Hi folks! Having recently returned to the hobby I am trying to decide how best to begin bulking up my collection. I am a Tolkien enthusiast and collector first and foremost, but definitely enjoy getting in a good game every once in a while.

The hope is that this force will form the nucleus of what will eventually become an army representing the troops commanded by Glorfindel at the Battle of Fornost.

I want to ultimately expand things to include Gondorians (likely represented by Numenoreans as I prefer their aesthetics), Fiefdoms, and perhaps a small Shire contingent of Hobbit archers.

Without further ado, here is the list:

Warband 1:
Glorfindel with Armor of Gondolin
7 High Elf Warriors with spear and shield
4 High Elf Warriors with elven blades
1 High Elf Warrior with banner

Warband 2:
High Elf Captain with shield
4 High Elf Warriors with spear and shield
2 High Elf Warriors with elven blade
6 High Elf Warriors with elven bow

Warband 3:
Elladan & Elrohir
8 Rangers of Arnor
4 Rangers of Arnor with spears

Warband 4,5 & 6:
3 Rangers of the North with spear

Let me know what you think! My primary concern is a lack of cavalry and horses for the heroes. Both are mostly due to a lack of models, but I may pick up an armored twin on horse to convert into a Glorfindel on Asfaloth.

Cheers!
-Cosmic

I think this is really solid! I feel like the elf shield wall can do a really good job stalling and protecting your rangers while the shoot away. You'll have to be careful though cause if the rangers get into combat they really go down against most other armies and with your pretty low numbers if you lose a few models you'll get swamped.
That being said your elf heroes will chew through loads of stuff as long as you can stay alive with the rest of your troops I think you're set. Shadow lord and or Gandalf will give you a pretty bad though.
The horses could be good as they'll give good an even bigger punch and ability to kill stuff with the heroes but I think you're alright with out them too. I personal like the armored Elladan and Elrohir models better though so I say go for it!

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Cheers,

P

I do see you said you dont have the models. For now, maybe you could use other elven cavalary as proxies to practice.

After you get heroes mtd though, looks good!

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BLACKHAWK 2010 2013 2015 DYNASTY

I like the idea of this kind of list; though I have never had much luck with them myself. I wouldn't worry to much about the lack of cav or mounted heroes for now. Yes it does make the heroes of dangerous, especially the ranger of Arnor, but they are all still more then playable without mounts. The elven cavalry is also rather costly to field anyway.

One thing I will say about this list though is that the twin's warband has to many ranger in it since one of the twins takes up a spot. Drop one ranger to fix that and you will have the points to give the rest spears too.

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"Draw your sword with a heavy heart, but swing it with a heavy hand"

Well, the list itself seems very solid indeed! You would have only 3 problems:
1) against an army such as Mordor, fielding Morannon orcs you would probably have an hard time trying not to be encircled
2) if the terrain were to have some wood/ruins in it the effectiveness of the army would be halved, because as others said rangers of Arnor in hand-to-hand combat suffer from a low defense and several evil models have S4 nowadays
3) magic! It's true that glorfindel is magic resistant himself, but not having a spellcaster could prove tricky against an opponent using models such as named ringwraiths or Saruman.

Apart from this, the list (and theme!! I absolutely love the North) looks juicy and pretty amazing, keep us informed on how you'll be advancing!

Thanks so much to everyone for the constructive feedback! I am glad that the northern theme is a popular one. I'll need to keep the hero mounts in mind for future expansions.

Wan Shi Tong - Thanks so much for pointing out that I can only take 11 rangers in the twins' warband! I definitely would have missed that otherwise. I'll likely either give them all spears as you suggest or upgrade the twins to have bows.

Shapore - I agree with your comment on the lack of spell casting. For theme purposes the wizards are out as they did not arrive in Middle Earth until after the fall of Arnor. Cirdan would likely be the most fluffy option, as though he did not take part in the battle itself, the elves of Lindon formed the bulk of the army that fought the Witch King's forces at Fornost. I know he is not the most competitive choice, but I may include him for Blinding Light/Aura of Dismay shenanigans, as terror causing elves will help to reduce my numerical disadvantage. Thankfully his model is also not outrageously priced on ebay despite being OOP.

I'll likely be starting a Hobby blog in the Works in Progress subforum to track my painting. I'll post a link here as well once that is created if folks are interested!

