So the title explains it so can you help me because those are my brothers armies and I'm not winning as much as I would like

It would help if you posted the army you're using. There are lots of ways, depends what kinds of elves, how much you spend on heroes, how you organize your troops, max bows, etc...

Here's my 500 point army I use

Rivendell
High Elf Warriors With Heavy Armor, Shield, and Spear x6=66pt
Monkey Twins = 140pt
Elven Captain With Shield= 75pt
Lothlorien
Galahdrim Warriors With Spear and Shield x8 =88pt
Galahdrim Warriors with Bow x8=80pt
Galahdrim Knights with Shield x3=57pt

It's 6 points over the limit but my brother allowed it so...

First thing, get as many bows as possible. Archery is an Elf army's greatest strength. And secondly, the Captain isn't necessary; drop him.

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First, it's not LoME legal...you have no hero from Lothlorien to ally with. Second, it's way too hero heavy. Therefore, third, not enough troops. (BTW, your Galadhrim with spear and shield are 80 points not 88, since they can exchange their blade for a spear for free.)

If you drop the captain you'll have ~34 troops, 3 of which are cavalry. I'm not a great fan of the cavalry, they're too expensive, don't pack the punch they should, and too easy to lose to shooting. If you exchange them for normal warriors you'll get another 3. 36 elves led by the Twins (add armour!) is pretty decent, especially if you make best use of your bows to whittle the opposition down.

There are other ways to mini-max this list. For example, you have lots of shield + spear...do all your spears need shields? Your warriors with bows have armour...do they need it? (Yes Galadhrim come with armour, but you could use wood elves as proxies for high elves with no armour.) Maybe if your bows had spears as well they could be more useful once shooting opportunities are over. Maybe you don't need the Twins but just the captain instead...fun and capable though they are, that's another 5 models on the board...the model limit is 50 at 500 points, and if you're in the low 40s but outclass everything on the board, once you even the numbers with shooting the odds should be with you.

Once you have your army, it's about patience. Volleying at first is helpful. Shooting the pike support of uruk-hai is essential. If you have a single warrior with a shield against an uruk with spear and pike support, use the shield...you get the extra dice. You might not get a chance to wound, but you have a better chance of staying alive and holding a possibly tactically important line. But if you get a chance to break your opponent, go all out. Evil armies tend to disintegrate on breaking, while elves tend to stick around to the last warrior.

Hope that helps...

Thanks for the advice whafrog but to explain myself to some of your criticisms I was up against a cave troll and needed 2 heroes to deal with him. Also the cavalry was needed to intercept the wargs so my archers weren't decimated. Though I'm probably going to go with you on maximizing my mini count by getting rid of my knights and captains. Anyway I'm having trouble making a sufficient 500 pt list that can go up against the legions of Isengard and the hordes of Mordor. Could you help me out here TIA

Both of these are related to paper-scissors-rock. Rock vs rock = tie...you don't want to counter one thing with something similar because then the dice make the decisions. Your archers are quite capable of handling the wargs (warg riders?), especially if you keep a couple shields/spears behind to guard flanks. The knockdown only comes into effect if you lose the fight, so if you have 2 guys on each warg rider the odds are with you because you fight better (3 guys is even better and have great odds against even a captain like Sharku with Might). If he sends his warg riders ahead of his main force, embrace them, I'd even forego a turn of shooting to wipe them out. And if you get priority next turn, charge them. Now they are expensive orcs with 1 attack.

Sending heroes after a cave troll can be a waste. First, 3 dice give really good odds of the troll getting a 6, so unless you field Glorfindel, the best you can do is tie no matter how much might you have. Then your hero is vulnerable. But the troll has no might...which means three elves have the same odds of getting a 6 as the troll does. The troll does win on the tie, but it's a lot cheaper and a lot less risk. And sometimes you're just not ready to take on the troll, so send one lone elf to hold him off for a turn. In other words, pick your battles. Send lone shieldmen to hold a tight spot and shield (2 dice) while you mop up something else.

