I figured I'd start a new thread since the new books are out.

Looks like the first 15 pages in each book are the same. How to make an army / battles.

For Heroes that come in 2's. Murin and Drar, the Twins, Sharky and Worm (is that it?) You buy them and the other hero takes a spot of one of the 12 warriors in the warband. So you can't split them up.

There are rules for "Independant Heroes", which are heroes that can't lead wariors. Some of the choices make sense, but other not really. The Castellans are Independant Heroes, and so are Cave Drakes... but the Dragon is ok to lead troops... kind of weird. Shelob can't lead, but the Gulavhar can.

I read through Moria & Angmar. Have to say Groblog / Goblin Shaman combo is now in the MUST HAVE category for Moria. The Cave Drake went up by the same points as 5 goblins with shield. The Warg marauder is interesting. It gets the cav bonus. It is more expensive than the sum of it's parts - 3 goblins, and 1 warg, but it's rules are decent. The Dweller is the cost of a cave troll minus 1 goblin with shield. D is lower than I'd like, but once it got into melee it should be ok.

Fallen Realms, I didn't notice much different. 2 things I did notice were there are no more khandish mercenarys. Just normal Khandish warriors, and I thought the Easterling captain didn't have a shield option before. If not he does now. I also noticed that Black Numenorians are in with the Harad guys, but with being able to ally with any one you want it really doesn't matter now.

Mordor is pretty much the same. The Wraiths are in the Mordor book, but also other books. Khamul could lead Easterlings or Black Guard Uruks for example, depending on what army you wanted him from. The Mordor catapult as the option for BNs as crew, but not the BN catapult special ammo rule.

Onto Kingdoms of Men.. fir thing hits me..... Peregrin Guard of the Citadel is an Independant hero... Ohwell guess I can't have him lead my GotFC into battle any more! This is interesting... the Rider of the Dead is listed as (Spirit, Cavalry) and under Wargear has horse listed as one of the items. Also Warrior of the Dead now has Options of Banner, Shield, and Spear. The Dead "D" was high enough already IMHO.
I think Erkenbrand's horn is different, but don't have the old books to check. BUT... the new rule is nice, if it is new. Like having 2 horns and they add up. Outriders are NO LONGER HEROES. No M/W/F stats, but have a cool Standfast rule. King's Huntsman is an Independant Hero with an Elf bow, and has an "in the way" rule that's cool.
Dunedain / Ranger of the North are Independant heroes... so they ain't leading anyone anywhere. It has listed rules for Grey Company, with the 1 Dunedain per 4 Ranger of Arnor, but I guess you'd have to use a regular Captain to lead them.. I guess...

The Free Peoples. Elves look the same. Gildor Inglorion has an upgrade elves rule. It effects movement. Celeborn can upgrade his elves, and that one effects Courage.... because we all know what low courage elves have. Thranduil can upgrade wood elves.. and it's just nasty. It involves Shoot value. So I expect to see plenty of these armies in my future.
Durin can upgrade Dwarf warriors to basically the "bodyguard" rule. Murin and Drar can upgrade Warriors and Rangers in the strength area.
The Shire... Peregrin, Captain of the Shire can upgrade Hobbit Archers Fight. Meriadoc Captain of the Shire can upgrade Hobbit Militia's Strength.
The Fellowship has some special rules. Got to say I'm liking Bill the Pony! His rule has possibilities, if you can roll well enough.
The White Council could be fun, but expensive points wise to play. Nothing really special. There's a list of other Heroes able to be part of the council, and a rule about assisting with magic.

I just skimmed the books for a few hours, so I'm sure i've missed stuff here and there. I hope I didn't say too much in terms of rules etc. I tried to be vague about certain things.

Did Angmar get the option to use Ghost Warriors as troops, like in WotR?

nope

I simply MUST buy these books!

_________________
Painting again...

Poo. Ah well, I'll just proxy them as Orcs.

Sad as hell about this

_________________
Talaan-u rûk-ir tor Urûk
Nauru-ir agh kragoru nûrsu grishûrz
Nork-ulu furtun agh goð
Mordor-ob bot-tuk

I got two of the books today - Fallen Realms and Kingdom of Men

First impressions... Mahud got seriously nerfed (lower fight, 1 less attack, 1 more courage) and no more warrior pride rule. Cost went down 2 pts. Also blowpipes can be used with 1/2 movement penalty.

