Folks,

I’d like to revive LOTR SBG at my local club. It had a surge of enthusiasm when it first came out but has gradually died off, partly due to some dissatisfaction with the basics of the combat system, partly due to dissatisfaction with GW prices, and partly because as club we don’t have much of an attention span!

I’ve given myself a year to do this. There’s some interest in Battle Companies and I’ll be running that later in the year (need to paint some more companies up first!) but I’d like to do some scenarios to show the rules and range of figures in more depth than battle companies will ever allow.

Somewhat unexpectedly, I’ve got some players this coming Wednesday. Three of us know the basic LOTR rules fairly well but have limited experience of the Hobbit tweaks. Two are complete new comers to LOTR, one of them hasn’t wargamed in 20 years (he came to us through RPGs). I’d like to do something different, visually pleasing and most of all fun. I’ve got plenty of Gondor (no fiefdoms), Isengard, Harad, Mordor, Shire and Ruffians painted up. I also have (or can have with some sharpish painting/rebasing) 4 ents. I was thinking of the ent attack on Isengard – me or one of the other more experienced players run the orc/uruk defence, maybe with warg riders for variety, and give the other players an Ent each.

But I’d appreciate any thoughts!

James

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What I found to be really helping was to start an 500 points escalation league. We had a total of 10 members of wich 6 where new players! And my store is rather small so it is definetly something to try out.

The first thing I'd do is make the newcomers aware that the game can be much cheaper than it looks. Point them to Ebay for 2nd hand minis by the dozen, mostly under GW prices for the stuff that is still in print, then show them to the Wargames Factory website for Vikings (Dunland), Saxons (Rohirrim), Orcs and I think they even do a middle-Eastern range that could double as Haradrim in a pinch. At a cost of about $20 for 24-32 minis, they are a much more economical option for building the core of an army. You'll still need to go GW or Ebay for some more unique units, but the money you save on buying elsewhere can help there.

As for gaming itself, I reckon you should certainly run something film-inspired. If you have The Fellowship (or can borrow them from someone), then you can run an Amon Hen scenario; you get unlimited Uruks, they get either Aragorn, Legolas or Gimli each, and you play 10 turns, counting kills as you go. May the best Dwarf win! Similar setups could work for Balin's Tomb, Helms Deep or even a small section of The Pelennor. These kind of games work well for beginners as they only really have to concentrate on killing as many of your guys as possible, and perfectly capture the feel of the films.

After that, just run a small 300-point battle ignoring some of the more unusual/complex rules (I'd cut Courage, Magic, Monsters and Special Strikes personally) so they get a feel for the more 'standard' game.

Hope that gives you some ideas, good luck getting some interest going!

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Hello folks,

Thanks for the feedback here and by PM! I like the idea of Amon Hen, but would rather they had some experience of the Might/Will/Fate rules and the heroic options - the main area we struggle with casual players - before doing that. Might well run that next though. I'm sticking with Isengard as it's not often the Ents get a run out; some of them I painted 20 years ago from the Mithril range (and sadly it shows) so would be nice to see them.

The league option I think will be taken by the Battle Companies later in the year; and using non GW figures we're used to from our WFB days. And my Dunland army from Gripping Beast!

I'm tempting to leave the special strikes and other tweaks in - they're mostly experienced gamers, frankly if they can cope with Dystopian Wars and Pathfinder, they can cope with LOTR SBG. I might need to knock up a crib sheet or two tomorrow though.

Cheers all

JDE

_________________
Chief Sarcaster at http://www.exmouthwargames.org.uk/
Assistant Dogsbody at http://legionaryshow.co.uk/ /