8/3/2023 - First Post and FAQ Breakdown

 

Hello everyone!

This is my first post, and while I will do an intro to myself later, I just want to jump right into a breakdown of the new FAQ release. I have been pushing off starting to write up MESBG for far too long, so I am not giving myself a chance to procrastinate!

Starting off with the rules manual FAQ:

1) "If a model making a Duel roll would have a modifier applied to their roll, and they choose to re-roll due to the effect of a banner, special rule or some other effect, does the modifier also apply to the re-roll? (p.45)". - A: Yes

I see this come up fairly often, and to be fair, it was previously in the FAQ, but more specific to two-handing. Rerolling will still apply those duel modifiers afterwards, there is no avoiding the two handing penalty for non-burly/masterforged.

2) "If a Hero has declared a Heroic Defence and would normally be wounded on a 6/4+, then do both rolls now have to be a natural 6 as per the rules for Heroic Defence? (p.74)" - A: Yes

This item was a bit contested in the past. Previously the rules did not indicate that the 4+ turned into a 6, and really only definitively said that the second result must also be natural. Now there is no question, defense (I am American, I use defense not defence) turns 6/4+ into natural 6/6. This gives a little extra umph to those big monsters or heavily armored dwarf heroes to defend against swarms of S3 or less models.

3) "Can a Monster that has been Immobilised/Transfixed still use Brutal Power Attacks? (P.79)" - A: No

This seems straightforward. A model under Immobilize or Transfix cannot do anything that would require them to move or act, in line with the FAQ from Feb 2023.

4) "If a Hero with a two-handed weapon rolls a 6 in their Duel roll, which then suffers a -1 penalty due to the rules for two-handed weapons, can they then use a Might point to boost the rolls back up to a 6? (p.85)" - A: Yes. The roll has essentially been changed from a 6 to a 5, and so the Might point can beused to boost it back up to a 6.

Many people seemed to not know this, from my experience due to the efficiency most put into moving through steps. Technically any time a die result changes, you are supposed to turn it to the new facing, but using our heads, it saves some time, but can lead to questions like this. Definitely catches some people by surprise. Learning this is a big part of why I rate Thrydan higher than I used to. It might blow all his might to kill a hero, but chances are that hero costs more than him, making the value ok.

4) "Does the Piercing Strike Special Strike increase a model's Strength for the purpose of special rules such as Monstrous Charge? (p.89 & 110)" - A: No. Piercing Strike only increases a model's Strength for the purpose of making Strikes.

Reads straightforward and is in line with the text for Piercing Strike. It is only when you are making that strike, and doesn't impact anything outside that.

5) "In a Scenario where you deploy your army in a corner (such as Divide & Conquer or Storm the Camp), which table edge counts as the player's board edge for the purpose of deploying a Siege Engine? (p.121)" - A: The player who decides their table edge first may choose any table edge touching their deployment zone as their table edge. However, in these Scenarios a Siege Engine must still be deployed in your deployment zone as normal.

Again, straight-forward. Siege still goes within that 12" bubble. I wish they commented on how this interacts with Reconnoitre, where it is not super clear whether you start on table edge within 6" or if you move on as a warband, as it is not maelstrom.

6) "When a demolition charge explodes, does it hit models that are in range, but on the other side of a piece of tall impassable terrain such as a wall, rockface or equivalent? (p.122)" - A: No

This saddens me, since the Deeping Wall clearly did not stop the explosion from hitting people, however I can understand that for Matched Play, this is necessary, since terrain is not destructible.

7) Errata - In The Way. When a model makes a shooting attack that targets a War Beast or a Monster with the Fly special rule, when they are determining models that are In The Way, they ignore models (both friendly and enemy) that do not have any of the following keywords: Monster, Siege Engine, War Beast. If the target model is Engaged in a fight, then the In The Way test for being in combat is still applied.

This is a fairly significant one. There was some discrepancy over over model height, especially comparing the two extremes of the plastic Fellbeast and Gwahir. The Fellbeast had almost no chance of models blocking, while Gwahir is practically taking a nap. Now the playing field is much more equalized. This also handles the weird situation of small models blocking for Mumaks. Could this be a test run to maybe do the same with big regular monsters, such as a tiny goblin causing an in the way as he hugs the Balrog's foot?

*Edit - Someone pointed out. All the in the ways that normally would be present when, as evil, you are shooting at a monster, no longer impact the shot, only the combat in the way itself. This definitely makes evil shooting at monsters way less riskier and more powerful. Isengard crossbows will love this when shooting at Fellbeast mounted Nazgul!

Armies of The Lord of the Rings:

8) "If Legolas uses his Deadly Shot special rule to hit any target on a 2+ and then rolls a 1, can he use a point of Might to turn the 1 into  a 2 and therefore hit? (p.13)" - A: Yes

I am not sure this one necessarily needed to be answered? I am not sure how you would argue it didn't. I would've preferred some information on how he interacts with Crebain. For reference, Crebain say they can only be hit by shooting on a natural 6. Does Legolas 2+ override this? Does the Crebain force it to be natural? What is the meaning of life? (42 obviously) We may never know.

