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Yeah I prefer the older pose, so I'm glad I picked him up last year. New one isn't bad though.

Wow, this is the biggest wave of new minis in I don't know how many years. Don't love all, but some are rather nice and quite amazing to see this much new stuff all of a sudden. Always liked the Arnor+Angmar setting, so good to see it get some more attention and expansion.

And now a new edition, plus a tease there'll be stuff based on War of the Rohirrim.

Welp…I have always loved the lore for Arnor and the whole event of the Fall of Arnor. I’m very excited to play MESBG again!

My only gripe, and it is a small one, is that it seems like everything GW makes for any non-core game sells out too quickly and then doesn’t go back in stock for ages. I’m worried that I won’t be able to pick up the book and build armies to purchase and that instead we’ll be expected to impulse buy a bunch of stuff and hope it makes an army. At least it’s easier to do in MESGB than it is in TOW.

Maybe I’ll post a question about things possible army construction in the appropriate sub-forum...

 Arbitrator wrote:
And now a new edition, plus a tease there'll be stuff based on War of the Rohirrim.

We asked for the game to receive more attention, and the monkey paw answered

War of the Rohirrim stuff is something to look forward too though

Well damn, wasn't expecting a bombshell today. But i wouldn't say monkeys paw. They've left the core rules basically untouched from day one and i don't see them doing anything else than the usual tidy up job this time. And has it really been six years? Christ.

As a former Beasts of Chaos player, I'm just on edge about the words "new edition".

I am, however, quite keen for the possibility of a new edition having a suitably new starter set, so I'll let the optimism of a Last Alliance theme carry me from here

New Ed? Hopefully it will not turn into insane 3 year cycle like 40k/AoS.

Lots of new minis is nice, but yet another edition feels unecessary for a game that hasn't had significant changes in 20+ years. More so for a specialist game that is mostly on stand by.
6 years is a good run for impatient edition recyclers like GW though.

VBS wrote:
Lots of new minis is nice, but yet another edition feels unecessary for a game that hasn't had significant changes in 20+ years. More so for a specialist game that is mostly on stand by.
6 years is a good run for impatient edition recyclers like GW though.

Not significative changes? Maybe but has had 3 different editions so far. Showing new support and interest in the game is always a good thing for the community.

Maybe we'll have an improvement, who knows?

Oh good invalidating the last rulebook within a year again.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Oh good invalidating the last rulebook within a year again.

Not great, I agree. Perhaps worth it for the new models though?

 Arbitrator wrote:
And now a new edition, plus a tease there'll be stuff based on War of the Rohirrim.

War of the Rohirrim is exciting and unexpected! Seeing as how the movie has a very different style from the LOTR and Hobbit movies perhaps whatever GW is offering will also be quite different from MESBG?

Is this also an indication that GW has signed a new license deal regarding the LOTR-rights? War of the Rohirrim but surely be it's own thing not covered by the existing license?

New edition is mostly interesting to see what they put in the starter, the rules have not been improved since the big blue book imo.

All of the trolls are really good. The werewolves are surprisingly understated for GW, but are monstrous enough to work in several settings.

Aranarth could be a young Aragorn, when he rode to the aid of Rohan, or, with some conversion, could be an Aragorn cleaning up remnants of Sauron's forces after the end of the War of the Ring.

The men of Carn Dum are kind of goofy-looking, making me wonder how WGA's Dark-Age Irish or something from Victrix would do, instead.

VBS wrote:
Lots of new minis is nice, but yet another edition feels unecessary for a game that hasn't had significant changes in 20+ years. More so for a specialist game that is mostly on stand by.
6 years is a good run for impatient edition recyclers like GW though.

It does seem rather unnecessary. Could see the eventual use of updated "Armies of..." books with ongoing releases, but struggling to see the use of a new core rulebook. Game doesn't need big changes to core mechanics, and not enough new releases have happened to require any small changes either I imagine. Vaguely interested to see if they made any interesting changes or changes for the sake of changes, but haven't played competitively in years so will likely hold off on buying anything until I get back to playing it regularly again in case they ramp up the edition cycling for MESBG now.

They may change profiles to make the power level more consistent between LOTR and Hobbit? Likely by buffing LOTR forces.

That seems like the biggest issue generally. I also expect more heroic action stuff.

I'm a bit impressed how they can tout a new edition despite the lack of support they've given the game over those six years. Thankfully there are plenty of options in the historical realm for human forces and now a days several multipart kits for orcs and such. It is one of my favourite rule sets, but I've not felt the need to keep up with the GW churn since the Hobbit.

I am in the same boat, love the game but charting my own course with it now.
I still pay attention to what GW does though because I am open to trying current versions if I felt the rules were at least as good as what I am using.

 Dawnbringer wrote:
I'm a bit impressed how they can tout a new edition despite the lack of support they've given the game over those six years. Thankfully there are plenty of options in the historical realm for human forces and now a days several multipart kits for orcs and such. It is one of my favourite rule sets, but I've not felt the need to keep up with the GW churn since the Hobbit.

