'Theme at all costs' – what it means for the game?

Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game (MESBG), unlike many other games, is based off of non-Games Workshop (GW) Intellectual Property (IP) - the story of Middle Earth is what guides the System. Originally, the Rules and Narrative Play were the main way to interact with the game. As time has passed, the system-developed Narrative Play still exists, but arguably the primary driver of new rules, models, and discussions is Matched Play.

Throughout its existence, SBG events have maintained a strong showing of themed Armies, irrespective of how competitive they were; players would turn up to events with the Fellowship or Rohan (before Legendary Legions [LLs]), looking to recreate moments from the books and/or films. These themed Lists were rarely competitive, and so would often be used by self-confessed non-competitive players (with some exceptions). This would generally mean that if you were matched against these Lists, you were faced with the pleasant prospect of a ‘beer and pretzels’ kind of game. With the shift into the latest edition of MESBG, the introduction of the Alliance Matrices and LLs has brought about a change for these themed Lists. More and more of them now grace the Top Tables; on the one hand, this is seemingly a good thing, but as the focus falls more onto making these themed Lists competitive, I must ask - has it compromised the fun of 'Theme'?

What is 'Theme'?

Before we delve too greedily and too deep into this topic, I think it is helpful to establish what we mean by 'Theme'. It is a term that gets thrown around a lot in our Game, yet is completely subjective in meaning.

For some, and I imagine this applies to the larger part of the Community, 'Theme' represents the recreation of moments, and Armies, from the books and/or films. These Armies are what the LLs represent in the game; your Riders of Theoden, your Return of the King, or your Ugluk’s Scouts. These Lists are undoubtedly themed, but I propose that to only see these types of Lists as themed is a narrow view.

As someone who played a lot of Warhammer Fantasy back in the day, the concept of 'Theme' was a lot less prescribed. The World the game system was played in does have its stories and characters, but the idea of 'Theme' was not constrained to the single narrative. Instead, themed Armies would be built around an idea, design-choice, or own personal written background. The World and Lore that existed provided the foundation.

There is really no reason why this cannot be done in SBG as well. Plenty of forces, regions and timelines are not explored. A creative player can come up with their own Gondor town, or tribe in a region of Harad, in order to create their characters and backstory.

On the extreme end, you could even have a themed Army of Pirate Goblins, all lovingly made, converted, painted, and complete with original backstory. This is arguably not very 'Tolkien', but it is themed. More effort and creativity arguably go into something like this than just taking a LL.

Finally, you also have the Armies that are themed around a concept. A classic example of recent times is synth-wave Uruks showing up at GBHL events. This has caused quite the controversy for some who believe it shouldn’t be allowed and have been quite rude about it. I believe there were many (including myself) that thought it was a cool concept, well-executed, and perfectly themed.

The above (and this last point in particular) brings me to my next point…

Don’t tell anyone how to do their Hobby

It’s easy to forget that in a Community where we all seem to have so much in common, we all enjoy the Hobby in different ways, and for different reasons; you have the Tolkien purists who love the books, the movie-lovers, the collectors, the painters, the narrative players, the gamers, and many more. In fact, most of us probably straddle several of these reasons for being involved with this Hobby. Consequentially, in a Hobby as diverse as ours, there will be disagreement over what is fun as much as what is themed.

Historically, competitive players have gotten a lot of stick (unfairly in my opinion), and not just in our Community. Some people just can’t understand the fun in taking a 'Soup List'; cherry-picking the best models in the game to create the perfect Army. Similarly, some people just can’t understand the appeal of taking what many might deem completely uncompetitive Lists.

Both are entirely valid ways to play the game, and we have to accept that people are different; much like the idea of 'Theme', we shouldn’t be gatekeepers, and nor should we project our own view of the hobby onto other people.

A new power is rising

Now, several years into the new edition of SBG and a host of releases under our belt, we are able to get a greater understanding of how the game has progressed, and what this has meant for the Hobby.

Almost from the outset, there was a heavy investment on balancing the scales to encourage more themed armies in competitive play, with the introduction of the Alliance Matrices to discourage many of these unthematic 'Soups Lists' from before. Since then, the emphasis on encouraging 'Theme' through Competitive Play has only increased with each FAQ, and more notably the LLs.

