Ok…I’ve been reading more discussions here and will be taking a closer look at a couple of the new books later this week at my LGS but wanted to ask since many of you are much further along the Warband road than I.

There are things I like about Warbands…at least in concept. It seems part of it is to break up an issue of using one hero and a horde of warriors. We generally have a nice mix of named and unnamed Heroes in our local gaming group. Even our Orc and Goblin hordes typically have a named and a couple Captains spread around for Stand Fast and Heroic actions. So generally I imagine most of our lists would translate into legal Warband armies with little modification.

The new deployment sounds like a fun idea as well and there is still some flexibility there on how quick you want to be on top of your foe. Even our more shooty forces rarely do the shoot-fall back-shoot thing as that gets boring for both sides. We more often see shooting in support of advancing troops or similar and two turns of heavy shooting is usually our max (we also use a lot of terrain typically so there are options for closure under cover for at least some of an army). So here too Warbands makes a change that doesn’t seem too bad at least on the surface.

The total fail is, in my opinion, going back to open allies separated only by Good / Evil. Even before LoME came out most of us tried our best to build armies around basic theme and time period but it was better when there was something official we could all agree on. Although we don’t agree with 100% of GW’s decisions they made with LoME, I’d say it was well over 80% on target with enforcing Tolkien themed forces. They threw that out the window when they went to WotR and now it seems they don’t care to keep it in SBG any more. They probably decided the open concept has a better chance of promoting a variety of sales.

I also understand that some historic Profiles and prices have been adjusted, but these generally sound good so far (as a Spider Queen player I'm very content with her going up in points for example). And of the new Profiles added, there appears to be a typical GW mix ranging from ‘pretty good’ to ‘WH refugee in Middle Earth’. Not much can be done about those beyond good conscience and peer pressure.

So here’s my personal questions and delimia:

Has anyone looked over the new Warbands and crafted any sort of LoME style alliance guidelines that can be adopted locally? If not, is it something that seems possible or are the Warband lists just so much of a mix to begin with that you can’t relate things logically by Age or thematic allies?

Also, if we decided to play ‘classic’ games at times (using LoME lists and LoME scenarios) are there any new points or Profiles that seem like they will be broke under the old list building? I know we’d have to decide locally which LoME list certain new Profiles belong to but as long as nothing’s too over powered that shouldn’t be much of an issue.

Any other gotchas a long time SBG player should be aware of when trying to transition? For those that don’t know me (I haven’t been around for a while) I was an avid SBG player and we tried very hard to get into WotR as well. Many of us have multiple 2000+ point armies. We ran a couple events and a 6-month long Tale Of Gamers to encourage the game and build additional forces. But to be honest even though the mechanics were pretty fun it just felt so far away from Tolkien’s Middle Earth for most of us that interest in the game just faded away and several of us jumped to historical gaming.

A few are missing Middle Earth though and I’d like to start encouraging an SBG revival at our local group as it remains one of my favorite game systems. My preference would be to move forward locally with Warband rules and Profiles as that's the new direction, but at the same time to give our local players a document suggesting some Middle Earth guilde-lines for thematic allies. But if the new structure has drifted too far (or if GW makes the mistake of making a whole new rule system) then we’re probably going to lock ourselves in the past and just stick to old LoME and Profiles. I'd rather not see that happen.

advTHANKSance!

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Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

I don't think anyone's built a LoME style alliance guide. There is certainly nothing to prevent you from insisting on strongly themed armies (as I do in my games), I'm guessing most people do this anyway and the lack of "official" rules hasn't really been an issue. I haven't seen the issue mentioned at all since the books were first introduced, so you're kind of where we were several months ago: a bit concerned at first and then the issue just fades. A few of the army lists have been grouped, eg: all the Dwarves are together now, as are Lothlorien and Mirkwood, but if you wanted to stick to LoME alliances it should be easy enough to tease apart.

