Top 10 Changes for the New Edition: Centaur Edition

Hey Reader!

So as you probably have heard, there's a new edition of the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game coming down the pike. We don't know when it will arrive (I assume the preorders will arrive in November so that people can order Christmas presents in time for December) but I suspect that an edition is never late, nor is it early, it arrives precisely when it means to, :P 

I wasn't crying out for a new edition (and certainly didn't have this on my 2024 Bingo Card), but in light of the fact that the team behind it has loved the game for over 20 years, I'm not afraid of a massive overhaul or "40kization" of the game. Call me naive, because maybe I am.

So whether you think that a new edition is needed or not, I took a moment to think about the top 10 changes I'd love to see in the new edition, and how these changes can make the game better (and by this exercise, came to the conclusion that perhaps a new edition could be justified after all). Plus who doesn't love a good ol' Top 10 post (that may make people angry, as apparently mine do? :P )!

So with no further ado, if I was king for a day, here's the top 10 things I'd change about the game.

#10: Dwarf Points Adjustments

Okay this may border on petty, but let's be real: on-balance dwarves are undercosted for what you get in pretty much any profile. A Knight of Dale and a Khazad Guard cost the same points, and the difference is +1 spear, the shielding special rule from your shield, and a special rule that you lose when you charge (or are using your spear to spear support) for the Knight of Dale, compared to +1 Defense (even after factoring in the defense of the shield on the Knight of Dale), +1 Strength, access to a two-handed weapon, reroll 1s to wound from your army special rule...oh, and you are 1" slower. That doesn't seem like a fair trade to me.

Similarly there's a 1pt difference between the Dwarf Warrior and the Warrior of Minas Tirith, but in exchange the dwarf gets +1 Fight Value, +1 Courage (cancelled by the Minas Tirith army special rule, to be fair) and D7 all the time, while the Warrior of Minas Tirith has to be in Shieldwall to match that D7 (which means, if they're knocked prone, they won't get it even if they're in the center of the battle line). Tack on reroll 1s to wound for the dwarf warrior, and I think it's fair to say this is an undercosted unit.

And dwarf heroes are even worse: it's not even close what you get between, say, a Dwarf King and your average human at 75-80pts (compare the F6 D8 rerolling 1s with an axe from the Dwarf King with Faramir, Elfhelm, Thrydan, and your average Nazgul of Dol Goldur: I guess that +1" of movement sure is valuable, because man oh man are you losing out on resilience and Fight Value). On balance, dwarf heroes are some of the most points efficient models in the game (maybe only behind Mahud troops, but their midling Defense and low Courage makes me think that's fine).

And while the issue of Fight Value will come up later, I really don't like the system we have for dwarf heroes when it comes to Fight Value. I know, Thorin's Company needs to win fights because there's only 15 total models in the army and you're often running far less than that, but in all honesty, based off the original source material and the movies, there's no way that Nori and Eomer are equals. There's no way that Gloin or even Dwalin are the equals of Aragorn. And certainly not your average unnamed Dwarf King that we mentioned before.

So drop the Fight Value on some of the dwarf heroes (Strike is plentiful already in their list, and I'm sorry if they have to rely on Strike like, say, Rohan does, to win against F6+ heroes), adjust points costs for dwarves, and if you feel like they need a speed boost to compensate, 1) you don't play Shire like I do, and 2) hey: Heroic March is a thing, and you get it all over the place (compared to, for example, the 3 Might Points in Shire that can call Heroic March total). Taking advantage of that to get better positioning earlier on is not a bad thing, and other armies (like Dale) have to do that too.

#9: Wizard Points Adjustments

It's not going to surprise anyone when I tell you that the most competitive lists don't invole any of the wizards: Gandalf (in either form), Saruman, and Radagast (Bunny Sleigh included) are all pretty expensive for what you get, and if they get charged (and thus can't cast their magic, sans a legion that limits them to 5 models) they stand a poor chance of making their value present, either by making their points back or providing useful support.

And while you can go a good ways in the other direction to the point of detriment, I think a points adjustment specifically for wizards isn't a bad thing. Not all spellcasters - I think ringwraiths are well costed for what you get, and your average shaman is great - but the wizards specifically should be more competitive for their cost than they are.

