Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim Gets Surprising Crossover

The upcoming animated Lord of the Rings movie will be making its way onto the tabletop. This week, Games Workshop announced that it would be launching a new edition of the Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game, a tabletop skirmish game based on the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies. This marks the first new edition in six years for the venerable tabletop game (which dates back to 2001), but the real surprise was that Games Workshop announced the new edition would feature content from the upcoming animated film The War of the Rohirrim. More details about the new edition will be announced in the coming weeks. 

The War of the Rohirrim is a prequel to Lord of the Rings and focuses on Helm Hammerhand, a famous king of Rohan who defended his people against an invading horde of Dunlendings. The fortress where Helm and his army held off the invading forces became known as Helm’s Deep, which would later become the site of a major battle in the War of the Ring. The new movie, which was directed by Kenji Kamiyama, is due out for release later this year. Both the Rohirrim and the Dunlendings are already represented in the Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game.

It will be interesting to see how Games Workshop adapts The War of the Rohirrim onto the tabletop. While Warner Bros is producing The War of the Rohirrim, the new movie has a very different aesthetic than the Lord of the Rings movies, in part because it draws heavily from Japanese animation styles. 

Expect to hear more details about both Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game and its The War of the Rohirrim tie-in products soon. With the launch of a new edition, new starter sets should be released to help introduce new players to the game.