where are the new hobbit minis?

Farmer Maggot · **Posted:** Fri Jul 18, 2014 12:51 pm

Men of Dale came out without any existing rules. So it has been done before.

ElfGeneral · **Joined:** Fri May 11, 2012 6:04 pm **Posts:** 336

LordElrond wrote:

I wrote this just before I saw your post:

High Elf Scout Riders. 10pts
F. S. D. A. W. C.
1/3+ 3. 3. 1. 1. 5

Wargear:
Unarmed, Elven Bow, horse (12" move)

Special rules
Expert Rider
Woodland Creature
Parthian shot: High Elf Scout Riders may shoot even if they have moved their full 10".
Riding light: High Elf Scout riders travel light in order to travel swift. They always count as unarmed and do not gain an extra attack when they charge.

They would go in the Erigion and Rivendell list so that they could not be abused and spammed, and so that they would be purely the 'scouts' of the army.

As you can see, they are hopeless in melee, too hopeless for an elf, but they sort of need to be that bad in at least one area to make them cheap enough to be worth taking.

Great minds think alike it would seem I like your idea but I have two little changes, first you've given them 12'' move but their bow rule says they can move THEIR FULL 10'' I think you meant 12'' (just a typo I think). That brings me onto my second point 10-12'' move a shoot seems a bit much as they can run away and shoot at everything even other cav/monsters/bats/dragorns etc. I'd say give them 12'' move and no -1 to shoot penalty for moving half meaning they can run around and skrirmish foot models who are only move six but they are catchable. I'm just thinking of late game stratergies where you could give them a hornblower and send glorfindel over and then they'd auto-pass all courage tests and just be able to run 12 shoot every turn until the enemy was dead or had run away

SouthernDunedain · **Posted:** Sat Jul 19, 2014 12:15 pm

Farmer Maggot wrote:

Men of Dale came out without any existing rules. So it has been done before.

Well they were released with rules in the box so they kinda existed

Farmer Maggot · **Posted:** Sat Jul 19, 2014 12:57 pm

True, but it means anything else without current rules could be released and have rules in the box.

Sithious · **Posted:** Sat Jul 19, 2014 2:59 pm

Actually a good many models came out without any rules since RotK. After WotR was released, every single release that came out was not given rules for SBG until 1 or 2 months later in a white dwarf issue. I had many photocopies of Profiles from that era that I had to drag around. For a whole year that was the norm, to release models with no rules and no supplement to back them up.
If anyone remembers, the Army of the dead and the King of the dead were not in the One Rulebook when it came out, they 'forgot' to put them in. So until they corrected this with a PDF download there was technically no rules (well other than what was available before hand). but that was a funny piece of SBG history.
So I think they could do that with any release they want if they felt it better fit the market or release schedule (it any of this even comes into consideration). From a 'spoiler' POV, Smaug is that secret you want people to watch the movie to see, you want people to 'hear' how cool he was and then go watch the film. So I think it makes sense to not show their hand just yet and keep him for the third film. But they should make him. If they were going to spoil it, then they should wait until November when the extended release comes out and use it as a build for the December film. Since even GW is working within the confines of the film schedule and how they want to release merchandise, info, leak spoilers, etc., then We should not expect GW to release something just because we saw it in the movie. After the films are all out and the market has been milked then these little spoilers (like showing what Smaug looked like) actually help renew interest and a smart marketing ploy to plan for these.

LordoftheBrownRing · **Posted:** Sun Jul 20, 2014 12:10 am

I dont get why people want Smaug so bad.....do you all have like $200, a whole table to store it, and a room large enough to play with him on the battlefield? I dont.

JamesR · **Posted:** Sun Jul 20, 2014 1:23 am

LordoftheBrownRing wrote:

I dont get why people want Smaug so bad.....do you all have like $200, a whole table to store it, and a room large enough to play with him on the battlefield? I dont.

You're drastically overestimating his size.
I don't particularly care about gaming with him (although I will).I just want to PAINT HIM! Lol

John · **Posted:** Sun Jul 20, 2014 1:24 am

LordoftheBrownRing wrote:

I dont get why people want Smaug so bad.....do you all have like $200, a whole table to store it, and a room large enough to play with him on the battlefield? I dont.

Well many of us are in the hobby as collectors as opposed to gamers. Its smaug, who doesn't want him. Affording, well that is an entirely different question all together :sad:

Grungehog · **Posted:** Sun Jul 20, 2014 8:23 am

Sithious wrote:

Actually a good many models came out without any rules since RotK. After WotR was released, every single release that came out was not given rules for SBG until 1 or 2 months later in a white dwarf issue. I had many photocopies of Profiles from that era that I had to drag around. For a whole year that was the norm, to release models with no rules and no supplement to back them up.
.

They all had Wotr rules, pre sbg rule releases, so not entirely accurate there sithious, though it is definitely a good example of Gw wangling new models about.

LordoftheBrownRing · **Posted:** Sun Jul 20, 2014 10:07 pm

JamesR wrote:

LordoftheBrownRing wrote:

I dont get why people want Smaug so bad.....do you all have like $200, a whole table to store it, and a room large enough to play with him on the battlefield? I dont.

You're drastically overestimating his size.
I don't particularly care about gaming with him (although I will).I just want to PAINT HIM! Lol

Ahhhh I missed some of the words I was typing on mobile. I meant a whole section of a table. In order to not break him you need more space.

