We have recently been playing an 800 point game with the rules that we must have at least 1 epic hero and 1 magician. While this is good fun and certainly helps to improve tactical abilities, rather than just having high powered characters, I am really struggling to beat my opponents' Mordor Army which seem to be much cheaper (e.g. Ringwraith's only 125, Gothmog 110 - this guy really does my head in!!), hence a lot more companies per formation. Any suggestions???

Rather than at least one magician - maximum of one magician, also restrict powerful put cheap heros like Gothmog and wraiths, so your oponant can only use one or the other (this would also restrict your own Faramir and Imrahil)

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

Gondor doesn't have amgicians so having only one magician as maximum would help a lot...

Mordor is pound for pound better than Gondor and there isn't much to counter it especially in lower point games. Gothmog isn't so much a worry as those pesky Ringwraiths. Ringwraiths makes troops 2-3x stronger with Strength from Corruption,Wings of Terror,Pall of Night. I generally counter with lots of Epic Hero's to kill his wraiths. Then Orcs will lose fights, go disordered and are easily killed.

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http://drinkingwotr.blogspot.com/ - Links to my CrAzY House Rules, Games and 'poor man's' terrain.

Gondor will be able to foot it on an equal basis to Mordor as long as Mordor doesn't get too much of a cheap boost from Gothmog and the top-tier Wraiths.

Leaving more detailed houserules aside for a moment, we tried tackling this locally by restricting to one Epic from a restricted list (which essentially has all the very good heroes on it). I think this was a little too harsh to Mordor, in that Gondor gets Boromir or Aragorn this way and Mordor really should look at taking the Dark Marshall under that model. I think I'd loosen things up so that Mordor can only have one top-tier Wraith (Betrayer, Khamul, Knight of Umbar, Dwimmerlaik) OR Gothmog then another hero like a Wraith or Khadush etc. A similar set of restrictions for Gondor would have Aragorn or Boromir in that top-tier and then Faramir et al in the lower one.

Will of Iron changed to a 3+ helps a great deal too.

Something like that does at least mean that Gothmog can't be paired (to watch their back) with the more obnoxious Wraiths but Mordor are treated more fairly. Without the boosts from Khamul et al, Gondor formations are just as good and if they want that boost then one of the heavy-hitter duelers will be along presently to take their head. Without these restrictions, I was running Aragorn with the likes of Faramir and other cheaper Epic Strike Heroes and this worked well too.

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As said, have a limit of 0-1 casters: you have none that aren't allied, he has more than a dozen named plus generic ones. Also, a minimum of one caster seems a little odd and magic can do horrendous things (particularly stuff like shatter shields).

You always have to have at least one Epic Hero (okay, not always, you can have a Legendary Formation instead...). At 800 points, your best bet is to win by sheer mass. Don't take loads of Heroes, go for loads of companies with a select few heroes. If you want a caster, take Saruman (for his Courage 7, Spells of Ruin and Voice of Saruman ability). What sort of troops are in his army because that can always help - e.g. infantry heavy? Take a fair bit of cavalry. Cavalry/monster heavy? Take a load of avenger bolt throwers.

You also have some cheap options, like Peregrin Took and Faramir that will help you out Also, don't forget that you can get allies (obviously, only 200pts. If you take Saruman, that's everything. If not, you can 5 companies of Dwarf warriors or 4 companies of elves, etc).

in response to your question hashuts blessing im usual faced with the follow army-
GOTHMOG
THE BETRAYER OR KHAMUL
MORANNON ORCS with shield X4
WARGS with sheilds X6
the rest is made up of mordor orc with two handed weapons which is about 19 companies i think, i usually get fed up of counting them! We agreed on one caster to stop the use of more than 1 wraith , and in an 800 point game i can only afford one caster anyway.
I usual play gandalf and faramir and try to boost faramirs might with gandalfs touch by destiny/epic renewal( but this only lasts until gothmog gets close.).
The last game we played i tried something differnt and played-
RANGERS OF GONDOR X5
RANGERS OF GONDOR X4
RANGERS OF GONDOR X4
A/B THOWER X2
The plan ..........shoot him to death before he got too close it worked for about 3 turns ,sad to say faramirs last might point was spent on epic sacrifice (which gothmog wasnt interested in copying) the rest of the game doesnt merit comment

Unless you have shatter shields (only Saruman has access to it for good), bows are quite useless, IMO. Okay for getting one or two last minute wounds and maybe driving the opponent back out of charge range, but not good to rely on. Bolt throwers seem potentially devastating, but not had a chance to use any.

