the Hobbit & SBG

LotR SBG rules got an update in the form of the just released Hobbit rules. The major changes are as follow:

Heroic Uses of Might.
Heroic Move, Shoot, and Fight remains unchanged. There are four additional heroic actions.
Heroic March: allows all friendly models within 6" to increase their movement by 3" if on foot, 5" if mounted. Models cannot charge as part of the march. It is not clear to me whether this increases movement is in addition to other bonuses, such as that provided by a Uruk Hai drummer for instance.
Heroic Channelling: allows magically effect of spells casted to be more powerful.
Heroic Accuracy: allows all friendly models within 6" to reroll their in the way roll when shooting.
Heroic Strike: allows the hero to increase his Fight by D6 and it applies before any other effect (such as transfix).

Monster and Monster Mount Attacks.
Rend: all attacks against one model but applied against its strength rather than defense.
Hurl: allows the monster to grab a model in base to base whose strength is less than the monster's, compare Strength +D6 and if the monster's is higher, the model is thrown a number of inches equal to difference in the modified roll off. The hurled model suffers a S3 hit for each model caught in the path of the hurl, and an additional S6 hit at the end. This appear great against multi wound models.
Barge: all enemy models in the fight back away 3" chosen by the monster and the monster then gets a D6" charge to fight again. This seems the equivalent of heroic fight and thus not available if the monster is part of a heroic fight.
Note: a chariot is considered a monstrous mount so it can hurl, rend and barge? LOL!

Special Weapon Attacks.
Declared before the Fight/Duel rolls.
Piercing strike with axes and picks: wielder gains D3 strength but defend at minus D3. Does a two handed axe also get to pierce?
EDIT by Jobu: special weapon rules only apply to one handed weapons, so a two handed weapon does not get any special rule.
Stun with clubs and staffs: wielder cannot wound but a defender is reduced to Fight 1 and Attack 1 on a roll of 4+. This is only good when attacking with a companion. But since this attack is declared after the fight/duel has already been won, I am not sure how reducing the enemy's Fight makes a difference.
EDIT by Jobu: This applies until the end of the FOLLOWING turn, so it may be useful if you need to get another model into the fight the next turn.
Whirl with flails, scourges and whips: wielder is fight 1 but a win allows a strike against all enemy models in base to base. This should be used when surrounded.
Bash with maces, mauls and hammers: allows the wielder to roll off on a D6 + Strength against a single enemy model in the fight. If the wielder's roll is equal to or greater than the defender, the defender is knocked to the ground. Not sure if an infantry model can bash a cavalry model to the ground, or even a monster/monster mount.
EDIT by jobu: this is very useful to trap a model for any subsequent strikes against it in the same duel/fight.
Feint with daggers and swords: allow a model to fight at minus D3 fight but reroll to Wound roll of 1. Should always be used when facing a higher Fight enemy.
Support with spear and pikes: allows a model to directly fight one base away rather than adds an attack to the front model. It appears pikes are no different from spears.
EDIT by Jobu: yes, but at least a pike can support another pike.  Pike blocks just got more expensive.

Elven blade wielder wins tie Fight rolls on 3+ rather than 4+ unless fighting against another elven blade. Khand chieftains and kings wield elven blades by the way.
Edit by Jobu: they are also usable when mounted now, which they were not before.

Frustration with Games Workshop Hobbit implementation

This is a little bit review and mostly a rant, you have been warned.
The starter set is good, but too expensive and only suitable for limited scenarios in the starter.
The models are nice and are the best LoTR plastic sculpts to date.

Why did GW make the hobbit minis their own army lists? No idea but it was stupid stupid and more stupid. Why should the hunter orcs be outside of an angmar or even mordor list? Putting them in the angmar list would have given angmar exactly what it needs, an elite unit. Or even make a dol gulder list which can have a twilight witch king and regular orcs and spiders? Why are the dwarves outside the erebor list? Why has GW made it so hard to integrate these models into points matched games?

These are the things keeping me from getting any of the other sets. I love the look of the grim hammers but I am not going to get them since I already have a huge erebor army and I do not want to start a hobbit dwarf one. I like the hunter orcs but I am not starting another list just fort hese orcs. I like the elven cavalry but.... Well you get the idea.
Will not buy the white council. Too much for figures I already have. Might buy the plastic eagles since they can be used in LoTR armies. But I have two metal gwahir models and two old GW LoTR eagles as well.

Come on GW get over yourself.

January releases and Red Box Games Kickstarter

The eagles will be released in January, thanks to those at Warseer for the pics of the 40k stuff that did not exactly cut off The Hobbit releases from the next page.  Looks like Gwahir will be finecast and the regular giant eagles will be plastic.   Based on pics from the hardcover rulebook the plastic eagles look pretty nice.
I participated in Red Box Games Kickstarter earlier in the year and just recieved my pledge packs.   They are very well detailed minis.   Cast in what appears to be something similar to finecast.  I will take some pics and post them up once I am done ....multitasking.  These minis are exactly the same scale as GW LoTr and would make excellent replacements for some elites from GW.
Below are front and back pics as well as pics of a size comparison.

Good overview of Dystopian Legions and Hobbit SBG

Here is the link.

Our group has really enjoyed Dystopian Wars, I hope to view a game of the skirmish based Dystopian Legions one day.  There seems to be a great deal of depth ( i.e. complexity...I mean come on, it uses 3 different colors of dice!) especially when cards get involved.  That is not a bad thing but it can put a bit of a barrier between newbs picking up the game when there are none around to give demos.

GW has released updated FAQ's for The Hobbit ( that was fast) as well as the older Army Codices
Here, just click on the left hand side menu.
A couple of interesting things.
Riders of Rohan no longer count toward bow limit!
Same thing for the Rivendell knights.

Still pretty upset over the cost of the new hardcover rulebook.  Smaller than all the other core game systems and really filled with some obvious fluff.  There is a section that is just pictures of minis, no new pics, just copied and pasted into a section.  The hobby section is also really really lacking, nothing about building terrain and a very limited number of painting examples.
$85 for this?  Come on GW.  Your raising prices all the time, while your sales are going down.  Coincidence? I think not.  People are really not seeing the value in your miniatures, especially finecast.  You make great mini's GW, you really do, but the cost of finecast along with it's quality problems as well as the constant price increases on everything else are driving people away from your products.  There is a lot more competition in the table top gaming business.  You will not win in the direction you are going.  Low Price, quality, quantity.....pick two.   I really only see you, GW, picking one.