In the Mind: What Do I think About this New Edition (pros and cons)

 In the Mind: Pros and Cons (new versus old edition)

Ok to start i will lay down a few basic things. first i think this new edition is truly good for the game, its progression and development and mainly its growth. I have personally seen many people completely reinvigorated to play more middle earth with this new edition when they previously were just done with Lord of the Rings. Then i have seen many people online becoming excited to get back into the hobby as well as with the war of the Rohirrim stuff many people never played before are now quite interested. There are definitely cons to this new edition and stuff completely unnecessary but I strongly believe this is what is best for the game. So since we are already on a positive note let us continue with my favorite things about this new edition.

-Priority: I love this change as it felt bad to want to roll badly and it has added another level of tactical decision with many models gaining buffs if they opt to give their opponents priority. 

-Magic completely debuffed: This change doesn't jump out quite as clearly but it is actually crazy. compel is almost useless, sorcerous blast, black dart, aura spells all are completely nerfed if not gone. it makes much less negative gameplay and the only like punishing spell is transfix. I feel like this is personally my favorite change as now it doesn't feel bad to take spellcasters since they aren't as oppressive as they once were. 

-Clear Wording: They have clearly made each sentence and part of the game make so much more sense in a clarifying way. Everything is straightforward and not much to debate. Simply they have really helped themselves and spared themselves of many FAQs. It is also in my opinion better for newer players this way as it is much simply to get a grasp of now. The new book is so well written enough said. 

-Making big heroes the center piece: This is my third favorite change as it makes nearly all of the armies crazy thematic. The big heroes are now essential. the F7 on nearly all of the big bads makes them so good that the likes of smaller F5 heroes cannot really come close to comparing and now you need to take the big boys in order to have a hero that is comfortable with all situations. Huge fan of this and most of the legions give specific heroes more buffs to make them more thematic and more wanted to take. 

Heroic Actions: Now all of the actions are super super solid and i love this. Strike nerfed further makes your big bads super fun and now trolls are a bit safer with that change. small heroes all of a sudden cant get lucky and tie with a balrog with like 8 guys and get lucky and get off like 6 wounds... it just wont happen and that wasn't accurate so i like this. It brings much more tactical achievement if you run all smaller end heroes. 

-Army Lists: This will be the end of the pros list and the start of the cons list. I like this and i have a bone to pick with it at the same time. It is cool as everything is super thematic and follows a sequence of movie footage or whatever. I love the fact that theme is almost required now. 

CONS:

-Army Lists: Like i said this makes both. Previously you could run soup. now... you can run soup. just limited soup. Now you will see Gwaihir with a spam of laketown getting like 40 models with a wizard and an eagle lord... this hasn't changed and nasty mixes and combos will be everywhere with the likes of these lists. So in that regard the people who love tricks and mashups will abuse and make thematic lists unthematical for a tactical advantage that isn't thematic at all. I was looking forward to the battle of five armies and playing it but as soon as i simply got on our local discord group i completely changed my mind as now everyone wants to play it... 

Banners and horses: Horses costing 20 points for heroes i actually really love its the fact that on many captain profiles they are just gone. why? i mean yea they dont sell those models but that little thing just didn't sit right with me at all since now many lists you cant run all cavalry unless its Rohan or a specific cavalry scene from the movie. Banners... they removed them from several lists that previously had the option but no model. then they made banners 4 VPs in a bunch of the scenarios. I hate that. it gives army's taking a object that already provides an advantage and gives them free points. taking no banner is a disadvantage. making that disadvantage even more disadvantageous is ridiculous. Simply saying oh yea Thorin is like a "real" banner for these scenarios and same with Rosie but Aragorn and Thranduil aren't just doesn't make sense and it makes me mad that it is rules for some but not others. honestly a big flop from Games Workshop and the MESBG crew. 

Comment down below if you agree or disagree with anything i have said or anything you think I missed! check in again to the Minds of Moria for more.

In the Mind: New Edition What I Want to Play with It

 In The mind: Exciting lists

There as several lists that I am like IN love with for this new edition. I mean men of the west has to be up there but i am an original old school men of the west so the new beast version of the list is kind of boring to me its five armies but Lotr era so I will definitely play it but it will not be my main list. I will mention several lists and a few reasons why I am super in love with them.

First up perhaps the one i am most excited about is the older days of Gondor with Kings of Gondor and Captains. I love this list. I am so glad my all cav Gondor is still playable even though it will have the citadel guards be converted further into more kings of Gondor on horse. I love what they have done with the generic king profiles and cannot wait to play with this new Gondor force with tons of cavalry troops captains and mounted kings. Especially with the buffs on Aragorn (my old character i used since no one used him as he was deemed to costly) i now expect Aragorn to be everywhere so I will switch to kings until i see Aragorn meta die down. 