Since he has SO much infantry, take a load of knights and dol amroth knights and show him what a charge really is - you strike first, get 8 attacks per company (not including fight difference) on the charge (as well as a possible unstoppable charge) and he has to do 2 wounds at a time to kill each of yours. Then, there's a chance that you get to charge back in again!

If your games are a simple "kill them 'til they're dead" scenario, then you'll want a load of cavalry, saruman (to remove shields and preferably in an infantry unit for added protection), a unit or two of archers to niggle away (D5 protection for Saruman too and they can target whomever you shattered the shields of that turn - he also protects them from being charged 50% of the time) and your avenger bolt throwers. Once you have a solid core, you can take a few more epic heroes to allow At the Double! moves and to provide might - good choice in faramir, pippin is also cheap and can protect you.

Tactics: Take out the Warg riders with shooting because they'll ruin your glorious charge. Use shooting/spells of ruin to take out as much of Khamul's unit as possible, before he's in range to bounce the wounds onto you. If it's the Betrayer, you could do the same but to reduce the number of re-rolls he'll get. If Faramir has just one point of might left, don't be afraid to epicly sacrifice him (this has won me a combat by a landslide before - instead of losing my entire unit, he died and I destroyed theirs. It was Haldir in Khazad Guard, but you get the point...). If a formation has one or two models left in a company, don't be afraid to shoot them to drive them back. Avoid using might around Gothmog - rely on killing the troops around him, rather than him. Get your archers into a building (or other terrain if there are none) if possible - D6, 7 or 8 on your archers = Epic

A vague outline for a list:
Faramir - 90pts
Archers - 2 companies - 60pts
Archers - 2 companies - 60pts
Knights of dol amroth - 4 companies - 200pts
Avenger Bolt Thrower - 2 companies - 100pts
Knights - shields - 4 companies - 120pts
Knights - shields - 4 companies - 120pts

As a starting block, that's 750pts. I've left out Saruman because he is a LOT of points in such a small game. In those 250 points, you'll want at least 2 more Epics to lead your knights - Peregrin is only 75pts (leaving 175 more) and gets bonuses for being within 6" of Faramir as well (cavalry all charging in one area anyway). With that, you could ally in another hero (one of the monkey twins to save points or Boromir for his juicy rules and stats) and/or get some more troops in.

Hope that helps illustrate some of my thoughts!

Thanks very much I'll let you know how I get on.

Considering that all "magicians" are also Epic Heroes, you could bend the rules and only take a "magician" ('cause he'll count as an Epic Hero as well).

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

If I had to take one one Gondor hero, it would always be Aragorn. If he was too expensive, it would be Faramir.

Hashut's Blessing, this is obviously just my own experience but my feeling is that list above has none of the better Gondor troops (though perhaps Knights with shields, though they are no benifit vs Morranans) and a lot of the troops I flat out wouldn't take, especcially at this points level.

Avenger bolt throwers are crippled, for practical purposes, by their short range. Either you put them forward but your arc then limits you, or you put them back and they are too often out of range. Hopefully you get a terrain piece to deploy them in that is totally within your deployment zone AND it is somewhere that is not easily avoided (say anchoring a flank). However, even then, we are talking a unit that throws shots that still only wound on 4s vs Morranans, which only has three wounds per base itself and a Nazgul can see to it with magic long before it does any serious damage. That's IF it can't just be ignored instead.

Swan Knights are 200 pts of Cavalry, twice the cost of Knights without shields, that are tougher due to their higher defense vs SOME things but still just as vulnerable to others. They don't inflict twice harm as normal Knights and Morranans still kill them half as fast as normal Knights, which is pretty fast for a unit with so few wounds - let alone the effects of enemy magic via the combo of pall of night + strength from corruption. Most significantly, from my point of view, cavalry don't perform well when they have to charge in with out infantry buddies to join the combat - to act as the base for heroes calling heroic fights, permit the cav to always charge, pin target untis etc It is the lack of these core infantry units, the strength of the Gondor list, that jumps out at me here.

Where are the units of approx four-strong WoMT? Further, Axemen of Lossarnach are worth either converting or fielding using some of the historical plastics out there. Mordor is an army that needs to be outnumbered and wrong-footed through being ganged up on by multiple melee units of your own. Fortunately, you get two very solid choices (either toughness of extra damage vs tougher units/terrain) for 25pts apiece. Cavalry can be part of this, but you want to be careful with them - they need help to reach their full potential in this game and shooting + spellcasters can do a number on them if they get stuck out too far in front. THe likes of Khamul does a number on them if they are anywhere within 12"...

