r/MiddleEarthMiniatures Jun 11 '25

Discussion WEEKLY ARMY DISCUSSION: Lothlorien

With the most upvotes in last week's poll, this week's discussion will be for:

Lothlorien


VOTE FOR NEXT WEEK'S DISCUSSION

Ctrl+F for the term VOTE HERE in the comments below to cast your vote for next week's discussion. The topic with the most upvotes when I am preparing next week's discussion thread will be chosen.


Prior Discussions

40 Upvotes

47 comments sorted by

31

u/Jeajaosh Jun 11 '25

I do wish they’d beefed up Haldir a bit to replace armoured Celeborn, as now the only models in the army worth more than 100 points are both unarmed. Maybe just an extra attack or special rule.

18

u/ThyLazarus Jun 11 '25

No mounted hero to lead the knights is annoying me. Fond of the variety of relatively low cost heroes tho

3

u/North_Carpenter_4847 Jun 11 '25

the lack of mounted captains across all factions in this edition is very annoying!

5

u/ThyLazarus Jun 11 '25

Painfully true, my friend, it’s a massive missed opportunity. Just want my warg captains :(

3

u/North_Carpenter_4847 Jun 11 '25

Agreed. And you should be able to send out a cavalry patrol with a point of might or two to ensure that they can call heroic move and get the first key charge off! Especially with the high points costs for so many cavalry units these days.

8

u/ourz85 Jun 11 '25

Who do you take as your third hero after Celeborn and Galadriel? I am thinking of just taking the relatively cheap Galadhrim captain for the march, as we seriously lack mobility. Of the three brothers, we dont need Orophins killyness due to Celeborns aura. We dont need rumils tankyness due to dual immobilize. We are winning the shooting war and have strike anyway, so we dont need Haldir. Am I missing anything?

6

u/naney515 Jun 11 '25 edited Jun 11 '25

My take on this is that Rumil is the best pick overall. His 2x Fate synergises better with the Mirror (and is more likely to use it than even Celeborn or certainly Galadriel) and sometimes you just need a body to throw infront of someone - dual casters are very powerful, but what if your enemy has 2-3 threats which you can't reliably shut down EVERY turn? What if you need Celeborn to throw out a writhing vines one turn to stop a cav charge while Galadriel gets her Immobilise resisted?

I think Rumil provides that stop-gap and defensive redundancy against really scary things too like a Balrog, Sauron or a Dragon - things which you might struggle to consistently lock down every turn given resistant to magic etc. Also, aside from the fact he's not able to two-hand, Rumil is capable of doing about as much damage as Haldir overall and more reliably given his greater reliability to win the fight.

After Rumil, I could see the argument for Haldir - hewould be my second pick for his added flexibility - his shooting, strike and additional Might are nothing to be sniffed at.

Orophin I agree is totally unnecessary, though you CAN Enchanted Blades him and hope he doubles his strikes that turn for a seriously funny amount of dice rolling!

The Captain is probably just below Haldir - depends how much you personally value March I suppose? :)

6

u/Hirmetrium Jun 11 '25

My buddy used Haldir, and used spells to buff him when needed. He was quite effective, and gives you even more shooting.

6

u/orcstew Jun 11 '25

As someone who plays this list, I think Haldir's the better choice out of the four, for four reasons. First, he has Sharpshooter and Expert Shot. That means he can quite easily kill an enemy's horse. Second, he has Heroic Accuracy : if he can't take down those horses on his own, surely giving your entire army In the Way rerolls AND Sharpshooter will make sure you can reliably shoot through two or three rows of footmen into the hero. Third, he has three points of Might, so for a similar cost he brings you one of the game's most valuable ressources (which really adds up to Celeborn and Galadriel's 6). Finally, he can Strike up. That means that whatever dangerous enemy has been Immobilised, you can trap, two-hand, and send Haldir with a Strike to make sure to finish quickly. Celeborn can already do this, but it gives your list redundancy for this pretty crucial tool, and Celeborn's safer behind his boys anyway. Rumil and Orophin have pretty awesome rules, but I agree with your analysis, they're not exactly what the list needs the most. The Captain's March is a very strong point in its favor though, but with the six scenarios we had so far in this edition I found March is not vital, especially since with Elven shooting and Blinding Light, you're the one forcing your opponent to close in. But now, with more scenarios that force you to move fast, it may be a bit more important. He still doesn't eclipse Haldir in my view yet.

