Cob Wargaming
Lord of the Rings
We've been playing The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game since it first started way back in 2001! (Goblin Green bases for the win!) The original starter set and rule book are what got us hooked on table top wargamming. So we got the next two sets; The Two Towers and The Return of the King. These sets were fantastic in that they came with models to represent both the good and evil characters, the rulebooks taught us how to play and came with scenarios that took us through all three films. Whilst these were brilliant what we really enjoyed was playing out battles and campaigns that we had devised ourselves which is what we want to share with you. Whilst our hobby took us along different paths we always came back to the Lord of the Rings because the rules seem the most simple and also practical. Until they changed them! We had played a fair bit of Warhammer and didn't like the idea of being bound by movement trays or having too many special rules for formations, we like it simple! Which is why we always go back to The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game rulebook as our main source of rules and stats.
The One Rule Book to Rule Them All
Our battered copy of the very first rulebook
Fellowship Scenarios
The original and battered copy of our rule book. We've been using this since before we had DVD players. It was a crazy time, a time before Sauron had rules (they did not appear until July 2002 in White Dwarf 271), a time when the Balrog was only 250 points and a time when the Palantir let you cast Sorcerous blast from any point on the battle field. There may have been no proper rules for cavalry or sieges (we had to wait for the Two Towers for those) but this gave us a chance to make our own house rules.
This book was brilliant, the rules were easily understood (even to our 10 year old selves) thanks to clear diagrams using photographs of finely painted miniatures. Furthermore for the visual aspect there were plenty of atmospheric stills of the film and also some brilliant illustrations of battlefield debris scattered throughout the book. The scenarios had beautiful maps and were a fantastic way of playing out the fight scenes from the film. The book featured painting advice and charts for beginners and the experienced, it had terrain building tips and ideas and perhaps the most beautiful gaming board I have ever seen. This board was a representation of Weathertop with path ways that wrapped the mountain and led down to a lake and it was covered in static grass! It also had some advice on how to do conversions and make banners but there was no need because the models looked awesome!
​
So as the film, game and the rulebook turn 15 years old (as of the time of writing) I would just like to say a huge thank you to all those involved in its original creation for 15 years of pure joy and entertainment. Especially to Rick Priestley, Alan and Michael Perry, Alessio Cavatore and all the others involved in the creation of this wonderful game.
​
​
​
​