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Made in de
Battlefield Tourist






Nuremberg

LOTR SBG is my favourite GW game, and even a bad edition of SBG is better than the best edition of 40K in my view.

But I have to admit I think the game basically peaked in the 2000s and hasn't been improved much since! I think the Big Blue Book is the best version of the game, and the later changes in the Hobbit version were a mistake (now partially being walked back) and the armies they made for it were also a mistake.

MESBG seems to have tried to fix that mistake and has been successful - it's certainly not a BAD ruleset by any means. But there's a lot I don't like about it - proliferation of special rules for many units, a focus on overly specific Legendary Legions for list building, and the glut of heroic action types.

I genuinely think the game was better when there were fewer special rules and units were primarily differentiated by profile alone. I also think it was better when there were only 3 types of Heroic Actions, so Heroes were a bit more limited. That meant you didn't have to buff monsters with power attacks to try to let them keep up (something that doesn't seem to have worked anyway - Heroes are still winning the arms race!)

The newest edition seems to be doubling down on the restrictive list building, with a really ridiculous concept of limiting lists to specific scenes from the films or the books. I really wonder if that's a requirement from the rights holders or what, because for a wargame it's absolutely bonkers. I really dislike these "army bonuses" that get given out.

The problem seems to have been that certain units like the Eagle hero and Boromir were being taken in too many lists for tournaments. But like, do we need to break list building for the entire game to solve that? Surely just changing the allies matrix would have worked? Or even just banning allying those specific models outside of their faction?

The new rules seem more complicated for the sake of it, don't seem to fix balance issues, and are really restrictive for force building. It's also not very beginner friendly - in the Big Blue Book era you could get playing with just the rulebook, and have fun games with the variety of stats provided. Even the pocket rulebook had loads of profiles in it! Now you've got to get a second book, and it's really strict about what you can take. And don't come at me with Open Play, people tend to follow the rules presented to them because they believe it'll give them a "Fair Game" which is what they want to get. They don't feel empowered to go and do their own thing as beginners.

On a related note, the old models were great for beginners because they were really simple to put together. The new Rohan models are very modern GW in being split into a million different parts which will make them harder for a beginner to put together. I know it's not really a game targeted at beginners any more, but I think that's a bit sad because loads of kids got their way into wargaming with the SBG.

Anyway, I expect lots of people still playing the game will disagree with me and that's fine. As I said, even an inferior (in my view) edition of SBG is still better than many other games, and I'm sure I could have fun playing any edition of the game because the core is so solid. But I feel that a lot of what has come later in the game's development hasn't really improved on the elegant excellence of the fully developed game from the late 2000s. Even some of the stuff that came later was trending in the wrong direction IMO - some of the Harad units in the last supplement before the Hobbit showed you where the wind was blowing with their plethora of special rules.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/12/10 22:52:10


   
Made in si
Foxy Wildborne







"No movie no rule" is a massive blow to my interest. I only got in with the big box last year so can't speak for older rules. But why play in a setting that will put me on a leash? Imagine how dead on arrival X-wing would have been if they pulled this gak.

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Made in no
Longtime Dakkanaut






That's not the case however. As the third book will cover everything not featured in the movies.

As to the original question, from what I've read and talked about to others who have actually been able to play the new ed, it is an improvement and generally been well received. I trust them enough to hold their opinions worth while until I get a few games played and get an opinion of my own.
   
