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So, it's another of these threads, and I'm sure you've seen a million of them in the past, but anyways here goes...

I'm new to LOTR, and having just been given an Escape from Goblin Town box, which is great. There's a few people at my FLGS who play games (about 500pts but sometimes more), and I wanted to know what army I should use. It doesn't have to use the models from the box, though the armies I quite like the look of are the dwarves and goblins, as well as elves and easterlings (though I'm also open to suggestions). I don't particularly want an army that's competitive just so long as it isn't going to lose absolutely every battle I go into, and preferably it wouldn't cost as much as, say, a 40k army.

Which forces do you think would be a good choice?

Obviously, it varies from person to person- playstyles, painting preferences, models, background etc.

Evil armies:
Orcs- mostly horde, heroes generally weak or supporting, but they have a few elite units (witch king, trolls, morannon orcs/black guard)
Easterlings- Elite army, pikes with shields provide good armour with phalanxes, good mid-strength heroes, but not many heavy hitters besides that.
Haradrim- Lightly armoured army, good ranged, and a few decent powerhouses (mumaks, half-trolls etc.)
Isenguard- most evil player's choice for a well-rounded army- good ranged, well armoured, good in combat, pikes. Only real downfall is lack of high-end heroes and strong cavalry.
Good armies:
Dwarves- best heavy infantry in the game, excellent mid-strength heroes, but lacks cavalry or spears.
Wood elves- excellent ranged, but lacks armour or high-end, non-supporting heroes.
High elves- excellent ranged, low-end armour and expensive, but are decent in combat (with F5) and have some very nice heroes.
Gondor- very good high-end heroes and decent infantry and cavalry, but heroes tend to be expensive. All-rounders, generally.
Rohan- Good cavalry, otherwise similar to gondor but with less high-end or expensive heroes.
Arnor- Weak armour and very little cavalry, but good ranged and solid heroes.

so yeah, personally for good I like Dwarves and Gondor (and Arnor for the models/background), and for evil Mordor (elite army)

Personnally, I like three evil armies -

Named Nazgul plus Black Numenoreans (foot or horse)
Small. Highly skilled. Nazguls for spell casting.

Isenguard Uruk Hai - Specifically a scout based army around the Lurtz and the other scout leader. Good troops decent speed.

Goblin Warg Riders - A hoard of wolves with some PITA goblins on top. I like the look of the Hobbit wargs rather than the Isenguard wargs... more wolf-like than hyenas.

The good thing is that all armies are roughly on par with each other, save Rohan, who are slightly worse, but not by very much.

I love my Easterlings. I can fight in three ranks. I can phalanx the hell out of my enemies! They're really quite awesome. Their defence is also really high. However, they are quite expensive points-wise.

Elves are a fairly straightfoward army. If you collect Galadhrim (pronounced gala-thrim, not gala-drim, as I've heard many say it as) then you have great heroes as well as great warriors. You have access to nearly horde-y elves (well, sort of) and heavily armoured elves. There's Haldir and Galadriel as well, who are awesome.

The High Elves aren't so fun, and for $85 for 6 models for some cavalry. . .

I'd recommend going either Elves or Easterlings as your first army, especially if you don't want to break the bank. They're relatively cheap compared to the other models.

Hope it's been helpful!

PS: I've written a guide to the armies, here's a link:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/495538.page

You can make a decent 500 point list just by adding a box of goblins to the force from the starter set. However you would need to buy the big hobbit rulebook which is horribly overpriced (£50) as the rulebook that comes with the starter set doesn't include point values.

Thanks for the responses! I'm still not sure what to go with, but I'll probably try out the goblins or dwarves. While it doesn't make decision-making any easier, I'm happy to hear that the armies are roughly even, as it should mean that whichever I pick won't leave me losing every game, meaning I can think about other things for the decision instead.

ExNoctemNacimur wrote:Galadhrim (pronounced gala-thrim, not gala-drim, as I've heard many say it as)

...my life is a lie.

p_gray99 wrote:Thanks for the responses! I'm still not sure what to go with, but I'll probably try out the goblins or dwarves. While it doesn't make decision-making any easier, I'm happy to hear that the armies are roughly even, as it should mean that whichever I pick won't leave me losing every game, meaning I can think about other things for the decision instead.

yup, all are fairly equal, it just depends on your playstyle- personally, I like small, elite armies (mostly foot), so I collect dwarves (21 models in a 500pt list) and gondor (dol amroth knights with some guards of the fountain court, around 16 men in 500pts).
but yes, all have their ups and downs, the only properly unfair armies being the shire (obviously), arnor and the hobbit units (being too limited ATM)
If you're struggling with any other army, there's something in either the army, units or playstyle which isn't working for you specifically.

 shrike wrote:

ExNoctemNacimur wrote:If you're struggling with any other army, there's something in either the army, units or playstyle which isn't working for you specifically.

That, or I'm just terrible at the game

But thanks for the advice. I like how cheap a 500pts army is, meaning that if the first one doesn't work for me I can simply change to another one. Hopefully I'll be able to make my mind up soon.

 p_gray99 wrote:

 shrike wrote:
If you're struggling with any other army, there's something in either the army, units or playstyle which isn't working for you specifically.

That, or I'm just terrible at the game

But thanks for the advice. I like how cheap a 500pts army is, meaning that if the first one doesn't work for me I can simply change to another one. Hopefully I'll be able to make my mind up soon.

well yeah, but that's the last ditch explanation
and yes- LotR can be as cheap or as expensive as you want it to be- unfortunately, my elite playstyle means my armies tend to stray from the normal units- Right now, my gondor army is looking at costing around £140 for 27 models, for 800pts D:

My friend got an old 24-man box of Dwarven Warriors for about $23 and got a Gimli model for free. He's pretty much sorted!

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
My friend got an old 24-man box of Dwarven Warriors for about $23 and got a Gimli model for free. He's pretty much sorted!

yup, just do a quick conversion or a different paintjob to one of 'em to count as a captain, that's over 300 points in the bag

Heh, love the 24 sets. Me and my brothers were famous for being the only real active LoTR players at our local bunker, so when they had the 24-man sets on a blow-out sale we pretty much had the whole damn line to ourselves, so I didn't spend too much on my evil armies.

i would get gondor or urukhai as they are basic

 p_gray99 wrote:
Thanks for the responses! I'm still not sure what to go with, but I'll probably try out the goblins or dwarves. While it doesn't make decision-making any easier, I'm happy to hear that the armies are roughly even, as it should mean that whichever I pick won't leave me losing every game, meaning I can think about other things for the decision instead.

Dwarves will be far cheaper as an army. Thorin's company alone is over 1000 points, iirc and I've seen it used in battle before, it's certainly not bad. Heck, I remember seeing someone use (I think it was) Thorin, Balin and Dwalin in a 500pt game. That was less successful, but it was a good laugh

 The Shadow wrote:

 p_gray99 wrote:
Thanks for the responses! I'm still not sure what to go with, but I'll probably try out the goblins or dwarves. While it doesn't make decision-making any easier, I'm happy to hear that the armies are roughly even, as it should mean that whichever I pick won't leave me losing every game, meaning I can think about other things for the decision instead.

Dwarves will be far cheaper as an army. Thorin's company alone is over 1000 points, iirc and I've seen it used in battle before, it's certainly not bad. Heck, I remember seeing someone use (I think it was) Thorin, Balin and Dwalin in a 500pt game. That was less successful, but it was a good laugh

Just the Dwarves: 780 points

Dwarves + Bilbo: 840

Add in Gandalf: 1010 before upgrades