FAQ Time: Unpacking the July 2026 FAQ

Good morning gamers,

We usually have to wait until August for a balance update, but we got the update a month early (maybe because the new Dunland banner/war horn models wouldn't be legal without it?) - and I for one am not complaining. :-) There's a lot that saw change and I think most of them are pretty positive.

Photo Credit: Reddit

What Worked Like We Thought It Did

Due to the wide nature of players who play the game (from brand new to grizzled veterans), there's always going to be a few questions that you read in an FAQ and say, "yeah, that makes sense" or "yeah, that's how we've always played it." As is usually the case, there were a few of these for us here at TMAT - most of these are extensions of existing rules or previous FAQs, catching some minor nuances that may have been left as open doors:

Q: Can Beast models try to uncover Artefacts? A: No.

Q: If a Cavalry model had charged, fought and became Unengaged, and is subsequently Charged, does it maintain the Cavalry Charge Bonuses? A: Yes, so long as they still meet all of the conditions listed under Cavalry Charge on page 72. 

Q: If a model forgoes its Activation as part of a Heroic Move, does it skip taking a Courage Test for being part of a Broken Army? A: No.

Q: If a Hero is involved in a Heroic Challenge against a Hero with the Survival Instinct special rule and causes a Wound that results in the Hero being removed as a casualty due to a failed Courage test as per the Survival Instinct special rule, does the Hero gain 1 Might Point for slaying their target? A: Yes, as the other Hero involved in the Heroic Challenge caused the Wound that forced the Hero with Survival Instincts to flee – a sure sign of victory!

Q: Can a Monster choose to make a Brutal Power Attack if there is no possibility of making Strikes? For example: if a Monster was prone and wins a Combat, normally they would not be allowed to make Strikes as they have stood up, but could they make a Brutal Power Attack? Or, if the Monster is Transfixed and wins a Combat? A: No. A Monster may only perform a Brutal Power Attack if they would be able to make Strikes.

Q: How many Heavy Objects can a Monster model or a model with the Burly special rule carry at one time? A: Only one at a time.

Q: If a single model is within range of multiple Objective Markers, can it control more than one at once? A: Yes.

Q: In Scenarios where Objective Markers can be carried, how do you measure from the Objective Marker for any special rules that come into play for being within X" of an Objective Marker, such as the Besiegers of the Hornburg Army’s The Promise of Wealth special rule? A: Measure from the base of the model carrying the Objective Marker instead of the Objective Marker.

Q: If Beorn the Bear uses the Barge Brutal Power Attack, does he have to charge if able to because of the Berserk special rule? A: Yes 

Q: Can Boromir use the Protect the Little Ones! special rule if Frodo is wearing the One Ring and is the only friendly Hobbit model within 3"? A: Yes.

Q: Can a Spectre’s “A fell light is in them”, or the King of the Dead’s Visions of Terror, or a similar special rule be used to Move a model that is already engaged in combat? A: No.

Q: Does Brôrgir regain Will from his Sorcerous Adept special rule when using Heroic Channeling? A: No, a Hero that declares a Heroic Channeling will count the result of their next Casting Test that turn as a 6, not a Natural 6.

These are good clarifications and they follow the direct reading of the rules or formalize the way things have worked in past editions, so that's good. Now on to the new things . . .

FAQ Time: Unpacking the February 2026 FAQ

Good morning gamers,

It took a week longer than I'd hoped, but the GW development team has spoken and we have some balance updates! This FAQ changed a few things that had to do with the "big lists" that we see talked about (or bemoaned playing against) on top tables - some of whom got hit harder than others. There was one profile that appears to have gone unscathed though, so there will be a discussion about that at the end.

Photo Credit: Reddit

What Didn't Have Changes

Amazingly, everything had changes - though not everything had significant changes. I decided this time around to mostly save the erratas for the end, as the changes there seemed a bit more interesting to me than the FAQs themselves. We're going to begin first, though, with the clarifications that seemed to be pretty close to what we assumed from before . . .

Rules That Worked Like We Thought

The first change is simple: to account for the new Shelob model, Shelob's base size has been upped to 80mm:

Page 146 – Shelob – Base Size Change to 80mm. 

Thankfully, Shelob is fast enough that she can probably make due with a larger base size - but golly 80mm is a bit bigger than it was before! I've been playing with Mumaks a lot recently and I've got to say, having big bases can be great, but you have to not want to be too precise to make your plays happen. Having a base that is the same as two cavalry next to each other can maneuver through most places, but not in all places - and those heroes who are embedded in their battle lines are gonna feel pretty safe against Shelob while their mates are everywhere.

FAQ Time: Unpacking the August 2025 FAQ

Good morning gamers,

I didn't submit anything to this FAQ - I've been busy fussing with Star Wars Legion and Bolt Action lists for the better part of the last few months, so I'll be honest, this FAQ snuck up on me and yet, there wasn't that much that surprised me. There was one VERY big change that I totally did not see coming . . . before we get into that, let's take a look at what got updated . . . and then we'll get into the really spicy stuff that creeped up and went unanswered.

