In the Mind: New Book Supplement: What is Good?

 What is Good in this NEW Army Book

We just saw the "release" of this new book. I have looked through it and there are many things that stick out. as an overview i will focus on a few things as well as a general overview. Most armies in the armies of middle earth just got expanded. That is one major thing to note. Army lists that are really good (or at least look really good on paper) consist of, the Grief of Eomer, Khazad Dum, Army of the Great Eye, Umbar, Moria, And the Easterlings. Additionally ones we already have but are in the book such as Fornost, Arnor, and Buhdurs Horde all fall under the good. The grand army of the south is if something even worse then last edition and most lists are better then it. The grey company has remained nearly unchanged while being horrible last edition and still is and took a nerf through the twins being 2 might now instead of 3. One that is/or certainly will bring in much debate is the fiefdoms. Imrahil is still very very good but now you have to pay the points for him with 190 points for him mounted. Many are calling him overcosted but if you did a points to points calculation from last edition with nearly any other hero in the game imrahil was at least 30-40 points undercosted if not more. He was right there with the Dragon Emperors power and only a few points below with the loss of the elven blade, no magical resistance and i guess a big fat hard to move base that does extra attacks instead of his versatile horse with a lance... His banner is reduced his standfast is better and he is now a true beat stick. He is technically 170 to compare with last edition but now the horses cost more as well as heroes in general. He still has a lot of good value and is nothing to sniff at. 

Khazad Dum and its antithesis Moria are the two lists that stood out the most to me. Khazad dum can cover a quarter of the board with mirrors which are actually very very good. They gain dominant 2 on captains and the warriors and rangers (which is utter insanity), as well as whenever you are outnumbered in a duel roll by dice you may reroll a dice for free, so if its an iron guard or a captain they can go up to 4 attacks in the duel roll if there is a banner near... this rule is very very good. They still reroll ones, and now dwarf rangers... my word... this list is to me the best list in the game hands down. Now that being said it still requires a highly skilled player to be that. This list still has no normal spears other then vault wardens. It still is a very different playstyle to every other list in the game but man if someone knows mastery of this list it is basically untouchable. So much to the point that I am only playing Durin, Mardin, the legacy balin, in tournaments and for casual play only using captains and 1 king. It is just so powerful. I played 2 games with spam rangers and it quartered a barad dur in 4 turns of shooting, It killed a legolas through 4 in the ways with shooting in 3 turns and killed about 7 minas tirith warriors in those same turns and followed it up by beating the list. Let me break it down... rangers were what i loved last edition for khazad dum and now they are even better. They were hard to use last edition but this edition they are good... not great but good... insane in the hands of a great player but in a starter or a mediocre player they wont do much and you will very rarely win because this is a skill based troop and army. Simply put place your army in ruins or difficult terrain... force your enemy to you then you gain the same buffs as dale as rangers now have plus 1 to wound in ruins or difficult terrain rerolling 1s and access to two handed weapons. Then they have throwing weapons... their bows this edition are 24 inch s3 bows hitting on 3s. They outshoot everything except tie legolas simply because of the mirrors. They have a ballistae which offsets a windlance, they still have d7 and banners. They have great numbers, great hitting power in i would always take 4-8 iron guards. This list is SO good. It has just taken my spot for Nova and nothing will change that. Even if they get nerfed I kinda hope they do so they are less appealing but even then the armored version is easier to play and more consistent without a lot of skill. 

Moria as i said earlier also stands out. You get numbers, shenanigans, a beastcaller, dragons, drakes, trolls, bats, prowlers, goblins, fell wargs, everything... It is so powerful. It is the AoL of last edition or more accurately the angmar of last edition in the fact that you have a bunch of tricks they just need skill to be pulled off. You need to engage correctly use you monsters well and use your bat swarms in the right times. This has a much lower ceiling then the khazad dum as you have all the basics and numbers to make it forgiving. If you take durburz a captain, druzhag and a drake and then spam goblins with some prowlers 2 bats a few fell wargs you are looking at a VERY good list. Durburz can elect to not move in a turn to let all other Moria goblins move 7 inches instead that turn which can be devastating and so effective for charging things such as cavalry or other such lists. Or in recon it can also help. 

Army of the great eye looks fun for a numenorean line with shelob and the witch king. It is the same list as was Britains meta without suladan and is still brutally effective. 

easterling warriors with 2 pikes behind gain plus 1 to wound which means d6 is easy to crack for the easterlings now making the dragon emporers list very reliable and good now. 

Fornost is still a top 3 list alongside khazad dum and the army of the white hand so not much to say on that or the other arnor/angmar armies as we have had those for a bit. 

Frankly I think this book is very good and I like the anticipation that was given by GW rather then releasing all 3 books at once and now its almost as if we just got the whole game new again and it is so fun. Matched play guide looks excellent and so many different ways to do veto now. Cannot wait to see these armies making the table... and please... dont run khazad dum... let me play my baby which was the first army i ever bought

In the Mind: Nova, What to Run? Some Ideas for the MOST Competitive Event in North America

 In The Mind: What to Take to Nova?

The Nova open is the biggest and most competitive event in North America and I am hoping to attend. I have everything sorted out so unless something comes up then I will be there. I want to take a list that screams me, a playstyle I like using and other such things. I made a list of different armies. Among these were the men of the west (after my success last year with the underwhelming list), I would only take that if they add the elven twins to the list with the next book, The second list was my necromancer legion, as well as the Wolves of Isengard, Garrison of Ithilien, Minas Morgul (with SPAM spectres and a foot witch king), I also had the thought of taking out my Iron Hills with a chariot. Lately I have come up with two additional ideas that I will add later to keep some thrill to the read to the ultimate list I am thinking of taking. 

I wanted to take something that was either a micro-warband esc army or something that is unconventional for kiting. So with those two things as my criteria I wrote different lists for each of my different choices. 

Men of the west had a very interesting micro-warband style but unpredictable with the points since i dont have the twins and would only take it if they arrive in the list. The last edition it was insanely powerful and I love it so much and it really showed off how I can truly play the game with skill rather then using good lists to place well at tournaments. Interesting list, still unknowns, 99% sure it wont be showing up at Nova.

The Necromancer has been a staple list that no one saw coming or thought was that good until i started tearing up the scene with the list this year. The spiders wraith Sauron and a captain combo hits hard with a good amount of cav. It has a very interesting relationship against heavy shooting lists but skydiving the wraith and necro by themselves works very efficiently. It has an unkillable leader and a nearly unkillable support hero for fog of war missions. i like the list and it is still a consideration.

