I am VERY new to SBG and plan on starting a Dwarf Army (with Gondor Allies). I was curious if this would be a "decent" list or not. Even better, I would like to hear some good general advice on Dwarves and allies (spears/pikes? cavalry? magic?)

Dwarf King with 2-Hand Weapon
10 Khazad Guard
10 Dwarves with Shield
10 Dwarves with Bow
1 Naked (but [word deleted]!) Dwarf
2 Rangers of the North with Bow
8 Rangers of Arnor with Bow/Spear

42 Bodies, 4 Might, 20 Bows (Bow limit is for each contingent, right?)

Welcome, hope you enjoy the game! Others will give you better dwarf advice, though I think you'd be better off with a named hero like Balin or Gimli than a King.

Yes, bow limit is by contingent, but the GC ratio must be 4:1 RoA:RotN, not 5:1.

Oops... Yeah I meant 8 Rangers (was thinking 10 for volley).

You can still volley, the Rangers of the North can add to the volley group.

You can't get any named Dwarf heroes the only dwarf contingent that Grey Company can ally with is Durin's folk and they don't have any named Dwarf heroes.
Besides the Dwarf king isn't that bad. I'd suggest fiding a way to give the king some throwing weapons. I highly rate throwing weapon on heroes. They last longer and the option of using might on it is useful as you can open up a hole in the enemy battle line to run through.

Although you are using Grey Company and Durin's folk they have quite a bit of Synergy together. There are a couple of options that I'll point out.

Firat is the grey Company have a couple of Cheap heroes with 3 might in Arathorn and Halbarad both a decent fighters.
Second is mounted grey company can add some speed to your army. I've ran 2 Rangers mounted and Halbarad mounted to great success. Whist on Halbard I think banner wouldn't go astray if you can folk out the points you could give Halbarad his special banner. Regular dwarf banner would do just fine though.

Last guy I might suggest is the King's champion, a beast of a model have seen him Tie up a Mordor troll chieftain for 8 turns (even taking a couple of wounds of it) also adds a couple of banners to your force.

Since you have 41 models in your army already you could drop your army count down to add some other units for variety since your dwarfs provided an impressive defence 7 which is not easy to crack.

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Bringing LotR Down Under

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List looks good. Here's a 700pts list that had a 2nd place at the 2009 UKGT if you're interested, that follows the same line:

Saruman the White
Dwarf Captain
14 Khazad Guards
7 Dwarves with Shields
4 Rangers of the North on Horses
16 Rangers of Arnor with Spears

43 models.

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As for your 500pts list, I would drop the naked Dwarf and the 2 handed axe from the King and upgrade a few Dwarves with shields into Khazads. Give 2 spears to the Rangers of the North too. Otherwise looks very very very solid for a 500pts list, you should be destroying majority of your opponents without even thinking.

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Coordinator of the Great British Hobbit League

Better take out the dwarves with bows for soem rangers...

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I am a ranger of the north.

I'll disagree with this. Dwarf archers are a point less, have higher defence and their bows are stronger. Ok, they're not as good at a distance but he has enough Rangers with 24" range bows. Let the Dwarves pick off heavier stuff when it's closer.

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Gondor: 2339pts
Rohan: 1318pts
Dwarves: 2482pts
Elves: 1091pts
Mordor: 2305pts
Isengard: 1762pts
Moria: 1463pts
Evil Men: 381pts

Problem is that Harad destroys this army at long range because all you need is kill 1 ranger and you're out of 10 volley shots. Having 2 more RotN and 8 more RoA instead of some Dwarves is a very good idea imo. I won the UKGT this year with Harad, their shooting is insanely good With the Shadow Lord they will get even better and it's gonna be hard for this army to beat them.

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Coordinator of the Great British Hobbit League

Ok...then...

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I am a ranger of the north.

May i suggest the following army with a similar theme, possibly representing the allegiance arathorn had with the dwarves of the blue mountains (dwarves may not have lived there, i dont know)

Dwarf captain 60pts
5 khazad guards 44pts
7 dwarf warriors with shield 72pts
8 dwarf warriors with two handed axes 64pts
Allies:
Arathorn 75pts
3 rangers of the north 75pts
12 rangers of arnor with spear 108pts

500 points total, 37 models, 15 bows, 8 might
This pretty much follows the same idea as the last few lists, except you have a named hero (arathorn), a nice simple one with 3 attacks and no special rules, this armies weakness is magic, everyone is relatively low on will but you can use you're high courage and defence from the dwarves to take on ringwraiths and use you're good archery to kill saruman+the wizards.