Also in Kingdom of Men, Outriders are regular warriors now (lost fate) but picked up some courage and special rule regarding their courage.

I also only saw one profile for Faramir when I first went through the books.

_________________
There and Blog Again ...

Is bow limit apllied to the whole army only or to each army list still?

Bow limits per allied contigent (like LOME).

_________________
There and Blog Again ...

I don't have much practice with the Mahud. I didn't realise that. I did notice the Farmir thing. Eomer has 2 profiles. I wonder why they gave him just 1.

D#mn, that makes my Isengard list (made assuming/thinking it'd be over the whole army) illegal.

_________________
"... Telchar wrought it in the deeps of time."
-On Andùril, The Lord of the Rings

If you are only using 1 army.. All Isengard for example. Then it is the whole Army. It's only if you ally to different armies. Each Allied army warband was called a contigent.

Wow, that will really cut down on the shooting, especially from woodies. You would need to get 5 captains/heroes now to have 20. I am thinking through this correctly?

_________________
richmondwarmancers we play Lord of The Rings, Battlefleet Gothic, Infinity, some board games, and really whatever tickles our fancy..

that's how I read it. the same 33% rule as before per army group. So 36 elves would have 12 bows, and need 3 captains. 1 per 12 warriors.

So, It looks like they didn't bother to fix the rohan bow issue did they?

These books look like a real dud to me. No real re balancing, no real rules clarifications, removed allied rules, slapped in some sell more characters rules.. I'm bummed out. I guess I'll give it a read at the store, but I'm not optimistic.

Were there any rules for unreleased models, or only existing models?

_________________
Better, though difficult, the right way to go, than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe. John Bunyan - Pilgrim's Progress

Well there's always the Corsair Reaver...

I don't think I saw any profiles for unreleased models.

No stats for unreleased models.

I noticed that they only have 1 profile for Boromir (at the "height" of his life) and 2 profiles for Aragorn. 1 being the King, the other being Strider. The cost of Strider has jumped, though he kinda has a ...ok... ability if you're ever wanting to field an Arnor force and/or Legolas and/or Gimili along with the new Strider.

Also I take it, if I read it right, that the Independent Characters of the RoTN and the Dunedain are suspended if you're wanting to field a Grey Company.

Kinda like how the Haradrim can be bought as Karna or Abrakhan troops. Gives the chance to field those themes as a full force.

The Mahud have been changed. Not sure its for the best though. Their courage is still craptastic and they don't benefit from Warriors Pride.

I really like that the Easterlings can be upgraded bonus to their FV and C.

That being said, overall I feel that the books can be combined down to 2-3 total. 1 for all the Good and 1-2 for all the Evil forces. The first few pages are all the same and the last few pages; can all be combined into 1 of the books.

-Scar

_________________
Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen. -B.M.

I just had a quick glance at them myself. I was mainly looking at the Moria and Angmar book, though I did look through the others but didn't spend enough time to pick out anything new from what others have said. Angmar got a boost with the Spirit Grasp weapons (finally they can do something in combat occasionally!). Am tempted to take a few spectres now. The new Goblin Shaman looks quite nice and I'm planning to take one along with a regular (as he's not that much more). The new King which everyone says is a must have... Well, his bonus to Fury is great so I suppose in that regard he's good, but he's weaker in combat than Durburz, with less heroic stats, so I'm still liking Durburz for my own force and I don't see the new King as a no-brainer, just another option.

What really aggravated me though was that the Goblin Drums still haven't been fixed. Price has remained the same but the Gundabad version has been brought up to the same. My question is, why would I ever want to take the normal drum as opposed to the Gundabad drum? Same drumming bonuses but the Gundabad version has better drummers (better fight, courage, defence and special rule against dwarves and elves), can be played while moving (as opposed to the standard drum being a heavy object) and can replace fallen drummers. In fact, the only thing that the standard drum has that the Gundabad one doesn't, is that the actual drum has a profile for destroying it. And they're exactly the same points! I'm just going to proxy my normal drum as a Gundabad version me thinks.

I don't see many people playing elves, the heroes are just too pricey. Dwarves may fall into the same category While gondor has some cheap ones to lead warbands. Take some citadel guard and you have s3 bows.

_________________
richmondwarmancers we play Lord of The Rings, Battlefleet Gothic, Infinity, some board games, and really whatever tickles our fancy..