LLs as a concept aren't a particularly new thing to Wargaming or GW games; for those who remember Battlehosts from War of the Ring, or those who dabbled in Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40k, similar concepts can be found in all of them. Being Middle Earth though, these LLs are specifically designed to recreate a certain snapshot in time within the stories in which we play our Game. In my opinion, the concept is great, but what has it meant for the Game?

From a purely Army utilisation point of view, with each Sourcebook released, more and more LLs are appearing at events. This shows a desire to take them, and they will now occupy a sizeable portion of lists seen at any event. So far so good, I would say.

LLs are also realising an increasing amount of success at competitive events; we are seeing a greater representation of them on the podiums. Since War in Rohan, approximately 50% of winners of Great British Hobbit League (GBHL) 100 events have used at least 1 LL at the events they've won. That’s a significant statistic, and for many it is an example of a positive impact they've had on the Game.

The diversity of event winners has remained stable across this change, indicating that skill is arguably still the deciding characteristic for who wins events. This again can be viewed as a good thing, as just taking a List doesn't necessarily seem to guarantee you victory.

So, all this seems great; themed Lists and LLs are competitive, and while 'Soup Lists' do still exist, they certainly aren’t the only way to win events. However, upon further examination, we find that there is more to this story.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

I would ascribe that in the world of LLs, there are three very distinct categories that most LLs can be placed into:

The Good – These Lists are your capable, competitive LLs - in the right hands, many have achieved a podium; for example, I would point to Breaking of the Fellowship, Army of Dunland, Defenders of Helms Deep, and Cirith Ungol. Usually these Armies present a different way of playing that either wasn’t available to the Army before, gives you a solid alternative to their ordinary build, or allows an Alliance that maybe wasn’t possible previously.

The Bad – These Lists are your rarely-seen, competitively-unviable LLs; for example, I would point to Men of the West, or The Grey Company. They tend to be LLs in which there is no discernible advantage to taking them over the ordinary build, especially when you could create the List within the normal Army-building restrictions. These LLs are not set apart enough by a requisite incentive for selecting them over an alternate ordinary build, or other Armies.

The Ugly – These Lists are probably the most controversial of the bunch, as many people will believe they fit into 'The Good' section of this analysis (due to their attaching their own interpretation of the definition for this category). However, for me, these are the Lists that break the way the Game is played, arguably achieving competitive viability through a negative gaming experience. Examples of this (depending on opinion) could include Riders of Theoden (particularly pre-nerf to Gamling's banner), Rangers of Ithlien (particularly pre-requirement for Frodo, Sam and Smeagol), Assault Upon Helms Deep (particularly pre-nerf to the Bomb), The Black Riders, and The Vanquishers of the Necromancer.

I would also highlight that there is a fourth category of the 'Have-Nots'; these are the Armies currently waiting for their own LLs, or those who feel aggrieved that their Faction (for example, Minas Tirith) missed out on a more-comprehensive treatment when they had their time in the spotlight. Now I won’t explore this category overmuch in this article, but if the prominence of LLs continues to rise, those Armies who don’t have any risk being left behind; whether it's down to GW release schedule and/or resources etc., it could leave some Factions in the lurch.

Square pegs for round holes

I have already touched on what I believe constitutes a LL in 'The Ugly' category, but why do these Legions fall into this category when other, arguably more competitive, LLs do not?

As I see it, the problem comes down to the extreme characteristics of these Lists. Within the current Game, we have certain established Rules and Scenarios which prevent these Lists being legal or competitive, as their extreme nature will hinder them as much as help.

For the most part, the Game in its current form does not really allow for 'All-Hero' Armies to be competitively viable; they can win games for sure, and even challenge for top positions at events, but as a general rule will struggle on any Scenarios that require numbers to hold objectives (amongst the other challenges that using such Lists presents). The fundamental mechanics of the Game, combined with recommended Pool System set out in the Match Play Guide, restrict their ability to podium.

