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I used to have a very dim view on Special strikes, but having played with them in a non competitive environment i think it adds more tactical options to the game, except feinting. I don't like it when people deliberately change a models weapons for special strikes though, axe Reavers spring to mind...

Nice idea! I'll see if I can pick any lotr stuff up to paint

Doubt I'll get any games in though :(

I'll add you to the OP, ckig! If you're just looking to dip your toe in with minis, check eBay, you will probably find some really cheap ones there!

Today, I've actually made a real start on the Gondor army I've had in boxes for years; ironically, despite how much I love the game, I've never actually had a fully painted/based army! That changes here, as I start on a pre-Fellowship army led by Boromir, Faramir and Denethor and themed on the battle for Osgilliath seen briefly in flashback form in LotR.

Pics incoming tomorrow, probably!

Looking forward to that, your painting is great! Absolutely love my Boromir as General and he normally manages to do quite well. So will there be a mix of Warriors and Osgilliath Vets and Rangers?

Probably not a good thing to be saying now that you've started your new army, but I was thoroughly disappointed at how poorly my WoMT did yesterday. My 500pt army now has none at all! Probably just because they were up against Dwarves and needed sixes the whole time...

Captain Galenus wrote:
Looking forward to that, your painting is great! Absolutely love my Boromir as General and he normally manages to do quite well. So will there be a mix of Warriors and Osgilliath Vets and Rangers?

Cheers! At the moment, I have a WoMT warband led by Boromir, Rangers led by Faramir, and Denethor well have either WoMT or Osgilliath Vets if I bust out the GS. I also want to fit some Knights in there later on, but they aren't a priority.

Probably not a good thing to be saying now that you've started your new army, but I was thoroughly disappointed at how poorly my WoMT did yesterday. My 500pt army now has none at all! Probably just because they were up against Dwarves and needed sixes the whole time...

Oh dear! I must admit I remember them being quite good when I used to play more, and I have nearly 50 of the blighters (the core of a long dead WotR army). I favour high-Defence units in most game systems, so it was them or Dwarves, and basically, Boromir swung it. I have the minis for a small dwarf force, though, so they might materialise further down line.

I have to say, though, with the state my gaming group is in (or rather, isn't in, as most players have dropped out of the hobby), the chances of this army seeing the tabletop are minimal, so at this point it's Armchair Generalship for the win!

Cool, knights are a good way to go so I'd recommend them sooner or later. WoMT normally do form great battlelines and can be really effective, I just think my poor rolling to kill high defence dwarves and the fact that one flank got overrun quickly cast a dim view on them. That or the fact that my GotFC did so well it made everything else look bad!

Tbh, a solid core of Warriors supported by Rangers/cav can be really effective, especially with Boromir's 'banner of kill f***ing anything' holding the centre. I'd also recomend madril as he's only 55pts and has 3 might points and a cool special rule allowing you to reroll reserves. Thematic as well, just make sure he dies...

' I have nearly 50 of the blighters (the core of a long dead WotR army)' tell me about it! I boight so many and now no one plays it and i'm left with boxes of them. Probably going to convert them into Arnorians or make a diorama.

It's a shame it's so hard to find opponents because it can be a really fun and quick game. The guy I played on Thursday said after wards that he had forgotten what such a great game it was!

Actually, I have some GotFC I can fix up, I might use them as a bodyguard for Denethor and fill the rest of his Warband with Knights to run interference. I have a feeling Madril is actually really hard to get now, but I could probably convert a Ranger.

And without further ado, the first Warband of the army. 298 points of Boromir-led goodness!



The paintwork is nothing special, but they pass the 3-foot test and look good ranked up. Next will be some Rangers:

Cool! Really nicely painted! Tbh they only really need to look good on the table, and they look better than table quality!

GotFC are really effective, and you almost HAVE to give them shields. Defence 8 spears is not something to turn your nose at! It also puts a lot of dread into your opponents, in the last game my enemy kept making comments about the phalanx coming up his flank and started over committing to take them down leaving the rest of my army an easier job. Bodyguard is also a nice rule. I'd recommend running them with a banner for more nastiness.

Madril is pretty rare at the moment, so I just use a Ranger conversion at the moment until I get one off eBay. Normally go for about £5-10 at the moment if you're lucky.

Think I'm going to do some painting now as well. You've inspired me!

