Hi everyone, you've been really helpful and friendly with greeting me onto the site and helping me pick out the best army for me. I know very little of building a structured army in LotR SBG, so could somebody please give me a hand setting up a structured force. As I said, I am going to create an army based on the rangers of Ithilien force which defended Osgiliath. I plan to have Faramir as the leader, and a unit of rangers, what else will I need for an army?

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I would not take this thing, if it lay by the highway. Not were Minas Tirith falling in ruin and I could save her.

A couple of things you may not know yet (if you do, sorry):

First, most armies have a 33% bow limit, which means only 33% of your *warriors* can have a bow. Heroes are not included in this total. If you have allies, each allied group must conform to this as well. This means if you fielded all Rangers, only 1/3rd of them can be considered "bow armed". Rangers all have bows already, so the way to handle this in game and keep track of things is to assume that only the models posed as shooting can shoot.

If you take some WoMT without bows, this means you can increase the number of Rangers that can shoot, so if you took, 8 WoMT with shield, 8 WoMT with shield and spear, and 8 Rangers, all the Rangers could shoot and you wouldn't have to worry about whether they're posed properly. I'm not saying this is the best configuration, just an example. It's tempting to think that putting a bunch of shielded WoMT in front of Rangers is the best way to go, and it is during the shooting. But in combat the Rangers are actually a little better at winning fights which might be important if you're facing some elites (like Uruks).

For armies like Gondor, a pretty decent rule of thumb is to have 1 Might point per 100 points of your army. This makes Faramir great for anything from 300-500 points, and Faramir + (Damrod or a Captain of MT) is enough heroism for 500 points. Elves have to get by with less, or they lose numbers. Goblins almost have to take more heroes because of army size limits.

BTW, if you don't have Legions of Middle Earth, the limits are:

max 50 at up to 500 points
max 75 at up to 1000 points
max 100 at up to 1500 points.

You might want to scrounge through this forum and look for Gondor/Ithilien army lists, there are quite a few. The game hasn't changed for years, so you can safely go back quite a bit for examples. Also take note how the lists are presented, once you post your own for feedback it's really helpful if we can see the point cost for each group.

Hope that helps.

thanks Whafrog, I had no idea of that. I suppose I could get some minas tirith warriors aswell and give them all hand weapons. I have some converting skills from my 40k days. I'll ask my mate, he's got loads of spare sprues of unused minas tirith warriors. thanks for telling me that, or else I would have had a nasty surprise when I started playing.
I am going to look into it and will probably be able to post an army list, do you think 500 pts is a fair sized army for a beginner?

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I would not take this thing, if it lay by the highway. Not were Minas Tirith falling in ruin and I could save her.

All models have hand weapons unless the profile specifically says they are "unarmed". No converting necessary.

500 points is probably big to start out with. You've played other games like this, but still, I'd have a few games at 200 or 300 points.

If you already have a box of 24 rangers, you'll notice that (conveniently) 8 of the models are posed as shooting, 8 are posed as striking with a sword, and 8 are carrying a spear. Fielding all of them is:

Faramir, bow...75 points
16 Rangers of Gondor...128 points
8 Rangers of Gondor, spear...72 points

Total: 275 points, 3 Might, 25 models, 33% bows

Nothing wrong with that configuration to just get started, and the bow limit is conveniently built into the model poses. You'll probably find you're vulnerable due to low armour though, so use those spears to back up your front lines to help win fights, and make sure your archers focus on shooting the enemy's spear support. Once you get a feel for the game, add in some WoMT, maybe led by a Captain of MT or Damrod. This will change your tactics somewhat...work out what's best for you.

Well not bad for start, good pick on the army choice

on a side note though for the future.

-Warriors of Minas Tiruth (WoMTs) are a good core army choice as the have decent defence and have normal fight value, and courage + they have a good wargear choices, their weakness is that they dont have any major advantage over other more specialised unist (like cavalary or monsters) but overall they do tend to play well

-Knights of Minas Tirith (KoMTs) are the core cavalry , basically the same as WoMTs except on horses - a normal cavalary but again not the best cavalary available in the game.

-Citadel Guads and Guards of the Fountain Court, are elite type warriors and as such do cost considerably more than normal warriors. They can hold theyr own against most of the evil "things" that the opponent can throw at you but if fielded alone, can get overnumbered very quickly, thats the part when the cheaper WoMTs come in.

-Gondor has a very wied variaty of heros of diffrent calsses rangein from the regular captain to the Aragorn the King himself, but faramir is a good hero for battles under 500 pts

Not to mention that godor also has the army of the dead to field, lots and lots of allies to help out and siege engines

So again welcome to the game, and hope you´ll enjoy it in the future

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I am the Mouth of Sauron, here him speak'

I know this may sound stupid, and I have not planned the army yet, I am just gaining all the information needed before planning, but are the rangers better with bows and the warriors better with hand weapons?

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I would not take this thing, if it lay by the highway. Not were Minas Tirith falling in ruin and I could save her.

The Rangers are better at shooting, but it's a matter of opinion over who's better in close combat. The Rangers have a higher Fight (meaning they're more likely to win a draw), but the Minas Tirith Warriors have a higher defence.



Can the models that are carrying a sword still shoot their bow if you're playing like that (or does it always work like that)?

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

No. Just use the same concept as for Riders of Rohan. They all have bows as well.



General Elessar is right. And this is why you need to play a few smaller games before you build up a large force. It will make a lot more sense once you understand how the Fight score affects the combat outcome, and how Strength indexes vs Defense. You'll also learn there is more than one way to win, you pick your tactics depending on the flavour you want.

You can have an intro game on a 2x2 board. If your friend has lots of WoMT lying around, take 4 bows, 4 shield, and 4 shield + spear. Pick another to act as captain. Then find an equivalent enemy force (or have a Gondor vs Ranger civil war). Sprinkle a few terrain bits and have at it.

Ok, thanks

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

ah, okay everyone. I think I'm starting to understand, thanks again for all your help. I'm going to buy the gondor in flames supplement and the rulebook, then I'll draw up an army list.

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I would not take this thing, if it lay by the highway. Not were Minas Tirith falling in ruin and I could save her.