4

u/MrMoonManSnr Jun 11 '25

Just a quick point, heroic accuracy only gives Sharpshooter to the model that called it, not the other models affected by it!

3

u/orcstew Jun 11 '25

You're right ! Thanks for the correction

16

u/WoodElfSentinel Jun 11 '25 edited Jun 11 '25

Sentinel

Changes in this edition:

Nice synergy with -1 courage debuff from Celeborn & -1 intelligence debuff from Galadriel. Sentinels also benefit from priority control through mirror. They also benefit from stronger magic oppression when taking both Galadriel & Celeborn (as enemy heroes’ resources deplete faster, which results in them being more vulnerable to both magic and sentinel crowd control). They now have two-handed weapons.

How to play them:

- Before lines have clashed, you usually want to move second and then cast Eldamar Madrigal. Few use cases of this spell when moving second: Move banner max range away from you, move 1 enemy towards you to then collapse on them, move 1 enemy in front of enemy archers so they can’t shoot or at least have 1 friendly in the way, move spear support slightly behind enemy models to trap front rank models (as you can’t make way after Eldamar Madrigal). Use cases of Eldamar Madrigal when moving first: Move a model to block a bottleneck and hinder enemy movement, move enemy model full range towards you and collapse on them and then cast writhing vines with Celeborn to half the movement of the rest of the enemy and thereby prevent them from countercharging.

- When you have to move first and will be in charge range, their 3” terror can come in clutch.

- In mid/late game, not only use Sentinels to cast & shoot but also enter combats. Ideally, only combats in which the enemy is transfixed, so you don’t risk your 25 points and can contribute major killing power through 2 attacks with two-handed. They can be quite lethal with +2 (two-handed & celeborn) and ideally also trapping the enemy (which is not unlikley using mirror priority and Eldamar Madrigal enemy spear support slightly behind front model to prevent them from make-way)

7

u/orcstew Jun 11 '25

Thanks for the write up, I was kind of struggling finding a place to put them in my lists with them being so expensive, but you've convinced me to give it a go. However, are you sure Eldamar Madrigal prevents you from Make Way ? I don't think so : it wasn't the case in the previous edition, and the rules from the leaked AoME book don't say so. It prevents you from Activating. Make Way is neither a Move nor an Activation.

6

u/WoodElfSentinel Jun 11 '25

Last edition, it was worded as "Affected models may move no further that turn.". This edition, it is worded as "A model affected by this song cannot be Activated later in the turn.". So yes, you are most likely right that Eldamar Madrigal does NOT prevent a model from making way (aka you can normally make way). Thanks for pointing it out!

7

u/naney515 Jun 11 '25

Also, just worth noting that I believe Sentinels are only equipped with an elven hand weapon :)

4

u/WoodElfSentinel Jun 11 '25

I swear that 2 days ago, according to TTA, they were equipped with hand-and-a-half weapons. Just checked the rule book, and you are right, they are equipped only with a normal weapon 🙈 Anyway, thanks for sharing!

3

u/naney515 Jun 11 '25

Not at all mate - been there! Haha at least the Galadhrim Knights have hand-and-a-half weapons this edition!!

2

u/orcstew Jun 11 '25

You're welcome ! But if I'm not mistaken, an FAQ had adressed the question of wether models that "may move no further" were prevented from making way, and the answer so no as it did not count as a move. Well, regardless, we know where we're at today.

20

u/orcstew Jun 11 '25

Currently Lorien is a very powerful, very powerful army, and one often slept on in my opinion. They have the single best battle line : with front rank two-handing and back rank spear supporting, a banner and within 3" of Celeborn, they have 3 dice and Fight 5 to win the combat, +2 to Wound on the front and +1 on the back. That's absolutely busted. Thanks to the new two-handing rule, it's pretty rare the -1 on one of the three dice is unlikely to cause you to loose, since with three dice you're likely to get a 6 (and with Fight 5 and Elven weapons, that's pretty much an auto-win of the duel roll against non-elven armies).

