The New Rules - Part I

Good morning gamers,

So as we prepare for the THRO 2018 tournament (trying out the new rules!), I'm taking some time to pen some thoughts on changes from the original rules (as laid out in the One Rulebook or ORB) since that's what we've played with here at TMAT (didn't go all-in on the Hobbit SBG rules). I've limited my thoughts to 10 topics, some of which I think are good improvements (especially over the Hobbit SBG version), and some of which aren't necessarily "bad" improvements but might not have been necessary. Without further ado, here we go:

1. 5 stars: Army Bonuses/Alliances - Back in the Legions of Middle-Earth (LOME) days, each army list could only ally with certain other army lists. For some lists (like Rivendell or the Nazgul), the lists of armies you could ally with were so huge, that you could basically ally with whoever you wanted. Other armies (like Numenor or Isengard) only had a few choices. With the new Alliance matrix, you can still ally with whoever you want, but you run the risk of losing your army bonus if you ally with certain folk. While some army bonuses are better than others, the army bonuses themselves give a distinct feel for each army - most Elven armies now look the same for warrior choices (all can get F5 D6 infantry), but their army bonuses make High Elves hit more accurately when they imitate the beginning of the Fellowship of the Ring film, Galadhrim resist magic, and Mirkwood Elves fight better around Thranduil. Yes, I'd say this not only gets back to the heart of the game, but also makes choosing a particular army more interesting (and will probably shape army building if only a little). In our next posts, we'll go over army lists that both use this army bonus and give it up, so while I don't think you NEED these bonuses per se, they are a nice spice to the game.
2. 5 stars: Heroic Tiers - Okay, let's be honest: Gil-Galad, Elrond, King Aragorn, and Elendil should always have been allowed to field a TON more units than the 12 they were restricted to in the Warband sourcebooks. In LOME, you only needed one hero to lead your army contingent and while we haven't gone THAT far back in time, certain heroes are allowed to field more than the standard 12 units. This not only allows you to field the power heroes you want, but also allows you to not suffer as badly in the model count. For armies with warriors costing 10+ (Elves and Isengard as the prime examples), avoiding the purchase of one captain model often means increasing your army by 6+ warriors, who will not only do about as much damage as that captain would, but also makes your army break later (in most cases). On the whole, I think they did a good job picking the heroic tiers for each hero - can't complain at all.
3. 4 stars: Original Blister Size - Perhaps I was the only person in the world who objected to paying $33 for 12 models, but I for one am very glad that they've gone back to 24-man blisters (and for only $40). While this is still higher than when I started in the hobby 8 years ago (they were about $25 for 24-infantry back then), it's still nice that they're encouraging us to buy lots of warriors again (and we can field them thanks in part to the heroic tiers mentioned above). Technically this isn't a rules-related thing, but I couldn't help myself from mentioning it. :)
4. 4 stars: Additional (but restricted) Heroic Actions - In LOME, you had three Heroic Actions: Move, Shoot, and Combat. While this was a very simple mechanic, it meant you couldn't adjust for situational needs very well. I could call a Heroic Move, but I don't want to move first, I want to go further. I could also call a Heroic Shoot, but I don't want to shoot first, I want to actually hit my target. I could call a Heroic Combat, but I don't want to kill the guy and go somewhere else, I want to not lose the fight (or I want to just get through his armor). With the Hobbit SBG, new Heroic Actions were introduced but they were available to everyone. As a result, EVERYONE called Heroic Strike (increasing their FV by +D6), making certain heroes with high FV spend their Might unnecessarily to keep a FV advantage (or making generic captain models beat Cave Trolls in fights because the dumb Troll didn't have any Might). With only certain units getting access to certain Heroic Actions, all heroes have become more viable - since Heroic March is limited in large part to generic captain models, they continue to be fielded in order to get your melee-only models into combat faster (or to secure an objective). The addition of new Heroic Actions has also been a good boon, allowing armies that traditionally have problems resisting magic do a better job at it.
5. 3 stars: Balancing of Wargear and Monster Rules (and Wargear Modification Rules) - I'll be perfectly honest: I wasn't convinced that the wargear rules were the best choice for the Hobbit SBG - it seemed like too many rules were being piled into the game ("Hey, I have a sword on this model, so let me add yet another rule to complicate this already complicated game!"). Some of the wargear options were also imbalanced (see this post for ways you can get the most out of special strikes in the old system), so we didn't adapt most of them (though the increased range for throwing weapons was a definite yes). With the new rules, many of the overpowered weapon choices got reduced (Piercing Strike only increases the strength of your axe/pick strike by 1 instead of D3) and on the whole, they don't alter the game THAT drastically (though they can). We've always liked the monster rules and even those have been tamed a little bit. On the whole, like them, but there are a few draw-backs. To begin with, wargear used to be more restricted - you didn't have enough hands, for example, to carry both a bow and a two-handed weapon or a pike and a crossbow. Getting rid of these restrictions is in line with the Warhammer-end of the GW gaming model and instead, models just choose which weapons they're going to use each round. While this was always kind of the case (do I use my hand-weapon or my two-handed-weapon?), where shields are concerned, there are computational issues that come into play (if I have a shield and a two-handed weapon, how do I make sure I don't accidentally get my defense bonus for having my shield when I'm using my two-handed weapon?). It's not bad - hence 3 stars - but it's not great either.
