The War of the Rohirrim seems to me to be based on Jackson's Middle Earth (visual aspect of the movies) and not necessarily on Tolkien's Middle Earth.

All the characters are a miss. Minis aren't bad per se, but bad guys don't fit the setting at all (white haired general Targg makes me laugh, sooo Tolkien-esque ).

Haleth and Hama are fine, but most if not all Rohan miniatures, characters and warriors, have their legs protected by armour from waist almost to the feet (scales, mail or leather). It make sense to protect legs when fighting from horseback. These two are an exception. They died probably because of it

Wild Helm might look better after head swap.

On the other hand, the new Rohan Warriors and Dunlendings are very tempting.

He looks like a wizard who only knows Fist

Not at all how I would have pictured Helm when he was sneaking about throttling Dunlendings in the dead of winter, but in a vacuum, it's a fine enough miniature. Very much prefer the FW interpretation of him though.

 .Mikes. wrote:
Looks like I need to 3d print an accordion.

Oh please, yes, do.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
He looks like a wizard who only knows Fist

Do love me a good muscle wizard.

Santtu wrote:
The movie version of Helm looks like a martial arts master, which is a pretty weird interpretation of the source material. GW's model looks a bit like an angry Santa.

Freca:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/mfhcj1x3/frecatm-lord-of-the-west-march-leads-the-charge-in-middle-earthtm-strategy-battle-game/

I like this guy, he's got a lot of character, especially around the face.

Jeez he's a unit.

So now we've seen all the major players from the events surrounding them, are we expecting any other characters? Fréaláf maybe?

Well the article says there's a lot more reveals incoming, so i would expect so. Would be odd for such a prominant character to not have a model.

No Hera, no interest!

December is too far away...

 Shadow Walker wrote:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/08/15/the-road-goes-ever-on-and-on-the-next-edition-of-middle-earth-strategy-battle-game/

So this article has disappeared as far as I can tell... was going back to relook at what it said about the whole "legending" thing as I couldn't remember what it said about model lines/factions been ended. Anyone recall how they phrased it?

I've always had Far Harad on my "to do" list and conscious the new edition is getting closer, so I may want to pick up some of the models before they disappear (maybe?)...

 His Master's Voice wrote:
Man, those new character designs really lost me.

Likewise sadly. At least, the snowman. I'm sure I can work around that and enjoy the new rules.

Piousservant wrote:

So this article has disappeared as far as I can tell... was going back to relook at what it said about the whole "legending" thing as I couldn't remember what it said about model lines/factions been ended. Anyone recall how they phrased it?

I recall them saying there 3 books. Two for models solely based on the Movies, one Lord of the Rings, one The Hobbit. A 3rd book for extended... presumably Rise of Angmar, Defense of the North... exc.

Then there was a blurb that mainly mentioned PDF's and Rise of Angmar being obsolete on release of new editon. They said a PDF will be out asap with the edition release. Then there was a sentence that mentioned an additional PDF for Legendary models no longer available and/or no longer consodered part of the 3 books depending on how you interpret it.

What that could be... well... they also clearly mentioned they will be removing some models to make way for new. With that said, for all we know, they could be eliminating some current models like your Far Harad and making them Legendary. The Far Harad line was previously missing from the web order page.

If I had to take a guess, those legendary models could be things like Black Numenorians, Fiefdom Men at Arms, Mordor and Gondor bolt thrower, Watchers of Karan... exc. Things no longer available.

But that's all just guess work. Time will tell.

Honestly, I'm just happy to see anything as I had bets on GW ditching the license and ending the game line.

Looks like we have our Grima-esque character. Looks good though, especially digging that red on white:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/t7mylyut/lord-thorne-of-the-woldtm-defies-his-liege-helm-hammerhand-in-the-middle-earthtm-strategy-battle-game/

FW resin. I had a feeling that anything outside of the core box (characterwise at least) was going to end up resin.

OMG this line-up is boring. If Hera or the big-ass monsters weren't in the trailer I'd probably pass on the movie.

...a film based upon a war between two human factions is boring because it has generated miniatures of human characters?

I really like the sculpt for this guy, though I'd still like to see more angles.

Gideon, why the surprise at FW resin? There are only a small minority of characters in plastic, and there hasn't been any real indication of that changing in recent times.

No surprise, just confirmation. Was just half curious as they're launch characters in the movie if they would end up plastic to appeal to a wider audience.

Oh he's definitely getting turned into a foot version of the unarmoured "Warg Attack" Theoden.

Why's he so angry?

Because how would you know he's evil, if he wasn't angry?

 Dysartes wrote:
...a film based upon a war between two human factions is boring because it has generated miniatures of human characters?

Have you not seen the trailer? A giant eagle, a wounded war-elephant and even the Watcher itself makes an appearance. I get that War of the Rohirrim will obviously live up to it's name, but the trailer also shows a fantasy adventure as well. SBG didn't just sell itself on a bunch of orcs and human'n'elf soldiers alone - The Cave Troll, the Balrog, the Watcher and the chilling Black Riders.

Not saying they shouldn't show these characters but we need a bit more than Father Christmas after a visit to Gold's Gym and...whoever this bloke is. So far the only thing to be impressed about is the new Rohan sculpts...

SamusDrake wrote:

I get that War of the Rohirrim will obviously live up to it's name, but the trailer also shows a fantasy adventure as well.

Yeah.... it's no Krull though is it?

 .Mikes. wrote:


Yeah.... it's no Krull though is it?

Now there was a fantasy film!

But seriously, its not just The Vikings on the other hand.

zombie_sky_diver wrote:

Piousservant wrote:

So this article has disappeared as far as I can tell... was going back to relook at what it said about the whole "legending" thing as I couldn't remember what it said about model lines/factions been ended. Anyone recall how they phrased it?

I recall them saying there 3 books. Two for models solely based on the Movies, one Lord of the Rings, one The Hobbit. A 3rd book for extended... presumably Rise of Angmar, Defense of the North... exc.

Then there was a blurb that mainly mentioned PDF's and Rise of Angmar being obsolete on release of new editon. They said a PDF will be out asap with the edition release. Then there was a sentence that mentioned an additional PDF for Legendary models no longer available and/or no longer consodered part of the 3 books depending on how you interpret it.

What that could be... well... they also clearly mentioned they will be removing some models to make way for new. With that said, for all we know, they could be eliminating some current models like your Far Harad and making them Legendary. The Far Harad line was previously missing from the web order page.

If I had to take a guess, those legendary models could be things like Black Numenorians, Fiefdom Men at Arms, Mordor and Gondor bolt thrower, Watchers of Karan... exc. Things no longer available.

But that's all just guess work. Time will tell.

Honestly, I'm just happy to see anything as I had bets on GW ditching the license and ending the game line.

Ah, thanks - I couldn't remember how explicit they were on stuff going OOP. We'll just have to wait and see I guess - and move quickly to grab anything I need if/before it goes OOP!

Lots of Middle-Earth stock on Last Chance To Buy, including all of Far Harad and Khand, a fair few book and original characters, and almost all the commander sets for the big factions

That's more than likely a re-boxing/branding for the launch.

I look forward to the inevitable price hike that comes along with this reboxing.

I still remember the Hobbit Premium, what a rude awakening that was

Even now, over a decade on, I still don't own more than Escape From Goblin-Town on principle

Nope, a load of stuff is going going (at least until a future MTO...) some is repacks with specific models gone.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/vozvvb0g/middle-earthtm-strategy-battle-game-the-upcoming-range-update-explained/

Better buy some Far Harad whilst I can!

Colour me surprised they've been so upfront about it, even if a lot of the profiles were long since rotated out or sold out and removed from the site

With some luck though, the removal of the fourth hero from the commander sets might bring the core captain, standard and musician back in metal, which I'd consider a win

I am.... not enthusiastic about any of this. At all. In the slightest.

In fact I fething hate it. A pox on you whatever decision maker gave this the go-ahead.

Eh, the only thing i'm really sorry about there is the titled wraiths. Never seen anyone touch Far Harad and the metal Khand chariots can go to hell and stay there. Give me proper resin or plastic for the redo's.

Totally unsurprised by this.

Bit annoying as I love the models, but I don't care about their game at all. I collect the models for use for things like Oathmark and, if I ever finish the huge backlog of painting, the old war of the ring rules.

I managed to collect almost everything I'd ever want for my collection barring a handful of models- sadly a few of them are always out of stock and some of them are on the list of things to go. But thankfully most of the the middle earth stuff is easy to pick up second hand and usually when GW have these big clear outs (especially for things not long having been re-released) we do see an excess of hobby clearance sales from folks dropping the game.

I do feel bad for those that do play the game exclusively or has one of these forces that are getting dumped. The Mahud stuff only came back out a couple of years ago, and was out of stock for a good chunk of that time. A lot of folk have probably only just got their hands on it, finally got paint on them and just as they see the tabletop been told they are being squatted. Good times.

Ah, we're entering a brave new paradigm:

"No movie, no rules"

It's a licensed game, one that was made as a tie in to the LotR films. It's a shock anything not from the films even got made in the first place.

I think that's probably reflective of changes in the licensing landscape. New Line Cinema basically maintains a separate instance of the license from Middle Earth Entertainment, and GWs license is via New Line. Ergo film content is fair game, anything else is probably not.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Eh, the only thing i'm really sorry about there is the titled wraiths. Never seen anyone touch Far Harad and the metal Khand chariots can go to hell and stay there. Give me proper resin or plastic for the redo's.

Well I guess I'm glad I backed the KS for STLs of Easterlings and Khand now. Real surprise on the Easterling and Dunland since they recently got those updates and resin minis.

Sad to see the Dweller In The Dark leave the range, as I was hoping they'd update it. But its fair enough as it wasn't in the movies, and I sat on the opportunity to buy one for years.

 legionaires wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Eh, the only thing i'm really sorry about there is the titled wraiths. Never seen anyone touch Far Harad and the metal Khand chariots can go to hell and stay there. Give me proper resin or plastic for the redo's.

Well I guess I'm glad I backed the KS for STLs of Easterlings and Khand now. Real surprise on the Easterling and Dunland since they recently got those updates and resin minis.

What do you mean? There's nothing Easterling on the list. Dunland's hardly surprising as they're about to be hit with new stuff.

Gert wrote:It's a licensed game, one that was made as a tie in to the LotR films. It's a shock anything not from the films even got made in the first place.

chaos0xomega wrote:I think that's probably reflective of changes in the licensing landscape. New Line Cinema basically maintains a separate instance of the license from Middle Earth Entertainment, and GWs license is via New Line. Ergo film content is fair game, anything else is probably not.

They still sell a lot of models that weren't in the films and some not even in the books, so I doubt the licence is the reason.

They had the license for content from the books (via Saul Zaentz) which is how there was non-movie content. However they didn't have the license for stuff still owned by the Tolkien family (so no Silmarilion, etc). Now maybe they've decided not to renew the wider license and just go with something that just covers the films, but previously they could do things that were in the 3+1 books that weren't in the movie, hence Scouring of the Shire, Khand, etc).

I think the more obvious answer is that they've got a fresh start and have used that to kick decades old models and now have the opportunity to redo them in more expensive resin.

Very sad to see Erkenbrand getting squatted. I'm glad I finally got my miniature painted after 10+ years but not having his profile and likely also losing the Redshields is going to set my force back a lot.

I really wish GW wouldn't play around with this Legacies stuff in their games. They know that people just don't play legacies because they want all their stuff useable anywhere they go. Could I just play with friends and ignore all of GW's stuff? Sure, but I'd have to find that group that wants to or is willing to play that way.

I feel for all the collections losing stuff, especially full factions being tossed. Big shame all around.

 Dryaktylus wrote:

They still sell a lot of models that weren't in the films and some not even in the books, so I doubt the licence is the reason.

Depends on how creatively the license is being used.
Cast your thoughts back to that massive period where nothing was happening for MESBG and then a diorama got released.
I'd be willing to be that was about license negotiations seeing as we're about to hit a decade on from Five Armies being released and 20 on from RotK.

If my memory serves, the original rulings for GW inventions was that they had to be approved by the Tolkien estate as something that would be appropriate and fit within the universe, which is why they could take so long.

Looks like its even more narrow, "no model available with described equipment, no rules"

So conversions are out the window

It's the inconsistency more than anything. Mauher is in the books and the film. Gildor is in the book. But Ghulavar isn't and it stays.

It brings into question the decision making and doesn't bode well for everything else ro come.

Gulavhar might be a best seller. If that is the case then they'll not get rid of him, or any other such kit.

 .Mikes. wrote:
It's the inconsistency more than anything. Mauher is in the books and the film. Gildor is in the book. But Ghulavar isn't and it stays.

