The Army of the Dead- Middle-earth Tactica

The next of my Middle-earth army discussions focuses on an army that is from the exact same part of the books as the Grey Company, but behaves very differently both on the table and in the movies (because they completely replace the Grey Company in the movies, much to my chagrin). The Dead of Dunharrow are an elite army, but still double the model count of the Grey Company, and rely on a lot more trickery and downright dirty play to function. This discussion I will talk about both the regular Dunharrow list and the Legendary Legion for them, Return of the King. Both have their merits but I personally feel the Return of the King version is almost entirely better purely because it has more options and a better bonus, despite being locked into more expensive heroes.



Army Rules
The regular army rules are quite simple and come from the time before Heralds of the Dead were a thing, matching the other "single hero" armies. The King of the Dead gets the amazing bonus of Harbinger of Evil, which on an army that has Terror and wounds against courage is just insanely good value, and warbands of 8 or more warriors don't need a hero to lead them (one of them is chosen as the leader for deployment). It's good as a bonus, not fantastic but it is something I would make sure to always have when using these models as the Harbinger of Evil is huge.
The Return of the King bonus is similar in that the King still gets Harbinger of Evil, but it loses the warband rule to instead give some other bonuses. You must take Aragorn and the King in this list, and Aragorn gets Anduril for free, but Aragorn counts as a 6" range banner to all friendly Spirits (while not being a banner- important for scenarios that affect this) and Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli can all lead warbands of Spirits in this list. No mount options and no armour for Aragorn, but otherwise the wargear options are the same as in their normal incarnations. This one is not strictly better than "Dead of Dunharrow+allied Aragorn" but it does have some major bonuses to compensate for the things you lose (banner and free Anduril plus being able to lead troops vs mount and armour on Aragorn) so in my opinion the Legendary Legion sneaks ahead.
They also have a few rules they all share with each other, namely Terror (courage check to charge them), Blades of the Dead (they wound vs Courage not Defence) and Spectral Walk (water is treated as open ground). These all combine to give them a real ghostly feel as they should and makes them pretty good in combination with their other abilities.

Models

King of the Dead- The main hero of the Army of the Dead, the King is an excellent lynchpin piece in the crew who will not go down easily. His main draw is bringing Harbinger of Evil with the army bonus so the entire army is both harder to charge and wound better, and this bonus is amazing against most Evil armies which are low courage. His Fight of 5 is respectable but not amazing, although 2 attacks at strength 4 wounding against courage means he should be wounding on 6s at absolute worst, but most often 4s or 5s with his Harbinger debuff. This is also combined with the fact he has Drain Soul so if one wound goes through the target is dead, meaning he is an excellent model to have in combats against low Fate heroes or lower Fight monsters he can instantly kill. His Might is low at 1, but for 100 points with 6 Will and 3 Fate that is by design and honestly quite fair given the rest of his kit.

Heralds of the Dead- a smaller hero option added in Gondor at War, the Heralds are really still something you take after the King because of how much the army bonus and their own rules benefit him. 70 points (75 after shield) buys you what is basically a Warrior of the Dead Captain (higher Fight, Strength, Wounds and Attacks). Although it has no extra Might, they have 2 Fate which should keep them around, and 3 Will that can be given to the King to use as Might points if they are within 3". This is huge if you're not taking Aragorn, because it lets you use potentially 4 times the Might you would have before (even more if you take extra Heralds) so you can do a lot more to affect the flow of the game. They also have Pennants of the Dead which give friendly Spirits within 3" of them Resistant to Magic, which is situational but at the same time well worth having when you need it.

Warriors of the Dead- High defence, Terror and high courage are all things that are excellent to have in any case, and the Warriors bring all 3. Defence 7 (8 after shield) means they are tough to crack and although Fight 3 is somewhat low they make up for it by having Blades of the Dead for when they do wound, albeit not with the instakill of the King. Spears are a great option on them, although the kit comes with only a few, and the banner is a mandatory option in higher point games outside of the Legendary Legion.

Riders of the Dead- Warriors of the Dead with the shield built in, but they also get a special horse that is defence 6 and a Spirit. Being effectively armoured on the horse is nice, especially when the Riders are natively defence 8, but the big thing is that they are faster than anything else in the army so are a great piece to quickly reach objectives or to flank an opponent. At 24 points they are quite steep, but their value is well worth it. The speed is slightly worse in the way that it means they might not always be in the Harbinger bubble like the rest of the army, and almost certainly away from banners, but they are more objective pieces than offence anyway IMO.

