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In May the armies of Middle-earth march to war, the mightiest heroes of the War of the Ring at their head. These fighting formations are known as battlehosts, powerful units comprising groups of legendary warriors and mighty heroes that are far greater than the sum of their parts. War of the Ring: Battlehosts is an 80-page supplement, detailing all that you need to know to include battlehosts in your own army. There are battlehosts included for every army, from the Riders of the Westfold to Dalamyr's Corsairs, so no matter what faction you collect, there's a battlehost for you. The book is also packed with new Fortunes & Fates and loads of great hobby advice for modelling and painting your own distinctive battlehosts.

As well as the supplement, Battlehosts will be accompanied by a fantastic range of Citadel miniatures. All will be revealed in May's issue of White Dwarf magazine, and here on the Games Workshop website, so keep an eye out for more information.

linky

That loud noise you didn't hear coming from the vicinity of the English south coast was a resounding "meh" from this forum member (sorry reds8n, but more 8th Ed Fantasy info please ).

WOOHOO! Just getting into this with some Stunties, so I'm pretty chuffed for one.

Very good game, I suggest you give it a bash.

this is just a book and some new models, right? not something that would be truely helpful like battalion boxes?

Who can tell? I'd imagine some kind of Battalion will be made available for this, as it sounds like larger choices made up of various formations to me?

Have there ever been any Batallion deals from GW on LOTR minis in the past?

So their going to repackage the old ones, and now claim they are a new boxset

I would be much more excited about a few FAQ's on the game, vs more units and formations. The game scales fine right now up to many thousand points. What I need are some basic questions answered.

Mr. Mikhaila : do you think the lack of battalion/army deals has/does hurt the sales of the WOTR game at all ?

Speaking to a few GW staff guys in various stores they pretty much all say it's a harder sell, despite the mechanics/game engine being fundmentally sound, as when it comes to closing the sale there's nothing comparable to the BFSP/AONR type box sets.

reds8n wrote:Speaking to a few GW staff guys in various stores they pretty much all say it's a harder sell, despite the mechanics/game engine being fundmentally sound, as when it comes to closing the sale there's nothing comparable to the BFSP/AOBR type box sets.

Isn't Mines of Moria still about? Or do you mean that this set is not as good compared to Skull Pass and Black Reach?

well this might explain the whole 'theres going to be 2 books in may' since they almost never make lord of the rings a 'stand-alone' release.

@Flashman: lord of the rings box sets are:

A)still tailored to the stategy game (so it still takes longer to build up a 'good' sized army in most peoples minds)

B)aren't customizable

C) come in at 24 models (most of the time) which are split between 3 different troops (most of the time) which makes it difficult if you only NEED one troop type (because you'll likely be getting 8 of those per buy with 14 troops which you can really do much with)

Eww. LotR.

reds8n wrote:Mr. Mikhaila : do you think the lack of battalion/army deals has/does hurt the sales of the WOTR game at all ?

Speaking to a few GW staff guys in various stores they pretty much all say it's a harder sell, despite the mechanics/game engine being fundmentally sound, as when it comes to closing the sale there's nothing comparable to the BFSP/AONR type box sets.

Interesting point. Sigh, I look at LotR and all i can say is, this could have been my plastic Tallarn.

I liked the books. the game was fun but lost its edge once they added some of the more obscure unit references.

Commander Endova wrote:Eww. LotR.

Come on. It's really one of the best games GW made, right after Epic and BB, in terms of rules.

I really want to start WoTR, but it suffers from the fact that no one else plays.

A shame, because I hear it's a great system.

Also, the SBG used to have Battalions.

really i think WotR suffers from the fact that they treat it as if it's just a super-massive expansion to the SBG but claim it isnt, it really deserves its own starter set that would get more people interested into it, there also seems to be a lack of support, has anyone noticed how the requirement for ANY gw employee is to have an understanding and knowledge of the universes of warhammer fantasy and warhammer 40,000.

Planning on doing an Elf army using Mantic figures so I can get the types I want cheaper...
Mick

What were Battalions in Lotr SBR?

I blogged that it sounded like apocalypse formations or whatever you wanna call them for 40k.

mikhaila wrote:I would be much more excited about a few FAQ's on the game, vs more units and formations. The game scales fine right now up to many thousand points. What I need are some basic questions answered.

Agreed. I ditched this game and a decent sized Gondor army in frustration. It had enough cool points to be a potentially good game but big enough holes that you had to rely on Nottingham style sportsmanship (i.e., rely on the other fella to be sporting). And even that wasn't enough. Heroes without ability to use their hero type abilities apparently. Teleporting through chains of terrain (string a forest across a couple of feet of linear table space and watch somebody 'port from one end to another since it's one big piece of defensible terrain).

Lots of potential but not enough answers (which should have been addressed in the rules directly) to be worth the headache IMO.

Commander Endova wrote:Eww. LotR.

OMG I love this game, seriously? An eww with double w's? Boo I say! If only fantasy played like this, I'd totally jump into that system.

Regardless, Columbus Ohio is not a hotspot of LoTR activity, I think maybe 4 people have any of the minis. Very sad.

If I wasn't totally drunk I'd cry.

Dont worry mate, I know how you feel. I collected the SBG for a bit, and wanted to get into WOTR, but sadly it's just not popular enough here and no one really plays it. WOTR seems like a solid system too, and I could definately get behind it...

mikhaila wrote:I would be much more excited about a few FAQ's on the game, vs more units and formations. The game scales fine right now up to many thousand points. What I need are some basic questions answered.

