Dammnit! I have been eyeballing that bear model for ages! Great bit of work. Now I finally have a use for it and… arg!

Best of luck with your other venture though. Is it wargaming/miniature related?

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I've started a new thread on the subject of my demise rather than continue here:
http://www.one-ring.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=26964

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[edited reference to deleted post]

Now, I want a better picture of that bear. In fact, I want a better picture of all of the models. I guess those will be surfacing soon.

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"Mickey, my friend!"

Oh goodness me yes!

Well, having been devouring the book for the last 2 days I have to say I couldn't be happier! Here are my thoughts:

I was initially worried when the 64 page count was announced as I thought this seemed a bit slim but this book is jam-packed with content.

The narrative scenarios look ace, really good fun ideas even if most of them are prohibitively expensive (18 Mirkwood spiders?!?!), for example the first barrels out of bond scenario would cost about £270 for all the models. However, people can always use proxies/old wood elves/old spiders/old orcs for these fun games at home and I certainly won't be held back by this. I'm definitely tempted to get the barrel set even if it is just for one scenario. It is odd that there's nothing beyond Mirkwood but then that could be because most of he action's done by then? Sure there's gonna be Leggy & Tauriel killing orcs in Laketown but maybe that's a smaller sequence than we imagined? The big action set piece to close the film is of course the dwarves v Smaug and they obviously can't have a scenario for that yet as there's no Smaug profile. The narrative campaign rules are simple and brief but nice, could be good fun.

The Mirkwood rules are a nice idea but I don't see them having all that much effect on the game beyond keeping people out of the woods as the risk outweighs the potential game. In addition, if you use the rules as written there's every chance the woods could have no effect for the whole game. I think they're a really good jumping off point for your own set of house-rules.

Great to see new points match scenarios (completely unexpected too) and they all look great fun, it's really nice to see something fresh as the old ones have obviously been around for a couple of years now. It's nice to see they're genuinely different to the old ones too a few of which were a bit samey (Hold Ground is very similar to High Ground) and these provide genuinely differs tactical challenges.

I think all 3 will be a lot of fun and I look forward to trying them out but I'm not convinced the first two (where there is a randomly determined attacker and defender) will work well for tournament games as one side will naturally have a big advantage before the game begins, I think those two are definitely more likely to see play in friendly fun games. Seize the Prize however rooks great and I imagine we'll be seeing a fair bit of that on this year's tournament scene.

The collectors guide is also cool and surprisingly large for such a small book, it's great to see some non-studio armies and I think this will be very inspirational to new gamers. The Golden Deamon page and Gandalf master class are nice additions too.

The profiles are obviously what most people are interested in and I have to say I'm largely very impressed. The show piece models are awesome with great fluffy rules that don't, on first appearance, seem broken to me. Beorn looks awesome and like he'd be great fun to use but I'm not sure he'll make his points back - not being specific but he'd have to kill 40 Moria Goblins with shield to do it - however I don't think that's his role. His special brutal power attack seems designed to be a monster killer and I think that's what we'll see him doing. I like how weak the men of Laketown are. It seems the film will depict them as an untrained household guard rather than a formal army which is nice fluff wise. It'll be interesting to see how PJ mobilises them into an army for film 3 though. Really pleased with the Gundabad orcs, they’re a nice balanced profile and aren’t broken, I can see people taking them but they won’t suddenly become the best thing ever. As I’ve said before the spiders are the biggest disappointment in the range, I love the models but they’re too expensive to buy the number you need for scenarios and rules-wise they’re completely untenable. Alfred is horrendously broken and will inevitably become tournament cheese which is a shame, his rule should only apply to heroes of Laketown. As I’ve said in previous posts I think the elves are nicely costed and balanced are are not nearly as OP as people have made out due to their very high cost. Bard looks awesome but again is a big chunk of points so seems fair. And as a final note it’s great to see Leggy and Thranduil re-introduced to the White Council list, that will sort out a few tournament frustrations/confusions.

Finally the models, I think by and large they’re absolutely gorgeous. No disrespect to Sam’s photos but all the models look far better in other pics in the book. The Gundabads look fantastic, really nice models, very large and intimidating (they’re about the same size as Azog on foot). Sure many people will think they look too much like Fighting Uruks and I’m sure we’ll see a lot of proxies in this way for friendly games but they’re certainly different enough to make me want to pick up a box so Azog’s got some guys to lead. I like the Beorn bear sculpt, there’s another photo from a different angle and I think he looks a lot better. Bard is stunning, the Master and Alfred are gorgeous and the men of Laketown look fabulously detailed, the Laketown force might be one of the best aesthetically in the whole range - love it, love it LOVE IT! There’s 1 model that’s as yet unidentified I think - on the inside front cover there’s an orc with his back to the camera just below Azog. Presumably it’s a Gundabad Captain or possibly the new-look Bolg, have to wait to Friday to know for sure!

All in all I think this is an absolutely fantastic release, I was quite worried about what we had in store but this gorgeous book is rammed with great content and should shake up the game just like AUJ did last year. Big thumbs up from me on this one - well done GW!

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No, it's Narzûg from behind.