6. 3 stars: Standardizing Special Rules (as well as Active/Passive distinctions) - It was always weird that you'd have special rules (like "Lineage of the First-born") that sounded great thematically but gave a unit a special rule that ... well ... already had a name ("Terror" in the example case). GW has standardized now on giving everyone the common special rules where the model got that rule and reserved special-sounding rules for actually new rules. I also like how certain rules got the clarification of Active/Passive abilities, not only because spells like Immobilize et al now prevent you from gaining benefits from Active abilities, but also because they clarify things that you do vs. things that you are/have. While this is mostly semantic, I like it.
7. 3 stars: Magic - Standardization, Casting/Resisting, and Spell Modifications - We never adapted the magic rules for the Hobbit SBG for primarily two reasons: first, spells like Immobilize et al lacked the instant reduce to Fight 1 Attack 1, and second, because Fury required you to keep an additional Will point in your store in order to keep Fury alive. The new magic rules have made these two classes of spells even worse - Immobilize et al can't get someone down to Fight 1 Attack 1 with a Heroic Channeling and don't reduce the Fight/Attack values at all when cast regularly. As someone who strongly believes that the greatest benefit from Immobilze et al is that they can't cause wounds, it has always been a great little trick for actually beating/killing a hero to use Immobilize or any of its kindred spells. Fury has also gotten worse, requiring a Heroic Channeling in order to get the 6+ Fury save that used to come standard in the spell for both the ORB and Hobbit SBG games. Since Groblog no longer improves this Fury save to a 5+ and you can't get it to a 5+ with Heroic Channeling, Fury is limited now to pretty much just the auto-pass Courage tests (which has its uses to be sure, but it's not going to help with resilience much until you're broken). Besides that, the other spells look pretty good - not much has changed from either the ORB or the Hobbit SBG games and certain units have gotten much-needed standardizing of spells (both Arwen and Elrond have the Wrath of Bruinen power, for example).
8. 3 stars: Price Fluctuation for Certain Models (Game Balance) - Some units used to be under-costed and were always fielded and others used to be over-costed. What can I say: they balanced some of that out. Uruk-Hai captains both named and unnamed (for the most part) got a 5-point increase to compensate for the free Strength point they got over their equivalent captain type from other lists. Other heroes (most notably in Gondor) got price reductions OR got extra rules (most notably in Rivendell) to make up for their increase in cost. Price reductions aren't limited to heroes though - Dwarf Rangers used to have to pay 3 points for the equivalent of a normal bow, whereas now they pay the standard 1 point. Other models (Hobbit infantry models) got 1 point price increases, which basically pays for the new Woodland Creature rule they got through their Army Bonus. At the end of the day, while this might not be fair for the little folk, they were so cheap to begin with (and still are cheap) that they can deal with it. :) We'll go over other unit modifications when we cover their armies in future posts.
9. 2 star: Volley Fire - Okay, I didn't notice this the first time through, but an important change that I'm not sure I like is that bow-armed models can't volley fire anymore (only certain siege engines can). I noticed this one night when I moved my volley team and then tried to shoot and was left with a conundrum: if I suffer a -1 penalty to hit when moving and shooting, how do I hit on a 6 with volley fire? Losing volley fire won't affect most of the armies fielded here at TMAT, but as the resident archery player (who does believe in volley fire for every army), it's sad to see it go. I think the functional change we'll see in the game is the emergence of more siege weapons over traditional archer hordes, but we'll see.
10. 1 star: A Farewell to Shamans (Mostly) - Moria Goblin Shamans in particular (though Orc Shamans suffer from this as well) are just not worth fielding anymore. While their auto-pass courage bonus is nice, Shamans used to be cheap heroes who could lead 12 warriors into battle and keep your front-line from dying. Now, with only 6 people brought along to the fight and most of the teeth of Fury taken away (plus the Balrog has an auto-pass courage bubble around him automatically), not much reason to take these guys over, say, a Moria Blackshield Captain (who costs exactly the same, but has a better combat profile) or a Moria Goblin Captain (who costs 5 points less and gives you Heroic March). While Moria Goblin Shamans are out of the picture on the whole for me, Moria Blackshield Shamans and Easterling War Priests are very much still in. For the Blackshield Shaman, you never had Fury, but instead you have Shatter (a great way for making those kill-all-the-things heroes from winning fights and in many ways more reliable than Transfix now) and Tremor (put a bunch of bad guys on the ground - they're trapped and trigger the army bonus). Easterling War Priests can not only lead 12-man warbands still, but they have Bladewrath - a great way to make Khamul or Amdur do more damage.

In our next five posts, we'll be going through all five of the old sourcebooks. I'm not going to cover the Hobbit armies as their book hasn't officially come out, but I'll have a final post on them that covers what we've been told heretofore from Forge World. Until next time, happy hobbying!