Rules

Tournament Summary:
Each player will play a total of 5 games over the course of the weekend (3 on Saturday, 2 on Sunday). All games will be 2.5 hours in length with pre-set terrain. Scoring for the event will be a combination of Battle Points, Sportsmanship, Theme, and Paint scores for Overall placement. In order to be eligible for Best Painted, you must have painted the army yourself and you must disclose the fact that someone else painted your army.

Army lists must be selected from Legions of Middle Earth or any subsequent sourcebook. Armies can be constructed to a maximum size of 600 points. Profiles for heroes and warriors published in White Dwarf (up to and including Issue 369, October 2010, available in September) may be included in your army following the rules in the relevant articles. All players are expected to bring copies of the rules and profiles for their own armies (including extra copies of White Dwarf articles).

Your army must be painted to a minimum standard of 3 colors plus a base. The base must be painted or flocked. No unpainted armies or figures will be allowed.

The Lord of the Rings main rulebook will be used. All stats from the main rulebook, subsequent supplements and White Dwarf magazine will be used.

Stats for any model will only be usable if they have been published at least 30 days prior to the event.

You must bring all the materials you need to play including dice, measuring devices, models and any rules that you need to use.

All judges' decisions are final.

Prizes will be awarded for Best Overall, Best General, Best Appearance, and Best Sportsman. Depending on the number of registrations, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place awards as well as some additional categories may be added.

Army Requirements:
Forces must be chosen from one of the army lists from the Legions in Middle Earth supplement or from a valid army list in White Dwarf. Forces must follow all rules and restrictions on force selection detailed in "Mustering the Legions of Middle Earth" pages 4-8 in the Legions of Middle Earth supplement. A maximum of 600 points can be used to construct your army.

  • Named characters (Gandalf, Lurtz, the Witch King, Spider Queen, etc) can only be taken once.
  • Evil Forces cannot include Gollum.
  • Good Forces cannot include Tom Bombadil or Goldberry.


Models with stat lines and point values included in the forces section of the following rulebooks, journey books, source books or any White Dwarfs will be used. Where the points value differ between a source book and the Legions of Middle Earth supplement, the points value in the source books takes precedence.

  • The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game rules manual (aka The One Rulebook) and the subsequent supplements and journey books
  • Any White Dwarf Article lists or profiles for LOTR:SBG that are published no later than 30 days prior to the tournament NOTE: A new batch of profiles are due to be published in White Dwarf Issue #370 (November 2011). As these profiles will not be published a month prior to the event, these rules will NOT be allowed for Bilbo's Birthday Bash 2011.

Army Building Notes:
One hero army must be nominated as the Overall Commander. This hero would represent the "King" or "Champion" if the specific tournament scenario requires such a designation.

What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) will be enforced. Weapons, armor and upgrades chosen from the army list Must be shown on the models used. In other words What you see is what you get! If you have any questions about WYSIWYG, contact the tournament organizers.

All models should be taken from the Games Workshop/Citadel Range. Some leeway on model proxying or "counts as" can be used; however, these proxy situations should be discussed with the tournament organizer prior to the event.

If your army includes any of the new models as detailed in White Dwarf under the Reinforcements section, you must provide a copy of the article to your opponents. This is to make it fair for folks that may not be able to get these articles to be able to see the special rules that apply to these new models.

You must have a copy of your army list at check in as well as throughout the weekend. If your army list does not match what you are playing anytime during the weekend, you will be subject to a penalty at the discretion of the tournament organizer. Penalties could include a '-5' to your Battle Score for minor offenses (too many models or incorrect wargear) or even a Battle Score of '0' (too many heroes, significant point value differences, etc) for any game played with this illegal or incorrect army. At the discretion of the tournament organizer, you may be disqualified and asked to leave the event without a refund.

The tournament organizers have requested that army lists be pre-submitted to speed up check-in and allow for verification. While this is not mandatory, if you do pre-submit your army list you will be awarded a bonus of 2 points to your overall point total for the event. The deadline for pre-submission of army lists will e one week before the event (i.e., submitted by October 31).

Tournament Rules:
A set of Errata and FAQ's for Lord of the Rings source books will be used and these are maintained on the Games Workshop website. We are aware that many issues may come up in a game that are not covered by the Erratas or FAQ's, If you ask for a rules clarification from the organizers their decision will be final on the situation.

Special Rule - Good vs Evil!
The Lord of The Rings is a modern classic of the tale of Good against Evil. As such the Strategy Battle Game is designed for battles between two forces, one Good and one Evil. This causes a few problems for a format like that being used at B3 where your Evil army of Uruk-hai could conceivably face five other Evil armies over the course of the weekend.

While this may seem like it would not be an issue, there are some problems that arise with the wording of various Special Rules and the effects of various artifacts wielded by powerful Heroes. These rules are typically worded in terms of affecting Good or Evil forces, or affecting a particular race like Orcs or Goblins.

For the purposes of games at B3, the tournament organizers ask that players determine reasonably who is affected by the rule or item. In almost all cases players can easily determine who is affected by substituting the words Friendly or Enemy models for Good or Evil and when it comes to rules that affect a particular race, that rule will only be applied to one side or the other.

Here are a couple of examples:

  • Both players are fielding armies drawn from the Fiefdoms list, both armies contain Knights of Dol Amroth, and Player A has Prince Imrahil. While Player B's Knights of Dol Amroth also have the Dol Amroth for Gondor! special rule, they would be unable to take advantage of it, as the Prince Imrahil on the table is their "enemy" for the purposes of this game.
  • Both players are fielding Evil armies. Player A has a Ringwraith that has the Harbingers of Evil special rule. In typical play this rule only affects Good models, reducing their Courage value while the Ringwraith is nearby). For the purposes of the GT, this rule would affect "enemy" models, those fielded by Player B.

The tournament organizers recognize that tournament attendees are reasonable players, and look to you to make the right decision in the myriad of situations this issue could arise. If you are unable to, please call over the Organizers to make the call for you.