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.

It's easy to learn and hard to master.

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.

Think Bilbo fleeing from Smaug.

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.

Each turn is made up of five phases.

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.

Priority is very important.

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.

Some are really powerful.

And some are, well, weaker.

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.

Take this warrior from the Hill Tribes.

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.

Oh, and that's an important detail.

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.

It's all explained in the rules manual.

But for now, this will do.

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.

Harmer is an even better shot.

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.

To do this, we make a roll to wound.

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.

As luck would have it, we roll a 6.

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.

This is easy enough.

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

On a 4 to 6, it continues on its way.

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.

Once both players have made all their shooting attacks, the shoot phase is over and it's time to fight.

The fight phase is the bloodiest and most exciting part of the game, where shield walls clash, monsters crush their hapless victims and heroes scythe down their foes.

In the fight phase, both players resolve all the combats on the battlefield, in an order chosen by the player with priority.

A combat is a situation where enemy models are in base contact.

Resolving a fight involves both players.

It's a simple enough process.

Let's take the example of a Warrior of Rohan versus a Hill Tribesman.

Both players make a dual roll.

To do this, they each roll a number of dice equal to the attack's value of their model.

In this case, that's one each.

The winner of the roll is the player who scores the highest.

In our case, the Warrior of Rohan rolls a five, and the Hill Tribesman rolls a three.

A victory for the good player.

The loser of the combat must immediately back away one inch from the enemy in a straight line, as chosen by the controlling player.

If the model is unable to do so, it is trapped.

We'll come back to that.

The winner then gets to strike the defeated foe, making a two-wound roll for each attack on its profile.

This works just as in the shoot phase.

Use the two-wound chart to compare the strength of the winner to the defense of the loser.

In our example, the target number needed here is a four.

We roll a dice and score a six.

With a crunching of flesh and bone, the Hill Tribesman is slain and removed from the battle.

Sometimes the fights are a bit more complicated.

If one player has more than a single model in the fight, they will roll a dice for each attack all their Warriors have.

Here, two Tribesmen fight a single Warrior of Rohan, so the evil player will roll two dice to the good player's one.

Similarly, some models are such great fighters that they have more than a single attack on their profile.

Harleth is a truly gifted combatant and has three attacks, meaning he will roll three dice for his dual rolls.

Finally, if the dual roll is ever tied, we need to see who wins.

First, compare the fight value of the combatants.

Whoever's is the highest wins the dual roll.

If the fight values are also tied, then the player with priority rolls a dice.

On a one to three, victory goes to the evil side, and on a four to six, it goes to good.

One last thing to cover is what happens when a model is trapped.

If a defeated model cannot back away a full one inch when it loses a dual roll, then every attack becomes two rolls on the two-wound table instead.

As you can imagine, a model that is trapped is in a very dangerous position indeed, so choose your moves carefully.

When all of the fights have been resolved, it's on to the end phase.

The end phase is where you clear away any dice or stray tokens that might be littering the battlefield, and check to see whether the battle is over or not.

There might also be some other rules at play, depending on the models you have on the battlefield or the scenario you are playing.

If the end conditions for your game have been met, it's time to work out who is the winner.

If not, start another turn with a new priority phase.

Of course, there's a little bit more to it than that in the full game, especially when you start to get to grips with all of the awesome rules and abilities your models, such as heroes and monsters, have.

One of the greatest things about the Middle-Earth strategy battle game is its cast of heroes, those exceptional leaders or fighters whose actions have shaped Middle-Earth.

These represent some of the greatest characters from the movies, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Thorin Oakenshield and Gandalf the Grey, the mighty Helm Hammerhand, and his courageous daughter, Hera.

Of course, the evil side has its own heroes too, Saruman the White, Lurtz, Azog the Despoiler, Wolf, Highlord of the Hill Tribes, or General Targ.

The first thing to know is that heroes have three extra characteristics on their profile, Might, Will, and Fate.

These represent a resource the hero can spend to achieve incredible things in the midst of battle.

Let's quickly look at them.

Perhaps the most important resource in the entire game, Might points can be used in two ways.

First, a hero can spend a Might point to increase their score on a dice roll and thereby succeed in an important roll, such as winning a dual roll or successfully causing a wound.

This can make an enormous difference to the outcome of a battle.

Might points can also be used to declare heroic actions.

These are incredible feats that can change the entire direction of a battle.

There are a host of different heroic actions.

Let's quickly look at one of the most commonly used, Heroic Move.

Imagine if you will, that you've lost the priority roll at the start of the turn, but you really need your models to move first.

Perhaps you're fleeing the Nazgul or trying to pull off the perfect charge.

Well, at the start of the Move phase, a hero with a Might point remaining can spend it to declare a Heroic Move, allowing them and any friends within six inches to move before any other models, regardless of priority.

As you can imagine, this can be a real game changer.

We'll not go too deep into what these do for now, but Will points are a resource that allows heroes to bolster their courage in certain situations, as well as in rare cases, cast a magical power.

Heroes are often characters destined to achieve incredible things, to change the entire shape of Middle-Earth's future.

Fate points represent the ability of a hero to cheat death.

When a hero with Fate points remaining suffers a wound, you can spend a Fate point for a chance to avoid the injury.