Judging the New sourcebooks

[Chaotic Pumpkin]

One complaint I had about SBG (which I chose blindly over WotR for it's small scale), was how random it appeared next to the other GW lines.
There were no fixed scenarios, army lists and point costs felt arbitrary. Not to mention that rules and profiles varied from book to book. All in all the game seemed imbalanced and hard to enjoy.

Has any of that changed? Has any of you gotten your hands on the new sourcebooks? Are they better than what we've previously seen?

All in all, has SBG (pretty models and WotR aside) become a game worth playing?

[Peregrin]

Even as a WotR player, I feel the SBG was 'worth playing' before. However, some of your concerns have definitely been addressed in the new source books. We have definitive army lists and profiles, as well as a consolidation of any relavent rules not already in the hardcover core rulebook. There are also some scenarios included in each book, but I haven't looked too closely at those yet.

As far as 'hard to enjoy', that may depend on what it is you enjoy. There are pleanty of aspects of LotR SBG that I prefer to 40K, for instance, but that a 40K player may dispute.

[Mr_Foulscumm]

Agreed.

Personally I enjoy LotR way more than the internet tells me I should. It also translates great into say... Feudal Japan... or Viking Raids of the coast of England... or any other historical medieval setting really. Simple and fun.

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

Has any of that changed? Has any of you gotten your hands on the new sourcebooks? Are they better than what we've previously seen?

All in all, has SBG (pretty models and WotR aside) become a game worth playing?

If you didn't like the game before I doubt you'll like it too much now either. The core rulebook is still the big hardcover, so it is essentially unchanged, and most point values and profiles don't seem to have changed radically (although there are some). Of course, I never really felt that point values were arbitrary or terribly unbalanced - some sure, but overall a better-balanced game than most of GW's other efforts. Different strokes for different folks.

The only grievances of yours that have really been addressed are army lists and varied profiles - there are army lists in the new sourcebook (but then there were army lists before in Legions of Middle-Earth), and I think in theory the profiles in the new sourcebooks replace all the previous profiles.

As army-building goes I've always felt like LotR was a game that just required a bit more player input than 40K and Fantasy, though. Whereas those give you distinct army lists with unit and character restrictions LotR is a bit looser. It's up to players to ultimately determine whether they're OK with the forces involved.

[The Marshel]

I suppose an issue lotr has always suffered from was having rules all over the place. you had those in the core rule book, some that only appeared in the journy books, some that appeared in the half hearted attempt at army books and finally the new wd rules. The new source books have bought all rules relevant to each army into one book, so that helps a lot in this regard.

There is a stronger focus on organized points matches rather then story driven scenarios now too. this isnt actually anything new and has been the case since legions of middle earth was released, but now with the proper source books out it looks more likely to catch on.

[ashc]

I think in terms of collecting and updating all rules and profiles in one place, the sourcebooks are a success and makes the game immediately more playable.

[Cresistauead]

I would have preferred a Legions of the Middle Earth kind of approach with one 20 euro (could it really have been that cheap?) book having everything. Now the new sourcebooks add up to 100 euros with enough pages between the five "books" to fill two White Dwarf magazines. That's pretty steep, even for GW.

Not much changed in my Rohan. There's now some new options, +1 S or F for an extra point on some of the basic models, and cutely GW screwed up with the outriders a second time - now there's no point in taking basic warriors with bows anymore when you can field outriders for the same cost.

Other strange thing that caught my eye was that they added spear and shield options for the army or the dead. Defence 8 infantry? It doesn't seem like intentional to me.

[Chainaxe07]

Hello,
well the new "warbands" system is a radical departure indeed, as far as the force selection process is concerned.
Not sure about it yet, i just had very few, very small skirmishes up to now.
I have to say i still hate good named heroes, but that´s hardly gonna change soon.
Cheers!

[Peregrin]

I like how the Warband system is used in deployment of the new scenarios, but I do see how someone who was used to fielding more models would find it restrictive.

[rmeister0]

I would have preferred a Legions of the Middle Earth kind of approach with one 20 euro (could it really have been that cheap?) book having everything. Now the new sourcebooks add up to 100 euros with enough pages between the five "books" to fill two White Dwarf magazines. That's pretty steep, even for GW.

I spent some time looking through the books at the store today, and I'm really in the same camp. $25US for 48 pages each, and 8 of the pages are identical across each book (or at least appeared so). So $125US for the full set in softcover starts the make the $75US Warhammer Book look reasonable.

Frankly I would have been happier with a hardcover new edition book with the contents of these source books in it.

