Merry Christmas, everybody!

I figured I would float this list out there to see what you all thought.

Mirkwood 750 Points

Thranduil, King of Mirkwood, armor and elf bow (old version)
10 Mirkwood Rangers
2 Mirkwood Elves with Elven Glaives

Tauriel
10 Mirkwood Rangers
2 Mirkwood Elves with Elven Glaives

Legolas, Prince of Mirkwood (Orcrist version)
12 Mirkwood Elves with Elven Glaives

39 models 745 points


Lots of named heroes here, but I just don't think the captains are worth it, especially when I don't think I could get any more models out of this list.

What I am really worried about is enemy shooting. The spearmen could absorb shots and provide line-of-sight blocking to the Mirkwood Rangers (thanks, elven cloaks), but when the lines meet, I think I'd rather have to maneuver them to the rear.
I like the glaives. I have never used 2-h weapons en mass before (if ever, really). I have always sought to avoid them.
I think I might give it a try here. I should be able to control who gets into combat given Thranduil's terror.
Nature's Wrath helps fight cavalry, especially if Legolas takes out enemy heroes.
I am hoping the Knife Fighter rule helps me fight bigger battle-lines. I really wish I could take a banner!

My main concerns:

1. Is the army too squishy?
2. Too small?
3. Will using too many Elven Glaives as 2-h weapons come back to bite me?
4. Should I take shield elves instead?

Thanks!

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-Power in Terror

Cool list! I am really excited to pop my new Mirkwood elves out and give them a go as well. I don't think the two handed on the glaives can bite you since you can just choose not to strike two handed, additionally, i suspect you'll be shielding more often then not with glaives anyways. I would stick with the glaives over the shields as well since they allow you to shield and support. The additional defense is good and I guess would be worth considering if you come up against a lot of strength 4 since the defense 4 doesn't help much there and the bump to 5 would be substantial. I am really torn about wether to invest a lot and try to make this army work or just stick with the old wood elves. While the glaives are cool and the new profiles for the heroes are cool, I don't think I would take the new Thranduil over the old either, and though Legolas is a total beast, I feel like it sort of wastes his awesome shooting rule to make him such a great fighter and vice versa. All that aside it ends up being a pretty elite list and the numbers are almost certainly too low. I mostly play a little bit lower, at like 500 points and you can barely get two warbands. You can take a banner on a palace guard if you really want one I am pretty sure.

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Cheers,

P

Hi

I think your list would be fine for casual and friendly play but like you say the abundance of D3 and 4 models could be a problem if you lose fights. Also a keen player will use a lot of spear support to fight rangers as they don't count for the knife fighter extra attacks and then your 14 point warriors could be in trouble.

I agree with you that the no name mirkwood ranger captains aren't worth it when you can take Tauriel for a small points increase. I do however rate the Palace Guard Captains as they 5 points cheaper than a High Elf captain with a shield and they get bodyguard and +1 fight near Thranduil which makes them quite effective for a no name character.

Just looking at the list you could potentially drop 4 of the elves with glaives and take 5 with shields which would take your list to 750 points exactly.This is a list I thought up earlier.

Mirkwood Army List: 651
Thranduil with armour and bow
12 mirkwood elves with shields

Palace Guard Captain
12 mirkwood elves with glaives

Tauriel
12 Mirkwood Rangers

I feel like if you're going to take mirkwood rangers you gotta fill up on bows before hand otherwise all the points you're spending on their army list rule is wasted.

I have been thinking something like warbands of 4 mirkwood elves with bow and 8 with glaives. I dunno, the shielding seems pretty cool but maybe its better to just take them with swords and shields. I ordered a few so i give them a little testing and see. Depending on points after i took as many warbands as i could like this id squeeze in as many rangers in the last warband just to snag a few more bows.

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Cheers,

P

All you need now is an army of dragons to fight against

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"Would you like a Stompa with your paintbrush?"

I did some pre text with proxy models with those mirkwood elves and found out set up 4/4/4 is what most appeal me. Course I had a bit luck on shooting and killing.

I tried out that with a Palace guard captain on the lead vs full warband of gundabad orcs with a gundabad captain. I managed to kill 3 orcs of with shooting and in combat elves went pretty well, specially the choice of getting those glaives a 2 handed option when was to surround my oponent. that lil skirm ended up killing all the orcs, my captain killed his captain and 3 elves out of 12 died.

