Striking heroes.

Thoughts on Scenario Play for Matched Play Players

Good morning gamers,

Here at TMAT, we do a lot of things - we post articles on the internet about the unique aspects, strengths, and weaknesses of each faction, we probe the depths of the best and worst Legendary Legions to see what good can be found in them, and we explore ways to beat the nastiest of models and elevate the most despised models in the game. All told, if you're interested in Matched Play content, we've probably got you covered (except battle report videos - we don't really have the time for those and lots of other people are doing them really well these days, so we're not going to get in that game).

One of the other things we do here at TMAT, however, is scenario play. After looking at the views on our pages over the past year, it's clear that among the demographic of least popular posts by views are the scenario-driven posts. Over the past two years, Centaur and I have played through a Fantasy Fellowship campaign (from my favorite supplement) as well as the Scouring of the Shire campaign (from Centaur's favorite supplement) - and while neither of these series generates a lot of views (in general), we really enjoying scenario play - and you should expect to see more scenarios from us this coming year as well!

But what is it about scenario play that appeals to us? More importantly, is there value in scenario play for other people - especially those who are less driven by theme and more interested in the competitive aspects of Matched Play? With scenarios from the Fellowship of the Ring, Two Towers, and Return of the King available for download now, I thought that it might be a good time to reflect on my lessons learned from scenario play and I will be contending today that there's a benefit to everyone to play through scenarios - let's dig in and see why that is!

Why Play Scenarios?

Chances are good that if you're reading this blog, you're already invested in (or are looking to invest in) the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game by Games Workshop. This game is incredible and VERY fun to play. While the core rules are good and the models can be stunning, the biggest draw for most players is their ability to be immersed in a world that they love from books that they've read or films that they've seen.

Sometimes, when playing a Matched Play game, this immersion is lost - I mean, if you see the Fellowship of the Ring fighting against a Last Alliance list on a board that looks like it's from Mordor . . . well, that's not how the story went. Other times, the immersion is still there, but mostly in a what-could-have-been kind of way - if you see the Fellowship of the Ring fighting against a band of Uruk-Hai but Gandalf is there, you could say, "Well, this is how things might have been if Gandalf had turned around and ran faster in Moria." This is not as bad as the first case, but it's still not quite the same.

First Impressions: Harad and Umbar, Part I

Good morning gamers,

Today we're combining the factions of Umbar and Harad from the Armies of the Lord of the Rings supplement. When the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement arrives, we should have a lot more to talk about, but right now, we've got four profiles for each faction . . . that didn't seem like enough to justify two posts. As a result, we're lumping the "evil men who aren't Easterlings or Dunlendings or have big mouths" into one post today - but expect Parts 2 and 3 to come out when the new book hits the market.

Umbar Profiles: How Have They "Changed?"

We're starting off with Umbar which . . . really need some updating. :) In a way, the Corsairs can still play the game they've always been able to play - spam a bunch of cheapish F4 guys. Each Corsair unit isn't "cheap" exactly, but when you factor in the sub-60pt cost for their Heroes of Fortitude, you can get a full warband of guys for just 158-163pts. Copy/paste that a few times and you've got a horde list (52 models at 650pts).

The Corsairs of Umbar are only available in one list - the Corsair Fleets - which I assume is because they never actually made it to the Pelennor. We'll see if they're integrated into the new "Army of the Red Eye" list from the Armies of Middle-Earth, but I'm only a little optimistic. Their faction also got paired down in this supplement to four models which are . . . possibly still competent.

First Impressions: Mordor, Part II

Good morning gamers,

We're continuing our deep-dive through Mordor today and we're looking in particular to the non-Orc, non-Uruk elements of the Mordor list. We lost a lot of the former profiles to the still-forthcoming Legacies document and the probably-more-quickly-forthcoming Armies of Middle-Earth supplement, but we've still got eleven profiles (really twelve) to view today. We're going to begin with one of the more gutted elements of the roster - one that dominated the previous meta . . .

