Guys if you can give me some ideas or tips would be ok. I have all the options but the chariots. And that is basically my problem because I want to use everything and for 500pts everything is very expensive. What do you thing is a must in a 500pts?

Dain and 4 goats and the ballista look good but just that eata almost my 500pts leaving me in a huge numbera disadvantage

Btw it is for a tournament.

Honestly, and this probably isn't what you want to hear but, I think Iron Hills is the best army that doesn't work.

I've been trying to get something set up for them that I liked for a while and haven't been able to. All the models are great but the points just never work out. You end up with too many heroes and not enough troops or maxing out your warbands and having like 50-80 points left over.
I just put some time into building Erebor Reclaimed and I think they're a much more well rounded army because the heroes are cheaper with more options and you have a better set of allies.

If youre set on playing pure iron hills, at 500 I think you gotta drop the balista, which sucks but you just cant fit it in. I also think the goats are probably a bit much. Definitely take one for your captain but unless you're maxing out your warbands and have left over points I probably wouldn't take more then like 1-2.

I haven't looked at the numbers at all but I saw people testing two captains on goats at lower points. You might be able to try that instead of Dain and see if you can get the balista in there that way.

My Erebor reclaimed list is just below this post if youre curious about that.

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Cheers,

P

Mate, I subscribe all that you have said. And this is the reason that I got this dilemma. I want to use my Iron hills but looks like 500pts is not for them

yeah kind of a bummer :/

What really sucks is that I tried building at bigger points too and I kinda had the same issue :/ Dain is just too expensive to be really viable and they dont have any other named heroes lol.
Maybe like 650 or something is a sweet spot but i dunno

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P

Dain is absolutely outstanding and a cornerstone of his army. The general consensus around him down here is that he should cost even more points than he does.

Iron hills is a beast army, and honestly IMO well superior competitively to erebor reclaimed.

I think they're a fine army, except that other armies are better

Dain's great but if he fluffs a round of combat he likely doesnt make his points back unless you can kill a hero if there are only 3-4 rounds of combat. If you play well you can definitely win games and they're certainly better then a lot of other armies, especially cause some armies just can't win against them, like elves will be really really hard pressed to win against Iron Hills. So in that sense, they are good just because of that.
I played a game with iron hills at 600 points and Dain won two rounds of combat and only killed 4 models the whole game. I do think he's good and likely could be more points but it doesnt matter if he only gets to kill a handful of troops while all your dwarves are out numbered two to one and lose every fight.

I dunno man, maybe my meta is just weird but games are pretty short, in rounds, and if you dont have the numbers of models to be contesting objectives and winning the battle line you are going to struggle to win games.

I haven't played Erebor yet but on paper they seem way better, at certain points at least, and again, at least in terms of my meta. Although I think a big part of that is because they can ally laketown.

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P

My meta most often plays slightly larger games. 750pts.

Dain grinds out most enemy heroes. Master of battle is absolute pandemonium in scenarios where the game is dragged to a certain area of the board, and the reinforcement thingo really assists them, and makes up for their low speed.

As we've discussed before allying with Trannys halls is a popular move.
Your fight 4 dwarfs certainly shouldn't be losing every fight, and obviously they aren't in huge numbers, but I often notice they aren't outnumbered by much if at all because
A) they have no monsters, or expensive dudes bar dain + not much cav
B) Boromir with banner, Gandalf the white, 2 elf lords, Witch king ect ect ect. All these are significantly more than dain. He's actually a cheap boi by army leader standards.

Personally Iron hills(as a pure non allied force) is in my top 3 good armys with Rohan and Rivendell. Just sneaking past Gondor and Fiefdoms.

Warband 1
Dain
Iron Hills Warrior w/spear x8
Iron Hills Warrior w/ mattock x4

Warband 2
Iron Hills Captain
Iron Hills Warrior w/spear x8
Iron Hills Warrior w/ mattock x4

500 points on the nose and 26 models. If you dropped some spears (idk how one is supposed to do that with the models like they are) you could replace the mattocks with four crossbows a warband for some range. It does not look very exciting but I don't see how, even with captains, you'd be able to do better number-wise because of the warband size of captains. It is a vexing case though.

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

@Wan

Sucks. That sounds about right actually :/

@Tank

Fair enough. I do think they're a good army list I just think that when building the list I always feel like I am getting screwed one way or the other, like I mentioned initially. Which, makes me think that the troops and heroes and good, powerful, but that the list is kinda awkward and thats their biggest weakness. Other lists with potentially weaker choices, if they fit together more smoothly, can make a really strong list because you are "wasting" less points.
The other big thing I consider when list building is does my new list have a favorable match up against other armies I expect to see later in a tournament and when I've tried Iron hills lists they just seem like they dont.


You might try this at 500?

Warband 1 9/12
Iron Hills Captain with War Goat; War spear;
9 Iron Hills Dwarf with Shield; Spear;

Warband 2 10/12
Iron Hills Captain with War Goat; War spear;
10 Iron Hills Dwarf with Shield; Spear;

Warband 3 3/6
Iron Hills Siege Veteran
Iron Hills Ballista


I dunno if i like that better then just Dain and a captain with troops, probably not but it might be worth trying?

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Cheers,

P

What about this

Warband1
Dain boar
15 Dwarf w spear
1 banner
1 goat rider
1 with Crossbow

Warband 2
Ballista and Siege veteran

498pts 23 units

I have the goat supporting dain and 1 Crossbow if need it for the short range

I dont know if I should remove the ballista and add crossbows instead. Maybe I will do 2 lists and see wich one is more effective

I think if the balista gets some hits you could do alright but if you miss once twice you'll get swamped.

I am more inclined to lean towards just Dain, Cap and troops. If you take the balista you dont really want xbows though since it blocks your line of fire too :/ so if you don't take it you can load up on some of those.

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Cheers,

P