The One rulebook has its share of special rules, but not so much in abundance as to make it sound like you're playing Magic the gathering. But over the years the special rules just keep piling on and on and building that it is beginning to be too much. I'm with Oldman on this, an abundance of unit specific special rules shouldn't be necessary to make the game interesting, it starts to become fluff more than practical.

And placing down game pieces and rolling dice is far different from doing a roll call of special rules with awkward names.

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My Lotr backlog: 305/952[][][][][][][][][][]32% completed
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Regarding the naming off of special rules: most players do not even know a lot of the names of the special rules they are using anyway. People just say "Galadriel gets one free will a turn" or "Men at Arms count as under the effects of a banner around 12" of Imrahil". You dont actually have to declare the names of the rule if it makes you uncomfortable since the name doesnt even matter.

This debate seems to be just an argument from nostalgia. I have never heard of new players coming into the game complaining the rules are too complicated...in fact, it is praised for it's simplicity yet difficulty to master compared to 40K and Fantasy...I imagine that as more new players come in, this complaint of power creeping will get washed out they will just look at the game how it is now, and see a pretty simple game where most models only get one or two simple rules.

PS: The comparison to Magic the Gathering is reaching. Magic is known to be one of the most complicated card games with a rules system that need Archives on a webpage just to keep everything balanced.

Fine, fine. We'll leave it at that.

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My Lotr backlog: 305/952[][][][][][][][][][]32% completed
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Im not sure why the sudden drop from the conversation. The point of this thread was to argue the satisfaction of new models, which would inevitably become a comparison to old models.

Just done with discussion that's all. We both made our points, because at this point we might as well run around in circles.

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My Lotr backlog: 305/952[][][][][][][][][][]32% completed
Painting Lineup: Mumakil x2, Rohan Heroes x8, Haradrim, SKoDA

Fair enough. I understand.

I fail to see how comparing rulesets is nostalgia. For myself (and what I've understood from most posts that don't like the newest profiles) is we want a level of constancy among pieces and their rules.
I don't think anyone would disagree that newer heroes are typically "better" or preferable to older ones. And that's a drawback for myself, I don't like arms races of sorts for a Table-top game. I want pure strategy to win out.

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That's why I house rule some newer models to fit in-line with the One rulebook. Though for those into tournament competitions you can't do that.

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My Lotr backlog: 305/952[][][][][][][][][][]32% completed
Painting Lineup: Mumakil x2, Rohan Heroes x8, Haradrim, SKoDA

Totally agree that some of these profiles are a bit OTT and that much of it has to do with the way that the films have taken the action to a new level (at the loss of some of the believability that made LOTR so good).
Fight value in particular has become horribly skewed (this happened towards the end of LOTR era). Originally, for warriors fight 4 was elite, whereas now it's practically par (for non-elves).
As far as heroes went, only the mightiest heroes of their age got fight 6 (Aragorn and Boromir) and to find higher fight values you needed to look at the most powerful elven lords (Glorfindel and Gil-Galad). Certainly the thought of a fight 7 orc would have been unthinkable. Elves were always a little higher but the other races pretty much followed these rules.

I like most of the profiles, but they do feel a bit off when compared to LOTR profiles. Definitely if feels like there should be a fight value rebalancing across the board. It's just a little jarring that Glorfindel (arguably one of the most powerful elf lords in middle earth) can be matched by Legolas.

I absolutely agree that there is a power creep in the models. No one can deny this. I also agree that because of the power creep, older models are left behind.

My argument is that the older models should be updated to fit the newer style of play and the new models, rather than just keeping everything the way it was. Had the game started at this power level where we get Fight 7 heroes and Fight 4 warriors, then there wouldnt be an issue.

So basically, I agree that older models lack the power of the newer ones, but I dont think its a bad direction. We just need all the older models to catch up

That I could get behind. It'd take a lot of work though

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--When I say "balanced" in this post, I mean thematically. I don't have any experience with any of the Hobbit profiles, so I can't comment on their game balance.--


I don't quite get this logic. Seems like an awful lot of work (and I'm not holding my breath for it to ever get done) when you could have just made the new profiles balanced with the old ones in the first place.

For what it's worth, though, I don't personally find most of the new good models' stat lines to be overpowered, at least from a thematic perspective. Aragorn isn't some arbitrary benchmark for other good heroes, and I can easily see Legolas with a higher F value (I might even suggest that it's supported by the movies). I also don't see any reason why Thranduil shouldn't be similarly powerful to other great elf lords like Cirdan, Elrond, etc. in stats and abilities.

Of the dwarves, I can see Thorin as being quite powerful. The movies have played Dwalin up as the bruiser of the group, so I at least get it with him, too. Others vary, some maybe a bit stronger than I would have pegged them, and I'm not a fan of the ubiquity of the "burly" special rule with Hobbit profiles, but a lot of them are so-so, with characterful special rules.

