Hi all. I'm looking into getting a Lotr SBG army put together after a short hiatus. LOTR was my entry point into the miniatures hobby, I had some dwarves and played a game or two with friends, but we got into WoTR soon after. I currently play WHF and 40K, but I want a small force that can start as SBG, but work into WoTR if I want. Right now I am interested in Hobbits or Elves. What really caught my attention was the ents and radagast, and I wanted a force that could thematically include the two. I have never used ents, but played with radagast in Wotr. First of all, I love hobbits. If I could be a and reasonable force out of Hobbits, Monsters, and other units from the Forgotten kingdoms (excluding wild men : P) then I would love to do so. Of course I am aware Hobbits are not exactly competitive, and so my second choice is elves. A wood elf force backed up by ents would not only look good, but have a solid background. Either way, I would like a force that employs heavy archery, and as Hobbits and Elves both hit on a 3+ I fell I could make it work. Basically, if anyone could give me some advice on which force would be playable, and what I could look into getting, that would be great. I'm looking to play in the 500-750 points range, but I'm sure I will go further in time. Oh, and one last thing, I have experience playing miniature games, and it's not as if I am a beginner and need to start with an easier to play army. If for whatever reason you would discourage me from playing a certain force based on difficulty, don't worry as I'll be able to figure it out, and furthermore, I'm not to competitive, and it won't matter if I lose some games, I'm just looking for an army that won't get massive steamrolled. thanks all!

You do know that you cannot choose Forgotten Kingdoms as a list in itself.

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

I'm aware, but that's only for War of The Ring. The Shire can be played for SBG, and I can mix it with other armies. Sorry if that was confusing, I merely meant I would like an army that uses models from Forgotten Kingdoms, just using that selection as a reference.

Not sure if you're confused about shooting in WotR or it was returning to talking about SBG, but you only roll to wound in WotR, the shoot value adds shots.

As said, if you wish to have a SBG army that expands into a WotR one, start with elves - only 25% of your army can be from Forgotten Kingdoms (Ents, Radagast and Hobbits all fit in there). Shooting heavy won't get you too far in WotR, but with elven cloaks, terror and throwing weapons, you could possibly make it work.

About SBG: I've not played with hobbits yet. Fielding a force of them backed up by Dunedain and Gandalf, or as archers for Arnor, is how I've seen them most commonly referenced here. Their shooting range is pretty short, their bows aren't that strong, and they move slowly, so you'll end up in combat sooner than you'll probably wish...and they aren't exactly fighters. To top it off, they'll cost you a bundle to build an army, since they're all metal.

Personally I'd go with wood elves (2 boxes gives you plenty to work with), but be warned they can be challenging to play. You need to max your bow count, make good use of their special spears and their throwing daggers, and perhaps get familiar with Sentinels. You can get a more forgiving force with a box of wood elves and a box of Galadhrim, but maybe that's not the flavour you want. As for Ents, they suffer similarly to trolls: expensive arrow magnets. I haven't had great luck with mine, uruk hai can take them down pretty quickly if you don't roll that precious 6. But WotR might be completely different wrt Ents.

Yeah...I was goofing that up for a long time in WotR. I was calculating dice correctly w/ the shoot value, but then still rolling to hit before rolling wounds. When I realized how wrong that was well...my WE army became a wee bit more effective.



Shooting in WotR is not as effective as SBG, but you are not bow limited either. I play my Wood Elves usually as 100% bow armed. Even with the lower bow strength in WotR, when you have between 80 and 160 dice being rolled per turn of shooting you're going to hit SOMETHING.

But yes, once you are actually engaged in melee you're going to have a wicked time with Wood Elves. In SBG you don't have to worry about their low Defense much as long as you can win the Fight rolls (which you have a lot of influence on with proper tactics). In WotR's simultaneous combat model you are going to see your formations dwindle amazingly fast vs. nearly any foe if you play on even terms. You will need to leverage terrain, maneuverability, special rules, magic, and Epic / Heroic Actions every single turn to your max to keep your army alive and valid.

