Just something that I don't think has been addressed very well in the current sourcebooks.

When you buy heavy armour does that add +2 to your defence or +1 or does it depend on whether the hero starts with armour on his profile

Now typically lotr has worked on armour granting +1 to defence, and heavy armour being +2 (or at least heavy armour is usually an upgrade on a hero wearing armour, making it a +1 to a hero all ready wearing armour).
Alternatively its sometimes been done on pts cost ie. 5 pts for +1 defence, 10pts for +2 again in buying armour or heavy armour respectively.

The example that I'm thinking of is Glorfindel in the free peoples book.
His base defence is 5 without mention of armour on his profile.
You can buy the armour of gondolin for 10pts, this is listed as heavy armour. Now if that gives him +2 to his defence that would be consistent with his defence value in the fall of the necromancer book. If it its only +1 it leaves him on D6.

Similarly, the elf twins start with armour as basic and have defence 5, so would adding heavy armour (10pts for both) give them each +1 by upgrading their current armour to heavy or would it grant +2.

Armour grants +1. Heavy Armour grants +2. When a model which is already equipped with Armour then purchases Heavy Armour, you are replacing the default Armour, not adding to it. So a model with Armour as default will only +1 relative to its default Defence by switching it with Heavy Armour.

Most Heroes have increased defence over that of equivalent Warriors by virtue of them being Heroes. D4 is typical for a standard Captain when you disregard the Armour, whereas Might Heroes like Aragorn or Glorfindel have D5. Some Dwarves may have an even higher Defence.

Using the example you give, the Twins would get just +1 for Heavy Armour as they already have +1 for the standard Armour.

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yeah King Ondoher is right, you can only wear one piece of armour so you take away the +1 they get from the normal armour before replacing it with the heavy armour which adds 2, so the overall effect is +1D. thats why it only costs 5 each.

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"Dont Tempt me Frodo!! .. Just Tea thank you"

The twins are easy to figure out because they have armour written in their profile. Glorfindel is more tricky, his profile makes no mention of armour.

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12th GBHL 2013.
13th GBHL 2014
9th GBHL 2015


Mid Sussex Wargamers

sounds like you buy heavy armour for glorfindel which gives him +2D but costs an extra 5points than normal as its a better improvment, dont worry about the fall of the necromancer book .. a cool book but not as up to date

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"Dont Tempt me Frodo!! .. Just Tea thank you"

It's not tricky, it's not mentioned because he has no armour, but is sooooo cool he has a base D of 5. Heavy armour always adds +2 to base D. If someone has normal armour and wants to upgrade to heavy, they have to take the normal off to do so (reducing D by 1), so heavy armour is still only giving them +2 to base D.

So he would be def 7 then.

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12th GBHL 2013.
13th GBHL 2014
9th GBHL 2015


Mid Sussex Wargamers

if you pay for the armour yeah, as long as it doesnt say armour in his wargear that is.

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"Dont Tempt me Frodo!! .. Just Tea thank you"

Glorfindel has D5 as default without Armour because he is a mighty Hero. As does Aragorn, Gandalf, Elrond, Radagast, Saruman and many others. Theres nothing tricky about it. If no Armour is listed as default, then Heavy Armour grants +2. If Armour is listed, then Heavy Armour grants just +1 (or +2 if you think of it as removing the +1 for Armour then replacing with +2 for Heavy Armour).

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Back in the day there were two profiles for Glorfindel.
"Glorfindel" had no armor and was D5, while "Glorfindel, Lord of the West" had heavy armor and D7. There is no reason to think not giving the current incarnation armor was an oversight, it would be consistent with his previous stats.

It's also worth noting that several of the big elf lords are D7 in heavy armor (Elrond and Gil-Galad come to mind), and he's certainly in their league in terms of badassery.

His defence is nothing when compared to some of the dwarf heros. Durin (and Dain of course) has mithril armor, which gives +3 defence based off of Frodo's profile, so Durin has a base D of 6! Back on the subject of Glorfindel, he's the only (non-dwarf) hero awesome enough to have base D5 and NOT be in the movie.

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Thanks for all the responses, I agree with the consensus that Armour is +1, Heavy armour +2 and replacing armour with heavy armour is +1.

The new source books don't actually mention armour anywhere, neither does the main rulebook, which I think is a bit of an oversight. Again most players know what the intention is but I think its strange it wasn't included.

Actually, it is included in the Forces chapter, on page 75 under Wargear. I'll agree it's not in the most obvious place, which would have been the Wargear chapter on p42. But the description on page 75 is completely clear.

You are absolutely 100% correct. The reason I missed this was I thought it would be under the main wargear section.
Page 75 clarifies the whole affair perfectly, well done for spotting it and thanks for pointing it out.