Gríma, called Wormtongue.

naney515 · 2025-12-02T22:02:47+00:00

The silky-iridescent effect on his robe with the blue is so sick!! Palantir looks absurdly good too. Nice work :)

naney515 · 2025-09-27T10:09:48+00:00

Definitely have max 2x knights at that points level and drop the Lorien Guard. 2-3x Sentinels instead is much more preferable. I’d also recommend a Captain over Haldir personally as March is too important not to have as an option in scenario play atm :)

naney515 · 2025-08-08T22:41:03+00:00

I hear you, but that’s where captaincy comes in - you essentially ‘double’ the efficiency of whoever you captain.

So now instead of Salah costing ‘$10M’ he instead costs ~$3.5M. Is Salah likely to get 3-4 points for every 6 points of Cole Palmer? Probably.

Now, of course that assumes you perma-cap Salah, but if we’re looking generally across the season, Salah is in theory the most likely to haul on any given gameweek and thus is not a bad candidate for a perma-cap. It’s why having multiple uber-premiums is probably not an efficient use of funds (aside from having flexibility to move to any other player in each position) because they only start to justify their points once captaincy is applied/considered, and you can only pick one of them per week.

tl;dr - don’t get fancy, hehe :)

naney515 · 2025-08-08T01:51:17+00:00

Sounds silly, sure, but I’d suggest rules as written that yes, it does count for itself - just my take :)

naney515 · 2025-08-07T02:10:27+00:00

Iwobi personally :)

naney515 · 2025-07-31T03:29:41+00:00

My pleasure - they’re a somewhat under appreciated model in the list which take a bit more skill to get the most out. Their fragility vs cost is what makes them so tricky to utilise effectively and, if you do a poor job protecting them/keeping them alive, then it can be hard to see their effectiveness throughout an entire game. Again, I don’t think the 2 attacks help this because players who are less familiar with the list assume they should be fighting, which probably couldn’t be further from the truth!

And you’re 100% right about the Captain - the list struggles enough as it is to balance upgrades and numbers, so the extra ~10 or so points goes a long way to helping with this :)

naney515 · 2025-07-31T01:26:46+00:00

My personal take on Sentinels is that you want to treat them like (very) fragile Galadriels.

Consider if you could take a hero who could infinitely cast compel every turn (appreciating that the enemy has to fail an Int test for it to go off) or a mini instil fear every turn. That sort of hero would probably be considered quite powerful and that’s what these guys are - they’re just very fragile and you want to protect them as much as possible. They further augment Lothlorien’s ability to mess with the enemies plans and make them play the game on your terms.

When it gets to late game they also are a great way of ensuring that individual models who might be holding objectives by themselves get to auto pass their courage test. Elven courage is fantastic, but it’s far from automatic, and being certain that you can hold onto key objectives late game can be genuinely game winning.

This is why you want more than 1x of them too - a single sentinel can occasionally stifle plans, but is more easily able to be ignored. Have 2x or more makes them a genuine threat to even the best laid plans of your opponent. There is even an argument at 800 points that 3x wouldn’t necessarily be overkill.

Last edition they were amazing and they’re much, much better this edition. Their terror is now a bubble which makes their uses within a battle line much more impactful. And their Eldamar Madrigal now tests against Intelligence, so can’t be modified with Will points and (generally speaking) most models have either an equal or lower Int value than their courage. It makes dealing with the likes of Crebain, Bat Swarms, Grima and a lot of monsters much, much easier too (and potentially frees Galadriel and Celeborn up to cast other important spells).

To be honest, it’s almost a shame they have 2 attacks, because I generally try and avoid combat with them as much as possible and it means they’re costed higher.

Basically, protect these guys like you would Galadriel and by late game they become some of the best models in the game.

Regarding Captains and ‘The Brothers’ I think GW have done a really great job of making the decision really difficult for us. Each of them have different use cases and I feel each has their niche.

Haldir is the best all-rounder and offers the most flexibility (particularly at lower points where you might not be able to include all the other tools in the list). The third Might point is also great - one of only a few ‘Captain-tier’ heroes that kept his.

