SBG: Questions on Gondor Army(1750 points)

Eruntalon · **Posted:** Sun Apr 01, 2012 7:37 am

Hello everybody

Im a beginner at miniature wargaming and im glad that i have found this forum. I collect miniatures for a year or so. But i would like to make a realm army. Thus i decided to start with Gondor since Gandalf,Aragorn and Dol amroth miniatures are ones of my favorite. I put some number into an excel file and i made the following army(at 1750 points)

Heros:
Aragorn(with anduril,heavy armour) 260
Gandalf(with his horse) 215
Imrahil(with armoured horse and lance) 155
Faramir(heavy armour) 75

Units:
24x Warriors of minas tirith(with spears,shields) 216
24x Warrior of minad tirith(with shields) 192
18x Warriors of minas tirith(with bows) 144
2x Warriors of minas tirith(with banner) 64
12x knights of minas tirith 156
10x Dol amroth knights(with armoured horse and lance) 190
1x Knights of minas tirith(with banner) 38
3x Army of the dead 45

total points 1750, 98 miniatures, 12+1 might, 14+1 will, 11 fate

my plan is to have gandalf mounted and by using his light i could protect my units till they charge.
faramir with aragorn will lead the foot units and the 18 ranged warriors will shoot volleys to kill the squishes.
the army of the dead units will be my "bodyguards". they are hard to kill and they kill very easily against evil core units.

So is that army viable? Can i win fights with it?

And one quick newbie question: my knights of minas tirith came with shields too. So do they get the +1 on the defence(from 5 to 6) automatically or i have to pay 1 point per shield or i cant use shields on them at all(and they stay with defence 5)?

thanks everyone in advance.I hope you understand my english(not my native language).

fritskuhntm · **Posted:** Sun Apr 01, 2012 10:56 am

unless you're playing with LoME, this army isn't exactly legal... you need a hero for every 12 warriors following the new rules.
btw, wouldn't you rather start with a smaller army? I mean, your hardly going to find anyone that will have the time or the will to play such a big game.
i think 500 pts is a good starting army. But if yo are going to play this: it's a pretty good army, good magic and quite allot of units.

and... welcome to the forum!

mastermanje · **Posted:** Sun Apr 01, 2012 11:01 am

I prefer to use guards of the fontain court over minas tirith warriors, as on defence 7 everything with strenght 4 (most elites or even common evil units) will have to roll a 6, while archers with strength 2 (almost every evil archer) will have to roll a 6/4. And Forlong is worth considering.

Eruntalon · **Posted:** Sun Apr 01, 2012 11:43 am

The problem i have with the smaller army is that i run out of points most of the times. I don't know yet how many units will be enough for an army that small. I've made 500pt armies with 15-20 units but i also made one with 40-50 units.. With bigger armies i don't have that problem

Guards of the fountain court were on my mind too..but in the rulebooks(the return of the king to be exact) they can take up shields. In the games workshop site though i can't find any model with shield on it. I may be wrong but i think that the model should display the wargear it carries(for example a model with bow at hands can't be thought as a model with shield and spear)
If this restriction doesn't exist then its time to buy me some guards

Thank you for the quick response

mastermanje · **Posted:** Sun Apr 01, 2012 11:46 am

Eruntalon wrote:

The problem i have with the smaller army is that i run out of points most of the times. I don't know yet how many units will be enough for an army that small. I've made 500pt armies with 15-20 units but i also made one with 40-50 units.. With bigger armies i don't have that problem

Guards of the fountain court were on my mind too..but in the rulebooks(the return of the king to be exact) they can take up shields. In the games workshop site though i can't find any model with shield on it. I may be wrong but i think that the model should display the wargear it carries(for example a model with bow at hands can't be thought as a model with shield and spear)
If this restriction doesn't exist then its time to buy me some guards

Thank you for the quick response

That's why people do something called 'converting', just place a shield on one of his arms.They are realy worth their cost!

GothmogtheWerewolf · **Posted:** Sun Apr 01, 2012 12:13 pm

Technically, GotFC are actually underpowered so are not worth their cost. But with shields they are decent.

