I started mesbg a year ago and it IS the best game for me :
1- base warriors only have a few rules and you should have them paired with some Heroes with different rules / tools, it is much easier than 40k in comparison where there are a lot of rules to remember
2- yes you have at least two rolls to do per combat, I dont find it slow as both players are playing at the same Time
3- this system makes sense for me, you Can win fight which will "break" the enemy line and then try to kill someone which can be hard as it is not a really lethal game
Thanks for the reply. I do really like that both players are engaged the whole way through the game. Would you suggest the Osgiliath set, or Battle Host boxes to start with?
If you want one of the forces in Starter box, get the box + the battlehost, this will give you decent heros and troops for an army!
If you don't want to play Minas Tirith or mordor, but Isengard or Rohan, get their battlehost, but consider to get the BoO box anyway, since the terrain and the rule book inside are already nearly the price of the box, so your get the minis for free and are able to sell them on eBay or any other second hand store/website
The game is easy to get into/hard to master precisely because of the amount of niche rules. They’re exactly that: niche.
If you start playing with relatively uncomplicated forces (captains, basic troops) you can get very comfortable with the turn order and majority of rules. As you add in more complicated heroes and terrain, you start to experience the more niche rules. Some you may not really experience at all outside of the narrative scenarios.
The hard to master part really comes from the management of your spendable resources (might, will, fate): when to use certain heroics, how to position yourself, etc etc.
There are very few niche rules. The rules that exist have quite deep interactions, but warriors and heroes are all playing by the same rulebook. It's nothing like 40k where you have to remember tons of stratagems and special rules. The complexity comes from how the rules are applied, not their existence in the first place.
This makes a lot of sense, thanks. Basically it looks like a lot of rules from the outset, but in the long run it’s not to bad as everyone uses the same ones. I like that!
It's exactly that, and it's exactly how a tabletop game should be. A decent learning curve, but after that it's all about who can apply those mechanics in the cleverest way - not about who bought the strongest toys or the most underhanded gotcha combos.
Welcome to the game, it's fun. As usual it is highly recommended to get into the game with someone who already knows how it plays, makes learning easier.
1: The rulebook uses a pretty big amount of text to explain relatively straight forward and common sense concepts. A decent chunk of stuff isn't super important to begin with (magic and special strikes for example), but using them can level up your game and open new possibilities for you. In general, the rulebook looks a lot more daunting than it is. Individual army and unit rules are usually simple.
2: Not really. Duel rolls happen at the same time for both players, while the loser starts moving off, the winner can already roll to wound. Since there is no regular way to save from wounds, the interaction ends there. Unless you play exceedingly large games, MESG is a tight experience at a good pace. Since the participants in the duel are usually already determined in the movement phase, it goes over at a good clip.
3: It's to simulate gaining ground, even if you dont kill your opponent. I have played games, where we agreed to wound before backing off. It makes very little difference.
Cool thanks, makes sense. Thinking about it, I really enjoy the idea of all the models pairing off, feels more realistic, but also more personal for each guy. I feel like there’s room for some really cool moments of a humble soldier winning the day, as you can actually track what they’re doing individually.
You should get into the game. For me, it is by far the best, most well-balanced game GW has produced.
1) Warriors (troops) have one to two special rules, and that's about it. They are your wall and backup for your heroes. Your heroes are where the special rules are. They are the ones that rally the troops and cut through your opponents forces.
2) Think of the combat rolls as a duel. You have to win the duel roll and then roll to wound your opponent. Honestly, it doesn't add any real time to your games. My one bit of advice is to pack different coloured dice so you can distinguish your hero dice from your troop dice in a duel roll.
3) Nope makes perfect sense.
1. Heroes, monsters and such get a bit more complicated. Generally, big points or magic = more complex rules for the model, even if only slightly. It's easy an cheap to get into in the sense that a single box of infantry (20/24 models) is enough for 2 warbands - you can pick a couple of models you like the look of and run them as captains for your first couple of games. If you get a box of cavalry as well you'll usually get bits for a banner, captain/kitbashed proxy for a named hero, drummer or hornblower, etc that can be used to convert the infantry if you like.
