Have a nice read at the newsletter of February!
Activity at modding
Starting today with the Total War series and here with Castellan's Visual Enhancemets & Overhaul for Divide And Conquer for Medieval II: Total War: Kingdoms. We get a glimpse on new units, Gundabad Orcs, Harondor Mercenaries and a Rhudaur unit.
At the modding project Third Age: Reforged the developers showed off in-game screenshots of units for the Kingdom of Rhovanion. I am a bit irritated about the units which look like wolf riders there, they haven't given a lot of informations alongside the screenshots.
The artists at Silmarillion: Total War created lovely new UI screens.
The developers of Conflicts of Eriador also showed some in-game screenshots. As in most cases, for Angmar and Rhudaur. So we got to see Angmarim Pikemen, Berserkers from the High Fells and Warlord's Vanguard (primarily ceremonial unit) and Warlord's Chosen, the bodyguard of the chieftains of Rhudar, all created by R3AP3R.
The developers of Total War: Rise of Mordor for the game Total War: Attila published a development log for January 2021. They hope to do (again) monthly logs to show off their activity. You can read the full article here. You might have seen most of the screenshots already here at the newsletter, except for the new custom map for Dale.There has also been a livestream about modelling Erebor by Froostie, the video is embedded below as well as the one about the Campaign Plans for Mordor. And we got a lovely new design concept by Maeron. I know it's not his fault but the halberd together with the shield doesn't make a lot of sense ;)
Venlesh wrote down another article for Legends of Middle-Earth 5.0 for the game Age of Mythology: The Titans, topic is the Blossoming Spring Update. He gives more details about the upcoming Easter 2021 Event, the work at the Campaign and Civilizations and some other notes. Have a full read here.
Coming to the M&B series we got a new trailer for Persistent Lord of the Rings (PLotR). They announced their release for March, let's hope it's going to be the final date now.
The Steam version of the mod The Last Days (of The Third Age of Middle Earth) has been updated and is now equivalent to Nightly Patch r340. It includes improvements and adjustments at Troops and Items alongside new armoury variants. Some might notice a new compass created by Merlkir and that some visuals got fixed and improved. And then there is this new mysterious Skinchanger feature. You can read the full changelog here.
Coming to the BfME series we welcome first a new modding project in our community, The Desolation of Arda, a mod for Battle for Middle-earth II: Rise of the Witch King. The mod takes place in the Second Age and the factions planned to be included in the first release are Numenor, Eregion, Dwarves of Khazad-Dum, Mordor and Harad. We got two little article about Emperor Ar-Pharazon The Golden and Ost-In-Edhil as well as plenty of screenshots to get a first impression of the mod.
NewErr posted a little article announced that Battle For Middle Earth II Patch 1.09 V2.0 is now Live and it contains the Legolas animations shown in the previous update. You can have a full read about the announcement here and the update itself here.
pallandoya released version 0.3 of his Blue Wizard Mod for Battle for Middle-earth, writting a little article about it which you can read here, mentioning numerous features as well as a more difficult good campaign. He also showed off some other work as new Theme images and buildings.
At the minor notes we got a new update for Power Of the Ring - Campaigns Of Middle Earth and NumenoreanTalion updated his BfME Texture Pack
For the modding project Bfme mini mod we got also screenshots of the WIP Isengard spellbook to see as well as a video about new Mordor buildings
The RR_Mod got an update too, version 0.8 it is, in which Rohan got some new units and got a revamped Spellbook. Read about it more in detail here.
At Age of the Ring we got new Esgaroth buildings and units for Prince Imrahil and Galadriel to see. They wrote also a longer article about the city of Wulfborg, the capital of the Dunlendings.
And the modding project Shadow and Flame is back in active development. Shadow and Flame is a mod for Battle for Middle-earth that adds a custom Gundabad faction, overhauls original factions with new mechanics, units, heroes and spells, makes changes to the BFME1 campaign, and improves AI. Have a more detailed read about this news here.
And William created some Elven Spears for LOTR Weapon and Armour Designs.
Tolkien in games outside the modding area
The developers of The Battle for Middle-Earth: Reforged showed off Sauron and his weaponry.
That's it for the first half of February 2020. I hope it was a nice and informative overview for you about the happenings in the Tolkien Modding Community!
As always, should I have forgotten to show off the recent progress of some of your favourite mod teams, don't forget to comment about them. They will be mentioned then in the next news article. Feel also free to join the Tolkien Modding Community Discordapp.com
Best regards,
Earendil
Nice article again Earendil!
EDIT: I am really wondering is there any people using my art ;p
Perhaps one day you will see it getting used at some place ^^
Beautiful!