9) "Is the Great Beast of Gorgoroth a Battlefield Target or a Siege Target? (p.146)" - A: As it has the Monster keyword and is not mentioned in the list of Siege Targets, it is a Battlefield Target. It's Howdah is also a Battlefield Target.

This is a useful one. It does feel weird that big monster is still a battlefield target, especially since siege can one shot it definitively now.

Armies of The Hobbit:

10) "When an opponent selects one of their Hero models to be the bearer of a largesum of gold as per the Master of Lake-town's Dragon Sickness special rule, do they have to tell the Master's controlling player which Hero they have selected?" - A: Yes.

Good to know, it did not in fact specify previously.

11) "When Beorn (or Grimbeorn) uses the Crushing Strength Brutal Power Attack, if the target saves a Wound with Fate does this stop Beorn from rolling again for another Strength 10 hit? (p.81)" - A: No. Beorn (Or Grimbeorn) will continue to inflict Strength 10 hits until he fails a To Wound roll. 

The key difference here is Wound versus Wound Roll. A successful wound is required for something like Channeled Black Dart, since it is a "Wounding Hit", but here, it is just checking if the To Wound roll would wound. Whether it does or not is immaterial, so you get to keep going.

12) Errata - Master of Lake-town. Add the following special rule: "Who would have the nerve to question my authority?" (Passive) - If your army contains the Master of Lake-town then he must be your leader, regardless of the Heroic Tier of other Hero models in your army (unless your army includes another Hero with a similar rule). Additionally, if you are including an Army of Lake-town allied contingent as part of a Convenient Alliance or Impossible Alliance, then the Master counts as a Hero of Fortitude - both when building your army and during the course of the game.

Woah. MASSIVE change here. Army of Lake-town has been a massively well performing army, usually allying with some big heroes, such as Saruman the White (White Council), Gwahir, etc., but now, that's effectively neutered. Lets break this down. Part 1, he must be your leader. This is going to be problematic for yellow and red alliances. No longer can you bring in a big hero that is a much better suited leader, like Gwahir, and remove the risk of the Master being leader. The only way to do that would be Denethor (he falls under similar rule par). Part 2, for yellow and red, he is treated as a hero of fortitude. This is even bigger. Now, the only way to ally yellow or red is to also take Bard, who usually is mounted, effectively raising the requirement to ally from 50 points to 200 (not including the allied hero of valour+). This is seemingly going to remove any yellow or red army of Lake-town lists from competitive in my opinion. We may still see green with Thorin's Company, which is not bad to be fair. This may be too heavy handed, but based on the performance of yellow Army of Lake-town, I'm definitely not surprised.

Defence of the North:

13) "What exactly can Grimbeorn (and as a resultm Beornings) be allied with outside of the Beorning Legendary Legion? (p.86)" - A: Treat Grimbeorn in the same manner as all other Wanderers in the Wild. As a result, Grimbeorn has his own list of what he can ally with provided in his profile. Beornings can then be included in Grimbeorn's warband as normal.

I guess they didn't explicitly state he worked like this before, but definitely seemed clear still. I just wish Beorn could taking beornings. Giving a warrior option to Radaghast's alliance would be pretty cool.

14) "If a magical power such as Sorcerous Blast or Tremor hits the Dragon Emperror of Rhun whilst he is riding his Royal Palanquin, how many hits will the Royal Palanquin take? (p.73)" - A. One. The Royal Palanquin is essentially a single mount with 6 wounds, and should be treated as such. When the Dragon Emperor dismounts, you simply replace the Royal Palanquin with a number of Black Dragons equal to it's remaining wounds.

Pretty clear. It doesn't quite answer two questions that I had submitted, does it getting killed by siege mean that it gets zero black dragons? If it is hit by a ballista, do the black dragons come on where it was or where it ends up? It does seem like the Dragon Emperor could've had more FAQ stuff on him this time around, similar to other Defence of the North items, but just didn't.

15) "If the Dragon Emperor of Rhun dismounts either normally or as part of a Heroic Combat, can the Black Dragons that replace the Royal Palanquin move themselves during that move or Heroic Combat? (p.73)" - A: No.

Unsurprising. Mounts can't move after a rider dismounts, this seems to be the same, just with the added replacement with black dragons.

16) "When Razgush's War Leader of the North special rule references Orc Captains, is that only the Orc Captain profile or any profile that includes the words Orc Captain, such as Zagdush, Orc Captain; Morannan Orc Captain or Gorbag, Orc Captain? (p.80)" - A: Only the Orc Captain profile.

