8/8/2024 - NEW SUPPLEMENT AND EDITION HYPE

Hey Everyone, I'm Back!

Work has been a bit hectic, so Isengard posts have been on hold, but will return soon.

Today, however, we got some absolutely amazing news!

Over the last few months we have gotten some profile reveals for the upcoming supplement, and today it has been officially announced. Introducing, The Rise of Angmar: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/08/08/middle-earth-strategy-battle-game-the-rise-of-angmar/

While I was going to do a write-up on the revealed profiles and my predictions, we got some insanely awesome news at the same time, so I will circle back to that at a later date.

The news you ask?

A NEW EDITION OF MIDDLE EARTH STRATEGY BATTLE GAME

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/08/08/new-edition-of-middle-earth-strategy-battle-game-coming-soon/

"It’s a very exciting time for fans of The Lord of the Rings™ and The Hobbit™, who can look forward to refreshed and updated rules for the game and their armies.

There’ll be a shiny new rules manual to go with the new edition, as well as new supplements for Armies of The Lord of the Rings™ and Armies of The Hobbit™, each of which will contain the rules for the miniatures from the respective movie trilogies. Every profile has been reworked so that units and characters’ actions and on-screen presence are even better represented on the tabletop, and your adventures in Middle-earth feel exactly as they should."

While the announcement doesn't give a whole lot of information, we can see at a base level that we will be getting a new rulebook, and new LOTR/Hobbit Army Books, which will (hopefully) contain all the previous supplement profiles, along with some reworking of the existing profiles.

With that, I am going to give my thoughts and some thoughts I've seen from others on what I think GW will be changing or what I would like to see for this new edition:

1) Fight Value Arms Race. I think some fight values are going to be adjusted to better deal with the ever increasing fight 5 arms race for warriors. We have Fight Values of 1-10, and we do not use all of them equally. I definitely suspect that some changes will occur to make fight value feel more of a list building choice between profiles and army selection, rather than an auto-include.

2) Some base size changes. While I have not gone over the Rise of Angmar supplement yet, one thing that was noted on the announcement is that Buhrdur is looking swole. And it appears his base size has finally accounted for his mass. This means he is likely on a GW 60mm base, rather than the clown car 40mm base he was on before. While tactically, the 40mm base was awesome, he always crowded it. If they are willing to adjust him, its possible other models could be adjusted. Other GW games have changed bases from edition to edition, and while I do not suspect many to do so, a few monsters could possibly change.

3) Reduction in large banners. Some of the banner abilities are a bit much in the current game, especially ones hitting out 12", and especially when combining all these effects with fight increasing auras. I suspect these may be reigned in a little bit.

4) More flexibility in wargear options. I think these days, many are willing to pay for weapons swaps, and I think we are to the point where models that take one of the swappable weapons should just be allowed to choose from the beginning. Maybe that could increase the less seen special strikes, like stun or whirl, if you did not have to pay additional points for it when most armies do not have access by default. Of course this would excluding things that have special weapons, like Elven made or named weapons that identify as a type. More models with banners too. When you can pass a banner from any warrior to any warrior, assuming they meet required criteria of standing, in base contact, unengaged and not of bestial intelligence, there's just no reason to not have more be able to take it. Giving heroes that should have mounts a way to ride as well (Grimbold, Celeborn).

5) Magic. I think magic is going to be made more expensive. No real additional thoughts on this, but I think it will happen. Between offensive consistent casting and defensive aura casting, I generally think most armies rely so heavily on it that it will be adjusted to be more costly, discouraging "stand and wait" armies.

6) Monsters. Many agree that non-hero monsters are just in a rough state, and have been for a while. Adjustments that make them more competitive, whether it be less points or additional special rules would make them much more usable.

7) Army roster adjustments. I think some rosters will have some adjustments that make the army make a bit more sense. For example, I see them splitting Dunland into it's own army, or removing Cave Trolls from Angmar since they are now getting Hill Trolls (Rise of Angmar). I would love to see a shift towards how the 2006 Legions of Middle Earth had some factions split. A lot of those splits became Legendary Legions at present, but it would be cool to have Rivendell in it's Third Age state be distinct from Eregion under Gil-Galad at the turn of the Era and the fall of Sauron.

8) New Scenarios. Some scenarios cough Heirlooms cough are pretty rough, and could do with changes. I would love to see some replacements or adjustments to some of the less liked scenarios, to either make them more lucrative for some armies to play, or less punishing for others.

9) General point/stat adjustments. I think they will play around with some of more efficiently costed models, between their points being raised, or stats lowered to bring them in line with other profiles. I would guess that some more expensive mid-tier heroes will be lowered in cost, with some that are too cost efficient being raised (Dwalin, Suladan). Small heroes tend to be in a good state right now, and expensive heroes I think will be adjusted more on the aura or banner effects they provide, so it's hard to say what will change there. Maybe Black Guard of Barad-Dur will become reasonable to play!

10) Backwards compatibility. I am not holding my breath on this one, but do hope that they either bring all the Legendary Legions and old profiles into the new army books, or make the previous ones compatible, albeit with any adjustments to cost they make, because it will feel pretty dull to lose models or lists because of the edition change, especially when Rise of Angmar won't be out for that long before the new edition likely drops.

That's the list of things I think we may see or that I want to see. Let me know what you all are looking (or not looking) forward to. I think this will definitely breath even more life into the game if it is done right!

See you all!

-Scott