Garrison of Ithilien is a very fun list and at 38 models 13 might with 17 bows it is very good with banner vps, as well as 3 free ones essentially means you can take losses to wins with relative ease as well as taking certain scenarios down with ease. In my opinion a top 3 list for sure this edition.

Minas Morgul may be my favorite list this edition if run a certain way. I love taking 33% spectres, 33% spears, 33% bows with a banner and 1-2 trolls and the witch king on foot. It can out shoot any enemy list with ease. The reason why is with 8-12 spectres pulling archers around the enemy very rarely gets much shots off while i get 10 shots with bows and normally a throwing stone or two. Very fun and unpredictable.

now for my top 3 picks for this event. These will have a lot more depth and the lists i am specifically looking out fully written out. PLEASE comment on which list you would most like to see at Nova, I am taking all of this into a LOT of consideration for this event. 

My number 3 Pick is as follows: 
The Battle of Five Armies: Contrary to the common opinion I do not have Legolas or Nori in the list at all. Instead I went for Fili and Kili. Admittedly it does have the big bird, but with a twist...
The list is:

Gwaihir (Leader)
1 Great Eagle
1 Fledgling Eagle

Kili
1 Banner shield
8 Spear Shield
2 Crossbow

Fili
4 Spear Shield
1 Mattock
1 Goat Rider

700 Pts 22 models 9 might

This is SO much fun. You can run around and choose when to engage and pull some nasty tricks with barges and your dwarves rallying behind as support. Initial turn you can except quite a bit of nasty damage. And from their you have mostly d8 across the board along with shields on nearly everyone meaning shielding can keep you alive, enemy heroes dont have an easy time munching through you and you can inflict quite a bit of damage before the battle really happens along with having 3 good heroes as well as 2 additional eagles. A banner behind a wall of this is insane power. I love dwarves that are able to constantly be moving hence why I only took 2 crossbows to plant on objectives and act as mini turrets shooting anything that comes near them. It has all the tools I need as well as having so much fun variation to the list and looks sick on the table and ahs a lot of nostalgia as my first ever tournament list I ran was very similar at 800 points 3 years ago. 

My second pick is... THE WOLVES OF ISENGARD!
These are SO much fun and I have way enough riders and wargs to make this list work at this points and at 700... its actually pretty scary. 

The list I have right now is as follows:

Sharku (leader)
3 Wargs
4 Warg Riders w/ Throwing spears and Shield
1 Warg Rider w/ Throwing spears
2 Warg Riders w/ Bow

Orc Captain
3 Wargs
4 Warg Riders w/ Throwing spears and Shield
1 Warg Rider w/ Throwing Spear
2 Warg Riders w/ Bow

Orc Captain
3 Wargs
3 Warg Riders w/ Throwing spears and Shield
1 Warg Rider w/ Throwing Spear
3 Warg Riders w/ Bow

Orc Captain
3 Wargs
3 Warg Riders w/ Throwing spears and Shield
1 Warg Rider w/ Throwing Spear
3 Warg Riders w/ Bow

700 Points 44 Models 9 might 10 Bows 18 throwing Spears

This list is quite simply insanity. It will literally cover the entire board and engage everywhere with insane power that cavalry has, Its main advantage is it loves every single scenario in the game and with all gave actual banners are nearly impossible to keep safe as one charge and lost combat and it will die and be gone since it will be prone. It is a list I have written a lot about and I love. It plays the real game rather then the game of simply killing. 


My number 1 pick as of now is: Erebor and Dale. A bit of background for this is this. I was listening to the Unexpected Podcast (second only to the Green Dragon) and they talked about how this is possibly the worst list in the game as of now. That is what I was told about the Men of the West a year ago... although this wasn't a personal telling me how bad it is, I still took it as a challenge. I wont lie, i only thought about this much this morning and wrote up a list and instantly fell in love with the look of it. It is nearly identical to what my Men of the West Army was... but if something it is by far superior. I will share the list then break down just why it is SO oppressive and powerful. 

Thror (Leader) 130
7 Grim Hammers 77
7 Warriors of Erebor w/ Spear and Shield 77
1 Erebor Dwarf w/ Shield 10

Girion 80
1 Dale warrior w/ Banner 32
2 Dale Warriors w/ Esgaroth Bow 18
1 Dale Warrior w/ Spear and Shield 9

Erebor Dwarf Captain 75
1 Erebor Dwarf w/ Shield 10
1 Erebor Dwarf w/ Shield and Spear 11

Erebor Dwarf Captain 75
1 Erebor Dwarf w/ Shield 10
1 Erebor Dwarf w/ Shield and Spear 11

Erebor Dwarf Captain 75

THIS LIST IS INSANE! I mean just look at it. Even then it doesn't look like anything specifically special... To give the Unexpected Podcast some credibility to their claim about Erebor and Dale being bad let us look at the current stats on longshanks for this list out of the 74 lists. 

58th out of 74... 39% Win rate... not good at all... and this is in tournament play. The better players out there agree this list is bad... so is it? Well I intend to prove otherwise. I think this is the list I will most likely take. It has all of the tools I love as well as all the tricks in the world. Let me break it down. The simplest form is to simply say 5 3 Attack Heroes that is really really powerful. Everyone is probably like wait WHAT? yea this edition the humble Erebor captain tagged on another attack. Which makes sense as the Grim hammer in the last edition had the much better captain profile. The other things this has to add threat is throwing weapons and you know those 2 bows. They might not looks like much bet with good defense as a all around force this list is no slouch. It packs a MASSIVE punch and this time instead of 3 3 attack heroes like I had in my Men of the West I have 5 and the same model count but better troops, better fight value, essentially 3 banners oh and on top of that, with 12 might statistically I should get 2 might free with their other legion rule meaning I statistically have 14 might points. This means I essentially have my Men of the West legion but in all category's mostly better other then courage and it has more might (kinda) as well as packing even more heroes and a physical banner in the list AND having a ranged threat even if it is a short range albeit. 

Overall I think the top 3 lists I have look insanely fun, all scream me in some way shape or form. The top 2 are ultimately what I am leaning towards as I love those lists so much. But let me know... WHICH list SHOULD I take to the most competitive event in North America. i read through every comment and will ultimately 99% of the time take what the community around me votes on taking. So let me know and I will respond to all. Thanks for reading this article of the Minds of Moria... Until next time I will return to the depths...