Even though heroes like gimli and balin are better choices than a dwarf king/captain, don't feel like the kings/captains are bad heroes, they are certainly not and when compared to alot of other models in the same points range they are considerably better.

You asked for advice on magic with dwarves, well the obvious choice is one of the wizards, radagast is probably the most useful for this force, he can heal wounds and with him on the field you can volley anywhere. There are cheaper magic heroes like Arwen or an elven stormcaller, both of which are useful, the stormcaller is more useful because he can incapacitate a swarm and can be handy when facing a troll or similar monster/hero.

Also @ blackmist could you maybe pm me with some details about the next ukgt, i cant find info anywhere and me and some friends are thinking of entering.

I suggets this
Dwarf King with 2-Hand Weapon
10 Khazad Guard
10 Dwarves with Shield
10 Dwarves with Bow
1 Rangers of the North with Bow
9 Rangers of Arnor with Bow/Spear
3 Rangers of Arnor with bow

44 Bodies, 3 Might, 23 Bows
Hope this is a godo army...

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I am a ranger of the north.

@ultragreek: doesn't work, GC needs more Rangers of the North to get the 100% bow limit. Read above...

Sorry iforgot the rule...ANyway i believe those guys helped you too much...

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I am a ranger of the north.

Lots of good inputs! How important is it to have a couple of extra bodies to ensure a volley? The Arathorn list looks interesting. What would be the main str/weaknesses of it vs the suggestions BlackMist made? Thanks again!

Well blackmists list requires alot of converting and experience using magic, also they are different sizes, blackmists is 700pts whereas the arathorn one is a 500pt list but only has 1 less point of might in the army and 6 less models. The main difference (besides the cavalry) is saruman, he is an essential for the larger armies but in 500pt games he is too expensive to be a practical choice.

Arathron is a nice simple model with no special rules or anything but 3 attacks and 3 might, as long as you keep the rangers of the north safe you can waste arathorns might on just cutting through your foes and if a heroic move is in need you can sponge off of the rangers might. The king is a good choice to keep the army in line as it is likely he wont die due to his high defence and khazad guards defending him from trolls etc. so he can saty around for a while and use his high courage to keep you're army in check.

If you encounter a ringwraith use arathron+khazad guards to heroic combat into the wraith since it is unlikely you're foe will put them on the front line but rather a few ranks behind. Arathron has 3 attacks and fight 6 meaning you will likely win the fight with him and get a wound with the khazads, this works with any high defence enemy model. Thats the tactic i use against wraiths when allying with dwarves.

If you want to advance to 700pts get saruman, another ranger of the north and 3 more rangers of arnor.

I just posted the 700 list as an example of a really great list with really great potential for tournament play.

As for the 500 I already stated my thoughts before, although a list which I would personally be using at 500 looks more like:

Dwarf Shieldbearer
Dwarf Shieldbearer
12 Khazad Guards
4 RotN with spears
16 Rangers of Arnor with Spears

Total 34 models, 20 bows. The reason for this is that you almost never need F6 in 500pts games and the 2 shieldbearers within 3" of each other get to call free heroic combats each turn because they're protecting each other. That way you have not only 16 supported S4 fighters, but you also have 2 S4 fighters often fighting 2 combats per turn each. While 4 Might is enough because all 4 is expendable.

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Coordinator of the Great British Hobbit League

That's a good list the only problem I can see is budget wraiths. I'm not sure how much will Shieldbearers have (I think it's 1?) but it shouldn't be too hard to keep them apart or SL on fell beast and another 2 wraiths on fell beast could probably also give that list a hard time but then again it's just about impossible to make a perfect list.

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

Any chance of seeing that Harad list? Off topic...sorry.

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"make me lunch... worthy of Mordor"

True, but a combination of wraiths can counter anything, so it just depends what you play against. So like you said it's impossible to have a perfect list, but on average this list should do ok.


Sure it's here http://venivididouble1.blogspot.com/

The tournament report is in the 2nd post too.

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Coordinator of the Great British Hobbit League