[Peregrin]

Depends on your situation.
I only need to end up spending for the KoM book because my own armies are Rohan and Minas Tirith. It does make it hard to ally the spell casters, etc., without the Free People's book, but that's still only two books, and not entirely necessary. I don't know Warhammer, but with the extensive armies I've seen, I doubt the $75 book you mention include the army profiles (Codexes). I'm also guessing we're at a dissavantage because there LotR players seem more likely to be completists than WH players.

For instance, if I were playing a Tyrannid army in 40K I wouldn't bother with any Space Marine materials. However, because of the lore and the property, I'm much more likely to eventually have all five of these SBG books on my shelf.

[lotrchampion]

One complaint I had about SBG (which I chose blindly over WotR for it's small scale), was how random it appeared next to the other GW lines.
There were no fixed scenarios, army lists and point costs felt arbitrary. Not to mention that rules and profiles varied from book to book. All in all the game seemed imbalanced and hard to enjoy.

Has any of that changed? Has any of you gotten your hands on the new sourcebooks? Are they better than what we've previously seen?

All in all, has SBG (pretty models and WotR aside) become a game worth playing?

Firstly, your issue with fixed scenarios, army lists and points costs seems to be poorly informed. For the last 5? years, there has been a consistent set of Army Lists and Scenarios used, and a number of recommended pointed games used, via the Legions of Middle-earth supplement. But that is by the by - if you missed out on the previous edition due to this, it's not really relevant to your experience of the new one, and I can understand where the conceptions people have about inconsistency come from.

In my experience, gameplay in LotR is by far the most balanced of the GW games. Having played in tournaments for all 3 systems at a fairly high level (highest for LotR, as that is my speciality) I feel reasonably well placed to make that assessment.

The new books provide what LotR really needs for new players to feel encouraged to get involved - coherency. All the profiles can now be found in one of 5 books, along with, in each book, the overall rules for constructing your list and playing games. It's much easier to pick up and play for new players now.

As far as the rules are concerned, nothing has changed, and I judge that to be a great thing. It's a fantastic system, as has been widely recognised by it's use as a base system for numerous historical tabletop wargames. I've only played a few games with the new books, but the new force building mechanism and the new scenarios seem to make it even more enjoyable - they were certainly some of my best games in a while, although that may have been shiny new syndrome.

Overall, I would recommend LotR highly to any gamer, new or old, irrelevant of prior experience. It's a great game that is easy to pick up, but tricky to master. It's not a game that necessarily relies on tricks and combos as heavily as Warhammer or 40k, but instead, relies much more in your in-game tactics. I always use the analogy of Strategy being army-building, and Tactics being your in-game play. In this respect, I think LotR is a more tactical game, whereas 40k or Warhammer are more strategic.

Anyway, I could probably write an entire thesis on comparisons of LotR, 40k, Warhammer, and other systems, so I'll stop there. But I implore you to give the game a try - I am sure you won't regret it.

If you want to know anything else about the game, please don't hesitate to ask in this thread or drop me a PM. I love getting other people into what is by far my favourite game system. I'd also recommend checking out TLA, the site linked to in my signature.

Thanks,
James

[The Devourer]

As a new player I have to say that the new books are a great help. In the past starting seemed very daunting as the rules were very spread out across multiple books and in WD. I'm sure the new format will make it easier for new players. As a 40k and WHFB player I didn't like way the rules were organised. The new layout is much closer to 40k/WHFB books and makes the transition very easy- It's clear what books you need and once you get them you have all the rules for that force. Whilst a book containing all the profiles for the game would have been nice the current books are organised well with forces grouped in a way that makes each feel very complete. I don't know what the previous system was for creating a force but the new one is nice as it doesn't take too long or restrict choices, that is left to players.

[The Marshel]

I don't know what the previous system was for creating a force but the new one is nice as it doesn't take too long or restrict choices, that is left to players.

12 warriors per hero is a huge burden on the overall number of warriors in an army and it's biggest effect is basically making all armies end up within 6-12 models of eachother (in terms of total warriors) it does get very restrictive in some circumstances and doesn't actually add to balance. I've played many games with near double the amount of miniatures as my opponent and seen them end up very closely, with the game able to go either way until one side breaks.

The ways in which warbands restrict players and forces them to make changes and sacrifices to their list building are as follows.

-it can make forming proper archery blocks harder (commit to an archer equip captain, which is a waste of might and points, or spread 12 archers around your other warbands, which reduces their size for cc troops and becomes a problem when you deploy with the warband based deployment rules). Archers never needed a hero to baby sit them, heroic shoot being not particularly useful and smart use of your front line troops protecting them better from the opponent then a single captain will, so imo archery blocks basically all cost an extra 50+ points under warband rules for no significant gain.

