In the main rule book Dale and Iron Hills are listed as convenient allies. In the Armies of The Hobbit book however they are listed as impossible allies. (Or am I blind?) Both obviously can't be true at the same time.

Since the Hobbit book is more recent I guess it is more accurate. However, since Dale is historically allied with Erebor, and Erebor is historically allied with Iron Hills, it would make some sort of sense if Dale and Iron Hills were at least convenient allies. And it does sound kind of absurd if Dain could not ally with Dale since Dain actually died protecting the Dale men.

That logic does not apply to other armies. Rohan and Gondor are allies, but only Rohan and Wild Men may ally, no Gondor.

_________________
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth,
I bid you stand, men of the West!

New Dale. That would be a different army list. Girrion Lord of Dale would not work.
Sorry for the two posts.

_________________
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth,
I bid you stand, men of the West!

Actually, I think that wild men and Gondor in fact are convenient allies.

I really am no fan of the fragmentations of the fractions. In the beginning there were only two fractions, good and evil. Now it seems every scene in a Peter Jackson film has to have on fraction. Is it not enough to have one fraction per 'nation'. It is lucky that we now do not have one fraction for Rivendell when Elrond is in pyjamas, one fraction for Elrond in supper wear, one fraction for Elrond in sportswear etc.

I really do hope that we get to see a Barding Kingdom list sometime soon.

There was a similar discrepancy addressed in the Armies of the Lord of the Rings faq between the Fellowship and the Dead of Dunharrow. There has not been an official faq for the hobbit armies yet but it is true that the Iron Hills are a Hobbit era Army while Dale are the pre-Smaug city gaurd. The two should be impossible allies.

As for creating to many factions you should have seen it during Legions when there were five kinds of Gondor and three kinds of Rohan! I can see where you are coming from though. The faction thing was something the community of active international players (tournaments and forum users) had been asking to have back since legion ended to prevent weird power combos like Umbar and Angmar.

_________________
"Draw your sword with a heavy heart, but swing it with a heavy hand"

Yes, factions are a good thing.

_________________
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth,
I bid you stand, men of the West!

I never participated in any LOTR sbg tournaments, but in the 40k tournaments I participated in (in 3d edition) you used to get scores for your army composition. If you showed up with three basilisks, allbeit in compliance with the rules, you would probably get a bad composition score. That was how power list building was tackled, at least there and then.

I think one of the problems I have with the sbg fractions is that it tries to satify both the interest of encouraging lists that is in line with the lore and the interest of creating fair competition at tournaments. It may miss one mark and hit the other, or vice versa, but as the rationale is not very explicit the division might rather cause some frustration. What is, for example, the purpose of Mordor having lost riderless wargs? It it because, in lore, all wargs in Mordor have riders? Hmm, would not think so? Is it to make the Mordor army more fair? Maybe? Who knows? At least for me it is very hard to accept things that you do not understand.

An understandable position. Legions used to vex me fiercely when I was young and building my collection. I never seemed to have enough parts to make a good size army of anything despite having plenty of models. I don't see any reason why Murin and Drar are in the Iron Hills list these days or why Rivendell and Lindon are not separate lists. The limited unite roster does go along way to giving the lists some personality which is something I find nice. If you can make the pitch to the people you play with, however, your not really bound to hold to the lists if you don't want to. Getting people to break with the standard might be tricky depending on the type of gamer you are but it can work.

_________________
"Draw your sword with a heavy heart, but swing it with a heavy hand"

It is cheaper. Buy both and dismount.

_________________
By all that you hold dear on this good Earth,
I bid you stand, men of the West!

Let's not forget that the 3 types of play that GW uses for 40k and fantasy are also introduced to LOTR with this edition. The army bonusses and corresponding ally matrix are only intended for matched play, i.e. only for tournaments and the like. So the primary aim of the system is to make for interesting / fair armies in a competitive scene, not to be a comprehensive guide to politics in Arda in the 3rd age.

Having said that, we in our gaming group rigorously adhere to the matched play principles, but maybe we are horrible powergamers...

_________________
Everything that has a beginning has an end
There are neither beginnings or endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time

Are you refering to the wargs? Getting warg riders and having them immidately dismount to practically make them into wild wargs? Well, that is an idea.

I guess I could just take impossible allies and pay the price. For me it is much more important to have an army that looks the way I want and tells the story that I want to tell than to have one that actually wins games. I'd like to make a Barding realm army with Dale, Laketown and Survivors. You competative players are welcome to beat me.