Well folks, yesterday I bought the WD for February and I would like to share some information with you guys.

It included:
-a big introduction to lord of the rings
-a list of all the new mini's
-a introduction on the new rules
-2 battle reports using the new rules
-an introduction to each sourcebook with example armys
-a painting guide on easterlings
-and scattered trough all these articles are the profile's of three of the new mini's

big intro on lotr:
not much to say about; just a chunk of tekst for beginners

list of all the new mini's
this included big picture's and blocks of tekst on the new mini's that you have already seen
in the 'new releases' topic. what we didn't know about is that there are two new good miniature's:
the king's huntmen (looks like a rohan captain with a big bow) and the knight of the white tower
(a guy with an enormous sword). These are packaged in the command boxes for rohan and gondor.

intro to the new rules
Now this was quite a shock for me. They will be dropping the hole LOME system for a completely new
way of building army's: war bands... They didn't give the precise rules but noted that your army must be
build out of 'war bands' : one hero and up to twelve warriors. Witch means much more hero's and much less warriors.
This will of course completely throw off all are former tactics on building army's!
As for that, there will also be six new scenario's replacing the twelve LOME scenario's.
These new scenario's will be in each of the new source books.

two battle reports using the new mini's
The first one was the hole fellowship versus the watcher itw, groblog (the new goblin king), 2 warg marauders, a cave troll and a bunch of goblins.
They gave you the profile of the watcher, but not on the other new mini's that were used.

The second battle was gondor (using the new 'knight of the white tower') versus Easterlings and agreat beast of gorgoroth.
I didn't take the time to read it completely.

intro to the source books and example army's
Just blocks of tekst on each source book. The example army's were Devlan Mud like usually, for example: a moria goblin army with 30 units, a galadrim army with a horn and a banner.

a painting guide on easterlings
this was actually quite a good painting guide with lots of detail.

three profile's scattered trough all the articles
To the moderators: if I say anything illegal, please warn me so that I can change it.
I'll do my best to describe the profile's legally.

wather in the water: costs the same as a dragon, five of its characteristic profile's are: 6, it walks at the speed of a hobbit but has a rule that it can appear any ware on the bord.

great beast of gorgoroth: is practically a baby mumak: it does almost the same thing (but on a smaller scale), it costs about half of a mumak.

Knight of the white tower: A kind of minis tirith capain (same price) but one less might, higher fight, two handed weapon and the same rule that thryden wolfsbane has.


Well this is what was inside WD 386, hope you enjoyed. I'm interested in your comments, especially on the new rules.

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"make me lunch... worthy of Mordor"

Nice overview, but You might want to remove the winners of the battle reports or at least mention there are spoilers.

It's great to know there is so much LotR content, make a change and will make an interesting read Thanks for sharing

edited

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"make me lunch... worthy of Mordor"

Ditto!

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No one feels as helpless as the owner of a sick goldfish.

Is there anything for WOTR (ie. Profiles)?

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"... Telchar wrought it in the deeps of time."
-On Andùril, The Lord of the Rings

Nothing in the WD. They are introducing upgrades in SBG that reflect units found in WoTR.

From what GW employees are saying in my surrounding area and the Bunker is that WoTR is likely to go the way of Specialist Games.

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Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen. -B.M.

WotR profiles for the new figures are probably going to follow in WD in a couple months, much the way SBG profiles followed the release of WotR figs in the past couple years.

I know there are alot of people here who really liked this game, but I for one will not be sad that it is hitting the back burner (no offence). I always liked the SBG and was never fond of the larger scale battles, and movement trays just look out of place to me on a well detailed gaming board. I am stoked that SBG is back in GW's sights!

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No one feels as helpless as the owner of a sick goldfish.

Amen brother!

I am VERY interested in seeing this scenario. Anywhere i can view this online?
And WOTR isnt a specialist game, its an expansion like apocalypse is for 40k.

Just buy it, its out now.

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My (more regularly updated) painting blog:
https://www.facebook.com/Pindergorn/

I will leave you your opinion, and you have probably heard this before, but I'll provide some counterweight. I find that WOTR is not only (naturally) far better at representing big battles, but also has nicer mechanics then SBG. The use of Might and (most, Wings of Terror,Strength through Corruption and Guide Arrows) is far better balanced in WOTR, and the incorporation of win, hit and fate into one roll really speeds up the game. When I play SBG, I get annoyed at the 3rd/4th turn of rolling 8-9 dice and not anyone on either side dying.

On the other hand, SBG is better at representing smaller battles (the fights in Fellowship of the Ring and the first half of The Two Towers) then WOTR, for obvious reasons, and as you said, most people think it looks better without movement trays (though I disagree). Also, some people have the annoying tendency to use WOTR's tendency towards lenience instead of hard rules, combined with the one or two overpowered options that can be found in any list, to spoil the game, which you can't do (except with Grey Company) in SBG.

In short, I think both games should have equal attention, and while being glad that SBG is back in sight, I am truly sad that WOTR is dead/dying.


Sorry for the extremely long post, I started and then I just went on rambling .

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"... Telchar wrought it in the deeps of time."
-On Andùril, The Lord of the Rings