It brings into question the decision making and doesn't bode well for everything else ro come.

Aye, based on this I wouldn't want to trust on any particular profiles/minis surviving future updates to the game/range. Some staples of the range, of factions, even whole (sub)factions, named characters appearing in books and/or movies, all have a chance of not surviving the cull. Some not so surprising, some I had certainly not seen coming.

Appreciate the information for what it's worth, but in some ways it's not worth much - "These models are now on Last Chance to Buy, and will be available while stocks last. Head over to Warhammer.com to grab them while you can." is just a joke when so many have been unavailable for ages, either not for sale, or just permanently "temporarily" out of stock...

A very complicated rights deal has caused this. I'm sure the creatives behind the game hate it as much as us, but probably the only way they can keep selling it.

Ive sat on buying khand, dunlendings and mahud for a while, I'll have to pick them up before they disappear forever. Lovely sculpts.

Hopefully the massively reduced range means they redo all of the old plastic infantry.

James12345 wrote:
A very complicated rights deal has caused this. I'm sure the creatives behind the game hate it as much as us, but probably the only way they can keep selling it.

Ive sat on buying khand, dunlendings and mahud for a while, I'll have to pick them up before they disappear forever. Lovely sculpts.

Hopefully the massively reduced range means they redo all of the old plastic infantry.

I guess we can't be 100% certain, but it seems pretty unlikely to be the rights issue given there is a whole bunch of stuff not from the movies which GW (for now at least) are going to be continuing to produce. Some of it is a little random - for instance in Serpent Horde the Haradrim King is going but the Serpent Guard are staying despite the fact they are definitely also not in the movie (or even book I would guess?). Balin is going but Durin is staying - and he's paired with Mardin, who not only isn't in the movies I'm pretty sure he's a GW invention...?

Sadly the other big change seems to be MESBG joining the disappointing NMNR as their mainstream games...

I think the deal is to do with book stuff, seems like if it's mentioned in book, but not in movie it's gone. Does seem very random wouldn't be surprised if the Tolkien estate just told them which to drop

if it's in the book, but not int he movie, get rid of it. But if it's in the movie and the book, but it's an orc, then it's not. Unless it's an elf whose name begins with a G and and I, then it's gone, but G and an L is fine. If it's completely made up it can stay. Unless you want it to go.

I'm a little salty about losing Khand; there's nothing else in the game quite like the chariots. And I've always loved their whole Mongol look. Hopefully I can grab some of the cavalry before it goes away forever, as at least with legacy rules I can use it in friendly games (I've already got a couple of regular chariots, a King on chariot, and some infantry, plus 2 cav). Edit: RIP to that plan, the cavalry is already gone, at least in the US. Single tear.

Some of the other stuff that's going away boggles my mind. Razgush and Muzgur are only a couple of years old (they came with Defence of the North), and also doing away with all of the existing Dunland stuff seems like a bad decision (granted, those are going to be replaced with the new War of the Rohirrim models). Also, getting rid of ALL of the named Ringwraiths that aren't the Witch King? Granted, some of the ancillary characters should probably go away to reduce bloat, but this feels a bit too far.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Also, getting rid of ALL of the named Ringwraiths that aren't the Witch King? Granted, some of the ancillary characters should probably go away to reduce bloat, but this feels a bit too far.

There are a couple of sets left that are not on the last chance to buy- one from the each of the film trilogies by the looks it.

I suspect we could see them bring out a new set if the new film flops but the new Gollum film brings more life back into the live action films again, and they decide to quietly refocus the game back to the live action side of things. Or they could bring them back on a MTO (at double the cost they are now!)

All of these models being removed is a death knell for the game. Squatting so many profiles and armies is a joke. smh

Hardly. The game survived quite literal years with bare releases and and no support under Kirby. This is not a "a sky is falling" situation. Not even close.

And then the Legends churn came for LotR...

It's pretty bad though. Some factions are losing key models and options with no replacement, from a gameplay POV that's really sad.

I'm not personally bothered too much because none of these are models I wanted to buy for myself (some are lovely but GW prices mean I'll look for alternatives) and maybe that attitude of mine, if more widespread, is part of why this happened.

It does re-affirm to me that playing GW games means picking the era of the game you like the best and playing THAT, with whatever models you like. Big Blue Book era with historicals for various human factions and Oathmark for the non-humans for me. Not interested in keeping up with the modern game and happier for it.

Hope people that wanted those models are able to get them without getting gouged.

Annoyingly I missed out getting some more Mahud Raiders (don't get paid till Thursday) - didn't expect everything on LCTB to sell out within the day lol. I don't suppose knows of anywhere (UK ideally) with any of them in stock...?

 Lord Damocles wrote:
And then the Legends churn came for LotR...

at least they have not (yet) decided to change the base size for no apparent reason

Oh, yuck. I'm like a refugee from GW arbitrarily changing base sizes, and SBG was my safe haven.

James12345 wrote:A very complicated rights deal has caused this. I'm sure the creatives behind the game hate it as much as us, but probably the only way they can keep selling it.

James12345 wrote:I think the deal is to do with book stuff, seems like if it's mentioned in book, but not in movie it's gone. Does seem very random wouldn't be surprised if the Tolkien estate just told them which to drop

I would appreciate a more careful wording; the first message appeared to declare as fact what is seemingly not actually known to you.

Based on the list, I interpret it foremost as a reduction of range/profile bloat. The choice of which minis/profiles to remove is then partially based on their prominence in books and/or movies, and I agree that the emphasis seems to be on the movies there: besides corner cases like Mauhúr and some of the Ithilien Rangers (who I don't think are directly named in the movies; some seem to be extras assigned names in later media based on named characters from the books), no character or type of warrior clearly featured in the movies is removed. Besides that, the main pattern seems based on which factions have a plethora of named characters, and remove some of those then. Some GW inventions are thus culled (like named Orc characters, of which there already a dozen just based on the movies, who thus remain), others are allowed to stay (like named Easterlings, who would have no named characters left otherwise). It feels particularly complex for book characters, with some prominent characters like Erkenbrand removed, while Hobbits retain their long list of named characters besides the historical Bandobras, and Gondor lose some like Anborn and Mablung, but retain the equally book-exlusive Húrin the Tall and Ingold. Being exclusive to the books or indeed SBG seems neither to definitely result in removal nor retention - but come future updates, I would not feel safe about anything being kept if it is not (prominently) based on the movies. Well, I suppose any models made in plastic get to stay too (Damrod got lucky there), but those are mainly prominent troops and heroes anyway.

I hope the War of the Rohirrim will include some interesting and fitting new troop types for Harad (who are clealy there based on the trailer), as it feels a lot of their flavour and tactical variation is removed now, losing several types of warriors (and leaving the comparatively bland Serpent Guard/Riders, who are just a minor upgrade on regular warriors/riders).

Going back to the rights idea, it wouldn't surprise me if they've got a new stipulation in saying they can only have a certain amount of original creations/book characters to the movie characters.

I.e. GW can only have one of their own OC units for every two movie characters/units.

And to be honest, i don't actually mind the removal of a chunk of minor named characters. A good chunk of them were basically captain +1, which was resulting in basic captains use dropping off quite considerably. And it was starting to hit the point that all these characters were starting to get a special rule each to try and differentiate one from another.

I think the special rule problem was a real pain but that is solveable without getting rid of sculpts which is a pure negative for us customers.

I can understand GW feeling the range is too bloated and it went an incredibly long time without something like this happening which I appreciate. It's the end of an era.

But I don't see any reason for a customer to see this as anything but a negative.

It's a negative, but i can also see a positive in now we've got a chance to kick a load of finecast crap and open the way for new sculpts of decades old models into plastic or at least a much better quality of resin.

Does anyone know how many of those being removed were only available as finecast, rather than metal? Noting the move away from finecast and that some things for Old World were brought back in metal, it may be a case that (for instance the commander packs) they are going to bring them back in metal, and the ones done in finecast are just being consigned to the dust bin.

 Dawnbringer wrote:
Does anyone know how many of those being removed were only available as finecast, rather than metal? Noting the move away from finecast and that some things for Old World were brought back in metal, it may be a case that (for instance the commander packs) they are going to bring them back in metal, and the ones done in finecast are just being consigned to the dust bin.

Some, like the gundabad blackshields, have already returned in metal after a failcast period and are now axed.
Finecast should mostly be miniatures that were released in Finecast. They retransfered a lot of stuff to metal already. I think you're right in terms of the beast of gorgoroth for example. The first batches of that model were that terrible, they redid the whole thing. Still being failcast it probably didn't help much.

Quite many metals on that list (that were only ever released in metal). Some finecast that used to be metal, some finecast that were only ever finecast, and some Forge World resin minis too. Old World made me hope for more re-releases of metals that were made into finecast, but this shuts down that option for several kits I was interested in.

As I said earlier, I'm fine with them removing some of the more obscure ancillary characters from factions (lots of Mordor and Minas Tirith characters, for example), and I can live with them removing the named Ringwraiths just to streamline army building, but removing whole factions (Far Harad, Khand) just feels bad. Those factions are in the books, at least obscure references, and although GW took artistic license with their design (Tolkien himself didn't have much to say about Khand), they do exist in canon. Unlike some of the more bizarre stuff they left in, like Gulavhar.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
As I said earlier, I'm fine with them removing some of the more obscure ancillary characters from factions (lots of Mordor and Minas Tirith characters, for example), and I can live with them removing the named Ringwraiths just to streamline army building, but removing whole factions (Far Harad, Khand) just feels bad. Those factions are in the books, at least obscure references, and although GW took artistic license with their design (Tolkien himself didn't have much to say about Khand), they do exist in canon. Unlike some of the more bizarre stuff they left in, like Gulavhar.

What makes it especially sad is that there will be people out there whose very favourite faction was Far Harad or Khand, dedicated people who spent a small fortune collecting the fully-metal army. I assume Legacies/Legends type deals usually just keep things playable until a next update, and then they might just start being slowly removed?

What I would say is that there really isn't much variation in equipment / profiles with LotR. I mean, I could easily see a Khand horse based army being fielded as Rohan, but yes, chariots could be a problem. That said we don't know what is showing up in the future, in the way that a bunch of the Stormcast range got retired, just for new models to show up. Yes not always a 1 - 1, but when a model only has legends rules or no rules at all I think its much easier to proxy for something, as there is less confusion.

Unlike other GW games lotr builds on a very long legacy due to the rules being stable since 20 years. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would decline an opponent to use their khand models with either legacy rules or the rules everyone knows from prior editions (they're humans with F4 and a two handed weapon not really outlandish, Far Harad could be a more complex case, but even then, it's still lotr, rules).
What I don’t think is that any of this means models will be replaced by newer ones' but the models that appear in War of the Rohirrim. We'll end up with three versions of the movie girl but no King of Khand.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Unlike other GW games lotr builds on a very long legacy due to the rules being stable since 20 years. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would decline an opponent to use their khand models with either legacy rules or the rules everyone knows from prior editions (they're humans with F4 and a two handed weapon not really outlandish, Far Harad could be a more complex case, but even then, it's still lotr, rules).
What I don’t think is that any of this means models will be replaced by newer ones' but the models that appear in War of the Rohirrim. We'll end up with three versions of the movie girl but no King of Khand.

Agreed about legacy models.
The rules go back farther than some gamers have been alive.
I think it can be agreed upon for the occasions where a player wants to roll out their Chariot army

How many official GW tournaments are there though? I wouldn't be surprised I'd most just allow legacy lists in. The Mesbg crowd are the most lore driven players there are and shenanigans are pretty much self policed among us *cough*bombadil*cough*

Some new evil bits:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/n1jde2dn/shanktm-wrottm-and-the-snow-troll-scavengers-from-the-white-mountains/

Orcs are fun and characterful, not so sure about the horns on the troll. But they look like they would be easy enough to leave off and green stuff over if wanted.

Those are the first of the new minis I dislike and I have collected most lotr Orcs so far. The Troll could grow on me, but those orcs... both faces are pretty bad and both look comical with one being extremely skinny and the other being a naked fatty in Winter. Give me Razgush and Muzgur back that I missed to buy, they were much better than these two.

I don't agree with that. I like the faces, they've got a lot of character too them.

Does the snow troll just vanish if Galadriel kills it like in Rings of Power, I wonder?

Now this is more like it. The best troll so far and can't wait to see them in action on the big screen. And its good to see some orcs again, and with better sculpts.

That is a very cool Troll.

Sgt. Cortez, where are you seeing naked Orcs? At worst they're topless.

These are the first of the new models I like. I won't get excited until I see how they first into the new edition though.

