There are many factions now available to be played in LotR Rise to War with players able to change their faction each season. Each of them has unique starter troops, map locations, and gameplay strategies. How well you and your faction do throughout any of the game’s seasons depends on how well you adapt to these factors. In this LotR Rise to War Faction Guide, we take a closer look at Gundabad.
Gundabad is an “evil” faction that lies at the northern peak of the center of the world map, right between Angmar and Erebor. Nestled between the cold and devoid of floral life Misty Mountains.
This guide will assist you in determining if Gundabad is the faction YOU should play. Keep reading this LotR Rise to War Gundabad Faction Guide for all the details on Gundabad buffs, troops, location, commanders, and some strategy tips.
Table of Contents
Gundabad Faction Buff
Gundabad’s faction buff is called “Underground Hall” and it allows Gundabad players to store 10% more resources in storage than other factions. This buff is… beyond bad. It offers no PVP or PVE advantage, and it could potentially do nothing for you if you are an active player. This is one of the biggest downsides of Gundabad, as their faction buff is easily among the top 3 worst faction buffs in the game.
Reaching anything close to being full of resources is a mid to late game “problem”, therefore for your entire early game, the buff does nothing. In the mid to late game, it is possible you will be full when you first log on in the morning, or if you don’t play that frequently. However, as long as you have vital structures to build, you will not be “wasting” resources by having full storage.
Indeed, when your storage does get full you can simply… upgrade the storage structure. Viola, crisis averted. Of course, it is possible that you will have built and upgraded everything you want already. However, because you don’t need to build anything else it doesn’t really matter that your stores are now full.
Meanwhile, Angmar has higher siege damage, Lothlorien and Variags Commanders get more EXP, and Rohan has faster armies. Frankly, any other buff in the game just seems better than Gundabad’s faction buff. It desperately needs a major buff rework because it is the single best reason NOT to play Gundabad.
Location of Gundabad in Rise To War
Gundabad’s home is similar to that of Angmar in many ways. They inhabit the snug valley between the Misty Mountains, which are home to mountain people and orcs of Angmar, and the Grey Mountains, which are home to the kingdom of dwarfs, Erebor.
As you can imagine, being smackdown between two great, established factions is not ideal. Especially on non-roleplay servers, where it is common for Angmar to attack Gundabad while expanding east towards Erebor. While Erebor will be doing the same Westward, expanding toward Angmar.
The faction also comes with much of the same problems that every faction of the freezing north encounters. Mainly the oversaturation of rock and ore tiles. While those are plenty, grain and wood are nowhere to be found, and as little as there is to be found around Gundabad, you will have to compete with your entire faction.
The one solitary good grace of their placement on the world map is the proximity to Dol Guldur, the final goal of any Rise to War campaign. Gundabad spawns directly North of it, with not much impassable mountainside in the way. Simply cross some rivers, take some tiles, and you will be there in the blink of an eye.
All without making enemies of any of the other factions, as none of them stand in your way. The only possible roadblock would be the elves of Lothlorien, but it really depends on which tiles they take in the early game. Even then, you can probably figure out a simple detour that will not provoke them.
The Unique Units of Gundabad
Gundabad falls into a lot of the same pitfalls that Angmar does, but without their excellent siege faction buff to make up for some of them. There’s the aforementioned lack of 200+ power wood and grain tiles affecting your army production in a pretty significant way. In addition, they sadly receive the short end of the stick when it comes to neutral camps that the evil side can recruit.
Seasons 3-5 did their best to bring new neutral units to the territories of Isengard and Angmar, also providing some new camps for Gundabad in the process, but the results are mixed. Here are some of these units:
| Unit Name | Unit Size | Damage | HP | Defense | Speed | Siege Power |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Half-Troll | 100 | 17-22 | 40 | 20 | 85 | 15 |
| Cold Drake | 1 | 1100-1200 | 6000 | 110 | 110 | 2500 |
| Beornings | 4 | 350-420 | 1000 | 75 | 62 | 600 |
That is admittedly a pitiful amount of neutral units, but they happen to score some decent units within this small pool. Half-Trolls are a standard, all-rounder unit that you can hire into your army while not stuffing your conscription queues thanks to the separate “hire” queue for natural units.
Beornings are a fine pick for sieging tiles and structures. They are a tier 3 unit, so their camp is a little bit easier to attack and capture and they are also obtainable reasonably early in the game due to their proximity to the Gundabad capital.
However, the real superstars are the Tier 4 Cold Drakes. A unit that spawns only around Gundabad territories. Absolute behemoths and destroyers of worlds. They have massively bloated stats that are only offset by the fact that you get 1 unit per Command point.
Their unique skills are also bafflingly strong! “Devour” makes them deal 50% more physical damage against all non-large units while preventing your enemies from healing. They also receive -60% burn damage, and +50% defense against the first 10 strikes against them.
Asside from neutral units, the Gundabad T4 unique unit is the Warlord:
| Unit Name | Unit Size | Damage | HP | Defense | Speed | Siege Power |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Warlord | 50 | 50-60 | 90 | 10 | 50 | 35 |
The Warlord units are great! They are a glass cannon unit with low defense but great damage. The real outliner is their unique skill which makes them ignore 50% of their enemies’ defense. In addition, their second skill allows them to attack 2 units at once if the enemy army consists of melee and ranged units. This makes them quite a great counter to elven armies.
Gundabad Starting Commander
The starting commander of Gundabad is Agzok and oh boy, is he not very good at anything! Seriously, the very first thing to do as Gundabad is to start building towards a better commander. I suggest Khaldoon, Gorbag, or Grima for Tier 1 commanders. Gothmog or Lurtz for Tier 2 Commanders. Witch King from Tier 3 is crazy with the Warlord unit.
More LotR Rise to War Guides from OCG
Join our Community
If you found this LotR Rise to War Gundabad Faction Guide useful, then join our community to be kept up to date on any new LotR Rise to War Guides added to the site.