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So my LGS has started to pick up with these a bit and I was wondering what are the dirtiest army lists out there for each of them. Just curious as I want to make sure we pretty much "outlaw" them (caution people against these lists or others may not want to play against them). Just wondering what are the worst ones out there. So far I have heard:

LotR:
Mumak - not so much mega-cheeze but boring to play against
Outrider/Gamling rule expliot army
Crossbow spam?

WotR:
Wraith Spam/Mordor

Printing and reminding players of the WoTR FAQ rulings will help

The big problems I've seen:

Skirmish: dwarves are overpowered. Evil pays way to much for anything. Trolls suck. Urukai are the strongest evil force. Ringwraiths have 1 wound and cost a TON of points

War: easily broken. Hero death stars that automatically wipe entire formations without the need to roll. There is no "1s always fail" rule which enables this.

My entire LotR experience has been filled with frustration over the massive imbalance between good and evil and illogical design decisions.

The two most important things with LOTR are to use the restrictions set out in Legions of Middle Earth, and use scenarios. These help balance things out.

I disagree with Surtur. Dwarves are good, but not overpowered. Evil has plenty of cheap stuff, look at Sharkey's Rogues, as well as good buys like Gundabad Blackshields.

One of LOTR's better armies is the Grey Company. It can be a tough nut to crack, but can be beaten. In general high model count armies are nasty. Some of the newer models are undercosted. Check out the Cave Drake and the aforementioned Gundabad goblins.

WOTR has some truly broken stuff. The two biggest problems are magic abuse, and auto wiping units. These can be solved with house rules limiting the number of magic users and making 1s auto fail.

Things to look out for: (WOTR only)

Mumak in my experience as a fallen realms player, is ineffective unless you really abuse the instant death rule if they fail to fall back enough, other thing to do is push them back near a board edge and just push them off the board, you can move the mumak to really abuse the forced fall back cos it's the nearest board edge. For actual damage though D3 hits per company is pathetic in my games the mumak was sent into a corner to get out of my way cos it was just not doing enough. When you combine it with heroic moves with Gothmog though it gets scary very quickly, especially cos you can do it turn 1 where they are reaally close to the board edge it can be gothmog + heroic move via overlord + mumak = dead formation.

Councillor cheese has not been FAQ'd so it's best to make it clear whether you are allowing more than one councilling in a turn, e.g you can't have councillor A council councillor B who then councils councillor A and repeat until you have infinite might or 10 depending on whether it counts as a stat.

Magic can be breaking, especially Pall of Night cos it says you can't charge so if you have the Dwimmerlaik (on a 4+ they need 2 might points to do anything) palling people, it can cost 2 might to just attempt to will of iron. Some groups limit magic levels to stop people having 4 wraiths in 1500 wraiths are very cheap for what you get.

Umm Allied Galadriel in a goblin army with Druhzag the beastcaller, epic restoration - restores a might point every turn, she's touched by destiny so you can do it for ever. She's also councillor so you can do it 2 time sa turn for 3 turns. You can also have galadriels blessing cos you have good allise in oyur goblin army for an additional D3 might. Druhzag can spend a might point to make D3 companies of spiders, wargs and bats. Spiders are S5 prowlers, having multiple companies of em summoned in your rear and charging that turn gets scary VERY QUICKLY. While this is a 300pt combo it can get scary.

Radagast + Galadriel + huge company of archers. Radagast epic tranquility for ever due to same epic resoration, unit can never be charged- very vulnarable to shooting armies but game breaking against armies with no magic/shooting.

Auto killing due to no natural 1's isn't tooooooo problematic, cos the investment it costs, Aragorn for +2 and Isildur another +2 is just under 400pts, they can only kill 8+fight difference (unless they have epic rampage) at 25/35pt infantry blocks you can easily flank and front charge him to reduce his attacks and punish him for such expensive investments in heroes. loosing 8 minis tirith soliders is not worth 400pts fo heroes.

Umm there is undoubtably more filth but I think I have said all i can think of for the time being XD

Hobbit/Elf spam can get annoying, crossbows arn't that bad as long as you have either heavy enough armour so that they kill on 5's, or you have enough models that it doesn't matter that they are killing 10 or so a turn.

Hobbit/Elf spam is taking two hobbits for every elf archer. It quickly gets ridiculous with the amount of Str 3 bows that they can put out and it looks stupid as well.

