The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game/Tactics/Fiefdoms

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Why Play Fiefdoms

Fiefdoms are a collection of all the misc. allies Gondor called to it's aid in book 2. Ranging from Scottish swordsmen, typical knights, and a dozen things between these guys are the army you want to play if you want to have a truly unique looking army, or you want to show off your superiority over those movie watchers. It's also a great faction to play if you love hunting Ebay and/or converting most of your units. Beyond that, you get a wide variety of cool factions to play:

Dol Amroth: Cool guys who live in a castle by the sea. Lots of great cavalry and pikes. Lamedon: Scottish people, but in lord of the rings. Best used with a brave heart impression to irritate history buffs. Blackroot Vale: A barely defined area near the white mountains that make dudes who are great archers, the least entertaining fluff of the lot. Army of the Dead: OH HELL YEAH! An army of Ghosts with amazing models and down right silly rules.

Pros

• the variety of units make you hard to counter build
• everything excels at it's assigned job
• the variety of models is great
• you get to convert most of your characters and units

Cons

• if your units get caught outside of where they excel, they fall apart quickly
• you have to convert most of your characters and units Maybe not, Forge World now offers Knights of Dol Amroth on foot and all the named characters are back on GW, so presumably the rest of the infantry will be back soon too.

Army Bonus

For the White City!: All of your abilities that traditionally only effect one type of trooper (IE Imrahil's banner ability which usually only effects Dol Amroth models) now effect everyone from the Fiefdoms. This should not be underestimated, as it lets you overlap bubbles to create truly brutal troopers.

Unit Analysis

Heroes

• Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth: The single coolest guy that Jackson chose to ignore. With a very solid hero stat line and access to a horse and lance make him deadly in close combat at the very least. As well as this, he acts as a nice leadership buff by increasing his Stand Fast! range to a full foot. even with his relativley expensive price as a fiefdom Hero he is very much worth it.

• Forlong the fat:A man so damn fat that he is inherently 1 strength higher than most other heroes. This being said, outside of his higher strength and wound count, he's largely forgettable. Mediocre stat line, lack of options, and low courage make him great for fluffy lists, but that's it.

• Angbor the Fearless: William Wallace... IN HIGH FANTASY! He's a cheap hero with a nice courage and will pool, but otherwise standard stat line. Good for lamedon lists and unlocking 12 more troops.

• Duinhir: Best described as an expensive Ranger of Arnor, but with a bonus against Monsters with the ability to reroll wounds AND cause d3 instead of just 1. beyond that his stat line is standard for a man.

• The King of the Dead: The Baddest motherfucker the good guys can bring. coming it at 100 points, you get a guy with stupidly high defense, some of the highest courage the good forces can bring to the table, 6(!) will and 3 fate, making him stupidly tough. He really shines when you look at how hard he hits: while he's only got standard strength he wounds against courage instead of defence, and ANY wound he causes instantly kills what he hurt, AND he has the terror rule, giving enemy models a chance at failing to charge him. For how cheap he is, he is arguably the single best Hero the forces of good can throw around.

• Captain of Dol Amroth: Dol Amroth's answer to the captains of Minas tirith and Arnor. stat wise he's nearly identical with a similar wargear selection. what really makes him stand out is the Dol Amroth ability to act as if there was a banner if Prince Imrahil is nearby.

Troops

• Knight of Dol Amroth: A solid infantry unit that only shines when you spring points for the horse and lance. but once you do you get a solid, if not expensive, knight unit that not only looks great, but plays great on the tabletop. best used as friends for Imrahil.

• Men-at-arms of Dol Amroth: Dol Amroth's actual infantry unit. They have a standard human stat line and nothing that really makes them stand out, until you notice that they are one of the only human units that can take pikes, making them AMAZING supporting units when paired with there fight 4.

• Axeman of Lossarnach: Much like the Men-at-arms above, it's not their statline that make them impressive, but their weapon. With the ability to act as both a spear and a 2-handed weapon, they are amazingly versitile. This does come at the cost of their low defence value, but if you pick the fights they dive into, they will earn their points back and more.

• Clansmen of Lamedon: An army of 'scottish' stereotypes. low defense, low fight value, all around "okay" stats but a hero-level amount of Courage all in a cheap bundle armed with a two-handed weapon.

• Blackroot Vale Archers: Rangers of Gondor who sold their spears for the ability to reroll wounds against monsters. A solid ranged unit, however like their normal cousins they really suffer the low strength of their normal bows.

• Warrior of the Dead: Much like the other 2 dead units, there stat line is amazing. Defence 8 with a shield (because you want your battle line to be nearly as tough as balrogs), access to spears for supporting, and the typical '___ of the dead' special rules. At 15 points each they are a steal, and much like the rest of the army of the dead, one of the strongest 'good' units in the game.

Cavalry

• Rider of the Dead: Because the King of the dead would be lonely if he was the only terrifyingly deadly unit. Fast, Hero level Defense 7, and flat out AMAZING courage, with the kings ability to wound against Courage. even at there steep point value they are down right amazing.

Allies

These guys are designed to ally to anyone and everyone, but more specifically with Minas Tirith in mind. Warriors of the Dead are straight up the hardest to kill 'human' armies in the game, if not one of the hardest to kill period. It's worth noting that outside of blackroot vale, all Fiefdom armies greatly benefit from allying to elves or Arnor for ranged support.