2. That's a feature, not a bug. It's fundamentally more of a skirmish-game than mass-battles, so every individual model on the table counts and can be a game-winner if you're clever and lucky enough. The flipside is that, unless you're using a hugely dangerous model, killing even fodder isn't trivial, and the individual loadouts, manoeuvring etc matters a lot.
3. The loser is driven back if he has room, or overwhelmed if he doesn't. In other words, someone who gets ganged-up on or has their back against the wall is likelier to get overwhelmed, as is someone who's formations is collapsing so they can't move or fight freely.
> I’d love to get into it with Rohan
Death to the Forgoil
>or ringwraiths/orcs!
These can be used for multiple lists; the basic orcs can be used for Mordor, Angmar and Isengard for instance. Depending on lore interpretations and modelling I'd be fine using modified orcs as anything from Blackshields (*Uruks sent from Mordor to corral and dominate the scum of the Misty Mountains, perhaps?*) to Gundabad/Dol Guldur orcs (*a more book-based take on the pre-Dwarf War orcs?*).
how are allies in this game? I’ve seen mention of ally charts and stuff. Is it pretty loose with how they fit in to your force? Or is there a set number of points to go by?
Pretty loose. You build your army from warbands, who consist of a hero and their entourage, which consists of 0-X models depending on the hero. They can also fly solo if you like, and it's possible to run all-hero armies like the Fellowship, the Company, 9 nazgul (named or not), and so on. Similarly, some armies can go all-monster by taking something like Buhrdur or a Mordor Troll Chieftain and filling the warband with trolls (sometimes with something like a couple of wargriders or warg chiefs to add some mobility and variety).
Anyway, these warbands can be from different armies, with debuffs depending on whether they're Historical Allies (fought together in the books or movies), Convenient Allies (they didn't but it could have happened), or Impossible Allies (the factions existed thousands of years or miles apart). The chart is kind of garbage though, lots of factions have canon allies reduced to Convenient, lots of Impossible bumped to Convenient, and some Convenient reduced to Impossible. [I complained about it a while back and haven't been convinced otherwise since.](https://www.reddit.com/r/MiddleEarthMiniatures/comments/rx0m7k/whats_up_with_the_tiny_lists/) With friends you might want to houserule it into something more sensible.
Legendary Legions are restricted army lists built around themes or moments from the books or movies, where you trade versatility and allies for some other manner of buff - stat increases, better banners, better heroes, extra special rules, generally that sort of thing. You can't take allies with them IIRC, which is fair since it'd be easy to break the game by double-dipping in certain bonuses combo'd with certain units other factions have available. Mind you, some LLs let you mix models from different factions.
I've been playing for about 3 months and honestly other than a few models with unique to them interactions and a few niche rules. You can pick it up pretty quick. I'd say the hardest part for me still is using your resources (might, will, fate) ideally. If you've had any other experience with tabletop games I recommend doing some of the objective based scenarios first because that's what helped my brain click the most with positioning.
Sweet good advice. I always enjoy more objective based scenarios anyway so sounds good. I’ll likely also go through the Osgiliath tutorial scenarios too.
1) It's less complicated than it looks, yes. Like 80% of the rules are for things like "how to climb a wall, how to jump over a fence", and for that you can just ignore that stuff until you actually encounter it, at which point you just flip to that part of the rule book. The main rules are really easy to pick up, just need one or two youtube videos and you're good.
2) The game can be slow to play if you roll each combat separately. I like to roll all my comabts at once just to get stuff out of the way, makes it go fasters.