Wolves of Isengard: This one has to be at least top 2 but i think will be my MAIN list for the next year or few years. Sharku got a small buff that makes his heroic combats very worth while and with strike now he is a worthwhile fighter rather then using the list as a skirmish force. I love the idea of 50% throwing spears 33% bows then the remaining 17% normal wild wargs for my lists and that is how i am building it up. I recently purchased around 27 warg riders with a dozen wild wargs to run this list in the previous edition which was SO much fun and now it is even better with you still retaining cav attack bonus against other cav... Needless to say i am STOKED about this legion and anyone playing anywhere near Texas... be ready for wolves to show up everywhere! Most people discount the list as a bunch of F3 cav that dies fast and well it is... it is a challenge to get working but it is sooo efficient if you learn it. I started to get to know it after my fourth game with it last edition and i was shocked. if your opponent doesn't know the only way to stop this army from slaughtering them then you should win every time unless its a hero mash list. 

Army of Dale: This list is also so exciting. Losing the knights of dale is in my opinion good as they weren't in the film or directly mentioned in the books so for this movie themed list i like that. I love the usage of the windlance to provide a MASSIVE bubble of +1 to wound. They are now an auto include and I seriously love that. its so thematic. I think it is overly powerful for sure and i think giving it something like a free heroic shoot every turn that has the loose as well would be more thematic and better but nonetheless i really enjoy the list and the plus 1 to wound is insanely powerful. Girion is solid not a total beast but does his job. I rate this list as cool, thematic, and still on the powerful side. 

Assault on Ravenhill: This list just looks like so much fun. free buffs on giving 3 of your heroes an extra attack on of them essentially free combats, another rerolls to wound for free, a free fight value on another, free 6 inch banner that counts for scenario points, and well my favorite rule... bilbos throwing stones are throwing weapons! it is cool I think really powerful yet challenging with the 6 scenarios given so far. It taps out at 650 points which is average so i expect to see this commonly as it just looks cool and has some really powerful rules and models. it is very thematic and cool and i used to run an alliance with the assault on Ravenhill models at 700 points with balin with one crossbowman (to represent him staying behind) then the mounted 4, bilbo, Tauriel and Legolas (mounted with orcrist and the cloak) and it was fun and wasn't that good but it was just a fun mashup list that was efficient at some things so I'm stoked to see that it is now better then it was!

The fellowship: I mean there aren't many words for this one... it looks really cool and honestly i think it will be very very good and will win a bunch and will be much more competitive then it was with its only challenge being many of the scenarios. Its cool, its themey, ill run it.

Rangers of Mirkwood: I do like this as it has the dwarves now. I love the almost red alliance type feel with the heroics. I will definitely run this heavy on the dwarfs with Tauriel and a handful of rangers to provide space stuffing a bit of shooting to draw in opponent with bilbo for moves that affect both sides. the rerolling fate is what made me want to go heavy on the dwarves and take very little elves which also makes it more fun for your opponent. I think this will be very playable but still quite the challenge. Shielding with the rangers means they can just sit and take up space while making the dwarves able to take on a comfortable amount of enemies without being overwhelmed like they used to. Low numbers high heroes makes these rangers very dangerous with their knife fighters to i like this list and definitely am working on my remaining rangers that i bought a while back and never painted. 

Let me know which lists you are most excited about and if any of these make your lists or whether you will simply run the soupy five armies and men of the west to play the most powerful lists out there like i will still do since i have always had a love for eagles with my iron hills or eagles with my Gandalf and Radagast all in the same list... I will be back later with another "In the Mind" on perhaps more thoughts on the new edition? You will have to check in later to find out!

In the Mind: New Edition Reveals

In the Mind: New Edition Arises

As we approach the introduction of the new edition we clearly see many new things such as the intelligence characteristic and the buffing of many heroes. Lets break down several things. First what to look for in heroes in this current edition. Second what armies will be so over the top powerful in this edition. Finally what about the banner dilemma. 