Other than a few new monsters, little major has changed. Mahud have been completely nerfed (and reduced in point cost), which makes my Tolkien lorist happy, but my Mahud general sad Corsair reavers are the new shizzle since they got a boost in defense. And Harad is now allowed 50% bows, but only if you limit them to certain troops.

On paper at least I think you could play any of them as a LoME force and little would have changed. But I think once you try it out you won't go back. At least for me, I got to use heroes that were just gathering dust all these years. The additional heroes makes the game more dynamic, but not over the top.

Because of those heroes, points-wise, the games are probably a bit higher, eg: if you used to play 500 point games, you might find yourself at 700 points instead for a game of the same size and duration; while 700+ LoME games are probably in the 1000 range now.

Thanks. I really value your opinions on this one!

I'm surprised they added any boost at all to the Reavers. I thought they were right on the edge of overpower/undercost already. So with the new rules though you can have them supporting Uruks too, huh?

I'm pretty let down that GW didn't use this opportunity to do something to make WoMT and RoR 'better' in some ways to match their status in the books (I heard of a few options to Rohan but need to read them better to weight them in this scope). But they made some good moves in other areas it seems.

I'll just have to stoke up the fires a bit and see what we can pull together for games and how it feels to us.

As always I value and welcome other feedback and experience!

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Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

I'm running a LOTR tourney in November 800point, using new system but didn't want to see massive power armies entered so have put a restriction, in that army lists to be made are using LoME and said allies
we shall see how it goes

Do you mind sharing how you phrased this to the players? Are you asking them to use the Warbands system but within the LoME lists? In other words:

Find an LoME list (or allied list if this is your second + 'warband')
Pick a Hero from that list, add up to 12 warriors from that list
Repeat until 800pts

That was one of the 'cheap' ways I was thinking of stepping into Warband games/deployments/scenarios without having to invest in the new books (I really think GW dropped the ball on the price point of these but that's just a gripe).

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Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

Where they dropped the ball, imho, is including the same first bundle of pages in every book. They could have saved money and avoided duplication if they had offered a free scenario booklet with every purchase of a new book. Anyway, without at least one book you're missing the scenarios, which is one of the things that makes the warband system work so well.

I'm going to get at least one. Just not sure which one. I am working on a fresh Rohan force, but most of my models are centered in my Mirkwood Elves and Dol Guldur / Mordor forces.

True...the boiler plate stuff could have just been a PDF download for that matter as I don't picture GW ever giving away something for free that it cost them money to produce. But look at it this way...highly reduced cost producing the duplicated pages in greater bulk, allowing a slightly (stress slightly) better profit margin when able to sell the book at a higher cost.

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Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

Well themed armies are awarded points at the few Warbands tournements I've been to. It seems to work. The added points are enough to decide the winner, so everyone complies.

I have also encountered this at the one small local tournament I've been too.

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I'm always a little wary of Fluff vs Rules arguments. One person's un-tolkien army selection is another's excellent modelling opportunity.

If you want an army of Woses you run out of Wose heroes pretty quick. Treebeard and Gwaihir would possibly be your next choices, but what do you do after that? Neither Bilbo or Bandobras Took are very wosey (other than being short), so 'theme' is going to get sacrificed in some way. You could use this as an opportunity though and take Bandobras Took's rules but convert a Wose riding a Stag to use with Bandobras' stats. On paper the army doesn't look very well themed, but on the table it looks great.

You could ally a Shade into a Harad army. Maybe some people would find that a bit wrong thematically. Did the shade come all the way from Angmar? Was it given to the Golden KIng by the Witch King or The Betrayer? On paper it looks a bit wrong, but if the model of the Shade is a Watcher of Karna holding a lamp with a Genie coming out of it, that would look cool. (and I don't care if genies are Tolkien canon or not, the rule of cool takes precedence when it's a good conversion).

The profiles listed in the sourcebooks are just that......profiles. They are stats and some accompanying special rules. While it may look weird to have Elendil and Aragorn in the same battle it is just a collection of stats, and it isn't game-breaking. If Elendil's stats are representing an especially badass captain of Gondor (and the model is painted appropriately) I don't have a problem with it.

