As some of you may know this is my favorite army and probably the trickiest to play in 2v2 since you are always poor and have a tough mu spread. It is not as punishing as Mordor as you can kinda turn your brain off and spam furns at the start, but mid/late game is where most people struggle.
Warchant – Your most important tool, your use of this power will make or break the game so use it wisely. There will be times your ally will beg for wc (cough cough, Myth) at a bad time, sometimes you will just need to ignore them and pretend you didn’t see beacon as the enemy will take advantage of a bad chant. Make sure you always use warchant on as many units as possible, including your allies summon powers. Remember that healed units after war chant is used do not get LD, so your ally should use heal on your combos and their horses before WC is used.
On anorien, second warchant is always used for your ally horses. Chants should usually be used to get an objective, like a creep, mill, or rush the base. Using it for a random horse fight on the map is kinda wasteful. Especially since in pro games, when the enemy starts to fight my horse and I have more HP/rank, I am already suspicious and know a power is going to be used (heal chant etc.) and I am ready to disengage. In Wold, your chants should go to your ally after the start unless you are really cooking on your side and need to rush the Mordor or isen with some uruks or secure a creep. How selfish you are with wc depends on if you think you can carry and your ally sucks and things like that.
When do I defend? If there is fod on the other team, you are always attacking and chanting on that side. Vs 2 fol, you are defending. Even if you get landed, you are stopping him from buying the farm and keeping him trapped there so your other mill lives. Don’t feed and let your ally hobbit clean up, build a tower so the hobbit can kite the infantry towards it.
Pala – In 222 this is a must pick if you are dealing with Mordor as dragons and drummers can fear your combos (while speeding up trolls, lol…)
Land – I take this often now vs Mordor as I am trying to win with my first push
Always start with 2 furns on Anorien. There are some rare times I will try pit starts but they generally do not work too well. Your only benefit is stealing the enemy wargs and maybe defending your mills a little easier, but your economy is just ruined for a while and you are not able spam pikes like in 1v1. On wold there are more uses for pit starts, but you simply need a lot experience for this since it requires scouting, knowledge of common pathways for the enemy, knowing when to creep and when to be selfish with your second warchant. I can’t really teach intuition in a guide, but I promise after many games you will simply know where peasants are after seeing where their first wave is and the timings of when a horse is coming.
Early game
Start 2 furns and take your mill. Whether you take the back mill or front mill first is a preference thing but can also depend on the mu or spot. If I have an isen next to me I like to go front first and try to block his front mill (if he went backwards first he is in trouble). Or if I am in the bottom spots I also like to buy the front mill first so I can send laborers fast to the troll and lure them to incoming infantry. Going front first also lets you kill the mill before your fol ally arrives (depends if theres orcs) and lets you chant both in the back. However if you get injured by orcs before your ally comes to chant with you, this is bad and can stop from from killing the back mill. Anyways, buy your mills and go to the other side and chant with your ally at the closest FOD to your fol ally (so he doesn’t need to walk so much, you run faster) Make 4-5 furns total and then make lurtz or uruk pit.
Always make your furns on the opposite side of the enemy, and these should be your first 2 towers in the spots closest to the mill so they cannot buy it. If you make your furns in the front, the enemy will be tempted to go inside and kill them.
If you are against 2 FOL: For this specific mu you can take both back mills, and your fol ally takes your front farm with his starter soldier or peasant. I will buy one and immediately run towards the middle so I can chant and start attacking incoming infantry, and let a laborer from the mill buy the 2nd mill. Against 2 FoL don’t go for fast upgrades. You can go for Lurtz after 4-5 furns, fill up your base except for uruk pit and spam pikes. Then you save for middle and/or Saruman.
So when do you buy Lurtz and when do you get ‘fast’ pit? It will depend on the mu and how bad your start was. If they bought all the farms/mills on your side and you need to reclaim them I will get uruk pit, because I do not want my ally wasting time with his horses killing the farms unless he has peasants. You also need Lurtz in fol+isen mirrors because whoever gets Lurtz 5 will have a big advantage. You can skip Lurtz when your ally has good enough LD to support your combos (rohan or Mordor for example), or you wanna put fast pressure (vs Mordor+isen for example, when you don’t need to pin anything and theres no horses to shoot). This allows you to send uruks with your allies horses to chant and attack both fod bases. Blade rushes can work here if trolls are not coming in time.
Mid Game
By now Lurtz is out and you’re trying to get the troll lairs, wargs are probably gone and your base is full. Save your pin to secure the troll lair unless you are trying to kill it very fast and do not expect a horse to come. If there is another lurtz there, pinning the troll before he can will get you a free level but this means you will need to back off since now he has the threat of pinning you or securing the lair with it.
One of the biggest mistakes I see Isengard players make on Anorien and wold is buying the armory too early. They play so very greedy buying 3 crossbows and then making armory which is a mistake. I do not like leaving an empty spot for armory, I will make all furns and 1 uruk pit, buy my crossbows, hide them in my allies base/wall, and start to spam pikes. Remember you need pikes to cover your mills, your base, and to make combos, so why are we griefing our economy by having the stupid armory up when we still need to make units? All it does is create a liability and makes your base vulnerable to attack. Obviously if you are super ahead and do not think you will be rushed, then ignore this advice. But gondors can be in your base with blades/armor+chant before you are done with upgrades and barely any pikes in the base. Speaking of upgrades, should we be buying blades? I think in 222 blades are pretty important since trampling/land trampling is very strong and blades can punish the horses more. If you are too poor, skip it but just know things can get very nasty if Gondor/Mordor decide to land you. If you’re poor ask for 3 mills.
