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Hello! I am looking to get back into the game after many years away, now that the new edition of the rules are out. I am looking for some recommendations on an army that is:

1) Easy to paint
2) Has a smaller number of models

I'm in a busy period of my professional life now, so I need to work on an army that isn't going to take a ton of time to get to the table. I will be able to pursue some time-intensive painting projects down the road.

Thank you!

Well...In terms of easy to get to field you can't really beat army of the dead. 20 basic guys+king of the dead(this one you need to hunt from ebay though at least for now) and you have 400 pts. Add another 20 for extra 300 pts. 20 more and you have 1000 pts.

And you can literally paint those in a day! Solid white prime, hexwraith flame or whatever the new technical colour was called or the blue one in couple lates. I added some light drybrush white. Done. Basing will take more time than that...

Bad side is it's bit one dimensional army. You could add some riders of the dead(if you can find from ebay...) but that's about it without allies and they are real tough one to ally with only rangers and minas tirith and need Aragorn as well without going to red level alliance.

Gameplay wise also not too shabby. D8, terror, wounding vs courage is nothing too shabby at least in smaller games. In bigger games you probably want that Aragorn.

Thank you for the feedback. I assume I can add Aragorn and some Rangers of the North with bows to this army without any penalties?

pistachio wrote:
Thank you for the feedback. I assume I can add Aragorn and some Rangers of the North with bows to this army without any penalties?

As long as Aragorn is in it yes. The moment you drop Aragorn you go to worst level of ally which adds some penalties. Biggest one being lack of army bonuses(2 attacks for rangers, -1 courage aura from king of the dead and ability to form warbands without hero with the dead).

On the Evil side, it looks like Dark Powers of Dol Guldur army meets my requirements, as well.

pistachio wrote:
On the Evil side, it looks like Dark Powers of Dol Guldur army meets my requirements, as well.

Massively. The only downside is that the list only really works with Sauron the Necromancer in it, and at that point you really want as many of the 9 as you can fit to get the most value out of the army bonus - generally speaking, this means 1000pts games as the 75pt models are awkward to get to an even points value without dropping some points.

On the upside, I built and painted the entire force in two weekends with time to spare. The Keeper of Dungeons probably took me as long as all of the Nazgul combined, and it looks pretty good to boot.



I'm also currently working on a Grey Company army (profiles in Armies of LOTR, army list in Gondor at War) for funsies as it has some models in common with my Rivendell list, and I think it's a nice relatively low model count foil to my Dol Guldur army. The army in grand total is Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Halbarad with Banner, Elladan & Elrohir, plus 10 Rangers with spears. 16 minis total, 1000pts. Again though, it suffers from a simliar issue as the Dol Guldur list in that it doesn't really work at other common lower points values, such as 500pts.

 Haanz wrote:

pistachio wrote:
On the Evil side, it looks like Dark Powers of Dol Guldur army meets my requirements, as well.

Massively. The only downside is that the list only really works with Sauron the Necromancer in it, and at that point you really want as many of the 9 as you can fit to get the most value out of the army bonus - generally speaking, this means 1000pts games as the 75pt models are awkward to get to an even points value without dropping some points.

On the upside, I built and painted the entire force in two weekends with time to spare. The Keeper of Dungeons probably took me as long as all of the Nazgul combined, and it looks pretty good to boot.

Spoiler:

I'm also currently working on a Grey Company army (profiles in Armies of LOTR, army list in Gondor at War) for funsies as it has some models in common with my Rivendell list, and I think it's a nice relatively low model count foil to my Dol Guldur army. The army in grand total is Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Halbarad with Banner, Elladan & Elrohir, plus 10 Rangers with spears. 16 minis total, 1000pts. Again though, it suffers from a simliar issue as the Dol Guldur list in that it doesn't really work at other common lower points values, such as 500pts.

Really great looking army, even though the wraiths are fairly easy to paint

Misty Mountains and Radagast alliance are small count armies easy and fast to paint.

Great advice, thank you!

I started with a Battle Company (a supplement book) using just a handful of figures for their skirmish rules. It was great. Very fluffy and cinematic, and you can get a feel for styles before you commit.