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Everyone here has covered the core appeal of the rules, but I'll add another: it's great for scenario/story/narrative games too. Whether it's hobbits fighting off incursions in the Shire, or massive wizard/hero battles, the game handles it well.

There's a supplement book called Battle Companies which is a version of the game for skirmish warband campaigns, starting around 5-12 models. A single sprue (half a box of troops) will get you started. It's a LOT of fun.

Which brings me to another subject - converting. Battle Companies acquire useful items over the course of their adventures - rope, maps, lanterns and so on. The sprue for the plastic Frostgrave Soldier set has a lot of those, and resin/3D printing companies sell potion bottles and the like.

Similarly for commander options, many of the plastic historical sets come with a command sprue with horns, cloaks, banners etc. I'm personally a fan of paper banners!

 Apple Peel wrote:
The question in the title. Is it expensive? Is it comparable in scale with Warhammer 40K, or is it something more in size with Killteam? How much does the average army cost? What is the average army size?

I don't know much about games. But I don't really like RPGs. Although I think it would be very interesting to watch an MMO-RPG based on the Lord of the Rings universe.

Capt_Darling wrote:
Thanks - the old world was what I meant.

Shame about the difference in scale - obviously it would be nice they were the same...

They may well be the same size - I was at a Warhammer tournament many years ago where someone mixed Lothlorien elves into his Wood Elf army, and it looked OK - but the proportions will be different - LotR minis don't usually have the exaggerated hands, heads and weapons that are common on wargaming miniatures, so they're quite visually distinct from WFB minis. And of course, the gear is all different anyway.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

Capt_Darling wrote:
Thanks - the old world was what I meant.

Shame about the difference in scale - obviously it would be nice they were the same...

They may well be the same size - I was at a Warhammer tournament many years ago where someone mixed Lothlorien elves into his Wood Elf army, and it looked OK - but the proportions will be different - LotR minis don't usually have the exaggerated hands, heads and weapons that are common on wargaming miniatures, so they're quite visually distinct from WFB minis. And of course, the gear is all different anyway.

IIRC, both the LOTR and Warhammer minis are 28mm scale, but Warhammer is Heroic scale while LOTR is True scale. So warhammer miniatures have enlarged hands, faces, bigger weapons, etc... The LOTR miniatures have much more realistic proportions for everything.

LotR is 25mm

chaos0xomega wrote:
LotR is 25mm

LOTR doesn't even have a consistent scale within it's range. See Rangers of Gondor vs Soldiers of Gondor. I'd say early models were 25mm, but it's been 28mm for a while. Accepting I haven't bought models since the start of the hobbit.

RE: Cost...cheaper than 40k/aos moneywise from GW, and if you have access to a resin 3d printer, it will be very veryvery veryvery cheap.

Price wise you can get some decent armies for $150-250. My most expensive Army is Rivendell at about $500 and that is a lot more than one army points-wise (I have bought basically the entire line). A full 40K army will set you back something like $600-800, AoS a bit less in my experience. So yeah, MESBG is significantly cheaper, but still not exactly pocket change either.

i think, and i didnt play Lotr,


i only read White dwarf once or twice and i saw


i think, begin the Lord of the rings, miniature strategy from White dwarf 330


i think, it has some Aelves scouts,


i dont know, this game is not played in my area



but i think i will get involved some more in this one game

Have the rules changed, since they rebranded it in "Middle Earth Strategy Game" and brought out the new rules book.

Because i still have the "LoTR Strategy Game" Rule book from the mines of moria set.

I mean just the basic stuff, of course all this matched play stuff etc. is new.

Tbird350 wrote:
Have the rules changed, since they rebranded it in "Middle Earth Strategy Game" and brought out the new rules book.

Because i still have the "LoTR Strategy Game" Rule book from the mines of moria set.

I mean just the basic stuff, of course all this matched play stuff etc. is new.

Much of the game is still the same. They've added some stuff since the Mines of Moria days, like special strikes on certain weapons and Heroic Tiers for heroes. Also I don't think warbands were a thing back then; you could just bring one hero and have him/her lead any number of basic joes around. Nowadays heroes have a limit on how many guys they can bring with them, with higher Tier heroes able to bring more.

 ZergSmasher wrote:

Tbird350 wrote:
Have the rules changed, since they rebranded it in "Middle Earth Strategy Game" and brought out the new rules book.

Because i still have the "LoTR Strategy Game" Rule book from the mines of moria set.

I mean just the basic stuff, of course all this matched play stuff etc. is new.

