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Decided I am going to pick up the two player starter to have quick armies to get myself and whoever wants to learn the game going right away. But, I really want to play Rivendell as my real army.

Plan on ordering one of each named and generic hero, plus a few boxes of elf infantry and some knights.

After watching some battle reports to try and understand the game again, I came up with a first list I plan to buy in to after the starter. What do you think?


++ Strategy Battle Game (Rivendell) [28 Warriors, 747 Points, 10 Bow] ++

+ Hero +

Elrond, Master of Rivendell [12 Warriors, 358 Points, 4 Bow]
. Elrond, Master of Rivendell: Hadhafang, Heavy Armour, Horse, Leader (Legend), Vilya
. Warband
. . High Elf Warrior: Elven-made Hand-and-a-Half Sword, Heavy Armour, Shield, 8x Warrior
. . Rivendell Knight: Elf Bow, Elven-made Hand-and-a-Half Sword, Heavy Armour, Horse, 4x Knight, Lance, Shield

High Elf Captain [12 Warriors, 212 Points, 6 Bow]
. High Elf Captain: Elf Bow, Elven-made Hand-and-a-Half Sword, Heavy Armour
. Warband
. . High Elf Warrior: Elven-made Hand-and-a-Half Sword, Heavy Armour, Shield, Spear, 6x Warrior
. . High Elf Warrior: Elf Bow, Elven-made Hand-and-a-Half Sword, Heavy Armour, 6x Warrior

High Elf Captain [4 Warriors, 177 Points]
. High Elf Captain: Elven-made Hand-and-a-Half Sword, Heavy Armour, Shield
. Warband
. . High Elf Warrior: Banner, Elven-made Hand-and-a-Half Sword, Heavy Armour, Shield, Warrior
. . High Elf Warrior: Elven-made Hand-and-a-Half Sword, Heavy Armour, Shield, War Horn, Warrior
. . High Elf Warrior: Elven-made Hand-and-a-Half Sword, Heavy Armour, Shield, Spear, 2x Warrior


Rivendell

++ Total: [10 Bow, 747 Points, 28 Warriors] ++

Will likely shuffle models in the warbands around later, but just wanted to get an idea of what I could fit in at 750 points. Saw a few videos with people using pretty much nothing but Rivendell Knights... but that honestly looked miserable to play, and play against. Wanted to try and get a fairly healthy mix of all the generic Rivendell infantry into the list for some variety.

What kind of tips and tricks do you all have for playing Rivendell? Really excited to get back to a game I haven't touched since 2005-2006.

Good choice, I've had some experience with Rivendell and they can be very fun to play - but challenging as well.

I see that you have given the warriors shields where possible, this would have been my first suggestion as they can drop like (expensive) orcs otherwise in melee.

My next suggestion would be to swap the captains out. Erestor is a great deal for his points. Perhaps Gildor as well for some utility, maybe Lindir instead for some synergy with Elrond for casting nature's wrath.

Quick tips:

- Don't be afraid to shield with your warriors to even the odds against higher numbers, they won't kill a great deal - it will be your heroes doing most of the heavy lifting.
- Make the most of your archers where possible to eliminate key threats or dictate movement.
- Tie this in with the high movement of Elrond/knights to trample out of position enemies.
- Ultimately, try to do anything but give the enemy a fair fight ! Not very elf-like I know but it works.

Otherwise I would say get playing against a variety of armies, you will find what might work wonders against one will be dreadful against another. For me, I needed a fair bit of tweaking and practicing before I was comfortable playing Rivendell.

I don't think you need a warhorn in this army. Elves start at Courage 5 which is above average.You don't really need to push it to 6. Also, putting the warhorn and the banner in the smallest warband is dangerous, especially in missions where warbands come on independently. I'd recommend moving the banner over to Elrond's warband since that's going to be your main striking force, or maybe with the Captain.

I've noticed that most infantry tactics in MESBG rely on shield walls - you have two models supporting each other to get two dice to win Duel rolls (which you want since elves are Fight 5 and easily outclass other warriors). For most factions that's a guy in front with a sword and shield, and a guy in back with a spear (and maybe a shield). For elves, another option is a guy in front with a sword and shield, and the guy in back with a spear and elf bow. It's more fragile but elf bows are nasty.

You may want to keep one Elf Captain since Heroic March can win games. Lindir works well with Elrond, but Cirdan might be another good option if you want to make a bow firebase that's hard to charge (using his Aura of Dismay).

So maybe something like:

Elrond, Heavy Armor, Horse, Leader
-Rivendell Knight, Shield x4
-High Elf Warrior, Shield, Spear x3
-High Elf Warrior, Shield x2

High Elf Captain, Shield
-High Elf Warrior, Shield, Spear, Banner
-High Elf Warrior, Shield, Spear x5
-High Elf Warrior, Shield x6

Cirdan
-High Elf Warrior, Bow, Spear x5
-High Elf Warrior, Shield x5

That's 747/750 with 34 models and 9 bow, so it can be tweaked a little.

Grain of salt with all this as I'm a new player whose also looking to use Rivendell as my first Good army, but with Glorfindel as the major beatstick in the army instead of Elrond.

Thank you both for the advice and tactics tips, that is a really great help. I will work on shuffling around the warbands to move some more of the important models into Elrond's band.

I haven't looked into the rules for the other named characters, so I will have to see what I can swap one of the Captains out for, and what else I can add after dropping the war horn.

Okay, so question for you guys. What do you do for models in the army list that are not in current production (at least not that I see on GW's website) like Lindir, Gildor, and Cirdan?

I have been having one heck of a time trying to find the official models on eBay, or even suitable third party miniatures.

I believe some of them are coming back into stock this week when more of the profile cards are released.

 Vekin wrote:
I believe some of them are coming back into stock this week when more of the profile cards are released.

Oh wow! That is excellent news! I mean, I don't mind eBay hunting to find models... but I get the feeling it would bother anybody I introduce the game to.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Okay, well... my journey has begun. Picked up a blister with a brand new metal Elrond and Gil Galad online. Will be heading to my local store hopefully next week to order the rest of the hero models GW has available right now.

One more question though, how picky are people when it comes to running an unarmored version of a model as the armored version? I have found a few (very overpriced) blisters that have unarmored Glorfindel on foot and mounted, and would prefer to buy that for a few reasons, mainly because I like the idea of having both mounted and unmounted versions to look similar, and it helps distinguish Glorfindel from the Erestor model since they both look fairly similar.

I don't think they're too picky as long as you make it clear to your opponent what's what.

Well, with the repacking of the Rivendell characters into bundles, I went ahead and preordered all of them except the new resin Elrond.

Ended up buying Cirdan and Gildor off of eBay, pretty excited for all this to show up while I continue to think about what the rest of the army will look like.

For the generic warriors, should 12 of each infantry loadout be enough (so 12 elves with spear, 12 with sword, 12 with bow)? I also don't think I will need more than 4-6 Rivendell Knights, what do you guys think.

Agreed you shouldn't need much more than that unless you want to try full knights at any point.