Obscurities in MESBG - Part 1

Running since the release of the first LOTR movie in 2001, our beloved tabletop gaming system has seen  a lot of changes. With each movie the rules and miniatures got extended, than after smaller releases we had the one rulebook. Later for each hobbit movie we also got new stuff. And finally 2018 we received the rules and army books that are relevant till this day. Just last year, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of MESBG.

Despite such a long time and so many changes, some things basically stayed the same or just saw an evolution. Even some of the very first miniatures released back in 2001 are still sold and playable till this day without any kind of restriction. Something that is not easily taken for granted these days.

But over its lifetime, this game also grew to have some smaller to bigger obscurities. This is the first post in a series, where I want to examine and write about some of these things I have encountered while reading, playing and discussing MESBG.

It does not serve the purpose of making fun of the game or criticize this small quirks. I just find them interesting to talk about and like to delve into the reasons why they exist =)

Note: I write about the different topics with my best knowledge and guesses. I only started in beginning of 2021 with MESBG. So I know very little about older iterations of the game and especially not what the old rule and expansion books contained. I try to do research and find answers. If you know an answer to one of my mentioned obscurities: All the better! Let me know and I will happily add the information to my posts =)

Anarions profile

As I mentioned already in my last post, Anarion is mentioned in the profile of Isildur (regarding the "Blood of Numenor" rule) but does not have an own profile in the LOTR army book. I have not heard of a definite answer to why this is the case but I can tell you about the theories I know of:

1. There was or still is a Last Alliance supplement in planning. But the original plans got postponed - maybe because the new Amazon LOTR show was already known of and they wanted to avoid releasing new miniatures which two years later would not resemble the cast of the show.
2. Anarion had already a profile but for some reason he got cut and the designers simply forgot to also remove his name from the "Blood of Numenor" rule.

Having only started MESBG in 2021, I do not know if the "Blood of Numenor" rule already existed in old versions of the rules/faction. This would be interesting because it either means that whatever plan originally existed for Anarion, is either long dead/dormant (if it existed already in older versions) or just since 2018.

Whatever the case is, I really hope to see something new with the release of the Amazon show =)

Answers from the community:

The "Blood of Numenor" rule was added with the rule version of 2018. It includes Anarion to make it future proof for if they ever release a miniature for him.

Captain of Numenor miniature

Photo credit: GW

Just lately when I browsed through the army book to do research, I noticed something odd. I knew there is no miniature for the Captain of Numenor miniature from GW. So I never really paid too much attention to the picture of the guy. Until now and I realized - this one looks different! And I also realized that not having a miniature of something that has a profile in the army book is an oddity itself.

So obviously if you look at the picture, you clearly see it is a Numenor warrior. But if you know these miniatures (or just look up a picture of the Last Alliance box on the GW shop), you will realize that this pose does not exist for them. 

Now one might say: Well it is an easy conversion and not much effort to do. And its true - the feet, the shield, the sword and the head are identical to warriors. And while the head would just need a cut and a repositioning, the rest is significantly different. The position of the shield (normally aligned with the front) and of the sword (normally just next to the head and straight up) do not exist on warriors. 

So it made me wonder - 1) did there ever exist a Captain miniature or 2) did GW really do a conversion of their own model to picture a different one?

Regarding 1, I never heard of an out of production Captain miniature, comparable to the really old, never returned Isildur model on horse.

And 2, I also do not know of any other instance in the system, where a model has separate entry and profile and does not have a miniature.

So maybe there was a separate miniature for Captains but like the Anarion profile, it got cut but stayed as a profile.

Answers from the community:

The Captain miniature is a conversion of a metal spearman. The original Fellowship rulebook contained a hobby section which, among other things, showed how to do this conversion.

I think it is really cool things like that existed =)

Banners, Horses, Lances - the story of miniatures you cannot buy

Not every army suffers from it but it is still pretty sure you encountered this problem at some point - miniatures that basically should exist but do not. 

