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Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game is a tabletop miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop. It is based on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies directed by Peter…
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Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game (previously marketed as The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Strategy Battle Game, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Strategy Battle Game and The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies Strategy Battle Game) is a tabletop miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop. It is based on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film tri…
Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game is a tabletop miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop. It is based on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies directed by Peter Jackson, and the books that inspired them, written by J. R. R. Tolkien.
Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game (previously marketed as The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Strategy Battle Game, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Strategy Battle Game and The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies Strategy Battle Game) is a tabletop miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop. It is based on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies directed by Peter Jackson, and the books that inspired them, written by J. R. R. Tolkien.
The game was initially released in 2001 to coincide in with the film The Fellowship of the Ring. New box sets with updated rules were also released for The Two Towers and The Return of the King films. Later, beginning with the Shadow and Flame supplement, Games Workshop began to add content that was featured in the original book but not in the film adaptations: e.g. Tom Bombadil and Glorfindel. Games Workshop has also expanded its licence with original material on areas such as Harad and Khand, with mixed reactions. Another complete edition of the rules, often called The One Rulebook to Rule them All, was released by Games Workshop in September 2005, while a compact edition entitled The Mines of Moria was also released. This was superseded by a new rule book in 2018, called simply Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game Rules Manual. This new rule book combined the original LotR SBG and Hobbit SBG into one cohesive, cross compatible rule set.
In early 2009, Games Workshop also released an expansion to the original game called War of the Ring which, according to the company, allows players to emulate the large battles included in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings by streamlining the game system. This expansion differs from the main game in several ways. Firstly, War of the Ring uses a larger number of models but the models are placed on movement trays with two cavalry models or eight infantry models on each. This allows for much easier and quicker movement of large numbers of models at once. These are called "companies". Larger creatures such as Ents and Trolls are treated as separate models and do not use movement trays. Combat within the game is also treated differently. In the original game players both roll dice to determine who wins the fight and then the victor rolls to see how much damage is done. In War of the Ring only dice to determine damage are rolled. Also, in War of the Ring, heroes are treated more like upgrades for their company rather than individual models, as they are in the original game.
Source: Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game (CC BY-SA)
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In addition to gaming, The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game includes other common elements of the miniature wargaming hobby. These include the collecting, painting and conversion of miniature figures used in play, as well as the modelling of gaming terrain from scratch. These aspects of the hobby are covered in Games Workshop's monthly White Dwarf and on various gaming websites, as well as formerly in the fortnightly Battle Games in Middle-earth.
In 2015 Forge World, a division of Games Workshop focused on specialist resin miniatures and conversion kits as well as the Specialist Games ranges, assumed production of The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game and all supplements.
In the 1980s, Games Workshop produced a range of miniatures for The Lord of the Rings, using original character designs based on fantasy art popular of the time. This was the first range of Lord of the Rings miniatures that Citadel created, taking over from Grenadier Miniatures in 1985, before the licence passed to Mithril Miniatures around 1987. The earliest releases were semi-solid base, having a small solid base; later releases were slot based.
The current Lord of the Rings range stems from Games Workshop's rights to produce a skirmish war game based on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit books and films, in the 25mm miniature scale. (The rights to produce a role playing game version of the films were sold to another firm, Decipher, Inc.) They also have the rights to produce Battle of Five Armies, a game based on the battle of similar name from The Hobbit, using smaller miniatures to enact larger battles (more akin to the Warmaster system). Under this separate licence, the game was done using a 10 mm scale for the normal warriors, and a larger "heroic" scale for the named characters.
Games Workshop has not acquired the rights to The Silmarillion, which is still the exclusive property of the Tolkien Estate, but has the right to develop its own derivative intellectual property to fill in the gaps in The Lord of the Rings universe. This is particularly true of Harad, which has a range of invented places (such as "Kârna", "Badharkân", "Hidâr", "Nâfarat", "Abrakân", and "Dhâran-sar") and characters (such as the Hasharin and "Dalamyr, Fleetmaster of Umbar").
Four of the game's designers were in the extended Return of the King film as Rohirrim at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields: Alessio Cavatore, Brian Nelson, and Alan and Michael Perry. They can be seen near the Oliphaunt when Peregrin Took goes searching for Meriadoc Brandybuck among the debris from the battle, and are also on the base of Games Workshop's Mûmak miniature. Games Workshop created two miniatures of Peter Jackson, based on his appearance as a Breeland man during the Fellowship of the Ring: one is owned by the director, and the other is kept on display at Warhammer World in England. Games Workshop has also released a model of Peter Jackson as one of the Corsairs of Umbar from The Return of the King.
Similar to Warhammer Fantasy Battle players, Lord of the Rings players commonly collect and paint one army (or more) of their choice and find opponents (with similarly collected armies) to play against. Armies can be built up from through the purchase of boxed sets (usually having 10 or 12 plastic miniatures in each) or "blister packs" (usually containing no more than four finely detailed metal or resin miniatures) to build up a reasonable-sized fighting force. Ot
