After having a look at the Umbar list in the new book, I'd say they have been nerfed quite a bit. No more castellans or F5 D4 reavers, no more taskmaster, no more 3M Knight of Umbar. So, from what we have left, I made an attempt to revise my old Umbar list, building on the strengths the new rules have to offer.

Warband:
Dalamyr, Fleetmaster of Umbar
14 Corsair Arbalesters

Warband:
Black Numenorean Marshall
6 Black Numenoreans
6 Corsairs of Umbar with spears and shields

Warband:
Corsair Bo'sun with spear
6 Corsair Reavers
6 Corsairs of Umbar with spears

Warband:
Corsair Bo'sun with spear
6 Corsair Reavers
6 Corsairs of Umbar with spears

It looks good but why not use any mounted minis who are quite useful in many scenarios ? Morgul Knights maybe ?

Well, because of theme basically

If possible I'd like to keep the idea of having the crew op Dalamyr's ship as my army (which wouldn't really suit knights). Besides, Morgul Knights would mean the loss of the backstabbers special rule.

My old list used the Knight of Umbar on horse as its only fast moving unit. When speed was needed I usually just went with a heroic march...

Would adding in him in on horse make that much of a difference?

What is your game plan for dealing with other shooting heavy armies? I get the feeling your reavers will be cut down in a turn or two by Elves or Dale and then were will your infantry be? What about bringing more Black Numenorians or corsairs with shields and fewer reavers? Or do you think their combat chops are still worth the risk?

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

I saw alabasters at the top, but not sure how that will work as they are not very mobile...

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By all that you hold dear on this good Earth,
I bid you stand, men of the West!

Seems like a good list. Maybe more Black Numenoreans instead of some of the reavers would be good, because the corsairs are such low defense and you're bringing so many crossbows.

That would require allies. The only ally for Corsairs if you don't want to lose the army bonus is Serpent Horde, and the Corsair army bonus is pretty good.

Crossbows. With that many arbalests, he should actually win most shoot outs and have a solid advantage vs skirmish armies. Elves will, of course, pose an issue if they get decent numbers, but it's pretty hard to get more than 10-12 archers in a 700 point list with Elves, which still only kills 3-5 models per turn when wounding on 4s, and 14 arbalests will be killing 2-3 elves per turn on average, so the shooting should actually be pretty even (Or in the corsairs' favor if the elves are forced to shoot at black Numenoreans or the Arbalests, which cuts that wound rate by 1/3).

The Arbelests not being able to move and fire isn't too big a deal with the 24" range and firepower. Most armies will still lose out in shooting, even if they get to shoot first.

Oh, well that makes sense then. Just don't expose them to ranged fire until after the arbalests have shot them to pieces then fling in the infantry. I was thinking about what would happen if he tried to use both at the same time to take an objective or somehow exposed his infantry to shooting unsupported.

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

Bit of al late response, but thanks for all the feedback

As Asamu explained, the amount of arbalesters in my army makes that I'm not that afraid of shooting armies. If needed, I could still keep my arbalesters relatively 'in front' of the rest of my army, aiming for the enemy bows until they have been softened up enough to sound the all out advance.

Considering the amount of reavers, I think you're right. Getting in some more high defence troops would help balance the army. Thus, I've made some changes and came up with the following list:

Warband:
Dalamyr, Fleetmaster of Umbar
14 Corsair Arbalesters

Warband:
Black Numenorean Marshal
5 Black Numenoreans
6 Corsairs of Umbar with spears

Warband:
Black Numenorean Marshal
5 Black Numenoreans
6 Corsairs of Umbar with spears

Warband:
Corsair Bo'sun with spear
12 Corsair Reavers

It's still got 12 reavers in it, but now brings me a 12 wide line of D6 terror causing infantry with spear support, two solid combat heroes with the two marshals and a 'taskforce' of 12 reavers to send wherever I want to wreak havoc.

I think it is an improvement and a more flexible force on the whole. You will have to let us know how it performs.

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

Alright, so having come back to the hobby after years, I am now finally converting and painting up the army in question. However, I heard the meta around here has gone to 500 points in the mean time, which means I'll have to drop one warband. I think the arbalesters are out of questions since they pack a huge punch and also allow me to outshoot any bow heavy army.