This was argued pretty heavily in the Middle Earth: Strategy Battle Game Discord (https://discord.gg/MZfUgRtV56 - great community, and host to Tabletop Simulator play and tournaments). Does Razgush impact profiles with Orc Captain or Orc Warrior in their name (named Mordor ones with Orc Captain, Gundabad Orc Warriors, Gundabad Orc Captains). The answer is pretty clearly that it does not. No crazy red alliances with hatred elf and rerolls of 1s for Gundabad Orcs!

17) "In the Assault on Lothlorien Legendary Legion, can Druzhag take Fell Wargs in his warband even though they are not listed as part of the Legendary Legion? (p.97)" - A: No.

This is a good precedent to set. Individual profiles stating you can bring other models do not override the legion army list. 

18) "In the Assault on Lothlorien Legendary Legion, do supporting models gain the +1 bonus to wound for the Ruthless Savagery special rule? (p.97)" - A: No.

This has been brought up a few times. This answer will be repeated later for black gate opens, and it is a solid indication that animosity is the exact same (I am not sure why they didn't include that as well). You must be fighting on the frontline to benefit.

Here come some big ones

19) Errata - The Beornings - Great Resilience. Change the second sentence to read: On a natural 6 the Wound is ignored just as if a point of Fate had been spent. 

Massive. Not only is it changed from a 5+ to a 6, it is now natural. This means no mighting to protect yourself. The Bears have been tremendously strong the last year, and this hopefully will bring them more in line with other armies.

20) Errata - Assault on Lothlorien - Additional Rules. Add the following to the first bullet point: Muzgur must always be the army's leader.

Granted, most people did use him already, but the case was there for Ashrak or Druzhag, and in practice, there was little penalty for doing that, since the veto system is so common that contest of champions can be avoided easily. This worked out well for the winner of 2023 LVO, Jake, who ended up using Ashrak, and went 4-0-1 to win, only drawing the bears.

21) Errata - Assault on Lothlorien - Additional Rules. Add the following bullet point: This Legendary Legion may not include more Goblin models that Orc Models.

Huge again. Out goes goblin bow spam. Needing to have an orc per goblin is definitely going to reduce numbers, and may see a shift towards more beast heavy lists, which I do believe is the better version, Jake having proved it at LVO to be super effective. Goblin spam definitely was funny, but at the end of the day, a bunch of 5+ s2 (effective s4) shooting with only 18" always felt like it would fall short.

Gondor at War:

22) "In the Black Gate Opens Legendary Legion, do supporting models gain the +1 bonus to Wound for the Hordes of Mordor special rule? (p.119)" - A: No

See item 18, same thing.

Scouring of the Shire:

23) "When during a turn can Lotho Sackville-Baggins use his Considerable Wealth Special rule, and how long do the effects last for? (p.51)" - A: The first bullet point states Lotho can use it when an enemy model declares a Charge against him. The other two can be used at any point in a turn. In all cases, the effects last until the end of the turn.

Nice and clear. His abilities do not go on infinitely.

War in Rohan:

24) Errata - Assault Upon Helm's Deep - Break the Walls. Change the first sentence to read: Isengard Ballistae from this army list may re-roll results of a 1 for To Hit and Scatter rolls during the Shoot phase.

Decent nerf. This drops the chance to hit from 75% to 58.3%. I don't think scatter matters as much. The goal on that is just not to get a 1. A 6 is nice, but the risk of rerolling into a 1 always kept me from rerolling unless I had nothing to lose. The same 1/36 chance of a double 1 is there.

Matched Play:

25) "If when a siege engine lands a hit it would also deal a hit to other models within a certain rage of the initially hit model (such as the Area Effect rule of the Gondor Battlecry Trebuchet), do these additional hits also gain the +1 to Wound in the A Clash By Moonlight Scenario? (p.16)" - A: No.

Straightforward. I always looked at the area of effect as a mix of the ground shuddering and debris coming off the projectile, not the projectile itself. +1 to wound on that area would be pretty strong.

26) "In Doubles Scenarios, when a Scenario says that it continues until one force is reduced to 25% of its starting numbers, does this mean one player's force, or the entire doubles army? (p.32-37)" - A: The Entire doubles army.

Makes sense. Game ending when one player is quartered and another player has taken zero losses would be weird.

Well, that wraps up this lengthy review. To summarize the big points, and things I think we might see:

1) Bears are hurt more often, but heroic defence will protect them more against S3 models.

2) Assault on Lothlorien has to have more orcs than goblins, and Muzgur must lead.

3) Assault upon Helms Deep ballista hits less frequently.

4) Lake-Town yellow/red alliances are effectively done for.

5) Flying monsters can be shot at very easily, maybe this will pave the way to fix mighty goblins blocking for the Balrog.

A lot of this was expected looking at the recent results of tourneys. I am yet again surprised the Dragon Emperor has had no changes, but I think with changes to other powerful lists, his power will go even higher, putting him into the nerf spotlight.

I appreciate those of you that read all the way through, and I hope you read my future posts.

-Scott