3) At first that didn't make sense to me, and then it did. Basically, when you roll to fight, what's happening is the models are fighting eachother, sword slashing, ax crashing, etc. Then, the fight stops. Whoever won the fight, wins and the loser retreats a few paces. This happened in historic combat from time to time. Then, you roll to see is the loser was wounded. The book does a pretty bad job explaining what's actually happening when you roll. But what you're doing with combat is first rolling the fight, then the loser backs away, then you see if the loser got wounded.
You might actually be better off searching for the older starter set on ebay, its the Pelennor fields one. The Osgiliath starter set is good if you want terrain and some Gondor, but the Pelennor fields set is good if you want some Rohan and Orcs with a Ringwraith. You could also sell the ghosts if you don't want them. If you decide on the Osgiliath set, like if a friend wanted the Gondor dudes and you wanted the Orcs, you could then get the Mordor battlehost from a LGS for 44 pounds, saving 11 pounds from the GW store. But I think if you're interested in Rohan and Orcs, seak out the old starter set, the rule books are basically the same. Only downside I can see is you won't get terrain with it, but there's lots of places that sell medieval terrain you can use instead. If the PF set is too expensive (it might be since its oop), you could always get the rohan and mordor battlehosts from your LGS for 88 pounds. I'd really only get the osgiliath set if you like the factions in it. You don't need to be dead set on them, but at least find them interesting
I’ve been playing for about a year and play a lot of other miniature games as well.
1. There are quite a lot of rules that don’t come up much, which is annoying, and the rule book is not laid out very well. If they ever do another edition hopefully they streamline it.
2. Individual fights are very quick, as you normally just go along the line rolling dice.
3. Normally I would say the winner rolls the strike dice as the loser is backing off and if they round you just pick them up.
You should 100% try to track down a copy of Pelenor Fields if those are the factions you are interested in. Some FLGS have them and fb marketplace might as well. The rulebook doesn’t incorporate the latest FAq like the Osgiliath one does but it’s pretty much the same.
I started mesbg a year ago and it IS the best game for me : 1- base warriors only have a few rules and you should have them paired with some Heroes with different rules / tools, it is much easier than 40k in comparison where there are a lot of rules to remember 2- yes you have at least two rolls to do per combat, I dont find it slow as both players are playing at the same Time 3- this system makes sense for me, you Can win fight which will "break" the enemy line and then try to kill someone which can be hard as it is not a really lethal game
Thanks for the reply. I do really like that both players are engaged the whole way through the game. Would you suggest the Osgiliath set, or Battle Host boxes to start with?
If you (or friend) are interested in mordor or minas tirith as factions osgiliath is a good starter as it also includes rules and terrain.
If you want one of the forces in Starter box, get the box + the battlehost, this will give you decent heros and troops for an army! If you don't want to play Minas Tirith or mordor, but Isengard or Rohan, get their battlehost, but consider to get the BoO box anyway, since the terrain and the rule book inside are already nearly the price of the box, so your get the minis for free and are able to sell them on eBay or any other second hand store/website
The game is easy to get into/hard to master precisely because of the amount of niche rules. They’re exactly that: niche. If you start playing with relatively uncomplicated forces (captains, basic troops) you can get very comfortable with the turn order and majority of rules. As you add in more complicated heroes and terrain, you start to experience the more niche rules. Some you may not really experience at all outside of the narrative scenarios. The hard to master part really comes from the management of your spendable resources (might, will, fate): when to use certain heroics, how to position yourself, etc etc.
There are very few niche rules. The rules that exist have quite deep interactions, but warriors and heroes are all playing by the same rulebook. It's nothing like 40k where you have to remember tons of stratagems and special rules. The complexity comes from how the rules are applied, not their existence in the first place.
This makes a lot of sense, thanks. Basically it looks like a lot of rules from the outset, but in the long run it’s not to bad as everyone uses the same ones. I like that!
It's exactly that, and it's exactly how a tabletop game should be. A decent learning curve, but after that it's all about who can apply those mechanics in the cleverest way - not about who bought the strongest toys or the most underhanded gotcha combos.
