Hey guys,

I have a tournament coming up and it’s abit of an odd one.

It’s just the one 700 point army, good or evil, and you play 3 games over the day.

This means you can have good vs good and evil vs evil.

The scenarios are randomised on the day before each round so who knows what they will be either.

Now I’ve been toying with the idea and I am leaning towards evil, but few free to change my mind.

My initial list idea is below.

Dragon, Fly, Tough Hide

Cave Drake

Haradrim King, Horse, Warspear
10 Haradrim Raiders

And for good, my idea was as follows.

Ellendil, Shield, Horse
Bunch of Numenor guys

And as money of the army of the dead as I can take.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Update***

Potential Good List

Elendil, Horse, Shield
5 Warriors of Numenor, Shields, Axes
5 Warriors of Numenor, Shields, Spears, Axes

28 Warriors of the Dead

Cave drake is underaged. Eat their heroes! Can add in Balrog, 500pts right there. Sauron instead could work better instead, too, but no dragon

_________________
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth,
I bid you stand, men of the West!

If that first list is 700pts, then you'll get smacked at tournaments. Little to no shooting (depending on how you kit out the raiders) means you'll have to engage in combat, and they will die too quickly and end the game before your dragon and cave drake can do enough. You need a lot more guys. Some games end at 50% and others at 25%, byut either way, if you lose a good chunk of ur 1A D4 cavalry guys, it'll be game over. A couple of bad turns and that's it.

Your good list, on the other hand, is illegal. The warriors of the dead need the king leading them,and he can only lead 15??? (I think he's valour, not got the book with me atm) unless you have the army bonus, which you won't if you're allying them with Numenor.

Although I have no tournament experience myself I agree with LordElrond. I would swap the dragon for a balrog en then fill the remaining points with a goblin captian and lots of goblins (roughly 30). With that composition, you have one hero that is extremely hard to deal with for your opponent and more bows than your original list. Also, goblins within 12 inch of the balrog pass all courage tests, which is a nice bonus.
And the king of the dead is indeed a hero of valour.

Revised lists:

List 1

Balrog
9 Moria Goblins, Shields
9 Moria Goblins, Spears

Moria Goblin Captain, Shield
5 Moria Goblins, Shields
5 Moria Goblins, Spears
Cave Troll, Hammer

Moria Goblin Captain, Shield
5 Moria Goblins, Shields
5 Moria Goblins, Spears

List 2

Dragon
7 Moria Goblins, Shields
7 Moria Goblins, Spears

Moria Goblin Captain, Shield
6 Moria Goblins, Shields
6 Moria Goblins, Spears
Cave Troll, Hammer

Moria Goblin Captain, Shield
6 Moria Goblins, Shields
6 Moria Goblins, Spears

Is it worth using any of the special goblin characters with the balrog?

Ashrak can use “shroud of shadows” to make a model invisible, cannot be targeted by spells or shooting etc for a turn... pretty decent to cast that on the Balrog.

If not then just the Balrog and as many Goblins as I can fit it, like the list below?

Balrog
13 Moria Goblins, Spears/Shields 50/50

Goblin Captain, Shield
11 Moria Goblins, Spears/Shields 50/50

Goblin Captain, Shield
11 Moria Goblins, Spears/Shields 50/50

Goblin Captain, Shield
11 Moria Goblins, Spears/Shields 50/50

Or would a cave Troll come in handy instead of one of the warbands?

Groblog might be worth considering, for an extra two goblins worth more than a captain with shield you get a might point, the mithril crown (chance for F4 goblins if it activates and you've trapped your enemies) and have Heroic Strike and Defence (both great) but lose Heroic March.

Ashrak can only target Spider models with his shrowd of shadows spell. Had to double check because that would have been interesting !

I dont think you would need the troll personally, one idea for you however is maybe pair a bat swarm with the balrog to help against heroic strikes.

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Soon Master Elf, you will enjoy the fabled hospitality of the Dwarves! Roaring fires, malt beer, red meat off the bone!

How about this then?

Balrog
9 Goblins, Shields
8 Goblins, Spears, Shields
Bat Swarm

Groblog
6 Goblins, Shields
6 Goblins, Shields, Spears

Goblin Captain, Shield
6 Goblins, Shields
6 Goblins, Shields, Spears

This last list is very good. Scary even. As long as you make sure you keep the bat swarm very safe until combat, there's no way anyone's going to kill that Balrog without some truly amazing heroes, and at 700pts in the new rules, I'm not sure you'd be facing that kinda thing outside of an all-hero list.

LordElrond, I could swap out 3 Goblins and add bows to this army, I would get 14 bows into the Balrogs Warband...

Does that add anything? I’ve never been a fan of evil shooting in LOTR, especially when on Goblins it’s only 18”, strength 2 and hitting on 5+... not fantastic.

I'd rather have the extra goblins tbh. In most scenarios, you start in the middle or need to rush to the middle asap to win the game, so, apart from scenarios like to the death and lords of battle, you won't use them.

That’s exactly what I was thinking haha