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

Ah so it is, good spot, the angle and the tree stump were confusing me

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Just to offer another opinion, I've picked up Thranduil and Beorn and they're both perfect casts that look even better in person that they do on the website, no miscasts anywhere on either (and Beorn is MASSIVE!). If in doubt pick it up in store and have a look but I had a good look at al the other finecast clam-packs and they all seemed pretty great to me. Sorry to hear you got a bad cast though Gene, that's gotta be frustrating. Saw Southy's rangers in the flesh today too and they're simply stunning, absolutely gorgeous models.

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The Thranduil I got looks perfect.

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The one I picked up first was perfect, but I checked the other two to get a slightly straighter sword, neglecting to look at the face. Hope they're agreeable, as it really isn't fit for purpose.

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Can anyone confirm the base size of the Mirkwood Spiders? I have a ton of the warhammer spider rider spiders and want to make some into mirkwood spiders and some into the giant spiders in the Moria sourcebook. Sorry if this has already been confirmed!

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60mm.

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12th GBHL 2013.
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9th GBHL 2015


Mid Sussex Wargamers

Why does the book only have scenarios for half the film? A bit annoying to be honest. The scenarios seem to be getting more and more expensive to play now as well. The spiders alone would set you back £180!

The hobby section is ok but I feel like this is the sort of thing we should be getting in white dwarf.

The profiles seem balanced and quite interesting. Palace guards are a bit overpriced though, the same goes for Girion as well. Laketown look like they'll be fun to play and they have really nice models too.

What does everyone else think of the book?

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A mate just sent me this picture...a hint of maybe what's to come in the future. I must admit, elves wielding these would be badass.

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


Mid Sussex Wargamers

That glaive is awesome.

Scib: I have no idea - it's fairly dissapointing. I wonder if a part 2 is to come out further on down the line - it'd give GW some breathing room, and prevent things like the Warriors of Dale having to come with rules in the box. So we migt see someting more then - profiles for the Gundabad Orc General, or the a revised Bolg. Maybe give them time to decide what to do with a certain fire breathing reptile.

Some potentially severe movie spoilers below, talking about possible unreleased scenarios and differences between the game and film.

Speaking to a GW staffer yesterday and he seemed to suggest that a Smaug miniature was unlikely to happen due to the size it would need to be. He said if it did, it would likely be Forgeworld.

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A GW staffer jokingly said that if Smaug was to happen his base would be the Citadel Realm of Battle Gameboard.

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

I was wondering if anyone else had had a similar experience. It could well be that GW have told staff to play down the idea so it won't be such a shock if they don't release it.

I get the feeling that it won't happen. Between last minute design changes, scale issues and low Hobbit SBG sales, I just think GW won't think it's worth the effort.

I assume the last minute changes are also to blame for the lack of scenarios too.

edit: Really it's PJ who's (unwittingly) screwing us over here, not GW.

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Sorry if I'm missing something huge, but what happens on Friday?

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The film is out!

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Soon Master Elf, you will enjoy the fabled hospitality of the Dwarves! Roaring fires, malt beer, red meat off the bone!

Yep that's pretty much it! I meant that on Friday we'd see the new look Bolg and so know if that model on the inside cover was him but as Gothmog rightly pointed out it's Narzug from the back.



Think I've waxed lyrical enough! In short, I love it!



Yeah I thought this, it's a shame, I'm not overly familiar with High Elves but just had a glance at their profile and it seems that a Rivendell Elf (upgraded to F6 by Gil Galad) costs 3 points less than a Place Guard with the same stats. In addition, their F6 works everywhere unlike The Palace Guard which as a maximum range from Thranduil. The only other difference is Bodyguard but that hardly seems worth 3 points per model, particularly when elves already have great courage. So yeah, sadly it's hard to see how they'll get much use as they just don't seem to justify their points. Shame really as I love the theme and the models.





They were/are certainly working from early drafts of the script which always causes a few discrepancies (bear in mind these books will be sent to print 4/5 months before release). I wouldn't expect Legolas to be able to take Orcrist, that's probably quite a small sequence in the film where he's returning it to Thorin and I think it's very wise on GW's part to not allow the Leggy character to take it. The discrepancies in Alfrid's design/description are again just left over from early script versions I think.

As for the scenario things, I dunno, as of yet we really don't know how the Dol Guldur stuff will play out, I'm avoiding the spoiler reviews but the bits I've picked up have said that the Necromancer is like a black hole and isn't fully manifest yet so it might be hard to visualise him as a model and create a scenario. Similarly, we don't know how/when the Azog/Radagast/Beorn Dol Guldur scenes will play out and again perhaps they provide more scenario meat for film 3.

I would be surprised if they release another book this year in all honesty but, assuming they make a book for the next film, we might well get some DOS scenarios in that, much in the same way we got the Dimril Dale scenarios in the new book.



All of this sounds like speculation to me, the GW staff very rarely know much in advance and I would doubt they're talking from an informed standpoint, more just chucking in their best guess. Personally I think GW will end up releasing a plastic Smaug in scaled down fashion and I strongly doubt it'll be Forge World, people would have said the same thing about the Mumak but GW managed that. I've said it in this thread before but lets remember the big beasty for all of the LOTR films wasn't released either as a model or as rules with the December wave but came quite a few months later on it's own, once the design team had time to see the creature in the context of the film and work up rules to represent it. I suspect Smaug will be the same.

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