On anorien the game is very simple for Isen, but on wold there are many ways to be aggressive and put pressure on the enemy by sending pike+zerks forward, buying outposts, etc. Try not to be so passive and wait for your enemy to do something, run around the map with your pike and lurtz and make the enemy uncomfortable (you may lose your lurtz like this, but you need to practice microing lurtz and pikes. Remember you need to throw a lot before you learn your limits). In anorien, your ally such as Rohan can buy the middle and you can win very easily by abusing it. Attack the enemy with chant, when they try to commit on you just run back to the middle. Rinse and repeat until you have rain. Always be making more combos even in the middle of fighting!
Late Game
This is the stage of the game where you need to play smart and use all your powers perfectly. A bad rain will usually cost you the game. If you don’t know this, using rain to remove leadership can be negated by the enemy walking on your land and then walking off of it. So try not to use land after you use rain, and do not use rain if the enemy is near one of your lands that was put earlier in the game. In general, try not to use rain or warchant unless you have pinned a hero or you are inside their base. This is because the enemy will just walk away from you when you use these powers. When rain is used, you can be more casual with your Saruman and use blast/wormtongue/fireball freely especially if ally can heal you. When attacking mordors, always keep 1 combo in the back to kill trolls so your combos can run back while that combo picks the trolls apart. Don’t target the drummer unless theres only one and it is alone in the front. Only attack when you have chant, and disengage when its over.
Playing with Mordor
If for example Gondor and isen both warchant on the Mordor side in the start and leave your mills untouched, you can go for wargs after 3-4 furns. Only make 2 and delete the warg pit then go for upgrades and pit. Try to get rank 2 ASAP by creeping lairs and don’t ever fight horses unless you have howl+chant ready. This is because wargs are really useless when they are rank 1 and injured since you do not have a well. You can buy your team so much time by harassing the enemy mills with your wargs and chasing horses with them.
Isen Isen
Everyone uses .rem so much that I feel like I shouldn’t even be talking about doubles but I’ll mention an old school strat to win fast on Anorien. This requires for there to be at least 1 fod on the other team. Both players start Furn+pit and sends their uruk forward to buy their front mill and run to the fod. As soon as the pit finishes buy an uruk, One isen chants both uruks and they both attack the citadel. The next 2 uruks should arrive as the cita dies and then the second chant gets all 4 uruks and finishes the base. If you don’t wanna do this degenerate strategy, then theres other things you can do. One guy makes army the other guy makes wargs or heroes/middle etc. You can surprisingly win quite a few mus if you camp and reach double rain stage.
Final thoughts
In general, I never like to buy pala before industry vs pro players. This is because most pros know how to zigzag or avoid Palantir, so only use it when theres like 1 horse left in the battalion and you know you’re going to kill something with it. If your ally begs you for pala and you don’t think it will be worth it, just say no. The exception is vs 2 fol for your fol ally to chase and defend you.
Pinning a hero: Many people just kill the hero when they pin it. But a lot of players try to fight when their hero gets pinned and commit their units (like rohirims archers). What I like to do is shoot the squishy RA first until they back off, then kill the pinned hero. This requires some knowledge of how long pin lasts and how much damage you do, but just keep this tip in mind to get the most efficiency out of your cripple.
Pike micro: A lot of players seem confused about what to do with a horse ‘catches’ your pike. You cannot walk away, press S, or escape once a horse catches you in melee. Unless you are very close to your base, its always best to just fight the horse or use chant. The key is to not get caught by the horse in the first place. If you see a high ranked horse with upgrades coming for your level 1 pike with no upgrades, simply walk in the OPPOSITE direction of the incoming horse while in formation. He will not be able to press S and melee the pikes when you do this, and will actually run through the pike if he tries to and lose the horse. Don’t walk towards the horse and assume the guy is not looking, he will press S at the last second and say bye bye to your pike. If you have questions about this I can make a video but if you are at least medium level you should know what I’m talking about here.
Try some tricks. Dunedain is the expert of this. Hiding lurtz in an outpost or corner to pin a gandy, hiding a bomb on elvenwood or on your own furn, putting your pike in front of the enemy gate so they always have to micro when they run home, whatever it takes to win.
I’ll say this again, don’t use late game chant or rain unless you pin something or finishing the base!! THEY WILL JUST WALK AWAY
Try to never use land on a spot far away from your base. If it’s right in front of your base and you need to win a fight, I would say it is ok unless you are literally about to use rain. This is because later, you can just camp on the land near your base and make sure they cannot use it once you use rain.
Vs 2 gondor :their only advantage is dbl land and their LD is not too important, take land quickly maybe before industry
What do I pin? Im Mordor isen and they wont fight me!! The gandy is being too safe but theoden or lurtz is free. Bro just pin whatever you can, and micro when the gandy comes. If you wait for the perfect gandy pin it will never come and you won’t ever force a fight. As Mordor isen you can 1 shot that gandy when he comes to blast you anyways.
Finally, you need to have good mental when you play with isen. You are going to feed crossbows, pikes, towers. You are going to be poor. You are going to be bullied and get rushed by horses, orcs, dragons. Stay calm and trust your ally can carry you with your chants and try to survive. Especially in fol+isen mirrors, you just need to defend yourself better than the other isen who is probably suffering just as much as you. Just remind yourself isen is the comeback army and you’re supposed to be behind in the early/mid game. You never know when the enemy will throw and his best horse runs through a pike or you get a crazy wormtongue and steal all the trolls. Do not be afraid to ask for help, if you know the elf rush is coming beacon for horses and chant your ally so he can kill the elves and protect you. (unless he has his own elf rush ready, then just blame him for not finishing the guy 
)