Made in de
Oozing Plague Marine Terminator





Personally I found the 2018 rules very good and didn't see much necessity for bigger changes.
But, to go a bit deeper: Whenever I play lotr these days I realize that the game is pretty brutal or let's say unforgiving. Die rolls matter very much, and to take a criticism from earlier editions: the game was/ is about rolling 6s. Your Balrog doesn't roll a 6 when facing 10 guys? Bam, he's dead.
You lose Initiative and heroic movement every round with your cavalry heavy army? They all get surrounded and slaughtered.
Another problem I saw in the big blue book era and before: extreme kinds of rock-paper-scissors. Ooh, you brought some trolls, it would be a shame if my Gandalf paralyzed them all game. Or if I had dwarfs and that Troll needed 6s to kill anything important.
You don't really think that your evil heroes will kill anything more than basic warriors with their fight 4, right?
Things like these could become frustrating and the 2018 era did mitigate some of them, especially Monster attacks were a huge thing to me. I always loved and used trolls but before 2012 you basically had to do list tailoring if you wanted your 85point Troll do anything in the game. Heroic strikes with 2018 helped evil heroes to be more than just farms of might. Archers were weakened - good thing in my eyes, I didn't need the shadow King anymore to prevent things from getting sniped all game.
I'm fully aware that to most things you could say: well, your tactics were just bad then. And that might be true. ME is GWs most tactical game and needs extreme concentration when playing, every movement can count, there are a lot of decisions to make and so on. It gets the more frustrating though when there are aspects you just don't seem to be able to influence with clever decision making. Hence the new Initiative rule is something(maybe the only thing?) so far I like about the new edition. It never felt right to be "punished" by getting the Initiative in a crucial turn.
Also, there have been bad developments. Everything around The Hobbit, really. The changes were nearly as bad as that trilogy.
Special strikes - good riddance now (and basically they've been dead since 2018 I'd say).
Most of the Hobbit unit profiles felt out of scale with the lotr game, especially on the evil side. Everything was dialed up to 11, yes, just like in the movie and that's why the movie is bad. They adjusted the points with 2018 at least but the profiles mostly still kept being crazy compared to the lotr world. If these profiles get adjusted now to be in line that's good, too. Bolg or Azog don't need to be better than Gothmog in my eyes. Or better than elven kings for that matter.
I don’t mind new special rules. This is a scenario game, if units have characterful rules I'm fine with that. I also liked the Legion rules.

A deal breaker to me could be the curbing of options and profiles, though. I still need to see what has actually changed, but GW killed 10th 40k for me despite otherwize considering it the best edition. If this goes too far I'll say 2018 ME was the peak of the game.
   
Made in de
Battlefield Tourist






Nuremberg

I think those are fair critiques and I also like the idea of the monster power attacks, but I felt the heroic actions were just too much. I dislike messy exception based design and I feel that too many special rules does not make a game better.

That said, playing at a high level, I can see that it would be more interesting to have more options. I'm not interested in playing the game at that sort of level though, so I like the simpler rules because it's easier to play and teach. But I think liking it the other way from me is totally fair.

A bigger annoyance for me was the Legendary Legions, because I'm not really a film fan and so things like Sam, Frodo and Gollum being at Osgilliath really puts me off. I prefer the more open list building because I disagree with a lot of people about what's "Lore accurate" for this game, because they may prefer the film versions and I prefer the books.

   
Made in gb
Black Captain of Carn Dûm





Were there be dragons....

Having played a couple of games with the new books:

The main rules are an improvement, which surprised me as I thought minus a couple of clarifications the last edition of MESBG did not need work.

A lot of the 'Army Lists' are better and the profile rebalance is good. I do resent the removal of some of the war gear options - factions that previously could take a banner but having no model loosing them is a prime example.
It's going to be impossible to judge the Army Lists completely until the third book - several factions missing their core hero's e.t.c,.

Also sad there is no opportunity to narrative bash custom lists for tournaments but looking forward to the end of Gwahir being shoe horned into lists for example.l

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/12/13 18:26:38


"As a customer, I'd really like to like GW, but they seem to hate me." - Ouze
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Made in gb
Regular Dakkanaut





Played when it first launched for about 10 years, then got back into it with COVID. Played a lot of the last edition and while I've read all the new books cover to cover, haven't yet played a game of the new edition.