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Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

2 boxes of wood elves, legolas, radagast and treebeard will be all you need, and will be especially tough against anyone using the golden king or a ringwraith.

In SBG, The Shire cannot ally with anyone. The only way to get Hobbits (other than Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin and Bilbo) into another army is to look at the Arnor List. Unless you are not playing Legions of Middle Earth, then you're free to add Hobbits.

Okay all, thanks for the comments, I feel I should clear some things up real fast. First off, I was talking about SBG the whole time. I mentioned wanting a WoTR army in the future, but I'm not really planning for that now, so I was referencing SBG in my first post. To answer Ellands question about Legions of Middle Earth, I don't have the book and we never played with it in my group, but I figured that it was necessary to field bigger armies, and so I was planning on getting it before to long. As for what army I would like to play, I decided on wood elves. I was thinking about models that I would like to paint, and boards I would like to build, and I realized the Hobbit army was just gonna be so I could act like an idiot at game night. I am real interested in armies that provide a challenge to play, and furthermore, I want a heavily based shooting force, and so wood elves it is! Another thing, you guys mentioned I would only need two 24 box sets to play with. That sounds real promising after the money I had to spend on the other GW models. Oh, and one last thing. Legions of Middle Earth is the book I want that has rules for all the releases that came out after SBG, right? And in this book, I was wondering if they had rules for regular ents, or just tree beard. Thanks all!

Legions of middle earth contains no profiles or rules, only army lists, which provides the points values for every model, but none of their statistics...

If you want ents then you need the two towers book i belive, the one ring rulebook contains stats for treebeard though

LoME is very useful for the scenarios, which are more interesting than playing to the death. Unfortunately it has no profiles, and some of the point costs are wrong as more recent sourcebooks have made the obsolete.

You can use WE in the Mirkwood and Lothlorien lists. If you want Mirkwood, you'll probably want the Fall of the Necromancer sourcebook (if you can find one), since it also has profiles for Sentinels, the Council of the Wise (with a more "fighty" Galadriel), and some very commonly used nasties (Spider Queen). If you use WE in the Lothlorien list you can get the warrior profiles along with some new Lothlorien heroes from the Galadhrim Host PDF on GW's site.

also, if you want a heavily shooting based army, once you get the Legions book, look at Grey Company. They are not restricted by bow limit as other armies are. I will tell you though, that playing against Grey Company is not much fun....unless there is a heavy amount of terrain...

Well, I got a hold of the fall of the necromancer, and the wood elves look pretty fun to play. I was wondering if people would recommend using sentinels? I think they look fantastic for 25 points. The magic abilities could be great to mitigate damage. Causing terror or moving a model back 6" could put off a charge for a turn, or at least make the attempted charge a much weaker one. As for the regular wood elf warriors, is it worth taking elven cloaks? I could see elven cloaks being really useful. For instance I have both Gondor and Rohan players who are going to field heavy cavalry forces. If they have to be within 6" to charge, it will make getting into combat more of a hassle. That combined with the sentinels magic ability to push them back it could be real helpful (P.S I know the book says it only works on Evil side models, but we would most likely play a house rule that says it works on my opponent). I realize that 5 points for the upgrade would be a hassle to work into a list, but if I have the points. Perhaps equip only a few models and give them throwing weapons and spears to be the vanguard of my army, while the rest stays back to shoot? Either way, thanks for the comments everyone, I'm starting to get a better idea of what I want to do.

Yes to the Sentinels, I really like using them. Sending a troll backwards is very handy, or bringing him range of throwing daggers (while your bows fire elsewhere). I wouldn't field more than 2 per 500 points though.
No to the elf cloaks, they are extremely expensive and cut your model count too much. Useful for heroes, but that's about it. The problem with them being in the vanguard is unless there is a lot of terrain, the cloaks are pretty much useless.

whafrog and I have very similar instincts with regard to our WE armies. No more than 1 Sentinel at 250pts, at least one and possibly 2 at 500 (they have 2 attacks and can shoot in addition to their songs). Don't skimp on Spears...especially if you are facing cavalry forces. You can support as normal and that always goes a long way, but with Wood Elves their Spear troops can use the shielding rule.