Important note have to say:

- archers are somewhat important specially if I make in the way to hit 2nd rank, I keep em nearby the main battle line in case when melee comes in which I can balance things a bit more in my favour by having 4 extra models to join the figth.

- shields are important, its D5 for an elf and I can shield and get 2 dices increasing drastically my chances to win combats.

- glaives came very handy bettewn spear use and 2 handed (yes I risked alot using 2 handed( but payed off alot in multiple combat while the shield guy provided the shielding ability (2 dices) to roll the fights in my favour.

I could prob dish off the shields on them and gives 8 glaives, but then defence 5 can be handy at some cases, on these S4 orcs would make diference bettewn needing a 5+ rather than 4+ to wound. and also cause they costed 9pts a models (yes I didnt bothered paying the elven blades, just got em with hand weapons)




As far as that list, if you take prince of mirk with orcrist take an horse, you dont have cloak, enemies knowing this will try to shoot him to shreads.
I would advice you alot the Thranduil, King of the woodland realm, he does gives your army some stuff your army lack on.

- punching capacity with very high fight value
- really excelent horde dealer as elves then to get outnumbered badly vs horde
- can get horse and move really fast
- got elven cloak as on foot he gets very hard to shoot at.

Yeah that all mostly makes sense, except a warband of elves with a palace guard captain should beat a warband of orcs right? I could see the 4/4/4 being ideal. Have you tried any compositions with palace guard as front rank or with seeing what you can get warband wise and then filling out the last few points with rangers or maybe the cavalry? I am really curious if there's a Thranduil's hall list thats competitive. I feel like there's some real potential in the cavalry list, which would be pretty cool, though I am not as interested in making a heavy cav army. I am hoping my models arrive soon and I can give them a try!

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Cheers,

P

I tried some proxy combos

4/8 palace guard with shield/mirk with glaives/palace captain , nice cheap warband, 4 support spear, 4 surround or multi combat helping front rank or potencial flanks (9/10 rate - still cheapish bit over 200pts)

4/4/4 palace guard with shield/palace guard with spear/mirk with glaives/thranduil(cheap version) 2 lines of guard, back line gets fight 6 since thran will back off 1"away to allow em to be pushed back or suffer getting trapped, thran get his flank and rear secured with mirk with glaives like mentioned above tactic, they work nice with him as the king got alot fight and alot attacks and glaives provide the punching the elves need (7/10 - why 7? your paying a palace guard as an iron guard, the king is cheap but not the troops 2/3 of the warband is really expensive)

4/8 palace guard with spear and shield/rangers/thranduil (same as above) move front rank all hide behind D6 guard that also grant em elven cloaks use, nice to protect 2/3 of the warband, in fight palace guard go 2nd rank and get fight 6, rangers work their special rule vs multiple foes.
(5/10) can be good for horde in melee, but very squishy and all models are somewhat expensive for that combo.


Competitive Thrand hall lists? those can happen mainly they seem to be good at some points:

- characters (they are cheap versions of king and leggy, but they can also get better and expensive versions, they got syenergy with the entire army and their skills provide alot back up (mirkcaptains with glaive and mirk ranger captains are meh, less likely to be seen, still mirk rangers captains can be a bit better on use caus eof the removel bow restriction in case your list is big and you ran out of characters that remove their bow% limit)

- rangers of mirkwood, cost as an wood elf with bow and cloak, but still got their melee special rule (and under right lead no bow % limitation) a complete bargain for the cost)
- mirkwood armoured elves (cheap and still alot weaponry variety, they do work the best D possible on a cheap to field in numbers army - D4/5)


Least i can tell what I learned from thse elves as despite I play with very very few players around I do normally fight against: Isengard, harad, rohan, dwarves at times and mordor at times.

I knew I saw this army before! Adeptus haha.

Anyway, regarding your concerns first.....

1. According to some people, or against some armies, yes. If for example, you do what Ive done against them.....

My buddy(Memphis Mitch if you see him on adeptus) always has a main force of elves. I always have to face Mirkwood Rangers and have figured out ways to kill them.

For one, I took a harad force consisting of Suladan, 3 chieftans, a warband of watchers, and nothing else but spear and bowmen.

I upgraded the bowmen to all have 3+ to shoot. In a matter of 2 turns, I think he killed 3-4 bowmen/watchers while I proceeded to kill his entire warband of mirkwood rangers. It hugely depends on priority....but I called a heroic shoot first turn, which he had to counter, and lost the roll off.

So think....I lost maybe 40 points for his 150. That was the beginning of the end for that match for him already.

