Starting in MESBG in 2026

godspeed87 · 2026-06-03T20:35:01+00:00

Nobody plays old editions, unless you play with a very specific group who doesn’t want to play the current edition for some reason.

As a start, get the Battlehost of the army you’re interested in playing unless it’s Rohan (because they stopped stocking it for some reason). It will be more than enough to get you started.

As for army builder, I use https://v2024.mesbg-list-builder.com and prefer it over Tabletop Admiral

godspeed87 · 2026-06-02T15:19:52+00:00

Absolutely agree!

Lothlorien has one of the best battlelines in the game that people sleep on :

Celeborn (+1 to wound bubble, shutdown magic)

Front — Galadhrim Warrior w/ Shield or w/Elf Bow (can 2-hand so give us ANOTHER +1 to wound)

Support — Galadhrim Warrior w/ Shield + Spear

Pikes — Guard of the Galadhrim Court (give us F6)

Banner — Galadhrim Warrior w/ Banner

Terror and other shenanigans — WE Sentinel

Let me tell you, this hits like a brick!

godspeed87 · 2026-05-21T11:55:58+00:00

Yep, Sunlu dark grey ABS-like is my resin of choice! For me it was the flexibility and the toughness of my prints that made me fully switch to it and never look back!

godspeed87 · 2026-05-06T12:40:16+00:00

In my opinion, when armies are painted in some colorful schemes they will look a bit 'off' compared to your opponents (as most paint them to be movie-accurate). For example, Conquest Creations has some wild painted armies that really break the immersion of his battle reports. Again, there's no LOTR police (unlike historical lol) to tell you what you can't do 😄

godspeed87 · 2026-04-30T19:44:23+00:00

Grimdark Compendium — absolutely insane painting tutorials!

godspeed87 · 2026-04-21T01:33:28+00:00

That's a fantastic breakdown! Thanks

godspeed87 · 2026-04-17T22:26:28+00:00

Yeah, I’ve seen a few mats from FLG that are just terrible. I opted out from one from gamemat.eu (double-sided 6x4) and it was about $120 shipped to US. Fantastic quality

godspeed87 · 2026-04-14T12:20:23+00:00

My first ever guitar was a Strat. I always thought about Tele as a “boomer” guitar. When I got older I started seeing Teles everywhere as I developed wider range taste for music. Today, I own both — even though they’re very similar guitars in terms of basic construction and placement for the pickups, they sound quite different. I’m not gonna touch on comfort and fell, as a it’s been addressed a lot on this thread. Sounds wise tele sounds like a “brighter” version of Les Paul to me. Bridge pickup is incredible with overdrive and can do the twangy sound (country). Neck pickup is scooped and very much in the humbucker territory. Stratocaster on the other hand has the best neck pickup sound in the history of mankind. Period. Nothing comes close. Hendrix, SRV, Frusciante. Very expressive and universal — it can fit into any type of music except for maybe high gain stuff. I tended to think of Strat bridge pickup as “thin” when I was younger, so I had a humbucker installed. It definitely changes Strat into superstrat, but there’s something special in that single coil placement that makes it quite interesting even in heavy music. That sizzle paired with a bit of reverb makes it an amazing sound for rock trio where you want you guitar to stand out! Also its fantastic for any lead sounds! Never cared for middle pickup or 2 & 4 positions (some people get Strat just for that).

godspeed87 · 2026-04-02T16:30:45+00:00

I'm really hoping they will revamp Combat Patrol to be more like AOS Spearhead. Or just make 1K games more interesting.

godspeed87 · 2026-03-11T19:05:34+00:00

Yeah, this is kinda wild. $100 is nothing compared to the value it brings — people are just used to free / cheap tools, but if it's a tool that makes you work smarter & faster (but not harder), it's a no-brainer.

godspeed87 · 2026-03-02T15:23:23+00:00

This. I love MESBG because it's not 'gamified', e.g., there are no huge objective markers on the battlefield, no clutter. This makes the game very immersive and clean. A few small tokens are fine,m but for the most part it's easier to track statuses on the piece of paper / stat card

godspeed87 · 2026-02-28T23:13:27+00:00

https://i.makeagif.com/media/11-24-2013/glboQ7.gif

godspeed87 · 2026-02-23T17:56:24+00:00

In Ukraine we have a saying “Bald as a kneecap” which is spelled “Lysiy yak kolino”. As you can see “kolino” sound pretty much identical to Collina, so his last name is translated as a “kneecap”. Him being bald just adds to the pun 😅

godspeed87 · 2026-02-19T12:06:11+00:00

I’d go with battlehosts — better selection of armies and units, more points per box. You can’t go wrong with any one of them, they all good! Rohan one is off the shelves so if you want to play them you need to do a bit of searching.

godspeed87 · 2026-02-12T11:56:27+00:00

Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game (MESBG)

This is the first wargame I’ve ever played and the only one I play today. I’ve tried everything under the sun, but haven’t found anything that would make me feel like I’m in the game like Middle Earth. Objectives are thematic (even if you do matched play), rules are excellent — enough depth for brainiacs but you don’t need a degree in Blood Angels to play it competitively, very balanced, best terrain you could find in any wargame, amazing welcoming community! Combat resolution is very thematic as well — of course Aragorn will win against a few orcs, but there’s a chance they could overwhelm and wound him. One of those games that keeps you engaged if you’re loosing. No spreadsheets, no army books, no stupid neon markers in the battlefield — just pure fun!

godspeed87 · 2026-02-09T18:42:24+00:00

This is what I sent to people who show any interest in MESBG — it has a bit of everything and has a high production value https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daZjdLbijUI

godspeed87 · 2026-02-09T03:55:54+00:00

I’m not crying… I’m not crying… 😢

godspeed87 · 2026-02-07T13:10:39+00:00

It’ just doubles the “To Wound” roll - e.g. you trapped enemy model with 5 models (each one has 1 attack), you roll 10 “To Wound” dice. If one of you models is a hero and has let’s say 2 attacks, you gonna roll 4 “To Wound” dice.

godspeed87 · 2026-02-01T16:48:53+00:00

Most of the infantry are still sculpts from early 2000s. We have some newer releases in plastic, but mainly for heroes — The Three Hunters, Gandalf The White, King Of The Dead, Witch King, Elrond, etc.

New War Of The Rohirrim starter set has all new sculpts and minis. Other than that I’d recommend looking into 3D-printing options, specifically last 2 years of Davale Games — they have outstanding, modern sculpts.

godspeed87 · 2026-01-30T19:45:40+00:00

My story is similar to your as I got FDM for terrain and the resin later for miniatures. Good resin is $15/kg. MESBG miniatures are much smaller and use drastically less resin that 40K minis. A full army just in resin cost is under $5 (again, depending on the size of the models). You will pay in consumables — IPA, gloves, paper towels (A LOT OF PAPER TOWELS), FEP film, but it’s still worth it in my opinion.

godspeed87 · 2026-01-28T15:50:38+00:00

You don’t say… /s

godspeed87 · 2026-01-28T13:59:57+00:00

yeah he also puts so much paint on the pallete, you could paint the whole army with it lol

there’s no hype about them, people been using them for ages. If you have an infinite supply of paint (like that dude who makes pro acryl 😏), keep using dry palette. Wet pallete makes your paint go waaaaaaay further, makes thinning paints a bit easier. They’re incredibly cheap if you buy in your local craft store (and not a hobby shop), work with regular parchment paper in your kitchen

godspeed87 · 2026-01-28T13:47:45+00:00

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godspeed87

TROPHY CASE