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For the most part we're very flexible on adapting profiles to represent other characters if it can be done in the overall theme of Tolkien's work and within the legal limits of the game. GW has had some pretty obvious omissions in how they match forces up. Some of the limits on the Dwarf, Dol Guldur and Ent lists from LoME were pretty frustrating to me and other local players. If you could bring appropriate profiles legally using allies and use them to represent something that still feels right and proper in Middle Earth then that's great.

Your Shade example is perfect. Additionally, there is the issue that GW simply prevents you from creating a proper, usable army with base lists only in some cases. Again you nailed one with the Woses and not everyone is going to want to ally them with just Rohan (or possibly the Gray Company or Minas Tirith if you wanted to extend their role a little). Under LoME restrictions some of your options to even do something you feel is themed were limited. Under the more open ally model of WotR and the new system much of that is lifted.

But with great power, comes great responsibility...

The open ally pool though can lead to very un-themed power lists as well though. This was one of the things that plagued WotR lists. Having Elindil with Narsil in the same army with Aragorn and Andúril may be 'legal' per GW, but no matter what story the player comes up with it will never make any sense to have a Captain of Gondor be THAT badass. Most of the 'troop' and even mid-level named Heroes can fill other roles if the player takes a little time to come up with something, and it's even better if they put in the effort to represent that profile with a suitable model in the game.

I wanted to have the Beastcaller as part of my WotR Dol Guldur army but NOT the Goblin model so I did a custom model. I think the profile was themed (Beastcaller with my Spider/Warg forces) and the custom model fit with the rest of the force. I also used Shelob on occasion as the greatest of the Mirkwood Spider Queens, again using a custom model. But I would not use the Shelob model with my Isengard force, or even ally my Haradrim army with Isengard, as I can see no themed way that Saruman would do either of those.

I guess this is just an area where everyone's personal opinion of what is themed will differ. Locally we were all LotR fans before the movies and therefore well before GW's influence. So we just gravitate to things that still feel 'right' to us all. For someone that is in it mostly for GW's game and only influenced by the little glimpse of Middle Earth the movies provided they may not see things from the same perspective. Similarly there are probably some that feel I crossed lines with some of my own choices as well. At least LoME style restrictions curb some issues and enforce some degree of thematic restrictions (though again tainted by GW).

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Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

Exactly, but that does apply to GW too. I'm not a GW apologist (Finecast is an abberation), but they are Tolkien fans. They exist because of his works and the genre that he created, and with SBG they have given us a very tight, balanced ruleset that is excellent for beginners and wargaming veterans alike.

I personally wouldn't ally Harad with Isengard (because it would just feel wrong), but if I had a friend who was thinking of getting into the game and couldn't decide what to collect, or just wanted a little bit of everything I wouldn't discourage them from the mix-and-match approach. This is what makes SBG so much more accessible than WHBF or 40K. That person may well want to do a bit more research into Middle Earth as a result.

This topic did get me thinking..........how would I represent a true Fangorn army? Treebeard and a bunch of Ents just doesn't cut it, I want Huorns, multiple warbands and more than one troop type. In the end I abandoned the Good side and went Evil, thinking about the dark areas of Fangorn forest, and The Old Forest and Old Man Willow (The Hourn, not the respected terrain maker of this forum )

The Dark Forests of Middle Earth using the Mordor list.
Mordor Trolls and Troll Chieftains for Ents/Huorns (Trees do come in all shapes and sizes).
Spider Queens for Hourns (Hourns can move swiftly and the army needs something that can move through woods as the Trolls are slowed by them, just make sure that the SQ Huorns have 8 roots to walk on, so you can tell them apart from the Trolls).
Spiders (forests are full of them).
Spectres (the trapped spirits of travellers killed in the dark parts of the wood).

Evil Trees.......Spoooooookyyyyyy

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Titans Wargames Club

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