Laketown scenery would sell...as it could be used by a number a different games. Shame they are not releasing it now.

That explains the legolas and tauriel "scenic" bases then.

Yeah, things are looking bleak for a There and Back Again starter at this point. Shame really, it would have been good. In fairness though, tons of independent shops around me do still have at least a copy or two of EfGT. If they lowered the prices at all, I might be tempted to buy them. Then again, I really don't like the Hobbit style Goblins very much.

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Gondor: 2339pts
Rohan: 1318pts
Dwarves: 2482pts
Elves: 1091pts
Mordor: 2305pts
Isengard: 1762pts
Moria: 1463pts
Evil Men: 381pts

The more i think about this....the more sadder...and even angrier I get that they are not releasing Laketown scenery.

I would just love to see pics of what could have been.....

you guys dream 2 much about it... lol

Just flicking back through this thread and wanted to explain how this doesn't make any sense. Not even foolish GW would go to the expense of manufacturing products and then not selling them. The Laketown scenery exists because there is video evidence, so we know that at some point that will be released (probably in the starter set for TABA, because it's likely that the first hour of the film, maybe more, will revolve around Laketown so to me it seems realistic that the scenery will appear in this set).

Same logic with the DOS starter set. GW would not manufacture something and not sell it. If it exists, then the costs of manufacture have already taken place, so they have already lost money. Regardless of last years sales, GW would market it anyway to cover as much of the production costs as possible, rather than just saying: 'So we've just spent £10'000 on making DOS sets, let's not sell them because last year we spent the same but only made £6000' (figures are made up obviously).

When it comes to 'other models' being made but not released, that's plausible, but they might not necessary be finished models. GW has failed to release many miniatures in their history, but often these have been unfinished or most commonly prototype miniatures, normally used as placeholders while they finalise things. There are many, many examples, but regrettably I can't think of any off the top of my head. I vaguely remember seeing a Smeagol miniature (human/non-corrupt form)that I didn't recognise once in a magazine, and to my knowledge that has never been released. It's also plausible that some models were held back due to the late news of two films becoming three, so while they are not yet available, they might be in the near future.

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Wise Old Elf

If GW has any sense, they will anticipate people losing their sh#t over the Battle of five armies and will release a nice big starter set containing the basic core troops needed.

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My old WIP thread - http://www.one-ring.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=16246&start=0

keep dreaming lol

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it takes several years for GW to produce a 'starter set', what with all of the advance planning, sculpting, tooling, design etc...

Could it be that GW only ever planned to do 2 starter sets because there was only meant to be 2 movies? It's pretty obvious that the switch to three movies caught them (and other license partners) off guard.

So maybe the Desolation of Smaug book was just a quick gap filler while they worked on the starter set for movie 3.

Just a theory.

@Joe5mc -- I think that's actually a pretty plausible scenario. If you look at the DOS releases, they don't seem to be nearly as well-planned and we know that PJ has thrown many people for a loop with all of his changes.

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Respectfully,
Jonathan

Do what is right, love mercy, and walk humbly

Battle Companies

Great theory. Very strange to not get a starter set. I think we should expect one to be released for the third film.

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My old WIP thread - http://www.one-ring.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=16246&start=0

I'd not be overly surprised either way. The 'they only planned for two movies' explaination makes a ton of sense considering the lead time on these products, and considering how much other merchandising was caught off guard by it. But I also wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't one, because the rules don't really demand a massive update (unless they give us some kind of 'expansion' style update to the rulebook, like the siege rules added to TTT. I could see them perhaps trying to make larger games flow more smoothly, similar to the way Warhammer historical used the lotR rules, but expanded them for mass battles with the Alamo book. Might justify another edition.)

Then again, new spells in the AUJ rulebook that no one uses would suggest they were thinking ahead with that edition, and expected it to cover everything. (But it peeves me that they didn't just call it Hobbit SBG, in that case. Irritating.)


Either way, the potential loss of the Laketown scenery would be a bummer. It seems like such a good seller, with lots of uses outside of Hobbit/Lotr, and being much more interesting than the Goblin Town platforms. (Because houses are innately more fun than a flat piece of plastic, regardless of how nice said flat bit of plastic can look with half a grand's worth of it's brothers and sisters making a display board.). But, I suppose, if they were only considering two movies, and we go with the "TDOS screwed everybody's plans" theory then it's possible they felt the need to hold it back until movie 3, not knowing that any action would take place in Laketown during movie 2, due to the expanded nature of the film, until it was too late to draw up stuff to actually use the terrain with (hence no laketown scenarios in the book).

I think that was the general consensus about 6 months ago (at least I heard quite a few people saying it), then I think someone said there would be a starter set and people believed it.

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"Leave Sauron to me."
If you're in the Raleigh, NC area, let me know.

Solid points, and ones that Im struggling to get my head around myself. I guess all the production/transport/spaceshelf have to be taken into consideration? Maybe they compared it to the Goblin Town scenery sales (foolishly, as laketown would sell 500x better) and decided not to do it.

I dont think its too expensive to make prototypes and the like, Im no expert thoughThe more I think about it the more I think they might release it!

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“Advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, all courses may run ill.”

This idea sounds great, I want to believe it which clearly helps me support it but there are some facts behind it as well. If you watch the Production vlogs it's clear that the decision to transfer to three movies came quite late in proceedings (I sure you can see stuff from the 3rd movie in some of them) so it would make sense that GW was caught of guard. It would have made more sense for them to put the set for what would have been the second movie in one of the events that occurs in the 3rd movie there are just so many more better scenarios.

Here's hoping for either

Go in and see if they'll do you a deal. My local independent place has stopped stocking the hobbit as it wasnt selling well. He's got about 600-700 quids worth I'd say that's been there since day 1. I know my shop gets itchy if there's stock lying on the shelves from last season, they'll lower it to ridiculous prices just to shift it.

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Exactly that. Why we got 3 starter sets during the first trilogy was largely due to the evolving nature of the game. Just because we aren't getting starter sets does not mean that the game is "doomed." It just means the rules do not need updating. GW updates the other two games starter boxes about every 5 years, I don't see why they wouldn't apply the same logic to this game.

Plus, the hobbit is a different beast than lotr. LOTR evolves during the course of the movie. Battles in the hobbit are by and large the same until BOFA.

A lot has happened behind the scenes with the production of The Hobbit. Azog changed his look 5 or 6 times. PJ couldn't settle on a 4 legged or 2 legged smaug for a long time - which would have direct impact in the sculpting time needed to make something that big.

Also, if we didn't get shown accidental laketown scenery, then we wouldn't know it exists. There is still almost 2 years before GW releases everything for The Hobbit, so it could come at any point during that time, if it does.

I also don't believe GW has shelved a bunch of stock because of poor sales they will never release. IMO, they are waiting for BOFA, the battle against the Necromancer, and the attack on Laketown to drive future sales.

This year, we're just getting a strange, smattering of miniatures that were essentially not required to play the bigger scenarios that were supposed to come out with either the first movie or the second. Lego had a disastrous first year because they were releasing toys with wrong names and for scenes that no one had seen yet.

So, we got Gundabad orcs this year. They didn't do anything in the movies except walk. We have no idea what role they play in the future of the story. But I imagine we will be getting a plastic box of some other kind of orc from the BOFA and these will be part of the Necromancer fight.