Man Profiles: How Have They "Changed?"

Photo Credit: Imgur.com

If you came here for the run-down of the Black Numenoreans and Morgul Knights (redubbed for this new edition as Black Numenorean Knights or some such nonesense), you're out of luck - we'll get to them in Part 3 when the Armies of Middle-Earth book drops. In the meantime, the only "man" profile from the previous edition to survive the cut for the Armies of the Lord of the Rings is the Mouth of Sauron. This guy saw a small points increase (5pts base, 10pts more for his horse) and basically kept the same profile. While his stats didn't change, he picked up a 6" Harbinger of Evil rule (which is nice if he doesn't have a Ringwraith on a Fell Beast in his list) and he picked up a new special rule (Sense of Impending Doom) that prevents his opponents from rerolling 1s on their Dueling Rolls while within 6" of him . . . yaye? I feel like this rule puts the "h" in "nice".

Like many casters, he had some minor changes made to his spell array (he picked up Curse and lost Instill Fear) and his spells are generally average to cast/resist (Drain Courage on a 3+, Transfix/Curse on a 4+). While I think there will be situations where Curse will be good to cast, I think his bread and butter is still likely to be Transfix. The changes to Heroic Channelling will make him more likely to get 3 casts of Transfix of (two on 6s if he channels twice instead of calling Heroic March) and most of THOSE will stick - perfect for a support caster in a list with big, BIG monsters (of the Troll Chieftain and Fell Beast variety). While he can't play third-fiddle to Suladan and the Witch-King anymore, he can play third-fiddle to the Uber-Troll-Chieftain and a Ringwraith on Fell Beast, which is more expensive than the Witch-King/Suladan lists of yore, but will still be quite threatening, I think.

While we won't be covering "Black Nums" today, we will be looking at some surprise additions to the Mordor faction: the Easterlings. Yes, these guys are also going to get fleshed out in the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement, but for now, they're reduced to their two original profiles: Easterling Captains and Easterling Warriors.

Announcing the TMAT GT 2025 Tournament!

TMAT’s GT 2025 Official Tournament Rules

Editor's Note: This article was updated on May 12, 2025 with the lists that were submitted for the tournament.

Welcome to the TMAT GT 2025. After a brief hiatus from hosting our local tournaments, we are returning with a final farewell tournament to the RAW 6th edition (Yes we are a little late on the final farewell tournaments. Yes, it’s because many of us are waiting on the Armies of Middle Earth book). Below you will find all the information you need to participate in this year’s TMAT GT. To ensure you are kept up to date as we draw closer, make sure you reach out and express your interest in the event to the tournament director: r3d.jack3t.1853@gmail.com. Without further ado, the tournament rules are as follows:

1: Gameplay Rules, Profiles, and Scenarios

Unless otherwise explicitly noted in this document, the following are the rules for this tournament: The 6th edition (2018), along with all relevant erratas and FAQs will be the rules for this tournament. The individual supplying the terrain for various battlefields determines the kinds of terrain represented, as well as the level of in the way test required for shooting attacks if necessary.

2: Conflicts and Resolutions

All players are expected to play with honesty, sportsmanship, fair play, and generosity. In the event of a question regarding the rules, the game clock will be paused, all games will stop. The rules manual will be consulted. In the event that interpretation is required, all players in the tournament will be able to give a brief argument for the interpretation they believe to be correct. Once all players have had the opportunity to give input, the tournament director will make a determination on how the rule will be interpreted. For the remainder of the tournament, this interpretation will be in effect for all games. The game clock will be started, and play will resume.

In the event of a disagreement regarding a specific model/battlefield situation, the game clock will not be paused, and play will continue except for the games affected by the question (or the game potentially involving the tournament director). The players involved in the disagreement will, if possible, recreate or describe the situation to the tournament director without indicating the players relative correlation to the description. If this is not possible, the tournament director will examine the actual situation on the game board. Both players involved will be allowed to make a brief argument for their position, and the tournament director will make final determination.