Ellorindar · **Joined:** Wed Apr 17, 2013 10:41 pm **Posts:** 111

OK guys, let's take a step back and look at the bigger picture regarding the Smaug model. Let's say that they do have to keep to a similar scale to the movies, perhaps reduced slightly to make him roughly the size of a mumak.
Recently Games Workshop has been moving to making larger and larger models- I'm surprised no one has mentioned the gigantic Tau which debuted not six months ago. That thing is bigger than any model I've ever seen, so to say that GW won't make a Smaug simply because of size is not right.

If they are making a huge model of Smaug- bigger than the balrog, fell beast, or mumak, the secrecy would be beyond doubt. If they are going to release it, it will be show stopper and the crown of the Hobbit and LOTR range. There is no way they would release photos of the model before hand in order to make as grand an entrance as possible.

Because of the whole "two films becoming three" debacle, (which didn't just affect Games Workshop but every single merchandiser by the way), as well as the timelines of film releases being up in the air, I'm not surprised that the releases of models has been all over the place.

I would hope for a release similar to EFGT, a big box with a multitude of different figures, featuring new Thorin's company, new wood elf warriors, men of dale, gundabads in plastic (I can dream of a better world) to get players most of the way towards a battle of five armies. Whether or not this will happen is speculation.

Sithious · **Posted:** Mon Jul 21, 2014 12:23 pm

JamesR wrote:

LordoftheBrownRing wrote:

I dont get why people want Smaug so bad.....do you all have like $200, a whole table to store it, and a room large enough to play with him on the battlefield? I dont.

You're drastically overestimating his size.
I don't particularly care about gaming with him (although I will).I just want to PAINT HIM! Lol

Looking at some scenes. Bilbo u against the pillar holding his hands out to mimick how big Smaug is when his tail and head are in shot. And the scene of Thorin standing on Smaugs head. I think they can pass with a 12"/24cm oval base and have a huge dragon that looks pretty close to the correct scale for our models.

Rules however, he would definitely be able to land anywhere on the table on any move phase. He would probably have some thrash attack that knocks everyone nearby to the ground. and his fire attack as a missile weapon will probably consume quite a nice area of models. It would be a monumental effort to make him balanced for the game without having scenario specific ways to kill him or some type of bane so he can be defeated in some way by any/all armies in SBG.

Sacrilege83 · **Posted:** Mon Jul 21, 2014 3:37 pm

^Yeah Smaug is a one model army, how fun can that be to game with? Doesn't sound appealing unless you give him hordes of orcs and goblins and allow the good side to field any and every kind of hero available.

Ellorindar · **Joined:** Wed Apr 17, 2013 10:41 pm **Posts:** 111

Just a quick note also re. Smaug's size.

I just had a quick flick through DOS and found the scene where Thorin balances (?!) on Smaug's nose. After facepalming a little bit at the strange sight I noted that the size difference of Thorin and Smaug in the movie is akin to EFGT Thorin and a tamiya spray can, roughly speaking.

Please see below helpful demonstration.

As you can hopefully tell, the spray can represents the dragon's head. Judging by this, I would put Smaug, if in a 'real life scale' to the model Thorin, at least a few feet in length. His wingspan would probably be at least two feet across. He would need to be in a landed position as above in order to be at all feasible to work on a gaming board or even a shelf.

Sithious · **Posted:** Mon Jul 21, 2014 10:11 pm

instead of arguing scale. Lets just look at what they can do.
check this out;

Can you guys live with 8"-10" as I show above direct from the film. I think it looks just fine at this size compared to Frodo and in this pose too. and can it on a 12" base as I originally thought would work.

Dr Grant · **Joined:** Fri Aug 03, 2012 1:50 pm **Posts:** 1339

Sacrilidge83 and Sithious, it's funny that you've both used that shot of Smaug as your example, I've paused the movie several times for various people and said that it would make a fantastic pose for the model. It's the obvious choice as much of his body would be obscured and with some clever modelling of the base (as a giant pile of gold) you wouldn't even need to show the rest of his body as it could be assumed to be under the gold.

As for scale it's fairly irrelevant, I think Ellorindar has perhaps best demonstrated how big the model would have to be if it was at full size and it's quite clear the model would have to be scaled down.

All the big beasties in the game have been scaled down before so I see no reason they won't do the same for Smaug. I would expect a glorious plastic model in a pose similar to the one above to be released in December with the next sourcebook for £100+.

As for the one model army, maybe, but that's part of the appeal, he's a giant monster, collector's will want him to paint, narrative payers will want him for scenarios and some gamers will want him for armies. I'd expect him to be about 500 points and have rules similar to a dragon with all the upgrades.

Assuming all the above is true I'd be first in line to pick him up....and put him in my box to paint in 94 years time...

Oldman Willow · **Posted:** Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:41 pm

Size of the dragon model.

I remember the discussion from when the rumor was current. I think the model would have to be size of a 1/72 B52. Expensive but doable.

I like this one myself. I have been looking for another toy. I am going to cut the head off and model it covered in gold. I just have to look until I find something that is close.

Dr Grant · **Joined:** Fri Aug 03, 2012 1:50 pm **Posts:** 1339

Yeah, it's hard to tell of course but that dragon looks roughly the size of some of the latest 40K big kits so would be very achievable and would be sufficiently huge for our game - fingers crossed!

Dezartfox · **Posted:** Tue Jul 22, 2014 8:13 am

The only limitation they have is the box size if it's to be made in plastic, go take a look at one of the big kit boxes. One of those could be his wing size.... One wing... They could easily make him in plastic on three sprues that'd fit in a box.

The only thing they will think about will be will it sell well enough to warrant the cost of the mold.

Or they will simply hand it over to forgeworld to do.

Grungehog · **Posted:** Tue Jul 22, 2014 1:22 pm

Forgeworld don't have the license.

where are the new hobbit minis?

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