Hi all,

New to the website, and I tried browsing/searching for an answer to this before posting, but I am still a bit confused.

I have the War of the Ring hardbound rulebook, as well as The Two Towers Strategy Battle Game boxed set and rule book. I have not purchased The Hobbit game yet, but am interested in trying to start playing, and was wondering where to begin.

I would like to play skirmish games to start as my friends and I build up a couple of armies, but it would eventually be fun to play some larger battles. From what I understand, The War of the Ring covers large battles, but what does the new Hobbit game cover? Skirmish scale, or larger?

Would I be better off getting the new Hobbit game or buying the Battlehosts expansion for The War of the Ring (I think it covers skirmish scale battles, but I could be wrong)?

Thanks in advance.

War of the Ring is not skirmish, and Battlehosts is a WotR expansion, so no skirmish there either. The Hobbit game is skirmish only, an evolution of the LotR strategy battle game (SBG). The Two Towers game is an early incarnation.

You could probably start with the Two Towers game if you just wanted to see how the skirmish games play...the basic mechanics haven't changed much, at least not for small armies. You could get a captain and 12 warriors per side and see how you like it. If you decide you like it, then pick up the Hobbit book, there is lots of new great stuff. You will also need the sourcebooks for the armies you want to build. There are currently five sourcebooks for Good Men, Free Peoples, Mordor, Moria, and Evil Men + Isengard.

Once you learn the rules you can still play big battles with the skirmish game in a decent timeframe...we often play 1000 points (60-70 figures per side).

Thanks for the response whafrog.

A few follow up questions:

Are the rules quite different between the War of the Ring game and the skirmish games?

What does the Battlehosts book expansion add to the War of the Ring game (since it is not skirmish)?

Does The Hobbit include any rules for sieges (fortifications, war machines, etc)?



These books have Lord of the Rings blue covers instead of being designated for The Hobbit, correct?

Thanks again.

Hi and welcome!

I would call War of the Ring and skirmish rules more different than similar, but WotR rules are clearly inspired by the skirmish rules so they are in my opinion easy to learn if you know the skirmish rules. Probably the other way around as well. The whole idea is different; in skirmish you play with individual models and in WotR you move around whole formations on movement trays. There are some common terms and some rules look quite similar in both games.

Battlehosts are collections of thematic WotR formations depicting famous armies, such as Éomer's riders. If you have certain troops together, you can call them a battlehost and get some special bonuses for them. The idea seems to be to encourage people to use thematic armies by granting them special perks for doing so.

I have only the small Hobbit rulebook that comes with the boxed set and it has siege rules. Probably the big rulebook has them too.

The sourcebooks are indeed the blue-cover LotR books.

-- Pasi

I'd say they're quite different. Every game has turn sequences and move/shoot/fight phases, after that it's all about the details of how these are resolved, and the tactical choices those details dictate. Those aspects aren't translatable at all.

It's difficult for me to be objective about these games...I absolutely despise tray games, and the concept of WotR and how it was implemented. The skirmish game embodies everything about LotR as I imagine it and could want, even up to big battles.

The skirmish game plays very differently - and in my opinion is far more balanced and much more fun.

I love the Strategy Battle game, but was hugely disappointed by WOTR as the frankly ridiculous financial cost and man hours spent painting to build up a decent sized playable collection of miniatures to play it! At the extreme 18 stands (of eight miniatures) of mordor orcs! Or nine companies of metal Ruffians etc. GW were unrealistically greedy, and I personally would not wish to devote that much time painting the same miniatures over and over. If they had toned the scale down to average unit sizes at three or four it may have had a chance. Their is also a great deal more depth and possibility in the skirmish game.