-Certain armies have trouble reaching certain points brackets, for example i've heard "high" elves come awkwardly under 500 points with 2 full warbands, with not enough points for another captain but no room for more warriors

- taking a banner imo becomes a rather awkward inclusion. if you're going to base your combat blocks on 12s you'll likely want a full frontage of 6 with the other 6 for spear support (if ur a spear wall based faction) but taking a banner means either less frontage or less spear support. small gripe, i know, but an agitation the former system lacked. It also sucks when considering the change to half boxes was for warbands, taking a banner, hornblower or drummer etc basically invalidates one of those miniatures you bought, which makes the switch to half boxes less useful for warbands then it looks on the surface.

- independent heroes are mostly a terrible choice as spending those 70+ points without gaining 12 more warriors is really bad for your total warrior count. Certain options such as the Easterling Dragon Knight or rohan Huntsmen just aren't worth taking as neither army can afford the sacrifice to their total numbers.

- a few options lack reasonable heroes to lead them. best example taking more then 12 army of the dead models means someone other then the king of the dead will be leading the excess.

in comparison, the old legions of middle earth system required you to have at least 1 hero and at least 3 models total to form a proper army. they then added a model limit based on total points. 50 at 0-500, 75 at 501-100, +25 for each 500 bracket over 1000. Add in the 33% bow cap and finally, a siege weapon limit. As for allies, you needed a hero to lead the allied contingent and they had their own independent 33% bow limit. There wasn't really anything wrong with this and a lot of the middle of the ground armies that weren't hordy and weren't low count elite still end up at about the same number of warriors based on either system.

As they are right now Warbands just makes army construction more of a pain. the 12 model per hero limit has clearly had 0 thought put toward it (beyond that they could halve the current plastic box set sizes to make more money) and has no variation to deal with cavalry or monsters being bigger and better then a simple warrior. It's a bland arbitrary system that imo doesn't add to the game at all and is worse then the old LOME system. It exist to justify halving the box sets and not halving the prices. Warbands has removed a great deal of player choice from army building as we're now forced into psudo units when we use the warband rules. If you preferred less heroes and more warriors, to bad for you. meanwhile heroes aren't all that better off in most circumstances then before because you can still easily mob them, and warbands has no effect on the chief killer of heroes, the humble ringwraith.

As it stands right now warbands is an annoyance, though i worry they'll expand on the rules in the future to turn warbands from psudo units to actaul units.

[Spiney Norman]

-Certain armies have trouble reaching certain points brackets, for example i've heard "high" elves come awkwardly under 500 points with 2 full warbands, with not enough points for another captain but no room for more warriors

- taking a banner imo becomes a rather awkward inclusion. if you're going to base your combat blocks on 12s you'll likely want a full frontage of 6 with the other 6 for spear support (if ur a spear wall based faction) but taking a banner means either less frontage or less spear support. small gripe, i know, but an agitation the former system lacked. It also sucks when considering the change to half boxes was for warbands, taking a banner, hornblower or drummer etc basically invalidates one of those miniatures you bought, which makes the switch to half boxes less useful for warbands then it looks on the surface.

- independent heroes are mostly a terrible choice as spending those 70+ points without gaining 12 more warriors is really bad for your total warrior count. Certain options such as the Easterling Dragon Knight or rohan Huntsmen just aren't worth taking as neither army can afford the sacrifice to their total numbers.

- a few options lack reasonable heroes to lead them. best example taking more then 12 army of the dead models means someone other then the king of the dead will be leading the excess.

in comparison, the old legions of middle earth system required you to have at least 1 hero and at least 3 models total to form a proper army. they then added a model limit based on total points. 50 at 0-500, 75 at 501-100, +25 for each 500 bracket over 1000. Add in the 33% bow cap and finally, a siege weapon limit. As for allies, you needed a hero to lead the allied contingent and they had their own independent 33% bow limit. There wasn't really anything wrong with this and a lot of the middle of the ground armies that weren't hordy and weren't low count elite still end up at about the same number of warriors based on either system.

