Hello all,

In my never ending quest to convert my wife over to playing table top games with me, I have come to stage where I am starting my plan to break away from the box set scenarios.

She is playing good (doesn't show any interest in trying the goblins)

Evil expansion plan is easy:
1. Already purchased another box of goblins
2. Grabbing hardcover book (hobbit) and the trolls
3. Then will expand into "Moria / Angar" books in models

Kinda a dwellers bellow army, I won't flesh out the build until I have the book and have a better feel for the units, but I am envisioning lots of goblin fodder bogging everything down with specialized heavy hitters doing the real work.

Now the good, Where should I go? There is only a couple things that I am looking for

1. I only want to buy one source book right now.
2. I want the army to be a fun balance when playing my evil army
3. I want the tactics to be straight forward (meaning not an army that requires a "finesse" to play)
4. I would like to utilize as much as I can from the existing box set

I have never played LoTR's at all, so I have no well of experience to dwell upon. I am not looking for any real specifics, just a starting point.

""As an example, if this same question was asked for Warhammer Fantasy, I would reply - Play empire. A rounded mix of shooting, melee and magic along with some real fun units. When starting out don't sink too many points into arty (if any at all), but make sure you grab a steam tank.""

Thanks all

If your planning on utilizing the Thorin, Dwalin, and Balin to lead troops you, sense they are the only dwarfs in the new boxset that can do that you might need to wait for them to release the Warriors of Erebor and Grimhammers next month (at least that is the rumor). But sense you have no problem with allying in you can use the current Dwarfs as allies to Thorin's Company. By using the old Dwarfs with the new one (when released) you can create a well rounded force that lacks cavalry now and they have really high defense and above average fight values, making them hard to kill.

Sense it sounds like you will be playing mostly the two off you for right now you can easily proxy and or have Balin lead troops from the old range without buying the old model.

Weakness of Old Dwarfs:
No spears (vault wardens have Pikes but are a lot of points)
Move slow
No Cavalry

Weakness of New Erebor Dwarfs:
No Bows
Move slow
No Cavalry (When they get to the Battle of Five Armies in the movies there might be a third faction of Dwarfs for Dain and he is supposed to have Boar riders or some such)

But keep in mind each faction within your list, in this case you would have The Army of Thror and Durin's Folk, has the 33% (1/3) bow limitation. So that means that only 1 out of every 3 of your Durin's Folk force can (not required) have a bow. So if you have Balin (maybe proxied from your EfGT box or house ruled that he can lead Durin's Folk troops) leading a force of 12 Dwarfs only 4 of them can have bows despite the fact you might have Thorin and Dwalin each leading 12 Warriors of Erebor themselves.

This would require the purchase of the Free Peoples of middle-earth book for the Durin's Folk. This book also has the information on Mirkwood and Lothlorien, Eregion and Rivendell, Hobbits, Old White council, and wanderers in the wilds.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the reply,

It does seem like the Free Peoples book is going to be the way to go,

I am not concerned at all right now about having a themed army since she is not interested at all in LoTR or the Hobbit. Right now it more important that she is having fun, the long term goal will be for her to take the army over and start pondering the army options herself.

Since we are just playing at home right now I do plan on Proxying in some units. I play Bretonnia so I have a ton of archers, men at arms and knights at my disposal. I also have a large misc pile of demons, orcs, and high elves

A second option I didn't consider earlier would be to buy both books and create a couple small proxy armies to try out. I do worry pushing to many new units and rules on her that she becomes overwhelmed and loses interest.

If anyone else has any ideas or input I would love you hear it

Thanks

If ultimately the army is to become hers you should also show her the different armies and have her pick the one that she likes the most. Then you could tailor some scenarios around her choices that would give her the advantage and allows her to learn the game bit by bit as well as how to utilize them in different situations.

I think you might be right.

Spend the money on the army books and proxy a bunch of small skirmish forces together with some custom scenarios. That lets her stay within the scenarios (she is still leery of open table top) and also let her try out some different units and different styles of play.

I like it, thanks

the thing that's nice about the sourcebook era for the old army lists is that there are only 5 sourcebooks, 3 evil and 2 good.

Yeah but I wish they would have given "the hobbit" an army book also. It sucks to have to buy the hardcover plus the army books when I already have the rule portion from the box set.

I would rather buy a couple army books and spend the rest of my money on new model