Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Games Battle Companies

It has arrived, the second edition of the Mordheim like, skirmish variant of the The Lord of the Rings game, Battle Companies.

Further building on the first edition (not counting the ancient White Dwarf ruleset), it has more warbands and scenarios then the previous book, being almost a third thicker as well.

The book, after the Introduction, starts with the rules on mustering your warband, and the aftermath sequence that takes place once your game has ended.

In this sequence, heroes and warriors can advance to get better stats and skills, and here the first change is clear.  Now the Heroes, instead of rolling on a generic table, can follow a chosen Path, like that of a Warrior, a Knight or even a Sorcerer, as the differentiate the bands even further.

Next we get the Armoury section, where all the special gear can be bought with the use of the Influence points (aka, the game currency) that your warband amasses, as well as Wanderers and Creatures that can be added to bolster your ranks.

We then arrive at the largest section of the book, namely the Warbands.  Keep in mind that Battle Companies is an expansion book, so you will still need the standard rulebook as well as the relevant book where your force can be found in, either Armies of Lord of the Rings or Armies of The Hobbit.

The selection of both Good and Evil warbands has been greatly expanded, with now not only including all the bands that appeared in White Dwarf around a year ago, but also some totally new bands not seen before.

After the dozens of lists, we come to the scenarios section, whom also have seen a rise in the selection of standard scenarios.  Some do need some additional troops for playing, but nothing ultra rare or hard to get by (or proxy).

Like in the previous book, there are also rules for the scenery on the table, in case you want your games to take place in special locations like Lake Town or Lothlorien to name a few.

There is a Narrative Campaign again, and once more aimed at "Good" warbands as the main antagonists, taking you on an adventure to claim the treasures of a drake.

The next section is totally new as well, a map based campaign for the Battle Companies to fight over, and the good thing is that the map itself can be downloaded from the Warhammer Community (same goes for the army rosters btw).  In this campaign, the bands plan their moves as they fight over well known locations in Middle-Earth, and this is something I will definitly try to launch either in the club, or once the renovations are done in the man-cave next year.

Another new section are the Additional Rules, even the mighty Mumakil can be included if wanted with these.

Next we get the rules to use your tried and tested Battle Company to set out in bigger adventures, and transplant them into a regular game of MESBG, perhaps craving a reputation as big as Thorin's Company or The Fellowship.

The final part of the rulebook is the gallery featuring a lot of awesomely painted and converted warbands, pulled from the MESBG community (and one is actually featured in the May 2019 White Dwarf).

A great looking and produced supplement, as with all Tolkien books from GW it changes between scenes recreated with the miniatures and stills from both trilogies.  And with the game being so much fun, this book will definitly be used a lot in the coming months!