Also, other such ranged models like Uruk x bows stand toe to toe with them. What I always do actually, is to avoid hand to hand with them unless I have ferals, hunter orcs, half trolls, etc.

The main thing is keep Thranduil around the bulk of your army and if you dont already know, always channel aura of dismay. And hope they dont have fury.

And I know your idea with the cloaks, but realistically that plan can be demolished by bad rolls or good enemy tactics at deployment. Then if you have to deploy and move based off of his choices youre already on your back heel.

2. Yes. For sure. Having played against the rangers a dozen times and with them about half that, Ive seen games where they dont get back their points in bow kills. They do have an intangible use on the battlefield figuring out how to either match them in combat, or avoid that AND their bows. But if you get an army with a few lucky early kills, youre screwed.

Id keep your heros....theyre all worth your points. But think about this.....take out lets say 8 rangers, so you can keep a warband. Right there, you have around I think 115 points.....

Now, without that you have their 12 bows, plus the 6 for the heroes. 18 already. Now, with your remaining points get some regular wood elves which match nicely with force look. (I understand at this point you have to stick to only 12 with glaives, but thats good...I think youve got too many of one model type in there).

So, more freed up points as well.......put in wood elf spearmen and wood elves with bows. I personally put galadhrim with shield so you have a high D front line but you might want to stay themed to not use them...but they are pretty much the new mirkwood troops.

You can either shield and support each other with spears alone, or when the [word deleted] hits the fan you can support your rangers with a spear for a disgusting amount of attacks. All with aura of dismay around.

3. IDK but personally I never like to use 2 handed weapons on regular troops with all the piercing strike and high strength values these days. In addition youre ruining your chances to win fights which is absolutely vital to elves.

4. As I previously covered, yes. That or spear wielding wood elves.

Id write up a list right now but unfortunately I dont have my sourcebooks with me. Maybe a bit later. And if you have any other questions what youd like to know about someone whos fought many many battles against elves, ask away.

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BLACKHAWK 2010 2013 2015 DYNASTY

Probably too many rangers in the original list; They work better when mixed with other troops so you can use the higher defense models as cover with the elven cloaks, that said, you could swap 6 of those glaive elves to bows and give 5 of them blades for a total of 31 elf bow shots. If the other player doesn't have a decent amount of counter fire or lacks the defense to deal with the S3 shooting, that much shooting will seriously whittle down their army.
15-21 hits on average (15-16 if moved, 20-21 if stationary).
average 5-7 kills on d4/5 or 2-4 on d6/7 models per turn of all of the bows firing, assuming nothing in the way.

Something like this should be reasonably competitive:

Thranduil w/bow/armour (leader)
3x palace guard with shield+spear 1 banner.
5x Mirkwood Elves
2 w/shield/elven blade, 2 w/glaives, 1 w/bows
4x mirkwood rangers

Tauriel
4x mirkwood rangers
8x mirkwood elves
2w/ bows, 3w/ shield/blade, 3 w/glaives

New Leggy on Horse
12xmirkwood elves
7 w/bow, 3 w/glaive, and 2 w/shield/blade

750 points, 9 might, 21-23 elf bow shots, 39 models.

Model count is going to be hard to bring up with a pure mirkwood list, though you can ally in another force to bolster it.

If you ally with laketown, you can get:
750 pts
Thranduil w/bow and armour(leader)
10x mirkwood elves
3 bows, 4 glaives, 3 shields
2x ranger

Tauriel or old legolas.
10x mirkwood elves
4 bows, 4 glaives, 2 shields
2x ranger

Bard the Bowman, Girions Heir w/ armor(12" banner)
12x Laketown militia
4x bow, 4x shield, 4xspear

Alfrid
12x laketown militia
4x bow, 4x shield, 4xspear

Can swap 3 of the rangers for 2x palace guard w/shield/spear or mirkwood cav and 1 more mirkwood elf with bow if preferred, or swap them to mirkwood elves to give legolas an elven cloak/armor if you take him over Tauriel.

Pairing elves with laketown troops if/when possible gives you a 12" banner from Bard, and F5 from the elves.

~12 might, 8 S2 bows, 11-15 elf bow shots, 52 models.

I like that list. I am curious how you came up with the ratio of troops per warband. Is that the composition that gives you the most bows? 5 pre warband was it? Has anyone put any thought into the all cav army? I actually feel like Thranduil leading the cav giving them the banner "3rd" attack roll could be pretty nasty.

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Cheers,

P