I'm not new to SBG ( I've mainly been collecting since 2006 ) but after checking out the new narrative/open play in the latest rules I can only feel a sense of relief.

This is not going to matter much to those simply looking to play what if scenarios and all around fun matches. For those people who do hey all the power to you...it's simply not my thing when building armies and specific forces for MESBG.

I've primarily collected multiple armies and smaller forces for SBG with the purist intention in focus. That is what gives me the most enjoyment when it comes to this game. I'm certainly not against trying out oddball fun things but there is quite a few events in ME that are cool and fun to collect and build around purist themes.

Prior to this edition some of that was mostly accurate, and some of it was outright wrong, even in this edition under the new allies and army bonus...I think GW dropped the ball a bit too. Frankly even now some things are outright stupid, at the very least they need to have one employee under SG to counter/cross check some facts vs armies/rules.

Off the top of my head here is a couple of problems I will list that are simply wrong.

1 Arnor DID have allies, just it was AFTER the fall...the battle of fornost was actually when the Hobbit Archers were sent ( around 500 I believe ). For in game purposes I can kinda understand this but there should be some options to include arnor soldiers, captains, rangers and hobbits only during fornost scenarios...perhaps a bit of "moria reclamation" ( a battle of fornost hosts? ) listing under the army options.

An example would be Arnor can keep it's bonus as long as you do not take the king and mal, since they were dead during this time, and if you really wanted to keep Arnor pure the hobbits would not be around much before the battle of Fornost. It would be 100% within the history of the lore that Arnor had some remaining soldiers...and rangers...participating at the battle of fornost, while the elves and gondor did the majority of the steamrolling over Angmar.

It's not like instantly soldiers of arnor all turned into rangers, this in fact happened slowly after the battle itself due to their chieftan Aranarth later on.

We all know this army list needs some more troop options in the future and will probably see a new book at some point.

2 Gimli never went to Moria during Balin's reclamation...cmon now!, and to get technical Floi was one of the first to die outside of moria, Ori made his last stand writing the book, lastly Balin needs both options as he found Durin's axe later on.

Why include him GW ? hats off to the rest of this force though.

3 Dol Guldur had 3 ( or 2 depending on drafts ) Nazgul stationed there. Without question Khamul was the leader under the necromancer AND when sauron fled back to mordor after the white council event. I realize that since this is based on the movies also ( and the books! ) that they have included all 9 Nazgul, however we still need the option of 2 normal Nazgul and Khamul for us purists...since this is not impossible it's Tolkiens own history of what is actually known from there.

There was MORIA orcs at Dol Guldur, if we had the option or moria goblins and both mordor uruk hai ( they were actually IN moria btw GW they were spotted right in the Fellowship of the Ring book itself! ) and mordor orcs PLUS mount gundabad I would say this would be far better. Again this is simply established fact...not impossible or uneasy allies but what is known from Tolkiens own writings.

Do I really even need to get into the battle of DG vs Lorien ???

Good job on including "unbound" for us purists, terrible job however for whoever makes such bogus claims over the allies and things I've mentioned when it is outright false.


With that all said...

I've begun my Dol Guldur Force, so far I have The Necromancer, Khamul, The Keeper of The Dungeons, 8 Castellans ( luckily I got all the poses and numbers I wanted ) to do a very themed mockery of the 9 and keeping with the ideas behind the fact Sauron cannot "Create life he can only mock it" so I think GW kinda did something decent with inventing these guys...I like the sculpts too.

The old fall of the necromancer supplement appealed to me for the color schemes, that is a pale ghostly green edge highlight and glaze to the black robes and the weapons...so this is what I plan to do. For now I will be updating Khamul's progress as I begin the horrible venting and mold line cleaning + basing of the Castellans.

While the Keeper is not in the books, if I recall this he was going to originally be Azog ( and he's certainly far more imposing and raw brutal looking I would say ) however he serves his purpose and will also make a great orc leader for whatever orcs I choose to include in this themed list over time.

I have far more than this on the go with SBG but this is my focus for now, more updates later!