In The Mind: Grand Tournament Review

 In the Mind: Am I Stupid or a Darkhorse of the Meta

Hello all, in this post I will discuss the tournament we had out here in the DFW over the past weekend. I will go in depth into each of my 5 games and discuss how each game went where i made mistakes and where my opponents made theirs (if any). For this event it was an 800 point event and my two best friends were taking very tough lists. I ended up taking a very straight forward and simple list.... Just kidding i went into the lore and found the battle at Pelargir. This battle is when Minardil and Hurin fought and lost to the Umbarian pirates. Ultimately this was because i just put up a poll for either the wolves of Isengard, the necromancer, or the realms of men as my list for the tournament. The realms one barely over the wolves of Isengard and I had quite the eventful event ahead of me. I knew Fornost and Minas Morgul were fore sure coming as those were the lists my two friends were taking and so with my theme I wrote my list. 

My list:

(Leader) King of Gondor (Minardil) Horse Lance Shield Heavy Armor
9 Knights of Gondor
1 Knight Banner
5 Warriors of Minas Tirith Bow
1 Citadel Guard with Longbow

King of Numenor (Hurin, the Numenorean Steward) Kitchen Sink
13 Numenoreans Spear and Shield
5 Numenoreans Longbow

Captain of Minas Tirith (Celdrahil)
10 Warriors of Minas Tirith w/ Shield
1 Warrior of Minas Tirith w/ Banner

48 Models 2 Banners 7 Might 11 Bows

This list is a very much my style of list from a year ago and before. It was a troop does it all list. It is very fun but different then what I have been playing as of late. 

Round 1: Round one I was faced off against a very fun opponent,  I was facing Ents. The scenario was destroy the supplies. I set up took some shots while they ran at me. They eventually made comment unharmed while i had already slid 3 knights and 2 warriors past them with some tricky movement shenanigans. They made combat and i set up so i could dismount half of my cav to trap a handful of ents. I did so and struck up with a charging king and instantly took out one ent. My other king who was in birchseed did the same but lost and took 3 wounds but luckily passed both fate. (he died the next turn though so that didnt do much). I took out 2 ents total kept both banners alive protected all of my objectives while taking out all of his leading to a massive major victory to myself. Ultimately we talked through and we both agreed he shoudl have anchored on two of his objectives using terrain and his bases to block them off and focus on getting the leader kill and break without being broken to barely win. 

Round 2: Wolf Pack of Angmar: To the Death

This game is was faced up against a familiar face to me. My good freind Nick, we had an excellent game in which his howl went off and he combatted through my frontline. Sadly I only won 2 of the tied fight value rolloffs we had of at least 15 throughout the following turns. He chewed through me slowly but not before I took out his lead warg chieftain and 1 other warg chieftain and had 2 others wounded. He killed my captain as i through him out as bait to bring out the howl turn 1. It came down to the fact that i shielded with a warrior and won against a wolf chieftain who was about to take out my last banner and that ultimately gave me the 10-9 minor win. 2-0 1 major 1 minor.

Round 3: Minas Morgul: Reconnoitre

This was against one of my closest friends Michael. This game was IMMACULATE. hands down the best game of the event. I new I would be able to do either two things. Keep his army off from escaping my board side at the sacrifice of the break points and get myself quartered OR rank up and use terrain to munch through him with my banners and higher fight value and let him get about 5-7 guys off. I decided on the first banking on the fact that i would be able to quarter before he got any models off. I quickly ran 3 cavalry off and put him on the back foot. I essentially created the biggest anti fly formation ever created and just spread out on my entire side of the board allowing him to gang up super slowly and munch through my army. This worked well, I sacrificed my leader to kamikaze in and take out the fell beast which worked and saved me so much as the WK then never had a chance to get off the board. He played the game extremely well with his spectres and mainly his drummer. I was in shock at the efficiency he used to get his army around while being engaged. He would engage part of his army and then drum and run the rest of his army forward gaining ground. I eventually pulled a little combat play to sling my captain off the board scoring more points. He eventually broke through and began engaging. Sadly nearly all of the 25 orcs i had killed were the bowmen, twohanded men, and spears... So he had almost entirely shields left and shielded for 2 turns while getting closer to the board edge while I was one model off quarter and didn't have a model leave.. We timed out the turn before he would have marched his drummer and 6 orcs off the table which would have given him a convincing win. Instead I pulled off another major victory giving me 2 majors and one minor and a 3-0 record headed into day 2. 

Round 4: Fog of War: Shadows of Angmar

This round was insane. I was playing a player from Louisiana and his wacky 16 werewolf list that had double banner and 40 models. It also had 2 barrow wights a captain and the shadow of ruhdar to boot. Of course on this insanely weird Lothlorien board with trees with connecting catwalks were all over the board. It was a very very very good game to say the least. With so many terrain pieces there were tons of choices. Neither of us ended up guessing which terrain we were going for. The game started out with a very fun separated deployment for me. I moved into this ring of trees and a staircase to anchor myself off of and let my numenoreans just go to work. He played very avoidance like to stay away from my main line for most of the game yet my cav versus all of his werewolves still chopped through about 10 werewolves and 4 or so wild wargs before he realized skirting the edges letting my kings and cav mop him up was not going to work. I brought my army to his group of about 15 orcs and engaged right before he broke. i killed a barrowwight and kept talking about the other barrowwight seeming to imply he was who i was going after that worked so well as this barrowwight who still had will ran up into a tree and hid the rest of the game. i was actually going after his captain. I tried to keep my captain safe and take a massive staircase. I kept my captain safe and he never even saw combat while being right next to combat the entire game using his might to influence the game. My king of numenor bit some bait to charge a handful of guys next to his captain nearly alone. The Gondor king with 2 might points combatted over to help out that flank. He brought another cav with him and with the kills they all got I had the numbers advantage. each of us still had a might point and after he won priority I called a move to try to get a charge on his mightless captain. He won the roll off after calling a move with his last point of might. He put a few models into my numenorean king including his captain and the shadow and tagged my cav and Gondor king. I then had to roll a 5 to win the roll against them with my numenorean king. I didn't... He then rolled 3 6's to wound on his 4 dice and I failed all of my fate and he died... I then won priority on the last turn and charged his captain with my Gondor king. With a banner in range, on the charge against a captain who wasn't shielding because he needed to do damage... I lost the fight... and nothing happened but still that would have been 5 more VPs in the bag. Thankfully I had psyched him out when it came to terrain and had like 5 guys on one tree and 2 guys on another he thought it was the one with 5 since i had been "focusing" on it all game but it was not. A convincing 13-10 victory even with horrible dice rolls all throughout the game. 4-0 heading into game 5 with Michael right on my tail. If i lost this game he could overtake me for the win. 