But lets start from another direction:

MESBG is a system where out of the box, miniatures are just slightly modular and configurable. What does this mean? For example, a warrior of Numenor has the possibility to use a sword, shield, bow, banner and spear. In other systems, you would buy a box of warriors, which have a body, feet and a head but miss the arms. And further you would either have as part of the box or extra, hands with swords, hands with shield, with bow or spear. And you would build your warriors as you see it fit. In MESBG however this is different. There is a box set with warriors of Numenor, but they are of one casting and you only have the possibility to glue a shield onto them or not. If you want warriors with bows or spears, you have to buy two different, separate blisters with warriors that have this equipment as part of their cast.

Now this is not the case for all armies or miniatures. Others give a fixed set of warriors and a fixed set of swords, bows etc. E.g. 9 warriors + 3 swords, 3 bows, 3 spears. But still this is far away from a complete modularity. And yes, I know it is totally possible to convert your miniatures in any kind of way you like it, either by using bits of different miniatures or even different manufacturers than GW. And I am every time amazed what kind of awesome work other players are able to fabricate.  But for the purpose of this topic, I will stay with the options you have, provided by the owner of the system - GW.

So although sometimes we have a certain degree of modularity, MESBG tends to favour selling separate miniatures of the basically same model, but add the equipment as part of the cast. If this is for better or not, can be debated. The point I want to make is, that sometimes an equipment is available to a model but you have no "legal" way of having a miniature with it. 

Lets stay with Numenor as example. A warrior can have a banner. But there is no separate model from GW for this. Or a Captain of Numenor, who should be able to use a horse and a lance. Similar thing for Elendil.

So your only way to field such a model is to either do a conversion or buy an alternative from a different manufacturer.

So it made me wonder: Why is that? When MESBG and its manufacturer clearly favours selling separate miniatures for everything, why not provide everything that is possible?

Some might argue that tinkering, doing conversions and adaptions is part of the hobby. That not having a separate miniature for something should not stop anyone from doing it him-/herself. And that GW encourages it this way.

I am skeptical in this regard since this problem is not present in all armies. It seems to occur more often in smaller or niche armies. Minas Tirith, Rohan, Dead of Dunharrow, Isengart, Mordor etc either have their banner bearer or even sell full commando sets.

So I think its more a thing of providing where the demand is the biggest. But that is just my guess ;)

Answers from the community:

A comment to the Captain of Numenor: At beginning in 2001, not a single faction had miniatures for captains or banner bearers (banners did not even have rules). All this models were built by the gamers and made up a big part of the hobby. GW even supported this with multiple publications, the rulebook and WD articles. Only 2003 with the Return of the King, did factions receive commando units with captains and banner bearers.

This answers the also the questions about miniatures you cannot buy - it was a development consisting of three aspects:

First, MESGBG started out as a niche product of GW, a specialist game. Only due to the big success of the moves, became it the third important system of GW and with it more support. This is why older and less popular factions (e.g. Numenor) have much less models than newer or popular factions e.g. Rohan and Minas Tirith. So it was deliberately  planned by GW to do your own conversions. The same goes for the terrain. Rulebooks and WD articles always had instructions on how to build them with cardboard, plastic, etc. There were even dedicated books from GW, which only were about terrain. In the course of time things changed and GW sold plastic terrain themselves and stopped support for players to do it themselves. After all they do not earn money with styrofoam and glue.

The second aspect why miniatures are more common to be in single castings, was the make the system also accessible to newbies: Put a model together, stick it onto the base and its ready to be played! This is also why MESBG is the only system where even plastic miniatures have stenopaeic bases.

The third aspect were the licenses. MESBG is after all not an invention by GW but rather a license from New Line Cinema. This is way in the beginning, only miniatures were allowed, which were seen in the movies. All models needed the blessing of NLC and player conversions should not be possible from the beginning. The license was so strict that for the hero models, GW even needed the blessing of the actors. Although that could be a myth.

A last fun fact: The Perry Brothers (the designers of most of the old models) were allowed to visit the filming locations and even could play extras (warriors of Rohan). As a thank you, they made an exclusive hobbit miniature to resemble Peter Jackson and gifted it to him.

Conclusion

So that is it for part one of this new series. I hope it was entertaining to read and maybe I was able to tell you something new you haven't heard or thought of yet =)

Supplement:

Again many thanks to everyone who sent me answers for the curiosities. I will also take the feedback seriously, that my research could have been better. I will honestly try my best for the next parts and also ask the community beforehand ;)