Photo Credit: Reddit

What Didn't Have Changes

It should go without saying that there were no clarifications on the Legacies of Middle-Earth document, which GW has already said exists so people can use the "no-longer-supported" profiles - many of which were beloved in the last edition. I'm personally very appreciative that the Legacies document was released and that we have it - if they don't update any of the profiles, I think I'm fine with that.

Beyond that, everything got updates (though the Matched Play Guide only got one update, so it's basically as-is - I expect that to change as more people play the updated scenarios). Let's dig into what didn't really change (or what worked the way we thought it did) . . .

Rules That Worked Like We Thought

There were a few errata to the Armies of Middle-Earth supplement - most of which were expected: Theodred starts with a shield, Druzhag's Fury magical power targets himself, and like in the last edition, Druzhag can include Beast models in his warband, but that doesn't open them up as options in other warbands. I'm not going to reprint the text of these errata here - but you can find them in the Armies of Middle-Earth Designer Commentaries.

I'm going to start with an FAQ on Treebeard carrying Merry and Pippin from the Armies of the Lord of the Rings supplement: the question was asked if Merry and Pippin are affected at all by the Wrath of Bruinen magical power while sitting on Treebeard's head. The answer, as you'll see below, is no - they cannot be targeted and are unaffected. There was a tandem question asked about what happened to them in Treebeard is knocked Prone - the answer is that they, like any rider, are Knocked Flying:

Q: If Merry and Pippin are riding into battle on Treebeard, and Treebeard is hit by a power such as Wrath of Bruinen, are they also hit by it? What happens when Treebeard is knocked Prone? (p.24) A: The Merry & Pippin rule states that they cannot be targeted individually by Magical Powers, and so they won’t be targeted – they would not suffer a hit from Wrath of Bruinen. If Treebeard is knocked Prone, Merry and Pippin will count as being Knocked Flying, as per the result on the Thrown Rider Chart (see p.70 of The Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game Rules Manual).

FAQ Time: Reviewing the February 2025 FAQ

Good morning gamers,

On Valentine's Day, we got some love from the GW team in the form of an FAQ drop - the first of the new edition (and really the first in a year)! There weren't a lot of changes, but I thought the clarifications were good and nothing really changed. You can view the updated PDFs here (which have been periodically updated since the drop of the new books - and the Armies of the Hobbit/Lord of the Rings actually had their drops the day before, but without the date change). I have included the relevant FAQ text for context (but not the errata text - we'll be summing that up instead).

Photo Credit: Reddit 
I submitted a few things - but I was mostly happy with the changes in the actual books, so . . . yeah, I wasn't digging furiously this time through.

What Didn't Have Changes

There was quite a bit that hasn't changed - most notably that we still don't have a release date for the next supplement (Armies of Middle-Earth) or the Legacies document. Most of the rules sections were unaffected - there were individual profiles that had weapon/stat changes, some profiles/profile options were added to army lists for completeness, and some rules that had sentences that were present in past editions have snuck back in for clarity. Most of the errata were "tidying up" changes, not mega changes.

Most of the rules clarifications fall into one of three categories: to what extent does new text for old rules change the way things have always been, how powerful are cavalry (and what are my options in lists that have new cavalry mechanics), and how do objective markers work? Let's start off with the errata and then we'll dive into the FAQs.

The Legacies of Middle-Earth Supplement: What We Know and What It Means

Good morning gamers,

In case you didn't see the October 29th article on Warhammer Community, we got a preview of (probably all of) what's going to be in the Legacies of Middle-Earth supplement, which is supposed to be a downloadable PDF document of profiles that are being retired from MESBG officially, but will still have new-edition-compatible profiles so if your local tournament organizer wants to allow them, your collection isn't null and void (some people will rejoice, others will note care).

The recent GW articles have actually been hinting at a lot of different changes if you know to look for them (like the fact that the Isengard faction will have at least two subfactions in it, named the Army of the White Hand and the Usurpers of Edoras). The article we got on October 29th was far less hidden in its reveals - but that doesn't mean there weren't odd things included that hint at other changes to come.

What the article gave us was a long punch list of profiles that were moving to Legacies - but hidden in this list were some other gems about the new edition, so what I wanted to do today is break down a) what profiles will be free-to-download from Games Workshop (something I very much support), b) how this will change the factions that were targeted, and c) what OTHER changes have been previewed and what we should expect from the forthcoming supplements for the Armies of the Lord of the Rings, the Armies of the Hobbit, and the Armies of Middle-Earth (book-oriented supplement). Let's dive in!

What's In Legacies?

The Legacies document will be populated mostly with profiles that the GW team invented to flesh out the world of Middle-Earth. Many of these things are mentioned in The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit (like Half-Trolls and everything from Khand - re-read Book V of The Return of the King if you doubt me). 

FAQ Time: Reviewing the August 2024 FAQs

Good morning gamers,

Well, a lot has happened in the MESBG community since Aradcon a few weeks ago - and it's got us here at the TMAT blog excited on a number of levels. February and August have been the FAQ drop months, which have been good for shaking up the meta a bit (sometimes more drastically than other times) and as usual, as July turned to August, I was anxious to see what was new for the game (especially with a new edition coming out and a new sourcebook to boot)!

