Middle-Earth's Strongest Armies: May 26

Every 2 months, our GBHL Rankings Offficer Jack will be delving into the stats to see what are Middle-Earth's Strongest Armies.

So it's been another 2 months of events with all the results in from January through to April. A lot of time to see who's come out on top and who's dropped off since the February FAQ and how they have been doing all year.

Unsurprisingly Men of the West has retained it's top spot, doubling it's number of Podiums from 8 to 16. Now at 5 wins and 6 second and third places.

Second place is the consistent up and comer Lurtz's scouts. It has always hung around the top 5 or so but now it has managed to push with with 12 Podiums, tripling what it had earlier in the year. But same again this list seems to be performing best at GBHL 80's, probably events where Lurtz is much more likely to get the chance of shooting Boromir.

Finally rounding out the top three is Depths, dropping a place since the last review, gaining only 3 podiums but its earlier performance keeping them up there. While the FAQ looks to have taken them down a notch they are still pulling out some stops and the GBHL 80's and 90's.

On the GBHL 100 side, there have been 6 at the time of writing and the podiums are still wide spread with 17 different lists podiuming for a total of 22 (due to good vs evil and some events allowing you to take 2 lists).

Surprisingly I think to most people Army of Carn Dum has been the top performer gaining 3 Podiums (a 2nd and two 3rd's). However, a fun point to note is out of 115 troops across all 3 there were only 10 Warriors of Carn Dum used. Then Men of the West, Usurpers of Edoras and Kingdom of Khazad-Dum are the next best performers.

As for GBHL 90's Men of the West stays running as the best list gaining another 4 podiums putting it to 11. Depths have hung on to 2nd just on 6, gaining one more. But hot on its heels are Usurpers of Edoras and Battle of Fornost on 5 each. 40 different lists achieving a podium out of the 90 podiums.

Rounding out the event types is GBHL 80's which by out and large is Lurtz's scouts taking it by storm with 8 podiums. The next highest with 3 each are Men of the West, The Battle of Five Armies and Host of the Dragon Emperor. 80's have shown a lot more variety than 90's though with 50 different lists podiuming out of the 76 total.

Combined tracker for 2025 & 2026

I mentioned last time as well I was working on a combined tracker of this year and last year which has now been completed and is on the winning list sheet as he 2nd tab. Despite Men of the West's good showing so far this year it still has a long way to go to catch Depths. Though at its current rate it certainly will. Lurtz's scouts has also now pushed its way to 3rd and likely will stay around there with its GBHL 80 performances.

I am still keeping the running total off lists that haven't even podiumed and it is now down to just 15, the last 2 months taking another 4 of the list including my much hoped Atop the Walls. If anyone wants to set themselves a challenge please try and podium with one of these in the next two months.

So overall it seems the FAQ changes have certainly hit Eagles very hard as well as depths. But Men of the West being left unanswered means its likely to get something next update right?

Other than Men of the West though I think otherwise the top lists are in a good state, maybe just some buffs on a lot of thr lower down lists this time. Let's see when we get to August.

GBHL 100:

Army of Carn Dum - 3 podiums

Men of the West, Usurpers of Edoras and Kingdom of Khazad-Dum - 2 podiums

GBHL 90:

Men of the West - 11 podiums

Depths of Moria - 6 podiums

Usurpers of Edoras and Battle of Fornost - 5 podiums

GBHL 80:

Lurtz's Scouts - 8 podiums

Men of the West, The Battle of Five Armies and Host of the Dragon Emperor - 3 podiums