I was thinking about getting a box of these guys and converting a king and banner bearer out of it too, inspired by natarn's articles in Tomes of Wisdom. Which would be cheap. So I am wondering if these guys can be an effective army. I mean they look pretty cool if you do some converting, but I have never had the opportunity to play with or against them.
I guess if I bought a box of rangers to go with the, I could ally with grey company and then get spear support and the much needed bows.
But I guess my main question is can they be used as an army by themselves(and be effective)? Or do they have to be allied with someone?

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http://noddwyr.wordpress.com

They won't be effective by themselves your going to have to ally in something. I would ally in the fellowship (Legolas, Aragon and Gimli) or the grey company. They would like epicly fail if you used them by themselves with only 1 hero who has only 1 might and only 2 type of units which cant even be given bows spears or horses.

I would ask Mouth-of-Sauron for help if you want to make a army of the dead army. From some of his other posts im gussing hes got lots of experience with them.

Heh Oh and BTW the Dead King has zero might points...

Well there are two ways (game-fun, thematic and challenging) to play with Army of the Dead (actually just building about 1/3rd or 1/4th of you army of them)

1. (My favourite) I would suggest to use them along with Grey Company cause both compensate something each other lack...(defence, fight, spears, shoot etc.) Since army of the Dead does not have any bows, then having some rangers around might come quite handy AAAAnd nobody will complain about the "owerpowered" shoot cause Dead eat up so many points that you wount have that many rangers around...

Also adding some Herose with Mights is essential... In my case I chose to have Aragorn and ocasionally Gimli and Legolas too (but never one without the other cause hey thats kinda lame) and since you really can´t choose whether you field RotN/Dunedain when you want to field those extra bows then those might points are a sealed deal.

Because the Dead have such a high Defence and Courage means that they are going to stick on the board pretty long... but they cost a lot and are always outnumbered so giving rangers spears to support the Dead in combat is a MUST! I wouldn´t use any banners unless you really want to since Dead warriors have a FV of 3 and a Defence of 7, they can afford to lose a couple of turns...

Note. That because they cause terror it is sometims worth not charging the enemy but let them charge you and its very likely that 1/3rd or 1/2th of the opponents army will stay put ( believe me I have played agains uruks many times- though Shaman is a good couter for that) And dont forger that most of the time the Dead wound on 4+ so with a spear suppor if they manage to win a fight it is 50% possible that they enemy will die...

Now the key element of breaking the opponent is breake him (it wount matter if you are broken or not because all your herose are courage 5-7 so passing courage test is not such a big deal) and charge his herose... (Aragorn´s free might point comes in handy for this job in the later game)
Not only will opponents army disolve and flee for battle field but also those who dare to stay may not dare to charge so you are controlling the game...


My best army(s) is(are) something like this...800pts (both)

Aragorn(bow)-180pts

The Dead King-100pts
12xDead Warriors-180pts
5xRiders of the Dead-100pts

4xRotN(spear)-104pts
16xRoA(8w/spear)-136pts

OR

Aragorn Isildur´s Heir-200pts
Legolas(armor)-95pts
Gimli-90pts

The Dead King-100pts
9xWarriors of the Dead-135pts

3xRotN(spear)-78pts
12xRoA (spear)-108pts

So basically the distinction is the amount of troops (both the Dead ´n´ Rangers) or Gimli and Legolas... but both are good... though the second seems to be more effective...

And the second way of playing with them is using them with Tower of Echtelio but I have found out that this does not turn out to be such a good choice (although it is fun) they dont really shine... in a "challenge" way

Now most of them have been covered... soo hope you enjoy playing with them...

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I am the Mouth of Sauron, here him speak'

Thanks Mouth of Sauron. I also thought that Grey company would be the best ally for them. That second list has very few units, but i guess thats the price you pay for that many heroes.
Its just good to know that they can be played effectively. I am excited to get around to converting and painting them.

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http://noddwyr.wordpress.com

I was thinking about getting the plastic box set of the Dead cause they look cool and such but I realized that I can´t really have more than 9-15 in my army and as I currently have 9of them with a King, i Dropped the idea...

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I am the Mouth of Sauron, here him speak'

I figure if I buy a box I can convert a King out of there and maybe a few riders, so it should be fun. And cost much less money.

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http://noddwyr.wordpress.com

Hmm, I'm tempted to start a Dead army... maybe I'll try with some proxies first.

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

I play a pure dead army at 350,
King, a banner bearer and then 14 guys

Idea is to to let your opponent charge you, hopefully failing courage checks, then you gang up on the couple of guys that did make it into combat. Move forward, retreat a little, repeat

I played against goblins at To the Death, at the end I had the king and two guys protecting the banner, I broke his army and most of it ran away

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