Photo Credit: Reddit 
I didn't submit anything this time . . . they have my previous correspondence if they wish to know my thoughts on certain Legendary Legion fixes and scenario quandaries for the new edition . . .

Then the GW team threw us a curve ball - in their August 15th Warhammer Community post talking about the new edition, they wrapped up a smashing article with the following:

With the next edition so close, we have made the decision not to release our usual FAQ and Designer’s Commentary document in August. Don’t worry, we will be back on schedule in February with our usual updates – the first of the new edition!

So . . . that makes summarizing the FAQ for August easy, right? Not exactly . . .

FAQ Time: Reviewing the February 2024 FAQs

Good morning gamers,

I know I said we would do Thursday posts every other week this year, but golly I couldn't wait two weeks to cover the FAQ drop, now could I? I'll admit it - I was a little afraid we weren't going to get a February FAQ, but surprise, surprise, the GW MESBG team does in fact love us and dropped us an FAQ . . . albeit the shortest FAQ we've gotten to date. Perhaps this means the game is in a good place - and it probably means they didn't read my mail again (or just wrote it off as the antics of a crazy man). Still, it's good to get some updated content for MESBG, so without further ado, let's get into the changes!

Photo Credit: Reddit 
Where is it? Did they fix all those things I asked about for Fantasy Fellowships and the Men of the West? No? Oh well . . .

What Didn't Have Changes

This time around, there were only changes to four of the GW supplements - the main rulebook, the Armies of the Lord of the Rings, Defence of the North, and the Matched Play Guide. If you're interested in any of the other sourcebooks, you can look at our article for the August 2023 FAQ (or in the case of Quest of the Ringbearer and Fall of the Necromancer, before then).

While I don't have any insider knowledge, it would appear that the older supplements are being left alone unless there are game-altering changes that need to be made. In my humble opinion, this is a real shame - mostly since the errata requests I submitted were tied to clarifying things about certain scenarios from the older books (all tied to Fantasy Fellowships - which I think is a great way to keep the game entertaining and interesting for players who have been in the game for a long time . . . and it can make you buy hero models that you'd otherwise avoid picking up) and to Legendary Legions that have been chucked to the wayside by competitive players (though my hat off to the guy who won a GBHL90 event with the Men of the West - you are truly a legend).

Right or wrong, the only non-rules-heavy supplement that got any changes was Defence of the North - which, honestly, was totally expected (or for you double-negative lovers out there, wasn't unexpected). Before we dig into the meat that we got in this release, let's take a quick look at rules that got clarified and worked as we expected (and by "we," I mean us here at TMAT - I know these have come up before and we ruled on them the way the FAQs said).

Thoughts on the War in Rohan Siege Scenarios

Good morning gamers,

The Matched Play scenarios give players a lot of different ways to play an MESBG game - with eighteen scenarios in the Matched Play Guide, you can have scenarios where you try to control parts of the board, kill off certain heroes, or "just kill things." No matter what your preferred style of play is, there's a scenario that's probably going to work out well for you.

But the one kind of scenario that isn't available in Matched Play is a siege scenario. There are rules for fighting sieges in the main rulebook and additional rules that were provided in the War in Rohan supplement, which included two scenarios - but the Matched Play experience is siege-free, and I think most players like it that way. I mean, the walls can make things really one-sided, right?

Well, I decided to test this theory by running a tournament using the siege rules/scenarios provided in the War in Rohan book (with a few modifications) and after MANY games of defending walls and villages (and attacking them), I have quite a few thoughts on how siege games work, what really doesn't work in a siege game, and ideas for how to take what GW has given us and turn it into a fun tournament-play experience. Let's dig in!

Siege Scenarios

There are two siege scenarios in the War in Rohan supplement - one for attacking a wall-less village (Defend the Village) and one for attacking a city with a wall (The Grand Siege). The fact that there are two scenarios you can play (one with a wall, one without one) is incredibly good, as it allows all-cavalry armies to participate in siege events without having to worry about dismounting to carry battering rams or climbing walls.

If you plan to run a siege event, I would highly recommend that you change the scoring requirements - the Grand Siege scenario is not optimized for event play and minor tweaks to the Defend the Village scenario would be recommended as well (though they are much less necessary).

If Tiberius Were King For A Day: Top 5 Heroic Action Changes I'd Make

Good morning gamers,

This is the last post in this mini-series where I talk about small changes I'd make to MESBG that I think would have good impacts. It's also our eight-hundredth post ever . . . wow, we've been busy. :-) One of the distinctives of the MESBG system (and part of what I think makes it the best tabletop game in town) is the heroic resources you get for your heroes - specifically Might points. Will and Fate are great and all, but Might points allow your heroes to be more heroic when you need them, and nowhere is this more visible than in the specialized Heroic Actions that heroes can have. 

Unfortunately, not all heroic actions are equal - some are viewed as incredibly niche and others border on completely unusable (and that's from a generous point of view - some players definitely DO see some of the heroic actions as pointless or a waste of time). Today I've taken five heroic actions that I think need a little help and offer a simple fix to each that I think would make them go from eh-to-ooh - let's see what they are!

