Thoughts on the 'New' LOTR?
I know BOLS isnt the best place to get feedback on LOTR, but I figured I would try anyway;
What are your thoughts on the new Force Books and models?
-Initial impression; this was a simple way for GW to stop producing around a dozen old sourcebooks. Limited model release to keep a few people happy and the new force org to increase the sales of heroes which are more expensive.
Now just so you know I am one to purchase all the literature GW puts out on LOTR; but I have been having a hard time justifying $25 US for these smaller-than-magazine publications. I have picked up only one; the Fallen Realms, and I was very impressed. While it is a simple publication, the proper use of action, emotion and verbs in the unit summaries gave a much more 'warfarey' style description. And they did fix a lot of the crappy rules and made some duller choices more unique; like blowpipes that can move and fire and dunlendings having strength 4.
So while impressed by that book I was giving a hard read of the others at the LGS, and I was not so impressed. In the other books I see a lot of overlooked issues that were just lazy on their part. Gildor Inglorian can upgrade woodelves to move faster.... yet he cannot lead a warband of them because he is part of the rivendell list. And druadan forest men still have stand still blowpipes. AND barrowights are the only spirits that do not strike against courage. I know I am critical on this stuff; but we waited years for an update and I think we got a lot of copy and pasting.
-Post Gaming Impression; the missions are great. They make the game a lot more competitive and built off of the lessons learned in the old Legions book. The warband organization isnt that bad. What does suck though is the reorg of my existing forces bc of leaders and independient leaders and such. AND the fact that basic heroes are now cast in finecast and overpriced makes it hard to use my entire model collection. Most of my forces have to leave a few models at home because there arent enough heroes to lead them without playing huge points values.
-New Models; GW gave us around 15 new models. Gee. Thanks. We waited how long to get a bunch of wonky finecast stuff and repackages? Come on man. ANd those releases were for only two evil forces. There was plenty of stuff never released in Legions that could have been done. I know the Hobbit is coming out but we deserved a little more.
***Important Conclusions: These new books represent the entire range of LOTR. Thats it. After the initial release there is nomore room to add models to the game unless the Hobbit releases new rules or Force Books. This is because the current books are closed ended; the ony chance we have is WD release. ANDDDDD if the Hobbit comes out and releases new rules, is the $125 spent on the new Force Books going to be thrown out of the window? THat would be an expensive hold me over game for a year.
Well these are my thoughts; I would like to hear yours, hopefully this gets some attention.