First lets address heroes. The heroes in this edition have been shown to be buffed to all new levels with the likes of Thorin, Aragorn, Elrond, Borimir and the likes all now have a natural of Fight value 7. Many smaller heroes such as Gandalf the white, Farimir, and Eomer have been bumped to f6 and some have stayed where they were. The interesting thing is now 1 point of fight value is an INSANE difference. with the changes to heroic strike f6-f7 is insane. more importantly many characters lost heroic strike such as gwaihir and gil galad. This shows just how they are leaning into new dynamics with heroes. Now many heroes cannot simply rely on walking into others and beating them over the head but rather using tactics with heroes to even have a CHANCE at taking down other heroes. The other big thing is HORSES. So incredibly powerful yes but at a great cost now. This means that while heroes pay a premium for something that bows can easily knock out warrior models still pay the bargain price for them. Horses in this edition are even more of a choice then last. last many chose them some like myself in many cases went without them. Now that choice is more costly. Personally the bigger beatstick heroes seem much less scary now with the price of horses since you can simply shoot out a horse then stall many of the heroes other then aragorns and the like. We also see the spread out availability to reroll wounds on heroes. This to me is the equalizer and still means beatstick heroes are a good option. But to me... not the best option. In this edition the first model that stood out to me was Gandalf the White and Gandalf the Grey... the grey with his cart is nearly unstoppable and the white is so buffed for 25 points less and i already liked him last edition. Magic is now crazy. Why do i say that? well its crazy nerfed so many wont think twice about it... so thats why i love the gandalfs. they will be so good because most people wont be looking for them because they arent as good at spells as they used to and the spells are less potent. Top 3 heroes i have seen so far come out of the edition are in my opinion: #3: Gandalf on Cart #2 Gwaihir #1 Celeborn Now lets break these 3 choices down and see why i have them ranked as so. 

Gandalf: He has the ability to target 3 Different models at ONCE. His magic on one hero, his firework that knocks a non monster (preferably hero) prone every turn on a 2+ automatically, and then his combat with the cart with 3 attacks on the charge hopefully into 2 warriors. All in all he can deal with so many targets at once with a solid range to do so making him absolutely crazy tough and still just as hard as ever to take down.

Moving on to our number 2 pick we have Gwaihir. Gwahir is insane as soon as you look at him but then go and look at the army lists he comes in and your jaw just drops. Surround this guy and 1 great eagle a fledgling eagle and a horde of laketown from the battle of five armies and you can get high 30s at 700 points with 3 eagles. Or you can run him with a horde of minas tirith and aragorn in the men of the west. additionally you could run him with a wizard and a horde of laketown with over 40 models at 700 points. the possibilities are endless and he is a beast regardless of whether he has strike or not. he still has barge and combat which is enough. 

Number 1: Celeborn. He is much more limited then Gwaihir but even more deadly then the previous two. Breaking down the points this is hands down the best bargain hero in this edition. His spell casting is to me the BEST in the game. Why? one reason. Writhing vines. This spell is INSANE. it is so so so good. it is efficient and is so odd and interactive. you can do so many tricks such as negate cav bonuses, make models incapable of having the movement to reach objectives and so on. His final thing he has for him is that one vital thing... +1 to wound for all elves within 3 inches. THIS is total insanity. elven players have long complained about killing power and now at just over a hundred points you get the best spell of the edition with free will a turn and +1 to wound on potentially 8 elves then their spear supports as well... a battle line of plus one to wound pikemen with shields in front and a banner behind is so so disgusting and will be so hard for others to play around. running this and plenty of cav to force them into the block will be so much fun to see and to play. 

Lists: The best lists i have seen so far are hands down the laketown, battle of five armies, minas morgul, and the men of the west. These are the ones that instantly jumped out to me as just insane. Minas morgul in my opinion tops this list and is one i am in some ways keen to play and in many ways have no interest in because of its sheer incredible power. Lets break down the reasons why these lists are where they are for me. Laketown is simple mighty hero and the good old 6 inch banner and plus 1 fight value on bard when he has his children AND Alfred is just CRAZY. in my opinion run him without the children and upgrade a captain to gandalf and drop some troops is the move. at 700 you can take around 38 guys with mighty hero a wizard and Alfred... just what? oh and a starting position of 10-12 might in that list to on top of the free might. Mighty hero was an odd rule to add to this legion and makes it a beast. enough said. battle of five armies is the options i have already mentioned the big eagle himself who will be the center piece of nearly all of these armies. the classic elves with cheap laketown in front will also be prevalent so watch out for that as well. Skipping to men of the west it is the same idea as the battle of five armies tons of options and some big nasties... Minas morgul is disgusting. I myself need to go grab a fell beast so i can have it at its full disgusting power. Running it as a spam with particularly spam of stectres with plenty of orcs as support with two wraiths and a captain or two is the way to go and it is disgusting. free courage around spectres or wraiths free essentially plus 1 to wound with the blades of the dead on many armies is just nasty. the ringbearer rule is cool and niche but nothing more.

Finally the banner dilemma: Games workshop had several scenarios that encouraged banners and we all thought this would change as many lists automatically lost points for it. Rather what we got was those points all doubled AND a BUNCH of lists losing banners. thranduils halls doesn't have a single banner in the list anymore and why? because there was simply no model for them. its that simple and its sad. many lists lost more access to them and they are now even more valuble. I was pretty chill about the previous setup with banners but now they are just so so bad and with almost all of the scenarios having banner points i am legitimately sad for more niche armies such as all hero armies or eagles etc.. 

Thanks for reading and check in soon for more on this new edition! Make sure to comment your thoughts on my opinions i would love to see everyone's differing ideas or opinions!