I think the wood elves' glaives are a bit of a missed opportunity, though. Instead of coming up with something interesting, or at least representative, they just made them "counts-as" basically every melee weapon in the game. Heck, even a profile with A2 and the ability to shield would have been more on-point, to me, than what they did.

It's mainly the evil profiles that I'm not a fan of, though, and I've talked a bit about that elsewhere, so I won't re-hash too much here. Suffice to say, I feel that orcs of any stripe should cap out at F5 or maybe 6, I really don't see why the orcs from these movies, which in all regards appear to be very similar to the orcs from the Lord of the Rings movies, are inexplicably stronger. The goblin profiles are pretty cool, IMO, but the awful character design is enough to put me off of every bothering to use the official minis, at least, and at that point I'm more likely to just run Moria goblins. If I ever find models that basically look like unarmored Moria goblins, then I'd probably sub them in for the Goblin Town goblins.

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Well, that's my 2 cents.

The reason, I assume, they dont balance everything with the old profiles is because either they want to change the pace of the game by making models more powerful (hence the stat creep), or they found the old style limiting (The problem with the old style of just using a stat line with very few special rules, is that after the model range continues to expand, there are very few stat lines left to try without creating redundancies).

But the unfortunate fact of this, is you shouldnt hold your breath for the old models to catch up anytime soon. Games Workshop does not update old profiles very often in LOTR. Im actually quite surprised they updated Galadriel and Elrond to be honest. But I still feel that many old models still retain their playability against the newer ones, even if they are possibly less interesting or powerful.

But powerful is relative, and if they make everything more powerful than it was before, then nothing is actually "more powerful," the average is just increased.


If the large majority of heroes had just their stat line and some M/W/F, then yeah, I think it would get kinda stale, but for most of the game's history, most named heroes have had a defining special rule or two to keep them interesting and unique. I think what gets people is not that new models have unnecessary special rules, but rather that they're more powerful (by some combination of better stats and more and better special rules) than many of their comparable predecessors.

I don't think that being balanced with existing characters automatically equals stale or boring, or suggests that they couldn't have special rules.

Although, again, I don't find most of the good models to be unbalanced, with the possible exception of perhaps just a couple of the dwarves.

And of course, I think it has at least as much to do with the difference between the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings movies as with GW's translation of characters into the game.

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Well, that's my 2 cents.

I really like this latest supplement and am very excited about using the new profiles.
Are they unbalanced? I don't think so. Most of the models got a points increase along with their new special rules or restrictions such as not being able to take horses, losing staff of power or even losing spells.
Are they thematically unbalanced? probably, but this problem began with the very first hobbit rulebook where high fight and high attacks were handed out left right and centre.
SPOILER
If these rules had been anything less than they are then Legolas would not match Bolg and Thorin would be crushed by Azog every time. Galadriel needed more versatility as her defence is too low to be a dedicated white council fighter and now she's both amazing and has very thematic abilities. Bear in mind that the White Council profiles cannot lead troops and so will really shine when used as the all hero white council.

What or whether the new super heroes can lead does a lot of balancing for me. Galadriel is amazing against spirits...but an expensive Independent Hero, especially if your opponent is Shadeless or lacking Nazguls. Will we see her much at 700 points? The new Dwarves can't lead anything but themselves, and theme penalties in my country will keep them out of tournements. In that small way, the old armies are 'protected' a bit from the stat creep---not to mention the real cost of buying the new armies a super hero can lead, since those armies did not get the stat creep.

At first glance, I'm satisfied. Curious what shows up at tournements and how people use the new profiles.

Quite true. I've just assembled my first armoured Mirkwood Warband. It'll take a while to get an army of any real size, but I do plan to take Galadriel to protect them from shooters, and have a little 'anti-wraith' capability.

Now, if only they had a banner...

I would like to point out that no one is making the claim Galadriel is OP, nor any of Thorin's company for that matter (although Thorin and Dwalin may be). So to use them as examples of why the new heroes are "not OP" is to avoid the profiles in contention

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My personal thought is that an Orc, any orc, with fight seven, is ridiculous. I thought that was their skill? Also, that makes Bolg level with Glorfindel, a resurrected Elven maiar. *shakes head*

But gameplay wise it does make him a right 'monster general' for the bad guys, as if they didn't have enough huge monsters and wraiths as it is.

Then again on the good side we have Dwalin. Extremely powerful, especially for his points cost. Beautiful model though, I have to say.

My biggest 'warning light' for any serious issue is Saruman with his reroll casting dice. I haven't even seen all the profiles yet, but I'm just really glad Isengard can't take him in this form. I struggle enough against those armoured *"*"£&£!&^$s!

As for Thorin, haven't seen his profile, but I imagine without Orcrist it might be lacking somewhat?

Thorin is a beast and he can take orcrist if you don't have the new legolas in your force.

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