Hey all,

recently i put together the following 400pt mordor list:

warband 1 - 165
morannon orc captain

5 morannons with shield

6 morannons with spear

1 morannon with a banner

--------------------
warband 2 - 124
orc shaman

10 orc warriors with hand weapons

2 warg riders with hand weapons

--------------------
warband 3 - 114
orc Drummer

10 orc warriors with hand weapons

2 warg riders with hand weapons

Total = 403

I was just wondering A) what you thought about it (good, bad, ugly etc) and B) what you think I should get to expand it to 600?

Choices to pick from include a foot mouth of sauron, 4 wraiths (on foot and mounted), 4 wraiths on fellbeasts, 6 black numenoreans and a Devlan Mud load of harad infantry. I'm tempted by a wraith on fellbeast (possibly a named one like the witch king or knight of umbar) to deal with big bad heroes, but I also kind of want some black numenoreans in there too.

Mainly for the 400 list I wanted a fast and mean attacking list - hence the inclusion of the drummer. The idea is to keep the morannons screened by some cannon fodder orcs and rush the enemy before overwhelming them in combat. Wargs go round the sides and back as a group of 4, morannons take on the main enemies while the remaining orcs are there to try and surround individuals. I want a similar sort of playstyle for 600 with the above as a core, so anything that can help me do that is open to suggestion really!

Cheers!

This army list is very much mass-based. So indeed, you would benefit from... Something like Knight of Umbar on fellbeast would be a nice melee monster.

You could perhaps pass the drummer, and make a fellbeast + wargriders force to be a mobile strike force.

Something like:
*Knight of umbar + fellbeast
-11 warg rider, items

*Morannon orc Captain
*12 morannon orc

*Orc Shaman
*12 Orc warrior + banner

600p, 6 might, 38 unit.

I don't agree with Salattu's advice. I think that if you want to expand your army up to 600pts you could do two thing without changing so drastically. If you have the troops you could drop some of the orcs with two handed weapons and role those points into a new warband from harad led by the KoU on horse with Black Numenorians or Castellans of Umbar and cheap harad spear support. Which would give you a powerful combat hero and some more elite troops. Not to mention close to 4 full warbands.

Alternatively you could just upgrade your morannon orc captain into a wraith with wings and use the remaining points to reequip and upgrade your existing warbands with spears, shields or perhaps some Black Numenorians too. Though I don't really think its worth bringing in a wraith on wings in at 600pts when a horse would do just as well.

Whatever you do though I think you need to get your orcs into a classic spear and shield setup. All those grunt orcs and two handed guys are going to be really cumbersome and because there defense is low if the tables turn on you they'll get scythed right down shaman or no. That is why I am more in favor of my first suggestion as it gives you some more high defense troops and a combat hero to help balance out all those cannon fodder guys.

_________________
"Draw your sword with a heavy heart, but swing it with a heavy hand"

Warband 1 10/12
The Shadow Lord with armoured horse;
4 Orc Tracker with Warg;
6 Black Númenórean
----
Warband 2 10/12
Morannon Orc Captain with Shield;
4 Morannon Orc with Shield;
2 Morannon Orc with Spear;
1 Morannon Orc with Banner;
3 Morannon Orc with Shield; Spear;
----
Warband 3 10/12
Mordor Orc Shaman
4 Orc Warrior with Spear;
4 Orc Warrior with Shield;
2 Orc Warrior with Two-handed weapon;
----
Warband 4 10/12
Orc Drummer
4 Orc Warrior with Spear;
4 Orc Warrior with Shield;
2 Orc Warrior with Two-handed weapon;
----
600pts 44models 4bows
How about something like this? obviously the shadow lord can be replaced with whatever wraith you fancy but I feel that for a horde he has an ability which would help keep them alive. It does, however, lack might.

Well, I still recommend fellbeast as it costs just 35p more than armoured horse. It also works very well with shadowlord, giving increased range of shadow veil and making hard to shoot fellbeast down.

With shadowlord on fellbeast, u could form a strong central group with numenoreans, morannons and a couple spider. Spiders have rly good dmg, u could transfix enemies and use spiders to kill him or so on. Same spiders also work with drummer as they run anyways the 24cm. So, i made a new army list trying to adapt better to your wishes:

*Shadowlord on Fellbeast
-6 black numenorean
-4 morannon
-2 giant spider

*Orc Captain, shield
-4 morannon
-6 orc warrior
-2 giant spider

*Orc Drummer
-5 morannon
-5 orc warrior
-2 giant spider

599p, 5 might, 39 unit.