The Horde Lord · **Joined:** Wed Feb 23, 2011 6:58 pm **Posts:** 301

mastermanje wrote:

I prefer to use guards of the fontain court over minas tirith warriors, as on defence 7 everything with strenght 4 (most elites or even common evil units) will have to roll a 6, while archers with strength 2 (almost every evil archer) will have to roll a 6/4. And Forlong is worth considering.

Just curious, would you (be able to) replace all the 48 WoMTs with GotFC or just a few?

@OP: That army looked very nice for it's size. I would however recomend, dropping one of the Knights of Minas Tirith (KoMT) so you won't have to buy an extra banner. Faramir can have a shield in the new rules, an upgrade I must suggest. That leaves you with nine points for which you can upgrade WoMTs to GotFCs.

@GtW: Really, I get 5 + 1F + 3D + spear + bodyguard = 11 isn't that technically underpriced. If we take away the spear (who would use it anyway?) it's afair price.

whafrog · **Posted:** Wed Apr 04, 2012 12:08 pm

Eruntalon wrote:

The problem i have with the smaller army is that i run out of points most of the times. I don't know yet how many units will be enough for an army that small. I've made 500pt armies with 15-20 units but i also made one with 40-50 units.. With bigger armies i don't have that problem

For LoME games, the 40+ at 500 points is probably good. Stick with lesser heroes like Faramir. It takes a couple hours to play a 500 point game, or if you're playing with new or infrequent players it can take most of an evening. And 1750 points is going to require a huge board.

Eruntalon wrote:

Guards of the fountain court were on my mind too..but in the rulebooks(the return of the king to be exact) they can take up shields. In the games workshop site though i can't find any model with shield on it. I may be wrong but i think that the model should display the wargear it carries(for example a model with bow at hands can't be thought as a model with shield and spear)
If this restriction doesn't exist then its time to buy me some guards

It's a good rule for most situations. GoFC are the easiest to convert though: I just used shields from the Last Alliance kit, and gave the elves to a friend.

whafrog · **Posted:** Wed Apr 04, 2012 12:17 pm

Eruntalon wrote:

And one quick newbie question: my knights of minas tirith came with shields too. So do they get the +1 on the defence(from 5 to 6) automatically or i have to pay 1 point per shield or i cant use shields on them at all(and they stay with defence 5)?

They have whatever they look like they have, and you have to pay for it too. If you're using the original rules they don't have a shield option in the profile, but the more recent sourcebooks (the old Gondor in Flames or the newer Kingdoms of Men) do have shields as an option for +1 cost.

mastermanje · **Posted:** Wed Apr 04, 2012 2:26 pm

The Horde Lord wrote:

mastermanje wrote:

I prefer to use guards of the fontain court over minas tirith warriors, as on defence 7 everything with strenght 4 (most elites or even common evil units) will have to roll a 6, while archers with strength 2 (almost every evil archer) will have to roll a 6/4. And Forlong is worth considering.

Just curious, would you (be able to) replace all the 48 WoMTs with GotFC or just a few?

@OP: That army looked very nice for it's size. I would however recomend, dropping one of the Knights of Minas Tirith (KoMT) so you won't have to buy an extra banner. Faramir can have a shield in the new rules, an upgrade I must suggest. That leaves you with nine points for which you can upgrade WoMTs to GotFCs.

@GtW: Really, I get 5 + 1F + 3D + spear + bodyguard = 11 isn't that technically underpriced. If we take away the spear (who would use it anyway?) it's afair price.

Yes, I'm able to, I've even played a battle with 60 of them.

The Horde Lord · **Joined:** Wed Feb 23, 2011 6:58 pm **Posts:** 301

Wow. That's sounds nasty, must have cost a fortune.

mastermanje · **Posted:** Wed Apr 04, 2012 6:49 pm

The Horde Lord wrote:

Wow. That's sounds nasty, must have cost a fortune.

