The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game/Tactics/The White Council

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Why Play The White Council

Magic, magic, magic. No, it’s not the Thousand Sons, it’s the Middle-Earth Mensa! To play as the Good Guy Illuminati, play the White Council.

Pros

• The best magic available to good armies (and evil in Saruman's case)
• All models have at least three points of might, will and fate each
• Also some of the best combat stat lines elves can offer

Cons

• High point cost, your cheapest model is 130 points
• Low model count, a fully kited out army will only have 7 models in it
• Low attack count for your points as well, for 500 points you average at about six attacks, for context orcs could bring over 50 attacks for that price

Army Bonus

"Are you in need of assistance?" - A member of the white council adds +1 to their roll when attempting to resist magic, as long as they are within 6 from another member of the council. Pretty subpar - it would have been so much easier for GW to apply the +1 to casting instead, but of course that would have been useful and characterful, and as we know, those things are not allowed.

Unit Analysis

Heroes

• Saruman the White: He was a good guy, then he wasn’t. Fairly similar to his Isengard incarnation but he can't use his Palantir , with an interesting rule that decreases his compatibility with Gandalf because jeALoUsy. Also your only hero of Legend (anyone else that normally is has been lowered to hero of Valour) so he'll have to be your leader.

• Galadriel, Lady of Light: Her bitchass crazy version, much more combat oriented and actually kind of fun to throw around - decent defence, decent strength, and permanent blinding light, but with less spells to blast the unclean with. Not that that matters very much in this army list.

• Elrond, Master of Rivendell: Now replaced by Super-Elrond who emerged from both of his previous profiles as a combat monster and solid shit beatstick. Spell slinging a little underwhelming, but, again, this army reeeally doesn’t want for magic.

• Gandalf the Grey: You know what’s good here. A perfectly acceptable hero for buffing, blasting, generally helping out.

• Radagast the Brown: Why wouldn’t you take the Radagast’s Alliance version of this guy? He gets to ride a fucking eagle. Plus Saruman canonically disapproves of his drug habits - leave him out of it.

• Glorfindel, Lord of the West: It’s the sword-swinging elf who saved Frodo in the books - also identical to his Rivendell profile, he has a super solid baseline of stats, free Resistant to Magic (with two dice!) and immunity to Brutal Power Attacks. Send him after monsters and slice them into bitesize chunks.

• Celeborn: Very similar to Elrond statwise, but slightly more useful as a spellcaster. Go and read his Lorien entry for more detail - it’s also identical.