There are only 10 pictured for the plastic boxes!

Those look awesome! Shame the prices are going up. Rumoured that troop boxes are going up to £25. I'll still get it all regardless tho. Hello shiny mirkwood force.

_________________
12th GBHL 2013.
13th GBHL 2014
9th GBHL 2015


Mid Sussex Wargamers

I'm not convinced... Hello retro Mirkwood force

I don't really like the look of them, nor the price... I'll put a hold on them, phew saved me a few £££!

_________________
Leonardis
Army blog:Http://www.thewarofthering.blogspot.co.uk/

Lovely, lovely stuff, thanks Antonio - great to wake up to!

I love, love, love both the elf warrior sets, they're gorgeous models and are a billion times better than the existing wood elves.

The spiders look fantastic, nice and big, I guess that's confirmation that we'll get two per box. I'd guess from their base size they're going to be more like Shelob stat-wise than the old spiders.

Thrain, Tauriel and Thranduil all look gorgeous, I'll be picking them up day 1 (although I really wish the crouching ranger 2nd from the left in the bottom row was Tauriel - I may end up converting one!). Beorn's cool too, although as Antonio said he looks a bit flat in places, probably just the paint job though.

Not too keen on the new Leggy from this angle but I believe there may be 1 or 2 alternate poses available! I don't like the Palace Guard captains at all and the Mirkwood Captains look very cool. However, assuming the army list is anything like the current one I doubt there'll ever be a reason to take a generic captain over Thranduil, Leggy and Tauriel.

The Barrels Out of Bond set is gorgeous and I think pretty good value relative to other finecast figures (£2/3 each as opposed to £12), I reckon I'll be picking that up ready for a modelling project in the future.

It's a shame that there's only 10 models of course (particularly if the price is going up to £25) but ultimately that's within my budget so it doesn't hugely effect me.

6 spears in the palace guard is great but I'm more intrigued by the fact that ALL the Mirkwood Rangers have bows, could we be looking at a 50% bow limit elf army with 2+ to hit?!?!? I like how they've made the models different to the old Mirkwood list too: armoured elves for combat with no bows and unarmoured elves for shooting with no spears, makes for enough of a variety to make them feel different (as will the lack of Rumil and Stormcallers).

It's a shame there's no info on the book but I'm sure that will come over the next day or two, all in all I'm very happy, the got the figures I wanted right and it looks like my January painting schedule is sorted!

_________________
Finished 2nd in the 2014 GBHL. My Wife's so proud

Free SBG fanzine: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29569

Leaked pictures finally, yay!

Thrain looks nuts, I wonder what his rules will be like. Maybe similare to Denethor?
The spider bases looks huge!

Holy snowballs the Mirkwood Rangers looks excellent! The middle guy on top with his face covered looks ace! But only 10 in the box, looks like this is becoming the norm since the Warriors of Dale. That kind of sucks.

The Palace Guards are cool, but I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the cloth piece infront of their faces. I need to watch the movie before I decide if I like them or not.

_________________
- RIP Fimbul and Narzug -

I could only find the wood elves!? Where are the others?

_________________
Leonardis
Army blog:Http://www.thewarofthering.blogspot.co.uk/

Ok, I take it back.... Very nice

_________________
Leonardis
Army blog:Http://www.thewarofthering.blogspot.co.uk/

Antonio, agree with most of what you say. Not impressed with the spiders. I'll go back to converting haloween spiders then! Weight off my mind as I didn't want to "want" to buy fine cast!

Wood Elf Rangers look beautiful. Love them. As you say, palace guard are less exciting. Shall definitely be picking up those rangers.

Legolas looks distinctly constipated! I assumed, based on the price, that Leggy and Tauriel would be foot and mounted. On that basis I may get Leggy even though I don't like the footed sculpt that much. Also a good idea to teach GW that plastic heroes are viable by picking them up. Vote with your feet and all that.

In fact, all of the elf character faces seem to have eyes very close together, and with a slightly constipated look.

I like Thranduil, but not so much the face for the same reason.

Beorn- shrug. I imagined him with a gigantic bushy and auburn beard. He looks a bit like a klingon!

