I was wanting to compliment my Elves with an Angmar/Moria allegience of 1000pts, but other than the fact I wanted to lead it with the Witch King, I have no idea what to include.

* Should I be aiming for numbers?
* Is more than one Wraith viable?
* How many beasties shall I take, and which ones are worth it?
* Bats, Shades, Spectres, Barrow wights?!
* Dragons, Gulhavar, Buhrdur, Dweller?!

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Namarie

You're really spoiled for choices here. A Dragon King with a horde of goblins is always fun, but I'm not sure how well that fits thematically with the Witch King.

Are you thinking Orcs or Goblins? I've used Orcs with a combo of the Shade and Burdur. Though the Shade is expensive, if you have a sizeable group of warriors it's well worth it...even elves have trouble against it. Burdur always does well for me and is cheaper than a Mordor Troll chief while being pretty much as effective. I'd hesitate to suggest Gulavhar because even though I really like the model and really like what he can do to a group of feeble warriors, he's expensive and kind of needs a bat swarm to shield him from enemy fire. If you are going to use goblins I would strongly suggest having them led by Durburz, he's worth it for his standfast alone. For both orcs and goblins you're well-served by a shaman or two to keep your cowardly mob in line.

For beast armies, even though I love the theme, I've been underwhelmed. But that was before the warband rules. Druzhag looks like fun on paper, but the problem is all his buddies (bats, wargs, spiders) are twice as fast as he is but are susceptible to bow fire, so if you don't deploy close to the action there's a risk of being shot to pieces as he totters along. FWIW, I found bats more effective than wargs when powered by his spell, they retain their Fight/halving abilities which makes anything up to and including Glorfindel fair game, and they don't die from the spells after-effects. My opinion might change if I get a chance to use the warband rules with, say, Druzhag + Warg Chief + wargs + spiders, and get to deploy right into the action.

Okay well I've managed to start myself off with the Witch King on Fell Beast and 24 Goblins... it's a start! I'll probably add a fair few orcs to the mix though. I think I'll try out Burdur and some Bats too, and some Warg Riders. This is confusing, I used to play Isengard which was fairly straightforward!


EDIT:

Soooo I have 74 Goblins to play around with now. Looks like I'll be going for the Horde mentality

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Namarie

Well looks like I'm going with Goblins.

Help me by going over this provisional list I came up with

Warband 1 8/12
The Witch-king of Angmar with armoured Fell beast; 3 Extra Might; 10 Extra Will; 3 Extra Fate;
8 Warg Rider with Shield; Throwing spears;
----
Warband 1 12/12
Durbûrz, the Goblin King of Moria
6 Moria Goblin Warrior with Spear;
6 Moria Goblin Warrior with Shield;
----
Warband 2 12/12
Moria Goblin Captain
5 Moria Goblin Warrior with Spear;
6 Moria Goblin Warrior with Shield;
1 Cave Troll
----
Warband 3 11/12
Moria Goblin Captain
5 Moria Goblin Warrior with Spear;
1 Bat Swarm
5 Moria Goblin Prowler with Shield;
----
Warband 4 6/12
Moria Goblin Captain
6 Moria Goblin Warrior with Shield;
----
Warband 5 12/12
Wild Warg Chieftain
12 Wild Warg
----
67 Units, 1001 points.

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Namarie

Drop the armour from the fell beast.

I strongly recommend you ally in a Shade as well, he is very useful for Goblins.

Don't mix Orcs and Goblins, you'll end splitting up your army when marching.

I would also say drop the cave Troll, and possibly the Wargs, and get a spider Queen and some giant spiders (allied from Mordor), and swap 1 captain for Ashrak.

Keep the rest as it is.

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

Why is the armour not necessary?

I don't really know what a Shade does o_O

Good point.

Why are spiders better than Wargs?

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Namarie

The armour costs too much extra for whjat it does it should only cost 5/10 more than a normal Fell Beast, you could use the funds elsewhere. an army with no core elite should be in 70s not 60s unless you know exactly what you are doing.

All enemies with range of the Shade get a -1 to the d6 rolls to win, and it is cumulattive with other penalties. Your own troops are unnaffected.

Point for point Spiders are roughly the same as Wargs only Ashrak can't make wargs venemous. whilst he can increase the potency of spiders, as well as giving fury to your goblins.

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

Yep, goblins benefit from at least one shaman on the board, perhaps a special group that is not in Durburz' range. Also, since you're going with basic goblins, a few prowlers (one or two per warband) can be very useful.

Moria has a swath of new temptations. Druzhag plus Ashrak will turn your Venom Spiders into Poison Reroll Insane Kamakazee Anything Killers. Mini Spider Queens on steriods. Throw in Groblog and replace those Captains with Shamans, and you will save 1/3 of your wounded (statistically) on a Malbeth style Fate roll....except unlike Malbeth, every Shaman with Fury gets it, so you can cover your army. Adds up, yes. But if you'll settle for a 65 unit Goblin Army at 1K points, then a maxed out Witch King on Fell Beast could be thrown in. Shades are awesome...but both are begging for Orcs--really expensive as Independent Heroes. Though an Orc Shaman's fury will also work with Groblog's special rule. Hope I haven't confused things. Spoiled for choice.

Right, well this is all very confusing as I haven't played Moria or Angmar before. How about I let you know what I have available, and then you try and build something for me around it, pointing out worthwhile purchases? I don't have to use it all, but my only stipulation is that I want to use the Witch King.

I have Witch King on Fell Beast, Ringwraith Ft/Mt, 25 Shield Goblins, 28 Spear Goblins, 21 Goblin Archers, 8 Warg Riders and a Plastic Cave Troll.

As far as the archers go, they're pretty useless, so is there anyway to easily/cheaply convert them into something useful?

And one last aside - am I barking up the wrong tree? As far as available models, I have a decent pool of Mordor I can expand too. Sauron, Witch King on Fell Beast, Ringwraith Ft/Mt, Troll Chieftain, Mordor Troll, 2 Easterling Captains, 2 Easterling Banners, 7 Metal Sword Easterlings, 5 Metal Spear Easterlings, Mordor Siege Bow (Two Crew), Haradrim Captain, Haradrim banner, 18-24 Haradrim Warriors, Mouth of Sauron Ft/Mt, Gothmog Ft/Mt, 8 Warg Riders.

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Namarie