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So ive been doing a bit of google work in an effort to make the most out of some recent trades and buys.

I want to make a themed Arnor army list. The issue is most of what im turning up is either grey company or has a mix of hero's that never existed together.
The main focus i would want for the army is to show Arnor in and around the time of its last king as its power was waning and the kingdom was falling.

Ideally I would like to be putting a fair number of warriors of arnor on the table top. I have 18 coming to me but i am open to buying more to fill out a good themed list.
Right now my list of minis i have on hand is.

Arvedui
malbeth
Halbrand
1x Captain of arnor
1x Warrior or Arnor with banner
18x warriors of Arnor
12x Rangers of the north
More plastic rangers then i will ever need

As far as allies go

Eldronds sons
glorfindel
more high elves then i will ever need

I do recall a battle where the high elves and arnor slaped the witch king around but im not sure if Arvedui and malbeth would have been around for that.

Also i am a bit confused as to rangers of the north and Dunedain. The rangers of the north came around well after the fall of arnor yes? where as the dunedain were around in good number during its zenith and in much smaller numbers after its fall all the way through the war of the ring.

Looks like a good solid core there for mid-sized games. I'd grab some more Warriors if you want to play larger battles, but you've got enough to be getting on with.

During the war that saw the fall of Arnor and attempted reclamation of it, I'm pretty sure I read that both Hobbits and Dwarves lent troops to the Arnorian army, so those could be interesting things to look into to change the force up a bit.

I think you're right about the Rangers, I'd have to check though and I don't have the books to hand.

It's very difficult to play a "themed" arnor list with HSBG, it would be best to stick with LSBG or make a house rule ( which is not breaking or cheese ), first of all in order to play a themed list you would only be able to take:

Arvedui
malbeth
Warriors of Arnor
Hobbit Archers

Halbarad, Arathorn, the Grey Company and Aragorn were not born nor did they exist when arnor did, for whatever reason GW went full t-ard and decided to lulz it up with making both dunedain and grey company indy heroes, and leaving you with only Arvendui, Malbeth and of course Arnor Captains to lead warbands. Due to this stupidity its even harder now to play a theme list with the arnor command blister fetching big money and being OOP.

What you could do however is to paint Arathorn, Halbarad or even Aragorn in dif colors or a way to make them look less like them, use their stats but treat them as a counts as some kind of stand outish captain or dunedain ranger to theme it more.

I'm mentioning all of this because I have a themed arnor army that I built with theme only. Everyone takes Arvendui or Malbeth becasue the rest suck or are sub par, but the reality is neither Arvendui or Malbeth would have been at "skirmish" sized battles other than within fornost when the witch king was breaking and slaughtering them all.

But to answer the question a "real" themed Arnor list would look like this ( assuming it's during fornost also because the shire sent 500 hobbit archers to help ):

HSBG

A bunch of dunedain to fill up points and they cannot lead rangers of arnor...derp

Arnor Captain

8 Warriors of Arnor 4 Rangers of Arnor

Arnor Captain

8 Warriors of Arnor 4 Rangers of Arnor

Arnor Captain

8 Warriors of Arnor 4 Hobbit Archers...oh wait hobbit archers cannot be taken now because they need a hobbit to lead them....huge derp.

See how HSBG and GW ruined themed lists ?

Now a LSBG list which would be legal would look something like this...and its far more accurate in terms of a "skirmish" sized Arnor force that would actually reflect something like an arnor outpost or remnants of them.

Captain of Arnor

30 Warriors of Arnor

A few Dunedain

10 Rangers of Arnor

I would probably ally in gondor or elves though with them which would greatly help. Allying in some dwarves could work too as they would have traveled through this region peddling gold and jewels, perhaps a small company of dwarves became caught up in some battles there while on merchant visits. It's mainly GW's fault as the list is similar to Numenor very boring and way too few characters or options, the army itself and history is cool just on the tabletop they are hugely limited in choices, one alternative ( but kinda expensive ) would be to ally in gondor but convert some minis tirith knights with arnor warrior heads and shields, count them as MTK but do them up like that, this is one way to get around it a bit more. Arnor def would have had the same if not similar troops that gondor did they even looked similar.

Some Wood elves or High elves as allies or Gondor as all 3 came to save the day with around 2000 arnor troops left, which then became the rangers of the north which finally became the grey company.



Sadly we are very limited and restricted when it comes to making a real themed arnor force, but if theme is what you are going for the second type of list would be it. Oh and they would most likely have been in black not green, keeping with tolkien that is.

 Envy89 wrote:
The issue is most of what im turning up is either grey company or has a mix of hero's that never existed together.

That is the problem with the Arnor list, its full of anacronistic combinations. To be "historically" correct its either Arvedui, Malbeth, and Warriors of Arnor, or Arathorn, Argaorn, Halbarad and Rangers of the North. IMO at least the two don't really mix.