Can't say I'm overly enamored with the orcs. They're rather dull as far as sculpts go and (Why are they near naked? It's the Long Winter, where's the furs and thick cloaks?) and the paintjobs on both are completely uninspired. That colour palette might work in the anime, but it isn't doing anything for the models. There's no focal point for the eyes, there's no visual interest of any sort, just a sea of brown and dull metals.
My opinion of them may change with a better paint job, but for now, meh.

The troll though, I quite like. The horns can go as they don't suit the model at all and I think maybe adding some more fur round the head/shoulders to give it a shaggy yeti like appearance would help sell the snow troll aspect a bit more. The belts irk me a little bit, but I can get over that easy enough. I wonder if it's on a 40 or a 60mm base?

I don't mind the fat orc but I don't like the skinny one.

The troll is a bit disappointing - I think the horns don't really match any description of Trolls I've read in Tolkien and I don't know what the spines on the forearms are supposed to represent. Otherwise, it's a well sculpted model with a good pose, I think it actually looks great as a non-Middle Earth model.

The spines are probably meant to be overgrown scales or something like that.

I like the Snow Troll though I admit that I don't know how authentic that is to the LOTR lore both visually and just generally. It reminds me of a mix between Krampus and the Peter Jackson trilogy trolls.

Tonnes of leaks from the box around the internet right now, including photos of the rule book.

Looks fairly light on rules changes, to the point where if it wasn't for piggy backing the new film release for marketing I'd wonder why this wouldn't be just a FAQ.

My only quibble with what we know now is why the split Int and Courage states are on a 'plus' roll, like for shooting, but with two dice and the caveat they can't drop below 3, The aim was to simplify but it just adds an extra layer. That's a minor point though.

I'm sure Warcom will educate us over a month's worth of articles.

 .Mikes. wrote:
Tonnes of leaks from the box around the internet right now, including photos of the rule book.

Looks fairly light on rules changes, to the point where if it wasn't for piggy backing the new film release for marketing I'd wonder why this wouldn't be just a FAQ.

My only quibble with what we know now is why the split Int and Courage states are on a 'plus' roll, like for shooting, but with two dice and the caveat they can't drop below 3, The aim was to simplify but it just adds an extra layer. That's a minor point though.

Care to point us towards a few?

 .Mikes. wrote:

Looks fairly light on rules changes, to the point where if it wasn't for piggy backing the new film release for marketing I'd wonder why this wouldn't be just a FAQ.

My only quibble with what we know now is why the split Int and Courage states are on a 'plus' roll, like for shooting, but with two dice and the caveat they can't drop below 3, The aim was to simplify but it just adds an extra layer. That's a minor point though.

Isn't the dropping of special strikes and such relatively major? At least in terms of a rules set that on the whole probably hasn't seen changes of that magnitude more than twice before (their introduction, and the intro of cavalry way back in 2002). I know army comp rules have come and gone, but I view that more as a tournament pack than the core rules changing.

As for the second point, I'd assume by using two dice you can get more of a variation of values (both in results and in what they can make the stats themselves).

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 .Mikes. wrote:
Tonnes of leaks from the box around the internet right now, including photos of the rule book.

Looks fairly light on rules changes, to the point where if it wasn't for piggy backing the new film release for marketing I'd wonder why this wouldn't be just a FAQ.

My only quibble with what we know now is why the split Int and Courage states are on a 'plus' roll, like for shooting, but with two dice and the caveat they can't drop below 3, The aim was to simplify but it just adds an extra layer. That's a minor point though.

Care to point us towards a few?

Google.com.au

Not massively. Strikes were only occasionally used and even then it was usually only one or maybe two that saw any real use.

I think changing the stat line is a pretty major change tbh - it changes the rules for every model in the game!

But I am glad if the other mechanics don't change much, because the game is just really solid. I am happy that special strikes are gone because I never really liked them, but I'm probably not going to play the new edition so what I like is probably irrelevant. But on the off chance I join a community playing the new rules, I'm glad they're going in that direction.

The "all armies are legendary legions" rumour I heard is more concerning to me, if it means what I think it means.

 .Mikes. wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 .Mikes. wrote:
Tonnes of leaks from the box around the internet right now, including photos of the rule book.

Looks fairly light on rules changes, to the point where if it wasn't for piggy backing the new film release for marketing I'd wonder why this wouldn't be just a FAQ.

My only quibble with what we know now is why the split Int and Courage states are on a 'plus' roll, like for shooting, but with two dice and the caveat they can't drop below 3, The aim was to simplify but it just adds an extra layer. That's a minor point though.

Care to point us towards a few?

Google.com.au

Sorry, Wasn't being rude, just on my phone and heading out the door when I posed that, and they are all over the place by now.

I'm kinda intrigued by the Leader X / Elite rules. Could make for some more themey lists, but to be honest the open way of making lists in the current edition was ne thing I really liked about it.

Anyhoo, I'm feeling better about the new edition than I was before.

Couple of pages from the starter booklet (hence no points values) for those who haven't seen them or don't want to watch insufferable youtube "people".

Initial thoughts (based off nothing else other then whats here)
-Finally, Rohan get spear support! And done in a way that is sensible.
-Flaming Brand rule is cool. A nice bonus to help counter cavalry heavy armies. How effective it ends up being remains to be seen.
-On the face of it, I'm not against the new Elite unit type. A tidy way of curtailing units like Royal Guard that just were just too good not to take en-masse. Again though, how restrictive/useful it ends up being remains to be seen.
-Had a small groan when I saw the "Sv" on the profile as I thought they'd added armour saves to the game (which it totally doesn't need) but then realised they'd just split Fight and Shoot up.
-Looks like they've flipped out Courage works. I'm guessing just roll 2d6 and hit the listed value rather then the current "2d6 + Courage must = 10" method. Which with a 4+ would actually make Haleth insanely brave...


EDIT - Click to embiggen the pictures, they're MUCH clearer then what they seem here.

Hm, looks pretty near identical to how they're set out currently. The hell is a swarm though? Crebain and bats and the like?

A Swarm of hobbits..... sounds about right.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Snrub wrote:
Royal Guard

I still have those royal guard for you, btw. I'm guessing you're not going to want more now....

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
The hell is a swarm though? Crebain and bats and the like?

That'd be a safe bet. Could probably throw the Broodlings the Spider Queen spawn in there as well. Maybe even Shades?

 .Mikes. wrote:
A Swarm of hobbits..... sounds about right.

Maybe FW are working on models for the Hobbit children that chase Gandalf begging for fireworks.

I still have those royal guard for you, btw. I'm guessing you're not going to want more now....

Time will tell. I'm guessing Theoden, Theodred, Eomer and possibly Hama will all get the Leader rule. That means at least ~30 of them is still a viable list.

Looking at the equipment I guess my Orcs with spears and shields or bows and spears are out now...

Yep, I expect they're going to follow the trend of their other games and go with "no model, no rules, box loadouts only", which is so sad as conversions/kitbashes are part of what made GW games great.

Not necessarily. These could just be starter box rules to get playing immediately and more advanced rules for equipment show up in the core book.

The game still looks fine, but I am not a huge fan of giving special rules to every unit. What I see there seems to suggest that trend continues. Ah well.

One thing I didn't clock earlier, that I just saw someone else comment on is that the Dunlendings have "Light Shield" rather then just "Shield" like the Rohirrim have. I wonder if they're going the route of armour/heavy armour, where light shields give +1 D, and regular shields give +2.
Hooray we're back up to army wide Defence 8 for Dwarfs.

Would make sense. If they bring back something like the Black Guard, a Tower Shield is going to offer massive defensive over a little wooden thing.

 Snrub wrote:
One thing I didn't clock earlier, that I just saw someone else comment on is that the Dunlendings have "Light Shield" rather then just "Shield" like the Rohirrim have. I wonder if they're going the route of armour/heavy armour, where light shields give +1 D, and regular shields give +2.
Hooray we're back up to army wide Defence 8 for Dwarfs.

Ha, so swords, axes, maces, flails become one thing again, but instead we get three kinds of shields now.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Would make sense. If they bring back something like the Black Guard, a Tower Shield is going to offer massive defensive over a little wooden thing.

Which, if that's the route they're taking, I'm largely ok with. It could even open up some interesting avenues for things like "heavy" shields which prevent you getting pushed back in combat or something or maybe grant the shieldwall rule. Things like the vault wardens, black guard and even arbalester would all benefit from something like that.

Also, not related to shields at all, but something that just popped into my head, I hope they bring back the Volley Fire! rule from the older editions.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Ha, so swords, axes, maces, flails become one thing again, but instead we get three kinds of shields now.

Pendulum's gotta swing!

 Snrub wrote:
One thing I didn't clock earlier, that I just saw someone else comment on is that the Dunlendings have "Light Shield" rather then just "Shield" like the Rohirrim have. I wonder if they're going the route of armour/heavy armour, where light shields give +1 D, and regular shields give +2.
Hooray we're back up to army wide Defence 8 for Dwarfs.

I was thinking more along the lines of light shields allowing for use of the "Shielding" rule but not giving a defence bonus, as that might make sense for other light shields, like the Corsairs' bucklers. Was that ever a rule? Might be getting it mixed up with some intensive house rules I've played over the years.

Rohan spear rule also seems similar of something that used to exist in some form somewhere. I like it (and it makes sense given the size of their spears), though a bit finicky to keep track of like many such rules.

A clear special rule and unit type system with keywords is fine, but I think more elegant solutions are possible for some things. For instance, while I recall earlier discussions over what is or isn't a named character (a/the Balrog or Spider Queen), I think that this can be solved with a little symbol (X-Wing used to list unique pilots and upgrades with a "·" after the name - simple, clear, unobtrusive). Don't think it warrants more than that since it is pretty much only relevant for army building, and you can then have less text focussing only on relevant information, which will consequently be easier to find.

Wargear limitations look worrying and very much in line with what we've seen from the profile/range cull (removing options for which miniatures have not been produced), and aspects in other games systems. It would feel very silly if, say, Morannon Orcs could wield spears and shields simultaneously while Mordor Orcs could not, just because the models happen to be that way. It would also be very reductive in a game that since its inception has heavily featured conversions owing to the often single-piece models, sometimes lacking obvious weapon combinations (such as Mordor Orcs with spears and shields, or conversely High Elves with only spears or only shields). I hope it won't be that way for profiles that have existed and been allowed to have those weapon combinations for 20 years, but...

My way of dealing with the rohan spear issue is just letting them pay for both types of spears and use them both.

Can't wait to see the new Rohan Cavalry and hope the Dunlendings get some Cavalry too!

With those two Characters, do you whink we will see new Common "Orcs of Middle Earth"?

RazorEdge wrote:
Can't wait to see the new Rohan Cavalry and hope the Dunlendings get some Cavalry too!

With those two Characters, do you whink we will see new Common "Orcs of Middle Earth"?

To me the article sounded more like this was one small scene in the movie. Like, that girl from the trailer being lost in the mountains and then she meets these three. My guess is they'll stay as their own team like the three trolls.

RazorEdge wrote:
Can't wait to see the new Rohan Cavalry and hope the Dunlendings get some Cavalry too!

With those two Characters, do you whink we will see new Common "Orcs of Middle Earth"?

Depends entirely on how successful this launch is. The hope is that it's popular enough to trigger a redo of all the old plastics.

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:
Rohan spear rule also seems similar of something that used to exist in some form somewhere. I like it (and it makes sense given the size of their spears), though a bit finicky to keep track of like many such rules.

The rule exists in a couple of Legendary Legions in the current rules; specifically the Defenders of Helm's Deep and I think the other one is Theodred's Guard.

About wargear options: they only mentioned characteristics talking about that. They cannot remove options for, let's say, high elves troops for examples. It would be a nonsense.

Magical Powers.

Couple of new ones in there, one or two have the wording tweaked. Looks like Channellings gone too.

Cool, nothing too out of the ordinary there. I am intrigued by this new intelligence stat.

Johanxp wrote:
About wargear options: they only mentioned characteristics talking about that. They cannot remove options for, let's say, high elves troops for examples. It would be a nonsense.

I hope you're right, but I wouldn't want to bet on it...


Surprised Channelling is gone - unless it just provides a straight buff to casting or something instead now? Bit of a big debuff to things like Transfix, etc though. Also minor point that there no longer is Immobilise/Transfix, so either they are listing them separately or now have the same name for Good and Evil...?

 ZergSmasher wrote:

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:
Rohan spear rule also seems similar of something that used to exist in some form somewhere. I like it (and it makes sense given the size of their spears), though a bit finicky to keep track of like many such rules.

The rule exists in a couple of Legendary Legions in the current rules; specifically the Defenders of Helm's Deep and I think the other one is Theodred's Guard.

