Is The Lord of the Rings Something That Games Workshop Has Forgotten?<br>

Games Workshop has many responsibilities. The two largest platters have the meat and potatoes of Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000, piled high with roast dinners and gravy that threatens to go over the sides. Less demanding smaller plates revolve around them, housing specialized titles like Kill Team, Legions Imperialis, and Blood Bowl.

Every now and again it becomes too much to handle, and Games Workshop deliberately allows one of its plates to collapse. There’s no use in wasting energy spinning it if players aren’t enjoying the delicious meal that rests on its surface (while it does make for an odd dining experience, let’s stick with the metaphor). Even rarer, the business gathers the broken pieces from the floor, glues them all together, and applies a fresh coat of tinted varnish before returning it to the kiln so that it can be spun once more. In case you find this too much to handle, that plate stands for Warhammer: The Old World.

The Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game (MESBG) plate is perilously close to tipping over. The game that essentially kept the company afloat in the early 2000s has been abandoned for years, and it appears that Workshop has relegated it to meager releases of gimmicks or cosmetic models.

Worse, there were just a few copies of each of these publications. Only Made to Order was the translucent Army of the Dead available, and the “Get Off The Road!Only Warhammer World itself currently sells the diorama following a brief MtO period.

This year’s greatest MESBG release was a covert Age of Sigmar model.

There were only two game releases last year, other from those two. Along with Gothmog, the Lieutenant of Sauron, the Rangers of Ithilien, Faramir, Madril, and Damrod were issued in March. Though they’re all lovely models, nothing particularly novel here. Theoden’s new model came with no army box similar to the Rohirrim one, nor were there any new scenarios or modifications to the rules. Apart from some terrain in April, there was another Made to Order re-release of the discontinued Two Towers models, Rohan and Uruk-Hai, back in January.

Gamers had been hoping for new characters for the Battle of the Last Alliance, which makes far more sense, or just something to indicate that the corporation still cares about spinning this plate. An Arnor refresh, which doesn’t appear in the movie, might be a stretch.

A vibrant and enjoyable tournament environment exists in the Great British Hobbit League, and MESBG boasts a robust core player community. Even a high-quality fan-produced magazine exists, produced despite Games Workshop’s indifferent approach towards system support. These enthusiasts should be appreciated for their dedication to the wonderful skirmish game, which is regarded as one of the best rulesets Workshop has ever created.



The greatest slight to MESBG in 2023, though, was the conflicted attitude that Games Workshop had regarding the twentieth anniversary of the movie The Return of the King. Ignored entirely was the movie that won eleven Oscars, rounded off the greatest fantasy picture ever made, and enabled Games Workshop to advance with its licensed models.

Although Workshop didn’t do much for The Two Towers anniversary, it did display two magnificent fan-made dioramas. Perhaps Return of the King will receive a similar treatment later this month, since there was the previously mentioned Made to Order, which featured heroes and villains from the movie and was released a month after the anniversary.



There is still not enough respect for Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game, even if this prospective rerelease is successful. I’m not saying it should be released on the same scale as AoS or 40K, but it should at least get the same amount of attention as games like Blood Bowl, which I really appreciate.

With the release of Legions Imperialis and the intense marketing and development of The Old World in 2023, specialized games had a busy year. As a result, certain games may have to take a backseat. However, The Lord of the Rings required something to keep its plates turning in that year beyond all others. And that something ought to be disclosed with a fair dose of decency.