GW has announced it’s releasing a new edition of Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game – one of its greatest, if often overlooked, tabletop wargames – and has heavily teased a focus on Rohan, to tie in with upcoming anime movie The War of the Rohirrim. A tour through the game’s Reddit threads suggests MESBG fans are half excited, half terrified.
MESBG – or Lord of the Rings Warhammer, in layman’s terms – is generally a bit more narrative-focused and less driven by competitive balance and tournament play than GW’s flagship wargames Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Age of Sigmar.
It’s seen something of a resurgence since the latest edition launched in 2018 with the Battle of the Pelennor Fields starter set, with more rules and miniature releases. When GW announced via its Warhammer Community site on Thursday it was to release a new edition in which “every profile has been reworked”, many fans were taken aback.
“It’ll be great to have all the profiles consolidated in one place,” wrote Reddit user techwithspecs on the r/MiddleEarthMiniatures subreddit, “but I hope this isn’t a radical rules overhaul”.
“Despite being over (more or less) 20 years the old, the core rules are still really robust,” they add.
In fact, the most upvoted posts in MESBG communities all sing much the same tune: cautious excitement for minor, targeted balance tweaks, mixed with fear that a top-to-bottom overhaul could mess up an overall game-state that they’re generally pretty happy with, after many years of only occasional rules changes.
“Minor changes, no big overhaul please”, writes redditor ThomasReturns in the most-upvoted comment on another new edition thread.
But they do raise a few points of order we’ve seen other fans cry out for in this edition change: clarifying the rules wording for shooting and line of sight – and making large monsters (especially Mordor Trolls) and heroes (like Gandalf and Legolas) more viable.
GW let very few details about the new edition slip in its Thursday WarCom article – but it included the official logo for director Kenji Kamiyama’s upcoming movie The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim: an anime feature film re-telling the story of hero of Rohan Helm Hammerhand, after whom is named the fortress Helm’s Deep, the setting for the conclusion of The Two Towers movie.
That, plus judicious use of the word “galloping” in GW’s article, has convinced fans the new edition will come alongside new rules and models for the Rohirrim – Rohan’s legendary cavalry force. As avowed horselord fans, we can’t help but hope the same!
With customary coyness, WarCom says it’ll be sharing more info “in the coming weeks” – but, since the movie is set for release on December 13, 2024, we don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a starter set on the horizon by Christmas. We’ll look for its coming, anyway.
Before that, LOTR wargamers can look forward to the 112-page Rise of Angmar supplement, along with new models for Hill Trolls, Werewolves, Warriors of Carn Dûm, and more – which GW also showed off on Thursday, and which it says “will be available to pre-order soon”. Whether the expansion rules are written exclusively for the current edition, for the new one, or for compatibility with both, isn’t yet clear.
For Warhammer fans who’ve yet to try MESBG, it’s a very different tabletop game from biggies like 40k, Age of Sigmar, Warhammer The Old World, or even skirmish siblings like Kill Team or Warcry.
The rules include more simulation and old-school dice-rolling tables for things like moving or shooting past obstacles, or clambering over terrain – leading to a more ‘zoomed-in’ experience that often plays best with small warbands, and produces detailed, epic hero duels.
And, crucially, unlike the majority of GW’s miniature wargames, ‘We-Go’ turn-taking sees each player get to act in each turn phase – rather than the 40k standard ‘U-go-I-go’ system, where player one goes through their entire 20-minute turn, while player two has to sit and watch.
That, and the incomparable power of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth lore and characters, have earned it a loyal and consistent player base since it first emerged in 2001.
In the meantime, you can stay updated on this and all our other daily Warhammer news by following Wargamer on Google News. And, if you can’t wait, try our guide to the best Lord of the Rings board games out there.
Source: Wargamer