Thank you for your responses everyone!

As it happens I've got an update for you. I've done some tweaking of the 400pt list and was wondering what you think. It's probably not as good as the other one, but it does include some different models and characters which I would've preferred, so I'd like to know if it's good or bad.

What we've got now:

Warband 1: 160
Mouth of Sauron - Armoured Horse
5 Black Numenoreans
5 Morannon orcs with spears

Warband 2: 124
Orc Shaman
10 Orc warriors - all with a hand weapon
2 Warg Riders - same as the orc warriors

Warband 3: 114
Orc Captain
10 Orc warriors - as above
2 Warg Riders - as above.

37 models - 4 might - 398

The principle for the way I want to use them is essentially the same as above, but I've instead decided to use my black numenoreans and the mouth of sauron. Numenoreans and morannons form a shield wall like normal, with the mouth flanking round the sides with the wargs. Plan is for him to transfix enemy heroes, before charging with the wargs to finish them off. From there they can act as normal cavalry and attack enemy infantry.

I've dropped the drummer for an orc captain instead (as Numenoreans wouldn't be able to benefit from the drum) and instead plan to use Might (if it's needed) to heroic march my way forward.

How do we think this list would hold up?

To give an e.g. of my mate's rohan list (though I should point out I'm not trying to tailor against it) one of the things it could be fighting is the following:

Eomer on horse + 12 riders of rohan

Theoden on foot + 3 royal guard & warriors with shields and 6 throwing spears.

& a dunedain

How do we think my guys would do against that lot, or in general?

Cheers!

You need a spear behind every front guy, otherwise you fight 1 against 2...and Fight 3 will not win you duels.

I was wondering about this actually - considering orcs are so cheap, is it really worth giving them extra equipment and so forth? I mean, given the cost of a shield, spear, two handed weapon etc, after buying just 5 of those items I've spent the equivalent of buying another orc. To apply that to the above list, I'd drop down from 20 orcs to about 16. Granted, you get two attacks, but with the extra bodies you can try to flank individual models with a couple of yours anyway - which, if you can surround them, means you double your attacks too.

For the above reasons, do we think spears, shields, two handers etc on basic orcs are really worth it? Especially if you have higher fight value, S or C troops in your army elsewhere?

Cheers.

Warband 1 4/12
Ringwraith (1) with Horse; 1 Extra Might; 1 Extra Fate;
2 Orc Tracker with Warg;
2 Warg Rider with Shield

Warband 2 12/12
Mordor Orc Shaman
1 Orc Warrior with Spear;
2 Orc Warrior with Two-handed weapon;
2 Orc Tracker
3 Morannon Orc with Shield; Spear;
4 Black Númenórean

Warband 3 12/12
Orc Captain with Shield;
1 Orc Warrior with Spear;
2 Orc Warrior with Two-handed weapon;
2 Orc Tracker
3 Morannon Orc with Shield; Spear;
4 Black Númenórean

400pts 31models 6bows 4might

I think the extra equipment is pretty important in an orc list, the fact you are mostly foot soldiers, the ability to shield against, say a mounted charge, is a huge plus. Alternatively the ability to spear support to add numbers where surrounding is unavailable is essential. I would personally look to a cheap ringwraith over the mouth as they are better supports, though this is personal preference so you can easily change out if you would like. Two handed weapons just gives you extra killing power and a few trackers means you can, potentially, pick of mounts where needed.

Try it. Swarm tactics can be deadly, but rely on flanking. Flanking is the most basic tactic, guarded against by all but the most inexperienced players.

Throw your row of single orcs against your average Fight 4 Shield wall, and you will lose 74.54% of the those fights (according to Lonely Knight's most excellent Odds of Winning A Fight spreadsheet, found at http://www.lonelyknight.0fees.net/?ckattempt=1).

Say your average enemy shield wall is 18 models...meaning 13.5 of your orcs will lose that first fight. Those will die on 5+ rolls. If your enemy was rolling one dice, he'd have a 33% chance of getting that killing 5+...but he is rolling two dice...so double? I am guessing that half of those 13 orcs will die in the first round. The few that win must roll 6+ to wound. Lots of orc blood...