Game 5: Hold Ground: Host of the Witch King
Ok... common theme this event.. werewolves... 3rd time facing them in 5 rounds. BUT all 3 with different armies so that was cool. But with my lower end courage numenoreans and Gondorians I did not like these at all the entire event. I lost priority and deployed first. I did not com eon with 2 warbands and the other I chose to place near a small building. i half moved my archers in and that was fun. The witch king then came on right next to me. A barrow wight came on my other side and another barrowwight i through to the exact opposite side of the board. His other Barrowwight came on from the side to play the objective. Aldrac did not show up this turn. I shot with my half moving archers through two in the ways at the King and hit the two orcs and got two kills on 3 hits. The following turn he moved towards the objective and my Gondor king came on in a flank. I turned and shot all of my Gondorian archers and numenorean archers at his orcs and took out the 2 touching the banner AND the banner. The game progressed my captain turned up on turn 3 and started to the objective with his shieldwall. I broke him just when i got a very minimal advantage on the middle then Aldrac the werewolves and his remaining orcs and barrowwights got to work. I slowly chopped through them while being chopped up myself. Thankfully with no banner of him and my own banners both alive I had some threat. I also had the advantage and was slowly getting more of an advantage. Aldrac put in work yet eventually failed to get through my Gondor kings fate after I lost a roll off. The game ended and I had another win with the center being mine, breaking without being broken, and having a banner and killing his. This led to a big win and a 5-0 event. 

I did it! I took first and to boot I took best painted with my non-metallic-metal paint job on my Gondor. Michael and his Minas Morgul took second and my other good friend who I sadly never got to face took 4rth after forgetting several key rules that ended up costing him some games while still playing them so so well. Now it is preparation for Nova Open and our 1000 point event in which my friends wrote my list completely for me and i am takin the 9 with a bunch of cav and no necromancer... it will be an experience for sure. But i am probably only going to paint that list and get my first gameplay experience with it at the event. For Nova I am thinking of running the Wolves of Isengard, Men of the West, or a spectre heavy Minas Morgul... what do yall think I should take to nova? comment below and ill take your opinions into account. 

In the Mind: Playstyles in Middle Earth

 In the Mind: How to use Different Strategies 

Hello and welcome back to the Minds of Moria. Today we will be discussing a rather interesting topic and I will provide a few lists for my personal favorite strategies to use in this game. So let us start off by laying out the ground work. I will be covering the following strategies in their own sections as follows: Kiting, Baiting, Pincers, Find the Spot, the Disengage, Full Engage. These are all vary from incredibly simple to extremely difficult depending on how they are run. Let us jump right in at the beginning. Where the inspiration for this article has sprouted from.

Kiting: Currently I have been messing with a minas Morgul kiting list. That means using orc bowmen, spectres, trolls, and magic to keep running away from my enemy and out play them in maneuverability. As you can imagine, orcs are horrible at shooting so everyone told me it couldn't be done. At a time in the past I believed them. Then I played a thematic rohan versus wildmen game. I was the wildmen player and with less bows, and 0 throwing weapons compared to the fully maxed out rohan throwing weapon list I decided I didnt want to engage at one point. So instead of charging when i had priority for the first combat turn i ran off making 16 inches between me and the rohan. I then was able to pick off 3 rohan throwing spears and then did that the following turn as well. Over these two turns I only lost 4 wildmen total to throwing spears and enemy bow fire making me up on top with higher value targets as well as more of them. i ran my troops off let my bows shoot through lanes i had left and took out more throwing weapons. They then took a turn to switch the non throwing weapons to the front and put their few remaining throwing spears in the back. This allowed a further turn of disengagement where I shot through an in the way of the fence at their archers taking out 2. This resulted in an astounding wildmen victory with the most unlikely scenario. Ever since I have dreamed of doing it with the other weirdest lists from Minas morgul, to Buhdurs horde. But all of this to say, WHAT are the specifics of kiting and how is it best done. Well simply all you need is something that can put more pressure on your opponent then they can you without engaging. This can vary from throwing weapons, to bows, to throwing stones, to magic, to moving their models where they dont want them. As a starting kiting player I would suggest something like the Rivendell knights if you know how to run cavalry well. If you do not then I would engage with a forgiving kiting army such as either a Rohan list or a Rangers of Ithilien army. Both of those have the tools to kite and both have the models and or defense to be forgiving. Another excellent army would be the lurtz's scouts with max bows and max models as it allows a lot of condensed heavy fire at mid range. Additionally all of those uruks are insanely fast meaning you can half move your bows at nearly the same movement as a dwarf and just a bit less then most normal models. As a kiting list make some priority's. First target any cavalry. Make it so that they cannot catch you with ease. Then aim at messing up high value troops. This means targeting banners, elites, or anything costed high in points. If you randomly chip off a wound or two on a hero your enemy will get extremely scared and will cage their hero behind their troops to keep them protected. You job is to simply create a chaos in which your enemy either has no idea what you are doing or is slowly getting a disadvantage of points and models. You want to set up your archers barely in range this could mean manipulating how if your opponant moves first and has their bows in the second rank moving your archers up enough to shoot only their first rank barely and taking off some troops while their bows are useless. Then after that turn move the rest of your force ahead of your archers allowing them paths to shoot through or swinging your army wide to let all the bowfire through easily. Then you try to apply some pressure with that part of the force through any means possible. Maybe a few throwing weapons. Maybe throw a spectre pull at some heroes and hype up the fact that eventually their heroes will fail and then be at the whims of an entire army with no support. You can kite both mentally and physically. Both are just as effective and will work. If the enemies archers are super weak in defense and are left in your range but they shoot first i would always advise to declare a heroic shoot if you think you can easily heavily reduce their archers. If you have elves and they have some hobbits or wildmen this is perfect. D3 archery will melt to your bow fire so use a might point to assure yourself the shooting advantage early and further scare your opponents. Now in my position if i am the orc or wildmen player with max bows i probably have more bows so a heroic shoot against something like elves or Gondor rangers is perfect for me. You have even more shots then they do and while it may be harder to wound for you you ultimately have weight of dice and even knocking off  a few archers early can provide a massive advantage in this war. Now trolls. Trolls are so much fun for kiting as you can set them up to throw their stones. These are NASTY if they hit they are so frightening and so hype them up and if you get a lucky hit then you can wound heroes on 4s for nearly all in the game or Sauron's and the balrog on 5s. just the threat of the possibility of this can be enough to make them run at you which is very nice. That is why I am loving my Minas Morgul kiting list. It has tons of bows 2 trolls and a witch king with magic and spectres running around applying so much ranged pressure nearly every list bows to my wishes. This strategy in combination with the next strategy are probably my favorite combination followed after that with the last strategy we will discuss today. 

