A Noob's Perspective: Mordor

Mordor is an army with a ridiculous amount of choice. You can go full horde, magic heavy, monster mash, or a mix of everything! Everybody knows about Gothmog's legion and how good they are, but I find them to be a bit boring as everything in that list is very similar. Mordor has such a variety of fun heroes and troops that it seems a shame to only stick to one type! I am a big fan of toolbox armies so I have tried to put together a list (or 2!) that reflects that. The first list is more theme-y, while the second is trying to be a little more competitive (though when I compare them I genuinely don't know which is the better list or if they are both terrible!).

This first list was put together while I was reading through all of the various troop profiles that Mordor has available. I thought it would be fun to have a warband of each specialist troop lead by a Hero of the same type:

Goroth

Combined Arms (700 points)

The Mouth of Sauron, Armoured Horse
8 Black Numenoreans
2 Morgul Knights

Shagrat, Heavy Armour, Shield of Cirith Ungol
6 Black Guard of Barad Dur
5 Orcs, Spears
1 Orc, Banner, Shield

Goroth
6 Morannon Orcs, Shields
5 Morannon Orcs, Spears, Shields 

Kardush
5 Orc Trackers

42 Models, 9 Might, 3 Cavalry, 7 Bows

So in this army we have 4 of the types of troops available: Black Numenoreans, Black Guard, Morannon Orcs and regular Orcs. Each of them has a hero that might reasonably lead them in battle (Ok Shagrat is from Cirith Ungol and the Black Guard are from Barad Dur but they are all Uruks so maybe some sort of exchange programme was happening!). 

At 700 points 42 models should be enough to outnumber most opponents so the army bonus of +1 courage and rerolling 1s to wound will hopefully be in effect. This is really good as I have a lot of high strength in the list (Morannons are S4, Shagrat and the Black Guard are S5, Kardush’s Flamburst is S6 and Goroth is effectively S7 from his two handed weapon plus Burly!) Hopefully this list shouldn’t have too much trouble smashing through high defence! I’ve also got a decent amount of magic in the form of Kardush and The Mouth of Sauron. 3+ Flameburst and Transfix every turn can hopefully help to deal with big threats. The Trackers are there as a bit of bow support with their respectable 4+ shoot value, but mostly they are for Kardush to eat when his Will runs low. Finally we have a quarter of the army causing Terror (TMoS, Black Numenoreans and Morgul Knights). This will be useful against low courage armies when I need to block off an objective. 

Overall this really does feel like a nice combined arms list. It is weak to high Fight value as my troops are capped at 4, and even the heroes don’t get above 5, so Elves could be a problem. However when I do win fights I should be able to smash through their flimsy armour without too much trouble. Another “weakness” is that there are no monsters in the list, so with that in mind...

Smash and Cast (700 points)

Ringwraith (2/12/2), horse

6 Orcs, shields 

6 Orcs, spears

Shagrat, heavy armour, big shield

6 Orcs, shields 

4 Orcs, spears 

1 Orc, Banner, shield

Kardush

Mordor Troll

6 Orcs, shields 

4 Orcs, spears

Shelob 

38 Models, 6 Might

This list is centred around having 3 big combat pieces (Shagrat, Troll and Shelob) being backed up by 2 decent casters (Kardush and the Ringwraith) and a load of Orcs. Sadly to afford the monsters we have had to do away with all our interesting troops so all we have now are Orcs. This does go better with Fury from Kardush though as basically the whole army can benefit from the 6+ save and be Fearless. Also Kardush can continue to eat Orcs as needed but with the extra benefit of Kardush himself being able to be scoffed by the Ringwraith if needed! There is a lack of cavalry in the list but Shelob helps to fill that gap a little as she can flank really well with her Swift Movement. Her sneaky Paralyse attack can also help to deal with threats, though it isn’t without risk as she only has a base of 1 attack. There is also no shooting in the list, though I could reasonably swap out some of the weapon choices to get a few bows in there. 

I do not like spiders...

When I started to write this article I thought this list was the more competitive one, but in exploring them both further I think I have changed my mind. While the first list doesn’t have as much concentrated strength, it has a lot more tools spread throughout the army. I’d be interested to try both at some point but I don’t think my wallet can take it at the moment! 

Which do you think is the better list? Have I missed some obvious key pieces from the Mordor roster (easily done with the amount of choice!)? Leave us a comment and let us know. You could also let us know which army you’d like to see featured next! Thanks for reading!