Over the course of the edition, there will have been 7 supplements including the new one. So i wouldn't say there's been total lack of support over the edition.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:


Over the course of the edition, there will have been 7 supplements including the new one. So i wouldn't say there's been total lack of support over the edition.

Those books mostly duplicated supplements from over a decade ago. A handful of models.

Redoing any of the pre 2004 plastics I would have counted as support.

 Ohman wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Oh good invalidating the last rulebook within a year again.

Not great, I agree. Perhaps worth it for the new models though?

 Arbitrator wrote:
And now a new edition, plus a tease there'll be stuff based on War of the Rohirrim.

War of the Rohirrim is exciting and unexpected! Seeing as how the movie has a very different style from the LOTR and Hobbit movies perhaps whatever GW is offering will also be quite different from MESBG?

Is this also an indication that GW has signed a new license deal regarding the LOTR-rights? War of the Rohirrim but surely be it's own thing not covered by the existing license?

GWs license is primarily with new line cinema and Warner bros, who are producing war of the rohirrim. It may or may not be an extension of the existing license or a separate one, etc. But it's not necessarily indicative of some deep change in licensing.

Interesting. Not a player, yet, and it depends where this is all leading. The new sculpts are interesting...not reaaaalllllyyyy sure if they feel like something from Tolkien but the Werewolves are cool! Hopefully they'll be a more affordable plastic kit.

Can't wait to see War of the Rohirrim as it was delayed from earlier in the year, and probably why GW had to hold their releases back in turn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dawnbringer wrote:


Those books mostly duplicated supplements from over a decade ago. A handful of models.

Redoing any of the pre 2004 plastics I would have counted as support.

It would be good if they begin refreshing the models from when they started - Fellowship of the Ring, then move onto Two Towers and Return of the King. At least reducing the number of metal kits.

I'm pretty meh on a lot of the new models. The AoS silliness is very much creeping into the sculpts, especially the hill humans and the were wolves. And honestly that makes me a little concerned for a new edition. So long as they don't mess with the rules too much it will be fine though.

Well the studio allegedly has an active MESBG player so I'm sure a full rewrite will go fine.

Well, player might be a strong word, but at least a person who likes the game. Maybe enough to playtest in their spare time. Certainly not on paid time.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Oh good invalidating the last rulebook within a year again.

^^^ this, and also the armies of... books with likely borderline trivial stat changes

may likely just stick with the current edition, not as if I play this in any competitive way anyway

not really seeing the need for new models either, beauty of the game is not needing massive armies so having a decent number of them is good. the way some scenarios are written to need an excessive number of some of them isn't subtle either. same with Battle companies, nice idea but silly numbers of models needed to have all the possibilities on the random tables (we just went with "or anything of equal or lower point value")

will see what they do with the rules but to be honest as a small to mid sized skirmish game I think they have it nailed, heros feel heroic, but can be swamped if unaided, the little guys do have an impact sometimes, its about the only set of terrain rules from GW that actually work, magic adds flavour without dominating etc. really captures the feel of the background - the various special weapon attacks that came in last time can be fun without ever being "needed" too

if they go down "heros now have their own phase and have command points" the marketing droid who did it needs shooting until they are really sorry

Really don't know where people are getting this "new edition=total rewrite". That's never happened in the history of the game and Jay an Rob play the game too much to let that happen.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Well the studio allegedly has an active MESBG player so I'm sure a full rewrite will go fine.

Well, player might be a strong word, but at least a person who likes the game. Maybe enough to playtest in their spare time. Certainly not on paid time.

I thought it was Jay Clare, one of the top UK tourney players?

The studio guys are certainly part of the main UK FB group and friends with the core tourney people.

Changes-wise the three things that stick out for me are: some of the Heroic actions are never used, difference in quality/approach to some of the Hobbit model rules vs LotR, and the poor writing around differentiating whole model vs elements of a model that impacts cavalry, chariots etc (and disappointingly bled over into some of TOW rules).

I'm inclined to believe it's NOT going to be a total re-write. Why? Well... they did just announce the Angmar supplement, right? Why put that supplement out right before a new edition?

Granted, that didn't matter to GW in the past, but they would first hose you for a purchase before the new edition was announced.

They should just replace that old 20 Years old Plastic Core Units...

They released the Flesh-Eater Courts book for AoS a mere 4 or so months before 4th edition dropped, and some of the Dawnbringer campaign books had even shorter useful lifespans. It's definitely not unheard of for GW to release books and invalidate them in short order.

I do hope they don't screw around with the rules for MESBG too much for the new edition. The game is easily one of the most balanced games GW offers (probably THE most balanced), and I'd hate to see that get ruined. Removing bloat would be difficult because there isn't a whole lot of bloat, other than maybe the different special strikes for different hand weapons, but honestly that adds some flavor so it should at least stay as optional rules or something.