Question for Long-Term LOTR SBG Players

[Onebigriver]

I know that the 3 rulebooks released at the time of the films have been superseded by The One Ring rulebook,its more concise version in the Mines of Moria box set and three journey books, with one book corresponding to each film. The GW site lists 8 sourcebooks currently published. The question is, do the sourcebooks and journey books contain everything that the earlier rulebooks and sourcebooks contained, especially in relation to scenarios? I'm especially interested in wargaming the Two Towers, so is it worth picking up the old TT rulebook as well as the newer journey book? Do the earlier rulebooks and sourcebooks also feature terrain projects that are not featured in the newer rulebook, source books and journey books?

[Vinlander]

 The core rules and journey books are all you need to game the events of  the LOTR trilogy (and I'm not convinced you need the journey books to be honest, if you've read LOTR then you have plenty to go on). There are some different scenarios in the earlier rulebooks but there's really nothing else to recommend them these days. The Moria box, as with the other core starter sets, has everything to get you playing but the rulebook won't have any of the modelling articles or starting army lists that appear in the hardcover (although I'm not 100% sure on the second point).
IMO just take the core rules and your own imagination and run with it. That's all I've ever done. You might want to pick up the 'Legions of Middle Earth' book if you plan to play in any tournaments as all the tournament scenarios are published there.
LOTRSBG is a great skirmish game overall! You can do a lot of things with it in terms of scenario play and adapting it to other periods/places (go to the wild west page and check out JET's 'Tales of Assumption' posts). My only criticism is that in larger points games it can drag a little. It works best when you have between ten and twenty models per side, roughly 2-300 pts. I think the creators intended that in larger points games there would be more high points heroes/monsters so the actual model count wouldn't increase that much. Of course, the way the tournament scenarios are set up you end up with lots more basic troops than is really advisable. Nothing survives contact with GW's marketing department apparently...   

[Onebigriver]

The core rules and journey books are all you need to game the events of  the LOTR trilogy (and I'm not convinced you need the journey books to be honest, if you've read LOTR then you have plenty to go on). There are some different scenarios in the earlier rulebooks but there's really nothing else to recommend them these days. The Moria box, as with the other core starter sets, has everything to get you playing but the rulebook won't have any of the modelling articles or starting army lists that appear in the hardcover (although I'm not 100% sure on the second point).
IMO just take the core rules and your own imagination and run with it. That's all I've ever done. You might want to pick up the 'Legions of Middle Earth' book if you plan to play in any tournaments as all the tournament scenarios are published there.
LOTRSBG is a great skirmish game overall! You can do a lot of things with it in terms of scenario play and adapting it to other periods/places (go to the wild west page and check out JET's 'Tales of Assumption' posts). My only criticism is that in larger points games it can drag a little. It works best when you have between ten and twenty models per side, roughly 2-300 pts. I think the creators intended that in larger points games there would be more high points heroes/monsters so the actual model count wouldn't increase that much. Of course, the way the tournament scenarios are set up you end up with lots more basic troops than is really advisable. Nothing survives contact with GW's marketing department apparently...   

Cheers for that. I'll probably end up buying the MoM rulebook and the Two Towers journey book. I'm a bit lazy about coming up with scenarios, much easier to use published ones! I do own the ROTK rulebook and love the simplicity of the rules, downloaded a few variants as well. Good advice about models and points per side, thanks.

[cdm]

The Two Towers rules book that came with the box set has 10 scenarios:
Scouring of the Westfold; The wrath of Rohan; When wargs attack; Ambush in Ithilien; Deeping wall; The gateway; Theoden rides out; The relief of Helm's Deep; Osgiliath; Isengard. Aside from the core rules up to that point, it has a brief article on painting and assembling figures, a basic how to for structures and walls, and some shots of the Bree and Helm's Deep setups dring contruction. Inspiratonal in a way, but not worth buying just for that.

I have no idea what is in the journey books, so I can't make any comparison.

[Onebigriver]

The Two Towers rules book that came with the box set has 10 scenarios:
Scouring of the Westfold; The wrath of Rohan; When wargs attack; Ambush in Ithilien; Deeping wall; The gateway; Theoden rides out; The relief of Helm's Deep; Osgiliath; Isengard. Aside from the core rules up to that point, it has a brief article on painting and assembling figures, a basic how to for structures and walls, and some shots of the Bree and Helm's Deep setups dring contruction. Inspiratonal in a way, but not worth buying just for that.

I have no idea what is in the journey books, so I can't make any comparison.

Thanks, that will help when I pick up the journey book.

[Admiral Alder]

as a long term player of the LOTR SBG, the journey books essentially have all the profiles from the other rules, except a few figures which never made it into the one ring rule book, ie osgiliath veterans or most of the harad stuff

however all of those books have been updated into new warband books, so irelavent now, as I post this GW will probably be replacing them, possibly a new hobbit book or a £20 replacement for legions of middle earth a book so pointless it made tom bobadil a well used figure!

[rob_alderman]

To play the game you *need* the following (assuming you have models)

The Hobbit SBG Big Rulebook (if you want to use miniatures from the Hobbit, otherwise, you can use the mini rulebook)
LOTR Sourcebook containing the miniatures you are using.

Should you wish to play TT, you'll need that JourneyBook, which contains the stats, points and scenarios.

It has, if anything, become a MORE streamlined game... I hope the same happens to WOTR.

[Gutbukkit]

I stupidly bought a second copy of the two towers journey book. Yours for a fiver (what I paid).

[Gutbukkit]

The journey book contains all the stats you'll need. You'd have to buy two sourcebooks (£34 for both?) to get all the stats for Rohirrim and isengard. I recently bought the Fallen Realms sourcebook and the only additional stuff for isengard were two made up GW characters and of course the new army selection method (which I will probably ignore anyway). I may also have two copies of the TT rule book that came with the boxed game.