Hobbit Rulebook ommission

jscottbowman · **Posted:** Thu Jan 10, 2013 10:10 am

Just noticed an ommission from the new Hobbit rulebook - they have missed the rules for siege towers from the siege section.

Ok its not everyday you play a siege game, but if you do, a siege towers is a mighty useful thing to have for the attacker!

typhoon2 · **Posted:** Thu Jan 10, 2013 10:30 am

The removal of Siege Towers (and Batter Points, wall attacks, etc.) is deliberate. I believe that they were trying to 'streamline' the rules, as mentioned in TH:SBG rules manual. How this works with umpteen new weapons rules, Heroic Actions, etc. I can't say. Dumbing down in some areas and unnecessary complications in others is hardly the way forward, hence the number of unsold copies of The Hobbit:SBG stuff in my local GW.

The Horde Lord · **Joined:** Wed Feb 23, 2011 6:58 pm **Posts:** 301

Yeah, they should really have dropped the special strikes. I never got around to playing a siege, but it doesen't ook as fun without siege towers.

goblin_king · **Posted:** Thu Jan 10, 2013 12:17 pm

Surely you could just use the old rules? I used to have great fun playing siege games!

imrail · **Joined:** Tue Aug 18, 2009 7:24 pm **Posts:** 666

Yeah just use the old rules as house rules.
I remember that there was a White Dwarf full of siege rules and equipment (rocks and spears, traps etc.)

Anyone knows the number of that WD?

typhoon2 · **Posted:** Thu Jan 10, 2013 1:05 pm

A siege - technically an escalade, since a proper siege involves setting up the models and doing nothing for four weeks... - is indeed one of the highlights of SBG, whether Hobbit or LOTR. I've run many such games, putting Pelennor Fields on at various shows. Without siege towers a player needs a massive points advantage to avoid the inevitable losses from figures lalling from ladders. With siege towers things are more interesting and more balanced; I've sent thirteen towers against Minas Tirith before now, and even that wasn't enough!

The White Dwarf issue had access ladders (leave a gap in the ramparts behind retreating troops), rally points (fixed banner), spiked barricades (presumably cheval-de-frise, which 'attack' troops crossing them) and similar defences. It wasn't really well-thought out or interesting so you haven't missed much. Home-grown rules to suit your own collection - such as cauldrons of boiling oil or water from the Warhammer Siege Defenders set - are generally better.

jscottbowman · **Posted:** Fri Jan 11, 2013 12:00 am

Yeah, I'll just keep the old rulebook for this kind of stuff.

They have also renamed batter points more simple as 'wounds' for siege stuff...

13 siege towers against Minas Tirith! That must have been quite a spectacle!

Dr Grant · **Joined:** Fri Aug 03, 2012 1:50 pm **Posts:** 1339

I found this a really strange omission, particularly when, as Typhoon2 says, they complicated the game in other areas (not necessarily to its detriment BTW).

My biggest issue with it was that in 'streamlining' the siege rules (I think they halved the page count for Siege stuff) it ends up feeling very incomplete and like is doesn't know what it's supposed to be. After all it contains very detailed rules for incredibly specific things (upgrades to siege engines, a whole page for detonation charges) and no rules whatsoever for far more generic/common ideas like destroying walls or siege towers. Essentially you could now boil down the 'siege' rules to 'attacking up ladders' and 'using siege engines in your games'.

I also found that in their desire to slim down the word count there's a lot more ambiguity when it comes to ladders than in the last rules. I can't remember exactly but if you read through the ladder rules I think there's a few things that are unclear relating to when a model falls and if it hits other models on the ladder etc. It all just felt a bit confused/unfinished.

I was particularly disappointed with the treatment of carrying ladders/battering rams, the old rules were rather good and made a lot of sense but now just classing them as 'heavy objects' (so, the same weight as a Hobbit) is dispapointingly vague. The sentence that you 'may need to increase the number of models required to carry a large battering ram' just comes across as lazy.

It came at a really bad time for us as we played a massive Helm's Deep game (around 2100 points per side, 10 hours, ALL of the fun!) on 21st December, a week after I bought the book! Ultimately I ended up combining some of the new rules with some of the old rules and typing up our own set of house siege rules to use for the game (so you're not constantly checking 2 big books) and that worked well and is something we're going to build on for our future siege games.

The good thing is these rules changes don't affect most games and shouldn't come up in tournaments so you are genuinely free to build/mould a set of house siege rules that work really well for your gaming group/terrain and that you find rewarding. We're planning on a refight of Helm's Deep over Easter to address some of the perceived imbalances in the scenario and we'll be exclusively working from our house rules.

jay170788 · **Joined:** Tue Feb 07, 2012 7:58 am **Posts:** 87

Sorry to go off on a tangent but playing a helms deep defence would be great fun with my legolas / haldir led galadhrim...!

imrail · **Joined:** Tue Aug 18, 2009 7:24 pm **Posts:** 666

typhoon2 wrote:

A siege - technically an escalade, since a proper siege involves setting up the models and doing nothing for four weeks... - is indeed one of the highlights of SBG, whether Hobbit or LOTR. I've run many such games, putting Pelennor Fields on at various shows. Without siege towers a player needs a massive points advantage to avoid the inevitable losses from figures lalling from ladders. With siege towers things are more interesting and more balanced; I've sent thirteen towers against Minas Tirith before now, and even that wasn't enough!

