The world is changing...I feel it in—yada yada: Please Stabilize This Universe!!

I entered this gaming reality just awhile before the Warbands tsunami.

In LOME, Arnor offered advantages, at an all-metal price. “GW rewards spending,” the forums told me. Then Warbands stripped Arnor of the reasons I chose it: no more usable cheap heroes, no more cheap archers, points price rises with no stat increase. All that time and money. Heartache.

In Warbands, Karna got added Defense, a nice bow advantage, at an all-metal price. GW rewards spending...don't they? Then Hobbits stripped Karna of the reasons I chose it: nerfing bows, even volley is gone. Not even a year later! All that time and money. More heartache.

In Warbands, Easterlings got some perks. Just bought a box of Kataphrakts for that mounted drum. Then Hobbits nerfed Pikes. Easterlings aren't even worth allying anymore, let alone a full army. “Don't cry over things that can't cry over you,” my teenager told me.

As my son and I read through the Hobbit rules, and the full impact hit, he said, “Well; our miniatures would make a great chess set...”

Yeah...but I'd miss all these exciting rule changes.

Please. Please stabilize this universe. Sure, add a hero--or even a troop type--with some stat inflation to keep us buying. (The Good side is due for a cheap 2 attack warrior, btw)

But no more tsunamis. Please.

How so? IMHO if you were using the orc sandwich it was a bit cheesy...
That said, giving you 2 spears in a box of 10 is really aggravating, they should definitely fix the Easterling box.

It looks like I'll need a few extra Guards of the Galadhrim Court since they can't support their WE spears anymore, but I'm fine with that.

Pikes were made to give three attacks. A dozen pikes could give a dozen models three attacks. Now a dozen Pikes give only six models three attacks.

I call that a 50% power nerf.

Here's a really cynical thought: the rules are switched to force people into buying new minis when existing strong force mixes are as you say 'nerfed' and something else becomes a winning ploy. I noted a lot of this on BeastsOfWar's reviews of 6th edition WH40K where some old-school battle winning units are now just liabilities/cannon fodder but (surprise surprise) here's a brand new type of unit (costs a lot of money BUT you will need this to win).

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I admit, I can't help but notice a pattern...and they do have to make a profit; but they are a public company and I've read that their actual profits don't justify all the accusations of greed (despite the shocking price inflation).

I want to believe they love the game even more than we do. And the Hobbit rules enforce that for me (despite my chosen armies falling victim)--and even better: many of the changes reflect care for the Middle Earth Reality of the game. Elves should get an edge against other F5 models, and now an Elven blade gives a 2/3 chance of winning a Drawn Dual roll instead of the usual 1/2 chance. Nice. That doesn't seem like rules manipulation to trick us into buying different models.

Hope I am not being naive. I don't know the other games; they do seem to feed on change. I don't mind some stat inflation; it is the basic, army neutering system shifting that will drive me from the game.

I think that the only rule changes that actually nerf anything are the archery changes.

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This^

And to be honest, I'm still not entirely sure I understand how they work. You get -1 on your to-hit roll if you've moved, yes... but does that replace the "can't move more than half and shoot" rule? Could you in theory move the full 6" and shoot with only a -1 penalty, or stay completely stationary and shoot at full effectiveness?

I feel like it's supposed to be equivalent to 40k's new "snap-fire" where you can still move and shoot but at a huge disadvantage, while they want to encourage good archers to remain stationary.

No, you can still only move half movement. I would have been ok with a "If you move more than half movement, you have -1 to hit", but that's not how it works. Add to that the fact that volley fire has been removed and archery just isn't as good anymore.

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"Leave Sauron to me."
If you're in the Raleigh, NC area, let me know.

And they gave the -1 to thrown weapons as well which makes little sense. I can see (but not like) the -1 for bows / xbows (no, I do NOT think it is needed with the SBG framework nor a good choice...), but thrown weapons have half of their advantage being that you can use them during the charge. Now with the -1 that whole concept just became useless.

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No, a dozen pikes and a dozen spears could give a dozen models three attacks. Now they need to all be pikes. Not that much of an issue, really. I find it puzzling that you mention Easterlings as a full army (as opposed to allies) when there's nothing BUT pikes in a full Easterling army. How were you supporting them before?

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I think the new rules for bows are (while extremely annoying sometimes) alot more realistic. Ever tried running and shooting a bow at the same time??
I can imagine it would severely effect the accuracy

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I agree...it's annoying, but more realistic. But it does allow for new profiles that don't have the penalty as a way of adding variety. There is historical precedent for accurate mounted bowmen...Mongols, Parthians, Cossacks, etc. I was thinking Khand...

I always assumed that the half movement rule was the penalty for moving and shooting. Moving super slow to take the time to load your bow blah blah blah.

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As an archer I can tell you that my accuracy while sprinting is awful, however when I walk with my bow and shoot my accuracy is unaffected, especially as I load the arrow upon the string before moving, thus the -1 to hit is a big load of [word deleted]
Personally I think I am going to take bit of the new rules while still using the old ones, I still use the passengers rule from RoTK rule book.
I think that with these new rules one must not completely rely upon them fanatically or dismiss them completely, but reach an agreement with your opponent about what is sensible and realistic but without slowing down the game.
Let's face it the combat phase as it is can take forever especially in larger games.

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Or simply it represented how far you could move and still have time the the arbitrary 'turn duration' to load, aim and fire with some accuracy.

The Shoot value in SBG was already a pretty tight roll and so it kept archery useful but not over powerful. Grey Company was the only army really up for abuse and even with the cheapest Elf archers (Wood Elves) I never found archery the most significant factor in success. All it would do would be perhaps even the numbers slightly before we closed or perhaps eliminate a few mounted forces.

Although their heart may have been in the right place, I think messing with that number is going to have a larger impact than they expected. This feels like they found a solution without having a problem. The creep of F, S and D values without resetting the profiles for original OR Rulebook profiles is the larger game balance factor I see rather than overpowered archery and thrown weapons in the bulk of forces.

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

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