I really like the new rules (from an armchair point of view at least) and consider them the best version of the game I've ever seen. I like the extra heroic actions, but strike was too powerful, while now they all seem more equal. I really like more powerful monsters. Toned down magic is probably for the best. I especially like that certain militia type warriors now had their stats reduced (in what world do lake town guard compete with gondor soldiers?!?) so hopefully spam is less powerful. I'm glad to see the back of special strikes for the same reason. (Oh hello goblin town with a million axe armed gobbos)

The new scenarios seems like a big miss so far and I'm not comforted by a new matched play guide coming out, as "give GW more money" is not a good problem solver to me. But the community has a long history of making their own scenarios so thats not the end of the world.

I really do not like the new restrictive list building, nor the film only focus. I currently cannot play above 250ish points with any of my armies as they are all or mostly going to be in the mythical third book. I don't mind the thematic lists with special rules, but they really should have allowed you to bring a "same faction name only" list of whatever you wanted but with no special rules to give more flexibility. Not being allowed to play with our toys is a good way to piss off gamers. But despite myself, I still like the look of quite a few of the new lists and can see myself buying new models to run them.

I remember the old blue book era as mainly evil being the punching bag for good with much weaker heroes (capped at F5 outside of monsters and barely any 3 might heroes for example) and magic and shooting being too strong. If you left home without the shadow lord or white council saruman you were screwed!

TLDR: rules look great, excited for when I can play. Hope the third army book opens up list building a bit.
   
Made in us
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain






A Protoss colony world

I didn't like the new army building rules either at first (and I also have yet to play the new edition), but there are some lists that have fewer army special rules but allow a pretty wide selection. One such list is "Kingdom of Rohan" which allows basically all of the named Rohan characters (from the LotR trilogy; War of the Rohirrim has a separate list of course) and both the infantry and mounted troops. I'm pretty sure Mordor, Isengard, Minas Tirith, Rivendell, and Lorien also have something similar. And if you like allied forces, some of the thematic ones are covered, like both sides in the Pelennor Fields, the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, and the Defenders of Helm's Deep. Some of the more focused lists have cool themes, at least, akin to the Legendary Legions of last edition, although some of them are little more than meme lists (like The Shire and The Road to Rivendell, both of which hard cap at 500 points if you take everything they can possibly take). That third book will be nice as it should flesh out some of the other armies a bit (like my Easterlings and Khazad-dum). Plus I like to see the books get some love, and for people to remember that this whole fandom is based on books, not movies.

What I was initially salty about, and still am to some degree, is how much stuff they decided to drop from the range. Some of the more obscure stuff like The Golden King of Abrakhan sure, but whole armies like Khand that were actually mentioned in the books and not just GW fan creations? Would it have killed them to keep them in the game? I was a big fan of the Khand models and actually have a small Khandish force, a force that will likely never grow or see play now as prices for their cavalry are skyrocketing on eBay (probably scalpers trying to fleece collectors like me). And there were other things that were dropped that weren't even very old, like Razgush and Muzgur (Mordor Orc heroes released with Defence of the North). Seriously, why? Reducing bloat is one thing, and there were things that were dropped that I might actually say good riddance to, but to me they kind of threw the baby out with the bath water.

My armies (re-counted and updated on 11/7/24, including modeled wargear options):
Dark Angels: ~16000 Astra Militarum: ~1200 | Imperial Knights: ~2300 | Leagues of Votann: ~1300 | Tyranids: ~3400 | Stormcast Eternals: ~5000 | Kruleboyz: ~3500 | Lumineth Realm-Lords: ~700
Check out my P&M Blogs: ZergSmasher's P&M Blog | Imperial Knights blog | Board Games blog | Total models painted in 2024: 40 | Total models painted in 2025: 10 | Current main painting project: Kruleboyz Spearhead
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Made in gb
Regular Dakkanaut





 ZergSmasher wrote:
I'm pretty sure Mordor, Isengard, Minas Tirith, Rivendell, and Lorien also have something similar.


Not quite. The "legions of mordor" list is pretty wide but is more for adding basic harad or easterlings to mordor. Still doesn't let you add cool mordor heroes like the Mouth of Sauron or Shagrat to a generic mordor army. Likewise there isn't a generic Isengard army list that lets you mix Saruman with Lurtz or mix uruks with scouts and Dunland.

