Seeing Red part 2b - Legions of Angmar

"In the days of Argeleb son of Malvegil, since no descendants of Isildur remained in the other kingdoms, the kings of Arthedain again claimed the lordship of all Arnor. The claim was resisted by Rhudaur. There the Dúnedain were few, and power had been seized by an evil lord of the Hill-men, who was in secret league with Angmar."

A while ago I started considering how 'Impossible Allies' are not necessarily unthematic to Tolkein's work and whether or not it is possible to create a themed yet competitive red alliance. Following the recent changes to alliance rules I have once again been drawn to this question. I previously looked at an army on the Good side of the conflict, so now let's look at the Evil side as we head North to the land of Angmar.

Early on during the Angmar Wars the Dunedain kingdom of Rhuduar fell under the influence of the Witch King with the native hillmen pledging their allegance to the Lord of Angmar and overthrowing their Dunedain rulers.

Unfortunately, the Angmar faction in ME:SBG lacks any manish profiles to represent these hillmen so we must look at allies. Again we run into trouble as Angmar has zero green allies and only two yellows, neither of which contain any men. So to include Angmar's human troops will require a red alliance.

Of all the evil men available in the game the best match thematically is the Dunlendings. Dunland and Rhudaur were close geographically and both people's are described as hillmen, so it makes sense that they would be similar.

Looking at an army list, Angmar is a faction that is defined by it's heroes so I began there before filling out the rest of the points with warriors. The 1st place to start is with the Witchking, he is after all the overall leader of the forces of Angmar. In terms of upgrades, the crown is a must have and a horse is great to improve his mobility (I avoided the Fell Beast despite how effective it can be simply because they are only first seen during the War of the Ring). For the heroic stats I wanted to ensure that I had plenty of Might and Fate and enough Will to keep up with either spell casting or combats. Added to him I also included Burdhur to offer some offensive threat and a Barrow Wight (the standout option for Angmar in my opinion, Paralyse is just so good). I also wanted a couple of Spectres in the list so they were added now as well.

Having picked my Angmar heroes I then moved to consider the Rhudaur side of the force and was immediately hit with a problem, Dunland has no Heroes of Valour or higher (curse you FAQ). The only options are Saruman (who is incredibly difficult to justify from a themed point of view, a sorcerer type character could maybe be squeezed into the lore but it's shakey ground) or Lurtz (who isn't a man, but a 'counts as' could be run as a warchief for example). In the end I opted for Lurtz. With him I included Gorolf, 6 Dunlendings with Shield and 6 Huscarls. Gorolf was included over Thryden primarily on cost, I knew I needed a Dunland hero to get some F4 into the list and Thryden was the initial choice but was just a little expensive to make work now that I have to take Lurtz.

Returning then to the Angmar half it was a simple question of cramming in as many Orcs as possible, as well as a banner and a couple of Warg Riders. The final result of all this was this 800 point army list:

Witchking - Horse, Crown, 3M, 17W, 3F
1 Warg Rider - shield
1 Warg Rider - bow*
Burdhur
6 Orc Warriors - shield
6 Orc Warriors - spear
1 Orc Warrior - banner
Barrow Wight
2 Orc Warriors - shield
2 Orc Warriors - spear
2 Spectres
Lurtz
4 Huscarls
3 Dunland Warriors - shield
Gorolf
3 Huscarls
3 Dunland Warriors - shield

*This guy is in memory of my Orc Tracker on Warg, Snipey Magee, who used to be in all my Angmar armies before the edition change. He (allegedly) killed something once. RIP Snipey.