Good to see I am not the only one who feels this way.

Frankly, without a FAQ (a fairly CONSIDERABLE FAQ) this new supplement is not going to succeed. I flat out refuse to but any new rules until this is resolved.

*grumbles about leading a horse from behind...*


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I want to point out that I am not one of the many detractors who refuse to play WotR due to lack of a FAQ, because it is a platable and enjoyable game without it, IMO.

BUT, I am tired of defending this game/attempting to garner more players when all GW has to is dedicate some time to the major nasty points of contention that nearly everyone has regarding the rules.

Its rather laughable that GW hold WotR 'Ard Boyz tournaments without such fundamental questions answered.

Agreed. An FAQ is badly needed. I'll believe they take the game seriously once there is one.
It's a great game though, I wish Fantasy was more like this.

I have no interest in the SBG, but am thinking about starting up a Mirkwood force for WOTR, and I'm wondering what are the major issues that need FAQing that a newbie player is likely to run into? Is at as bad as the Dethrolla Ram issue in 40K?

Ditto here. Just starting out in this one.

chaplaingrabthar wrote:...I'm wondering what are the major issues that need FAQing that a newbie player is likely to run into? Is at as bad as the Dethrolla Ram issue in 40K?

Sort of...ish.

Many people have various bones of contention, like how epic heroes are costed, or how some spels work. Personally, I find most of those concerns to be made of dross emanating from unreasonable players seeking to bring the image of the game down, even if I beleive that their criticisms are reasonable concerns. Which is to say, if two reasonable players get together and come to an accord on how they wish to play certain rules, then the issue is cleared up.

BUT, there are a couple glaring things that actually do matter, whose rulings could logically and reasonably be ruled either way.

My main beef right now is the question of formation spinning on the spot to change facing. To explain, this game isnt WHFB, and many people come into this game with preconceived notions that it is similar. It isnt. The similarity ends with using miniatures on a formation base. That said, movement is greatly simplified in comparison to WHFB and it is rather ambiguous in the rules as to whether a formation may spin on the spot and how much movement is used to do so, if any.

Another being the epic ability of epic strike being used in heroic duels as well as in the combat phase. Or in the same turn for both for that matter.

Those are the two big ones that come readily to mind, though there are a few others that each player has depending on preconceived notions on what the game SHOULD be.

Then there is issues with timing of abilities. (see files attachment below written last year by Dakkaite "Dvdhawk" that I altered for use in our own league) Regarding exactly when certain heroic and epic abilities can be played. This is less of an issue of bad writing and more of an issue of lack of clarity.

The rules for WotR are second to none in the current library of GW large scale wargames, but when you get experienced enough to play games of WotR with a basic understanding of the rules, such ambiguities start to quickly surface. It obvious that a fair amount of time went into making the game, but the actual writing of the rules seems a bit haphazard and rushed in a few places. But this is true for all GW games, as we all know.

Again, its nothing two reasonable players cant work around, but there is only so much reasonable people can take before they refuse to buy more products without first having very fundamental concerns addressed, answered, or even acknowledged.

This is the reason why I think promoting a supplement before addressing prior concerns smacks of money grabbing in the most literal sense. If they cannot address the fundamental concerns, how can we as consumers expect to beleive that this supplement wont be based on the same ambiguous situations? To me the supplement sans the FAQ will likely only further confuse the matter. Giving the vociferous detractors more leverage for their WotR haterade.

One thing that I'm still unclear on is whether Boromir is supposed to be able to deck a troll or balrog in one hit. Has that been resolved? (Sorry to derail the thread slightly.)

I'm not exactly excited by the addition of a bunch of legendary formations anyway. I mean, it's nice, but I'd prefer if they'd fill in the gaps in the model range and tighten up the core rules a bit.

@Hellfury
One thing I have noticed as I have been exposed to more historical games (Shako, Empire, Field of Glory), is that outside of GW and PP games, the players usually sit down and work out the parts they don't like, either mid-game, or in discussion after-ward.
Only within the fairly competitive realm of GW and PP games have I seen the expectation that the game company will issue a FAQ.

It is my impression that the historical guys create their own patches, as they see fit, and they are satisfied with them.
But because of GW's size, expectations seem to rise.

Granted this is observations among 2-3 game groups that are within hours of each other, but widely varied players.

skrulnik wrote:@Hellfury
One thing I have noticed as I have been exposed to more historical games (Shako, Empire, Field of Glory), is that outside of GW and PP games, the players usually sit down and work out the parts they don't like, either mid-game, or in discussion after-ward.
Only within the fairly competitive realm of GW and PP games have I seen the expectation that the game company will issue a FAQ.

It is my impression that the historical guys create their own patches, as they see fit, and they are satisfied with them.
But because of GW's size, expectations seem to rise.

Granted this is observations among 2-3 game groups that are within hours of each other, but widely varied players.

I agree with your observations.

There is definitely a sense of entitlement that comes with GW games. Mostly we expect so much because we pay so much to play.

Historical wargamers, on average, don't pay a whole lot to play (thank you Old Glory), even thought they have just as much if not more time invested in their armies. Add to that many historical gamers are older and through experience more reasonable, its easy to come to the conclusion that GW games breed a type of self entitlement.

Honestly though, I think GW gamers are always crying for a FAQ because their rules stink so badly in general.