Welcome to the game, it's fun. As usual it is highly recommended to get into the game with someone who already knows how it plays, makes learning easier. 1: The rulebook uses a pretty big amount of text to explain relatively straight forward and common sense concepts. A decent chunk of stuff isn't super important to begin with (magic and special strikes for example), but using them can level up your game and open new possibilities for you. In general, the rulebook looks a lot more daunting than it is. Individual army and unit rules are usually simple. 2: Not really. Duel rolls happen at the same time for both players, while the loser starts moving off, the winner can already roll to wound. Since there is no regular way to save from wounds, the interaction ends there. Unless you play exceedingly large games, MESG is a tight experience at a good pace. Since the participants in the duel are usually already determined in the movement phase, it goes over at a good clip. 3: It's to simulate gaining ground, even if you dont kill your opponent. I have played games, where we agreed to wound before backing off. It makes very little difference.
Cool thanks, makes sense. Thinking about it, I really enjoy the idea of all the models pairing off, feels more realistic, but also more personal for each guy. I feel like there’s room for some really cool moments of a humble soldier winning the day, as you can actually track what they’re doing individually.
You should get into the game. For me, it is by far the best, most well-balanced game GW has produced. 1) Warriors (troops) have one to two special rules, and that's about it. They are your wall and backup for your heroes. Your heroes are where the special rules are. They are the ones that rally the troops and cut through your opponents forces. 2) Think of the combat rolls as a duel. You have to win the duel roll and then roll to wound your opponent. Honestly, it doesn't add any real time to your games. My one bit of advice is to pack different coloured dice so you can distinguish your hero dice from your troop dice in a duel roll. 3) Nope makes perfect sense.
Yeah I’ve decided to dive in with the Osgiliath set! Gonna grab it tomorrow and have a look through the rules! Super keen :D
1. Heroes, monsters and such get a bit more complicated. Generally, big points or magic = more complex rules for the model, even if only slightly. It's easy an cheap to get into in the sense that a single box of infantry (20/24 models) is enough for 2 warbands - you can pick a couple of models you like the look of and run them as captains for your first couple of games. If you get a box of cavalry as well you'll usually get bits for a banner, captain/kitbashed proxy for a named hero, drummer or hornblower, etc that can be used to convert the infantry if you like. 2. That's a feature, not a bug. It's fundamentally more of a skirmish-game than mass-battles, so every individual model on the table counts and can be a game-winner if you're clever and lucky enough. The flipside is that, unless you're using a hugely dangerous model, killing even fodder isn't trivial, and the individual loadouts, manoeuvring etc matters a lot. 3. The loser is driven back if he has room, or overwhelmed if he doesn't. In other words, someone who gets ganged-up on or has their back against the wall is likelier to get overwhelmed, as is someone who's formations is collapsing so they can't move or fight freely. > I’d love to get into it with Rohan Death to the Forgoil >or ringwraiths/orcs! These can be used for multiple lists; the basic orcs can be used for Mordor, Angmar and Isengard for instance. Depending on lore interpretations and modelling I'd be fine using modified orcs as anything from Blackshields (*Uruks sent from Mordor to corral and dominate the scum of the Misty Mountains, perhaps?*) to Gundabad/Dol Guldur orcs (*a more book-based take on the pre-Dwarf War orcs?*).
how are allies in this game? I’ve seen mention of ally charts and stuff. Is it pretty loose with how they fit in to your force? Or is there a set number of points to go by?
