Selecting the right faction in Lord of the Rings Rise to War can have a significant impact on how well you do in any given season of this fantastic mobile strategy game. In this faction guide, we’ll examine whether you should play the Rise to War Faction Gondor.
Gondor in LotR Rise to War is a Human faction and is aligned with the good side. It features a strong defensive position on the map and access to phenomenal neutral units. Indeed, Gondor is a well-liked option for strategists of all Seasons and is frequently a candidate for the Ring in many servers thanks to its popularity stemming from the literature and films.
Keep reading this LotR Rise to War Gondor Faction Guide for all the details on Gondor’s buffs, troops, location, commanders, and some basic strategy tips.
Table of Contents
Gondor Faction Buff
Gondor’s faction buff, “land of stone”, grants -5% construction time for all your buildings. Structure speed boost can be used to compensate for the construction time at any time, and they are plentiful in the market. Therefore, the 5% reduction is not as great as it sounds. Additionally, the construction advantage is no longer useful after all crucial structures have been constructed.
To add to all of that… I mean it’s 5%. If you start construction on a building that takes 10 hours, that will save you a whopping 30 minutes. Therefore, in the grand scheme of things, this will seriously not save you a lot of time.
Location of Gondor in Rise To War
Ered Nimrais, the mountain range to the north of the Bay of Belfalas, and the network of ferries that unite Lebennin and Harondor are the main access points to the heart of Gondor. These areas are simple to defend, and Season 3 gives Gondor the tactical edge because of the deployment of Seafarers.
Additionally, this makes it possible for Gondor to grow and enhance resource production across wide areas with little interference from competing Factions. Gondor generally always claims Andrast, Nan Lefnui, Langstrand, Paths of the Dead, Lamedon, Belfalas, Dor-en-Ernil, Lebennin, and Anórien first.
Gondor is located on the southern edge of the map, right between Rohan and Mordor. Depending on the server and season you are currently playing on, they could both be your enemies or allies. However, in the most likely situation, you would be a friend of Rohan and a foe of Mordor.
Gondor has simply amazing early access to many regions in that southern-middle part of the map. They are essentially free and safe for Gondor to take since Rohan or Mordor do not have ease of access to these lands. Therefore, Gondor definitely has a very strong early game that quickly will snowball into a strong mid to late game.
The only problem with Gondor’s location is that their capital city is in an utterly terrible location. The eastern border of Gondor features a fortress called “Osgiliath”. As I mentioned before, Gondor is extremely easy to defend due to few access points, and Osiligiath is one of them. The problem with this fortress is that it’s a direct neighbor to the Mordor faction.
Mordor is one of the strongest and most popular evil factions in the game, and they might want to make a move on Osgiliath, since capturing it gives a lot of power generation and unique perks. As soon as that crossing is captured, Gondor’s capital city of Minas Tirith becomes literally impossible to defend.
Another thing to consider is access to Dol Guldur, the end-game goal of any faction. While it’s not that far from Gondor, by the end game you will have to fight through Mordor or Rohan plots of land to get there. Since everything surrounding Dol Guldur from the south side of the map typically gets picked apart by those two factions. This makes the end game a little more complex for Gondor.
The Unique Units of Gondor
One other thing that is extremely nice about Gondor’s location, other than its natural defensive position, is the ease of access to Oathbreakers. These are extremely powerful neutral units that you can hire upon capturing their camp.
Here’s how the stats of Otahbreakers break down:
| Unit Name | Unit Size | Damage | HP | Defense | Speed | Siege Power |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oathbreakers | 100 | 16-17 | 20 | 0 | 92 | 15 |
What is not so apparent when looking at the stats of Oathbreakers is their biggest strength. Indeed, hidden from the above is that they have a unique unit skill active at all times which reduces physical damage they take by a whopping 90%!
Poison or fire-wielding units can wipe them out with ease, but believe me when I say this. For the vast, vast majority of your game time with Rise to War, people will utilize units that deal physical damage.
To counter any enemies that may be wise to your march of Oathbreakers, it’s always a great idea to have a more typical army backing the first Commander up. Therefore, you can just engage them in normal combat if they appear to be set up to counter your Oathbreakers.
Next, there there’s also the Tier 4 unique unit of Gondor – the Swan Knights! Let’s take a quick look at their stats:
| Unit Name | Unit Size | Damage | HP | Defense | Speed | Siege Power |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Swan Knight | 50 | 27-34 | 98 | 66 | 128 | 28 |
While those are some impressive stats, their true power, once again, comes from their awesome unique abilities. The Swan Knights at the maximum upgrade level, up their defense by 100 for the first 3 rounds of any given fight. Additionally, they take all the damage other units would normally take.
With a defense of 166 and HP of 98, this is absolutely devastating to the enemy army. It’s recommended to run Swan Knights together with a bunch of high damage, squishy attackers. Most commonly some nice archer units. In those 3 first rounds, your enemy’s strength will be quartered while your Swan Knights brush off all attacks with their massive 166 defense.
Gondor Starting Commander
The starting commander of Gondor in Rise to War is Faramir. His stats are okay, and he happens to have some very nice skills that empower units that fall into the “men” category.
There are better commanders if you want to switch him out, ideally someone from tier 2 or 3 with buffs to “men” race units, like Faramir. Despite this, he’s still a very strong starting commander to utilize until you have other options available.
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