Games Workshop's many and varied Warhammer games have featured no shortage of spiders over the years. Some are vivid, cartoonish beasts ridden by goblins, others are steel-legged, mechanical terrors powered by shackled chaos daemons. But I'm struggling to remember a single one that gave me the screaming collywobbles quite as hard as Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game's brand new Shelob.
Revealed via GW's Warhammer Community site on Monday, this utterly horrendous arachnid is a long awaited party - sorry, I mean a long awaited replacement - for Shelob's venerable, 13 piece metal miniature, released with Middle-Strategy Battle Game's Return of the King wave way back in 2004. Except this one is all in plastic, which is very good news for anyone who likes building models without losing the will to live and getting superglue everywhere.
GW's Monday reveal doesn't specify or show the new Shelob's size but, judging by GW's other modern centerpiece models, especially in the Age of Sigmar armies - we can expect it to be a chunk larger than its predecessor, which sat on a very modest 60mm base.
Sure, MESBG models are sculpted at a smaller scale than Sigmar or Warhammer 40k but, looking at the detail and sculpted basing of this eight legged femme fatale, if it's not at least 30% bigger than the 2004 Shelob, I'm a Morannon Orc.
It's coming in the snappily titled "The Path of Cirith Ungol: Shelob & Gollum" boxset, which GW says is coming to pre-order "in the coming months". Like the original 2004 'In the Clutches of Shelob' set, she comes packed with Frodo in his spider silk burrito form. Unlike that set, the third included mini isn't Samwise Gamgee, but a brand new Gollum, shown scrambling over the rocks of Cirith Ungol, with needle teeth bared angrily in a look that's far more Stinker than Slinker.
It's all in aid of GW's latest narrative mini-campaign book for Middle-earth, The Treachery of Gollum. Alongside sundry hobby tips, the 48 page supplement's main offering is a set of "nine new narrative scenarios covering the hobbits' journey through Cirith Ungol, and their encounters with Shelob and Gollum", which I'm sure you remember from the beginning of The Return of the King, because you're smart like that.
Monday's Warcom reveal says these "can be played as a standalone scenario, or as part of a longer campaign with rules that change depending on whether the Good or Evil forces win".
This style of play and design fits particularly well into MESBG's general gamefeel, as I noted in my review of the new edition's starter set, Battle of Edoras. I've never tried one of these narrative mini-campaigns in such a confined, non-battle setting, though - so I'll be fascinated to see whether MESBG's wonderfully crunchy hero mechanics can bring one of Lord of the Rings' scariest segments to life on the tabletop.
A newer, bigger, scarier Shelob will certainly help. The 2004 original's aggressive, rearing fight pose is out, and GW has instead opted to show her right before the attack on Frodo and Sam: hunched ominously above them, creeping silently as she seeks her moment to strike. Personally, that makes her all the more terrifying.
Luckily, I didn't want to sleep tonight anyway. If this ancient, appalling arthropod scares you as much as she does me, come huddle together for safety in the free Wargamer Discord community (Phial of Galadriel not included).