This is a great tactical advantage. A single WE with spear will get to roll 2 dice while shielding and has a Fight value higher than most non-Hero (and many Hero) models in the game. So on your two dice all you need is a tie and you can't be hurt. This will happen more often than you may expect. I have often had a single WE w/ Spear hold off 2-3 enemy models, sometimes even a Hero or Troll in there. They may only be able to pull it off for a turn or two but that can make a huge difference. If your opponent charges in on some of your Spears 1 on 1 expecting an easy win and kill, and you Shield they could be in for a big surprise.

Throwing Daggers are probably the biggest question when building a WE force and you want to play some games to figure it out for yourself what works for your style. I usually have several WEs with Daggers, possibly Elf Blades as well in case I need to get the extra hitting power. But I have found over time that giving the Daggers to the Spear models isn't very effective to my style. Your dagger needs to be thrown on the charge, and often spears are supporting, not charging, so...

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Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

Sentinels are a bit like perfect anti heroes, two of them has twice as much negation power as a wraith yet has 4 times more attacks, can shoot, can't be resisted and still costs 5 points less!

If you want to be shoot heavy, WE are the way to go. If you stick with Mirkwood, you have 2 great archers in the form of Legolas and Thranduil. For only 180 pts you get 5 shots a turn and 6 might, not to mention 2 decent combat heros. If you're playing a 700 pt battle, that leaves 520 pts for other models, leaving plenty of rooom for some Sentinels, WEs and a Stormcaller if you have him. Thranduil would also be great against the Rohirrim (or any other cavalry centric army). If they're about to charge you, cast Aura of Dismay (one time use tho ) and you aught to be able to make sure that you don't get charged by too many cavalry. I would only take along elven cloaks on your archers. Stick them in a wooded area and they can keep up a steady fire while your opponent can't do a thing about them. If he tries to send in some units to kill them, just have the WE retreat half their distance through the woods and keep shooting. This way, you never have to fight with your archers if you don't want to, and can weaken up your opponent a good amount until you do.

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If you're in the Raleigh, NC area, let me know.

If your gonna use sentinels, make sure to keep one with your archers, it might be tempting to throw them all in the frontline but whenever i see a block of elf archers i just send captain cave troll right in, it's one of the few ways to make a troll pay his points back, because unless if your opponent keeps his cool about the archers coming under siege, he will likely get them all killed. A sentinel is great for getting rid of trolls.

Well, I bought a 24 pack of wood elves at my local game shop today. I wasn't planning on it, but I stumbled across a box for about six dollars off, and I just couldn't let that go. Along with a Radagast model I already have, I could play a smaller point game of 350-400 points to practice. I have a tactical question on elven blades. They appear useful to me for the same reason as the spears, versatility. Only problem, I'm never gonna get to use it for it's full potential. thing is, how often am I going to throw a lone wood elf into combat? Because of the two-handed weapon rule, you can't make supporting attacks. So this guy will either have to be one-on-one, or fighting with another Elven blade model. It doesn't seem like I will often get to make use of the 2 hand special rule , as you either want a model shielding, or supporting, both of which aren't made to combine with 2 handed weapons. WE already have a hand weapon with them, I could simply give them throwing daggers and just charge them right in with a spear supporting them, and save points. I'm just wondering how people play with elven blades, advice appreciated.

I would say this:

Get the Elven blades as in the case of your opponent fielding high Defence models you are still more likely to win with that -1 to the Fight roll as you still have the better Fight and still a chance to win. Other than that they are useful when you combine one two handed attack with another elf doing a one handed attack as you will likely win and then get an attack at +1 to wound.

They have there uses and should not be overlooked, especially if you have throwing weapons, take out the model you first charge then get into combat with the two handed weapon and cut down another enemy.

'FireKnife'