Well, here's a tentative list. It will probably change before I'm done, but it at least gives me some ideas and barring Madril, I have all the minis needed:

Warband 1: 298
Boromir
4 sword and shield
4 spear and shield
1 banner
2 archers

Warband 2: 140
Madril
5 Rangers
5 Rangers with spears

Warband 3: 124
Denethor
3 Fountain Guard
6 Knights of Minas Tirith

Warband 4: 118
Faramir, bow
7 Osgiliath Veterans with Shields



Might switch round some upgrades, but that's the gist of it. I'm using the 4th ed points, so apologies if they are a bit out.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

You can still get mandril on the GW site http://www.games-workshop.com/en-WW/Cirion-and-Madril.

That link doesn't work, it says the page no longer exists.

I'm not too fussed to be honest, he should be easy to convert.

Good strong list, gotta love the flexibility of Gondor. In Boromir's warband I'd swap out the two bows for shields, because you have a perfectly good shooting strength in the rangers and you don't want to split your warbands up too much as the two archers won't move to shoot so be isolated and your battle line will be down on numbers meaning your opponent can tackle your army in small lumps rather than one big one. Other than that it is a solid core.

Madril with Rangers = very nice. Spears on rangers is very useful (i normally give a lot of my rangers spears) but don't be afraid to sacrifice some spears to free up points elsewhere, like more spears for Boromir's warband. Of course it depends on enemies/play styles. No real need to change.

The knights are very good, though imho i'd give them a mounted hero for support and Might etc.. Also, although GotFC are bloomin effective, in small numbers they will get overrun, especially with Denethor. If you don't have more models for them don't worry, WoMT can help out here. Of course the main restriction would be numbers with the knights.

Love Faramir with Osg. vets, but my suggestion would be to get Faramir (potentially Boromir or just a Captain) on a horse with the knights then have the GotFC with Osgiliath vets and remaining hero. By doing this you don't get to use the special rule they have which is an inconvenience... It's also less thematic, but more tactical.

Overall it is a perfectly sound list, I am just being pedantic! Fluff is more important than cheese but sometimes you have to make sacrifices... Keep up the great painting, I'm about to go and sit down myself in this lovely British weather...

Cheers for the advice!

I put the archers in Boromir's warband just as a) I had them to hand when I was painting and b) because it means I can play that Warband as a single 300 point army should I want a smaller game and still have some shooting, albeit meagre! I think down the line I'll swap them for extra shields to put on the ends of the line to stop flankers getting to the Spearmen easily.

I like the spears on the rangers so they can shoot and contribute to fighting while using the front rank to provide 'in the way' rolls against them. It's worked well for me in the past, so I guess it's one of my go-to setups.

The Denethor Warband isa bit of a mix. Denethor himself is there for cheap might points and thematic reasons as much as anything else. The plan with the GotFC is to give them shields and put them in a triangle of overlapping control zones around Denethor until they are needed, so that if he fails the Broken Mind test, all the enemy do with him is ineffectually head but high defence. I'll also be using them close to the Boromir battle line, so ideally the Guard can plug holes in the battle line and Boromir and Denethor's might can overlap. The knights are just to keep back and countercharge. I could put them in own warband with a captain, but I'd have to cut something somewhere else.

I want to keep Faramir with the vets to make use of their rule as much as possible, otherwise I'm just overpaying for WoMT.

I appreciate the advice, though, and I'll be sure to bear it in mind as and when I get to playtesting the list.

No problem!

They are some very good reasons to keep the list as it is. I didn't think of deploying Denethor next to Boromir's warband... works perfectly well though. Spears on Rangers are very effective and I'd defo keep them, I was just saying don't be afraid to ditch them if you really need a spare point or two. Yeah you kinda need Faramir with the vets to make them worthwhile.

Here to help! The wonderful thing about LotR is that often tactics and strategy is a lot more important to what the list is on paper.

Well, I've just taken a break from some solid painting. Currently painting 3 Knights of Dol Amroth, 4 GotFC, and Prince Imrahil mounted, all at the same time! So much detail I don't know why I'm doing it...

In case you are interested, here is a quick 500pt list that I want to try out for fun. I'm pretty sure I'll be up against a horde army, but oh well. Should be good fun to play...

Warband 1: 317
Prince Imrahil mounted, lance 155
6 SkoDA mounted, lances 114
6 Blackroot Vale Archer 48

Warband 2: 181
Madril 55
9 GotFC 8 shields + banner 126

Total: 500

Very elite heavy and few in numbers so I'll see if it can perform or not...