Heroic #1: Heroic Accuracy

This is probably my least controversial heroic action to change, since some players already see this is a great heroic action. I've heard critique on my post where I talk about Heroic Accuracy being a waste of Might, claiming that the opportunity to hit a priority target past multiple in-the-ways makes the heroic action incredibly good. While many competitive players are in agreement that Heroic Accuracy can help you immensely, I can't get past the fact that in order for it to take effect, you need to a) hit with a shooting attack first, b) have in-the-ways between you and your priority target, c) have to fail in-the-way rolls that then turn into successes, and d) have to wound that target after you pass the rerollable in-the-ways. If any of these conditions aren't met, the Might point spent on Accuracy is wasted (for more on this, read the post linked above).

If Tiberius Were King For A Day: Top 5 Legion Changes I'd Make

Good morning gamers,

This is the third post where I'm going over what I'd change if I were able to make changes to MESBG. As I've done with profiles and rules, I want these changes to be small and straight-forward but have a valuable impact on the game. Legendary Legions are the topic of today's post and I wanted to pick Legions that really only needed one change made to turn them from an "uncompetitive" or "bad" Legendary Legion (if such a thing exists) and make them at least an option for those who are competitive. One of the Legions I listed here is one that capitalizes on something that is way too cheap right now and needs to be more expensive. Finally, one Legion that I picked to improve is one that has been begging for a change for the sake of theme - so let's get into it with my boys, the Men of the West!

Legion #1: The Men of the West

It's no secret - I love this Legion as-is. Yes, there are some serious problems with it. And yes, people tell me I'm crazy for liking it. And yes, I don't care what anyone says - the Legion is good and has lost me a lot of games . . . but it's also won a lot of games, once I found a points level that worked for it (it's in the 500-625 range - and that's it). The primary problem with the list is that you can't get F4 troops for under 10 points - oh sure, for one turn all of your Warriors of Minas Tirith and Warriors of Rohan within 12" of Aragorn (so . . . all of them) can be F4, but once that turn of glory is over, you'd better have gotten the numbers to a good disparity, or it'll be an uphill battle against any force that's F4. 

The sad thing about it is that Minas Tirith AND Rohan have access to F4 infantry innately (something Rythbyrt tried to fix last Christmas with a Legion revamp) - and basically ALL of the Fiefdoms warriors are F4 infantry as well. Thanks to Imrahil and the men of Dol Amroth being present at the Black Gate in the books, the Legion gives us access to Imrahil (who is just SO expensive for what he does without his horse/lance) and Knights of Dol Amroth on foot. These guys are F4 - and can be F5 near Imrahil and F6 when near Imrahil and kind of near Aragorn for one turn - but they're also really expensive. Running these guys "for the F4" is possible, for sure, but it's also an unnecessary expense.

If Tiberius Were King For A Day: Top 5 Rules Changes I'd Make

Good morning gamers,

In our last post in this mini-series, I looked at five profiles (well, four profiles and a unit upgrade) that I would "fix" in order to make thematic profiles/upgrades more competitive. All of these involved a minor tweak that would give the unit/upgrade a place among its current competitors - and I don't think any of them were THAT earth-shattering or meta-breaking. Today, we turn our attention to five rules changes that I would make that fix known problems in the game or make things viable that should be (but aren't right now). Like the last post, I wanted my changes to be minor in nature (no big overhauls) but have actual consequences - and I think only one of these is an actual overhaul of a major system (maybe two of them), but I think all of them make the game just a bit better. Let's take a look!

Rule #1: Barriers 

If you talk to competitive players, this is the thing that gets people - picture a board with a barrier between two armies as shown below:

If the Orcs get to move first, they can move into base contact with the barrier and gain an in-the-way bonus from shooting attacks AND an in-the-way bonus from strikes in melee. All you have to do is touch it, like this: 

This is really good and this is how people are "supposed" to play with barriers. However, what you can ACTUALLY do in the game is move near the barrier without touching it - and this will not only still give you the in-the-way from the barrier (probably), but it will also prevent your opponent from charging you (since he can't fit his bases on your side of the barrier) AND it will prevent him from reaching the barrier because your control zones extend beyond the barrier:

The Orcs are all showing off different ways of not touching the barrier - and only the second guy from the top is chargeable . . . if the charging model gets a 6 . . .

The Dwarves, in this situation, can only rely on shooting to clear out the Orcs - and with the barrier in the way, that's really hard. Dwarf Rangers have a better chance than most of actually getting the 6 to Jump, but it's still going to be hard. Most competitive players will tell you, "Yeah, we all know it's a thing, but we don't do it because we want to be good sports and have a good game." This has been a known glitch in the game and I propose a really simple fix to the problem: a model may not come within 2" of an obstacle without coming into base contact with it. Theoretically, you can do something similar with a wall, keeping a model next to a wall to prevent an opponent from getting too close to an objective marker or something - but the principle is the same: force players to either defend the barrier or not go near it. I chose a 2" restriction so that the new rules change that requires you to get a 6 to charge after a Jump/Leap wouldn't continue to preclude models from jumping barriers. This seems like a simple and easy change to me, but drop me a note in the comments if you think this is too simple or misses something.