As they are right now Warbands just makes army construction more of a pain. the 12 model per hero limit has clearly had 0 thought put toward it (beyond that they could halve the current plastic box set sizes to make more money) and has no variation to deal with cavalry or monsters being bigger and better then a simple warrior. It's a bland arbitrary system that imo doesn't add to the game at all and is worse then the old LOME system. It exist to justify halving the box sets and not halving the prices. Warbands has removed a great deal of player choice from army building as we're now forced into psudo units when we use the warband rules. If you preferred less heroes and more warriors, to bad for you. meanwhile heroes aren't all that better off in most circumstances then before because you can still easily mob them, and warbands has no effect on the chief killer of heroes, the humble ringwraith.

As it stands right now warbands is an annoyance, though i worry they'll expand on the rules in the future to turn warbands from psudo units to actaul units.

While I agree with all of this, I also think that having to include a certain number of heroes makes the game work a lot better. Gone are the days when my opponent turns up with one goblin captain and a carpet of warriors that I have to fight my way through. Having to take more heroes does make the game more interesting, but I think you might have a better opinion of the system if you stopped thinking of heroes like a "tax" that you have to pay to bring more warriors. I do agree that with the exception of odd-ball heroes like grima or gollum, independent heroes will see no use, for the likes of the easterling dragon knight it constitutes a colossal penalty that is nt reflected in his pts cost at all.

With regards to high elves, it's true that they find it difficult to bring a 500pt list, the only way I've found to do it is to lead with a major hero (either glorfindel, Elrond or gilgalad) and to include a banner (which you want to do now anyway because of the victory conditions in the to the death scenario).

Youre also assuming that the warbands will operate completely independently during the course of the game, this is just not the case as far as I've experienced. Hold ground can be a problem because your warbands come in from random table edges, but in most of the scenarios it's possible to start with your warbands pretty close together to form some kind of battle line.

[McMordain]

I can understand why many people feel the new army building restrictive but I generally like the changes. I never liked to play against armies with only one captain and a lot of warriors. It doesn't feel right.
But the warband system could be better. As The Marshel wrote independent heroes are don't worth their points, while big monsters like trolls and ents would be better as independent choices (but as warriors). Also a cheaper general hero would help a lot. A sergeant with a base profile of a warrior and 1 might and fate for 20-30 points. Something like in the Battle companies rules.

The book (I only have the Fallen realms) are great in that I don't have to take 3+ book and WD to a game, but the fact that I cannot include a hornblower in my uruk-hai force anymore is annoying. Even more so because the new failcast Isengard command has a drummer who has no rule in the SBG variant.... And it was expensive. And faulty, I could almost see trough the banner, its full of air bubbles.
The new victory conditions are an improvement as well.

[Vishok]

Posted this to my club's blog today. Just now.

Take a look, and I'll be happy to answer any pointed questions anyone has.

http://thewargate.blogspot.com/2012/...-them-all.html

[The Marshel]

While I agree with all of this, I also think that having to include a certain number of heroes makes the game work a lot better. Gone are the days when my opponent turns up with one goblin captain and a carpet of warriors that I have to fight my way through. Having to take more heroes does make the game more interesting, but I think you might have a better opinion of the system if you stopped thinking of heroes like a "tax" that you have to pay to bring more warriors. I do agree that with the exception of odd-ball heroes like grima or gollum, independent heroes will see no use, for the likes of the easterling dragon knight it constitutes a colossal penalty that is nt reflected in his pts cost at all.

its not so much that i think heroes are a tax. before warbands i tended to base the number of heroes i bought based on the total amount and spread of might points. 4-6 might was always sufficient for 500 points, spread across 2-3 heroes. My issue with warbands comes down to the fact that it forces me to take more heroes when i wasn't exactly hero lite to begin with. perhaps if every faction had solid cheap named captains it wouldn't annoy me as much, but once i've got 3-4 heroes at 600-800 points i'm pretty happy with that in terms of heroic muscle, might total and spread and general character to the army.

I think there are better ways to up the hero count then the overly basic warbands system and more specifically, i think the limit of 12 is ridiculous. we're clearly looking at a psudo unit set up here, warriors under a commander and so forth. most fantasy units basically start at 20, and irl i'd be very surprised to find notable military leaders in a period similar to lotr's settings leading such small numbers of warriors. The system is jsut poorly developed and annoying.

As for the one goblin and max warriors issue, the LOME model limits became very restrictive on such forces quickly and with just a single source of might to cover so many warriors, as well as the goblin reduced movement such an army is basically at your mercy in most all facets of the game. I've found in most cases outnumbering the opponent isn't enough to get an easy win and seem plenty of 2:1 scenarios come down to the final few turns. I'll concede the hoard thing was an issue, but i dislike how restrictive this fix is.