And I understand the counterargument: Immobilise/Transfix is a powerful ability, and far more powerful spells than that are even more so (like Sorcerous Blast, Panic Steed, and Renew). But with how easy it is for the target that you'd like to nerf to resist magic early on, it's quite common for Gandalf/Saruman to tie down a power hero for maybe one turn in a given game, and often find themselves needing to shut down multiple mid-range heroes that are chewing through the line and are unable to do that (with Mordor/Rohan/Isengard in particular being the frontrunners here, both because of easy access to S4-5 on multi-attack heroes that cost under 100pts, but also because they have battlehosts, so a lot of people own models for them). So the exorbitant cost for a 1 Attack model with Defense 5 (slightly better for the 200pt Gandalf the White, but at 2 Attacks with Defense 6 he's waaaaay understrength for other models at his points level) is, I think, something that could be brought a bit lower and still not be overpowered. Don't go too far (chop like 20-30pts off each), but their cost could go down and still be competitive while not being the new meta.

#8: Special Rule Adjustments

I made a whole post years ago about "Bathroom Special Rules": special rules that don't come up all the time, but when they do, you want to have them on-hand. And there's nothing wrong with that - I love that some special rules benefit you in specific situations, and it falls to tournament organizers planning boards, generals preparing army lists, and scenarios setting victory conditions to make sure that these more niche special rules get to see the light of day.

But I think it's also fair to say that some special rules are just objectively bad. Mountain Dweller is not likely to come up in any game, as Jump/Leap/Climb tests are not that plentiful on most maps, it only gives a reroll, and mountainous difficult terrain is even less common. So making the super niche special rules more useful is something that we could benefit from, making some models more attractive to take because they have these special rules (e.g., I'd make it so that Mountain Dweller allows the model to treat all non-hazardous difficult terrain as open ground: mountain dwelling folk are used to moving in forests, rocky terrain, ruined buildings, shallow water, etc., so giving them the freedom to move through that makes them quite appealing).

I think there's also some room for new special rules that allow for thematic bonuses that are quite powerful to replace some of the stat creep we've seen over the years - more on that later.

#7: Spell Adjustments

It's no secret that there are some spells that are cast all the time and some that are never cast at all. So if the Middle Earth team is reading this, please consider revisiting some of the spells to make them more attractive/appealing by comparison to others.

We have wizards with multiple attack spells, but they overwhelmingly only use Sorcerous Blast (even if we have made an apologetic for Flameburst before). We have shamans that only cast Fury (and the orc shaman that lacks Fury isn't typically taken at all). All of this is indicative of the fact that some spells are great, some spells are meh, and some spells are just not worth casting.

And some of this makes sense - some people will take a spellcaster (shamans especially) for one gimmick that they need to make the army work (like Fury or Shatter), and fair enough. And some of the issues could be fixed by slight adjustments in the casting difficulty rather than the effects (if Transfix was cast by shamans on a 4+ instead of a 5+ we might see people spend 1 Will on Fury, save 1 Will for Transfix, and then save 1 Will to maintain Fury). But making more magic spells more appealing is only beneficial for the game.

#6: Army Special Rule/Warband Adjustments

Some army rules in this game are excellent, being both thematically grounded and mechanically useful. Rohan, Mordor, Far Harad, and The Rangers come to mind as excellent in this regard (though The Rangers are really disincentivized to take mounted Rangers of the North for this reason, and Rohan is disincentivized from taking infantry for the same reason). 

But some of them are really bad: Rivendell's special rule is very hard to utilize effectively (plus it boosts something that they were pretty good at already), The Trolls bonus is extremely difficult to utilize on any board larger than 2x2, and don't even get me started on how much I dislike the bonus for Minas Tirith (of all the things you could pick, you gave the faction with the easiest and most prolific access to Bodyguard... +1 Courage? Seriously?) .

I'd love to see some of the army special rules reworked so that they are thematic yet useful in the way that other army special rules are: highly situational special rules don't work nearly as well in competitive play, and that can dissuade people from running those armies (and not buy those models).

Related to this, the more I think about the battlehosts, the more I think we might see a warband adjustment as well coming with the new rules. In the battlehosts we don't have any street-legal forces: all of them have waaaaay too many warriors compared to the heroes. But I wonder if maybe (unlikely, but maybe) that signals a change to how warbands work: all of them are Heroes of Valour or Heroes of Legend, so maybe we'll see those tiers be able to lead more troops? If they had them all jump in increments of 6 (6 for Minor, 12 for Fortitude, 18 for Valour, and 24 for Legend), you'd be a lot closer to street legal with the battlehosts, and you could just add 1 hero and be set to go (and all four battlehosts have one hero that they would want to thematically and mechanically add to make them awesome: Theoden for Rohan, Faramir for Minas Tirith, Gothmog for Mordor, and Lurtz for Isengard). Probably not going to happen, but we'll see.