If Tiberius Were King For A Day: Top 5 Profile Changes I'd Make

Good morning gamers,

Any person who reads Tolkien or watches the films is bound to love something about Middle-Earth (assuming they're the fall-in-love-with-Fantasy type). For some players, this often rears its head in MESBG with cool custom profiles being proposed for characters that show up Tolkien's works that aren't the Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit, custom Legendary Legions, or occasionally cool scenarios that try to recreate events from Middle-Earth's history.

But more often than not, I see this love for characters, profiles, and factions displayed in a request for updates to existing profiles. Questions like, "How do you get Osgiliath Veterans to work? I love the sculpts and I think they're so cool, but they just don't seem to be worth it - what do you do to make them work?" Have you seen these questions? And have you asked them?

Well, I've decided to compile my list of five profiles that I like (for various reasons) and what I would change about them to make them "better" if I were the King of SBG for a day. I will say that the profiles I've chosen are not only models that I like and think need a slight alteration, but they're also models I play with regularly (and would play with more if their rules were tweaked ever so slightly). With that, let's dive into . . .

Profile #1: Osgiliath Veterans 

Let's start with a profile that everyone struggles to see the point of or a use for (though I tried really hard last year): Osgiliath Veterans. "OsVets" cost +1pt more than Warriors of Minas Tirith and have an identical profile to them with two exceptions: first, they get +1 Courage (which makes them C5 with the Minas Tirith army bonus), and second, they trade the chance of having +1 Defense with the Shieldwall special rule for the chance of having +1 Fight Value if they're near Faramir or Boromir (which is actually easier to do than keeping Shieldwall up). 

Back to Basics: Cavalry in MESBG

Good morning gamers,

About two years ago, I revisited a mini-series on how to play MESBG and in it, we covered how to build a list, what goes on in the Priority/Move Phase, the Shoot Phase, and the Fight Phase. When I closed out the Fight Phase article, I mentioned that if we thought of covering other topics, we'd expand the series - and we're doing that today!

Once you've mastered the core rules of MESBG (which we've basically done by covering the phases of the game and army construction), you can tackle some of the more advanced rules of MESBG - and that's what we're going to focus on for the next few weeks. Our first stop is one of the most common things you'll see on the tabletop: cavalry. We talked about the bonuses cavalry get in the Fight Phase in a previous post - and we've been looking at how to get more out of your cavalry models (and some formations you can use) in our recent Cavalry Charge formations series. What we're going to cover today are the basics of cavalry and some of the often-overlooked rules of cavalry to serve as a refresher to you veterans of the game and to clue any newbies into how cavalry work. Let's dig in!

Moving Your Cavalry

It won't come as any surprise to start off by saying that cavalry move faster than your everyday, run-of-the-mill infantry. Sure, there are things like Wild Wargs that move as fast as a horse can and are TECHNICALLY infantry, but man-sized models (and shorter ones) are going to move 4-8" and cavalry will be faster than that (10-12"). This extra movement usually means that a) they can reach a far-flung objective in a turn or two, b) can get around the enemy flanks to charge vulnerable units, and c) if equipped with ranged weapons, they can usually "kite" away from enemy infantry while still shooting at them (moving at half speed, as we talked about in the Shoot Phase post).

But cavalry are different from infantry when they move - first and foremost because their bases are larger than your standard infantry base. Larger bases are a thing when it comes to moving - gaps between models or between a model and a terrain piece have to be pretty big for a 40mm base to pass through them. These large base sizes also mean that more models can charge into a cavalry model's base (or monster's base or whatever), so cavalry should expect to be charged by more things than usual.

FAQ Time: Breaking down the August 2023 FAQ

Good morning gamers,

Once again, I find myself on vacation when the FAQs drop, but that doesn't keep me from looking up what's new for the game! With very little new content released for the game this year, I was kind of curious what would come out of this new batch of rules - would it be a slight modification to the game we love (like the last set)? Or would they finally get through the (moderated) laundry list of things I requested (they have answered one of my questions a time or two). For those who want to jump straight to the source material, you can find the article here and the FAQ page here (though admittedly, the FAQ page doesn't seem to open reliably - you have to refresh a few times sometimes). Let's get into the changes!

Photo Credit: Reddit 
I say this in every one of these posts - this is always me at the start of February and August . . . always . . .

What Didn't Have Changes - and Battle Companies

While fewer sourcebooks received no love this time than last time, we did have a few that escaped edits this time around. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Fall of the Necromancer supplement has no changes, but on a sadder note for me, the Quest of the Ringbearer sourcebook also had no updates. Perhaps I was too late in my email with recommended changes (and clarification questions) from Fantasy Fellowships, but alas, I'll have to wait at least 6 months before my questions about scenarios and model substitutions are answered . . .

In other news, the red-headed-cousin of MESBG (Battle Companies) had two changes - heroes don't increase their points value when they gain heroic actions (unlike stats/special rules/war gear) and heroes who don't have armor (like Uruk-Hai Berserkers) can't get armor or upgrade it.

