As you've most probably gathered from me posting in the beginners section i'm new to LoTR and i just got the Gondor in flames source book.
Me and my friend (He's decided to get the Easterlings) have decided that we would each get a 500 pt army to start with and i was wondering what of these two would be better for a beginner to start with:The army of the High King or The Rangers of Ithilien? Thanks for you help it's very much appreciated.

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"Ithilien, the garden of Gondor now desolate kept still a dishevelled drayd loveliness"
The Two Towers

I would say that the Ranger of Ithilien are a better starter army. There is a bigger variety of units and the models are cheaper. I would go with a couple boxes of warriors of minas tirith, the faramir blister, and maybe a box of rangers as a start.

Hope this helps.

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http://noddwyr.wordpress.com

Follow Noddwyr's advice, it's the same advice I give new Gondor players.

-1xWoMT box
-Faramir (foot and mounted) blister pack
-1xRangers box (or KoMT box depending on the army type you want).

It's a pretty solid base for an army that is cheap to buy.

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When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

Backlog Reduction Oath Participant - 6/53

Warriors of Minas Tirith box is a must.

For Rangers of Ithilien stuff might be cheaper. Getting the Ranger box, and Faramir and Damrod blister will give you a nice start, although you won't be able to use all the rangers because of the bow limit, but getting another Warriors of Minas Tirith box would give you a pretty high-numbered army and allow you to use more rangers.

For Tower of Ecthelion you should get Faramir foot and Mounted instead of the one with Damrod, and then get a Knights of Minas Tirith box. You might want to get a blister or citadel guard bowmen too to take full advantage of the bow limit and have some more powerful bows.

EDIT: Accidentally wrote Army of the High King instead of Tower of Ecthelion. lol Thanks to Whafrog for pointing it out!

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Army of the High King is Numenorians, I don't think Faramir is that old

I'd agree the Rangers list is a good way to start, not least because there are plenty of good alliance options. It's harder and more expensive to build an army of Numenorians.

For some reason I thought the OP was talking about Tower of Ecthelion instead of Army of the High King, probably because The_Dragon_of_Moria was recommending the knight box and Faramir mounted, while the Osgiliath list does not allow mounted units.

So don't get Army of the High King, it will be very expensive to start with plus they are not that good. Follow what I said in my earlier post about Rangers of Ithilien.

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I think they are pretty good from a gaming point of view, thought it would be expensive so Rangers of Ithilien would be a better bet.

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

Thanks for you help its really appreciated

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"Ithilien, the garden of Gondor now desolate kept still a dishevelled drayd loveliness"
The Two Towers

For a Gondor starter army I would suggest any of the following boxes:
Warriors of MT
Knights of MT
Rangers of Middle Earth

or blisters:
Faramir and Damrod blister
Faramir ft/mt blister
Minas Tirith Command

With those you'd already have a pretty nice army and could branch off anywhere from there. Welcome to the hobby!

Also perhaps maybe picking up Boromir, Captain of the White Tower if you are going to be doing Tower of Ecthelion.

and i would reccomend getting a pack of fountian guards (eventually) they served me well in the past

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By the blood of our people are your lands kept safe. Give Gondor the weapon of the enemy. Let us use it against him.

I play Gondor often, I would not put a Gondor army on the table without Guards of the fountain Court backed up by Citadel Guard with spears.

Why? because of the bodyguard rule! they are very effective against Monsters and characters that cause terror. You can freely advance on them or feed them a single model to tie them up all game long making them inefective.

Gondor dosn't have a whole lot of power in its arsenal but these guys are worth every point. Give your GotFC shields and there tuff as nails!!

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