The White Dwarf issue had access ladders (leave a gap in the ramparts behind retreating troops), rally points (fixed banner), spiked barricades (presumably cheval-de-frise, which 'attack' troops crossing them) and similar defences. It wasn't really well-thought out or interesting so you haven't missed much. Home-grown rules to suit your own collection - such as cauldrons of boiling oil or water from the Warhammer Siege Defenders set - are generally better.

Do you know which issue it was?
I'm sure I have had a WD where it was in, but I can't find it anymore.

Lord Hurin · **Posted:** Fri Jan 11, 2013 3:58 pm

This just further reinforces my opinion that we'll be getting full rule books for the next two films as well. Siege battles would be in the third one, I guess.

Amarthadan · **Posted:** Fri Jan 11, 2013 6:52 pm

Lord Hurin wrote:

This just further reinforces my opinion that we'll be getting full rule books for the next two films as well. Siege battles would be in the third one, I guess.

The people who work at our local GW were very adamant about there not being a new rulebook. The most probable follow-up would be new armybooks etc. (their words)

Lord Hurin · **Posted:** Fri Jan 11, 2013 6:58 pm

Well they don't want to put people off buying a rule book that will be replaced in a year, right? Especially since many people will only need it for the profiles and points costs.

Their decision to omit the profiles and points values from the mini-rule book has me wary of anything GW says regarding rule books. They obviously want to have their cake and eat it too. Combined with the fact that there won't be another version of The Company until March at the earliest, it looks to me like they're just trying to cash in as much as possible.

Amarthadan · **Posted:** Sat Jan 12, 2013 12:22 am

Lord Hurin wrote:

Well they don't want to put people off buying a rule book that will be replaced in a year, right? Especially since many people will only need it for the profiles and points costs.

That is true as a general GW bussiness-plan, however, I have yet to catch one of the employee's on a lie.

Curufinwë · **Posted:** Sat Jan 12, 2013 12:38 am

They don't need to release a new BRB with the new movies, instead they can expand on the rules by using source books like The Fall of the Necromancer and expand the rules in those. So they make the BRB which you have to buy for the overall rules, then they release supplements that add in things like the Siege of Dol Guldor in which they expand the Siege rules and then the army rule books. That way people have to buy all of the source books in order to have all the rules to play.

Pindergorn · **Posted:** Sat Jan 12, 2013 12:43 am

As a general rule Junior store staffers cannot be relied on when it comes to rumours and speculation on future GW releases. I don't think they're lying, rather I think they've been either lied to themselves, or ordered to stick to the official line.

Senior management (i.e. on the corporate level) won't hesitate to manipulate and lie to their own staff if it benefits GW's interests. Thats why they keep a tight lid on future releases and crackdown on leaks; only announcing new upcoming releases at short notice ( a month or two prior).

They DON'T want you to hold off buying those boxes of Elves or Haradrim to save up for something else thats coming in a few months time (Hobbit releases). They WANT you to buy those Elves anyway, and then impulse buy (sacrificing other things like video games, dvds or other luxuries) those cool new Hobbit releases which you had no idea were coming.

Remember, GW staffers might be your friend. But the company is not. It doesn't care about giving you value for money, maintaining your interest in the hobby. It just wants to squeeze as much cash out of you, as quickly as possible; before the marketing boost from the Middle Earth movies dies off.

aelfwine · **Joined:** Sat Aug 22, 2009 12:23 am **Posts:** 508

In my experience, GW employees never lie. It's just that they don't have any more idea about what's going on than we do. They just have this weird conspiratorial thing going: hey, don't tell anyone I told you, but X is coming out soon. Soon can be anything up to a year away. Which would lead me to strongly suspect that the GW employee rumour mill is just part of the marketing scheme.

I'd say, as of last year somewhere, the plan was to release a Core rulebook, and supplement set as things happen. Made sense if you were, for example, supporting two films that are really just expressions of one book. Instead, we have three films and what is in the core isn't exactly what's in the film.

So, I'd say the plan could well be.

- Corebook remains current
- Boxed set inspired by Film 2 set piece (Elves, spiders, maybe?)
- Film two "thick" supplement.

Which then leads to
- Boxed set and supplement for film three which leads to...

"Hobbit film trilogy" core book in mid to late 2014

Or we'll see a corebook and boxed set model for each film, depending on costs and sales.

Beowulf03809 · **Posted:** Wed Jan 16, 2013 3:22 pm

The core rules SHOULD change little across the whole Hobbit release. They are not much different than the One Ring rules already and the additions shouldn't change.

What will change are profiles, lists, scenarios, etc. That can all happen in what were basically the Journey Books for the LotR line. So the big Hobbit Rules (or the mini rules that came with EfGT) would be our new One Ring book and not change. We may or may not eventually see an "Unexpected Journey" journey book, but I would expect to see a soft cover in the $25+ range for the second and third movies.

Likewise there's a lot of cost and overhead that goes into the introductory sets. Since the EfGT intro set includes the full Company that we will have through all three films I see no reason for GW to do another box set for the 2nd or 3rd movie. The MoM set was valid and regular purchase well after the release of the RotK movie. It had the core rules, all the main characters, and a generic evil force. This is no different than the EfGT set.

I know back during the initial film releases they used a different model for sales that included soft cover rule book and some models in a box set that was updated for each film, but I am inclined to think they will stick to what we've seen in the last decade, especially considering the new Hobbit rule hard cover.

Hobbit Rulebook ommission

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