Onod, OT and the Mayor sit down each week to chat all things wargaming.
Our favourite game is Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game, so we chat a lot about that on the Podcast- but we also look at other games and chat about our hobby in general.
17:17 I’m curious how the Crebain and Lurtz combo took out Gwaihir. I could understand if it was a Bat Swarm, but I think I’m missing the value of the Crebain here. Did Lurtz strike higher than Gwaihir?
I think my opponent and I may have misplayed this and thought the crebain also halved fight value. It could also have been that Gwaihir rolled badly in the duel roll with only 3 dice
@@thehobbybreakfastshow Both are possibilities. Was just going based on the Podcast and story telling, it sounds like there was absolution that once Lurtz was joined by the Crebain, there was no chance. Haha. I was like Big Bird don’t care for little birds. 😂
Given the number of 1s the Ruffians were rolling, it probably wouldn't help; but Ruffians are F3 in a fight with hobbits, the same as the Tookish hunters. So no auto-wins! Very cool vid though!
We did originally forget about this rule but given the dominance of the ruffians in this campaign so far we decided just to leave it that way for the sake of 'balance'
So fun fact the mean on a dice roll is 3 5 and the standard deviation is 1.71 So it is completely normal to roll below a 2 and above a 5. Meaning the randomness of the dice roll is inherent in priority with the skill being applied is understanding the extra chance of winning ties
While I agree with your analysis (that Priority is very random, and it is not improbable for a side to get an extended run of winning/losing), I am not convinced that this is problematic. I believe a lot of the complaints stem from the belief that Priority should be switching regularly, and not accounting for the fairly likely possibility that it will not. The above disclaimer not withstanding I’ve given your idea some thought. I think the proposed system, of giving Strategy Points based on the inclusion of Heroes of a tier, is biased toward armies with access to cheap Heroes at each level. This feels wrong. Within your concept I think assigning a Strategy Points value to each army could better reflect tactical acumen in line with the literature. Even with Strategy Points assigned based on the army I am not sure the outcome would be to eliminate runs of Priority in favour of one side. Experienced players would save their points for key turns, still resulting in a roll off but with an extra set of book-keeping bolted on to the game. A simpler solution would be to revise the mechanism for determining Priority. At the start of the turn the player who had Priority rolls a D3; a roll of 1 = Evil Priority, 2 = swap from previous turn, and 3 = Good Priority. There is a 2 in 3 chance of Priority switching - not guaranteed but far more likely than a 1 die vs 1 die roll off.
Thanks for your comment! I think your system of rolling the d3 would definitely work to reduce runs of one player winning priority which would be positive! The idea of each army having a set number of points is also interesting, some factions may become more reliant on having a set number of points which could also allow for adjustments in balance, depending on the strength of each faction!
I like the idea of more skill in the priority stage but not sure this method works as long games would result in just defaulting back to normal I've suggested before there needs to an extra heroic "heroic hold" which allows a section of ur army to act last
I like mechanics that give a risk/reward aspect in favour of the current random system. I don't think it would take long at all to remember and build into the game and gives a nice bit of bluffing to the game.
Nice of you guys to shout out the smaller channels like zorpazorp. He's even releasing videos the same days as you guys to try ride off the high viewers have from going through the scouring of the shire in your videos.
The Goat knock down really is just a "you can not strike if you win" since you are cav and knockdown them anyway if you win. You can attack 2 enemys with the goat and then use regular warriors to attack a knocked down enemy, so he does not fight against the goat to get more value but that is a bit situational. Also the ruel that Dain gets terror if he charges is not that usefull, as most of the time you already bind all enemy models that could have charged into Dain😂
Gandalf The Gray is also in Survivors of Lack-Town, and The White Council and he can do some work in Survivors especially with Alfred giving him some of his will back, and supporting Bard, and Thranduil, or Prince sharpshooter
Balin is kinda good because he allows you to bring Floí and 18 of the nice dwarf warriors, and has good heroics, he has much better damage output than a king and will not die as easily to a combat hero of your opponent but you shouldn't expect him to do anything, especially combats. Khazad-dum could really use a boost though.
I don't think we're not acknowledging that a Balin list can work- more that someone has to be at the bottom of a list of very strong heroes, and he's not as good as other Legendary heroes for us 🙂 (OT would like to distance himself from this comment)
It should be said that Aragon isn't a reluctant leader if you take the book reading. If you take the films by themselves, than yes Aragorn does not want to be king. But Aragorn is a good King, and because he is a good King the Kingdom will be good and prosper. But throughout the books he understands that he should reclaim that title of High King, and reunite the North and South Kingdoms.
I had the same problem as Onod. Saw Beornings, thought oh, Beorn is cool in the books, they're a bit niche, I'll go for them. Saw they were meta (and price) and immediately put me off.
In MESBG, not so much- because I'm choosing something from the lore, and then basing the army on it. In another game though, which doesn't focus so much on pre-existing characters- for sure, I'll make a back story, and aim for a play style that suits it. I'm sure the others would to some extent too, though maybe not as much as me 😅 - Onod
@@zelot113 Nah that's cool, I've thought of that, or like a blue mountains clan of dwarves. So real world links, they reminded me of Germanic tribes, so I've painted the warriors different colours with a corresponding hero, to match German Football clubs. So Thryden is Beyern, Gorulf Dortmund, Oathmaker Shalke/Hertha, Frida is Frankfurt. Then "in game lore" I've thought the Oathmaker is blue, so he that can be because they live near the river isen, so used lot of Celtic swirls like water. Frida is black and white, so she can be from the ruins of tharbad and have tower-bridge imigary. Thryden has wolf imigary obviously. And Gorulf Bear imigary, heralding from nearer the forests of Edenwaith, and yellow sortof matches honey for bears lol. May have gone a bit overboard, but oh well lol
Another great episode chaps!! I came 4th in my first ever tourney, which began with my 2nd game of mesbg! I just used all the rohan models i had, which meant a mix of mounted and foot so no LL but as many characters as i could squeeze in! The biggest driving force and obstacle to collecting for me is availability, id love to complete some of my forces but ebay/gw are determined to see me defeated 😤 the problem is that so many of the coolest characters and models are just permanently unavailable 😂
I have followed You guys playing through The Scouring of the Shire for some times now. To many of the scenarios in this version seems a bit meeh. I havent played through these scenarios myself, but I'm more and more convinced that the old scouring of the Shire from 2004, which I have played many times, is much better. Have You played through some of those old scenarios? Anyway I appreciate the effort. Your table set up looks great. Keep on going.
We haven't played the older version- not sure any of us owned the old scouring book- maybe Mayor did. Thanks, we've recorded a couple more, and they are starting to pick up a little...
I'm not sure there was enough book of Boba Fett and naval ships chat for this good heros tier list. Fair play for still believing thay the rings of power could be saved. I'm not sure what they thought people would be looking forward to for season 2. Or if they thought people would actually think Isildur was dead lol.
Boba Fett and ships are just part of the natural MESBG discussion, surprised no one has brought them up before OT just likes being a contrarian, he'll actually be disappointed if ROP gets good now
Thank you for a great game Onod! I really enjoyed playing (and losing to you) in the first game of this tournament. You were by far the better player. Hope to see you at our next tournament. Great podcast.
Likewise Josh, really enjoyed it 🙂 Will be back to a Worcester tourney for sure (though can't make the summer one unfortunately!) + looking forward to it!