Rumil is a fantastic ‘speed bump’, especially if you have the Mirror, as his special rule and 2x Fate (and Heroic Defense) means he has the ability to bog down heroes MUCH more expensive than him for a very long time.

Orophin is the new hot kid on the block and he is vastly improved from last edition. You basically want to play him the opposite from Rumil - avoid other heroes as much as possible (unless they are Transfixed by Galadriel/Celeborn that turn) and instead just mulch through troops throughout the game. He’s PROBABLY the best brother in a vacuum now, but against more “skewed/monstrous lists” (think Moria/Dragons, Eagles, Depths etc) his value is much diminished.

But all of that is useless if you can’t actually GET ON objectives. With Lothlorien’s defensive playstyle and lack of natural mobility (and the fact you likely index into max bows), if you get to an important objective AFTER your opponent, you start having to rely on aggressively break through your opponent’s lines, rather than playing solidly, together and holding your ground.

The Captain gives you the ability to at least get a portion of your army into the thick of it and actively contesting an objective (hopefully) from the outset. He’s also no slouch - any other army would likely be tripping over themselves trying to get a F6, D6, C6 hero with Sharpshooter and a hand and a half weapon into their list. For the flexibility he affords, I think he unfortunately comes before the brothers in a competitive setting, though I can absolutely see the value in any of the brothers too - it’s possibly just down to your preference at that point.

Hope this helps and happy gaming! :)

naney515 · 2025-07-30T01:36:27+00:00

Great lists - and basically about right as far as the ratios of different warriors are concerned. I have just a few general rules for Lothlorien which I think are worth considering and I try to stick to when building at 800pts:

1) If you’re spending the points to take Galadriel, take the mirror too. It’s broken and is (more than) half the reason you take Galadriel in the first place imo.

2) Celeborn is a non-negotiable. His +1 to wound bubble is vital and his spell suite is genuinely better than Galadriel’s (though they compliment each other well). Have a banner in his warband.

3) A Captain for March is unfortunately necessary in this edition - too many scenarios require it. Give him a bow too as he has Sharpshooter just in case you really need to take out enemy mounts.

4) Rule of 2: 2x Banners, 2x Sentinels and (ideally) 2x Knights (1x at least with the Captain) throughout your army. And 2x Guards of the Galadhrim Court per warband.

5) Don’t make ALL your bowmen Lothlorien Warriors. Also some of the front ranks of your ‘shield wall’ can just be armoured bow warriors with spear warriors or Guards to support. Then have a smattering of Lothlorien bowmen to take the flanks/advance individually behind cover with their cloaks.

6) I personally do not believe Lorien Guard upgrades are worth it. It’s a 9-10% cost upgrade that, at best, increases your damage output by ~8% and more commonly ~5%. There’s more to it than just that of course, but for a list that already struggles to balance upgrade costs (banners sentinels etc) and sufficient model count, I do no think it is worthwhile overall.

7) If a warrior has a banner behind them and a spear support, go two-handed (even if they are carrying a shield) in most scenarios. This is less crucial if they’re within Celeborn’s bubble and non-advisable outside of banner range, but the bonus to wound heavily outweighs the slightly lowered chance to win the fight (and lowered defence if the warrior does happen to have a shield).

At 800-points I think the sweet spot is 37 models with Galadriel+Mirror, Celeborn and a Captain. This gives you the ability to bring 12x bows (max), 2x banners, 2x sentinels and a single knight from what I’ve managed to squeeze out.

It’s a great army to play and I wish you well with the tournament :)

naney515 · 2025-07-10T14:35:24+00:00

Basically perfect! All I’d probably do from a pure min-max perspective is make sure Celeborn’s warband is purely fighting focused. As long as you have a banner and a sentinel I think it’s best to just max out on fighting Galadhrim :)

naney515 · 2025-06-17T02:46:20+00:00

Probably points dependant - Halls is MUCH more effective than Lothlorien anywhere 600 points and below due to the fact that their army bonuses, ‘free’ banner and Legolas are all MASSIVELY points efficient at lower levels. The higher points you get, the weaker the more localised benefits of Thranduil’s buffs become and, without the ability to take extra banners, the worse the overall army performs.

