My feel is that they combined SBG with WoTR in regard to the units. For units can be "upgraded" based on their captains...and some can be upgraded without. Meaning that your warriors can be upgraded to lets say a unit of something like a Kings Guard with the right commander, and so on; similar to the special rare units in WoTR.

I'm still up in the air on being forced to group squads of warriors under a hero/captain. If I wanted to play equivalent of a Rangers of The North/Grey Company or even a slimmed down version of Kill Teams/40K...I would.

I do have to admit I am glad to hear that they are doing away with the old Alliance rules. Now it is based on good and evil, and not a rigid line as in the LoME. Seems WoTR has been moved to a Specialist Game ((fearing that they won't fix some of the glaring breaks in the system)).

As for the new models...well lets just say I will hold em when someone else buys em.

Either way, it will be fun to game with the new infusion of interest in the game!

- Scar or e

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Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen. -B.M.

I think it's more inline with a skirmish game to have them "squad"ish based. I really like being able to upgrade certain minis to be more effective.

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

The option to do a squad based theme game was always present. Its just seems now the List are more 40k themed. Squads, Squad Leaders, upgrades, etc.

Anywho, I'm sure my friends and I will play a few games and get the feel of things and go from there. Just like any game with "versions" or "editions" we can chose one edition over the other to play.

-Scar

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Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen. -B.M.

Some of it comes from wanting the heros to play a larger role, I would assume. For instance, most armies have 1 main hero, maxed out numbers of infantry and maybe another hero or 2 to use up the rest of the points.

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

Nothing wrong with that. Personally I like that flavour, it becomes less about the heroes and more about tactics.

Well, seeing as heros are more expensive, GW seems to want us to buy more heros. The good guys are meant to rely on heros as much as tactics, that's just how the book was written. I kinda like having a smaller army (mostly cause I still don't get how I can be outnumbered by dwarves), though a large army definitely has it's place.

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

Unless you play at official tournaments and perhaps in a GW?

WOTR isnt a specialist game, its an expansion, just like 40k's apocalypse.

I don't do tournaments.

And they had a squad based game a while back, Battle Companies. There is even a thread where a member keeps updating the forces to chose from. So...GW reinventing the wheel, its all good though.

What baffles me, and yes there is a lot that does, is ((and I know its easier to add in more evil models and fluff than in regards to the Good armies)) that the Evil armies always "get the best toys." It would be nice if the Good can have a drummer that increases their movement rate as well, the horn blower increases courage by 1 across the board. Yes that nice, but would be just as nice to have the increase in movement.

Talked to some of my gamers and seems we are leaning to making House Rules that will incorporate both systems. The upgrading of units with a named captain is something we've already have been doing (mixing SBG with WoTR). Also, as I stated in another post, my group likes to run games without named hero's. We like to forge our own stories with our own hero's, that is not to say we don't break out the Named Hero's and duke it out from time to time. Anywho...it will be nice to see how the Game goes from here.

-

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Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen. -B.M.

Battle Companies doesn't have anything to do with the new warbands.

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

It does when its an answer to a comment about having "squad'ish based games". Its up to the individual to blindly follow the rules in a book or become creative and make House Rules to add flavor to the existing rules.

We've done an entire campaign, 9wks long, with Battle Companies. Both hero and regular troops "grew" or gained abilities as the campaign unfolded which resulted in having stat-lines similar to the current warbands. Warriors within the BC or Warband gained hero status could then lead their own BC/Warband.

Hardly matters. One plays as they like. I play with a band of good individuals and we are laid back when it comes to one set of rules over the other. We are set to do some conversion work later tonight to make Captains for the new system. The prices for re-release ones are a tad to high; finecast or not.

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Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen. -B.M.

Let me rephase that: Warbands are squads of soldiers in a larger army that stay the same. Battle Companies are autonomous groups of scouts that randomly grow stronger. Thus, they don't really have that much to do with each other.

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

Are warbands treated as squads? like they cant move 3cm away from each other? This will drastically effect siege games, which was also a weakness of WOTR>

They just have to be deployed together (so I've heard) after that they can be treated just they were with the old rules.