Ah, I never got War in Rohan (or played against people using it), but might have assimilated that info from some online discussions at some point then, cheers.

And here we go:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/s5kgfcgs/sunday-preview-the-war-of-the-rohirrimtm-is-upon-us/

...do people think they've made "smart changes" to MESBG?

Feels odd that they're doing this to ride on the coat tails of the film, but the main character of the film is nowhere in sight.

Wasn't following the Fellowship and Journey games when they came out, over two decades ago( well, Fellowship anyway ), but I'm assuming they had Frodo and Bilbo at launch?

There was a seperate Fellowship box, but the initial starter box was moria goblins vs high elves and numenoreans

Prices in USD apparently.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
There was a seperate Fellowship box, but the initial starter box was moria goblins vs high elves and numenoreans

Oh, I see.

Ok so, it looks like the core box will be about £125, the foot characters will be 18, the armies books are surprisingly unchanged in price, hill trolls are the same as the werewolves are 48 and bhurdhur seems like he's 28. not ball all around.

Ok, so comparing the US site to the AUS site, Battle of Edoras should come out at about the same price Battle of Osgiliath currently is ($360). It's not as good as value as the Pelennor Fields or Osgiliath boxes I think, given that there's no Cavalry/Monsters on either side like Pelennor and there's less terrain then Osgiliath (or at least, less useful terrain). The rulebook is also significantly less chunky (50 pages less!) then the updated Osgiliath book.
That being said, I have no doubt it'll still be a cracking deal compared to buying the sets individually, which will certainly skyrocket in price.

 .Mikes. wrote:
Prices in USD apparently.

Spoiler:

Here's what my FLGS posted to Facebook:

Those prices actually seem fairly reasonable, for GW anyway. You do of course pay the FW tax on the resin heroes and units but...eh. Still, I'm gonna need almost 400 bucks to get the new starter and get the current versions of the Armies books, which is kind of steep all at once. I might have to spread the purchases out.

Hmmm, I know it's just me being disconnected from modern GW but those prices don't look reasonable to me at all.

48 infantry, a couple of houses and fences and some heroes for a full starter is pretty stingy in my opinion. Especially compared to the previous ME SBG starters which were a good deal overall. I only didn't pick them up because I already own a bunch of the plastics that were in there.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Those prices actually seem fairly reasonable, for GW anyway. You do of course pay the FW tax on the resin heroes and units but...eh.

Just to make sure we're seeing things in context here, how does $30 compare to a plastic character release these days?

Most tend to bounce around the £24-£26 range these days. So it's still FW expensive. More surprised that they're not coming in double packs, as they usually go for £24 each.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Da Boss wrote:
Hmmm, I know it's just me being disconnected from modern GW but those prices don't look reasonable to me at all.

48 infantry, a couple of houses and fences and some heroes for a full starter is pretty stingy in my opinion. Especially compared to the previous ME SBG starters which were a good deal overall. I only didn't pick them up because I already own a bunch of the plastics that were in there.

I put it in the context of all brand new sculpts (apart from the scenery) vs one or two new models and an ass load of 20 year old kits.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Most tend to bounce around the £24-£26 range these days. So it's still FW expensive. More surprised that they're not coming in double packs, as they usually go for £24 each.

And on a straight currency conversion - though I'll wait for a GBP price list to confirm - $30 equates to £24, so...

I've seen confirmation from some third party sellers; £140 for the new starter set, although they offer it for £112. Not too bad.

Other base costs have the books at £40-34 and new plastics at £31.50. No FW prices though.

Yeah, saw someone quote the Australian price as $370, which given the Osgiliath box was $360, is honestly a paltry price increase compared to what new edition box sets normally get slapped with. Although still a heinous price overall.

After the Pelennor box + my pre-existing collection, I really don't need more Rohan warriors. But the hero's will make for nice generic captains and I'm really impressed by the Wildmen sculpts, so I want some of them. At 20% off, the box is still worth getting. But it's a steep price for a box of lesser content quantity then previous editions.

Big ol' information dump in this one:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/2ifuwrwc/middle-earthtm-strategy-battle-game-key-changes-in-the-new-edition/

Like the reworking of fight values, although Aragorn seems to have a small essay of stuff for his profile. Int stat sounds like an interesting addition and the priority role changes sounds like quite a big deal. I like it though.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Big ol' information dump in this one:

Like the reworking of fight values, although Aragorn seems to have a small essay of stuff for his profile. Int stat sounds like an interesting addition and the priority role changes sounds like quite a big deal. I like it though.

I like the changes too, but I don't like that I bought all the cards with the previous profiles!

Ugh, the wargear rules are indeed what they seemed to be.
"This has been done to ensure all models accurately represent the wargear they may carry, and so that there is no confusion mid-game."
WYSIWYG has been quite consistently applied to any events I've attended across however many editions of the game now. This change provides no clarity or benefit that wasn't there before, but just ensures any conversions deviating from the exact wargear combinations GW sells models for are no longer viable. For some armies, this could be massive. Almost all of my Mordor Orcs with spears also have shields (mainly from the convenient Warg Rider box), with just a handful missing them in case I needed to drop a few points from a list. If they are no longer allowed to have both, this creates, rather than prevents, confusion: unless I rip them all off, either they can only count as having spears (making the shields confusing) or just as having shields (making the spears confusing). Ugh.

Priority roll change could be interesting and I recall considering that change before, but not sure. I kinda liked how before it was sometimes good and sometimes bad to "win" the roll-off; now making a 50-50 roll consistently beneficial for the winner might just be worse?

Wording still seems bloated, whatever they claim. Having to say "This is a Unique piece of Wargear" for a named item listed under Wargear surely could have been communicated in fewer words. Also, using phrasing like "natural 6", and then elsewhere "on a 6 [may use Might to improve this roll]" can be fixed by just consistently using natural for unmodifiable rolls, while other rolls can then be modified, no need to list that for every individual rule (of which there might be many, if even more pieces of jewellery and named livestock get a paragraph of special rules now...).

In more positive news, the evil Rohirrim in white, black and red look nice.

Yeah, I could see me stealing the changed initiative rule and continue with the old edition. My archer orcs won't give you their spears without a fight.
In the end it probably depends on a) will there be german translations, b) will the reworked profiles do stuff I really like and c) will the removal of wargear stay sensible. Making all orc heroes lose their option for a shield for example... might turn this into the captain edition .

I'm not sure I like the priority rule change. I liked that you didn't know who was going to have it next, now it's about 50-50 you'll get to choose.

Oh i forgot to add, base size on the profile. Excellent addition.

I have no strong feelings except wonder why there was a new rulebook a year ago.

I'm neutral on the Intelligence stat, seems fine to me but also probably not really needed.

Weapon option rules I dislike.

Priority rules I also dislike, I prefer how it works now.

Redistributing Fight Values is probably a good idea if you want the game to work between the Hobbit and the LOTR. I think the mistake was the creep in Hobbit stat lines, but that damage is already done and it does need to be addressed.

But I really dislike how many special rules I see. Seems like it's just the "modern" design paradigm but I think it's pretty bad design personally, I think the stat line is fine for showing differences between units without having to resort to special rules.

Yeah not at all liking the new weapon option rules. Totally unnecessary set of restrictions. I think this is something that will get house ruled a lot as it's easy enough to ignore without breaking any other element of the rules. Also going to nullify a lot of peoples conversions and modifications.

-Separation of fight and shoot is going to annoy me purely because my brain will never be able to divorce Sv from Armour Save. Also not sure why it was a required change as I don't see how it makes it more distinct. It's not like it was confusing before.
-Priority changes seem... fine. I guess? Not sure it was needed, but ok.
-Ditto for Courage.
-Intelligence also seems fine. Like, I think I see what their aim with it is but whether or not it is an actually useful addition to rules, only time and experience will tell.
-I like the idea Dominant (x). But I can foresee it easily becoming overwhelming if they just start dolling it out to everything that isn't a basic man-sized warrior, which I hope doesn't happen but won't be shocked if it does.
-Again not sure we needed scenarios going up to 20VP, but I'd not be sorry to see more varied ways of getting VP. Having the same (objective), (leader), (broken) scoring methods for each scenario did get a bit stale.

Looking at Aragorns profile. Why is he all of a sudden Resistant to Magic? I wonder what the logic behind that is.

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:
In more positive news, the evil Rohirrim in white, black and red look nice.

They look so good! Great colour combination.

Probably a nod to his resistance to the ring.

Ok, I'll pay that.

from a read of that it sounds like this started with "we need a new edition to boost sales and attract interest"

note, this is not specifically a bad thing, its already quite a good set of rules, many of these changes are quite minor but you can see the dead hand of "marketing" pushing something that requires a "reset"

so you have fight value now as two stats not one, yeah whatever. splitting courage into two actually makes a lot of sense, e.g. why was someone brave also very good at spotting someone hidden? that was more a simplification too far in the base game (40k suffered when the Ld, Wp, Cl & Int states became "Ld" in the same way). and if all the profiles are being redone anyway this makes sense

as does re-aligning fight values on a broader range

the priority thing I dislike, previously fate could really screw you over so you had to plan for it, now its "easier" in a way it didn't need to be

marketing again with the "no model, no rules!" thing is carp, pure fish based carp

"Everyone gets a special rule!".. GW need to find the induhvidual behind this and take them out behind the chemical sheds and walk back alone

also totally agree stat creep to sell the hobbit stuff caused a chunk of the "problem" they are now trying to fix

the real issue for LotR is that its actually, from the off, been a very solid set of rules, e.g. its the only set GW does that handles terrain in a sensible way. and its quite hard to then keep selling stuff

my problem is that as with Necromunda I have remarkably little desire to purchase expansions that will be invalidated in a reasonably short time frame the next time GW decide to go over all this and give Malibu Stacy a new hat

I love the game, can't see buying the new edition though, and a fair few locally have noted the same. end result is it will gradually die out

I really don't understand this invalidation nonsense when there's been a six year gap between this and the previous ed.

If "every profile has been touched" means everything gets unnecessary bloat like Aragorn's ring and horse then this is going to be a massive pain in the arse to play unless it's your only system.

Billicus wrote:
If "every profile has been touched" means everything gets unnecessary bloat like Aragorn's ring and horse then this is going to be a massive pain in the arse to play unless it's your only system.

Please don't talk about Aragorn's ring being bloated - it's a sensitive subject.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
I really don't understand this invalidation nonsense when there's been a six year gap between this and the previous ed.

We haven't all been around for 20 years to get our money's worth. There's been a surge of new players a year ago with the big box and battleforces, and from the new printing of the core book those players rightly assumed they were safe to drop money on the force books and expansions too.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
I really don't understand this invalidation nonsense when there's been a six year gap between this and the previous ed.

1 year, the last Edition was 1 year ago.
Just because it didn't saw major changes but simply incorporated FAQ/Erratas/Updates (like a new Edition of a book should be) doesn't change it

So everyone who bought into the game last year and by accident one of the removed model lines are now rightfully a little bit salty

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
I really don't understand this invalidation nonsense when there's been a six year gap between this and the previous ed.

its more given how many campaign books etc there are for this, replacing them for no real reason is a needless expense - this could have been a pdf you can download to "patch" each books profiles - as well as updated copies on the shelves

plus as others have noted the most recent rulebooks were not six years ago but last year (though done sensibly without invalidating all the source books and expansions)

not to mention any stat cards people have need redoing, the semi-pointless rules bloat of more special rules for individual profiles added at the same time the special strikes were removed "to reduce bloat" etc

are some of the ideas here good? yes, some of them will seriously improve the game
does it feel like a money grab moving to the 40k/AoS model of invalidating everything on a regular basis? yes, yes it does, and it also as a result lowers confidence in the "value" of expansions etc

personally didn't even have it all, just the book, the "armies of" books, Battle companies and a pair of the source expansions.

I won't be rushing out to replace them all, or indeed any of them. changed profiles will be available from "other sources" and I would not be in the least surprised to find "unofficial" profiles in the new format for the stuff GW would prefer you to forget you bought

Orks?

 lord_blackfang wrote:
h. There's been a surge of new players a year ago with the big box and battleforces,

Source?

leopard wrote:
the priority thing I dislike, previously fate could really screw you over so you had to plan for it, now its "easier" in a way it didn't need to be

I really don't see how this change makes much difference.

Previously (currently?), if you didn't want priority, you wanted to lose the roll.

Now (in the future), if you don't want priority, you will want to win the roll.

