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Hi all,

My brother is forcing me into starting this game, we have not played since the RotK box came out and have no models now.
For experienced players how would you go about starting from scratch now? We are both looking at playing LotR factions. Are there any good guides?
Thanks in advance.

Which armies did you have in mind? The Battlehost boxes contain the core of an army and a key hero for the major forces.

In terms of rules, if you both want LotR only, then you'll just need to core book and Armies of LotR book for lists.

Not actually sure, not even sure what the factions are currently and the Warhammer website is less than helpful.

Well you've got all the expected factions, Gondor, Rohan, Mordor etc and then a number of smaller factions such as Angmar, the Fiefdoms.

The website may not be useful, but if you just go into the lotr section and look at the good and evil factions, it should show how they're all split up.

Thanks, will have a look on a device that is not a phone...
I guess my brother will go for Mordor so I will have to go for something to oppose them.

I mean, you don't have to. Evil vs evil is pretty common. If you want a purely plastic range, Isengard is well served. Or if you want good, Gondor is the usual vs opponent. Plus side is they're easy to build and paint and you don't need many. And both are served by battleforces, making them cheap to pick up.

Is the game typically played at 800pts still?

Well the obvious place to start would be the Battle of Edoras box. Gets you the rulebook, 2 starter armies and a dash of terrain all for a not unreasonable price, if gotten from an online discounter.

The battlehosts are a real good entry into an army if neither Rohan/Dunland strike your fancy. They provide a good core of troops and a solid faction hero. The mordor battlehost (and orc factions in general) are somewhat versatile as the same orcs can be used for Mordor, Angmar, Barad-dur, etc. armies. So you don't have to tie yourself down to one evil faction in that regard.
Hopefully they're be more battlehosts in the future.

If either of you are interested in Morannon orcs/gondor then see if you can find a copy of the Battle for Osgiliath box set. The rulebook might be out of date, but the armies in the box are a solid launch point for either faction, and again you get a good bit of terrain.


I'm not entirely sure what the most common points value for games are in the current edition as I'm not playing at the moment, but last edition in my area most tournies were 600-800pts and most casual games I played were 600pts.

 ingtaer wrote:
Is the game typically played at 800pts still?

I don’t think there ever was a "typical" point value for lotr outside of some tournament circles (and even then every circle had its own value).