the council of wizardry... is it just me or are these guys absolutely insane!

starting off from the basics: all the spells are mastery of 10, this is AMAZING, think of the possibilities this gives you as you can counter just about anything out there with these guys
they have counsellor, combine this with the sarumans rule, and you can then STEAL a might pt, next turn give it to a friend (so the enemy ends up with none and you get tons)
then there is we stand alone.... may sound like the council will then just be dueled to death, BUT the council of heros rules means that you can duel them... (and you wont have might to ES them much anyway)
they allow you to reroll for priority (the is freeking amazing)
radagast allows them to move at 12" and strike at the same time as cavalry (makes them really hard to kill)
the have the bane rule AGAINST EVERYTHING (so if you send in a monster it will die, but hopfully do something... (the council is R3...))
and then my favorite rule, a STR 10 SHOOTING ATTACK (5 attacks) WITH FREEKING UNLIMITED RANGE!!!!! so if ur enemy gets a fell beast... then you can smoke then instantly (dont for get move 12), and even super hard to kill stuff like dragons and mumuk will die from the shooting and magic combined (and if not dead they probably wont even be able to move)

im just glad that they dont get epic channeling.... that would be SO imba

Mastery 10 isn't any good; what's the odds of passing nine Focus Tests?

Otherwise, they are very good, but also very expensive. 500pts is quite a lot, and they're not actually that tough. They can deal out lots of damage, but they can't take it as well.

_________________
"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

dude, these guys can take out nazgul right at the start, that shooting attack is so good, and the priotty rerolls are also really good.
obviously you wouldnt use them in a game less than 2500 (you could do it at that pt lvl though, if u use them well)

Fairly sure they also have access to Light of the Valar (or whatever the healy spell is), meaning instantly getting back any dead

That's the thing that makes them unusable in a lot of tournaments (ie. GT even plays just 1500 and that's 375 in allies, not enough for a Dragon, not to mention the Council). From 2k onwards I could find a lot of things that will make the council not that good (a formation of 48 goblins which gets 2 companies into combat has 28 attacks wounding on 5s, so that's an average of 3 dead wizards, and for the price of the council you get 25 companies of goblins (in say 4 formations of 6). Obviously there's the support that council gets, but it burns so many points that unless you have a big point sink as well (like a Balrog) which they easily counter, then you shouldn't have many problems.

_________________
Coordinator of the Great British Hobbit League

i disagree, just keep the council behind your lines so you dont get attacked, and even if there are ambushers they should be able to handle them (unless there are lots or its a huge formation)
ie: in my last game i used a dragon, and he did just about nothing, infact i could of not taken him and just taken 2 captians and still won(so another formation that did nothing the whole game could of caught up and been in the area where the dragon was and the other just to resist some spells that the nazgul would have done (cause he wouldnt have used any spells on the nonexistant dragon)). thats just about 500pts (475pts) that didnt really do anything. and same in alot of my games, you have 3ish main things in your army, everything else is just filler/ support
so i think that you could still get tthe council (and even if they have that many goblins, i doubt tthat they would be able to fight at the same time, and i know this, i play gobs and i always lack space, even if i only take 2 big formations (6c))

One thing I don't get with them is why they have spells of darkness. The lightning attack is probably best but only vs weak monsters.

_________________
"War does not determine who is right, only who is left."
- Bertrand Russel