Faction Focus - Minas Tirith

 'Have you ever seen it, Aragorn? The White Tower of Ecthelion, glimmering like a spike of pearl and silver, its banners caught high in the morning breeze. Have you ever been called home by the clear ringing of silver trumpets?'

The stalwart defenders of Minas Tirith have long been a popular force in ME:SBG and it's not hard to see why. This is an army that is iconic in the Return of the King and the army list in SBG features a lot of great options.

'Gondor has no king, Gondor needs no king'

Minas Tirith has access to some of the biggest Heroes available to the Good side in Aragorn King Elessar, Gandalf the White and Boromir Captain of the White Tower. Generally you will be limited to taking just one of these three heroes, unless you are playing a very high points level game, because of how many points they take up in your army. Therefore picking which of these to use is usually the 1st step in writing an army list. Any of the three is a viable pick to build an army around.

They all bring different strengths to the army. Aragorn is one of the best killers in the game thanks to Anduril always wounding on 4s and his Mighty Hero rule. Boromir, while not quite as potent as Aragorn, is still a top Combat Hero who also has the bonus of being able to carry the Banner of Minas Tirith to buff the Fight value of nearby troops. And Gandalf has the benefit of his magical powers which offset his slightly inferior fighting prowess.

'A chance for Faramir, Captain of Gondor, to show his quality!'

Minas Tirith has access to a wide array of mid and low tier heroes and they can all offer something different for the army. I'm not going to go through all of them in depth here (there's plenty of other places that have though) but the important point to think about is what each Hero can bring to the army to fill out the gaps in your list.

For example, neither Boromir or Gandalf have Heroic March so a Hero like Madril is a very good pick to fill that gap. Faramir or Hurin offer a good secondary combat Hero to back up your big Hero and take some pressure off them. Ingold is good for holding your battleline in place and making the most of Shieldwall. And the cheaper heroes such as Damrod or Beregond can allow you to bulk up your numbers with cheap warband drops (special mention to Denethor in this role who can do this with a warband of 15 men, and by being the army leader removes some of the pressure on your big hitters).

That's just scratching the surface of the heroes available within the Minas Tirith army list.

'You are soldiers of Gondor! No matter what comes through that gate you will stand your ground!'

Like with the Hero options, Minas Tirith has plenty of options in their warriors. The most basic of these is the Warrior of Minas Tirith, who can provide a very solid battleline thanks to the ability to reach D7 with the Shieldwall special rule. The 2 Guard models in the Minas Tirith list both offer F4 spear support as well as Bodyguard, although Guards of the Fountain Court edge the contest due to their shield option allowing them to reach D7 as opposed to the Citadel Guard's D5.

As for cavalry, Minas Tirith's only options are their Knights or Mounted Citadel Guard. The knights have more hitting power thanks to their lances but only have F3, which can leave them losing more fights.

'Aim for the Trolls! Kill the Trolls'

Within the Minas Tirith list there are several different options for ranged warfare. Rangers have the important 3+ Shoot value to set them above most of the other options such as Warriors or Osgiliath Veterans with bows. As well they can also be used as F4 spear support for your more heavily armoured battleline. In my opinion these points make them the better option for shooting, however, Citadel Guard with Longbows can be a reasonable option because of the S3 Longbows that they carry.

The other ranged option is to bring along a seige engine or two. I'll not go into too much detail here because I don't personally have much experience with seige engines but both Trebuchets and Bolt Throwers are options for ranged fire support. A trebuchet will force your opponent to come towards your army for fear of a direct hit on a key model, whereas the Bolt Thrower functions more like a group of high strength archers.

Example Army List

Here's an example 750 point army list that I threw together that hopefully covers all the points above. Boromir is the Big Hero, Faramir and Madril the supporting cast, then a solid block of Fountain Court Guard and Warriors of Minas Tirith with Rangers providing ranged fire.

Boromir Captain of the White Tower (horse, shield and Banner)
8 Guard of the Fountain Court with shields
7 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields

Faramir (Heavy armour, horse, lance and shield)
3 Knights of Minas Tirith with shields
6 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
6 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears

Madril
7 Rangers of Gondor with spears
3 Rangers of Gondor