However, two main culprits stand out as causing much controversy in recent times; Black Riders, and Vanquishers of the Necromancer. Both Lists you could field without the need for the LL, so it can be assumed that these Lists are purely designed to make them competitively viable. Yet to do this, they have been given a swathe of special rules and boosts to profiles (many of which were competitive anyway) to overcome the shortcomings they had as an ordinary 'All-Hero' Army. In one sense it has worked, these Lists can now compete. So, what’s the problem?

The problem appears when you look at the impact this has on the functionality of the Game; the Scenarios that these Armies used to be good at anyway now become virtually impossible to win for an opponent. It's not just that though, as the buffs and mechanics required to make these 'All-Hero' Lists viable has seen them remove the agency from the Game for one player. Waiting for your opponent to either run out of resources or have a turn of bad luck before you can do anything isn’t, in my opinion, what games of SBG should be.

Looking at some other controversial LLs we have seen; before the most recent FAQ, Rangers of Ithlien gained much notoriety, especially at low Point games. Unlike the previously mentioned two Lists, this LL is not legal outside of the LL; the only way in Competitive Play that you can recreate the Rangers & Hobbit scenes from the Two Towers is with this LL. This is, I believe, a better founding principle for the creation of a LL. The arguable infringement the LL creates is that Armies in SBG are not all 100% bows for a reason - it’s a horrible play experience. I've yet to meet someone who wants to have to remove half their Army while just marching up the board, whilst being unable to do anything about it in return. Therefore, the Shadow Lord or Blinding Light has become a mainstay of competitive tournament Lists. By removing this fundamental limit from the Game, you open the door for what it was there to prevent. Whilst other Armies can field 100% (or close to it) bows/missiles, they're usually limited by some other factor that stops them from gaining the huge number of bows that the Rangers of Ithilien have access to.

As the heading suggests, this is all trying to fit square pegs into round holes. You may get away with it sometimes like with the Breaking of the Fellowship, but if you don’t (and your peg can’t fit), you can end up breaking the whole Game - removing the enjoyment for many. It’s a fine line to tread, and with each release we will only increase the odds of this happening. This said, to avoid sounding all doom and gloom, I will add that each respective release does increase the likelihood of getting some LLs that do hit the mark.

Should 'Theme' be competitive?

Now, I have blethered long enough, so to round out this article I think it is important to consider whether or not this drive to make 'Theme' competitive is actually a positive addition to our Game.

On the face of it, I think most people would say 'yes it is', but I believe that there is a point where it can be argued that it shouldn’t be. 'Theme' is subjective, and the reasons people play the Game are equally so. Forcing players to play a certain (potentially narrow) way not only erodes variety and creativity, but can put people off the Game. I am also reminded of a friend of mine who is heavily invested in Wargaming but has never wanted to play SBG, because (in their own words) "I know how it all ends". This quote is made in jest, but does reinforce the idea that people engage in the Hobby for their own reasons. The Game is arguably the best GW have ever produced; I, like many, came because of my love of Middle Earth, but I stuck around for the Game. If we want the Game to thrive and continue, should we veer so hard into the Lore that we ultimately risk gatekeeping, in turn making SBG less accessible?

It can also be said that those who want to recreate moments from the books and the movies are already empowered to do so through the abundance of Narrative Play Scenarios at their disposal. Do we really need to duplicate this in Matched Play?

In summary - until recently, if I was to take an ordinary White Council List to an event, I might not have done well, but I would have been mentally prepared for that eventuality; I find that this sets a tone for a more relaxed and less competitive environment, one that my opponents could appreciate. Now, if I was to take the Vanquishers LL to an event, rather than instilling a pleasant feeling of excitement at the prospect of facing this cool, niche Army, I imagine I would be imposing a feeling of frustration and negativity onto many opponents, contrary to my good intent. This emphasises the question, do these competitive themed Lists remove the enjoyment from using them?

Like much of this article, your opinion on all of these questions is subjective - there isn’t a right or wrong answer. The Game is also in a much better place than it has been for years, so I commend the team at GW for that - long may it last. Nevertheless, I feel it is always healthy to reflect, and consider (as the phrase goes) ‘just because we can, doesn’t mean we should’.