baiting: bait is something i have discussed in depth and in all of the different styles in previous posts. The basics of baiting is a strategy to entice your enemy to come where you want rather then force them through such things as bow fire and such. Recently as I have been playing the Wolves of Isengard this has been something I have been using a lot. Throw forward 2 wargs on a flank where i want my enemy to charge as that portion of the field is more open allowing my high mobility and high numbers of cav to pounce on whoever is unlucky enough to receive them. Baiting can be super simple and is super fun. A thing to remember only inexperienced players will take a bait that isn't worth it. You have to give up something in order to gain something that is the biggest thing to remember when baiting unless it is a hero such as Theodred, Beorn, Dain, or any model from Ride out. I think this is the best strategy to pair with others as it is simple and can benefit in almost any scenario. 


Pincer: This is one of the most fun tactics as you can do it differently. The most common way to do this is also known as the hammer and anvil tactic of taking about 50-50 mix of infantry and cav and using your infantry as a anvil to pound your enemy between with your cavalry. This is easy to set up just simply engage with your infantry survive one turn then have you cavalry hit like a truck on the flanks and behind. Another way to do it is to set up some troops along some terrain and set your bows further down looking through those pieces of terrain. As your enemy ahs to come and engage those bows you troops hiding in the cover take them on the sides and wrap while the bows engage head on. These are just a few simple ways of getting an engage in a position ripe for traps. 

Find the Spot: This strategy is essentially for many armies. It requires a combination of things. Either bow fire or a place where the most points are. This strategy revolves around many lists that have incredible defense or good shooting and lower numbers. The army of the dead, certain elf lists, dwarves all can or should come to rely on this strategy. I think this should be a given regardless of whatever army you are playing. Remember terrain is what makes the game different. Scenarios and armies are easy to think of ways to use in a given game. But the terrain, well thats the X factor. What if they have a heavy shooting list, well terrain is your best friend... Learning how to use any and all terrain and how to manipulate it is one of the key ways to win games. Games are won through movement, not dice rolls. If it was just dice or even mostly dice and luck Kylie, from the Green Dragon Podcast, wouldn't have taken down the biggest event in Great Britain, America, New Zealand, and the two biggest in Australia in one road trip. That's not how it works. That isn't even counting all of the smaller events she won or podiumed on that trip. If it was up to dice that wouldn't happen. I always love moving my lines forward to have one if not both flanks protected by terrain to make a flank force of my enemy have a much harder time to wrap on me. 

Disengage: This strategy is simple. I have used this strategy to MASSIVE success. This is very fun to do with armies such as the dead, men of the west, the fellowship, or cav armies. It is super simple. You want to have a good source of might since you are using might for something that could be used in another situation to possibly greater success. The best way is if you simply win priority and they decide this turn i dont need to declare a move. Then you just pull everything back fully. This means with your one inch back away very few models should be able to get into combat. This can then be used to reposition or in my experiences it almost makes your enemy freak out and just have no idea what you are doing. This is great when they are in a disjointed line and if you left some squads of archers back they can shoot easily while theirs have to shift around. Then you just shoot at theirs and apply pressure. Ultimately it is more of a mind trick then anything as it adds so much questioning to their minds and could be useful if you dont need to heroic move if they run after you they will feel forced to declare a move so you dont run further when in reality you dont really care. I love this strategy and have used it multiple times to great success. 

Full Engage: This is probably the type of engagement many are used to. This time i would like to apply a different twist to the classic run forwards and fight. Pick a part of the enemy battle line you want to engage. Dont engage the middle engage a flank full on and wrap. Yes only 1-2 turns of this will work before they are able to reset their battle line but 2 turns of combat is a lot if you can avoid 2 captains and like 10 troops. Another fun strategy is to block space when you full engage. I love setting up a Sauron and a troll with about 15mm between their bases. This blocks off quite a bit of space meaning you can just hide your orcs behind them in safety. Trolls are very very solid now and when you can engage in such a way where your soft squishy things are behind a wall of two massive monsters. You are looking phenomenal. Again this is the most basic style but i want to add something into your minds arsenal. When you go to fully engage... think about how you want to fully engage. 

I hope you have enjoyed this slightly longer then usual read and I hope you find much of it interesting and applicable to your games. I started out as a horrible player but as soon as i started figuring out, hearing, applying strategies like these I now feel comfortable with any army... so much so that for a 1000 point event I gave full control of my list to two buddies... now I'm running the 9, the keeper and some cav without the necromancer at 1000 points but with many of these strategies i am getting some clever ideas. Before that however we have one of our GT's in just two weeks. I am taking a thematic battle of the Pelargir list with the Realms of Men to fill in the theme of the list. In short its 48 models with 12 cavalry and 2 banners with 11 bows. I feel really good about the list and cannot wait to go and bring it out... but more on that next time. This has been the Minds of Moria see you next time.

In the Mind: 2nd Tournament Recap of 2025

 In the Minds: Wolves of Isengard

I recently attended an event down in College Station. I took the new meta breaker known as the Wolves of Isengard. The list was quite fun and I only fought a handful of combats throughout the game with my heroes relying exclusively on troops. I only used 1 heroic move the entire event and with an all cav list that is quite impressive. Lets dive into my first game.

Round 1: Halls of Thranduil, This game was extremely fun. We were playing domination and after setting up my objectives as far away from the middle as possible I set everything up. He created an L formation between some woodland terrain and some trees. I used the river to set up a throwing spear formation and set them up to shoot his bows first turn and bait him out. Turn one i shot out 4 archers with throwing spears and bows to his 2 warg riders. The following turn I followed it up with 2 more kills. Sadly he then passed 2 in the ways with Legolas and did 3 6's to kill sharku outright. I encircled his formation slowly and took out his cav then got Legolas bouncing back and forth to keep his army from being overrun. I cracked through over a few turns and even on my first cavalry charge with no counter move as i moved last he killed nearly all of those warg riders meaning i would certainly break. As result i pulled my captains back to save their resources for break tests. 

