I really like the larger pieces in the game, love painting them, but which monsters in the game are useful? I'm wanting to buy and paint :-
Gulavhar - Fell Beast - Dweller in the Dark - Cave Drake - The Watcher in the Water - and The Great Beast of Gorgoroth to go along with my Balrog - Dragon and Mumak.

So looking at the list of Monsters above how would you rate them from 1 to 10 in usefulness in battle? What makes them Good and Bad? x

Not one to give a rating as I've never played, but lot's of the oneringers here seem to be suggesting that the new Hobbit rules have made monsters very very relevant again and are definitely worth a shout.

I hope that helps a little, I'm sure others will go into better detail! Good luck

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Likewise I don't know about the changes the new rules will eventuate, but prior to them I know that the Balrog was pretty useless having no might. I have heard some praises about the Drake.
If I were you I'd buy the Cave Drake.

trolls got awesome with the new rules, cave drakes were awesome even before the new rules, so if you want a pure monster army I'd suggest something of these two. But, aside of that, all monsters got awesome after the changes, with fell beasts on 1

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Ours is the fury!

Anybody rate Gulavhar?

Yup. Think of the Flying Monkey as a squishy, flying, Mordor Troll Chieftain that gets healthier as he kills stuff. Use him to smash captains and regular warriors. Just try to keep him from getting shot. He does a great job at accompanying the Dragon, particularly if you use the dragon as a mobile shield until Ghulavar can get into combat. Once he's in combat, use heroic combats to get him out of troublesome spots and to squish targets of opportunity.

Hope that helps!

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"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”

They balrog is pretty awesome! although he is a lot of points he is worth it (in my experiance)

At 400 points though? Seems an awful lot at say 750 point games?

Sorry, but please do avoid posting actual model specs (including points).

And in my experience neither the Balrog nor Sauron in 750pt games is capable of paying for themselves- they can't get enough backup. Though, perhaps now the Balrog might be able to with the updates from the Hobbit.

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"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”

Ok

Yeah, I played against it with about the same number of points of dwarves and i was crushed.

When, recently, with the Hobbit rules, or with the older set? And we are speaking of the Balrog, yes?

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"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”

Recently with the hobbit rules
Yes, still talking about the balrog

Hmm. I find that quite interesting- I'll have to try them out myself- haven't gotten to play with the new rules as of yet, so I've just been reading through them.

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"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”

From best to worst in my experience Gulvahar, mordor troll, isengard troll, ent, cave trolls, mumak. I have Sauron, the dragon, and the Balrog but never played with them. Against monsters I have the hardest time against mordor trolls. That's old rules experience though, have not tried the new ones yet, but they look good on paper

Really depends who you're playing against, inexperienced players will fall victim to the psychological threat of a monster and either focus on running the hell away from it, or throw everything at it. If you are unfamiliar with the new rules then know this; throwing enemy soldiers instead of striking them means that monsters are now very powerful against soldiers, pinning monsters down with a single model a turn will no longer work. However hero vs monster battles are now encouraged a whole lot more. Heroes can boost their fight values with the new heroic actions, and monsters can choose to strike against an enemies strength instead of their defence. However because of these models like the great goblin, Burdhur, and troll cheiftains, who are both monsters and heroes are somewhat overpowered. I have a feeling treebeard will start becoming more and more popular in good lists, magic is less powerful now and he seems like the most straight forward counter to monsters i can think of for the good side (that said Dwalin and rumil still seem like exceedingly powerful options against everything)

yeah, the balrog is awesome with the new rules!

Agree with all, the bolded part is a hint for people new to rules touse more hero monsters if they want to win.

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

Really? He still has no might, and now that any old hero can boost their fight skill he can literally get owned by just about any army with a F6 hero and decent support.

Also, i just played my first game with the hobbit rules and models, all i have to say is that the goblin king is a bit op. I was using him and geez maleez if the enemy team isn't using magic/any of the named elf swords then he will literally not leave the board, his 3+ save against all wounds is unlike anything else in the game. However the standard goblins are atrocious, i'm pretty sure he is so op and cheap because of how bad they are.

What he did was charge a lot of my infanty, they just couldn't beat hus fight 10, then he threw one at Gandalf, getting my captain on the way, next turn he barged and got the captain, killed him as the captain failed his fate rolls, next turn he charged gandalf and wounded him twice, gandalf failed his courage test so couldn't attack back, balrog walked up to him and killed him.
He thrn made short work of the rest of my army.