My sister was kind enough to give me the 3 new rule books for Christmas - Middle Earth, LoTR and Hobbit. Before I give them a good read through, I was wondering what the One Ring community thinks of the updated rules and profiles.

I typically think updates are a good thing as they tend to streamline rules and gameplay, as well as encourage new players to enter the game. I know part of this has to do with GW renewing their license coinciding with the production of the new Middle Earth/Amazon television series, and it is great to look forward to new releases and models from that source as well as new models and such re-invigorating the original LoTR and Hobbit games.

What are the big changes? What do you think is really cool? Is this going to be a good platform to move forward with future releases and new content and characters from the new show?

Are there models that are no longer represented in the new profile books? Are there any new profiles that might infer the release of new models to reflect new gear options for example from the existing LoTR and Hobbit lines?

This edition has continued on the progression toward a hero-centric game rather than the older warrior focuses skirmish one. Armies are now more reliant on a few major heroes that provide buffs and fight each other. It seems to be more in line with the Beowulf and Gilgamesh type of stories that Lord of the Rings has its roots in. I like how the heroes also got a balance between the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings stuff. The heroics, magic, and weapons have all gotten touch-ups that I think were mostly improvements to balance.

I am fairly certain that all the models still have profiles despite some stuff being changed and moved into new lists. There are a few references to Anarion in the Numenorian list so we might be getting a war of the last alliance book at some point. But for the present we've been getting releases of Gondor Heroes that have been in the wings since War of the Ring.

As for whether the system will adapt well whatever comes out of the Amazon series I could not say. I do not think GW and Amazon have come to an accord between themselves about whether GW will be able to make models for Amazon's proprietary characters and using their own designs. They might do something like that but GW might also just use its license with Middle Earth Enterprises to ride on the shows hype.

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

I'm pretty happy with the rules and profile changes, so far they seem incremental and very balanced. I like the subtle changes, like Gondor's Shieldwall rule, and other tweaks to Rohan and Isengard and a few others. My group is fairly aged, and we joke that this will likely be the last set of skirmish rules we buy.

I'm not really a fan of the Hobbit line, but that's more to do with my total dislike of those movies and the aesthetic choices WETA made than GW's models. I doubt I'll care much if there are no models from the new series.

The future of the game probably looks the brightest it has been in 10 years, and the game itself has quite possibly never been in a better shape. There now exists a variety of rules and profiles few in the early days would have imagined, with a better balance than has been there in recent years. Changes to magic mean big, iconic characters are now worth taking, while numerous tweaks to heroic actions and special rules mean even the army list creation is more interesting, allowing for a wide selection of different strategies during the game. I don't believe the new rules invalidated any existing figures; the only lost profiles are those that were merged into one (the various Elronds for example). The next months should see more re-releases of models that were no longer in production, plus whatever ends up being covered in the Gondor at War book (personally hoping to see more Fiefdoms), plus unexpected releases of whatever they feel like making (like the new plastic Théoden or Gandalf, or the Azog v Thorin set).

You answered it above-Anarion. I think it might come out in 2020? There is speculation. Hopefully a Numenor show-Downtown Castle, Raiders of the lost Planatír, Sword, Numenor, Kinstrife. Congrats if you know the real title names.

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

What are the big changes?
Elven cloaks got nerfed, some army bonuses are great, some are not.
What do you think is really cool?
The game
Is this going to be a good platform to move forward with future releases and new content and characters from the new show?
Oh most definitely. They don't need to purchase new rights either, do they?

Are there models that are no longer represented in the new profile books?
Eomer was consolidated into one profile, but otherwise no.
Are there any new profiles that might infer the release of new models to reflect new gear options for example from the existing LoTR and Hobbit lines?Anarion, signaling a Numenor trend, hopefully. They could be really cool.

There were 3 changes that were made to profiles, check the FAQ. I will print the FAQ and put it in my book, but that's just me.