Edit: a quick poor quality shot to show what I'm going through

Looks like a solid list, Imrahil and the mounted Knights are just awesome against pretty much anything, and a Fountain Guard shieldwall should be very hardy indeed. Hard to tell at that angle, are those Men of Numenor you're using as Knights of DA? Because that's an awesome idea.

And of course, points are pouring your way for the photos, 8 of them in fact as there are 8 models in the photo!

Cheers. Imrahil/knights combo is pretty beast, but a massive points sink...

I am indeed using Numenoreans for when the horses get killed. Cheap and effective seeing as how poor Numenoreans are in the game as I love their models . Here's a finished one that I did quite a while ago:

 Paradigm wrote:
...until this once get game is relegated to the dusty corner full of the games of yesteryear, the likes of Necromunda and Mordhiem that have been abandoned by GW. These games still survive, though, through a vibrant online community determined to keep them alive. Of course, us LotR players will keep a similar community going, but every little helps.

"Vibrant"
It makes me sad when I think about it, but LotR/The Hobbit are not going the way Mordheim, Necromunda, or the other old classics have gone (where many people still remember them fondly/are willing to play them). I think that they're instead going to go the way of Warhammer Ancients- where when you mention that you collect them, people go "Huh? What's that? Never heard of it."

This is because they never really had the fanbase support in terms of people actively going out and playing them that the Specialist Games did. Games Workshop wanted to drop Specialist Games for a long time, but a dedicated fanbase kept it going. Contrast this with LotR/Hobbit, where Games Workshop has kept trying to promote in the last few years, but never really picked up that dedicated fanbase.

Regardless, good luck with your promotion. If this section of the forums started to get active, I'm glad to join in.

I actually got a game in! I convinced my brother to take command of a Fallen Realms list of Easterlings, Corsairs and Khandish against my painted-so-far Gondor list. We played a custom scenario about controlling 3 bridges in Osgiliath, and at the end of the game I held 2 of the 3, largely thanks to some heroics from Boromir (taking a whole bridge by himself) and my block of WoMT proving damn hard to kill. Fun was had on both sides, so we're going to try and get a campaign going. Tomorrow, I think the mission will be one half of the Gondor force coming to the aid of the other and then trying to escape... With any luck, I'll get some more painted for that as well.

Mysterious Pants wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
...until this once get game is relegated to the dusty corner full of the games of yesteryear, the likes of Necromunda and Mordhiem that have been abandoned by GW. These games still survive, though, through a vibrant online community determined to keep them alive. Of course, us LotR players will keep a similar community going, but every little helps.

"Vibrant"
It makes me sad when I think about it, but LotR/The Hobbit are not going the way Mordheim, Necromunda, or the other old classics have gone (where many people still remember them fondly/are willing to play them). I think that they're instead going to go the way of Warhammer Ancients- where when you mention that you collect them, people go "Huh? What's that? Never heard of it."

This is because they never really had the fanbase support in terms of people actively going out and playing them that the Specialist Games did. Games Workshop wanted to drop Specialist Games for a long time, but a dedicated fanbase kept it going. Contrast this with LotR/Hobbit, where Games Workshop has kept trying to promote in the last few years, but never really picked up that dedicated fanbase.

Regardless, good luck with your promotion. If this section of the forums started to get active, I'm glad to join in

I think the lack of interest in The Hobbit comes from the horrible way in which he GW have tried to sell it. Doubling the price of most minis (even the old ones) and building up from there make the game far harder to get into. I was thinking about this earlier, and how much higher the cost is now.

In the RoTK era, you could get a force together from one box of troops (20-24 guys for £15) and a Hero (ranging from £7-12 or so). Now, for that same force, you're looking at double that cost, with the old troop boxes cut in half for the same price and the heroes now around £12-15. Now there's no way that's inflation, or even the rising cost of materials, it's just greed. It's as if GW didn't realise why the LotR game was so popular; largely because you could literally play it on pocket money.

Regardless, I think there's still plenty of us vets from the original game left, even if the new intake is lower, and forums like One Ring and The Last Alliance are still pretty active with discussion on it. So I'm content to believe that all is not lost, and that this great game will survive in fan-driven form even if GW drop it like a stone.

Great models Paradigm very nicely painted, and it does sound like you have a strong army to use as well

I'll put my models back in the display case in a few minutes and take some photos for you guys, I'll also get some photos of my mounted Elendil. I'm just currently painting him up would you guys maybe like a WIP shot of him too ?