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

Myself, I'm looking forward to the new warbands!

Reason I was against it at first: it really hampers a pureist force. If I wanted to fieldan all calvery rohan force, it was erky and riders. Now I would need much more leaders to do so, drastically cutting down on my number of units I can field! Bad right? Then I realized the same applies for my enemy. So i'm reduced, and so are they. Add a higher points total and we are back to the same thing, plus some capitains. yay.

But this is where it gets interestings. I own and have painted up a few galadhrim soldiers to bolster my rohan's weaksauce infantry element. But I could never justify the cost to "ally in" the leader! When I had factored in Grimbold to lead my foot elements and erky to lead my calvery element, I was already hard up for models and bieng outnumbered by dwarves or urk's is a recepie for disaster (as they were usually lead by 1 hero and the rest soldiers), so my eleves stayed on the shelves. Now, since I will be forced to buy into capitains, why not dabble into allies rather than complain that this forces me to buy generic capitains I never wanted? I am sure Rumil and Haldir will be welcomed to my front lines with open arms now. If my enemy fails to embrace his allies and instead purchases generics, all the power to him! (And with an army like the dwarves or isen they really dont need to!) But with my Rohan and our allies, I have a feeling that with new allies we will be able to take back France before the summer... Er... March on the black gates before the summer!

So, Hello to everyone first of all!

I'm just getting into the SBG, I played back when it launched, but not since. So I'll provide a new-old perspective on this. I'm both excited and concerned. Consolidating the rules into one place is obviously important. The price hike-reboxing that came along with it is most unwelcome. At first glance the rules that bother me the most are the ally rules. The captain rules concerns me, but I'm willing to see how it plays out.

The Ally rules (or lack therof) are most concerning.

I remember when the game launched and all you ever saw was the best hero's and warriors in all armies. Since LoME came about people started playing themed forces of nations-races-alliances. I much prefered to face "Mordor" or "Rohan", than I did Elf warriors in front men with spears in back elf archers in cover, + aragorn and whatever hero's fit in points.

Honestly I found that game dumb. I mean sure I could take a balrog and saruman, and a mumak, and isengaurd uruk hai with pikes. but it didn't "feel" right.

If there are no ally rules why in the world would anyone not take the best warriors that all the factions have to offer, and ignore the "not best" warriors?

Why Men of Rohan over Minas tirith, or dwarfs, or elfs.

If I want a defensive wall, I will take dwarf warriors, if I want archers I will take wood elf archers, if I want spears I can take elf spearmen, or cheap minas tirith spearmen.

Why pick knights of minas tirith over Galahdrim knights? or Riders of Rohan?

I'm just really concerned that all of a sudden people army's are going to start looking very similar.

We don't know the extent that one can ally yet, but for right now it does seem that any good can ally with any good and evil with evil. There may be a % like on WoTR but we just don't know yet.

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richmondwarmancers we play Lord of The Rings, Battlefleet Gothic, Infinity, some board games, and really whatever tickles our fancy..

They might make it so that X% of your force has to come from one source, like in WotR, or they might just balance the points so that every model is able to be used effectively. We'll have to wait and see. I for one am a fan of theme, so my armies will have at least a LITTLE theme in them. ie no Aragorn fighting alongside Elendil.

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

It appears that each Hero you take dictates which troops he leads, so you can't have Aragorn leading 6 Khazad Guard and 6 Wood Elf archers. If this is the case, then I'm perfectly fine with it. I'd be happy with a listing under either the Heroes' or Warriors' profiles of who can lead who. I also believe that there should be restrictions of which Heroes can fight together, like there was in the later Sourcebooks. "Denethor cannot be chosen if your army also includes Aragorn Elessar" for example.

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Gondor: 2339pts
Rohan: 1318pts
Dwarves: 2482pts
Elves: 1091pts
Mordor: 2305pts
Isengard: 1762pts
Moria: 1463pts
Evil Men: 381pts

The heros have to match the warriors in their army, ie the Fiefdoms, Gondor and Rohan all have their own lists, so Eomer can't lead Knights of Dol Amroth and Warriors of Minas Tirith.

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