#5: Building Stats/Values

Do you know what's annoying? Having a ballista in your army and always needing to roll an In the Way for terrain when you could just blow a hole through it and be done with it. A lot of other games have rules for how much punishment a building or structure can take, and we even have explosive mines that can just deal wounds to things near it, but apparently can't just blow a house down (let alone a picket fence or even a tent). 

But the closest thing we have to a system for damaging terrain is siege rules, which are predominately present in the War in Rohan supplement. It's thematic and excellent there, but I'd love to see those incorporated into the Main Rulebook so that players are more aware of it. Something akin to this could work, keeping it simple and easy to use while giving a reason to favor one terrain over another:

-Cloth Structure (Tents, Huts, etc.): 2 Wounds past D5

-Wood Structure (Houses, Fences, Barricades, etc.): 3 Wounds past D6 

-Reinforced Wooden Structures (Castle Gates, Wooden Castle Walls, etc.): 3 Wounds past D7

-Stone Structure (Houses, Walls, Fences, etc.): 4 Wounds past D8

Nice and simple; doesn't have to be that crazy. And by doing it this way, you could potentially treat trees in woodland terrain as "wooden structures," rock formations, as "stone structures," etc., to even bring that style of terrain into the realm of "levelable."

#4: Alliance Matrix Adjustments

It's no secret to anyone that the alliance matrix, while excellent and quite robust, could use some fixes. The fact that The Rangers can't fight alongside Elrohir and Elladan without losing their army bonus (and thus the whole reason in using The Rangers is gone) is ridiculous: the Twin Sons of Elrond actively patrolled the realm against orc incursions alongside the Dunedain for decades (if not centuries). 

The fact that people that fought together at The Battle of Pelennor Fields under Sauron are not considered Historical Allies is equally ridiculous: they literally were historical allies. The Fellowship fought alongside far more nations than the Alliance Matrix would have you believe.

Keeping to a Historical-Convenient-Impossible format is great: it gives a good reason to take thematic lists, it allows you to punish shenanigans through the loss of army special rules, and yet still gives the freedom of allowing people to do all kinds of crazy things if they want to try them out. All of this is good: freedom with reasons to retain a thematic army. 

But a bit more care being given to the matrix isn't bad, and perhaps a bit more profile-specific considerations (like Durin being a historical ally of Rivendell if one of the elven lords is taken, The Fellowship being considered historical allies with the Fiefdoms if Aragorn is taken, etc.) would not go amiss.

#3: Legendary Legion Adjustments

This one is a quick one, but a great time to address it is with a new edition: some legions have had to be nerfed/retooled, and now is a great time to rewrite those, revisit others that could use a boost to make them more appealing, and who knows: maybe even add a few new ones for armies that don't have any.

If most armies in the new Armies Of... books had their standard options plus one legendary legion reprinted there, you'd still have reasons to buy the previous supplements, but new players would also be familiar with the concept of Vanilla v. Legendary Legion out of the gate because they'd have examples of it there. And let's be real: people have been clamoring for an elf legendary legion (that doesn't involve Mirkwood Rangers) for a while, so we should probably give them one. Sound off in the comments if I'm right or wrong on this, :P

So give more of the evil legendary legions access to shamans (as Terror is becoming far more common in competitive lists), let Eomer bump up to F6 in the Riders of Eomer legendary legion (to give a compelling reason to take that legion over Riders of Theoden), give the Balrog of Moria 8" of move if he's beyond 8" from an enemy model so you can get that terrifying walk he does when he first appears, etc.

