TMC News - October 2020

After a long time now the newsletter for October 2020. Plenty of things happened in the past six months, so have mercy on me when I forget to mention some mod activity. ^^

At the TROW Mod for Battle for Middle-earth II: Rise of the Witch King Symonius is working eager at new units. They look pretty dope I have to say. He released at the end of September an alpha version of his mod which you can find here. He also wrote a little article about the main features of his mod, up for reading here.

It's also very nice to see the progress at the An Edain SubMod here, it has been a longer break since February. I think it's a pretty outstanding design for the evil faction of the Men of Khand, a very good job!

bilbothehobbit is also working eagerly at his modding project, the RR_Mod. A new beta version has been released which you can find here. He also wrote a little article about fortress upgrades and more which you can look up here.

I have also read that the developers of Age of the Ring are now concentrating on the new faction of the evil men of Haradwaith. They still published two articles about the faction Greenwood, about the Spells of the Elvenking and the Faction Leader Thranduil in general. While some are giving the Elven faction the last polish, the most seem to have moved their concentration towards the newly announced faction of which one could already get first glimpses.

The developers of the Edain Mod released meanwhile the patch 4.5.4 which you can find here. They noted a new upgrade system for Rivendell, new units for Mirkwood and some other little stuff.

For the predecessor game Battle for Middle-earth there has also been some recent activity at the Bfme mini mod, at the faction Mordor to be more precise.

At the mod Folks of Middle Earth (edain submod) Cirdan made his entry.

And lastly, The Ridder Clan Mod showed off some work at Thranduil's Halls and animations for Legolas, about which you can have a short read here.

At the game Medieval II: Total War: Kingdoms the mod Castellan's Visual Enhancemets & Overhaul for Divide And Conquer is also getting some love.

At the mod Silmarillion: Total War the developers are also active as always. New models and animations have been added. I am a bit irritated by the slinger units, they don't fit for me into that setting but bring something creatively new into a Tolkien themed mod.

The developers of Heirs of Elendil have finished now one of the most crucial characters of any LotR settings without whom Middle Earth would not be the same: Samwise Gamgee. Yes, they also made Merry and Gothmog but lets concentrate on the important characters ^^

At the mod Third Age: Reforged they are currently working at Dale.

And for DCI: Last Alliance a first patch has been released which you can find here. Otherwise I saw pictures of Hunter Spiders and Great Forest Spiders of Mirkwood ^^

Some activity can also be noted at the modding project War of the Silmarils, an event for the Dagor Bragollach got implemented into the mod.

Lastly, some little activity can also be noted at Conflicts of Eriador, showing off some new falx weapon for the Volseggi clan of Rhudaur.

I also nearly missed that the developers of The Fourth Age: Total War created a new page for the expansion Total War: Wainriders for the game Rome: Total War. They could have written that down somewhere more clearly :P
Anyway, they are one of the most active mod teams currently. You can read articles with faction previews about the Chiefdom of the Angren, Khand, Woodland Realm, Umbar and the Black Forest Tribes.

Sara_Temer is enhancing the modding project Last Alliance: Total War for Total War: Shogun 2. The proof has been given that 46 playable factions are possible at the game and thus at mods. Otherwise there is nice new work at the campaign map and some models.

At the modding project Total War: Rise of Mordor for the game we get a bunch of new design concepts to see, for the prologue Arnor troops as well as for the Hobbits and Mordor Uruks.

At Legends of Middle-Earth 5.0 for the game Age of Mythology: The Titans Venlesh/Edu wrote an article, Road to The New Shadow Campaign. He wrote that he is pretty busy since he released the mod at the steam workshop as well (who would have guessed :P) where the mod is also getting constant updates. Furthermore he reminded that the next major update will entail a complete visual overhaul to the Gondorians, have a full read about it here. Don't miss the video he made with his fancy bird on the shoulder ^^

Coming to my own modding home, Mount & Blade: Warband. The poor fellows at Persistent Lord of the Rings (PLotR) are still a bit struggeling with setting up all servers needed for their release, Kael_ also linked now a Patreon in the comments. It might be a choice to go with less servers and don't have the whole of Middle Earth at the beginning, starting with a themed region. But that's up to them how they arrange it in the end.

On another note, TLD Overhaul and Middle Earth at War have now a common development team, Precious Potatoes. While both mods are getting developed independently, they share now a common resource pool to progress at least a bit faster but certainly not slowier ^^

For Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord the modding tools have finally been released, a lot of activity at modding there in general. At the Silmarillion they wrote now a little article about that they will now make little development blogs which I thought they wanted to do already but forgot about them. We will see what the future brings there ^^

The developers of Kingdoms of Arda are meanwhile making good use of the modding tools, how imperfect they might be at the moment. They showed off a bunch of screenshots of how all the models at which they worked until now look ingame, some eyecandy for all the mod followers. MacbethTheTyrant is also making a video tutorial series about scening with the new mod tools, working of course at the mod as an example.

The relatively new modding project LotR: Realms in Exile is flourishing as well. I noticed new models, renders and user interfaces.

MikeTheEmperor wrote two articles for The Ring Roleplay Project - TRRP, giving a nice short read about the Southern Coast and the Southern Hinterlands.

And at The Battle for Middle-Earth: Reforged the developers presented concept art for a Elven worker and Glorfindel.