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So, after over a decade of 40k and fantasy, i'm branching out. I flirted with the idea of war of the ring a few years back, so i've got some models already. I have a few questions though:

- what's the usual game size in lord of the rings?
- what's the usual game size in war of the ring?
- are any factions notably over/under powered in either game?

And if someone would be so kind as to offer advice on collecting?
I have:

- 24 moria goblins, a shaman, 9 prowlers and a troll. Other than MOAR GUBLINZ what should i look into?

- 24 morannon orcs, 3 captains, standard, shaman, 9 black numenoreans, 4 morgul knights, the tainted foot/mounted, generic ringwraith foot/mounted. Anything else i should be getting other than extra orcs?


Thanks in advance guys.

I've never played WOTR (Never had the desire), but I've played LOTR for quite a while, so I'll help with that.

The usual game size is ~500 points, less or more if you feel like it, though a campaign, battlecompanies, uses ~50 (google that if you want, it's pretty cool).

No factions are OP/UP really, it's a very balanced game system, but Gandalf the White, Boromir of the White Tower, and Dain Ironfoot are probably the nastiest good guys ever.

Now, I mostly play Isengard and Moria, but have expanded into Elves/Numenor.

For Goblins:

You've already said more gobbies, so that's good. Always get more.

Now, with the new rules, you need a captain for every 12 guys (each warband is a captain with up to 12 other non-hero units. A troll takes up as much space as a goblin), so you might want some captains. Durburz is fairly awesome for his cost, so is Groblog if you want to take a shaman or two (he improves the spell fury, which can heal wounds that models take). Gundabad Blackshields are pretty awesome as well. You may want to consider a drum (the Gundabad drum might be even better though).

For Mordor, Morannon Orcs are excellent fighters. I don't really play Mordor, so I'm not as much of a help here, but Mordor Uruk-hai can give you some high strength for a cost. You could buy a box of scouts and paint them in dark colors to acheive that.

Thanks doc!
So the new rules for lotr are warband based huh? I havent played since the two towers box came out, so that's quite different. Are there any restrictions on what the warbands are comprised of? Ie; could one be along the lines of 6 archers, 4 board'n'sword and 2 prowlers? Or do they need to be the same unit type?

I'll be grabbing a war of the ring rulebook second hand soon, and getting the lotr book when i've saved up a bit, or can find one second hand. (core rulebooks run at something like $120+ here)

I do like the sound of warbands though. I'm a big converter so i'll never be short of generic captains.

Warbands are of the same army (Isengard leading Isengard, Moria leading Moria), but any evil force can ally with any evil force, and the same for good.

There is a 33% bow limit in the force (33% of the models in the army can have bows, captains count as models in the force, but can wield bows without counting towards the bow limit).

Do you have the old Mines of Moria rulebook? That has all of the rules in it, you just need a new sourcebook for the warband rules and it has the stats for the units for each related army. You'd need the Moria/Angmar book for Moria and the Mordor book for Mordor.