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Once I finish my in progress in Gondor force, my next project will be a combined Mordor/Fallen Realms list to oppose them. At the core of the list will be a couple of Orc warbands, an Easter long phalanx and possibly some Morannon Orcs if I can get some. As you may have guessed, there is no shooting in that, and I'm having something of a debate over how to add some ranged firepower.

Unless anyone has a good reason not to, I'm ruling out Orc archers from the off as the 5+ shoot I don't like and I only have half a dozen anyway. So that leaves Easterlings, Haradrim, Corsairs and Khandish (riders, not footmen), in the following setups:

Haradrim Chieftain, bow, spear
6 Haradrim Archers and Karna upgrade
5 Haradrim with spears

Pros: reasonably cheap, 7 shots, 3+ shoot, poisoned arrows.
Cons: weak armour, spearmen are useless unless the enemy get close


Easterling Captain
8 Easterling Archers

Pros: good armour, shoot 4+
Cons: Captain cannot shoot, not sure if the extra Defence is needed (although it does help vs enemy archers)


Corsair Bosun, crossbow
8 Corsair Archers
4 Corsairs with spears

Pros: 1 S4 shot, free banner, spearmen also have throwing weapons
Cons: expensive with low Defence


Khandish Chieftain, Horse, Bow
5 Khandish Horsemen

Pros: mobility, good in combat as well
Cons: expensive per shot


So that's what I can do with the minis I have, and I'd ideally like to avoid having to buy anything else. I can confer, but that's about it. Eventually I'll probably get around to painting up all of them, but for now I just want to round out the army list. So of those, which would you pick, and what, if anything, would you change?

Thanks in advance.

How about corsair arbalesters if you can get hold of them?

Boosted defence against shooting attacks gives them a boost

Ah, thought I mentioned I was looking to avoid having to buy additional modes, but apparently not. I'll edit in a moment. Cheers for the suggestion, but really, it will have to be one of the setups above, with slight modifications but no more than that. I have a ton of these minis already, I want to make the most of them!

I would be tempted to say your easterling archers would be a better choice, the higher armour will help them last longer on the field and the hero can easily use his might for heroic moves or shoots etc when the need arises.

Yeah, I can see the higher defence coming in handy against S2 shooting and helping keep them on the field in shootout. The Captain can call Heroic Shoot or March which could come in handy. I suppose I could also convert him to have a bow without too much trouble, as I have a spare one.

You can always convert your own arbalesters, I have faith that you could probably make cooler looking models!

It's possibly doable, the pavises would be easy enough to do, it's only the crossbows that I think could be quite fidly. I might have a play around with some plasticard/GS later and see what I can come up with.

I've been a silly boy and have been sculpting uruk-hai crossbows out of crayola-clay haha. I am using the pikeman myself, using their shafts as something for the clay to hold on to.

And, before you ask, the clay can be painted with acrylic. I'll probably end up replacing the clay eventually anyways though.

Thanks for the suggestion! However, I soldiered on with plasticard and here are the results. Not the best, but serviceable, I think:

Also check out bits sites like hoardobits.com

Their are tons of cheap crossbows that should be readily available out there