I do like Thrain the Broken. Very characterful model, and useful in other contexts I think.

I really like the barrels. Not sure I can be bothered to paint them though, oh, and they're finecrap too, so will probably give them a miss. Might model some large barrels to put my EfGT company in, instead.

edit: 10 per box though is sucky in the extreme. Exactly the sort of anti-customer bull one expects from GW, but up until now have been pleasantly surprised they haven't tried to pull this Devlan Mud. Trying to get you to buy three boxes to field 2 units is dirty. I hope it's just that they didn't have the page real estate to show 12 in proper resolution.

_________________
Available for Commissions!

Check out my blog: http://yggdrasilpainting.wix.com/yggdrasilpainting

I'm really really hoping for the same, but I'm afraid that's doubtfully not the case.

_________________
- RIP Fimbul and Narzug -

I really like the look of the rangers, nice.

Full company on the cheap if you don't mind them being half in barrels?

Looking forward to this release now

_________________
WIP thread: viewtopic.php?f=50&t=25860

I really like that the elf rangers are mixed gender. About time we had some regular unnamed female representation.

Im not a fan of the logs on the bases for tauriel and legolas. Bases should be left to the modeler

_________________
I think a drug habbit would be cheaper...

Shame they didn't mix them up: the figures with a design I disliked are made to look just like they should (Thranduil, Beorn), while those that looked very promising (Palace Guard) don't live up to those expectations.

The unarmoured Elves are not just a big improvement on the old variety (obviously, those are very poor) but are probably the first Hobbit figures I like at all! Some of the poses (those with blades) not so much, but others are great (hooded ones in top row). Interesting that they have two different kinds of bows.

Captains are much less interesting, Legolas is too broad (both chest and face), Tauriel doesn't look too bad.

Spiders.. good luck to anybody who wants those, 8 1.2mm thick finecast legs per model...

Barrel Company looks good, though it's much easier to go true to the book and simply use some closed barrels!

Poor Thráin looks barking mad, hope they don't pull too much of a Radagast on him (i.e. make him look like an idiot for no reason whatsoever).

Might just about think of getting some of these, but if the plastics are increased in price (again) and the amount of models per box decreased (again, and especially nasty with the Warband system)...

Those Mirkwood Ranger's ...:O they look exactly like they should , so amazing that they almost like the cool Mirkwood Ranger's from BFME2 Game on PC if anyone has played it. Palace Guard may need a slight conversion and a better paint job. Legolas , not the best pose ive seen . The source book will most likely have the profiles of other models yet to be released ( January - June window ), i mean they can't do it all like the Men of Dale with little slip cards ha ha

Inspiration to make a custom built Mirkwood with an evil and good elven part with lots and lots of trees and undergrowth : TICK!

GW have really stepped up their game these last 2 years when it comes to sculpts. These look absolutely amazing, and I do mean ALL of them. Thranduil especially is perfect.

_________________
"Mickey, my friend!"

I bet they will make it like the Army of Thror , you cannot put old LOTR Mirkwood with Hobbit Mirkwood in same warband but can ally them.

So a 50% bow Limit could make sense to be honest.

Looks like the Ultimate Bundle will be ALOT less than last year ( £447 ). There is barely £250 worth of items in this release.

I'm loving Legolas! Everything looks great except for the spiders. They're just too generic and looks like it's going to be $35 for one. Also seems as though we're going to get 10 in a box not 12, of course these at only a few pics so don't jump on me for saying so.

Awesome. Sculps are way better then with the lotr range. Sadly there only ten figs in a box. Not even a full warband.

_________________
Backlog:
21/01/2015: still 319 Models to paint or 27,01%
30/12/2016: Somehow the backlog has risen up to 900+ models :/

Lovely, Mirkwood here I come! I'll try to reduce the size of legolas and Tauriel's log bases a touch.

The only real disapointment to me are the Palace Guard captains. Who I have to buy regardless - I need at least one to convert into Oropher! (A proper War of the Last Alliance is finally within my grasp.)

The spiders are much larger than i expected. Something for me to consider in future.