This worked out decently well. I was able to break the elves in a few turns then the following turn I broke as well. In the following 11 courage tests i passed a grand total of 2 and my captain with all his saved resources rolled double 1s and fled. I had all of the objectives but 1 before this set of rolls and ended up tying 1, losing 3 (to no one) and then with the only 2 courage tests i did pass i was able to go grab one that was near that warg rider and another ran 10 inches and was barely 3 inches out of another objective so he dismounted into range to get me a 7-6 minor win. 1-0 for the event so far.

Round 2: The Oliphaunt's arrive. Yes, I was playing a low model count list with a mumak. He had a full warband in the howdah and a full warband minus 1 on the ground meaning i had to get some howdah kills to break him. On the bright side for me we were playing reconoitre. I set up ran my scouts forwards then my entire army came on turn 2 and marched forwards turn 3. The mumak came in turn 4 and ran over a handful of wargs.  

I set up bait to get his foot warband out of the choke that blocked my army from getting off. Of course when there are 7 warg riders he can charge and not have them charge him he accepts so i then proceeded to move off all of my captains and Sharku as well as quite a few warg riders including dismounting some of them to get some free models off in essence. 

He then kept killing and i broke then I had the opposite issue of the last round. NOT a single model fled the battle field when I was 1 model off quartering. Thankfully he still had a foot chieftain so i dismounted a throwing spear warg rider and ran him into the chieftain and the chieftain was to bloodthirsty and although i unfortunately rolled a 6 he did as well and then killed the warg rider. In the end I won 15-3 that game. 2-0 1 major win and 1 minor win. On the table right below top table for the final round.

Round 3: Reclamation of Osgiliath in Fog of War. This round was amazing I had to kill Farimir and I decided my captains would never even get into any position where I would be in range to be charged at all. I used 1 to go snag my terrain piece about 15 inches away from the gondor force and the other hid behind a wall the entire game. 

This match was so much fun and we were just in essentially a standoff. He had 9 bows, I had 8 and 18 throwing spears. I just used these times of down time to secure my objective, and precisely position my army to be ready for him to come into me. This was the first game where I actually got to use Sharku in combat and I really wanted to because he is so much fun for a little tiny hero. 

I started putting all of my missile fire into Farimir and chipped off two wounds that he used 2 fate and then took a wound before switching to using Boromir's 3 fate throughout the game to stay alive. When this started happening he realized he needed to come into combat and rushed forwards. I left y army into range for him to charge the next turn allowing tons of counter charges from me. He went in and i got a massive surround crumbling his army in 2 turns. He then had Boromir, Farimir, and about 8-10 warriors left in this area of terrain. I just continually put every shot i and into Farimir's combat and did 2 more wounds in total and Boromir's fate saved once but the other could not and Farimir fell. A big thing for me is that the first turn Boromir charged in I shot out his horse meaning he felt like he was at a massive disadvantage. This ultimately led to me having all of my captains safe not using any fate, me getting my terrain, killing Farimir, and breaking the Gondor without being broken. This game was a wonderful experience and well I was shocked he was slightly newer to the game but had a really good grasp of his army what it did do and what it could do. I think the amount of 39 wargs and warg riders kind of freaked him out in the beginning which helped me but I will say... He will go far in this game if he keeps it up. This left me with an 18-3 Major victory scoring me 2 majors and a minor and placing me tied for first. When the tiebreakers came down to vps I had scored 40 while my good friend and fellow DFW mate, took first with 41 vps and his Ride Out list. I wish their was a fourth round so I could have faced him as every game against him is an absolute joy and I think his list isn't very good, But it was fun to see two all cav lists taking the top 2 spots at this event... Cant say i didn't say all cav lists were the way to break this edition and scenarios we have in the last post or anything like that... In the end DFW took home all three podium spots, best painted, and best sport in this out of town event for us. And ultimately the best part. We took home the Texas League trophy after our strong showing in the 2024 season. 

Thank you for reading, Comment on what armies you want to see me run. Maybe an Iron Hills chariot army? Hobbits? I am up for nearly everything and have most of the armies in the game and love the challenge of others picking my armies and lists. 

In the Mind: The Ultimate META breaker? Is Cavalry the Way to go?

 In the Mind: Introducing a New Way to Win

If you have followed the blog for any amount of time you have probably picked up one major theme. I dont like what is commonly deemed as the lists to take. In fact I like to not only shy away from that but rather take what everyone else deems as garbage. I started out running Iron hills for my first ever event with all of the lower end dwarf heroes from Erebor. Then the next even I went with Azog and a bunch of hunter orcs all with two handed picks and that was awesome. Then I turned around and ran Angmar with the Tainted and buhdur in comparison to most peoples witch king and gulavar. I then proceeded to run Hunter orcs with all the little heroes and a gundabad captain bringing in 4 war bats for the heck of it. I then started a project idea that followed me for half a year. Men of the West. I told my good friend to pick a list for me to run for our grand tournament. He seeing his chance to put me with a list he could easily beat instantly said Men of the West. As the story goes. I didn't have a single model in the army. I ran a proxy list to test what i was thinking. I was simply blown away. It was insanely powerful. (If you want to read about the full journey look at my previous blog on that specific army). I ended up coming in 3rd at our grand event with the list. Simply to say ever since then I have gone out of my way to take odd, weird, seemingly skewed lists. I turned around and started running all cav Gondor with Aragorn instead of Boromir and all normal captains for the rest of the edition. as well as a radagast/gandalf combo with some laketown which was fun. I took what people said was garbage. I then figured out how they work. I firmly believe any list can be competitive. 

Throughout this journey I wasn't running THE lists to take. But I wasn't going the hard opposite side either. I took odd lists that i liked quite simply. With this new edition on the rise and the comfort levels returning to normal the common lists are starting to flow along with the common opinions for what is deemed as good. The year started off with a friend of mine being sad because "Spiders are dead this edition" So what did i do? Decided to take the rise of the necromancer with spam spiders as my list and took down my first event of the year with the monstrosity of a list. I was also told f3 armies aren't worth it unless they have big heroes or ways to shut down big heroes. I also heard Rohan got insanely good and no cav can even compare to their sheer power. They have returned to the "Horse Lords." So me being me... decided we cant have that. So with all of this set up I present. The ultimate META breaker. Those that directly dethroned the Horse Lords in a direct matchup. Yes, you heard that right. That leaves only two options... but only one of those is a cavalry force.

