Reenforcements for both Rohan and the Hill Tribesmen in the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game come up for pre order today with the new Riders of Rohan and commanders, along with a set of commanders for the Hill Tribesmen (which can also be used in a Dunland army)

In this full unboxing and review we’ll be taking a look at the new kits, seeing how they go together and painting them up to see what they look like in the flesh!

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us these over to check out on the site. If you would like to support the site then why not pick up your Middle-Earth goodies through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

We’ve also filmed a full unboxing and review of the new sets which you can see just below or over on YouTube

So without further ado let’s ride for ruin and a red dawn!

Rohan and Hill Tribesmen Unboxing and Review

Let’s start with the one that a lot of people are going to be very excited for – the Riders of Rohan.

When the War of the Rohirrim box was released with brand new Rohirrim on foot, a lot of people were expecting the mounted versions to follow shortly behind them. It’s been a while now, but they have finally landed, and they are gorgeous.

Costing £32.50 for a box of 6 models, they are a little more than the previous boxed set, but they are much much better in every possible way!

There’s a lot more detail here, a range of weapon options including spears and most importantly 6 unique sculpts for the horses! No longer will your mounted army all be riding identical horses, and they are a much better scale now too, standing as tall as other mounted heroes we have got over the last few years

This does have a side effect of making the old horses look tiny by comparison! In the above picture you can see one of the new Riders of Rohan on the right, towering over the classic one on the left. While there’s nothing to stop you using the new ones alongside the old ones, I do feel that they would look a little odd next to each other in the same warband.

I suspect that a lot of people will be looking to replace their old riders anyway, given the classic ones are so old now, and the kit isnt at a bad price point to do that anyway. It’s a shame there’s no optional parts here to make Royal Guard, and I do wonder if we will see upgrade kits in the future in order to do this. I was part expecting the horses to be on their own sprue to allow them to be used with other kits in the future, but it seems that any future mounted Lord of the Rings kits will each have their own horses – which is good for variety across the range.

The models are a joy to paint up, and while they have more detail than the old ones, they are not too fussy or fiddly to paint up either, which can often be a worry when models are updated.

With the more dynamic poses, it’s harder to make the horse and the rider separate, but it is possible in order to make painting a little easier – personally I just stuck them together and had no real issues getting to the details.

Out alongside them are a new kit that builds up 3 commanders (RRP £29.50) We’ve had resin and metal ones for all factions in the game, but this looks to be the first step towards bringing these out in plastic – and I hope this is something that we see happening wider across all factions as these are increadible kits.

All three models are great sculpts, and there are some options for different heads, but I wish there were a couple of different banners on the sprue, otherwise you will end up with a few similar looking guys if you take a couple across your army.

The models are much easier to build and paint than metal or resin ones though, and they blend in perfectly with the other new models.

The Hill Tribesmen also get their Commanders set in this wave, who can also be used in a Dunland army too.

These also look great and fit in perfectly with the recent plastics – there’s actually some more options on this kit compared to the Rohan one, with some alternate weapons and the option of building the Captain as an Oathmaker, which is a really nice touch!

These models are a key part of armies for MESBG, and it’s great to see them in plastic – especially as it’s now possible for Games Workshop to put out some real plastic army boxes too, containing the core units, a hero and some command all in a plastic set – I’d be very surprised if we don’t see these soon

I’m also fully expecting us to get these sort of boxes for other factions as the release cycle goes round – though I do understand its a balancing act between updating existing plastics and putting out useful kits that have never been in plastic before, but hopefully over the next few years we get both for a lot more factions, especially with the new movie on the way…

All these kits are up for pre order today and are released Saturday 18th July

Games Workshop provided Sprues & Brews with free copies for review purposes.