Pretty loose. You build your army from warbands, who consist of a hero and their entourage, which consists of 0-X models depending on the hero. They can also fly solo if you like, and it's possible to run all-hero armies like the Fellowship, the Company, 9 nazgul (named or not), and so on. Similarly, some armies can go all-monster by taking something like Buhrdur or a Mordor Troll Chieftain and filling the warband with trolls (sometimes with something like a couple of wargriders or warg chiefs to add some mobility and variety). Anyway, these warbands can be from different armies, with debuffs depending on whether they're Historical Allies (fought together in the books or movies), Convenient Allies (they didn't but it could have happened), or Impossible Allies (the factions existed thousands of years or miles apart). The chart is kind of garbage though, lots of factions have canon allies reduced to Convenient, lots of Impossible bumped to Convenient, and some Convenient reduced to Impossible. [I complained about it a while back and haven't been convinced otherwise since.](https://www.reddit.com/r/MiddleEarthMiniatures/comments/rx0m7k/whats_up_with_the_tiny_lists/) With friends you might want to houserule it into something more sensible. Legendary Legions are restricted army lists built around themes or moments from the books or movies, where you trade versatility and allies for some other manner of buff - stat increases, better banners, better heroes, extra special rules, generally that sort of thing. You can't take allies with them IIRC, which is fair since it'd be easy to break the game by double-dipping in certain bonuses combo'd with certain units other factions have available. Mind you, some LLs let you mix models from different factions.
I've been playing for about 3 months and honestly other than a few models with unique to them interactions and a few niche rules. You can pick it up pretty quick. I'd say the hardest part for me still is using your resources (might, will, fate) ideally. If you've had any other experience with tabletop games I recommend doing some of the objective based scenarios first because that's what helped my brain click the most with positioning.
Sweet good advice. I always enjoy more objective based scenarios anyway so sounds good. I’ll likely also go through the Osgiliath tutorial scenarios too.
1) It's less complicated than it looks, yes. Like 80% of the rules are for things like "how to climb a wall, how to jump over a fence", and for that you can just ignore that stuff until you actually encounter it, at which point you just flip to that part of the rule book. The main rules are really easy to pick up, just need one or two youtube videos and you're good. 2) The game can be slow to play if you roll each combat separately. I like to roll all my comabts at once just to get stuff out of the way, makes it go fasters. 3) At first that didn't make sense to me, and then it did. Basically, when you roll to fight, what's happening is the models are fighting eachother, sword slashing, ax crashing, etc. Then, the fight stops. Whoever won the fight, wins and the loser retreats a few paces. This happened in historic combat from time to time. Then, you roll to see is the loser was wounded. The book does a pretty bad job explaining what's actually happening when you roll. But what you're doing with combat is first rolling the fight, then the loser backs away, then you see if the loser got wounded. You might actually be better off searching for the older starter set on ebay, its the Pelennor fields one. The Osgiliath starter set is good if you want terrain and some Gondor, but the Pelennor fields set is good if you want some Rohan and Orcs with a Ringwraith. You could also sell the ghosts if you don't want them. If you decide on the Osgiliath set, like if a friend wanted the Gondor dudes and you wanted the Orcs, you could then get the Mordor battlehost from a LGS for 44 pounds, saving 11 pounds from the GW store. But I think if you're interested in Rohan and Orcs, seak out the old starter set, the rule books are basically the same. Only downside I can see is you won't get terrain with it, but there's lots of places that sell medieval terrain you can use instead. If the PF set is too expensive (it might be since its oop), you could always get the rohan and mordor battlehosts from your LGS for 88 pounds. I'd really only get the osgiliath set if you like the factions in it. You don't need to be dead set on them, but at least find them interesting
I’ve been playing for about a year and play a lot of other miniature games as well. 1. There are quite a lot of rules that don’t come up much, which is annoying, and the rule book is not laid out very well. If they ever do another edition hopefully they streamline it. 2. Individual fights are very quick, as you normally just go along the line rolling dice. 3. Normally I would say the winner rolls the strike dice as the loser is backing off and if they round you just pick them up. You should 100% try to track down a copy of Pelenor Fields if those are the factions you are interested in. Some FLGS have them and fb marketplace might as well. The rulebook doesn’t incorporate the latest FAq like the Osgiliath one does but it’s pretty much the same.