As always YMMV

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At 1,000 points, I wouldn't take Aragorn for the same reason that I said maybe not to take Saruman - they'll be devastating,b ut if you lose them, that's a MASSIVE chunk of your list gone... Regarding the other troops, I was simply giving my suggestions for a starting list based on the opponent's - cavalry will be best for cracking them open, there are points spare and the archers could easily be dropped (maybe add in another bolt thrower etc). Regarding the Nazgul's casting, there are Will of Iron roles and the necessity of taking Focus Rolls too... If there's only one, it's manageable.

Regarding Knights of Dol Amroth - that's purely theoretical on my behalf (combined with a lack of mathhammer, which rarely survives battle) and to try to get the benefit of a slightly higher defence, strength and a 50% chance of getting +D3 attacks per company. I agree that 200points is a lot for 4 companies of cavalry in 1k though (just trying to get some elite knights in).

Lastly, as I'd said - the leftover points were there for that stuff and it was a vague guideline of some ideas

At 1000 pts, I'd definitely take Aragorn - I'm not so sure about 800pts, but Faramir is always a good choice. If you want to bank on 4+ Will of Iron, I think that somewhat strengthens the argument for Aragorn even at lower points totals, since he gets a free might point per turn.

What is this mathhammer you refer to? Is it like the 'expected value' we tend to use in Flames of War, where we look at likely outcomes when making choices?

It was more that it was a vague outline of all the things I wouldn't take that caught my attention. I like Archers much better than bolt-throwers, since there are deinite uses for them and they can even be quite good in some circumstances. I like Knights too. But any outline I made of a Gondor list would start with their best troops - they are their best troops because I suspect there is a certain moral failure in the typical Mordor player and this leads them to a certain laziness and neglect of proper tactics on the table-top. This is where you can best them, as long as you keep the force suitably flexible so that they can't immediatley figure out what direction to point their combos. Still, as always, YMMV.

Do you have something in your eye?

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Mathammer is working out what would happen on the average. I.E. Using a point of Might for Will of Iron is 50% likely to work. It's more complex when it comes to attacking, but it's things like:

5 companies of F4, S4 against three companies of F3, D6 troops and how many wounds you would expect to do (based on number of attacks and the % of successes).

Anyway, back to the main point......
After reading your suggestions (thanks) it was agreed upon that we would increase the points to 1000, my opponent agreed on limiting the top tier ringwraith idea (thanks Xelee) but still insisted on using Gothmog as well which I guess isnt too bad. We also agreed that having a magician was optional. So again, I ask what do you think of my latest army?

Saruman or Gandalf
Aragon
4 x Grey Company
6 x WOMT
6 x WOMT
4 x WOMT

What do you think of my chances if I dont have any magicians? It really would free up a lot of points for different allies. All constructive criticism welcome

I suggest you to take some archers(Expect if you are using Grey combapy only for shooting...)

I would suggest you change the 2 formations of 6 companies into 3 formations of 4 companies.

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

I have thought of that GothmogTheWerewolf but came again first... As for the wizard Gandalf will be more useful I think as you need some more might...

I think Aragorn AND Saruman/Gandalf is too much for two heroes. I'd suggest Faramir if you want to plump for an Istari @ 1000 pts.

One you break up the formations a little, which is a good suggestion, I would also take the other good suggestion Hashut's Blessing gave you earlier and take a little bow and use it in the way he suggests. I never fail to get value out of eg a single unit of three (which fits almost all terrain) when an Epic leads it into a terrain piece early on and then it sits out the game shooting while the Epic moves elsewhere.

I am not a fan of the Grey company. I think that all that ends up happening with them is that they do a similar job to what normal bow could do for less points or get to be priority target due to lower defense and high cost. You could benefit from heavier hitter(s) in here though. While both Aragorn (+2 hit) and Saruman (Shatter Shields) help a lot here, Axemen and Knights can help swing combats for your stalwart WOMT.

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I think the problem with your list is a lack of shooting (it's not great, but a little is recommended they largely get ignored, but niggle away and in terrain have a higher defence which helps them in combat, alongside negating charging bonuses) and the lack of anti-cavalry. The grey company would strike at the same time, but chances are that the wargs would charge you, in which case, that's +6 attacks per company - essentially, his cavalry will tear chunks from this army.

Regarding the allied caster, I'd suggest starting off with Saruman for his ability to prevent charges, do direct damage spells and shatter shields. You already have a large store of Might in the form of Aragorn, who should be decimating units himself as well.

Warriors of Minas Tirith have a high enough defence (particularly fighting to the front) to be used in smaller formations as suggested - break the two larger formations into four smaller formations. Maybe replace some with some Knights - good counter to wargs and do hefty damage to infantry.