First of all i'd like to thank everyone that gave me advice for my rivendell tournament army, which when on to claim second place overall.

Now the new Lotr sbg event to take place in the store is a large map based campaign involving 1 player for each faction (elves, gondor, rohan , mordor, etc) i have chose isengard for my faction and am able to start of with 2 500pt armies (able to come from any isengard lists, no allies at all) with the option of raising a third during the course of the campaign. beacause of this i need to think up 3 500pt armies that can work well on their own or when combined into 1000pt armies. The problem is i haven't actually used my isengard army since LOME came out so am unsure as to what works and what doesn't and was hoping that you would be able to help me out, given that my main opponents for this campaign will be rohan to my south and elves to my north (rivendell) and east (lothlorien)

Here's the models i have to work with:
- Saruman
- Lurtz
- Ugluk
- Sharku
- 2 Uruk-Hai Captains - 1 with Shield
- 8 Uruk-Hai Berserkers
- 10 Uruk-Hai with Crossbows
- 22 Uruk-Hai with Pikes
- 26 Uruk-Hai with Shield

I am also able to spend a small amount around £20-£30 in total on miniatures for the armies if needed.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

If you want a heavy solid armies like at Helm's Deep, you probably already have everything you need. The only problem is I'm not sure Saruman works well in a 500 point army, he sucks up so many points you might have a numbers problem, because the uruks you have are the most expensive. But he'd be great at 1000 points. So the trick might be to create a Saruman army that has cheap troops like orcs and/or dunlendings, and another army based on the heavy infantry below. (Dunlending models are expensive to buy, however.)

Are you sticking with LOME model limits? 1000 points is limited to 75 models, while 500 is 50, so if you have too many numbers in your 500 point armies...

Against elves I'd say you want to strive for a front line that is D6 to help reduce the bow carnage. You'll also appreciate the pike backup for extra dice on the fight. Against Rohan I think pretty much any uruk configuration can win, including scouts. Pikes are the traditional foil against cavalry, but two scouts (or an orc spear backing up a scout) on a charging rider still have better odds of winning the fight, and once Rohan loses priority its all over for the horse lords.

If you are looking to buy new models, I'd suggest at minimum get some warg riders, as you already have Sharku to lead them. Since you have some scout leaders (Ugluk, Lurtz), a box of scouts wouldn't hurt either. The new Mauhur model allows scouts to move faster, so that might be an interesting option (I haven't used him personally).

it appears i forgot to mention that i also have the following available as well.
- 10 Warg Riders - 4 TS, 4 Bow, 2 shield
- 36 Orcs - 12 Shield, 12 Spear, 8 2H, 8 Bow

LOME model limits will only apply for the 500pt forces not for the 1000pt forces so that reduces that problem.

As for the forces themselves i was thinking

Force 1 - Lurtz, Sharku backed up by scouts and warg riders with possibly ugluk and some feral uruk hai in there

Force 2 - A large uruk pike block led by a the 2 captains with some supporting crossbows and a banner and Berserkers for combat support.

Force 3 - Something based around Saruman, perhaps a small amount of uruk hai backed up by a lot of orcs to represent the garrison of isengard

As for extra models i was already considering getting a box of scouts as the models look pretty awesome.

What are the limitations? I would try and take a named captain (like vrasku or Mauhur etc.) and then ally in an Isengard captain.

How's this?

Vrasku-75 points (I think, I don't have the supplement)
Uruk captain with heavy armour and shield-60 points
9 Uruk-hai warriors with heavy armour and shields-90 points
12 Uruk-hai warriors with heavy armour and pikes- 120 points
5 Uruk-hai warriors with heavy armour and crossbows-55 points
11 Uruk-hai scouts with shields-99 points

Total:499 points, 39 models, 5 might, 7 shots

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"War does not determine who is right, only who is left."
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