Q: Do Heroic Actions gained by a Hero increase their points cost? (p.9) A: No.

Q: If a Hero isn’t wearing any type of armour, but a member of their Battle Company has the ability to take a type of armour (armour, heavy armour, etc.), can the Hero purchase a type of armour from the Armoury? (p.73) A: No. The only option a Hero has is to upgrade armour to heavy armour. If the Hero doesn’t have any armour then they cannot choose this option. This will likely be because the Hero in question has made a name for themselves as a ranger, scout or some similar role that doesn’t require armour and taking some would only hinder their natural talents.

While some of you may play Battle Companies and might mourn the lack of attention to certain sourcebooks, that's not why you're here - let's get the boring stuff out of the way and then we'll dive into the meat of the newest changes to MESBG . . .

The Meta is Dead, Long Live the Meta

So next week, Tiberius will have a much more thorough, well-reasoned, dispassionate summary of the latest FAQs and Erratas that dropped on Thursday. 

But while you're waiting, allow me to be dis-dispassionate and express what we're all feeling:

Photo Credit: tenor.com (and The Wizard of Oz, of course)

So I have slightly mixed feelings about some of the changes that were made to a few popular lists (well, okay... one very popular ally choice). But overall, I'm like the rest of you: all my very thematic list ideas are overjoyed tonight that another round of power-creep fad lists have been restored to their proper place: history (or at least the niche pile).

In no-particular-order-of-overjoyness:

No more Lake-Town Spam (well, allied at least)

Like most of you, when I first read The Armies of the Hobbit, I took a look at the Army of Lake-Town, thought "man, that's boring," and kept right on reading. Then, like you, one day I was looking around for something cheap and decent to ally into something very large and cool and expensive (it's usually some sort of list with Gwaihir, isn't it?), and thought "hey, this is a VERY cheap way to get 50+ dudes who aren't complete duds in combat." And then I (like you, maybe) took them to a tournament, felt kind of guilty about it, and then forgot the guilt after kicking other people's butts with them.

Well, no more. At least mostly.

FAQ Time: Breaking Down the February 2023 FAQ

Good morning gamers,

I happen to be on vacation, but that doesn't stop me from checking out what's new in the SBG community - and at the top of the list is the newest dump of FAQs. As the first set of FAQs since the release of the Battle of Osgiliath box set and the updated rulebook, I was excited to see what changes were in store (and whether the old rulebook would continue to be supported now that we have a new one). You can find the article here and the FAQ page here. Let's dig in and see what changed!

Photo Credit: Reddit 
No matter how many times I tell myself to play it cool , I just can't stop myself from looking for the questions I asked . . .

General Observations

First off, there were no updates for the Gondor at War, Scouring of the Shire, War in Rohan, Quest of the Ringbearer, or Fall of the Necromancer sourcebooks - apparently, these have been hashed out enough and we're just focused on the Defence of the North and the quadrumvirate of necessary sourcebooks (the main rulebook, the Armies of the Lord of the Rings, the Armies of the Hobbit, and the Matched Play Guide). Check out these pages if you want, but there's nothing new there (much to pity - I asked for some things in these).

There were only two erratas (and no FAQs) in the Armies of the Lord of the Rings book - one of which I asked for and totally expected to make it in without my input and one that I didn't ask for, wish I'd asked for, and am thrilled made it in (but more on this later).

There were four FAQs from the main rulebook that, apparently, didn't make it into the rules rewrite - these include what makes a model count as "trapped" (e.g. you can't just be fighting a cavalry model that charged you), what a model can do when they're transfixed (the infamous "degree of common sense" FAQ), the need to measure vertical distance when using Swift Movement, and the need for making a scatter roll when using Severed Heads.  

Finally (and alluded to in the previous point), the main rulebook FAQ was truncated to just what hasn't been covered since the new rulebook release. This . . . was kind of expected on my part, but I also wish hadn't happened. For version control (and to promote a new product), it makes sense that the Middle-Earth team has done away with the old rulebook FAQs - but if they'd kept the old main rulebook FAQs as a static document and provided the new one as well, then players wouldn't have to buy the new sourcebook . . . which, I guess would translate into less profit for them. Still, the new rulebook was advertised as an incorporation of the old FAQs - and now it's required because the old FAQs don't exist. 

Okay, with that, let's get into one of the shortest FAQ releases we've seen to date!

The Battle of Osgiliath: Unpacking the New Rules Updates

Good morning gamers,

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Centaur and I split the Battle of Osgiliath starter box right before Christmas and I have to say, there's nothing quite like opening a big box of plastic right before Christmas! I started assembling Gothmog the day after it arrived so Centaur could have the instructions all for himself but then poured over the new rulebook with my son Gorgoroth.

