Just random musings I had last night.

Which armies or factions do people consider to be the weakest or uncompetitive?

Broadly speaking I think most armies will have their strengths and weaknesses but I know there are some that are looked down on.
Rohan is often perceived as lack lustre (though this is not my opinion of them) likewise with certain angmar armies.

What I want to know is which armies do people consider to be hard pressed to do well at a tournament. The challenge is then to take said faction, hammer out an army list and then try to win games at tourney with it.

Thoughts?

Not that I've ever played them, I've always seen the Hobbits to be somewhat disatvantaged. But I'm sure a player of The Shire may be able to speak more into that than I can!

Awesome discussion idea by the way!

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A High-Elf pure army. Great fight value, good defense, arguably the best archery in the game (over other elves only in their ability to survive enemy archer return fire), but low model count, not heavy hitters, and very few troop choices.

I think it is kind of funny how the tables have turned as High-Elves were the dominant force for so long. GW used to even recommend giving evil 2x the points when facing them just to make it even, that is clearly not the case anymore.

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Bang on RB, if they had released plastic hobbits I would have had a go.

Angmar is great fun, but usually decimated by Arnor before getting close.

Arnor (Historical Arvedui) suffers from low morale and no serious heroes.

Rohan is definitely a one trick pony. Though enormous fun against hordes of Haradrin and Mordor orcs with the Royal banner.

Goblin Town is deadly but protect the King. The Scribe is unbelievable if kept alive. If you are up against them, kill the Scribe as quick as possible, stop their re-inforcements and watch them flee. I have used them three times now, and have lost the King to failed morale tests every time. They die like flies, have no missile support (except Grinnah's whip!), and suffer from a lack of staying power. However you can swamp your opponent in a sea of Gobbo's who's "Chittering Horde" spear effect rule is seriously useful.

there isn't truely a weakest army, it's about witch models you use. high elves can be very strong if you use the right heroes and give bows spears. those thing.

either, rowan infantry is weak but cavelery isn't.


hobbits defenitly aren't weak, you can field 3 times as many models and you ally them most of the times because there are only 5 heroes witch can lead.

Bolg

Very true, you sure can field a ton of them!



I'm relatively knew to the game, and have never played against elves. What do you think changed that made them less powerful?

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I Am Second

"I love only that which they defend."
-Faramir

They have a F5 rather than F6, they are still going to win drawn fights against most opponents. They now hit on a 4+ when they have moved up to half range, rather than 3+. They have not become significantly less powerful. The release of their cavalry which are the best in Middle Earth gives the a superb hard hitting fast attack option.

The reasons Bilbo stated but also the fact other teams got better while they haven't really. Mordor went from a pure swarms army to having some very capable elite units. Isengard became better and better as they have such hard hitting units (Uruk Captains were originally strength 4 not 5). The penalty to moving and shooting leveled the playing-field for crossbows. Perhaps the biggest death blow if you will is the War-band rules, High Elf heroes are almost all very expensive in points.

Really it comes down to the fact that other armies got major revisions and added units that fit the game's evolution while the High-Elves have remained mostly static.

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Hobbits used to be the best horde army in the game, as I understand it. The sheer number of models and attacks that could be fielded is incredible. But since Warbands they've been seriously nerfed due to the lack of heroes to lead Warbands.

They have no un-named captains and several of their named Heroes are Independent Heroes, yes?

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Thats a good point KO, its now impossible to field a large Shire army. On the other hand, it was supposed to be a piddly back water inhabited by war shy munchkins!

High elves got 1 unit, high elf warriors, back when the game came out, and now 13 (?) years later they got their second unit.

Rohan is just terrible, thematic heroes you want to play with are nerfed for no reason; Theoden is so overpriced and underpowered he is a joke, Theodred has no fate for no good reason, Gamling, Hama, and Grimbold are the only named captains who do not have 3 might. The two fieldable heroes in Rohan are Eowyn, Erkenbrand, and arguably Grimbold, but that is only because he provides the strenght 4 upgrade to your warriors.

Furhtermore, Rohan cavalry are actually really quite bad, they are lightly armoured, are only fight 3, and have no lances. Sure they all have bows but what with the movement penalty that isn't a very big deal. Their throwing spears are also now worthless thanks to the nerf to moving and shooting.

Warriors of Rohan are also pretty bad, this is because they have no spears, it doesn't matter they are fight 3 and have 5 defence with a shield, if they had spears they could act as cheap infantry to bolster numbers, but without spears they are just a liability. Sure you could ally in spears from another army, but then why not just play another army instead, considering Rohan have nothing going for them.

The only way to make Rohan work is this:

Warbands 1,2 and maybe 3 if you are feeling suicidal:
Grimbold, and then either Erkenbrand or Eowyn
As many helmingas with shields as humanly possible, with a son of eorl here or there (only competitive elite unit Rohan has), and maybe even redshields if you are feeling adventerous.

Other warbands:
The best hero for points from another army (this will kill theme but give you a fighting chance so why not)
spearmen from another army, preferably with higher fight value than 3. Wood elves work because of their low defence, as do arnor because of their high fight.

With the above set up you get a strength 4 frontline being supported by something with a decent fight value, maybe you will kill a few models

Also, because Redshields and Helmingas are key to victory, and both use the same sculpt of foot model, you are required to either split your models into two different paint schemes, or go mad trying to remember which model of sculpt A is a helmingas or a redshield.

I was always surprised that the High Elves where so neglected! Particularly when the army lists published in "Legions of Middle Earth" promised so much?
I hope Hobbit films have some fantastic High Elf specialists to tackle the Necromancer and his minions. We have seen High Elf guards in Rivendell with pikes in the first Hobbit film, they have not however appeared in the rule books yet.

