kellie wrote:
These are the armys im looking at, Gondor, Rohan, Dwarfs, High Elfs, Wood Elfs.
Ultimately it's going to depend on what flavour you want to bring to the game, who do you want to pretend to be. They are all competitive, you just have to learn to use them.
Gondor: great flexibility, excellent range of elites, large range of models from warriors to seige weapons, and a wide range of heroes, from Boromir down to Damrod. Good sets of plastic models. Gondor is your standard battlefield army, and probably the most forgiving if you're learning.
Rohan: reasonable warriors (nothing special), good Riders, a few elites but they're decent, and a good range of heroes. Eowyn is great value, and Eomer makes a good hero muncher Good sets of plastic models. People play and win with all-Rider armies (which is quite a feat, since you're outnumbered almost 2:1), but it takes a lot of skill. You could field a "standard battlefield army", but you'd suffer with the warrior and rider's (relatively) lower defences.
Dwarves: slow, with high defence and good fighting. Plastic models are good. The elites are excellent (except, IMHO, the Dwarf Rangers), great at punching through a line. The heroes are also top notch. Dwarves are best in tunnels and areas with small access points. They're a bit expensive, so on a big open field they tend to get surrounded, but they might still win because of high defence. I also like they way they look, all stunty and colourful
High Elves: best warriors and bowmen, but you pay for it. IMHO, poor range of models. You can only get bowmen and bladesmen in the Last Alliance box set. For spears you have to go metal. No cavalry yet
They have the most awesome heroes in the game this side of Evil. The best bang-for-buck are the Monkey Twins (Elrond's sons). If you field an army of them you're pretty much forced to rely on your bows to whittle the opposing numbers down. Personally I find that tactic boring by now, so I usually use High Elves as an allied force, not a full army, as they are great shock troops. An Elf captain with 10 shielded spearmen charging a flank causes Terror...at least in your opponent
Wood Elves: my favorite so far (until more High Elf models are released). Good plastic set. Only one real elite at this point--Sentinels--but they are worth every point. No cavalry, but I don't think they ever had any in the book, which makes sense. Great range of heroes, some of the top heroes in the game, such as Galadriel. The wood elf spear is a highly underrated piece of equipment, as are throwing daggers. They (naturally) excel on terrain with lots of forested areas, but I've found if you use them right they can hold their own almost anywhere.