The Wolves. I have been collecting this list for well over a year now and have now attained somewhere around 40 warg riders 18 wild wargs, Sharku, and a bunch of converted captains on wargs. Let me explain just why I think this list is the best dark horse list in the game. I would say the necromancer legion is way more powerful. But... thats at what that legion does. stops and kills heroes. This list does not do that. It has a completely different style of play. And it is LETHAL. Let me break down how to play this list efficiently as I have found. First lets do a quick overview analysis.

Strengths: Mobility, High numbers for cav, Tons of missile weapons, Tons of might, High strength.
Weaknesses: No big beat stick, low defense, lots of big bases.

This is where I would call this list "The Darkhorse" or i guess more of the darkwarg. Sharku flies under everyone's radar. He is f4 2attacks on the surface with d5. Not good at all... But on the charge he is 3 attacks (4 with cav bonus) and gains plus one FV. That is very very good. He can now reliably take out 4 troops a turn with his free heroic combats. 

Why is this list the ultimate meta breaker? Well the style of gameplay it plays is ultimately completely different then every army this edition. It doesn't play the game. Rather, it plays THE game. You see most armies rely on simple factors of big heroes or magic that prevents those big heroes from cutting through swaths of troops and then you secure the objectives at the end. This list plays the opposite. You never give up the objectives that win the game. 

Here is the gameplan. Every army in the game will not want to engage with you. You can wipe out cavalry forces faster then any other list other then eagles. They will even run. Infantry will want shots to deplete numbers so will deploy back. So its just get around the board and pin them in the far backfield and apply pressure. You can cut through troops insanely fast while gaining a better position then any and i mean ANY other list in the game. I have played this list quite a bit now and it is shocking how frightened opponents are of it. You outpace every list in the game with the amount of cheap might for march alongside already 10 inch move. You have more throwing spears then any list and can get to the mid 50s at 800 points. That is a normal horde army level let alone a cavalry horde... its insane. Now i will say 500-650 is the perfect spot for this list and at 500 it is almost unbeatable. It is so powerful and not enough lists have the tools to deal with it properly at that points level. but even at higher points i have been finding some success and I think only time will show that more. But anything with objectives is a piece of cake and maelstrom. INSANE. then the scouts rule is super helpful as everyone knows if they want their bows to be safe they need to be over 20 inches away further giving board control. and if they dont deploy that far back then move a few wargs as scouts and sacrifice them to turn off the enemies shooting. You have tricks, speed, and ultimately something no other list does. It plays the true game rather then focusing on just being able to kill faster or better then the enemy. 

You take everything that provides you advantages for the long term rather then the shorthand experience of getting a few kills easier. You trade a big killy hero that kills other heroes for a small hero that can easily double his points in what he can kill. In just one game against some elves I killed about 5 elves along with Legolas and Tauriel after kiting them and letting them use their might to keep the cavalry charges from going off. He is dangerous to heroes when they lose their might. You have the tools to win any game. You have the tools for all situations. You can dictate the game if you hold the objectives early. It applies pressure which can lead to mistakes. That being said it is still a highly skill based list. But if you want a challenge or you want to become a better player then by all means go get this list. Look out for the next time we delve into the Minds of Moria to find what lurks within. 

In the Mind: Tournemant Recap

 First Tournament in the New Edition

After a month of having this new edition I was finally able to attend a bigger event with the new system. I got in 13 games with practice with the list I took. I will be going over every game in depth with my analysis of what my opponent made mistakes with as well as what I did. 

To start before tournament day lets look at the build up. Originally I was looking at running my Mirkwood ranger force with Fili, Kili, Gloin, and the elves. I was enjoying the list as it deployed semi close took a round of shooting then went in and used its heroes to chop through the opponent. I continued to play this until I faced a Balrog in Fog of War and saw that when i didn't have a enemy hero i could shoot out that was at the balrogs level I would lose almost every time. I tried and tried but the list just couldn't compete versus that style of list in any scenario. I continued through the Hobbit book and read through the LOTR army book as well... throughout it several things caught my eye... but only one sparked an idea... and as we learned form Nolan's Inception... an idea is like a virus... it consumes... and well... the Rise of the Necromancer idea was born. I went into an old box where I had some old minis and found a bunch of Mirkwood Giant Spiders as well as a few Hunting Spiders. When I looked through the list I really dialed into a few things just on sight. I knew i wanted every single mounted hunter orc I owned in the list. I have 4 that I converted from fell wargs and hunter orcs on foot. I threw all of them in the necromancer and soon realized i really needed a core troop choice. last edition easily the gundabad orc but this edition i didn't really have an easy choice. So I made a simple choice. I wouldn't have a core troop. I took an even spread. I took 7 spiders 8 mounted/cav-ish models and 10 infantry hunter orcs. The list is as follows:

(Leader) The Necromancer 200
4 Mirkwood Spiders 80
4 Hunter orc Warg Riders (1 with bow) 61
2 Fell Wargs 16
3 Hunter orcs 24

Some hero worth 80
3 Mirkwood Spiders 60
2 Fell wargs 16
7 Hunter Orcs with Bow 63

600 points 27 models 8 bows 6 might

Practice Games: Initially I had the keeper of the dungeons as my second hero as his buffs seemed nice and I kinda liked him. After playing a Fog of War against a battle of five armies with bofur on the brute Gloin and Hilda with around 35 models a bunch of iron hills and laketown behind I finally saw just how powerful this list was. After that I immediately made the switch to the Witch King and haven't ever regretted it since. The Witch king is better then the Keeper in every situation and I was so so happy about him and he proved his worth in gold in every single game I played. I then went through and played against 12 other lists including, Minas Morgul, Lothlorien, Numenor, Fornost, Depths of Moria, Rangers of Mirkwood, Mirkwood, Battle of Five Armies, the Eagles and a few others. Through this I learned not just how to play this list to its full but also what its few limits were. I kept almost a game journal of every game noting the strengths and weaknesses of every game and by the end of these games it was at over 10 pages of detailed notes. This was to me ultimately the true success of the list as although I had already submitted my list I knew how to use that list even though I would prefer make some changes. I then spent the week before the event finding a beautiful reaper miniature model to proxy as the necromancer since i do not like the GW one and then i based and painted all my spiders and the necromancer then I was done and ready for this 18 player event. 