The probabilities don't really change.

leopard wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
I really don't understand this invalidation nonsense when there's been a six year gap between this and the previous ed.

its more given how many campaign books etc there are for this, replacing them for no real reason is a needless expense - this could have been a pdf you can download to "patch" each books profiles - as well as updated copies on the shelves

Yeah, it's around $1k of printed materials that have just been outdated, plus the buy-in to replace them being......roughly 4x $80-$100 just to get started, and we haven't even touched the potential outdating of models (fortunately I wasn't using any niche armies, so that won't be too bad, I guess not being able to get the last Orc FW hero release was a blessing).

With the cost of GW printed material being what it is, I'm leaning heavily to selling it off.

Looks like most of LoTR army book has been leaked.

Here's the Contents page (Spoilered because huge!)


And something that caught my eye, they're bringing back Ent variations! Although I seem to recall there being more then just four.
I don't like the restriction placed on how many of what kind you can take, but eh.. I'll take it.

So everything is a Legendary Legion now? If it wasn't a scene in the movie, you can't have it?

 lord_blackfang wrote:
So everything is a Legendary Legion now? If it wasn't a scene in the movie, you can't have it?

I sort of get what you are saying, but some of those sound pretty generic: Kingdom of Rohan, Legions of Mordor, etc.

I'll need more info before I pass judgement.

 Snrub wrote:
Looks like most of LoTR army book has been leaked.

Here's the Contents page (Spoilered because huge!)

Spoiler:

And something that caught my eye, they're bringing back Ent variations! Although I seem to recall there being more then just four.
I don't like the restriction placed on how many of what kind you can take, but eh.. I'll take it.

Spoiler:

Oh that's cool. I'll look up later how they compare with the original variants

 lord_blackfang wrote:
So everything is a Legendary Legion now? If it wasn't a scene in the movie, you can't have it?

Frm what I understand there's going ti be another book or pdf for freer army lists and for those forces removed from this edition.

 .Mikes. wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
So everything is a Legendary Legion now? If it wasn't a scene in the movie, you can't have it?

Frm what I understand there's going ti be another book or pdf for freer army lists and for those forces removed from this edition.

Both.

A book for non-movie stuff they are keeping in the range, and a PDF for non-movie stuff they are killing off.

this "everything is a legendary legion" concept smacks slightly of the formation garbage that wreaked 40k a few editions back, a special snowflake list centred around a hero or two, special rules and remarkably little concern for balance

now it could be they do it well, but prior history is not that hopeful

for how often I actually play I'm just sticking with the current edition and not bothering with the new one, still have plenty to finish painting up anyway

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Oh that's cool. I'll look up later how they compare with the original variants

Did they ever appear in any of the source books? I've got a copy from White Dwarf #282

7 Variations as opposed to the 4 listed in the new rules, although I suppose there could be more on the next page, although I somehow doubt it given how much space is left.

No, only in the WD and WD compilation.

Very different, which i'm not unhappy about to be honest. I'd rather they put more thought into it than just copy/pasted from old material. But it's nice to see further thought for the Ents.

While I don't disagree in principal, it sort of feels like someone said "Name me 4 species of tree and let them do something." Where as the previous style actually looks like they've put some thought into what attributes a tree of the type would have and gave them a special rule accordingly.

On this occasion, I wouldn't have been disappointed to see a straight copy/paste.

And the list building:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/m9f0rghw/middle-earthtm-strategy-battle-game-army-building-in-the-new-edition/

From looking at the examples they've given I don't mind so far. I'm just concerned something will go awry and be horribly unbalanced.

They just feel a tad restrictive for me so far. I know they're going for theme and character over breadth of options but when the example of a more generalist one, the Legions of Mordor list, is lacking relatively basic options then it's certainly making me wary. Obviously a small sample size and there's a huge amount of lists apparently but it feels like they're doubling down on an aspect of the previous system (and their other games) that isn't necessarily that appealing.

I don't really mind it. While wacky lists are amusing at times, it was always kind of odd seeing characters like Aragorn or the Witch King appearing in lists they couldn't possibly have been in and did feel gamey.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
I don't really mind it. While wacky lists are amusing at times, it was always kind of odd seeing characters like Aragorn or the Witch King appearing in lists they couldn't possibly have been in and did feel gamey.

I'm all for thematic/canonically accurate lists in principle but, based purely on the examples shown, I'm just a bit concerned that they might have gone a bit too far and focusing on specific scenes strips away some player agency. For example, if say Boromir were only going to be available to Gondor as part of the Reclamation of Osgiliath list (not saying that will be the case, just an example), that seems unnecessarily reductive. Like it would remove the potential for him to be fielded alongside Citadel Guard or Fountain Court Guard; a scenario which doesn't necessarily happen 'on screen' directly but is incredibly plausible, to the extent that it would be weirder if it didn't happen 'off screen' in some capacity.

Nah not for me. Especially the focus on film scenes rather than book scenes. No interest from me, think it's a terrible decision.

I think you'll need to wait and see for the final book, as that seems to be the one that will cover the more unique and general lists.

On another note, Héra.


https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/l1m49wph/middle-earthtm-strategy-battle-game-heratm-the-bride-of-death/

Like the general pose and shield.

That's a cool miniature!

While Hollywood is definitely overdoing the whole Girl Boss thing right now (and that's a discussion for another time and thread), that mini is very nice. I love the pose and the shield she's holding. Also I saw on a Facebook group earlier where someone had leaked her stats and she's actually got two profiles; one for her "Girl Boss" persona as depicted here (the Bride of Death) and another much tamer profile. My google-fu is failing me and I haven't been able to find a link, but the Bride of Death persona seems extremely strong for the points (she's 125, or 130 with the shield).

JimmyWolf87 wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
I don't really mind it. While wacky lists are amusing at times, it was always kind of odd seeing characters like Aragorn or the Witch King appearing in lists they couldn't possibly have been in and did feel gamey.

I'm all for thematic/canonically accurate lists in principle but, based purely on the examples shown, I'm just a bit concerned that they might have gone a bit too far and focusing on specific scenes strips away some player agency. For example, if say Boromir were only going to be available to Gondor as part of the Reclamation of Osgiliath list (not saying that will be the case, just an example), that seems unnecessarily reductive. Like it would remove the potential for him to be fielded alongside Citadel Guard or Fountain Court Guard; a scenario which doesn't necessarily happen 'on screen' directly but is incredibly plausible, to the extent that it would be weirder if it didn't happen 'off screen' in some capacity.

Da Boss wrote:Nah not for me. Especially the focus on film scenes rather than book scenes. No interest from me, think it's a terrible decision.

The exact lists and the specific focus on books scenes does feel overly restrictive, agreed.

Sure, there certainly have been many armylists from tournament players in the past that were clearly constructed for optimal game effect rather than any thematic purpose. Even if all individual profiles and points costs were perfectly balanced, this is probably unavoidable when allying in a wizard or even just some cavalry is clearly beneficial in basic gameplay and specific scenarios, to allow for things (magic, speed) that your army may otherwise lack. At the same time, there are many scenes from the books not covered in the movies, or depicted very differently. Morever, there are many plausible what-if scenarios one might want to play out in their games. Combine highly specific army lists with restrictive wargear loadouts with the recent removal of a chunk of the range, and a lot of space for creativity is lost. Some things will be improved I'm sure, but I am not so sure if this has not taken these restrictive designs too far. (Especially when many lists rely strongly on named heroes, which to me always feel more restrictive than anything: they avoid Saruman or a Nazgûl showing up in every list, but now force players to take Boromir or Théoden in their respective lists, even though Boromir surely wouldn't have been around for every single fight on every square metre of Osgiliath...)

Inquisitor Gideon wrote:On another note, Héra.


https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/l1m49wph/middle-earthtm-strategy-battle-game-heratm-the-bride-of-death/

Like the general pose and shield.

With her absence in the main box, I was starting to wonder if she would just be resin rather than plastic, as is now confirmed (unless the 2nd profile mentioned above will be represented by a plastic mini). Which seems surprising given that she very much appears to be the main character based on the trailer?

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:
With her absence in the main box, I was starting to wonder if she would just be resin rather than plastic, as is now confirmed (unless the 2nd profile mentioned above will be represented by a plastic mini). Which seems surprising given that she very much appears to be the main character based on the trailer?

Movie trailers have definitely never given the wrong impression before...

Also, IIRC from the old days of LotR, they tended to be given a limited number of stills and such, not the whole plot, so even if she is the protagonist it may not have come across in the material given to GW.

She also has a second profile apparently. So she may well get a seperate plastic more based off the images already seen.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 Snrub wrote:
Looks like most of LoTR army book has been leaked.

Here's the Contents page (Spoilered because huge!)

Spoiler:

And something that caught my eye, they're bringing back Ent variations! Although I seem to recall there being more then just four.
I don't like the restriction placed on how many of what kind you can take, but eh.. I'll take it.

Spoiler:

Oh that's cool. I'll look up later how they compare with the original variants

I can't see dwarven holds in there, does that mean there is no dwarf army for LotR? The list of removed models only included characters like Balin, not the normal troops so I figured we'd still see those. But from this it looks like they just can't be used at all?

Is it only in the Hobbit lists that we'll see any dwarf armies?

The kingdom of Khazad dum is still listed under LotR on the GW website....

 Hellebore wrote:


I can't see dwarven holds in there, does that mean there is no dwarf army for LotR? The list of removed models only included characters like Balin, not the normal troops so I figured we'd still see those. But from this it looks like they just can't be used at all?

Is it only in the Hobbit lists that we'll see any dwarf armies?

I suspect they would limit the duplication across both books, so can see the dwarven armies concentrated in the Hobbit book. Noting outside the seven lords and Gimli and compatriots at the council, they aren't actually in LotR (movies) and only barely referenced in the books.

 Dawnbringer wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:


I can't see dwarven holds in there, does that mean there is no dwarf army for LotR? The list of removed models only included characters like Balin, not the normal troops so I figured we'd still see those. But from this it looks like they just can't be used at all?

Is it only in the Hobbit lists that we'll see any dwarf armies?

I suspect they would limit the duplication across both books, so can see the dwarven armies concentrated in the Hobbit book. Noting outside the seven lords and Gimli and compatriots at the council, they aren't actually in LotR (movies) and only barely referenced in the books.

Did we see armies of Khazad dum in the hobbit? I suppose technically we saw their corpses in LotR, but they're not really a force that appears in either trilogy so I was expecting they'd disappear entirely. But then the hobbit has the son of Beorn? and seemingly post hobbit models that didn't appear in the film.

It's all very confusing, I'm unsure what they consider 'core' when they still include stuff that wasn't in the films...

Khazad Dum is probably going to be in the 3rd Book, Armies of Middle-earth. If i've understood the WarCom article correctly, then because they were "present" at the time of the War of the Ring, but not directly linked to any of the on-screen events, then that means they get shunted to the non-movie based book.

Ah I must have missed that bit of news. I thought they were shrinking everything down to just what happened in the movies.

my understanding was they had two separate licences for the book content and movie content so they could make a range of stuff that didn't appear on screen. But Their licencing seems to have changed acronym, so no idea what they're allowed to make now.

They're removing glorfindel despite him existing in the books. I figured because he clashed with Arwen's appearance in the movie, but he could have still hung around as Elrond's best bro.

Glorfindel is basically the Ace Rimmer of Middle Earth. he was too awesome for this edition anyway.

JimmyWolf87 wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
I don't really mind it. While wacky lists are amusing at times, it was always kind of odd seeing characters like Aragorn or the Witch King appearing in lists they couldn't possibly have been in and did feel gamey.

I'm all for thematic/canonically accurate lists in principle but, based purely on the examples shown, I'm just a bit concerned that they might have gone a bit too far and focusing on specific scenes strips away some player agency. For example, if say Boromir were only going to be available to Gondor as part of the Reclamation of Osgiliath list (not saying that will be the case, just an example), that seems unnecessarily reductive. Like it would remove the potential for him to be fielded alongside Citadel Guard or Fountain Court Guard; a scenario which doesn't necessarily happen 'on screen' directly but is incredibly plausible, to the extent that it would be weirder if it didn't happen 'off screen' in some capacity.

The leak has Boromir with the Leader (Citadel Guard) rule, so implies at least one list he can be in with them (it's possible the Leader rule allows access to take those models for Boromir's warband in any list he's in, that's one possible interpretation of the way they worded it in one of the articles).

 Baragash wrote:

JimmyWolf87 wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
I don't really mind it. While wacky lists are amusing at times, it was always kind of odd seeing characters like Aragorn or the Witch King appearing in lists they couldn't possibly have been in and did feel gamey.

