Love th concept of Battlehosts. Ready made themed armies, they're a chance to try out unit combos you never thought of, have vivid themes, and seem to offer a lot of extra power for very little extra cost (assuming it doesn't contain anything that's REALLY naff).

I want to make the most of my Isengard, and was thinking of using The Fighting Uruk Hai or Lurtzs' Scouts (I can't decide!) as the main body of my 1000 point force, 'cos they seem to make a whole that's greater than the sum of its brutal parts. What I'd love to know is, who's had sexperience of battlehosts, and which ones have you found to be really effective, and which ones are...less desireable.

Gorgoroth Orc horde looks like the most fun thing to field ever!

Actually, most of the bonuses from Battlehosts aren't that good. But there's a bigger problem: the vast majority of Battlehosts require that you field lots of metal models, which is really expensive money-wise.

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

Money's not so much of an issue. I love collecting! And there are some, such as Lurtzs' scouts and The Fighting Uruk Hai which would really include a quantity and type of models you'd expect to find in a standard army anyway.

A lot of the bonuses seem slight. However, I could imagine Lurtz super-speedyness being of great value in his battlehost. I'm guessing some of the 'bonuses' (like The Fallen realms 'Price of failure') are really more about theme and character. Having said that, the other fallen realms 'Golden promises' sounds like game-breaking goodness...

The best battlehost is the spirit angmar battlehost

The tainted gives +1 def and the dwimmerlaik gives +1 strength and a friendly formation within 12" of one of the ringwraiths ignores the effect of the shade. This makes the warriors of the dead stronger cause they strike at strength 5 on someone courage and your enemy has fight 2 so even your captain can outclass a enemy hero in a duel

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"There are only 4 things you need in life: Lasagna, beer, a girlfriend and of course a gondor army."

I think that the Watchers of Karna one is quite strong, as well as Thranduil's Halls (or whatever it's called), but would have to look through as I;ve forgotten most of them

I have just finished building the "watchers of Karna" battle host.
it's fun. Real fun. Kind of like alot of desert ninjas jumping around.
add a mumak and a some wargs as an ally.
i use beruthiel as my leader. Gives it kind of a weird theme.

I did notice the Angmar Spirit host battlehost. Wow. That takes what I understand to be a less-than-competitive army aand makes them pretty terrifying. I never did get why Chill Misasma would affect other Angmarites anyway. This Battlehost seems to make an Angmar Army make sense, and looks fun and pretty flipping powerful. Angmar's got some awesome themed, awesome looking models that just don't look like they'd ever work under normal circumstances. And yeah, Karna's host seems to imbue a heck of a lot of really groovy abilities....