#2: Fight Value Adjustments

This one won't surprise anyone who has been watching the channel for a while (or read the earlier part of the post), but the current Fight Value system is highly arbitrary. Newer characters have had to have higher Fight Values on average to make them comparable to older characters, so you end up with situations where a made up character (like Rutabi) is on-par in skill with Aragorn (even though he's probably been fighting uphill battles against overwhelming odds for longer than she's been alive, so I don't want to hear any of this, "The Easterlings are a warrior culture" nonsense - you want to talk about "a warrior culture," the Dunedain are patroling a territory the size of California with like 200 people and succeeding. I don't buy it), characters like Nori (who does nothing extraordinary in the movies and even less in the book) being on-par with Eomer (one of the three mightiest warriors of his time - who is also somehow worse than Rutabi), and magically people like Azog and Bolg being better than Aragorn, Imrahil, and Eomer (when their only claims to fame are overwhelming the dwarves that fought them and killing them...when they had superior numbers and position. I...don't see it).

And part of this is due to the exclusivity of the F8+ crowd (The Balrog, Gil-Galad, Bear-Beorn, Smaug, Treebeard, Beechbone, Gwaihir, and Sauron, if I recall correctly, is the full list), some of it is stat creep, some of it is model sales, and some of it is just trying to make some armies competitive without thought to theme or ramifications (looking at you, Thorin's Company). And there are simple ways to fix some of this: if Azog and Bolg, for example, were F5 or 6 and then had a special rule that gave them +2 Fight Value against Dwarves (or heck, throw in elves if you'd like), that would solve the issue of their stat creep while still giving them the ability to thematically compete against their historical foes (though is Thorin actually a F6 hero in the first place? Is that a bit of stat creep too? I'm not sold he's a better fighter in the books or the movies than Eomer, nor is he on-par with Aragorn, Elrond, or even Dain, but I digress).

I've even heard people talk about expanding the ceiling to Fight 12 or Fight 20, and giving a wider range; at some point I think having too wide a range isn't helpful (as you're watering down Heroic Strike), but raising it to 12 wouldn't be a bad idea (plus it means a F6 hero can still get to 12 on the roll of a 6). In any event, though, that's not an errata fix: that's an edition fix, and that's a good reason for a new edition release.

But the most important of all (which no one should be surprised about, since this is the TMAT blog)...

#1: Older Profile Adjustments

It's no secret that stat creep has made for some odd realities in the game. Why are the Dunedain of the North, arguably the most dour warriors of their time, on-par with months-old Uruk-Hai for Fight Value, and worse than woodsmen with no formal war training (the Beornings)? Why are elven lords with centuries of warfare experience on-par with (and I say this with all kindness) Rutabi: a character that isn't even in the books, and the invasion that she aids with isn't even successful (at least Azog can claim that he won against the dwarves, and Bolg can at least claim to have killed the King Under the Mountain of his time).

And a new edition is a great time to just wipe the slate clean, fix a number of longstanding issues with profiles, and get the game into a healthy place from a lore and theme perspective while giving new avenues for competitive gameplay. Celeborn could finally get a horse (and maybe even an Assault on Dol Goldur legendary legion)! Heck, Grimbold can finally get a horse (no more running to Pelennor on foot for this man)! Maybe the Numenoreans will finally get their steel bows (I'd make it a +3pt upgrade for a Greatbow personally) making them quite unique from the other similarly styled human factions. Gothmog can have the whole mace/sword thing printed officially in the book, and you might even be able to see Goroth, Guritz, and Zagdush in there next to him.

And that's not all: we could see whole new profiles added that we haven't even seen yet, with the promise of models to come in the future (*whispers* Anarion *whispers*). Time will tell, but at the very least this could help to solve longstanding issues in the game that to date have just been fixed with erratas.

Conclusion

I for one look forward to seeing what the GW team has in store for us, and while it's not what I had been asking for, I won't say "no" to entertaining what we could get. Because it could be really good. And yes, maybe I'm a bit naive and too trusting, but you know what: I've been playing this game for almost 15 years, and over that time they've earned my trust. The big changes they've made (moving to warbands over just having at least one hero, additional heroic actions, special weapon strikes, monster brutal power attacks, legendary legions) have all been positive, and they make the game more interesting to play without dramatically complicating it. 

And if there's a team out there that can pull it off, I think it's the team led by Jay Clare, Rob Alderman, and many others that I've been able to trust over the last 15 years. So keep up the good work, guys! And we look forward to seeing what you make! In the meantime, you know where to find me,

Watching the stars,

Centaur

"Trivial hurts, tiny human accidents," said Firenze, as his hooves thudded over the mossy floor.  "These are no more significant than the scurrying of ants to the wide universe, and are unaffected by planetary movements." ~ Firenze, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix