Happy 20th Anniversary to Battle Companies!
My dear Hobbit Hobbyists,
Alas over two years is far too short a time to be working alongside such excellent and admirable hobbyists. [Cheers abound.]
To think it has been over two years since the first Community Edition post! Since then, the project and the Middle-Earth: SBG community have each grown so much, even since March 2023 when we posted our latest public update which detailed a bunch of our changes at the time, among which were updates to the Equipment and Creature sections, as well as the addition and tweaking of several Paths!
To celebrate 20 years of Battle Companies, and coincidentally enough 3 years of the current Community Edition, we've been diligently applying ourselves to working on further balances to the Community Edition Main Rulebook, as well as finally getting the Campaign Supplement fully completed and ready for a public release.
Alongside this, myself, King and Val have recorded a special episode of the ever elusive Discord in the Ranks podcast celebrating 20 years, where we attempt to educate King in how to play Battle Companies and have fun explaining some of the changes we've seen and then implemented ourselves.
The road does not end here, of course. We are still ever searching for community feedback. Please tell us what works and doesn't for your groups as we delve into a brief itinerary of the additions to the Community Edition for 2024!
Core Rules
Campaign Supplement
Battle Companies Bazaar
MESBG Discord Community
Discord in the Ranks Podcast
Campaign Supplement
The major portion of the update is dedicated to the Campaigns, with a total of all four
GW-designed campaigns present as well as two additional custom campaigns, a tutorial on how to design your own campaigns, other rulesets to play with, and much more! Some of the highlights include:
Campaign Balancing
One of the initial problems we came across was the discrepancy in power-scaling between the various campaigns, and we spent a good amount of time resolving what are essentially balancing patches for the
GW campaigns. This comes complete with an overhaul to the Victory system, which is now divided into Major Victories, Minor Victories, Minor Defeats and Major Defeats, which will all help to tell a greater story than ever before during your campaigning.
Coupled to this, we have rewritten the
GW campaigns to better reflect this new storytelling philosophy - several rewards are more intertwined with the later scenarios of their campaigns, and no reward should ever feel like a true letdown. And worry not - should you fail to gain a reward, the later scenarios have been rewritten with the intent to allow even the unluckiest companies a good chance at redemption and success!
The Lost Expedition
During the course of the Campaign Supplement's production, we came to the conclusion that a tutorial to assist people in crafting their own Narrative Campaigns would be incredibly useful, and over the course of the last year, our primary example for this tutorial has slowly evolved into its own fully-functioning Narrative Campaign: The Lost Expedition.
Based on Balin's doomed expedition into Moria, players are invited to delve into the depths of an abandoned Dwarven Hold to attempt to recover the treasures within and potentially establish a notable colony for their homeland, only to disturb the fell powers that reside within. Among the scenarios will be a fight inside an abandoned yet still working mine, and a near-doomed defence with your company split in two - dare you brave the dark depths and explore this forgotten kingdom?
Rise of the Dragon Cult
A Shadow rises in the east and it is up to those who have only so recently escaped the pits of Gorgoroth to stand against the darkness. . . .
This narrative campaign, while not fully playtested (which is where you come in), is set in the times after the War of the Ring. Explore a world where peace breeds complacency and a new evil must simply be overthrown; much as Tolkien himself describes. Prepare your company for a journey there and back again as they face fierce raids, drakes, and must defend the walls against an invading army. If you thought the world of men couldn’t bring about your own troubles, then obviously you haven’t been chatting with Lord Elrond!
Map Campaigns
It isn't just Narrative Campaigns that saw serious work, as we listened to several groups within the community and have rebalanced Map Campaigns to be both fairer and more interesting to play.
One of the biggest concerns has always been the poor balance of initial starting positions, which would often determine the outcome of a campaign from the outset - say no more, this has been addressed with a new map and a new system to determine the tile bonuses! The bonuses have also had some slight retooling so that no bonus is a dud, which should also go some way to making all your Map Campaigns feel unique.
The Community Bazaar
Finally, we acknowledge that while we may be at the forefront of the Community Edition, everyone can and will have great ideas to contribute! And while not everything can be added to the Core Rulebook or Campaign Supplement for fear of making them both too long (both are already around 100 pages long!), we want to make people's ideas visible for everyone to see.
To do this, we are setting up the Community Bazaar - a collective pool of ideas from around the community that can be added as additional optional rules for your groups that we want to give proper credit to their creators from. Among our initial favourite ideas is Tom Keegan's work for a recent Battle Companies tournament, where he had a special Hobbit Hero added to every company who could advance on their own personal Path of the Burglar!
These are the kind of fun ideas we want to inspire you all to share, so please feel free to reach out and share your ideas for us to further share together as a community! We have a Community Edition Homebrew Forum built into the discord where you can submit items for community review or simply enjoyment. That is the first landing pad in the workflow before it might see spotlight in the Bazaar.
There are more revisions listed in the change log at the back of the book, so be sure to review them for your next campaign.
Thank You
Myself and the rest of the playtesting team on the
MESBG Discord want to thank you once more for participating in this community project whether it is posting content, providing feedback, or playing from the comfort of your own tables. If you have commentary to give, want to dish the details on the campaigns you have been playing, or want to send your greetings; I'm best reached on the Discord, but I will absolutely do my best to reply to as many forum comments as possible!
Happy Hobbying,
Henry Wild (Commi) & the Community Edition Crew
.