I'm all for thematic/canonically accurate lists in principle but, based purely on the examples shown, I'm just a bit concerned that they might have gone a bit too far and focusing on specific scenes strips away some player agency. For example, if say Boromir were only going to be available to Gondor as part of the Reclamation of Osgiliath list (not saying that will be the case, just an example), that seems unnecessarily reductive. Like it would remove the potential for him to be fielded alongside Citadel Guard or Fountain Court Guard; a scenario which doesn't necessarily happen 'on screen' directly but is incredibly plausible, to the extent that it would be weirder if it didn't happen 'off screen' in some capacity.

The leak has Boromir with the Leader (Citadel Guard) rule, so implies at least one list he can be in with them (it's possible the Leader rule allows access to take those models for Boromir's warband in any list he's in, that's one possible interpretation of the way they worded it in one of the articles).

Looks like that's what the rule says

 Hellebore wrote:
Ah I must have missed that bit of news. I thought they were shrinking everything down to just what happened in the movies.

my understanding was they had two separate licences for the book content and movie content so they could make a range of stuff that didn't appear on screen. But Their licencing seems to have changed acronym, so no idea what they're allowed to make now.

They're removing glorfindel despite him existing in the books. I figured because he clashed with Arwen's appearance in the movie, but he could have still hung around as Elrond's best bro.

Glorfindel's not being removed. He's on the store right now and will be in the third book.

They're removing at least version of him:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/vozvvb0g/middle-earthtm-strategy-battle-game-the-upcoming-range-update-explained/


I didn't realise they'd made more than one if they have others for sale

 Hellebore wrote:
They're removing at least version of him:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/vozvvb0g/middle-earthtm-strategy-battle-game-the-upcoming-range-update-explained/


I didn't realise they'd made more than one if they have others for sale

One of their best Middle Earth models IMO:
https://www.warhammer.com/en-GB/shop/middle-earth-glorfindel-lord-of-the-west-2022?queryID=5b4894aed88c7394d55ea9c77cfb1f4c

That's the old metal version they're talking about, not the current resin.

Hera...nice to see you I guess?

By the looks of it this is when Hera challenges Wulf for a showdown. I'm guessing this isn't plastic as Hera doesn't normally go into battle wearing a bride's outfit...

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:

JimmyWolf87 wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
I don't really mind it. While wacky lists are amusing at times, it was always kind of odd seeing characters like Aragorn or the Witch King appearing in lists they couldn't possibly have been in and did feel gamey.

I'm all for thematic/canonically accurate lists in principle but, based purely on the examples shown, I'm just a bit concerned that they might have gone a bit too far and focusing on specific scenes strips away some player agency. For example, if say Boromir were only going to be available to Gondor as part of the Reclamation of Osgiliath list (not saying that will be the case, just an example), that seems unnecessarily reductive. Like it would remove the potential for him to be fielded alongside Citadel Guard or Fountain Court Guard; a scenario which doesn't necessarily happen 'on screen' directly but is incredibly plausible, to the extent that it would be weirder if it didn't happen 'off screen' in some capacity.

Da Boss wrote:Nah not for me. Especially the focus on film scenes rather than book scenes. No interest from me, think it's a terrible decision.

The exact lists and the specific focus on books scenes does feel overly restrictive, agreed.

Sure, there certainly have been many armylists from tournament players in the past that were clearly constructed for optimal game effect rather than any thematic purpose. Even if all individual profiles and points costs were perfectly balanced, this is probably unavoidable when allying in a wizard or even just some cavalry is clearly beneficial in basic gameplay and specific scenarios, to allow for things (magic, speed) that your army may otherwise lack. At the same time, there are many scenes from the books not covered in the movies, or depicted very differently. Morever, there are many plausible what-if scenarios one might want to play out in their games. Combine highly specific army lists with restrictive wargear loadouts with the recent removal of a chunk of the range, and a lot of space for creativity is lost. Some things will be improved I'm sure, but I am not so sure if this has not taken these restrictive designs too far. (Especially when many lists rely strongly on named heroes, which to me always feel more restrictive than anything: they avoid Saruman or a Nazgûl showing up in every list, but now force players to take Boromir or Théoden in their respective lists, even though Boromir surely wouldn't have been around for every single fight on every square metre of Osgiliath...)

Yeah, it's a terrible approach. The only battles you can fight are the ones explicitly featured in the films and/or books? As if there isn't stuff going on before, after and around that (let along 'what if' etc) - heaven forbid people use their imaginations! And the idea that there won't be some broken lists in there which any power gamer types will want to use/misuse is just wishful thinking (unless the thinking is, 'well it doesn't matter if it's OP as long as its "themed"!'). Maybe it's just the community I game with, but I don't think I've ever come across the random splashing in a wizard thing that people talk about.

The biggest frustration really is how utterly arbitrary it is. There are some characters who don't feature in the films that look to still be in the Armies of LOTR book and there also look to be some options which appear in the films that won't be possible due to the new everything is a LL approach (might be wrong but having seen the 'main' Isengard list doesn't include regular orcs, I suspect the only place they'll appear now is Ugluks Scouts - despite us seeing them at Isengard/Orthanc in the films). Plus you end up with "lists" like the Harad one that might as well not exist in the first book. Presuming the future Armies of Middle Earth book will have a more complete list for the Haradrim with Suladan etc, kind of makes this one a waste of paper. Its pretty obvious that this is just a way to sell another big book, in part because the new Armies of books will have a ton of extra pages with the new army lists in which they didn't need to include before.

As a different example, I also have a Rivendell & Khazad Dum allied list - was always slightly annoying it was a yellow alliance (I guess because the version of Durin GW have done is technically Durin VII?), I played him as Durin IV allied with Elrond - the dwarves and elves fighting together is explicitly mentioned in the appendices so it's very much a theme-y list (albeit a particularly niche one) and there clearly won't be any way to ever play that legally in the new ruleset which means no more events for that army.

Was open to the idea of a new edition, but pretty disappointed with how it's looking to have taken on some of modern GWs worse habits. Pile on the increasing restrictions to wargear options and the list building stuff, it really looks unappealing compared to the current rules. Kind of hoping my gaming group will stick with the current ruleset but we'll see, I'm definitely going to wait for the third armies of book to be released before I buy any of the new stuff anyway.

Piousservant wrote:

As a different example, I also have a Rivendell & Khazad Dum allied list - was always slightly annoying it was a yellow alliance (I guess because the version of Durin GW have done is technically Durin VII?), I played him as Durin IV allied with Elrond - the dwarves and elves fighting together is explicitly mentioned in the appendices so it's very much a theme-y list (albeit a particularly niche one) and there clearly won't be any way to ever play that legally in the new ruleset which means no more events for that army.

I feel your pain, both as a Khazad-dum player waiting for the next book and a someone who was planning a book accurate black gate opens list (i.e Easterlings allied with mordor) which now looks to be impossible. I might be able to twist one of these lists into something similar but looks like I'll never get a Mouth of Sauron led mordor + easterlings as planned. Because PJ said so. Ugh.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
That's the old metal version they're talking about, not the current resin.

Must have completely missed the release of the resin one - this is the only glorfindel i'm familiar with.


Does anyone know what warcom article talks about 3 books for release?

There is also the metal armoured glorfindel as well. So he's currently got two armoured iterations.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Pre-orders are up on the Australian site. $370 for the Box set. $90 for both the Rulebook and Hobbit army book, $105 for the LoTR army book.

Taking some liberties with the pricing of the Rohan house (Which has mysteriously vanished off the site ) and the 4 mounted heroes, and assume $83 for the houses (same prices as the lake town house) and $60 each for the heroes (same price as Eomer) then the boxes content comes out at a touch over $660AUD. Which with 20% off at a online retailer comes out as a stonking deal even though the contents of said box are somewhat lackluster.

From what I've seen of the rules and more importantly list building, I can't honestly say I'm overly keen for the new edition. At this point I'll probably just keep playing the current (now old?) edition if my other regular opponents are willing.

Khazad dum doesn't appear in either of those books.

Are we sure there's going to be a third book of army lists?

Yes, gw announced that armies of middle earth would be book #3 to follow sometime after release, containing everything that didnt appear on screen.

Unrelated to the new edition, for anyone who purchased the "Rohan Commanders" from the Made to Order back in May (for which the 180 day time allotment has now expired), there's been a manufacturing delay with them and they're expected Late December/Early January.

So anyone who hasn't got theirs yet, that's the reason.

 Hellebore wrote:
Khazad dum doesn't appear in either of those books.

Are we sure there's going to be a third book of army lists?

If you look at the pre-order for Buhrdûr and the Hill-Trolls, they've got an "Armies of Middle-Earth" logo in the main image, and their product description says they can be used in Buhrdûr's Horde and Army of Carn Dûm forces, so you can be very confident in the upcoming third book containing lists not found in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit

Difficult to tell from the sprue pictures, but looks like the Rohirrim do not have any clearly interchangeable parts, with heads probably only attaching to specific cloaks on account of the hair connection, and while a few melee-weapon arms look similar, others are cut off at different lengths so will require partial assembly and cutting before being interchangeable. At least the shields can be mixed freely, as also highlighted in the product description.

Also of note: although the box will contain more plastic and not just one duplicated sprue (now 2 x 1.5 sprues), the price is at least the same as those of other plastic troops.

Not sure why the Great Eagles were re-released (had noticed they were gone earlier and happy to have them back though; they're excellent); the box displayed still seems to have the same name (not the longer "Great Eagles of the Misty Mountains™" in the product description), and while they apparently can represent an additional profile now ("Fledgeling Great Eagles"), I don't know if that's referenced on the box anywhere and would warrant a rebranding. Box contents seem the same: 2 eagles, flying stands, 60mm bases?

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:
Difficult to tell from the sprue pictures, but looks like the Rohirrim do not have any clearly interchangeable parts, with heads probably only attaching to specific cloaks on account of the hair connection, and while a few melee-weapon arms look similar, others are cut off at different lengths so will require partial assembly and cutting before being interchangeable. At least the shields can be mixed freely, as also highlighted in the product description.

Also of note: although the box will contain more plastic and not just one duplicated sprue (now 2 x 1.5 sprues), the price is at least the same as those of other plastic troops.

Not sure why the Great Eagles were re-released (had noticed they were gone earlier and happy to have them back though; they're excellent); the box displayed still seems to have the same name (not the longer "Great Eagles of the Misty Mountains™" in the product description), and while they apparently can represent an additional profile now ("Fledgeling Great Eagles"), I don't know if that's referenced on the box anywhere and would warrant a rebranding. Box contents seem the same: 2 eagles, flying stands, 60mm bases?

I think the Eagles are just rebranded and painted white because of their appearance in the new movie, but they're the old models.

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:
Difficult to tell from the sprue pictures, but looks like the Rohirrim do not have any clearly interchangeable parts, with heads probably only attaching to specific cloaks on account of the hair connection, and while a few melee-weapon arms look similar, others are cut off at different lengths so will require partial assembly and cutting before being interchangeable. At least the shields can be mixed freely, as also highlighted in the product description.

Also of note: although the box will contain more plastic and not just one duplicated sprue (now 2 x 1.5 sprues), the price is at least the same as those of other plastic troops.

Not sure why the Great Eagles were re-released (had noticed they were gone earlier and happy to have them back though; they're excellent); the box displayed still seems to have the same name (not the longer "Great Eagles of the Misty Mountains™" in the product description), and while they apparently can represent an additional profile now ("Fledgeling Great Eagles"), I don't know if that's referenced on the box anywhere and would warrant a rebranding. Box contents seem the same: 2 eagles, flying stands, 60mm bases?

They just changed the bases they're packaged with from the old transparent flying bases to 60mm.

There we go, Hera in plastic as expected. I thought it would be in that outfit. Damn fine looking model too.


https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/r2tyuwb8/middle-earthtm-strategy-battle-game-heratm-daughter-of-helm-hammerhandtm/

Can't wait to see what she does to make the concept of a female warrior in Rohan unacceptable for centuries to come!

How do the LotR models scale with 40k models? The on foot version would look great in an inquisitorial retinue.

Nice looking model but I'm not a fan of the leather daisy duke riding chaps personally. I'd have preferred this look from one of the posters. I have no idea if this is from a scene that made it into the film though. Admittedly, it's more of an impromptu battle look as opposed to something purposefully practical like the riding attire.

Mr Insomniac wrote:
How do the LotR models scale with 40k models? The on foot version would look great in an inquisitorial retinue.

The newer sculpts will be slightly larger than the original range but they're still likely to be absolutely tiny compared to 40K.

 warboss wrote:
Nice looking model but I'm not a fan of the leather daisy duke riding chaps personally. I'd have preferred this look from one of the posters. I have no idea if this is from a scene that made it into the film though. Admittedly, it's more of an impromptu battle look as opposed to something purposefully practical like the riding attire.