The only lists that come close to being faction wide is the Rohan one you mentioned and the very generic (but no named heroes allowed) "Kingdoms of men" list. I really hope we see more like these two in the third book. Given how customisable they made the Dwarf King profile, I'm hopeful of a Kingdoms of Dwarves list at least.
   
Made in us
Grim Dark Angels Interrogator-Chaplain






A Protoss colony world

 Fergie0044 wrote:
 ZergSmasher wrote:
I'm pretty sure Mordor, Isengard, Minas Tirith, Rivendell, and Lorien also have something similar.


Not quite. The "legions of mordor" list is pretty wide but is more for adding basic harad or easterlings to mordor. Still doesn't let you add cool mordor heroes like the Mouth of Sauron or Shagrat to a generic mordor army. Likewise there isn't a generic Isengard army list that lets you mix Saruman with Lurtz or mix uruks with scouts and Dunland.

The only lists that come close to being faction wide is the Rohan one you mentioned and the very generic (but no named heroes allowed) "Kingdoms of men" list. I really hope we see more like these two in the third book. Given how customisable they made the Dwarf King profile, I'm hopeful of a Kingdoms of Dwarves list at least.

Legions of Mordor wasn't the one I was thinking of as the generic Mordor list; it's one of the ones I was thinking of as the way to bring allied forces (as you mentioned, Mordor/Harad/Easterlings). You are correct that you can't use every single hero in most lists, but honestly unless you were wanting some unlikely team-ups or wombo combos I don't think that's such a big deal.

As for the third book, these are some things I very much expect to see:
-Generic Easterlings list (Host of the Dragon Emperor?)
-Specific Easterlings list for the force that attacked Erebor and Dale
-Erebor/Dale Defence of the North team-up (Brand and Old Dain)
-Other Defence of the North stuff, including an expanded Lothlorien Defenders list (where Celeborn might get his armor and weapon back, and Haldir's brothers will return along with the Guard of the Galadhrim Court).
-Expanded Moria list. While we know Blackshields and their related things are gone, a lot of stuff was not on the list of things that were going to Legacies, including Cave Drakes, Goblin Prowlers, Durburz, Moria Goblin Shamans, the Drummers, and of course the Dragon.
-Paths of the Druadan list. The Woses of Druadan were also not on the list of removed things, so I'd expect a list with Ghan-buri-ghan and his guys teaming up with Rohan like the old Legendary Legion.
-Scouring of the Shire lists for Good and Evil.
-Expanded Harad list. They lost some stuff like the Golden King of Abrakhan and his Merchant Guard, and Far Harad got squatted, but a lot of stuff was not on the list (Suladan the Serpent Lord, Serpent Riders, Haradrim Raiders, etc.).
-Fiefdoms, possibly more than one list. No more Men-at-arms of Dol Amroth, but everything else should still be there.
-Khazad-dum list. They lost some stuff but are still for sale and most of their range was not on the Legacies list.
-Beornings. Because bears.
-Arnor and Angmar might get printed in the book despite already having a digital supplement currently, but I'm not sure.
Some of this is probably hopium on my part, but I could easily see all of this and more being in that fabled third book.

My armies (re-counted and updated on 11/7/24, including modeled wargear options):
Dark Angels: ~16000 Astra Militarum: ~1200 | Imperial Knights: ~2300 | Leagues of Votann: ~1300 | Tyranids: ~3400 | Stormcast Eternals: ~5000 | Kruleboyz: ~3500 | Lumineth Realm-Lords: ~700
Check out my P&M Blogs: ZergSmasher's P&M Blog | Imperial Knights blog | Board Games blog | Total models painted in 2024: 40 | Total models painted in 2025: 10 | Current main painting project: Kruleboyz Spearhead
 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
You need your bumps felt. With a patented, Grotsnik Corp Bump Feelerer 9,000.
The Grotsnik Corp Bump Feelerer 9,000. It only looks like several bricks crudely gaffer taped to a cricket bat.
Grotsnik Corp. Sorry, No Refunds.
 
   
 
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