Much of the game is still the same. They've added some stuff since the Mines of Moria days, like special strikes on certain weapons and Heroic Tiers for heroes. Also I don't think warbands were a thing back then; you could just bring one hero and have him/her lead any number of basic joes around. Nowadays heroes have a limit on how many guys they can bring with them, with higher Tier heroes able to bring more.

Yeah, the army composition is new. Used to be you could take whatever mix you wanted. I honestly prefer having 1-2 heroes and a bunch of regular dudes.

Great, thanks for the answers guys.


Gotta get the new rulebook and start painting some armies of the evil side.

How is battle companies? What do you need to start playing it? It says warbands so I think Mordheim? Is that the scale of battles?

I haven't actually played it but I do have the book. For each faction you have an initial pre-set battle company that you can choose. They're fairly small in size, for example the one for Harad starts off with 8 figures.

As you play your leader and followers can gain experience and and upgrade, and there are items to add to your warband, and so on.

Cool thanks! So that sounds like buy in cost is pretty low and you can kind of get going with one troops box?

I believe that was the purpose of battle companies. A way for new players to play a small campaign and slowly build up to a full force while also having fun with smaller scale games. Honestly its why I like the LOTR SBG rules so much, they are quite flexible for any size of game. You can play with only a few models, or scale it up to hundreds of minis. Its something not a lot of games can do that well.

I have the book but haven't played it - The campaign system looks really good, though!

 Olthannon wrote:
Cool thanks! So that sounds like buy in cost is pretty low and you can kind of get going with one troops box?

Yep, I think it's very much designed with just that in mind, as Grey Templar said. Some of the starting warbands are a bit more mixed, but they're generally the ones where the figures don't come in a troops box. For Minas Tirith, Rohan, The Warriors of the Dead, Isengard, Moria, and a bunch of others, one box and you'll be good to go.

Do you guys know if we are going to see new models for the upcoming "Rings of Power Lotr" series?

It could be interesting to explore a new age in the game

There's been no official word yet as to whether GW will do an accompanying miniature range to the best of my knowledge.

Yeah, no word on that and it gets into some dicey legal territory, as GWs license is (as I understand it) through New Line Cinema and Warner Bros, who licensed through Middle Earth Enterprises, whereas Amazons license is directly from the Tolkien estate rather than MEE, so technically a different legal license entirely.

BUT, New Line/WB are contracted with Amazon for the production of Rings of Power, so its kinda iffy, would depend on the terms of that contract. If I were to guess, Rings of Power is a separate license that GW would have to negotiate with Amazon.

Out of curiosity, how long was the seperation between the original movies coming out, and the GW figures first appearing?

Same year iirc? The first miniatures were released in 2001 around christmastime iirc, which was when GW launched the minis line.

Interesting. I didn't know that they came out so close to the movie release.

Had myself thinking that they first arrived a few years afterwards.

So yeah, I'm probably thinking there won't be anything new with the amazon show from GW.

GW acquired the license in advance of the films, kinda like how with Star Wars main trilogy films there are toys of characters and stuff from the movies on the shelf even before the films release. Entirely possible GW has done the same with Ring of Power, not like they would announce anything more than a few weeks before a potential release date anyway. Usually big licensing productions also have preview embargoes (which is why when Star Wars film tie-in merch is previewed it all tends to happen on the same day or same week, even across multiple manufacturers and product cateogries) so even if GW did want to release info about it they might not be able to do it...

Personally though, I kind of suspect that GW won't have any tie-in to the Amazon show, and as someone else speculated I think The Old World is being developed because the LotR license is being terminated or GW has low confidence in being able to continue it.

I read an interview with the Perry twins about how much secrecy and red tape that surrounded the launch of the game.

They had a special area for working on the LotR miniatures and nothing could leave it and only a few people were really informed on exactly what they were doing. I think they even had a stationed guard outside that room/area.

To be able to create good miniatures and books for the new show so it is ready for release with the show they would need quite a lot of material from the show if not most of what will eventually be released. So if GW is doing anything directly tied to the show Amazon will have full control of what if anything gets teased from GW's side.

From what I have seen from the trailer and the articles surrounding it I hope GW DON'T have the rights for making miniatures of the show. The Hobbit was bad enough and most likely this will be worse.

I do hope the show gives a renewed interest to the property and that GW tries to ride a bit on that and releases a new Last Alliance supplement. Our regional Facebook group for the game have had about a 300% increase in new members (from 10-20 new in a month to twice that in 2 weeks) so some extra interest have been spurred and it would be a weird move for GW to not take some advantage of that.