Those were both LotR SBG.

spaceelf wrote:The two most important things with LOTR are to use the restrictions set out in Legions of Middle Earth, and use scenarios. These help balance things out.

I disagree with Surtur. Dwarves are good, but not overpowered. Evil has plenty of cheap stuff, look at Sharkey's Rogues, as well as good buys like Gundabad Blackshields.

QFT. Dwarves can be beaten. They look awesome on paper, and it looks practically impossible to beat them, and it's the same as Gondor and Isengard, but their models usually cost more then anyone else's, soo...

spaceelf wrote:One of LOTR's better armies is the Grey Company. It can be a tough nut to crack, but can be beaten.

Really? I play Grey Company, and I think that if the table has a moderate amount of terrain, then Grey Company is on par with any other army. Of course, if you're playing with just a table, then the Grey Company is going to whoop butt.

Ratbarf wrote:Hobbit/Elf spam is taking two hobbits for every elf archer. It quickly gets ridiculous with the amount of Str 3 bows that they can put out and it looks stupid as well.

How is this possible? If you use the LoME rules, that army is very illegal.

I have no experience with WotR. The whole thing is cheese.

One of the nastiest units I have come across in WotR so far is a formation of Rangers with Gimili and Balin. My Warriors got torn apart, Epic Strike and Epic Rampage is nasty, averaged out at around 18 kills a turn.

How is this possible? If you use the LoME rules, that army is very illegal.

You don't have to use Legions of Middle Earth, that is an expansion/supplement if memory serves.

Ratbarf wrote:

How is this possible? If you use the LoME rules, that army is very illegal.

You don't have to use Legions of Middle Earth, that is an expansion/supplement if memory serves.

you pretty much do to avoid the kinds of situations you described.

Ratbarf wrote:

How is this possible? If you use the LoME rules, that army is very illegal.

You don't have to use Legions of Middle Earth, that is an expansion/supplement if memory serves.

Memory does serve, but is there any place on earth that let's you play a competitive or even pick up game without LoME?

Just to point out one particular bargain/rip off:
haradrim and orcs cost the same but harad have one more courage, one more shoot value and poisoned arrows.

Post is nearly a month old, but I'll bite...

I think points values might also be judged on what is available to the model. So orcs have a lot of wargear options, whereas Haradrim have bows and spears.

Surtur wrote:The big problems I've seen:

Skirmish: dwarves are overpowered. Evil pays way to much for anything. Trolls suck. Urukai are the strongest evil force. Ringwraiths have 1 wound and cost a TON of points

War: easily broken. Hero death stars that automatically wipe entire formations without the need to roll. There is no "1s always fail" rule which enables this.

My entire LotR experience has been filled with frustration over the massive imbalance between good and evil and illogical design decisions.

I have been playing Lord of the Rings for 8 years. I have fielded or faced just about every army in that time. LOTR is an objective based game, including playing scenarios based on the books/movies. The armies, including dwarfs, are very well balanced in my opinion, as long as one follows the basic army building rules from the Legions of Middle Earth book. Ringwraiths, at 55 points, can quickly bring Aragorn or Boromir to his knees very quickly (being transfixed or compelled). I have seen this done several times in person. They are best used in supporting roles and not in direct combat. Every army has its strengths and weaknesses. Its all in how one uses the army to achieve the specific objective of the game(s).

John

cookjb wrote:

Surtur wrote:The big problems I've seen:

Skirmish: dwarves are overpowered. Evil pays way to much for anything. Trolls suck. Urukai are the strongest evil force. Ringwraiths have 1 wound and cost a TON of points

War: easily broken. Hero death stars that automatically wipe entire formations without the need to roll. There is no "1s always fail" rule which enables this.

My entire LotR experience has been filled with frustration over the massive imbalance between good and evil and illogical design decisions.

I have been playing Lord of the Rings for 8 years. I have fielded or faced just about every army in that time. LOTR is an objective based game, including playing scenarios based on the books/movies. The armies, including dwarfs, are very well balanced in my opinion, as long as one follows the basic army building rules from the Legions of Middle Earth book. Ringwraiths, at 55 points, can quickly bring Aragorn or Boromir to his knees very quickly (being transfixed or compelled). I have seen this done several times in person. They are best used in supporting roles and not in direct combat. Every army has its strengths and weaknesses. Its all in how one uses the army to achieve the specific objective of the game(s).

John

QFT.