I had heard that there were no substantive changes in the book - just incorporating erratas that have crept up through the years since the MESBG revamp. I decided I could spare a few hours for a thorough examination and compiled the list of changes here - and as best I can tell, these are the full list of changes. What surprised me was . . . not all the changes were previous erratas (and no, I'm not emailing the FAQ team to see if any of these additional changes were intentional). I would like to go on record and say that I did my examination of what the differences were two days before the Unexpected Podcast team released their review of the changes (check out their video if you want their review of a few changes - the link provided starts after the list review when they dig into the rules and runs for ~35min). Matt, if you're reading this, you don't need to read the rulebook cover to cover - I got you. :-) Anywhere that we're seeing new rules in the new book, I've placed a "NEW" at the start of the paragraph. If there's a slight change from previous FAQs, you'll see a "SEMI-NEW" instead. Here we go!

Player Code of Conduct 

NEW: This got some attention from the Unexpected Podcast team, and it's both new and not new. This is really an extension of the most important rule (have fun) but it's the first time that players have been given guidelines for how to create a good playing experience - and the inclusion of it in the rules seems to me to be an attempt to codify what has sprung up in the MESBG community organically. Things like being a graceful winner and loser make a lot of sense, and I find myself already helping my opponent from time to time (or all the time - what can I say, I like to make my life hard). I do think there's a place for letting the other player make mistakes in deployment or with a tactical decision and not having a penalty applied (some lessons need to be learned the hard way), so I would always use this code as a guideline instead of as the basis for a penal code.

Ranking the New Battlehost Boxes (After The Rules Release)!

Good morning gamers,

When the new Battlehost boxes were announced back in August, Centaur wrote an article that evaluated which would win if they were pitted together. On September 7, 2022, we got the free-to-download "Quick Rules" for the main rules and these Battlehosts and I wanted to both comment on these documents and see how these truncated rules change the ranking of the Battlehosts (in my opinion). Let's dig in!

The Downloadable Rules

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

First off, we need to view the main rules supplement - great job, Middle-Earth team, for distilling the bare basics of the rules into 14 pages. :)  These rules don't have everything in them, but instead focus on what's relevant to the Battlehosts themselves (a subset of the magical powers, no specialized heroic actions, a subset of the war gear, and a very short list of special rules). By drilling down into "just what's in the boxes", you avoid the overwhelming nature of diving straight into the game (where Mumaks, siege weapons, other monsters, the Ring, and countless special rules/magical powers/wargear options abound).

Many of the profiles (as we'll see) got truncated too - this not only makes it so that the main rules content can be reduced to avoid talking about niche rules, but it also makes it so that the rules for each model are streamlined a lot more (and didn't keep rules that are great for theme, but would never be used in battlehost play). The design team didn't skip magic entirely (which I think may have been a good idea - I never teach people how to play with magic in the first game because it changes how the game is played), but rather limited what kinds of spells can be used in this quick-and-dirty version of SBG. And I don't mind that (though some profiles REALLY changed with this truncation - more on that later).

But there was also a rules change (to simplify things) from the normal game: cavalry get their charge bonuses regardless of who they charge (read, you can't turn off someone's cavalry charge bonuses just by counter-charging them with cavalry). Suddenly any cavalry model looks really good (even if all the cavalry in these Battlehost are only F3). I don't think this changed too much for me, but I'm curious to see if this could be implemented in the normal game whenever a rules rewrite happens (comment below about whether you think this is a good idea or not).

But I do have one critique of this: they provided a single scenario for you to play and the game ends when one side is wiped out. In my experience playing MESBG, playing to the last man is actually an UNFUN experience (especially if there's no way your 2 Orcs are going to be able to kill Gandalf and a half dozen Warriors of Minas Tirith). This is easily remedied by the stragglers running away (the Courage stats aren't great in any of these boxes) or a player choosing to quit the game early, but I'd rather that they introduce the concept of a quarter point instead of "killing all the guys." But hey, if that's the only critique, that's not bad.

Okay, let's get into the Battlehost rules!

FAQ Time: Breaking Down the August 2022 FAQ

Good morning gamers,

Last week, we had a new set of Erratas and FAQs drop which . . . prompted far less discussion than previous FAQs have (so that's good, I guess?). I like to give the FAQs a week before I publish anything so I can mull over them for a bit and here are the thoughts I have on them (providentially, the Unexpected Podcast team got their video up recently too - check it out if you haven't already).

Erratas: Profile and Army Tweaks

Photo Credit: Reddit
Me looking for the questions I submitted . . .

There were eight erratas (seven meaningful ones) in this round of edits - most of which related to Evil models or the Defence of the North supplement. The first and foremost is that the Will of Evil rule now precludes models from spending their last Will point to "cast a Magical Power and cause themselves to be removed as a casualty."  When I first read this, I thought the bottom line was clear: you can't kill your Ringwraiths voluntarily anymore - your opponent has to do it. 

While this is mostly true, on closer inspection, the errata doesn't preclude you from burning through your Will to resist magical powers, pass Courage tests, or trigger special rules (like Pall of Darkness or Rule Through Fear), but in these cases, your opponent has do something (cast magic on you), has to provide you a need to pass a Courage test (break you or bring at least one Terror model), or you've got a named Ringwraith in a flying circus/conventional army and has to burn through his Will one at a time - all of which avoid the primary problem of "I evaporate my army on Turn 1 and no one has any fun." I was never bothered by this shenanigan, but it was also never abused against me, so I'm fine with this FAQ change:

Page 107 – Will of Evil Replace the last sentence of the first rules paragraph with the following: A model with this special rule may not use their last point of Will to cast a Magical Power and cause themselves to be removed as a casualty.