The Return of the King Added Options

Aragorn (Strider)- Same as in Grey Company, Aragorn is pretty much the key piece of this army for a few reasons. Being a 6" banner to Spirit models keeps them effective for their higher cost (while not affecting himself, Legolas or Gimli) and his Might stores help shore up the single biggest weakness of the Dead as an army- Heroic Move and March helping a ton. His hitting strength with Anduril isn't as fantastic given Blades of the Dead on everything else, but it does help a lot against higher courage models that you can't just punch through armour. The biggest weakness of Aragorn in this army is no access to armour so he is stuck at defence 5 and thus if he loses fights he is likely to get mauled quickly, but he shouldn't lose fights in most cases with his rules. The most obvious, but also the easiest, trick with Aragorn is to have Warriors of the Dead sit behind him with spears to support, because then Aragorn still gets the benefit of his banner effect and can get cheeky extra strikes through with the spears on important targets.

Legolas- The sniper here is far more valuable than in Grey Company, because Dunharrow have no native shooting without either allying in Rangers (and thus Aragorn, who can also just buy a bow). The benefit of not only having some shooting, but incredibly accurate shooting is a big boon in being able to pick out key pieces and hurt them before lines clash, which is something the Dead can't do alone. Legolas I rate far higher in this army than in Grey Company for this reason because it does so much more that isn't found anywhere else.

Gimli- My opinion on Gimli in the Return of the King list is complete opposite to him in Grey Company because of what is around him. Being a high defence melee damage hero in an army of high defence melee warriors isn't as great as in an army of glass cannons, and compared to Legolas he is really just doubling down on what the Dead already do just with the benefit of being a hero. He's useful against higher courage models, same as Aragorn, but it just isn't enough to justify him in all cases.

Example Lists

400
Aragorn (Strider)
-Anduril
Warband
2 Warriors of the Dead
-Spear
-Shield
3 Warriors of the Dead
-Shield

King of the Dead
Warband
2 Warriors of the Dead
-Spear
-Shield
2 Warriors of the Dead
-Shield

Not high model count, but it's about as good as it gets in 400 points IMO. At this level there will be a lot more cheap models present to bump up break points and simply because it's hard to fit lots of heroes, so your lower model count shouldn't matter too much because it will be highly effective.

500

Aragorn (Strider)
-Anduril
-Elven Cloak
Warband
3 Warriors of the Dead
-Spear
-Shield
5 Warriors of the Dead
-Shield

King of the Dead
Warband
3 Warriors of the Dead
-Spear
-Shield
4 Warriors of the Dead
-Shield

Basically the same list as above, but with boosted numbers. Same idea, just with more of it on the table. 

600

Aragorn (Strider)
-Anduril
-Elven Cloak
Warband
3 Warriors of the Dead
-Spear
-Shield
5 Warriors of the Dead
-Shield

King of the Dead
Warband
3 Warriors of the Dead
-Spear
-Shield
4 Warriors of the Dead
-Shield

Legolas
-Armour

Again building off of the last list, this just adds Legolas for shooting where needed. 

750
Three Hunters
Aragorn (Strider)
-Anduril
-Elven Cloak
Warband
3 Warriors of the Dead
-Spear
-Shield
4 Warriors of the Dead
-Shield

Gimli

Legolas
-Armour
Warband
4 Warriors of the Dead
-Shield

King of the Dead
Warband
3 Warriors of the Dead
-Spear
-Shield
4 Warriors of the Dead
-Shield

The intention of this list is to stay themed towards the initial charge, while also being low in actual purchases. Using only a single box of Warriors plus the heroes you get a full 750 point army that looks good, is thematic and can hold up on the table. 

Riders of the Dead
Aragorn (Strider)
-Anduril
-Elven Cloak
Warband
3 Warriors of the Dead
-Spear
-Shield
4 Warriors of the Dead
-Shield
2 Riders of the Dead

King of the Dead
Warband
3 Warriors of the Dead
-Spear
-Shield
4 Warriors of the Dead
-Shield
2 Riders of the Dead

Legolas
-Armour
-Elven Cloak
Warband
4 Warriors of the Dead
-Shield

Similar list style, but replacing Gimli with 4 Riders of the Dead. This adds some speed and objective grabbing to the army, but can also give some flanking punch and linebreaking when needed as well with the strength of the cavalry.