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

Maybe new warrior moulds... The heroes are there, but no warriors. Not listed...why...

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

I think the new rules over all are quite good. They cleaned up some language, stream lined some thing, made some really cool new avenues to play different lists and, my favorite thing, is that they seem to have tried to make each army list feel more unique and more "fun" to play. Thats cool. Something they had kind of done with the hobbit armies, they just all have more mechanics then most of the LOTR lists and so its cool to see that same design approach come through and bring in all the lists more in line and feel like they're in the same game. Definitely a good thing.
Although, I agree with folks posting earlier that I just don't care for a lot of the Hobbit era stuff because of how dumb the movies are and likely no amount of rules changes will change that lol but I digress..
That all said, there are still some head scratchers in who can or can't ally, which lists have good bonus, which don't, ect, ect. I guess whenever you make changes there are winners and loser and balance is tough, and I think they have given it a good try, but some lists still feel super awkward.
My biggest complaint is the new models they're releasing. Three hunters reboot, cool by me, good for new players, got it, sweet. But why are there a bunch more Rohan. Gondor, and Mordor low tier heroes for lists that already have a toooon of heroes? Its cool to see the Eowyn and Merry ones come out but the new gondor ones.. Why not just release Beregond? Rework some of the characters like that that felt a little underappreciated or mismanaged when they had the chance with the new rule set? There are already a butt ton of heroes in those lists that no one takes, seems silly to use their limited molds per year to make more. Sets up a feels bad scenario where the new models are either broken and a must play must buy or then join the other 4-5 heroes in that list that no one uses :/

_________________
Cheers,

P

I would still note that warriors are still quite useful-I would say the focus is 60% heroes, 40% warriors. The warriors did find themselves some nice extra rules, such as shieldwall.

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

So I like a lot of things about the edition.

Magic is good, but less so than previously. This is good for the game, as magic can be frustratingly devastating and uninteractable for certain armies or in certain games.

Elven cloaks are worse. Also good. F#$@ elven cloaks

I love that certain heroes have heroic strike and so on and some don't. It adds personality to the individual heroes, as does the different warband sizes.

Army bonuses are cool. With a few notable exceptions they are balanced and bring even more personality to a force.

What I don't like...
I dislike the focus on the 'popular' armies. The big armies from the films have a larger selection of characters and units, thus they're better armies and more popular, thus they get more characters and units.... Bloody capitalism!!!

And secondly. The hero hammer. x2 warbands. Aragon and 18 warriors of gondor and Gandalf and 15 warriors of gondor will hammer X4 warbands of 4 captains with 12 fountain court guards each and 1 banner in almost any scenario as an absolute heavy favourite. This creates a game where besides those huge armies with 6 viable characters each, we get very samey armies for most races. 4 captains on horse (240 pts) shouldn't be strictly worse than Aragon on horse (the same cost) they should be different, but close to equal as a choice if you catch my drift.

Finally a few minor army gripes.
Why can't survivors of lake town take lake town guard as units. I'm sure some survived and having a veteran unit option for the army would be cool

Why can't arnor take a king of men if they don't have named characters? Arvedui was the last king of arnor, not the only ever king

Why is Shagrat a 3/3/3 f5 counts as cavalry value town chad thunderwillie? He literally runs away from Sam in the film. Nothing else. Yet instead of a non vanilla captain they give Mordor another BEAST hero. On top of the 12 others they must have. Meanwhile Lurtz (who killed Boromir) looks a joke in comparison. Very frustrating that 1% of the armies get 99% of the toys!

Dain, and the iron hills army bonus. I have a message, for god. "Why?"

Azhog. He literally has a rule that says 'Azog hates to lose, therefor he wounds everything on 3s. Pls, no questions.' He doesn't need it, he's viciously undercosted as is.

Bolg is F7. Legolas, who reks him (Twice) is F6. Pls, no questions.

Love the game to bits though!