LOTR: Rise to War Khamûl Commander Guide

In Lord of the Rings: Rise to War, Khamûl is the archetypical Ringwraith commander: an ominous hooded figure, clad in black, who looks like nothing less than the personification of death itself. Fortunately for evil players looking to add one of the iconic Nazgûl to their armies, Khamûl can be obtained relatively inexpensively from the in-game shop.

So, once you have Khamûl, how do you build and support him? In truth, there are actually several fairly effective builds for him.

Focus Hybrid Khamûl

One thing that makes Khamûl stand out is that Ringwraith, his third title, increases not only his own burn, focus and poison damage, but also that of his army. This is a great thing to capitalize on because Ringwraith boosts those damage types by a full 30%!

The strongest units that deal any of these damage types are corsairs and alchemists, which are already both quite powerful. That said, they aren’t the sturdiest units in the game. Fortunately, Nazgûl Screech—one of Ringwraith’s sub-skills—remedies this a bit by providing a guaranteed stun on the very first turn of battle, buying you time to pull ahead in numbers.

Khamûl doesn’t innately do any focus, burn or poison damage but a huge number of his skills do, easily letting you double-down on Ringwraith’s damage bonus. Some of the stronger and more accessible of these skills are located under the Shadow of the East title.

The title itself adds a hefty focus damage hit every time Khamûl uses his regular attack. Poison Damage, the first sub-skill, unsurprisingly deals a lot of poison damage by inflicting one enemy with a continuous poison effect for the entirety of the battle.

Beyond that, taking Morgul Poison and at least one rank of Dreadful Presence will add even more poison and focus damage to Khamûl’s arsenal. Remember to equip gear that gives Khamûl more focus, as this will increase his damage further.

Physical Support Khamûl

Not everyone necessarily wants to run Khamûl with burn damage troops, so it’s worth noting that he can also provide effective physical damage support for mounted units.

This build revolves around The Black Easterling, his final title. The title itself heavily debuffs enemy units, flatly reducing their defense and speed substantially. One of its sub-skills, Hamstring, doubles down on this, granting a percentage-based defense and speed debuff.

The reason that this Khamûl build works best with cavalry is Black Rider, The Black Easterling’s other sub-skill. This skill gives mounted units in Khamûl’s army a stacking physical damage buff each time they attack, up to a total of three stacks. It also makes cavalry immune to madness-inducing effects.

The titles discussed in the first build chiefly rely on focus damage, so you’ll want to look at Khamûl’s second initial title to finish off the build. Entitled Second-in-Command, this title gives Khamûl increased focus and increases all damage dealt by allied melee units by up to 15%.

Anticipation, its second sub-skill, gives your unit with the least defense a high chance to avoid any of the first four attacks used against it. This is a pretty powerful effect, but if you want something more consistent, the other sub-skill gives a flat bonus to defense.

Which units you use in your army with this build really depends on what you’re fighting. Other mounted units tend to get brutalized by raiders, while ranged units are best countered by dragoons. In terms of gear, you’ll obviously want to focus on any items that give bonuses to melee or cavalry units.

So How Do I Build Khamûl?

As is the case with many commanders, the strongest build for Khamûl depends on the sort of army that he’s supporting. On one hand, Khamûl deals and enables tremendous non-physical damage with Ringwraith, Shadow of the East and their sub-skills.

On the other hand, Khamûl can be a great supporting commander for an army of cavalry if you pick up The Black Easterling, Second-in-Command and their sub-skills. That said, there are a number of commanders that are already terrific with physical melee units like evil-aligned cavalry, so his focus damage build is probably a little more unique.

Of course, if you only have his first two titles unlocked, you can also run Khamûl with Shadow of the East and Second-in-Command to modestly support just about any melee troops while doing a decent amount of non-physical damage with Khamûl himself.

That’s about all there is to know about building Khamûl in Rise to War!