If one's army includes Gildor Inglorion, one can upgrade any number of Wood Elf Warriors to Noldorin Exiles at the cost of +1 point per model.

However, Gildor is in the Eregion and Rivendell army list and Wood Elf Warriors are only available in the Lothlorien and Mirkwood list. Does this mean that one has to take a warband of Wood Elf Warriors with a Hero from the Lothlorien army list to lead them, and take Gildor in a separate warband in order to upgrade the Wood Elves? Or have I misunderstood the rules? I mean, it's not a massive problem but it would make sense for Gildor to be able to lead the warriors whom he is improving.

Yes, it would make it sense to make Gildor lead his own upgraded warriors. But, following the rules as they are, he can't instead you have to take him to allow a Lothlórien & Mirkwood warband to upgrade its Warriors.

But then you have Gildor and a warband of Noldorin Exiles that can move 8" and a poor captain who gets left behind only able to move 6".

GW doesn't always do the best job putting the list options together. Of course, every game company has issues like this on occasion, but a case like this, where a special rule applies to a core unit that's not even compatible, is a wee bit glaring.

_________________
Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

Yeah, they kind of blew this one IMHO. They changed the high elf profile to include heavy armour, and GW doesn't seem like like proxies, so they sacrificed canon for corporate policy.
But if you have to take Gildor to boost your "wood elves", he might as well come with a warband of high elves. Once deployed you can swap leadership so the WE captain doesn't feel so lonely.

Good shout.

Apparently, according to simon grant, Gildor has been sorted in the New version of the FAQ. dunno when it'll be released though...soon hopefully.

_________________
12th GBHL 2013.
13th GBHL 2014
9th GBHL 2015


Mid Sussex Wargamers

Ho do you mean sorted? Because Gildor did live in Rivendell so there's nothing wrong with including him in that army list. And it would be illogical to give Rivendell access to Wood Elves, what with it not being a forest like Mirkwood or Lothlorien. The only other fix would be to remove the upgrade option or to alter it to allow the heavily armoured high elves to move faster than their lightly armoured counterparts - which is even less logical! This is turning into quite the enigma.

i dont know all I know is that simon had said he had been sorted. didnt say how but hopefully the new FAQ's will be out soon.

_________________
12th GBHL 2013.
13th GBHL 2014
9th GBHL 2015


Mid Sussex Wargamers

What they really need to do is get rid of the High Elf/Wood Elf distinction. It needs replacing with Rivendell, Mirkwood and Lothlorien Elves, all with the basic Wood Elf profile but different equipment options.

_________________
Namarie

That's a good call. Just have an 'Elven Army list' like the one for the Dwarfs and then have different profiles for Wood/High/Galadhrim Elves or just have a standard Elf profile with a huge equipment range?

I was thinking more along the lines of:

Rivendell Elves - Heavy Armour, Elf bows, Elven Blades, Spears, Shields, Banners, Horses.
Lorien Elves - Armour, Elf Bows, Elven Blades, Spears, Shields, Banners, Horses, Elven Cloaks
Mirkwood Elves - Elf Bows, Elven Blades, Spears, Banners, Elven Cloaks

It'd be fair to add armour to Mirkwood Elves but only if they got a new model to represent it.

That way you'd have your basic Elf model (Wood Elves), and Armoured variants for the three lists (Second Age Elves, Galadhrim, Mirkwood Skirmishers (?) ).

You'd also get some balance by giving each type of Elf army unique options:

Rivendell - Punchy Heroes, Heavily Armoured Cavalry, Heavy Armour
Lorien - Faster Cavalry, Elven Cloaks, Pikes (GotGC), Sentinels
Mirkwood - Elven Cloaks, The new Hobbit units

I'm veering off dangerously into a lengthy house rules post but you get the idea.

_________________
Namarie

Whilst that does make sense, it still doesn't address the problem that you've got Gildor leading heavily armoured troops who can't benefit from his upgrade option.

Of course - I'd solve it by limiting Gildor to Rivendell, and his upgrade only affecting unarmoured troops.

_________________
Namarie

I have the opposite thought, they should make them more distinct. Tolkien was pretty clear that, at least as far martial ability goes, Noldor, Sindar, and Wood elves were ranked in that order. Wood elves aren't Noldor, so it makes no sense for the Gildor rule to apply to them.

Why not? Galadriel was one of the Noldor but her followers in Lothlorien were mostly Silvan.

Doesn't have anything to do with it. Gildor explains to Frodo about his particular group: "We are Exiles, and most of our kindred have long departed and we too are only tarrying here a while, ere we return over the Great Sea." These can only be Noldor. No other elves could "return" over the Great Sea, since no other elves had left Middle-earth.

That's not my point. My point is that Elves will respect the lead and wisdom of anyone who shows themselves to be worthy and therefore should be able to benefit from the perks of having a good commander.

i agree.
wouldn't warriors of rohan be fine to have aragorn leading them?
i think the problem is that gw simply supposes everyone in the lord of the rings was fighting most of the time so they gave all the noldor models heavy armour and weapons. While i think gildor was a high elf, gw made the upgrade for the wood elves to fit with the theme. i think the wood elf profiles would have been fine for exiles but GW screwed this up by putting the wood elves and gildor in different army lists, i agree with shield maidens first post.

_________________
'Though my memory's fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior'
-John Newton

Personally I think that Gildors rule was put in to allow a Rivendell list to have some cheaper units and some unarmoured elves but was messed up, nothing more, nothing less. I think the FAQs will say Rivendell are allowed to take wood elves (they wouldn't actually be wood elves they would be exlies) as long as you take Gildor and then you might have to upgrade them as well meaning you can take wood elves to give you some more tactical options but they have a down side that they are more expensive and you have to take a specific hero, I feel it will be the same with any cavalry they release during the Hobbit it will be great but likely slower than their Galadhrim equivalents and cost more but will have better stats (+D) meaning you can take cavalry and be thematic but there would also be a purely tactically reason to take both Galadhrim and High Elf knights.