Have to say I'm quite impressed with the number of responses, was just some idle curiosity on my part.

I've added a poll to the top so we can see which faction is the least well thought of, you can vote for more than one. Also if anyone can think of a faction I've left out I'll add it. Have deliberately avoided: Fellowship and White Council as I believe all hero armies are a different skill set all together.


Am a bit surprised at people's thoughts on high elves, I can see where people are coming from but I'd be fairly confident of giving them a go competitively.
Its my personal opinion that Rohan while a difficult army are not un-competitive, I certainly have some different views to marsbar there. That said it has been years since I rode forth with the Rohirrem and will not do so again until I've rebuilt a nicer painted army. (You could always paint the redshields with red shields marsbar )

As it happens I'm planning on working on an unallied High elf army next so may take it along to a tourney if they;re ready in time. After that I may have to see if I can get some rohirrem ready

Eomer is also a good hero you can field.
with those 4: erkenbrand, eowyn, eomer and when playing infantry grimbold you can make a playable army.
But i just shoold take eowyn, eomer (doesn't matter witch version, when you have enauch points you use the knight of pelenor) and erkenbrand, all on horse.

then you fill it all up with redshields and as marsbar told some son't of eorl..

PS remember, Eorl the young is a really good hero either. 3 might and a sort of taskmaster rule. Fil his warbands with sons of eorl and you have super speel riders of rohan with defence 6, strenth 4 and 2 attacks witch will distroy all on their path.

Bolg

@Bolg, probelm with Eorl the young is that he is not thematic for a third age army, you shouldn't really take him alongside anyone from the films or anything. I took him in my all hero list at the east grinstead tournament alongside Saruman, Boromir, Aragorn, and Gandalf, and people were sorta going "say what now" because he didn't fit in.

While this whole 'theme barrier' is never a problem for evil armies, I always feel wrong when I field Durin alongside Gimli, even if it is what I want to do, the two would never have met and that makes me feel bad for using them.

Since this is on the subject of changing the balance Warbands was the WORST idea ever. If you just required a single Army commander that would be great but warbands messed up the balance of power and hurt the extremes the most (Moria, Hobbits and High Elves especially). Allying even between members of the same race (ie Durins Folk and Erebor Dwarves) is very difficult with the imposed leader restrictions, I could see one or the other (warbands or such stringent leader restrictions) but with both it prevents truly effective army lists.

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Galadhrim and Wood Elves are a better bet. High elves have been nerfed in many ways indirectly: proliferation of S4 warriors means wasting points on D6; warbands structure means if you want decent numbers you're stuck with Gildor, Erestor, and Arwen...or just a basic captain; proliferation of D6 evil (gundabad, Morannons, Uruk hai, etc) means S3 bows aren't as potent; addition of the movement penalty for shooting; etc. High Elves need a small buff, like no movement penalty, larger warbands, D7 ancient armour option, a 2A and/or S4 elite, some decent mid-level heroes, pikes or other interesting equipment, or ... something.

Warbands was the WORST idea ever.

I have to say that I was not a fan of this as I was used to doing large scale battles with big units. Particularly battles such a the Pelenor fiields with blocks of Morannon and Mordor orcs, and phalanxes of Easterling and Dol Amroth pikemen which I have usually used in groups of 15 + with a banner per unit.

@Bilbo (and all people who hate warbands for that matter):

Don't you think it is actually WoTR that "was the WORST idea ever", GW made WoTR to try and 'satisfy' people who wanted to play big battles such as Pellennor fields because they wrongly assumed nobody wanted to do big battles with the skirmish rules, when in reality, everybody loved doing big battles with skirmish rules. My theory is that they only made warbands to 'spice up' the skirmish game, assuming everybody who wanted to play competitively/big games would use WoTR.

As far as I am concerned, warbands is a very strong idea, and because it applies to every army, it doesn't really weaken one force in particular. Letting good heroes like Gil-Galad and Thranduil upgrade their soldiers really helps out too in terms of varying what their soldiers could achieve, and helped balance out how few elites every good army has.

I noticed someone mentioned Moria was strongly nerfed by warbands, I don't see how that works. Whereas every other army in the game now has to take more heroes like Gamling/Ugluk in their armies, who don't really do much and have no synergy with other heroes in their armies, Moria have Groblog, Durburz, and Shaman's, all of whom work in perfect harmony, and are also very cheap, meaning with Moria you can field seemingly endless troops, all of whom are bound to pass courage and have a 5+ save. Also Moria have got plenty of tiers of troop types, meaning once you have bashed out your basic list and are left with an odd 30 points, you can use those points to get in some spiders, take a warg marauder, or be real smart and spam prowlers with shields

As it happens warbands changed my moria list very little. For an army of 60 warriors I was using 2 shaman, 2 captains and durburz anyway. You need the fury and might points.

Anyhow, to stay on topic, its currently looking like hobbits and numinor are in the lead for least competitive followed closely by rohan. While elves have been talked about a lot, only two votes put them on the same rank as eastern kingdoms.

I'm not so sure that high elves have it as bad as is being made out, but again the only recent gaming experience I have is with Isengard and gondor, so with any luck I'll get my elves repainted and out onto the field.
I've kept the factions above relatively broad as if I put in every list legions had I'd run out of room.
It seems to me one of the greatest assets the high elves could utilise is the new cavalry from the hobbit film or are people only considering the list from the free peoples book as uncompetitive?

Am intrigued as to why the eastern kingdoms are looked down on, easterlings have always looked solid enough to me.