Indeed, that has cost me 2 years, along with the other troops in the army(they were 1/3 from the army)

Eruntalon · **Posted:** Wed Apr 04, 2012 10:49 pm

they cost a lot to build but having 1/3 of the army with D7 and bodyguard is kinda overkill for me...seems like this group will never fall. they support each other with their spears so you have a very strong front line(in my point of view).

The Horde Lord · **Joined:** Wed Feb 23, 2011 6:58 pm **Posts:** 301

mastermanje wrote:

The Horde Lord wrote:

Wow. That's sounds nasty, must have cost a fortune.

Indeed, that has cost me 2 years, along with the other troops in the army(they were 1/3 from the army)

I meant moneywise, or did you convert?

mastermanje · **Posted:** Thu Apr 05, 2012 3:11 pm

The Horde Lord wrote:

mastermanje wrote:

The Horde Lord wrote:

Wow. That's sounds nasty, must have cost a fortune.

Indeed, that has cost me 2 years, along with the other troops in the army(they were 1/3 from the army)

I meant moneywise, or did you convert?

I meant it cost me 2 years to get the money for them and all other warriors in the army(and yes, they were all official fountain guards, each with a shield modelld on, and the spear repositioned because just glueing on a shield didn't look realisitc enough IMO.)

GothmogtheWerewolf · **Posted:** Wed Apr 11, 2012 10:33 pm

The Horde Lord wrote:

@GtW: Really, I get 5 + 1F + 3D + spear + bodyguard = 11 isn't that technically underpriced. If we take away the spear (who would use it anyway?) it's afair price.

I said underpowered not overcosted, yes the cost their stats right, but most units around the same cost have either 2 attacks (eg Uruk Beserkers, LoME Mahud, Corair Reavers, Watchers, Iron Guard etc) or some other valueable stat (eg Black Guard (str 5), Galadhrim Court Guard (ft 6) etc).

Eruntalon · **Posted:** Sat Apr 14, 2012 12:46 pm

Personally I liked the idea of having GoFC as a core unit in my army. They cost a bit more to buy them but for me they forth the trouble.

Repositioning the spear seems easy(i thought about cutting the hands and rotating them so that the one hand can have the 2part spear and the other hand the shield)
Getting the shields though is something im still working on the first 3 GoFC I bought some days ago.
If my idea of making green stuff shields work then it's time to move into mass production

Imma let you know when im done..Maybe do a post for that conversion since there isn't one on the forum about how to convert GoFC

I thought about the smaller army and I made the following one:
Faramir (Heavy Armor, Horse, Shield, Lance)
Captain of Minas Tirith (Shield)

6 Guards of the Fountain Court (Shield)
4 Knighs of Minas Tirith (Shield)

8 Warriors of Minas Tirith (Shield)
8 Warriors of Minas Tirith (Shield, Spear)
8 Warriors of Minas Tirith (Bow)
1 Warrior of Minas Tirith (Banner)

36 units, 5M 3W 3F (514 points)
Maybe i will drop 2 WoMT with shields and increase the amount of units that can support each other.

whafrog · **Posted:** Sat Apr 14, 2012 3:29 pm

If you're playing a LoME game, the model limit is 50 at 500 points, 75 at 1000. You're at 514, which means your opponent could field 75, and with goblins it's even possible: Durburz, Cave Troll, 72 goblins = 500 points exactly. Even as bad as they are at shooting, they could probably just shoot you to death with 24 bows. LoME armies tend to be (not always) about maxing your numbers. You'd either need to stay at 500 points, or bump up to 700+ to counter the "swarm effect".

Faramir is a great hero at the 500 point level, but you're probably better off without the banner, and maybe swapping the captain for Beregond. That puts your numbers in the 40s, and if you stick to 500 points, you should do pretty well.

Eruntalon · **Posted:** Sat Apr 14, 2012 9:13 pm

probably i will drop the 2 WoMT and stay with 34 units or drop the banner, add some more infantry or maybe another knight or two. This way im near 40z(with 50 units limit) and with balanced dice rolls on me and the enemy, I may be outnumbered but I trust the strength on my Gondor soldiers :-D

SBG: Questions on Gondor Army(1750 points)

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