British model maker Games Workshop is best known for its Warhammer games, the far-flung future of 40K and the fantastical trappings of Age of Sigmar and its predecessors. But since 2001 the company has also been putting out the pretty-damn-fantastic Lord of the Rings miniatures game, based on the Peter Jackson movie trilogy and eventually the Hobbit films. Now, it’s on the precipice of a brand new edition.
.. one that will bring miniatures from the first Middle-earth movie since Battle of the Five Armies .
Games Workshop confirmed today that a new edition of the Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game (MESBG, as it’s been known since the addition of factions from the Hobbit trilogy) is coming soon, the first for the game since its last major overhaul in 2018. As well as new updates to its ruleset and its current factions across both Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit , the new edition will bring with it brand new models, inspired by the upcoming animated movie War of the Rohirrim . While details are still under wraps—especially considering that we have barely seen much of the film at all, despite it being in theaters at the end of this year—it marks the first time the tabletop game has had new licensed material to draw on for miniatures since the release of the final Hobbit film in 2014.
MESBG operates in a particularly weird niche of the already weird interconnected systems of licensing rights that is Lord of the Rings in the first place. Games Workshop’s deal covers both m.