Hello. I ve been away from LOTR for a while. Anyways. What do you think is the best army size for a 2-3 hours game?

Ive been strugling between interrsting units and too long matches. Sometimes even a 500p game can take a long time, but i dont play with experienced players so it slows it down. So is it realistic to do a 800p game under 3 hours?

Thx for answers!

You can (and should be able to) do 800 points in under 3 hours, but it also can depend on the players and their playing style (quick vs slow). And yes, inexperienced players will take a little longer (not that's it's a problem, just everyone's natural evolution)

If you're having trouble finishing games, I've found often that the issue isn't the total amount of points, but the model count. If someone has a Moria Goblin horde, you can still end up with 50+ models at 500 points. Jump up to 800 and you might be looking at 70+ models for someone to move every single turn.

One suggestion is for you and your opponents to take more of the bigger heroes. For example, you can put together 800 points of Elves with only about 25 models if you take 2 or 3 heavy hitters like Glorfindel and Elrond, a few knights, some infantry and a banner, and bingo - you're at 800 points without a messy amount of models to move around each turn. Plus the higher costed models are some of the funnest to play, so that's a bonus.

Give it a shot and let us know how it goes for you

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T'was in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair..
But Gollum, and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her..

Yes, we have tried using a bit smaller modelcounts with big beasts and heroes, but the problem has been that in these battles normal units have been obsolete/useless when there is a huge amount of big heroes.

Does anyone know, what is the most usual or the most official point value in real tournaments? I would believe it to be between 500 and 800, but is there any point value that is the most common, such as "80% times it is 700"? I think some sort of officiality or meta would be the best army size for normal battle, if there is any meta?

Thx a lot for answers!

To your first point, I would say that I have seen many examples of regular warrior models doing great things in a battle. I have played in a game where my opponent managed to get 4 hunter orcs (only 8 points each) in and surrounded my Glorfindel (170 points) and trap him, and then they took him down in one round of combat with 16 strikes to wound....I have also seen a single Guard of the Galadhrim Court (12 points) hold off Dwalin (95 points) for 5 or 6 straight turns by shielding and then either tying or winning the duel outright....My point is that all models have roles to play, even in games with lots of big nasties roaming around. And of course, you will always need units to do things like claim objectives, hold positions, and/or get off the board, so there's that...

As for usual tourney size, as you said, it varies quite a bit. The smallest that I've seen is 350, and the biggest was 1000. But 700 to 800 is the most common, in my experience. If you're on the GBHL page, I think you could search upcoming tourneys and check point size for each of them and that would also help you get a general idea of the most commonly used points...

Hope this helps....

_________________
T'was in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair..
But Gollum, and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her..

Here are numbers from 8 German tournaments in 2020. The first number gives the minutes for a game, the second the Points of each army and the third are Limits for the number of models:

105, 620, ---
120, 700, 55
90, 500, 5-50
90, 500, 50
120, 500,45
120, 400+-50, ---
135,750, ---
105, 600, 10-50

So, it's around 120 minutes with 500 points and up to 50 models. If you linke, you can do some math on These data.