Gothmog nearly all of the Fates and Fortunes are helpful just most of them cost to much (Evil actually have it best here at 15 25-50 point fates compared to 9 for good) for example Hero of the Hour (+1F and +1C for a non Epic hero or a Hero leading a legendary formation) which means it is basically and upgrade for a captain to make him that little bit better in Duels and the formations courage tests but it costs 75 POINTS that is more than the captain in the first place at 125 you could get Thranduil who has a higher fight than any captain (and most other epics), courage 6 a slew of Epic Actions,Terror and Mastery 2 Wilderness there is no reason to get a captain.

Another example is Dark Shrine (-1F to any good formation within 3'') which cost 100 points and is going to do very little against the 4 companies of WOMT the good side can get for the same price

Thranduil is a legend though, and Fortunes/Fates are not, as you say, 90% of Fortunes, and 70% of Fates are not worth it.100pts for 'Horn of Gondor' from the battlehosts book anybody?

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

not sure what you mean about Thranduil I was using him as an example if you want a captain with +1F and +1C don't bother because you can get a much better hero for the same price.

I don't have the battlehost book so I don't know what horn of Gondor does sorry

And because of this most Fortunes and Fates are pretty useless (there are, of course, exceptions)

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"... Telchar wrought it in the deeps of time."
-On Andùril, The Lord of the Rings

For 100pts you give 1 hero Terror & hornblower rule, hardly worth the cost methinks.

Telchar is right of course, GW don't think these things through properly

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

I'm really hoping they bring out a 2nd Edition to coincide with the Hobbit (even though I know they wont ) given that the Battle of Five armies would highlight the massive weaknesses of the elves and the overpowered nature of the Misty mountains.

The game system is fundamentally sound but there are LOADS of examples were GW has just completely misjudged things and put things in for lore and theme reasons without any thought about how effective it would actually be. e.g it must be a large important battle to take the Horn of Gondor so we'll make it expensive but then give it a really poor stats