Hi

Yes Círdan might be effective, if you replace that for your captain, you get a more vulnerable elf thats true, but you gain side effect spells which can prove vital to keep your forces less encirdled by overwhelming numbers, look at orcs with C2, they need an 8 on 2D6, that its pretty hard to get, and playing with woodland terrain pieces and such, you might be able to minimize your forces clash facings where your superior fighting ability can prove effective.

For this watch a bit of old sourcebooks like the khazad dum books and watch dwarven strategy, that despite high elves in comparison aren´t as heavily armoured, you can still get same effect.

Also been counting and you can still have 2+ elves with bow, making 8 total. 8 Elves shooting with their bows + the rangers ain´t an easy thing to handle, and even a ringwraith won´t go face it head on so lightly...

Another Heroe very interesting to field would be Erestor, hes one of the few heroes he ain´t a huge deal in combat cause of the lack of might points, but he does have an incredible fate store for his point cost, which gives him an extremely tanking quality. If that is possible, if a ringwraith shoot at him, let him being under the spell effect (if you see he wont die to that oponen´ts melee, he should have enough Fate to shrug off some wounds, and with it make the nazgul waste precious will points for nothing...

Ohh and if you´re facing Angmar, get away from the shade as much as possible, shoot at the enemy horde 1st, even if you want to get their Ringwraith, shoot at it(I know its extremely hard to get) but the shoots that wont hit him, will surely get to the orcs in the way killing them in the process... and if the Valar Bless you, you might actually get a lucky shoot and annoy that Nazgul as hell :)

Trick for those elves with shield, dont be afraid shielding the entire game, I knw you won´t kill stuff back, thats whyyou got shooting and your heroes to do that for you ;)

Hi all! Thanks so much for the positive feedback.

I was lucky enough to take the list out for a spin over the weekend. My (semi) regular opponent fielded his tough as nails Mordor force. Here is what he had:

Witch King on Horned Fell Beast, fully tooled up
2 Standard Wraiths on Horse, maxed out MWF
Morannon Captain
Orc Shaman
36 Morannon Orcs, half spears
Mordor Troll drummer

I brought the above list, substituting the captain for Cirdan, and Gandalf the Grey with cloak allied in.

The list performed pretty well, though I lost in the end due to a disastrous courage roll that saw Glorfindel fleeing the battlefield on the edge of victory.

I have a few thoughts coming out of the game.

1) I definitely need to deploy better in future to maximize my shooting. I rolled badly for deployment, leaving my Rangers just 12 inches away from his entire battle line. This left few turns for winnowing down his numbers, or more importantly, dehorsing/beasting his Nazgul. However, luck aside, my battle line was haphazard at best, and I didn't have my big heroes where I needed them.

2) Cirdan lived up to his substandard reputation, unfortunately. His will was sapped on roughly turn 3, leaving behind an unarmed single attack to do nothing but waste 90 points for the rest of the game. Boy does this guy need an elven cloak.

3) This army lacks a response to strength 4, defense 6 models. I won many fights, but just couldn't follow through on the kills quickly enough to overwhelm the orcs. I suspect that this is an issue across Good armies in general (Dwarves aside). My heroes should have compensated for this, but the twins were tangoing with the Witch King for most of the game, until their deaths, and Glorfindel became interminably engaged with the annoying defense 7 morannon captain.

4) At this point, I don't have an answer for that many wraiths on the field all at once. His magic easily shut down my heroes, slowing down my offensive dramatically. Also, fell beasts are terrifying.

The men of the match were my Rangers of the North, however. I was a little skeptical of the 1 wound, 1 attack profiles, but I loved having the odd strength 4 attack supporting important fights here and there. Finally, because they are low profile, I basically had hidden might that I could save throughout the game, allowing for some late turn heroic moves that helped keep me in the match.

I future, I still plan on trying to use Cirdan effectively, but may switch him out for Erestor for the added combat punch. I am also converting up some mounted rangers from a few old riders of Rohan I had lying around from 2005 or so. I can see them as nice little wraith hunters.

I may also go full cheese and use Hobbit Galadriel to murder a few Nazgul - beautiful and terrible as the dawn, etc.

Ha - this quick posted ended up as a mini battle report. If you cared to read this far, let me know what you think of my takeaways!

-Cosmic

Yeah, the list you were up against was rather nightmarish for you. 2 monsters, 3 (!) Wraiths and a lot of D6 troops with S4 makes one of the worst opponents. There's not a whole lot you can do honestly, maybe give up on big heroes like Glorfindel and field in more troops and bows? Galadriel is also a great shout, she's your best bet against Wraiths, just remember the first thing you need to do is to Fortify her Spirit so she doesn't get quickly sapped.