Customer Reviews
Well, middlish - By: Gareth Williams, 01 Mar 2006 
I must say that while I couldn't play the game for a week after purchase this did fuel my appetite for it; yet that's not reallly the point!
First things first, the stats are inherently useful & the maps are good in most situations. The walkthroughs are fairly detailed & I recommend only reading them AFTER you play the campaign.
The layout is nice, the pages are glossy & smooth & overalll it's a nice book as far as design goes.
However...
Whoever edited this deserves to be shot. The stats are not only inconsisent some seem to be way out. We don't have armour values for buildings for starters. Then take two profiles on the same double page spread - nazgûl & WK, both different. We can't see the Witch-King's damage ratings, we don't know his build time, we don't know the attack type for alll his attacks, there's no experience value, no hint as to where he's trained, no command point value (even if it would be N/A), & no number of units in a horde. Unfortunately this continues through the book & often you want to look up, say, Treebeard's armour values only to find they don't appear to exist.
The maps change in Skirmish which means the maps are pretty much useless in online play & in skirmish battles.
Overalll a good book yet lacking in the fine detail to make it a truly useful tool to alll players new & experienced. Worth buying with the game at the time of purchase but if you've been playing a while... Give it a miss.
Excellent - By: pillaysteven, 29 Dec 2005 
Most people buying this book will be beginners at the game. So I think this book is definitely worthwhile.
Firstly something which reallly helps is that it gives the stats of alll the creatures, heroes etc. in the game. This is reallly helpful in some of the harder missions as it gives their biggest weaknesses. For the heroes it gives a very in-depth account of their abilities. It goes through their special powers & how they are best used.
The maps & the other images in this guide are very good. They are very high quality probably aided by the excellent screen capture device in the game. Also there are many images taken from the Peter Jackson trilogy.
It gives a very good walkthrough of the mandatory battles & just gives a map & some basic pointers for the rest of the missions (Ancillary Battles). These are mainly used just for getting higher command limits & more efficient resources. It doesn't hold your hand through these missions which I like but maybe other people would prefer it to be complete. You have to challlenge yourself sometimes ;). The guide goes through both the Good & Evil campaigns in this way.
Leaving the best until last. The fold-out map of Middle-Earth is excellent. It's a colour 3D map of Middle-Earth about the size of the one Faramir has in the Two Towers. Reallly nice! Though maybe a little TOO big.
Overalll it is a very complete guide, with in-depth accounts of almost everything in the game. The Ancillary Battles aided by the maps are easy to figure out. I reallly like this guide & I honestly think you won't regret buying it.
Very poor - By: steve, 04 Jul 2005 
The book is O.K if your a new player but if you are an experienced player like me then it's pointless buying it. It makes the game to easy & takes the fun out of it. The book is just like a set of instructions