That's the bride of death model on the previous page.

We also have our day 1 errata (no more S4 mirkwood elf warriors!) and the Angmar/Arnor profiles and army lists PDF.

Notable change is how little changed! Except Glorfindel, he is now a beast as he should be.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/downloads/middle-earth-strategy-battle-game/

Hope for Helm Hammerhand, on Horse and with full Armour (in Pseudo-Gothic-Germanic Canoply).

That's already been confirmed, in plastic like Hera up there.

Mr Insomniac wrote:
How do the LotR models scale with 40k models? The on foot version would look great in an inquisitorial retinue.

Very small.

Looking forward to the release of the kit, although I'd probably use her in Rangers of Shadowdeep. It would be nice if the other lady in the film gets her own similar plastic kit.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

That's the bride of death model on the previous page.

Thanks as I missed that since I only peripherally (and admittedly lazily in this context/case) follow the thread. It is indeed the outfit but I'm not a fan of the pose though sadly. I fully admit my goldilocksness in that regard though in looking for a Hera that is juuuuust right...

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:
Difficult to tell from the sprue pictures, but looks like the Rohirrim do not have any clearly interchangeable parts, with heads probably only attaching to specific cloaks on account of the hair connection, and while a few melee-weapon arms look similar, others are cut off at different lengths so will require partial assembly and cutting before being interchangeable. At least the shields can be mixed freely, as also highlighted in the product description.

Just started building mine and correct, they aren't interchangeable and are very much in the vein of a lot of modern GW plastics in terms of how the parts all connect. A lot of the spear hands being separate does at least mean swapping those around (or with the hand weapons) wouldn't take much work at all. If nothing else, it's at least not a downgrade from the options available in the previous versions.

What has surprised me is the scale; I was expecting them to be bigger than the 2002 models but they're pretty much the same. If anything, the new ones have slightly smaller heads/hands due to them being able to produce better detail in plastic these days and there's otherwise no discernible difference, in terms of scale at least. Also pleasantly surprised at how well those old Warriors of Rohan are holding up these days. The new ones are very nice though; definitely an upgrade though I wouldn't hesitate to mix them in with the old.

Hopefully there's a refresh of a few more of the core troop plastics on the horizon. Last Alliance and Minas Tirith are probably the most in need. Moria Goblins and Isengard Uruks wouldn't hurt.

If the plastics are same same size as the old ones then that is a disappointment and pretty much a no go for me. Not that I'm asking them to become AOS sized, but they were smaller than the metals of the same era. Most historics these days are the same size as the LotR metals (probably as a result of the Perry's involvement in both) so if they haven't brought the plastics into the same scale as the metals I'll be sticking with those.

 Dawnbringer wrote:
If the plastics are same same size as the old ones then that is a disappointment and pretty much a no go for me. Not that I'm asking them to become AOS sized, but they were smaller than the metals of the same era. Most historics these days are the same size as the LotR metals (probably as a result of the Perry's involvement in both) so if they haven't brought the plastics into the same scale as the metals I'll be sticking with those.

Really? I've got a huge amount of that original range and they're pretty consistent between plastics/metals. Some of the post-original trilogy sculpts definitely got a bit loose (though there was a tangible dip in quality/effort in general) and the less said about the scale consistency of the finecast models, the better but I don't see much evidence for the original metals being noticeably bigger.

There really isn't much difference at all between plastics and metals. There were definitely some outliers like Erkenbrand who is huge, but scale is mostly pretty consistent. It's probably the first time i've seen anyone complain about the scale not increasing.

For those saying the range was consistent...

https://www.reddit.com/r/MiddleEarthMiniatures/comments/1ey157d/size_difference/

https://www.one-ring.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=34594

I mean at the end of the day it's all down to what you can personally tolerate. But I always found the original plastics (as in from the 2000-2003 era) were much closer to 25mm, while those done in metal, or the later plastics were 28mm. The original metal Faramir's gers Ranger in comparison to plastic WoMT was particularly noticeable, but sadly my collection is still in storage to I can't provide handy photos at this time.

I always found the metals a little more bulky than the plastics, but overall the range was pretty consistent in my eyes. The Hobbit upped the scale, with Thorin and Dwalin being as big as some of the older humans.

 Dawnbringer wrote:
For those saying the range was consistent...

https://www.reddit.com/r/MiddleEarthMiniatures/comments/1ey157d/size_difference/

https://www.one-ring.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=34594

I mean at the end of the day it's all down to what you can personally tolerate. But I always found the original plastics (as in from the 2000-2003 era) were much closer to 25mm, while those done in metal, or the later plastics were 28mm. The original metal Faramir's gers Ranger in comparison to plastic WoMT was particularly noticeable, but sadly my collection is still in storage to I can't provide handy photos at this time.

That's fair, though I did say that the post-trilogy releases were when it started to be a noticeable issue (and the Citadel Guard came out later with the Siege of Gondor expansion book). The rangers, I'll grant you, were probably a bit chunky though I wouldn't have said (from memory) that they were different enough to be a problem (likewise, mine are in a box somewhere so I'd have to shift things to compare).

I think this was the worst launch of a new Lotr edition I have ever seen.

No visibility on the (horrible) GW site when preorder was available (you had to find it in that)

Very few actual new item available al launch

Box lacking essential tokens

Day one faq, lot of mistakes in books - and im faqs too!

As far I can see new ruleset is not bad (nevertheless need true faqs as soon as possible) but building an army is a nightmare now (rules are so restrictive) and every army has so many special rules that it is a pain to remember all of them (typical GW bloating rules problems).

You must be in the minority then, as it's probably the most popular it's been in a long, long time. I haven't seen the starter box sell out for the game since the original launch I think.

List building is fine, it's no more difficult than it was before and I'm looking forward towards the third book for all the off kilter lists. As for typos, expect that from GW.

Loads of lists don't exist in the game for popular factions so how is list building fine?

That's why I mentioned the third book. Which we're all waiting for with baited breath.

Johanxp wrote:
I think this was the worst launch of a new Lotr edition I have ever seen.

No visibility on the (horrible) GW site when preorder was available (you had to find it in that)

Very few actual new item available al launch

Box lacking essential tokens

Day one faq, lot of mistakes in books - and im faqs too!

As far I can see new ruleset is not bad (nevertheless need true faqs as soon as possible) but building an army is a nightmare now (rules are so restrictive) and every army has so many special rules that it is a pain to remember all of them (typical GW bloating rules problems).

I'd add to that list something that's bugging me more than anything else: no translations (yet?).

The most recent starter prior to this one, battle for osgiliath, sold out on release fully. I foolishly opted not to buy it at the time and had to wait months to get my hands on it because even third party retailers sold out.

Battle for Edoras on the other hand is hardly sold out anywhere, its still available on the us gw site, as well as in decent quamtities at most major us and uk online retailers.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

I'd add to that list something that's bugging me more than anything else: no translations (yet?).

most likely never as also translations for other specialist games are gone

And as new rules are a side grade and no upgrade, no real reason to switch from last years book

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
You must be in the minority then, as it's probably the most popular it's been in a long, long time.

but this already happened with the new Edition last year, popularity carried over more than it was started with that edition

 kodos wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

I'd add to that list something that's bugging me more than anything else: no translations (yet?).

most likely never as also translations for other specialist games are gone

And as new rules are a side grade and no upgrade, no real reason to switch from last years book

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
You must be in the minority then, as it's probably the most popular it's been in a long, long time.

but this already happened with the new Edition last year, popularity carried over more than it was started with that edition

Due to the popularity of the game in Germany they started to translate some of the campaign books, but already stopped before the last one IIRC. So... we'll see. If there's no german version I'll stick to the old one, it's as easy as that.

They translated all rules until the last edition rulebook a year ago and it was always available on release with everything else

This edition has no translation at all and as all books are obsolete not having a translation on release indicates that there won't be one

Could try emailing the FAQ address to ask about it.

So is there any news when the Armies of Middle Earth book is coming out? The current two books seem kind of incomplete with a large portion of the range missing.

I'd guess very soon, unless the War of the Rohirrim characters are already in the LOTR or Hobbit books?

I believe all the currently available War of the Rohirrrim content is covered by the Armies of the Lord of the Rings book.

Hera and the snowtroll and the hero's split already from the Edoras box. As well as a metric tonnage of returning kits:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/505blk2u/sunday-preview-the-death-korps-march-for-krieg/

I hope the command sets come back in metal.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Hera and the snowtroll and the hero's split already from the Edoras box. As well as a metric tonnage of returning kits:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/505blk2u/sunday-preview-the-death-korps-march-for-krieg/

Some oddities with those 'returning to the range' sets given some of them never actually left (and are actually available to purchase right now).

Guessing those command sets are still going to be (sigh) finecast in some cases.

JimmyWolf87 wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Hera and the snowtroll and the hero's split already from the Edoras box. As well as a metric tonnage of returning kits:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/505blk2u/sunday-preview-the-death-korps-march-for-krieg/

Some oddities with those 'returning to the range' sets given some of them never actually left (and are actually available to purchase right now).

Guessing those command sets are still going to be (sigh) finecast in some cases.

I think some of these command sets were never metal, so they'll stay Failcast (the Rohan and Gondor one? I don't collect these factions so I wouldn't know). Also anything from the Hobbit won't transition to superior metal.
I think with some "re-releases" they just reduced them, i.e. threw models out that are "legends" now, like that Knight of the White tower or whatever he was called.

All the command sets were metal. The only guaranteed finecast are Thranduil, the trolls, Gundabad warband, Bard and The Watcher. I'm most interested in if all the war machines come back in metal.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

JimmyWolf87 wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Hera and the snowtroll and the hero's split already from the Edoras box. As well as a metric tonnage of returning kits:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/505blk2u/sunday-preview-the-death-korps-march-for-krieg/

Some oddities with those 'returning to the range' sets given some of them never actually left (and are actually available to purchase right now).

Guessing those command sets are still going to be (sigh) finecast in some cases.

I think some of these command sets were never metal, so they'll stay Failcast (the Rohan and Gondor one? I don't collect these factions so I wouldn't know). Also anything from the Hobbit won't transition to superior metal.
I think with some "re-releases" they just reduced them, i.e. threw models out that are "legends" now, like that Knight of the White tower or whatever he was called.

Yes some of them have had their 4th model removed. Bit of a shame; Knight of the White Tower was a lovely sculpt. Awful material but a lovely sculpt.

JimmyWolf87 wrote:

Yes some of them have had their 4th model removed. Bit of a shame; Knight of the White Tower was a lovely sculpt. Awful material but a lovely sculpt.

I think the 4th model was removed because they had only ever been in Finecast, while the others had once been in metal.

 Dawnbringer wrote:

JimmyWolf87 wrote:

Yes some of them have had their 4th model removed. Bit of a shame; Knight of the White Tower was a lovely sculpt. Awful material but a lovely sculpt.

I think the 4th model was removed because they had only ever been in Finecast, while the others had once been in metal.

I think it's more that a lot of them were GW 'creations' (to a degree) and didn't appear on screen (shamans, Knight of the White Tower etc.) so weren't going to be in the new edition, though that does also correlate with the FC/Metal incarnations in a fair few cases.

Well bugger, the war machines are still in resin. That's a shame, I wanted the trebuchets counter weight as a solid hunk of metal as it should have been.

I must say that the characters for Rohirrim have grown on me, and impressed with the prices for the Rohan Princes and Tribe Leaders.

They are shockingly good actually. Especially third party discounts make them a no brainer.

$30 USD for the bride of death figure and direct only? Wow... that beats even Golum with his fish basket from back in the day even adjusted for the massive inflation since.

On the flipside, cheaper than the new plastic Hobgoblin character, or any of the BB star players that went up recently.

Expensive for a single MESBG character? Compared to older product, yes - but she's also the same price as Helm Hammerhand, or the two evil Lords from this release, so her price point probably shouldn't be a shock.

The plastic kit for her, with the mounted version, should be an interesting one from a price point, though, given the price of the two two packs compared to the price of plastic Eomer. £23 for Eomer, compared to £31.50 for the Haleth/Hama pack.

 warboss wrote:
$30 USD for the bride of death figure and direct only? Wow... that beats even Golum with his fish basket from back in the day even adjusted for the massive inflation since.

To be fair, she's made out of FW resin and not finecast like Gollum was. So that alone is worth it.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 warboss wrote:
$30 USD for the bride of death figure and direct only? Wow... that beats even Golum with his fish basket from back in the day even adjusted for the massive inflation since.

To be fair, she's made out of FW resin and not finecast like Gollum was. So that alone is worth it.