Round 1: The scenario drawn was Destroy the Supplies. I was drawn against an army consisting of three trolls and a campfire. It had the bonus might he no traps and the extended range on the campfire and one other rule. This game was simple I threw magic out while marching at him then kept hitting him with a bunch of webs until all were out or low on fate then promptly tied them off blocked off the avenues to barge back to their objectives and took all three out in two turns of the lines meeting. I then in the next 3 or 4 turns went one at a time and killed all 3 trolls for a 20-0 board wipe to start the event. A nice scenario and win to start off the event and 2 much harder and more well fought games to finish off the tournament. 

Round 2: Scenario was rolled to be Reconnoitre against a Men of the West with Aragorn on horse Legolas and a bunch of tin cans a Rohan banner and 3 or 4 Rohirrim. Turn 1 saw Legolas deploy off to one side and Aragorn not show up. I then got both warbands one and placed them both one on each board side leaving the entire 3 feet of the middle completely open taking 6 inches on each extreme side. Turn two saw the tin cans start to slowly move up and anchor on a terrain piece and Legolas half move. I then ran all my spiders full speed with the cav toward the board edge opposite me letting Legolas have some in the ways on some spiders which was very intentional as my wargs on the other side of the terrain in the open were safe with only 1 wound to start with. I then moved my hunter orcs up full speed with the Mirkwood spiders and fell wargs in the witch kings warband moving full up into some difficult terrain right in front of Aragorn begging him to come into the terrain to fetch them. That one move bought me 2 turns away from Aragorn as he then started trekking him sideways towards a group of fell wargs who used their speed to launch back into the center where they had a straight shot. In the following turns i was able to sacrifice some wargs to move 6 models off in a total of 4 turns from the beginning turn. With 4 spiders gone from the board and all of my cav except one i had lost most of my hitting power. But my opponent used Legolas to just continue shooting taking out some wargs. I just decided it was time to continue working on breaking myself and him so points would be limited to him while quartering myself. This was a difficult task as my quarter point was 6. meaning only 1 model could be on the board of mine as 5 of the 6 that had run off counted towards quarter (1 was a dismounted warg) I then used the necromancer in combination with an orc to combat and kill 3 warriors of minas Tirith while my remaining spiders held ground and got 1 kill. I then got some magic off and started chill souling some models including a cheeky compel the guy touching the banner away from the banner then with the second spell chill souling the banner removing its effect on the weakside without Aragorn thus making me able to remove EVERY enemy model on that board half. Soon i only had 3 models left and Aragorn was almost off the opposing board edge. I quartered with the "death' of the witch king. With a misunderstanding about dismounted models I allowed my opponent to get an additional turn so he could get a further victory point and remove 4 from mine but it ended up as a 9-2 major win. It was a close game and with an unlucky matchup my opponent fought well.

Round 3: At this point I am in the lead and a draw wins me the tournament. I am invited to do the roll for scenario and roll Fog of War. A perfect scenario for the witch king as my support hero. I then find i am paired with the army of carn dum. This build had a troll Aldrac and 2 captains with 7 cav 2 banners and 38 models total. Quite the list. I decided to take the smallest terrain feature on his side target his carn dum captain and obviously protect the witch king. he decided to attack the WK protect that same carn dum cap and take a tower piece. We re on a very very close quartered and confined osgiliath board which is very difficult for my many large bases to move around on. I like terrain with the list but not this much. I knew it would be difficult facing so many models that can get f4 on the charge with a good hero and a troll. I proceeded to continue chill souling the troll and after 5 turns of attempting it on 4 dice every time i finally was able to get it off the table after it took out 2 cav and wounded the witch king once. I then put some curses on both captains removing their will stores and started transfixing Aldrac once the troll disappeared. My spiders took out combined at least 5 of his warg riders. In return for the first two turns getting the charges with my cav and spiders i only won around 2 combats rolling 2 highs on my 3 attack warg riders. By turn 3 i had only 1 warg rider left and about 6 hunter orcs. I also had about 4 fell wargs and 3 spiders. This is where my dice rolling luck reversed and he got the bad luck failing over 20 courage checks to charge my terror spiders and heroes in the last 3 turns. I rant he witch king to my terrain piece and secured 8 victory points. My necromancer was then challenged by Aldrac. I accepted and after losing the first roll off used my last might points the next two turns to win the fights and after failing on 3s to wound on 3 dice the first combat with might i took Aldrac out the next turn securing another 2 victory points in the bag. At this point i have 1 hunter orc and 2 spiders along with the witch king and necromancer. we still do not roll to end and i secure the models to break my opponent after killing both captains with spiders. I fail to get the wounds to break him by 1 model and the game ends. He has retrieved his terrain, and wounded the witch king and broken without being broken by one model leaving him with 9 victory points. I have secured my terrain killed my opponent in combat, kept mine alive, killed his leader for 15 victory points. Securing myself another major with 15-9. 

Thus the tournament ended and I walked home with my 4rth win in the past 6 events I have played in and keeping my streak of all podiums (except two at GT's) since i started playing the game in 2021. I walked away with a beautiful eye of Sauron trophy and a war of the rohirrim starter pack which i didn't buy and didn't have the rules in hardcopy yet so it all worked out and now I am working on a all infantry Rohan force. 

For now it is all looking forward in preparation for our grand tournament in April which is looking at the numbers of upwards of 60. So if you are in the area or willing to travel we would love to see you out in the DFW in Texas for our Grand Event on April 26th-27th.  Its all on Best Coast Pairings and we are super stoked. I will be running a very similar list to this one. As of now i am realizing with the terrain features and such more hunter orcs on foot are good and i was surprised that with the nerf they still live up to their value quite well and ultimately those troops may be what won me the event. They performed so well and I am adding more. In future that 600 point list will drop 2 spiders and add 5 hunter orcs. It is an 800 event so i am adding a captain for march as i love the way the list can sprint 15 inches then have 8 inch throwing weapons meaning i can have a threat range of half the board. Additionally i have a few more warg riders to add to the list that i am currently converting up as they were one of my favorite sources of hitting power and are well worth the 15 points. With the 200 points i have all of the hitting pieces i need to take out the heroes with the likes of gwaihirs, aragorns, thorins and such with ease while getting the troop hitting power to take out armies. I cant wait to start running this list and see the lists coming to counter it.