One of the things I really love about middle earth strategy battle is not everything has to be about building grand armies, it leaves plenty of room for indulgence with characterful miniatures and backwater settings. Hobbit holes, the folk of Bree, Gandalf in his cart or the three trolls Bilbo and Thorin’s party encounter early their adventure. The scope of the miniature range allows you to recreate narrative games as small as encounters in the wild right up to the massive battles like Helm’s Deep or the black gates. It spans different era so is easy to create a campaign from the early days of the war of the ring, the last alliance, through events of the Hobbit and especially battles only mentioned in the literature which I find especially interesting such as the war in the north or the fall of Arnor.

My first warband proper was based on a travelling caravan of Dwarves led by Balin set after the reclaiming of Erebor. This allowed me to explore all kinds of scenarios in games as they made the journey back towards the Misty Mountains in their ultimately doomed attempt to retake the halls of Moria.

For a hobbyist such as myself who is also avid consumer of Tolkien’s works this is a rich gold vein to mine. My only fear is to delve too greedily and too deep, who knows what may be revealed.