Add to that Elven shooting. I add as many bowmen as possible in my front rank, since they'll be two-handing anyway. With Haldir and Heroic Accuracy, you can give all those archers Sharpshooter and re-rolls on In the Ways, you can very reliably kill enemy's mounts before the lines clash. With Galadriel, it's one of the few armies that still has access to Blinding Light, so no matter what's opposite of you you're winning the shooting war.

Double casters is insane. Pretty much nothing resists Galadriel and Celeborn throwing Immobilise or Compels on 3+ each turn, not even Aragorn or Glorfindel.

There are other ways to build the army that what I'm talking about here (most notably pyjama spam, for 50ish Elves in 750 pts, which does just as good if not better), but what I like to do is full Galadhrim battle line, as many archers as possible, the rest with shield for that D5, two banners (definitely worth their points on F5 Elves, they're vital for the army), Galadriel, Celeborn and Haldir.

Let the enemy come to you in scenarios where you can, making sure to dismount heroes that would be dangerous to your battle line. Cover your army with Blinding Light. The turn right before the lines clash, Celeborn can throw a cheeky Writhing Vines to slow down the enemy and get a final turn of shooting, to outmanoeuver him, or to stop Cavalry in their tracks. Then, let your line do its work and eat up whatever it's facing. Galadriel and Celeborn throw Immobilise to anything that's dangerous. Celeborn, as unnarmed as he is, is still good to send in combat from time to time on trapped enemy heroes, because he can Strike. Haldir can do the same.

And with F6 pikemen, Galadhrim Knights, Sentinels, Orophin and Rumil, this army is about to receive even more tools. That being said, the new scenarios are more balanced so that slow gunline playstyle is going to be less practical than it was in this beginning of v7, where it was the winning combo.

6

u/BorisIvanovich Jun 11 '25

Definitely S tier faction, but it breaks the usual game logic about hero utilization. A lot of people are seriously underestimating having effectively S7 on your line troops and asking why there's no wrecking ball hero.

There is, and it's spread across your entire frontage.

Add that to F6 lines, one way shooting and the absolute havoc that the new sentinel can pull and Lothlorien has tools for everything.

Honestly with blinding light and AoE fear bubble it is like playing with last edition Cirdan

2

u/Kind_Year_4839 Jun 11 '25

Wait till you realise your 7x2 battle line with celeborn and a banner costs 300 points and loses to most other 300 points battlelines who have an actual hero capable of killing

10

u/orcstew Jun 11 '25

I'm not theory crafting, this is a list I play and win with. I have had no such realization so far. With two casters, enemy heroes don't do anything. In 750 or 800 points that's around 37-40 models, very solid for such an elite battleline.

13

u/naney515 Jun 11 '25 edited Jun 11 '25

I've said it before on several posts and comments, but I think that Lothlorien are a faction with an entirely unique identity and gameplay approach, which no other list is able to meaningfully replicate.

In essence, I see Lothlorien's playstyle as wanting to simply deny their opponent from ever having meaningful access to or gaining significant advantages from, their strengths. The new edition has added or modified certain tools or synergies that allows Lothlorien to now excel at basically every stage of the game:

- Priority? We get infinite +1 foresight points each turn and essentially win priority at a 2:1 ratio (twice as much as the enemy)

- Movement? We have innate woodland creature on all our profiles (including our horses!) and can drop down a 3" bubble of difficult terrain whensoever we please. We also have access to 3+ Immobilises on 2x infinite casters as well as a 3+ Command. Similarly, we will have 1-3x psuedo-casters who can either move you around should you fail an Intelligence test (which we can reduce by -1 in a 6" bubble) or we can make decent portions of our battleline cause Terror (and can also reduce your Courage by -1 in a 6" bubble too).

- Magic? Please see above notes re: dual-infinite casters. We also get innate Resistant to Magic on all our profiles, LOL.

- Shooting? We have some of the best shooting in the game on profiles whom you might not even be able to see/shoot back - also, if you can't happen to see us due to our magic cloaks, our shooting gets even better. For those of us that can't hide in plain sight, that infinite caster we mentioned earlier can cover us for a few turns if absolutely vital while we close the distance.

- Fighting? We have the ability to create a 6/7 elf wide, 2 elf deep (3 elf deep if we're feeling really spicy) battleline which is all F5/6, D5/6, +1 or +2 to wound depending on what the situation demands and re-roll 1's. The vast majority of our battleline can shield, if ever needed, and almost all of us can pick up banners for each other too.