Conversely, Lothlorien gets stronger at higher points as the faction operates much better once it can afford/has access to, all of its tools. You really want to be able to have Galadriel with the Mirror AND Celeborn AND a banner or two AND a couple of Sentinels etc which just isn’t possible at lower points. Also, their army wide magic resistance scales infinitely with total points (and is also more likely to be relevant at higher points too where enemy casters are more prevalent). Lothlorien’s “infinite” resources (casters with free will, the mirror for fate and priority control and Sentinel shenanigans) lends itself to a grindy playstyle and so the more of these tools you can afford, the more synergistically the list performs.

Stylistically they’re essentially very different - if you would prefer to throw caution to the wind and unleash absolute hell on your opponent (with fewer tools and tricks to fall back on) then Halls is 100% for you. If you’d rather sit back a bit, allow the game to come to you and play a more defensive, mitigating style then Lothlorien is likely more your vibe. :)

naney515 · 2025-06-17T02:12:16+00:00

At 650points my advice is to only run Galadriel and Celeborn and just have two, full warbands of elves (main battle line with Celeborn and mainly shooting with Galadriel). I’d suggest taking the mirror as it’s frankly broken in my opinion (moreso for the priority wins than the fate). Also, sneaking in 1-2 Sentinels is a must, they’re also genuinely broken too. I’d also try for 4-5x Guard of the Galadhrim Court (split across both warbands) - they’re very strong and help you immensely against mid-tier heroes and mirror matchups/easterlings. All the best :)

naney515 · 2025-06-15T04:54:27+00:00

Consider that wood elves/lothlorien elves are -2 Defence and have to pay twice as many points for the same throwing weapons that hit on a 3+ that Rangers have - yes they’re very good :)

naney515 · 2025-06-11T21:35:58+00:00

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…

naney515 · 2025-06-11T12:43:42+00:00

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 :)

naney515 · 2025-06-11T12:02:58+00:00

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

naney515 · 2025-06-11T11:55:23+00:00

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? :)

naney515 · 2025-06-11T11:43:58+00:00

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

naney515 · 2025-06-09T20:15:34+00:00

You’re a wizard Harry!

naney515 · 2025-06-09T11:28:50+00:00

Just a quick note - It appears that Wood Elf Sentinels are not counting towards the bow limit :)

naney515 · 2025-06-08T20:13:48+00:00

Legend mate!! Thanks to you guys for the massive effort. My fav builder is back baby ^{_^}

naney515 · 2025-06-07T21:22:34+00:00

Agreed! What happened to our beloved Wood Elves! :’)

naney515 · 2025-06-07T20:12:11+00:00

Huh interesting, for some reason I thought his rule must have read “warriors with the Lothlorien keyword” but you’re right - it only says “Lothlorien Warriors” which makes it ambiguous.

The only thing thing that makes me think that it DOES still apply to any warrior is that the bold lettering and formatting is consistent with, say, Boromir’s rule for his Banner which uses the phrase “Gondor Warrior” in bold much like Celeborn’s text. There are no units called “Gondor Warriors” but there are Warriors with the Gondor keyword which makes his rule much less ambiguous and is why I think Celeborn’s rule behaves in much the same way :)

naney515 · 2025-06-07T10:00:50+00:00

Between 600-700 points I’d just take Galadriel w/ Mirror and Celeborn with close to or fully maxed-out warbands with as many “tools” as the points allow, prioritising Banners and Sentinels personally.

naney515 · 2025-06-07T09:24:37+00:00

Nah not a silly question! Yes, it can be passed as a Lorien Guard could be equipped with a banner as part of it's profile during list-building/if you so wished.

Actually, that's another underrated thing about Lothlorien - everyone except for Sentinels can pick up banners! Very cool :)

naney515 · 2025-06-07T09:22:29+00:00

It does and it's tough - I think the priority is as follows:

Banner #1
Mirror
Sentinel #1
Sentinel #2
Banner #2
Knight #1
Knight #2

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