Just because they served us all stale maggotty ham and cheese sandwiches in the past doesn't mean that an overpriced and undercooked burger now is actually worth it, lol. That's a lot for one single 32mm actual size likely resin fig with one single modelling option. YMMV.

Woof. I really wanted pyjamas Haldir, but that's far too expensive for him (why there needed to be 3 I'll never understand).
I even found someone to split the pack with and we both agreed it was too much!

Before the new edition release GW had an article saying the "legends" stuff would get a PDF rules release. Did this ever happen?

If not, I'll assume, and hope, it's coming with the next book release. I don't know why they needed to axe older unit profiles anyway. They had models and rules for this game for 15+ years and now you decide to be rid of them? Why?

Honestly, I found the army books of the new edition to be disappointing. They seem to be missing a lot and are very limited. I hope they. Are up for this with supplements.

zombie_sky_diver wrote:
Before the new edition release GW had an article saying the "legends" stuff would get a PDF rules release. Did this ever happen?

If not, I'll assume, and hope, it's coming with the next book release. I don't know why they needed to axe older unit profiles anyway. They had models and rules for this game for 15+ years and now you decide to be rid of them? Why?

Honestly, I found the army books of the new edition to be disappointing. They seem to be missing a lot and are very limited. I hope they. Are up for this with supplements.

No idea, but I'll assume it will be through a Warcom pdf.

As for why they got the boot - already discussed old bean. It was because a lot of it wasn't in the films, although apparently there is the odd contradiction. Either way, I can no longer hope for a new Dweller in the Dark in plastic...

As for supplements, I'll assume they'll be knocking those out over the next 12 months.

Never underestimate GW's ability to **** things up royally under zero pressure.

There's quite a few terrain pieces that have disappeared from the website; Weathertop and the Fallen head, for example. Just wondering if GW will bring them back...

The Fallen Head was recently in the "last chance to order" list.

I've noticed over the past 2-3 years GW likes to sneakily remove items from the web page without saying anything and bring it back 2-6 months later at a higher price.

If you didn't notice, they just did this with the Rohan terrain and Gundabad Orcs. Both were missing for a few weeks not long ago.

I must say that I wish I had treated myself to a Rohan house while it was discounted on Wayland, but looking through the old Journey book for The Two Towers it would be a nice side project if I get the time.

Can't believe I'm saying this about MESBG, but I'm honestly looking forward to Frealaf, Lief and Olwyn. Hopefully they'll be up next along with Helm himself, in armour and on horseback. And I guess they'll do the giant-elephant chaps as well...

Yeah, I guess they do still owe us several more models from Lord of the Anime, don't they? They've shown us non-bride Hera, but I don't think we've even had a preview of those others yet have we?

I still haven't seen the movie. I just hope they didn't take a big wet stinking poop all over the established lore the way Amazon did with Rings of Power. No spoilers please, I'll probably buy a copy when it comes out on disc.

My favourite part was when Gollum appeared riding a beast of gorgoroth.

I'm glad they kept up with the trend of the Eagles coming in the end to save the day.

Easily my favourite part was when Hera held aloft her magic sword, Herugrim, and says "FOR THE HONOUR OF ROHAN!!! I - AM - HE-RA!!!!".

.Mikes. wrote:My favourite part was when Gollum appeared riding a beast of gorgoroth.

MajorWesJanson wrote:I'm glad they kept up with the trend of the Eagles coming in the end to save the day.

SamusDrake wrote:Easily my favourite part was when Hera held aloft her magic sword, Herugrim, and says "FOR THE HONOUR OF ROHAN!!! I - AM - HE-RA!!!!".

Oh, you guys!

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Yeah, I guess they do still owe us several more models from Lord of the Anime, don't they? They've shown us non-bride Hera, but I don't think we've even had a preview of those others yet have we?

I still haven't seen the movie. I just hope they didn't take a big wet stinking poop all over the established lore the way Amazon did with Rings of Power. No spoilers please, I'll probably buy a copy when it comes out on disc.

Hera is a weird choice for the main character and changes a key element but it's not bad aside from that. The film trilogy did put Arwen into a leading role over one of the mightiest elf heroes ever to exist so eh.

Just a thought - what day of the week do they usually announce Middle Earth stuff, if there is something to announce?

The last few MESBG articles on Warhammer Community are posted on a Friday.

Cheers.

Random thought for the day: If vanilla-Hera isn't "Coming Soon..." today, I will lose my rag!

SamusDrake wrote:
Cheers.

Random thought for the day: If vanilla-Hera isn't "Coming Soon..." today, I will lose my rag!

They really do seem to be slow-rolling out the releases on the film characters.

SamusDrake wrote:
Cheers.

Random thought for the day: If vanilla-Hera isn't "Coming Soon..." today, I will lose my rag!

I wouldn't get your hopes up too far. We haven't even seen fully armoured Helm yet.

Seren Nishiyama wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:
Cheers.

Random thought for the day: If vanilla-Hera isn't "Coming Soon..." today, I will lose my rag!

They really do seem to be slow-rolling out the releases on the film characters.

GW wants to wait until the iron is properly cold before striking.

I took a day or two off to blow off steam...

I'm guessing she'll be joined by other cast members for the first supplement focusing on the new film. Lief, Olwyn and Frealaf are at least confirmed in the Armies book, so they shouldn't be too far behind.

I have played around with the idea of getting Hera's two brothers, in the meantime, and running them - along with Hera - as something like the Cartright brothers from Bonanaza, in Rangers of Shadowdeep. Then get Helm to take the place of the father, Adam. The fact that they all ride horses is the icing on that cake!

 Shakalooloo wrote:

GW wants to wait until the iron is properly cold before striking.

The associated animation flopped both commercially and critically. There was never any iron to being with.

When the Hobbit stuff didn't do especially well they just sort of stopped doing "full" releases for it. Like the plastic kits kinda dried up and we never really got much for the last film despite it being essentially one gigantic battle.

Given the film was a flop (a bit of a shame) maybe they're just taking it cautiously to avoid any losses.

Don't think so. The new ed seems to have been a big success judging by the starter selling through and the resins being in a constant out of stock period. Being tied to the movie seems to be an irrelevance for the most part.

Still nothing new this week for MESBG? Wow.

Sadly not.

Looking in the reviews of the Armies of LOTR, we can definitely expect other characters such as Fealaf, Lief and Olwyn soon. Also, we should be looking forward to new Rohirrim horseys and the armoured version of Helm on horse back.

Noticed they're no longer doing the Rohan Battlehost, and I assume they'll be giving the same update treatment to the other three battlehosts - probably those boxes were to sell though the old sprues. They'll probably spend the next three years doing that, and given that the film features Helmsdeep, its seems only right that they'd have new Uruk-Hai models to give the new Rohan Warriors some grief.

New Uruk-Hai Scouts & Lurtz would be bloody awesome. I mean it - I would be there. That and and a new Fellowship kit would be sweet.

They did new rohan and dunland because of WotR, I would not expect resculpts for other factions until they actually show us something to indicate it

chaos0xomega wrote:
They did new rohan and dunland because of WotR, I would not expect resculpts for other factions until they actually show us something to indicate it

Agreed. That they've never redone the Last Alliance elves and Numenorians would indicate that if they don't have to they don’t care.

SamusDrake wrote:


Noticed they're no longer doing the Rohan Battlehost, and I assume they'll be giving the same update treatment to the other three battlehosts - probably those boxes were to sell though the old sprues.

GW doesn’t make boxes like Battlehosts to “sell through old sprues”. The sprues sold in those boxes are manufactured and packed specially. The idea is especially impractical in cases like this, because it would rely on having overstocks of a large number of different original codes, roughly in proportion to each other, and having enough of them to keep the resulting Battlehosts in stock as part of the range long term. Short version: this just isn’t how it works.

The Rohan Battlehost has been withdrawn because one of the components in it (the Warriors of Rohan sprue) is no longer part of the range. It doesn’t really indicate anything more than that about what might be coming in future.

Greenfield wrote:


GW doesn’t make boxes like Battlehosts to “sell through old sprues”. The sprues sold in those boxes are manufactured and packed specially. The idea is especially impractical in cases like this, because it would rely on having overstocks of a large number of different original codes, roughly in proportion to each other, and having enough of them to keep the resulting Battlehosts in stock as part of the range long term. Short version: this just isn’t how it works.

The Rohan Battlehost has been withdrawn because one of the components in it (the Warriors of Rohan sprue) is no longer part of the range. It doesn’t really indicate anything more than that about what might be coming in future.

Oh, I've been misinformed then. Thank you for the clarification.

Designer's commentary up.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/lhh0ygi2/fight-better-battles-in-middle-earth-with-the-first-designers-commentary-of-2025/

And certainly wasn't expecting a new plastic Bolg

Very unexpected, but a welcome surprise

Very much out of the blue, but a pleasant surprise certainly. Decent sculpt and reduction of finecast in the range is pretty much always a good thing.

Bit surprised they're updating Bolg of all characters, and so I'll positively suggest that a "Quest of The Hobbit" book might be a thing in the near future. Hobbit Battlehosts would be interesting...

It's not a horrible model although the warg is in a very odd pose. I'm just confused as to why anyone considered Bolg a priority.
It's especially odd that he would be released before Azog, unless there's a whole wave of Hobbit miniatures in the works.

I doubt Bolg will jump the queue ahead of Azog, but they just had to mention him due to his awkward base size which will be corrected. The current resin for Azog is using a circular base which won't need changing.

They'll probably do both characters and maybe in a double pack like they have the Rohan princes, or Wulf & Targg.

Mozzamanx wrote:
It's not a horrible model although the warg is in a very odd pose. I'm just confused as to why anyone considered Bolg a priority.
It's especially odd that he would be released before Azog, unless there's a whole wave of Hobbit miniatures in the works.

I like the pose, the warg in a landing pose is fun. And he's a primary antagonist, it's not surprising he would be at a forefront for resculpts. And anything that cuts down the finecast for plastic is welcome.

Looks like GW are releasing narrative scenarios each month - starting with ones to tie in to Fellowship of the Ring.

I'm not a MESBG player, so I have a question - were this sort of content part of the previous edition's books, or is this being brought back from the original releases?

Probably lifted from the Quest of the Ringbearer book from the last edition, with the odd minor change. All three scenarios were in the original Fellowship rule book from the early 00s.

 Dysartes wrote:
Looks like GW are releasing narrative scenarios each month - starting with ones to tie in to Fellowship of the Ring.

The cynic in me thinks GW only giving 6 scenarios in the rulebook was part of a long term plan to drip us re-printed scenarios from older books as crumbs as they go back to barely supporting the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The cynic in me is usually right.

He's really smug about it.

Its probably because they have other things to release before they can get around to new updated "journey" books for LOTR and Hobbit.

We're still waiting for the rest of the War of the Rohirrim cast to be released too. They've shown us the plastic non-Bride Hera but not released her yet, and we haven't even seen the models for Frealaf, Olwyn, and Lief yet, or the non-Wrath Helm for that matter. I am starting to wonder if it's being delayed because the movie was a box office disaster.

Becasue if they wait longer the film will become a success?

 .Mikes. wrote:
Becasue if they wait longer the film will become a success?

Ouch. Too soon, bub! On a peripherally related note to that, I saw an ad saying that its coming to Max streaming (at least in the US) on Feb 28th.

Home video release is 3rd of March, which happens to fall on a Monday.

I don't suppose anyone's heard anthing about the 3rd army book?

Which third Army Book?

We have one for The Hobbit, and one for LotR.

There's the Armies of Middle-earth to follow

Vorian wrote:
There's the Armies of Middle-earth to follow

Yeah this one. Otherwise known as "The One Everyone Really Cares About".

Is that going to be stuff that wasn't in the films but in the books?

 ZergSmasher wrote:
We're still waiting for the rest of the War of the Rohirrim cast to be released too. They've shown us the plastic non-Bride Hera but not released her yet, and we haven't even seen the models for Frealaf, Olwyn, and Lief yet, or the non-Wrath Helm for that matter. I am starting to wonder if it's being delayed because the movie was a box office disaster.

I don't think they could care less about the movie as long as the models and books sell.

SamusDrake wrote:
Is that going to be stuff that wasn't in the films but in the books?

It's supposed to be the lists and models in the last edition that's not in the current two army books.

 .Mikes. wrote:


It's supposed to be the lists and models in the last edition that's not in the current two army books.

Oh, a Legends book? Characters like the Dweller In The Dark?

No, legends are gone. The third is for anything not specifically featured in the films. So Gondor/Rohan secondary characters, Angmar, the rest of Harad etc

Oh, so I had it right first time then; stuff not in the films but still in the books. Gotcha.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, so I had it right first time then; stuff not in the films but still in the books. Gotcha.