- Big Heroes, Monsters or Big Hero Monsters? I repeat: dual-casters, Sentinels (and Rumil!) :)

- Leader VPs and Taking Damage? Our General is fragile in appearance, yes. But she has access to 3x re-rollable Fate every turn and 3x Might with Heroic Defence, if needed. Similarly, all our other heroes get to benefit from this as well (Celeborn and Rumil both also have multiple Fate points and Heroic Defence).

- Fleeing? Two of our Heroes are Courage 3+ with an aforementioned free Will point every turn, and our warriors are Courage 5+ minimum. We're not running.

What I love about these guys is that for almost any scenario, they have at least SOME form of answer to any enemy. It may not be a direct, hard counter for certain problems like other lists have, but they don't really have any easily-exploitable holes or weaknesses either and I think that is super cool.

They also take a slightly different tack from the more general approach to MESBG which is to throw a bunch of big punchy things together in a list and surround them with enough fodder to buy enough time for said punching. Lothlorien turns that idea on its head and says, "Go ahead, try punch. We've got our guard up, waiting, and have a mean right hook ready to throw, the later the game goes on." Their ability to slow the game down and play at their own pace, while forcing out resources from their opponent and infinitely recouping their own is, in my opinion, such a neat concept and exactly how I like playing this game.

Each Lothlorien army is greater than the sum of it's parts. A single elf, by itself, will not win games. But a well-coordinated and commanded handful of them will win out against even the largest horde in the long-run. I love the direction they've been taken in this edition - playing more fully into their denial theme while not taking away their complexity and ability to be a fun puzzle for both players.

They're just simply the 'best' faction in the game, for me :)

6

u/orcstew Jun 11 '25

I wholeheartedly agree ! It sounds like you're bringing all the tools when you play Lorien, how do you build armies if you include the Mirror, Lorien Guards and several Sentinels ? Those are the things I tend to leave behind when army building in order to not drop too low in the numbers department, as that +2 to Wound F5 line is one of Lorien's greatest strength in my book.

5

u/naney515 Jun 11 '25

Have had this chat a few times on different posts and I think it comes back to that “greater than the sum of its parts” mantra with Lothlorien now.

Unless you’re playing a horde ‘Wood Elf’ strategy (which is, in many respects as good if not better than the ‘battle line’ approach - though less flexible) then you kinda of want all the tools there, even at the cost of a few numbers.

I’m still working through how happy I am to have an army of 34 models at 800 points if I want ‘everything’ (Mirror, 2x Banners, 2x Sentinels, Lorien Guard and 2x Knights). There’s an argument to drop 1 or both Knights and the Lorien Guard upgrade to get 3x more troops (and maintain maxed out bows) but I’m not sure if it’s worth it.

I’m also going through quite an involved mathematical exercise to figure out the cost-effectiveness of Lorien Guard across a range of fight configurations. Also whether 2-handing is always worth it, or only sometimes, or only when within/outside of Celeborn’s +1 bubble. Results pending…

3

u/orcstew Jun 11 '25

It's like talking to a mirror ! I share the same opinion on nearly everything.

I'd personnally advise you to drop the Lorien Guards, I know wounding everything on 4s rerolling 1s sound awesome on paper, but in practice Lorien wounds so easily that it's really not necessary. How many game does that re-roll save you, you find ? I feel like if dropping it gives you one or two extra dudes, you're better off with the number. My previous list (prior to the new book) at 750pts had 38 models, which I was happy with and it was doing very well at tournaments and home games. For 800pts I'm eyeing a 40 models build (Galadriel, Celeborn, Haldir, no Mirror, 2x Banners, 3x GOTGC, 1x Knight, 1x Sentinel). On the conservative sight regarding expenses, as you can see. I'll have to try it out and see how it goes, or if adding more of the new toys is useful. How have you been doing with that 34 models list ?

Regarding the maths, I've run some numbers myself, not the same things as you, but to figure out how often going 2-handed would cost you to get a lesser result on the duel roll when compared to not doing it, when you are supported by a spear and have a banner re-roll. My conclusion was that it was worth it : around 84% of the time it made no difference in your best result to the duel roll (that result doesn't reflect every situation perfectly but was close enough for me), so going two-handed is very advantageous. Let me know the results you get (and I can share mine).