The Twins should not be taking on trolls, they should be chewing through troops, killing off Shamans to get rid of Fury, etc. Once the bowmen have done as much whittling as they can do, the Twins are there to break the enemy, using heroic fight to cascade from one enemy to the next. Don't let them get too far ahead...avoid heroes (except Shamans), kill minions. Once evil has broken, that troll might just run away on its own (another reason to tie it up with 1 model at a time).



If you want high elves (I'm assuming you're using standard models available in the high elf, galadhrim or wood elf line):
Twins (armour): 150 points (armour is allowed in the Ruin of Arnor book)
10 elves (HA, shield, spear): 110 points
10 elves (HA, spear): 100 points
11 elves (bow): 99 points (use wood elves with bows)
4 elves (HA, elf blade): 30 points
37 models, 11 shots, 6 Might 499 points

Or you could take 1 less elf with blade and give all your bows spears (assuming your bro is okay with that).

The problem with high elves is they don't have any good mid-range named heroes. So personally I've been enjoying Galadhrim lately with something like this:
Rumil: 70 points
10 Galadhrim (spear, shield): 100 points
14 Galadhrim (bows): 140 points
10 Wood elves (spear, throwing daggers): 100 points
2 Galadhrim (elf blade): 18 points
6 Guards of the Galadhrim Court: 72 points
43 models, 14 shots, 3 Might, 500 points

Now, I do miss the Might, but with 43 elves and all those shots (bows and throwing daggers), not to mention being able to shield with wood elf spears, and having 7 models on the board with a fight of 6...(some people would say that's too many Guards, but I just love the look of the models so I'm letting aesthetics sway me)...it's worked well so far. The blades are Rumil's escort...they go 2H while he wins the fights. If you felt the need for some magic, you could drop 5 Guards and take a Stormbringer (you'd have to reshuffle the others for the bow count). Or you could drop all the guards and take Haldir, but then you're back into high elf numbers.

Hope that helps!

whafrog's second list is really nice.

Another option if you have concern of the Troll is to ally Galadrhim with Mirkwood Elves. Pull in a cheap (but effective) Captain from Thranduil's Halls and then you can bring along a Sentinel. Trolls (Cave, Mordor and Isengard) have very low Courage and are easy prey to the Sentinel's songs. I often just keep the Troll scampering out of range for most of the game, or draw him off to a side where he's easily swarmed. It's also nice because if your enemy has some pikes stacked up 2-deep in support you can have the Sentinel sing the first supporter away and now that model just lost two dice of support.

Rumil + a Captain are still pretty cheap overall for Hero points in a 500pt list, and the Sentinel has 2 attacks, a bow and special rules so it's a reasonable cost for this list as well. Taking out the 6 Guards will pretty much pay for the Captain and Sentinel, not alter the rest of the list much, and give you an extra Hero and Might for Heroic Combat. You will need to shift around some models to account for bow limit. You'll need to have 2 WE w/ spear come from Thranduil's Halls to keep the Sentinel legal ( 33% ), and will need to adjust some of the Lothlorien list and wargear for their 33% as well, but I think you can keep you numbers pretty close overall.

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Yep, wood elves used to be my favorite, mostly because of Sentinels. I just like the look of the Galadhrim models better. I used to use a wood elf list (probably inspired by one of yours) something like:

Legolas (armour, elf cloak) - 105 points
2 Sentinels - 50 points
15 wood elves (spear, throwing daggers) - 150 points
10 wood elves (bows) - 90 points
10 wood elves (elf blade, throwing daggers) - 100 points
38 models, 12(+3) bows, 3 Might, 495 points

I also like whafrog's second list.

@ Elrondio: Whafrog has outlined some really useful tips in great detail, just follow what he says and you should be good to go. Just remember that Mordor will require different tactics to Isengard, and vice-versa.

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when they fare away over the fishes' bath,
until the brine-stallion they bring to land.
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