Youre also assuming that the warbands will operate completely independently during the course of the game, this is just not the case as far as I've experienced. Hold ground can be a problem because your warbands come in from random table edges, but in most of the scenarios it's possible to start with your warbands pretty close together to form some kind of battle line.

the newer scenario deployment rules make it difficult and will turn the first few turns of most games into reforming your army. I'm well aware you don't need to keep the warband together, most the warband legal list I've written make ample use of that fact to keep the numbers up.

I very much worry though that they're working towards exactly what you think i've assumed though. I think there is a pretty good chance that if the rules are updated for the hobbit we'll see rules for steadfast and heroic actions changed so that they only effect the warriors in the captains warband. Right now i can work around it as i brood over it in my corner, but if this becomes the case then i'll be sticking to friendlies with other non warband loving mates of mine

[Dr Grant]

I think there is a pretty good chance that if the rules are updated for the hobbit we'll see rules for steadfast and heroic actions changed so that they only effect the warriors in the captains warband.

A shadow and a threat has also been growing in my mind...

When I got back into the hobby (just over a year ago) I chose LOTR because of the apparent stability of the rules (as well as the gorgeous figures and a general love of Tolkien). The fact that the rulebook had existed for 7 years without signs of a new edition was a huge draw for me as I'm not particularly interested in constant rules updates à la Warhammer. One of the reasons I still play Warmaster and Man O War is because if I give it a year or two and then return to the game, it will be the same and all my tactics will still work.

I'm all in favour of the new sourcebooks and have discussed elsewhere my positive feelings towards the new, clearer compilations. However, I can't help but fear they're gearing up for the a new rulebook in which war bands will have far more restrictive in-game rules that would actually change the nature of the game. They must be planning a reprint of the rulebook at the very least as they now need to remove the redundant profiles/points values which could be confusing to a new player ("Here's your sourcebook and here's your rulebook but ignore the 70 (?) pages in the middle of points values and profiles as they're now replaced by those in your sourcebook") and I can't help but think they'll use this opportunity to make a larger overhaul of the rules to incorporate warbands.

I'm willing to give the new war band army selection system a chance and am in favour of small changes like the rules for war horns in the sourcebooks and perhaps changes to war gear, magical powers etc. However, anything that fundamentally changes the way the game plays, encouraging troops to stay within 6" of each other for the whole game etc. would be a major turn-off for me and would probably lead to me sticking with the old book in our club and becoming a bit of a LOTR hermit.

Unfortunately, GW believe (perhaps correctly) that to continue to sell their products they have to update the big 2 (now 3?) every few years or people will lose interest/have everything they need to play. God only knows what SBG will look like in 30 years...

I don't like change :-)

[Spider-pope]

I picked up The Free Peoples book this weekend, even though its been several years since i've managed to get a game of SBG, so my own opinion of the new books is definitely not from a regular players perspective.

One of the mildly irritating things about SBG in the past, as others have said, was the way the rules for certain units were spread all over the place. This had the resulting effect that to play the game, you had to pick up the rulebook, several source books, track down half a dozen White Dwarfs. A complete hassle really, compared to the Warhammer and 40k systems where you just needed the rulebook, codex/armybook and maybe an FAQ if you were lucky.

So consolidating all the unit rules into a set of pseudo-armybooks can only be a good thing. It also has the benefit of adding a bit more structure to the force selection. Now you don't have to be a Tolkien buff to know if various units would ever be seen together.

Presentation wise, LOTR continues to be great. Full colour throughout, pictures of the mini's next to their profile, a bit of colour text for each, still the usual high standard expected from the system. The only negative i can suggest is the lack of hobby information in the books. While i appreciate we still have the Journey books for that, it would have been nifty for a few alternate paintschemes and a bit of hobby advice to be present. It would certainly have solidified this books as SBG's army book equivalents.

Rules wise, i will admit i am speaking from ignorance here - like i said its been a while since i've played - but i do like the Warband system in some ways. It reminds me of the old army selection system from Warhammer Armies Chaos back in Fantasy's 5th edition. Players chose a hero then had to make up its points in troops as a retinue. I've always thought Warhammer should have expanded that system to every army rather than the pseudo-40k system used in 6th and 7th ed.

So it's pretty cool to see a similar system here. But where it does fall down is the 12 man/elf/goblin limit. While its not a big deal for armies like Elves and Men, it does have a huge impact on traditionally horde based armies. It really doesnt fit with Goblins for example. More flexible limits, perhaps race dependent, would have been a better way to go in my opinion. But again i'm speaking from a completely hypothetical standpoint here. It's unlikely i'll get a game any time soon to try the new rules out.