That leaves me with three options. The first one is dropping the reavers. That would mean my shield wall is kept intact, but it would also mean the army kinda becomes a one trick pony, which both is risky and means a lot of fun lost. The second one is dropping one of the shield wall warbands. But that would mean I'm facing armies of 30 models on average with a shield wall that's only 6 units wide. While the reavers could still flank, I think that this will be risky too.

This brings me to the third option. I could run two bo'suns with mixed unit warbands:

Warband:
Dalamyr, Fleetmaster of Umbar
10 Corsair Arbalesters

Warband:
Corsair Bo'sun with shield and spear
4 Black Numenoreans
4 Corsairs of Umbar with spears
4 Corsair Reavers

Warband:
Corsair Bo'sun with shield and spear
4 Black Numenoreans
4 Corsairs of Umbar with spears
4 Corsair Reavers

Now this does give me a few benifits. At 8 wide, the shield wall should just be able to manage. In contrast to the 700 points list, it would also have banner bonuses from the bo'suns. Yet I see three problems. One, the reavers will either have to stay within 6" and lose their +1 to wound. Or they'll be set loose, but be dangerously close to the bulk of my army and therefore risking to massacre my own troops. Two, this means Dalamyr will be my only 'combat hero' given how squishy the bo'suns are and since I'll definitely want to keep those alive for multiple reasons. Thirdly, it means I'll only have 4 might points.

Do you think this still is the best option, or should I instead go with one of the other two options?

I've never played Umbar myself, but there's an episode of the Green Dragon podcast about them here:
https://soundcloud.com/the-green-dragon ... s-of-umbar

Thanks for sending the link! That surely was an interesting one to listen. First of all, because I didn't know about the reaver FAQ and it reminded me that the black numenorean neither benefit from backstabbers nor the bo'sun banner bonus. Also, it confirmed the importance of might in this list.

I just heard the next tournament here, which I want to participate in to get back into the game, is 550 points. Now I made two possible lists for it:

Warband 1:
Dalamyr, Fleetmaster of Umbar
4 black numenoreans
4 corsair of umbar with spears
8 corsair arbalesters

Warband 2:
Corsair bo'sun with spear and shield
4 black numenoreans
4 corsair of umbar with spears
4 corsair reavers

Warband 3:
Corsair bo'sun with spear and shield
4 black numenoreans
4 corsair of umbar with spears
4 corsair reavers

List 2:

Warband 1:
Dalamyr, Fleetmaster of Umbar
5 black numenoreans
6 corsair of umbar with spears
4 corsair arbalesters

Warband 2:
Delgamar, Gatekeeper of Umbar
5 black numenoreans
6 corsair of umbar with spears
4 corsair arbalesters

Warband 3:
Corsair bo'sun with spear
8 corsair reavers

Now the advantages of the first list are that I have 3 multi purpose warbands, with hammer and anvils in the last two and the threat of 8 arbalesters to face the main target in the enemy army together.

The second list drops two units, but has the advantages of 2 extra might and a second combat hero. It also means I only have two multi purpose warbands, the third one being a designated kill squad, which could both be an advantage as well as a disadvantage.

Which list do you guys think is better?

In the end, I decided to go with the second list. And to be honest, I am quite satisfied with how it performed. Even though I hadn't played for 7 years and had never used my corsairs before, I managed to get two wins out of three, with the one loss being the result of the game ending when the only victory points that were scored were the result of my opponent breaking me.

I was very surprised by how well the reavers did. In my first game, they managed to tie up a spider queen for multiple turns while also chewing away at one of my opponent's flanks, while in the third, they turned out to be able to reliably kill both horse and rider on Morgul Knights, resulting in a mayor victory on Lords of Battle against 15 of them with a WK on fell beast, even though my army consisted of 41 models.

The arbalesters performed in a very different way to what I expected. While they didn't kill too much, they were able to take that WK out of the game by shooting away the models he charged multiple times and in the end scoring the final wound on the fell beast after it had charged Dalamyr, keeping him alive that way (which was a risky move, I know).