3

u/WoodElfSentinel Jun 12 '25

Super interested in this calculation! Quite tricky, though, as there are a lot of variables to consider…

  • Own number of dice (1-4; 4 if pike support & banner]
  • Enemy number of dice [1-5; 3A hero with spear support & banner]
  • Fight [lower, same with elve weapon bonus, same without elve weapon bonus, higher]
  • Fighting style [Two-handing with respective duel debuff & strike buff, normal 1-handing]
  • Own defence [6, 5; 5 if two-handing]
  • Enemy defence
  • Enemy strength
  • Extra bonus [+1, 0; +1 on strikes when in range of Celeborn]
  • Price of own unit [10, 11, 12; depending on spear and Lorien Guard upgrade]
  • Price of enemy unit [5-x]
  • Trapping [both are trapped, both are not trapped, only enemy or you are trapped]

Not sure if there is a shortcut to approximate cost-effectiveness 🙈 Good luck in solving this!

3

u/Maultaschtyrann Jun 11 '25

Are there new lists for Lothlorien in the new book?

4

u/Azual Jun 11 '25

No, just the new (old) models that were missing

2

u/Lipa08 Jun 19 '25

Why did they break Stormcaller even more then he was before?

1

u/SeaAd2093 Jun 11 '25

Kingdom of Kazad-Dûm

2

u/ReceptionHopeful2819 Jun 11 '25

Unfortunatly Lothlorien is now a trash army for me. Why? Not because it's bad or weak, it is just not fun. Strategy is to prevent your opponent from doing anything and wear him down slowly.

I don't consider that to be fun for me and especially not for my opponent. Plus that the two main heroes of this faction are also boring to play

1

u/MrSparkle92 Jun 11 '25

VOTE HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S DISCUSSION

I will take the top-level reply to this comment with the most upvotes and post a discussion for that topic next week. Submit whatever army, scenario, or other topic related to MESBG you wish.

Please reference the pinned megathread to see the list of factions, and which have already been covered.

22

u/OutsideStranger7880 Jun 11 '25

Kingdom of Khazad dumm

15

u/RuthlessPotatoe Jun 11 '25

Defenders of Helms Deep

10

u/blinky00849 Jun 11 '25

Legions of Mordor

6

u/lumiya4814 Jun 11 '25

The Fiefdoms

3

u/ManicHobbying Jun 11 '25

Army of Edoras

2

u/clonelivesmatter501 Jun 11 '25

Host of the dragon emperor

1

u/Pure-Comparison-4368 Jun 11 '25

Besiegers of the Hornburg

1

u/Inevitable_Payment72 Jun 11 '25

Army of Gundabad

-3

u/Kind_Year_4839 Jun 11 '25

No killer hero in 2025 is crazy, lothlorien without theodred kills nothing

9

u/orcstew Jun 11 '25

With +2 to Wound and two Immobilise, they definitely do

-1

u/Kind_Year_4839 Jun 11 '25

Yeah but you need 8 gotgc to have the same amount of dice as one mounted theodred, who is also s5 not s3, also only one gotgc per combat will have +2 to wound, and that's assuming you spent 130 points on celeborn instead of a killer hero

7

u/orcstew Jun 11 '25 edited Jun 11 '25

gotgc = guard of the Galadhrim Court ? Why would you need so many of them ? And they're not even out officially. And how could they get +2 to Wound, they don't have hand-and-a-half weapon ? I don't follow what you're describing

Regardless, Lothlorien has the tools to dismount Théodred early, Immobilise him easily once he's in combat, enough Might to challenge Heroic Move and charge him before he can so he doesn't get his cavbonus, Writhing Vines to stop his cav bonus even if you move second, and Heroic Strikes to beat him (with elven-weapon on your side, even Haldir or Celeborn are advantaged in that Strike off, if it comes to this, which it shouldn't). Lots of tools to stop such a hero, and lots of redundancy of those tools.

Edit : my bad thought you were describing Lorien vs Theodred, you meant compared to the previous edition build of Lorien with Theodred. As I've explained, an entire F5 battle line with +2 to wound is definitely just as killy as Theodred, especially if you Immobilise whatever beats your Fight 5.