The second change is to Shades: previously, their Chill Aura ability was Passive, so you couldn't just Immobilize/Transfix them to keep them from reducing your dueling rolls during the subsequent Fight phase. Now, Chill Aura is an Active ability and casters with access to Immobilize/Transfix become better at taking down a Shade, as you can force them to burn Will (used to activate Chill Aura) to try to use it later in the round - great change, guys, great change:

Page 128 – Shade – Chill Aura Change from Passive to Active.

The final change hits the Assault on Helm's Deep Legendary Legion the hardest, but not that hard: Isengard Assault Ballistas now have a minimum range of 6". While I think this should have been the case anyway (there's no way you're hitting someone right up in your grill with that ballista), I don't think modifying Piercing Shot was the right way to handle it, as the "Piercing Shot" special rule shows up on several other siege weapons (and as a guy who makes spreadsheets that auto-look-up your rules, the solution to this fix required some thinking, albeit not a lot of work once the thinking was done). Still, it's a good rules change:

Page 179 – Isengard Assault Ballista – Piercing Shot Add the following sentence: An Isengard Assault Ballista has a range of 6”-48”.

Speaking of siege weapons, while Centaur covered the Army of Dale LL last week, we now have the option to take the Windlance in a Garrison of Dale list - which not only means that Girion can have those supporting him in a Hobbit-Era Dale list, but the only benefit you're getting from the Army of Dale LL is Sworn Protector (Brand, King of Dale) . . . yeah, that Legion doesn't have much of a leg to stand on anymore:

Page 52 – Garrison of Dale Add Windlance to the army composition. 

Passing note - as I mentioned in my In Defense Of article on Orophin, Orophin is in fact a Woodland Creature:

Page 63 – Orophin Add the Woodland Creature special rule. 

Another passing note: Khamul was added to the list of models in the Defence of the North Easterling army summary - NOT the Legendary Legion options, but the normal army summary (which we already knew):

Page 70 – The Easterlings Add Khamûl the Easterling to the army composition. 

The final two changes relate to Beornings: first, Beornings now have with both a hand-and-a-half axe (which will be swapped with a great bow) and an axe (instead of a dagger) - cool, nothing earth-shattering, probably to conform to the equipment on the models:

Page 69 – Beornings – Wargear Change to: Hand-and-a-half axe and axe. 

Second, Beorn will be able to benefit from Grimbeorn's heroic actions in their Legendary Legion (despite his Berserk special rule saying otherwise . . . the son can communicate with dad I guess):

Page 91 – The Beornings – Additional Rules Add the following bullet point: Whilst he is in bear form, Beorn may still benefit from the Heroic Actions of Grimbeorn regardless of his Berserk special rule.

FAQ Time: Breaking Down The February 2022 FAQ

Good morning gamers,

Last week we got a new batch of FAQs and with them, we got what we kind of expected was coming: something to tame down the onslaught of the Vanquishers Legendary Legion. We also got some other things (some things that I didn't see coming) - so let's dig into what these changes are and what they mean (and more importantly, what they DON'T mean).

Preliminaries

Photo Credit: Reddit
Me looking for the questions I submitted . . .

Let's get this out of the way first: this FAQ cycle saw the Designer Commentaries joined up with the Erratas, joining what was two documents per book into one document per book. This was a good change. Instead of having to think of the book that the profile was in or where the rule that is being disputed is found, and THEN figure out if it was a change to the model or a clarification of the rules, now you just think about the book and be done with it. Dropping down the list for 17 to 9 files is much better and more efficient (especially for those of us who run tournaments). Big fan, SBG team, big fan . . .

Another preliminary remark is that most of the FAQs sought to clarify core issues in the game (or fix glaring army-related/scenario-related problems), not legislate new capabilities (mostly - more on that later). Things like Dragon Cult Acolytes (who will one day become full-blown Dragon Knights) not being able to be led by Dragon Knights because they were released afterwards and didn't have a "well-actually" text in their temporary profile got fixed - you can now bring Dragon Cult Acolytes with Dragon Knights (their post-graduate mentors). Hooray!

Other examples of this include questions that had recently popped up with the Vanquishers Legion about whether a healed army leader coughed up VPs for being wounded if he was back to full Wounds at the end of the game. Since only a handful of models can restore Wounds, this hadn't been a poignant question until we had a Legion that healed models en masse. The rules were clarified that, yes, if you wound the army leader, you score the VPs even if the model is later healed. Thanks for clearing that up, rules team - glad to know we were all playing it right. :)

But for the most part, the new FAQs tell us that a) we were right about how certain rules worked, b) the scenarios worked the way we thought, c) magic is still as good as it has been, d) war beasts are still as good as they have been, and e) the Vanquishers Legion and Galadriel, Lady of Light are still worth using (albeit with a few tweaks, in most cases). Let's dig in!