Name: Learn to Play the Middle-earth™ Strategy Battle Game
Uploaded: 2024-12-13T12:01:07.000Z
Duration: 13 min 59 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

It's my pleasure to welcome you today to the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game.

If you've never played the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game before, this video is the perfect place to begin.

The Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game is based on the incredible movie trilogies of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and the new blockbuster animation The Lord of the Rings The War of the Rohirrim.

With this game, you can recreate the exhilarating adventures experienced by the Fellowship of the Ring or Thorin's Company, re-enact the epic battles of the Pelennor Fields, the Siege of Helm's Deep, or the Defense of Edoras, and so much more.

At its heart, the strategy battle game is a hobby of collecting, painting, and gaming with amazing miniatures.

If you've never played a game like this, don't worry, it's easy to learn.

By the end of this video, you'll know the basics.

And if you like a real strategic challenge, well, I've got some good news for you.

You'll be discovering new tactics, tricks, and ruses for years to come.

When you play a game of the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game, you're typically going to do one of two things.

Narrative scenarios are designed to bring the events of the movies to life.

Remember the amazing battle in Balin's Tomb where the Fellowship of the Ring fought a horde of goblins and a cave troll?

What about Thorin's Company escaping from the Goblin King?

Or Helm Hammerhand battling swathes of hill tribesmen on the causeway of the Hornburg?

Scenarios list out all the participants you need, providing exciting special rules that help evoke the events you are recreating, and give advice on how to set up your models.

Everything you need to test your skills and see whether you can change the course of history.

Matched play is exactly what it sounds like.

You and a friend do battle with evenly matched armies.

A test of tactics, and skill, and luck of course.

The Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game is one of good versus evil, that unending struggle between the free peoples of Middle-Earth and the foul-hearted villains and monsters in the service of the Dark Lord Sauron.

In fact, the entire Strategy Battle Game is designed with this in mind.

In the game, every model is either a good model or an evil model.

From time to time, we'll be referring to good or evil models, or even the good player or evil player.

When we do, we're just referring to the player who has control of the relevant force in the game.

We're not making a moral judgment about you.

A game is made up of a number of turns, which continue until there's a winner.

In a narrative scenario, the end might be when a model escapes.

Or when a particular foe is defeated, such as Gandalf's amazing duel against the Balrog.

In a match-play scenario, it might be after a fixed amount of time, or number of turns, or when some other condition is met.

The first thing you do each turn is work out who has priority.

Both players roll a dice, and whoever scores highest chooses whether to claim priority for themselves or give it to the other player.

On a draw, the choice swaps, so the player who didn't get to choose last turn gets to this time.

It determines who acts first in the remaining phases of the turn, and who makes some very important decisions.

Once you get the basics of the game down, you'll quickly realise just how critical making a good choice in the priority phase can be.

This is where the forces on the battlefield jockey for position.

The player with priority activates each of their models, allowing them to move, as well as use any magical powers or special rules they might have.

When they have activated all their models, the player without priority does the same.

The move phase is where cavalry formations sweep across the battlefield, and warriors leap over walls and clamber up ladders or rocky cliff faces.

It's also where combat is joined, as models move into base contact with the enemy in a special move known as a charge.

To work out how far a model can move, you need to see its profile.

Every model in the strategy battle game has its own profile, which contains all the information you need to use on the battlefield.

For our examples today, we'll stick with the models from The Lord of the Rings The War of the Rohirrim The Battle of Edoras.

A model's move value is the maximum distance in inches they can move during their activation.

A model can always move less than its move, but never more, unless some special circumstances allow it.

Models don't have to move in a straight line either.

You'll find it's easy enough to move around corners, between other models, and so on.

Models can't normally move through each other.

If there's no space to fit your model's base through a gap, it simply can't make that move.

To charge an enemy model, simply move yours into base contact with the foe.

There's an important rule to bear in mind when you do this.

Just like in real life, enemies aren't going to stand around letting the foe prance around them at will.

To represent this, all models have a control zone, an imaginary one-inch ring that surrounds them.

Friendly models can pass through this space without issue.

But any enemy that enters it must charge the model in question, or stay out entirely.

Once your model enters an enemy's control zone, it can complete its move, so long as it also charges that enemy.

So, you could choose to charge in an advantageous way, or even charge into a second foe if your model's move allows.

Finally, a model who's been charged loses its control zone.

You can use this to create gaps in your opponent's defences, like so.

Of course, there's more to the move phase than I've explained here.

There are rules for moving through difficult ground, jumping and climbing over obstacles, and more.

In the shoot phase, arrows are loosed and bolts fly as warriors take aim at their foe.

A cunning commander can reap a bloody toll on their enemy if their troops are well placed and their dice rolls are favourable.

Much like the move phase, in the shoot phase, the player with priority activates each of their models that can make a shooting attack.

Once they've all been activated, the player without priority gets a chance to do the same.

To make a shooting attack is quite simple.

All a model needs is a missile weapon, such as a throwing spear or bow, and a visible target.

Every model has a shoot value listed on their profile.

This is the score needed on a single dice to score a hit.

So, a warrior of Rohan with a shoot value of 4+, hits on a dice roll of a 4, 5 or 6.

With a shoot value of 3+, Harmer will hit their targets on a roll of 3, 4, 5 or 6.

Once we've scored a hit, we need to see if it's a wounding strike or just a glancing blow.

Every missile weapon has a strength value and every model in the game has a defence value.

If we compare these on the to wound chart, then we get a target number.

That's the roll we need to roll to wound the target of our shot.

A quick check on the chart here shows we need a 5+, so a roll of 5 or 6 will do it.

With a meaty thwack, the arrow strikes home.

Every time a model suffers a wound, check against its profile to see whether or not it is slain.

Hill Tribesmen only have one wound, so with a muffled cry, this particular troublemaker is taken out of action and removed from the battlefield.

There's one more thing to mention with shooting, which is what happens when something is in the way.

If the thing blocking the shot is an inanimate object, a tree, a fence or whatever, then you can shoot as normal, but if your shoot roll is successful, you'll also need to make another roll, called an in-the-way test.

On a 1 to 3, the shot strikes the obstacle and nothing further happens.

As you can imagine, taking cover is quite important when the enemy is training their bows or crossbows on you.

If there is more than one thing in the way, just make more than one roll.

To succeed in such a shot, you'll need to be lucky, but stranger things have happened.