https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/08/15/the-road-goes-ever-on-and-on-the-next-edition-of-middle-earth-strategy-battle-game/?utm_term=&utm_content=

Some good, some meh, some concerning

Highlights:

-Forthcoming boxed set will revolve around the upcoming Warner Bros anime movie, War of the Rohirrim.
-The new edition will launch sometime between now and February.
-All factions are being reworked heavily and will be more thematic; LLs are gone. Alliance matrix likely gone.
-Fight values being redistributed (but Fight cap will still be 10).
-New stat is being added to all models: Intelligence.
-Special Strikes are gone.
-Tests like In the Way are being modified/simplified.
-Armies of the Hobbit book and Armies of the Lord of the Rings book will ONLY feature factions that were featured in the movies. A third book, called Armies of Middle-earth, will feature many of the factions that only featured in Tolkien's books.
-That said, many factions/sub-factions are also being squatted. They did not say which. These factions will feature in a fourth (free PDF) Army book called Legacies of Middle-earth, and will not receive any support going forward, nor will they be authorized for play at official GW events.
-Because of the new stat, Intelligence, as well as the faction overhaul, the current supplements are not going to be compatible with the new edition. This includes Rise of Angmar, which was written to be compatible with the current edition.

"Hey, we've finally got the new supplement you've been waiting for. No, it's not really designed for the new rules set we are also releasing."

It seems like they're going to provide PDF updates to make the best of a strange situation, but it's kinda weird.

Revisiting profiles across all the supplements seems like a good idea, though.

I'm not sure how to feel about the faction changes; I guess we'll have to see the final product. It sounds like I will have some adjusting to do to the factions in sbginventory.com for sure, though.

I agree, dropping a new supplement only to immediately invalidate it is kinda wild.

I will say, we don't know everything going on behind the scenes. GW has kind of been stretching itself very thin with all these new Warhammer releases, so it's very easy for MESBG, their red-headed step-child, to fall by the wayside. Plus, the LotR license holders, Embracer Group and Warner Bros, have been doing very poorly financially and may have wanted to renegotiate terms with GW about how MESBG profits are distributed.

It's possible this supplement was supposed to release way earlier, but some issue with time/space management and/or licensing delayed it.

I wonder how much of the range will get put aside. The game has been going along for over 20 years and there are models (like Cirion, Murin and Drar, Gulavhar, the old giant spider profile, the Black Guard, storm callers, the kings huntsman and knight of the white tower, castellans, sons of Eorl, warg marauders, and the named Nazgul) that have been more or less left behind as GW has turned from its own creations of the late 2000s following the Hobbit films. I could see them going out with the current Dunland range, aside from the Wildmen models, to help keep down of profiles to manage. I do worry that we may see the end of some full peripheral armies (Khand, Far Hard, and Khazard Dum) as a way to slim down the range too.

I would not be pleased to see the armies all reduced to legendary legions with no alliances. Seems like a difficult way to organize the range with a lot of repetition for profiles. It would help balancing different profiles I suppose. No way for the lady of light or Cirdan to show up in Minas Tirith if there is on alliance system. Fingers crossed its more like Legions of Middle Earth in terms of specific lists representing times and places with some limited ally options.

Reworking the fight values does seem like a good idea. As does taking out special strikes.

A new edition with some changes to the rules and new models sounds better than the game being dropped altogether. I will be looking forward to seeing what happens when the details come out.

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