So I was thinking about an all Numenorean force. With Strength 4 being the meta, I feel like the lower defense won't hurt as much. The Fight 4 is nice, and you can get quite a lot of troops. My question is whether this kind of army is viable and if so, which heroes should it use? I was thinking Isildur definitely, because he seems to be a bargain fully kitted out.

I was thinking the same!

What points value are you going for ?

For lower points it might be better to skip Elendil and take Isildur instead. I think now he can't use the ring whilst mounted though but I still think he is good for his points. Other than that the captains have some nice options.

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Soon Master Elf, you will enjoy the fabled hospitality of the Dwarves! Roaring fires, malt beer, red meat off the bone!

Wait, Str 4 numenor? Did I miss something?

He's saying that since most everything else tries to bring strength 4 having defense 5 isn't much of a draw back since strength 4 wounds both defense 5 and 6 the same. Not that Numenor is strength 4.

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"Draw your sword with a heavy heart, but swing it with a heavy hand"

More that their D5 isn't much of an issue against S4.

I've always said that, even with their limited army, Numenor has some serious potential. Elendil and Isildur are two of the most powerful heroes in the game, just get them on a horse and watch them go bananas.

If you want smaller, but still dominant heroes, their captains are FV5 and can have lances, that's huge!

The warriors themselves are reasonably cheap, so you can afford to take all of this.

So yeah, decide your points value and we'll go from there

Hi @McGarnacle and @Scrib - at NOVA last fall I played against an 800 pt pure Numenor force. My opponent was John McConnell (great guy) and he had roughly the following list:
Isildur mounted with the Ring, 4 Numenor Captains, all mounted with lances, and then I believe it was 4 full war bands, mostly spearmen with shields and swordsmen with shields, but he also had at least a dozen archers that also had spears - that was key as once the lines met, those archers became a nice 2nd line of spear support for the infantry.

It was a very solid list, and he played them very well. I had a LOTR Wood Elves list with Legolas, Galadriel and others, and we played on a very thickly filled Osgiliath city style board that limited my shooting quite a bit. The mounted Numenor Captains with lances were very tough to deal with, as a lot of my focus was on stopping/slowing down Isildur. He won the game, something like 5-2, but actually should have been even more, as he definitely outplayed me.

Bottom line, if you've already got the models and/or resources to get them, I'd say go for it. The metal spearmen are still available on GW, but the Metal Archers can be tough to come by - usually see them on eBay for $25 (US) for pack of 3. I've got the makings of a good-sized list sitting in a box in my closet, just waiting for their turn on the painting table !

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T'was in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair..
But Gollum, and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her..

Thanks for all the answers, guys! I would like to do a force like this, as blisters seem a lot less expensive now that armies are in resin.

Just got absolutely nuked by Blackshields + Dark Marshal. I had 2 full warbands + Isildur and Elendil at 500. Advice?

Well you could drop Elendil and instead add in 2 Captains, and then you'd be able to field 3 full war bands ....something like this:

Isildur w/shield
6 Warriors w/spear and shield
5 Warriors w/sword and shield

Capt w/heavy armor and shield
6 Warriors w/spear and shield
5 Warriors w/sword and shield

Capt w/heavy armor and shield
6 Warriors w/spear and shield
5 Warriors w/sword and shield

That's right about 500 pts....And if you can get him to bump to 550 pts, you can mount Isildur, and also mount both Captains and give them both lances.....

You also should definitely have a good edge in numbers as Blackshields are 3 or 4 pts more per basic warrior than your guys are....I'm guessing the Shadow Lord, a Capt and about 26 Blackshields will take him to right about 500 pts, giving you a 36-27 edge...you don't really need any bows, especially if he has the Shadow Lord...

Give it a shot

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T'was in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair..
But Gollum, and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her..

Blackshields are the same points as a vanilla Numenor Warrior. The Dark Marshal would also not be leading a warband of Blackshields as he is Mordor, they are Moria.

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

The heroes are great, but the warriors are awful; they consistently let me down and never seem to be able to be relied upon to hold the line against meta troop types such as morannons, blackshields, hunter orcs, etc. However, they are fun to play cause for me the heroes are what makes playing sbg so funn, and the numenorean ones are great. One new downside however is that Isildur can no longer be invisible while mounted

@Gothmog - lol, you are correct, I mixed up Blackshield with Black Guard, probably because with the Shadow Lord, I didn't stop to re-read the post !

Yeah, so much for outnumbering him !

That said, you'd have to hope your higher fight value carries the day, as otherwise, he'll be wounding on 5's - if you have shields - but you'll be wound on 6's...

Another option would be to go all hero: Elendil, Isildur and maybe 4 captains... or if it was me, id probably go with Isildur, 2 Captains and then ally in Thranduil and a big hitter like Gil Galad....Thranduil's terror bubble will help keep you from getting swarmed due to their low courage, and with 5 big heroes who are all strength 4, you're wounding on 5 across the board and you can heroic strike your way through them - and as a bonus, you can feint every time with Isildur, Thranduil and GilGalad as their fight value is so much higher than the fight 2 black shields....



Good luck

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T'was in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair..
But Gollum, and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her..

I have a Numenorian force that I occasionally play. The F4 is a benefit, but no access to Str 4 is a drawback. I typically bring a banner as well, so I find that I win more than my share of fights against lower fight value forces.

but....

The army has little killing power. With S3 across the board, I need 6s against D6, which makes it difficult for me to rack up kills. So, you're going to need to have your heroes do the bulk of the killing, or seriously horde out and try to arrange for some trapped opponents, but that may be difficult to achieve as many evil forces are also trying to do so.

I find that Isildur is a good value hero, and the ring can be highly useful. Elendil though, while potent, is very expensive and I haven't found that he's able to provide an adequate return on his points cost, so I'm personally not a big fan. In certain games or scenarios he'd be more useful, but that usefulness is certainly limited.

Hopefully Numenor will soon get updated. Steel Bows or Cavalry, perhaps?

Honestly, I think that any updates they get would be a bonus, their heroes are just that good.

Elendil gets a free Heroic Combat every turn, and with his stats, that is MASSIVE. He outfights most things in the game, on a horse he will be killing four warriors a turn no problem. Even if he doesn't, whatever, you didn't spend any Might on it. You could even burn opposing heroes' Might with it; call a Heroic Combat with Elendil right next to your opponent's hero. Now your opponent has a choice: call a Heroic Strike (in which case you just send Elendil into someone else), or try to save the Might (in which case you send Elendil in and kill/really hurt the hero) - Credit to the Green Dragon Podcast for that trick. Also, in another thread, I talk about whether combat heroes need to be using their Might for combat, or for leadership. Elendil saves you that headache, he can do both.

The rest of his stats are great, give him a Shield so he goes up to D8 and you're golden.

Isildur is a budget beast, there's no end of tricks you can do with him, but I'll let someone with more experience using him to talk about that.

Captain = horse+lance. Every time, unless you already have the two named heroes and the points don't allow you to mount the Captain.

Ultimately, the army you're building is to allow your heroes to do what it is you're getting them to do. Your warriors are there to give your heroes the platform they need to do their thing. You can horde out, Numenoreans are cheap by modern standards, and you do have some equipment options. Against Blackshields, you outfight them and will have relatively even numbers. Maybe take a banner to win more fights (really, the warriors are just there to survive); you can try feinting with the front rank to give yourself a better shot at killing. As long as you have two heroes (preferably at least one of the named ones if the points allow), you should do fine.