I agree on your point about the sheer price of the models now ! Have you seen on the GW site with the new pre orders for the wood elves. £27 for a mounted hero and on foot !

Thanks! More incoming tomorrow, I've painted up my Fountain Guard and Denethor, and started converting some Citadel Guard for those nice S3 bows. Yesterday my shooting was a little ineffective, so it's time to up the weapons!

Looking forward to seeing the minis, and WIP shots, especially of conversions, are great (and get points!).

The worst part of the new pricing is that, had this Hobbit stuff come out at LotR prices, I'd probably be sitting on a few hundred points each of Dwarves, Wood Elves and Hunter Orcs, but instead, all I've been able to justify buying is EfGT.

Yeah I mean I am really apprehensive of buying any of the hobbit miniatures just because of how some of them look. I'm sure it's just the paintjob they have on the website but some of them seem to lack some real detail which is kind of off putting for me.

Have you or anyone for that matter bought any hobbit miniatures and think they are actually ok for detail ?

The Thorin's Company minis in Goblin Town are all very nice sculpts, as good as any of the LotR hero minis in terms of accuracy and likeness to the cast. The Goblin King is very nice as well, and the Goblins, while I don't massively like the aesthetic, are decent enough for horde troops. If you want, I can take some pics of that lot (painted and unpainted) tomorrow?

I think all of the AUJ plastic sets are going to be good, the newer ones I'm not sure on as the paintjobs on the site aren't exactly stellar. I've not known GW to make a bad kit (in casting terms) in recent years, so they're likely fine, but some of the poses on the Ranger elves look a bit off to me.

Alrighty just picked up a bunch of random lotr stuff. just need to strip them before painting

And yeah I'd be in for a lot of the new hobbit stuff too but those prices are crazy. Especially in oz. $80 for 2 minis goddamn.

Awesome, welcome aboard, man! If you want any help writing some lists up, just let me know what you have and I'll see what I can do!

Cool. I got no idea how these lists works and warbands etc. Does the hobbit contain everything I need. Lotr used to have a million different books. Hope its all consolidated into one now. GW don't sell the old books anymore :/

Here's what i picked up:

Fellowship
24 moria goblins with assorted weapons
Cave troll.
Good setup for some moria scenarios i guess. Just need a balrog now heheh.

20 uruks with pikes and swords
Lurtz

12 rohan guys with assorted weapons.

Kind of a hodgepodge collection but it was cheap lol. Guess some some advice to expand would be good. A uruks vs rohan seems fitting and i got a bit of a start. I also want to get into the big mordor and gondor forces since they have a good range of plastic. But for now. Baby steps :p

Alrighty as promised I hath returned with photos !

I will spoiler them to save clogging the thread up with pictures

The profiles for all the Hobbit stuff from the first film is available on the BL site here:
http://www.blacklibrary.com/Downloads/Product/PDF/The-Hobbit/Heroes-and-villains-of-Middle-earth.pdf

And the stuff from the 3rd film is going to be in WD in a couple of weeks. As it looks like they sourcebooks for LOTR are sold out, your best bet is to look for either the Big Blue Book (3rd ed rules) or Legions of Middle Earth, both of which have rules for most LotR stuff.

As for what you've got, the Fellowship are worth having for special scenarios, and are good minis to paint as well.

Warbands are how you build your force, and have to have 1 hero (named or just a captain ect) and then 0-12 troops of any type. So for Isengard, I'd go with

WB1:
Lurtz
5 shields
5 pikes

WB2:
Captain (probably a good one to look for as a next purchase)
5 shields
5 pikes

Comes to about 320 points, not a bad level to start at and a good base to build from.

You've got a good core for Goblins, but will need some heroes of you want to play a 'legal' list. That said, they will be good for testing your armies against if you do that kind of thing.

If you want both Mordor and Isengard, orcs are your friends, as they can be included in both armies. There are also very loose ally rules, so if you want you can easily combine any good/evil armies you want.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Really nice stuff Wolf! Adding up the points now, but suffice to say many are coming your way! The Last Alliance stuff in particular looks great!

Thanks paradigm, points are always a welcome thing I have enjoyed painting the last allince models the most, but I am proud of my rohan force too, I think I need to take better pictures to do them amy justice

What edition were the war and rules implemented ? As the big rule book me and my friends play with says nothing of the sort.

Warbands came in with the last round of Sourcebooks.

 Paradigm wrote:
As it looks like they sourcebooks for LOTR are sold out...

Looks like all of the sourcebooks are available on the US web site and the Canadian web site