G.W. have removed all copies of "The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game" rules book and the "mines of Moria" boxed set (with rules) from their website and stores!

Looks like we shall have "an unexpected Journey" boxed set and new rules unveiled next Saturday. I would be enormously surprised if we didn't get a new boxed set etc for the following two films.

so after one year GW's gonna publish new rules? why? they could add a supplement with the new hobbit rules not make you buy the whole rulebook again...

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éala éarendel engla beorhtast, ofer middangeard monnum sended

Or they could make you buy the whole rulebook again three times in the next two and a half years. You know, because they're GW and we'll eat it up.

Honestly, SBG core rules are solid so I'm worried about what they will do. The Warbands rules were a major change and while I love the concept, I dislike how it was executed. Why does a named Ranger like Damrod have the same number of followers as the freaking KING of Gondor? Why can a lowly Orc Captain generate the same amount of pull as SAURON?! I think if they had given each Hero a "leadership number" or something like that it would have been more realistic.

IMO it's not the rules themselves that need a redo, it's some of the profiles. Evil has been given so many quality troops lately while Good has gotten more of the same, or worse (Blackroot Vale Archers )

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Gondor: 2339pts
Rohan: 1318pts
Dwarves: 2482pts
Elves: 1091pts
Mordor: 2305pts
Isengard: 1762pts
Moria: 1463pts
Evil Men: 381pts

If it is a new rulebook I, unless its dirt cheap, won't buy it :l .

unless the new rules are really good I'll just stick with the old ones. 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'

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'Though my memory's fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior'
-John Newton

GW will probably make this new book and then sit for the next five years,adding models here or there and then make another one.But this rulebook shoudn't be less pricey than the old one.

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If you don't let me in, Frodo, I shall blow your door right down your hole and out through the hill-Gandalf

I did not mind the new rules released with all the original films as the improvements every time were significant. Particularly the rules for Saruman in the original fellowship edition, that made him ridiculously powerful, that were eventually balanced and perfected with the big blue book.

I am not really in favour of the Warbands rule, but not I don't feel that it ruins the game. I suspect that we will see rules for a warband of 15 heroes!

I would be very surprised if the recent 5 books were made obsolete (and would take it as a huge middle finger to the gaming community!).

I expect that we will see more tinkering with the format but hope that it is not too drastic as I feel that the present rules work beautifully (except those governing catapults that are ridiculously powerful in sieges, but nearly useless in open battles).

I would like to see a revamped hard back version of the rules with a source book for each of the films.

I felt that G.W. have done a great job with this game and I have extremely high hopes, we shall all see next Saturday!

^^ exactly my oppinion

Not entirely sure why there's so much surprise and negative reaction to this - the One Rulebook was, along with the MOM box, the most likely thing to be redone/removed as part of the Hobbit release. At least a third of it is now completely out of date (scenarios and profiles) and this is the perfect time to release a new rulebook.

There's nothing to suggest they'll be fiddling too much with the rules, they may well take the time to edit/adapt a few areas but I imagine the core mechanics will stay the same. However, I ultimately think it will be more of an aesthetic change to ditch the redundant material and rebrand it as 'The Hobbit: Strategy Battle Game' or whatever they go with. I imagine the new book will be smaller than the current one as it won't have all the profiles but this does not mean the sourcebooks are going to be invalidated. The biggest niggle I have is that they could have done this all at the same time and thus put the scenarios/warband rules in the main rulebook rather than repeating them across all the sourcebooks but this isn't the end of the world.

My thinking is we'll get the new 'Escape from Goblin Town' box set, a new rulebook that's fundamentally the same game and a 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' Journey book with all the scenarios and character profiles for the first film, hopefully with painting/terrain articles like the old LOTR ones had, those are some of the best supplements GW has ever done IMO.

I remain an optimist, this is all good news and come Friday/Saturday we're going to be delighted.

*crosses everything possible, shuts eyes and prays*

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Finished 2nd in the 2014 GBHL. My Wife's so proud

Free SBG fanzine: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29569

I have to say that I like the Weta "Look" and I do feel like a kid before (this) Christmas!
I am very keen to get painting new Characters, a Goblin force and monsters, and I feel a mass purchase and painting blitz coming on so that I can field my first Hobbit only miniatures battle to celebrate the first film!

It actually doesn't make any sense for the King of a nation to personally lead normal warriors. He would have his captains and sergeants lead the men, while he would lead that captains. It's called a chain of command. However, it would really suck if you're super expensive hero couldn't lead anybody, so they had to let him lead SOMETHING. As for the BrVA, if you house rule them to have elf bows, they're suddenly great.

As for the 5 sourcebooks, there is absolutely no reason why they'll be obsolete. The only way they could be made obsolete is if the warbands rules are dropped AND the profiles are all changed. Since neither is likely, they won't be worthless. The way they're structured allows GW to come out with sourcebooks for the new profiles in each movie, rather than 1 giant book of rules each time.

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"Leave Sauron to me."
If you're in the Raleigh, NC area, let me know.

Because we're not confident GW is capable of not breaking something that already works really well...

GW have a complete rewrite of the rules up their sleeve you know! Just before they released the One Rulebook, the external playtesters were given a full set of rules to work through that substantially changed the game (for the better) but it was never released. The One Rulebook took the testers completely by surprise - and then GW stopped external playtesting altogether.

I am not suggesting that they will release it as a part of the Hobbit, but it's an interesting that I have always wondered about.

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Dagster

Maybe they will just re-release the old rulebook as Finecast?

-- Pasi

Source? And where can you find these old playtesting rules?

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"Leave Sauron to me."
If you're in the Raleigh, NC area, let me know.

On a side note, when 6th ed 40k was released, the starter set didn't come out till 2 months after the new rulebook. I am personally hoping the rulebook is just being rebranded.

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12th GBHL 2013.
13th GBHL 2014
9th GBHL 2015


Mid Sussex Wargamers

I doubt they will be major rule changes (just some things cleared up here and there) since warbands (which I think was a great addition to the game) came just a few months ago. I think its going to be more or less the same book but rebranded with nice new pictures but the core rules remain the same as before.

I am really interested in these rules myself. Do you know what were the suggestions of the external playtesters?

I am friends with a number of former playtesters (and was about to ask to sign up with GW myself but they canned the program), but they are all limited in what they can say because of non-disclosure agreements.

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Dagster

There is probably a room in Lenton that closely resembles the place in Barad-dur where Gollum was tortured. My guess is the rules are there, along with the threat of what'll happen to anyone who gets the Nazgul out of the Bag-end (so to speak).
Only a few weeks until we find out.

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Published ebooks:
Instrument of the Empire
A Note of Defiance
Phantom Ships, Ghost Flotilla
More to come!

Hmm... I like that mental image! *evil grin*




This. A thousand times over. The core game mechanics are some of the best out there (though I believe cavalry should be slightly stronger and more durable, but that's a minor gripe), it's unbalanced profiles that cause problems.
As you said, the quality-quantity gap that existed between Good and Evil in the beginning has been steadily closed by giving quality troops to the side that should be outnumbering, but be outclassed by, their opponent.
To be honest, after the huge (by LotR standards) release Evil got in January - GBoG, Easterling Cataphractoi, all that Moria stuff - I pretty much expected Good to get a nice boost of their own shortly after... that never happened, unfortunately. If you want to play a tough, survivable, elitist army nowadays, Easterlings make more sense than Gondor, and that's just wrong!

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Rohan - as it should have been. A house rule project.