The main focus i would want for the army is to show Arnor in and around the time of its last king as its power was waning and the kingdom was falling.

I think it we pretend that Halbarad is some other Ranger Captain back in the day, its reasonable enough.

Eldronds sons

Aren't Elladan and Elrohir part of the actual Arnor list?

glorfindel
more high elves then i will ever need

Fair enough! I just wish we had cavalry in either the Arnor or Eregion lists.

Also i am a bit confused as to rangers of the north and Dunedain. The rangers of the north came around well after the fall of arnor yes? where as the dunedain were around in good number during its zenith and in much smaller numbers after its fall all the way through the war of the ring.

I think you are correct. The Rangers are simply the less "civilized" remnants of the people or Arnor. Technically the Dunedain (Men of the West) are simply anyone of pure Numenorean ancestery. That would have been most of the people of Arnor at the time the kingdom was in existence. By the time of the War of the Ring only a few individuals (like Aragorn) retain enough purity of blood to be considered actual Dunedain.

Revenant78 wrote:
Hobbit Archers

Ha! I actually bought a dozen Hobbit Archers to use with my own Arnor list. While the are not "officially" part of the army, the appendixes to LOTR do say that the Shire sent a group of Archers to fight at one or more of the battles between Arnor and Angband. The only problem if you want to play RAW is that there is not really a suitable hobbit "hero" to lead them with, unless you take one of the named Shire heros and just rename him for use in an Arnor list. Otherwise just let one of the human heroes from the offical list do it. I don't know anyone who would complain about that in a "themed" list like we are discussing.

It's believed ( trying to find the exact source ) that 500 hobbit archers were sent in duty to Arnor at the battle.

Originally in the Ruin of Arnor ( which has an official arnor list ) you could take: Arv and Mal, Captain of Arnor and Dunedain. All of these could lead an official Arnor army. Warrior selection was: Warriors of Arnor, Rangers of Arnor and Hobbit Archers...nothing else, so it was downright stupid of GW to not keep them there without needing a hero, they probably would have had some kind of hero but he could have been anything from a hobbit archer to a bounder or whatever, and with 500 hobbit archers they were bound to have sgt's between captains I highly doubt a single captain led literally 500 of them haha.

What makes no sense to me is the inclusion of heroes who were not born then being allowed...but simple hobbit archers not being legal to put in an arnor force without a hero who also would not have existed then, along with the fact both duendain and grey company ( who are almost the same thing I believe grey company were the leftover remnants of dunedain nobels and the "hero" dunedain themselves were the common dunedain...I think ) are indy heroes, when the rangers of arnor are basically them just normal warriors in game, technically speaking rangers of arnor, warriors of arnor and grey company later are all the same race of dunedain just some being higher up there in nobility.

You can technically kinda reflect their "skill" outside of other men if you were to take a captain of arnor, some warriors and add nothing but dunedain heroes vs actual rangers, this would be a good reflection of their higher skill than normal soldiers, the courage thing I am a bit iffy over, I know why GW did this but really numenorians and arnor warriors should be about on par with dwarves imo ( minus speed dif ), these guys were the top human dogs of the day, they were not superhuman by any means but they were highly skilled and the very height of humanity, I guess it falls under a bit of like how space marines should have profiles that truly reflect their skill...so should numenor and arnor, but since its a game oh no they would be op...well not if you made their point costs higher, the problem is these games are usually based on numbers of models vs unit power so bleh.

If you are doing AFTER the fall of fornost, then technically you should and can add in gondor with gondor knights and probably aragorn the king to represent the last king of gondor ( who by the way was killed eventually by the witch king on a second challenge to enter his new fortress ) before aragorn who was indeed mounted and got knocked off his horse to chase after WK when glorfindel stopped him to say it would not be a mans hand who he falls by, rivendell ( although its actually lindon I believe but rivendell works for models ) that has glorfindel and rivendell knights, along with galadhrim ( I believe it was them and not mirkwood wood elves ) and obviously elf warriors. The problem is with a list like this even to be accurate on the most front lines you would be looking at around 1500 points for an army, and I would at least include 8+ warriors of arnor, a captain and some rangers to represent some straglers, there was something like 2000 dunedain left after arvy died in the icy bay, it's these 2000 guys and whoever out of them was left after that final battle to drive the witch king out, which turned into the rangers of the north, and then later the grey company, and it is the most noble pure blood of them that became their "chieftans", which were forced to live roaming the land from camp to camp, because arnor was literally destroyed, what was left was ruins and then rebuilt, rather than abandoning their homeland they chose to protect it and remain even while dwindling, elronds sons were part of the grey company or at the least honorary members and spent many hundreds of years working with them.

"Rangers" wouldn't be a thing for "Arnor" (even for the later Arthedain, which is who we are really talking about if mentioning Arvedui).

The Rangers are what became of the remnants of Arthedain/Arnor after the Battle of Fornost.

MB