So, I've been eyeing the SBG since it came out. Now I'm pretty much ready to make the plunge and I thought I'd start with good forces and mostly cavalry. Rohan came to mind right off the bat, and a friend gave me some mounted Knights of Dol Amroth - so far so good.

Now that I'm actually trying to make a list and buy models and rules, I'm getting very confused and frustrated:
1) Captain and Standard Bearer for Dol Amroth (mounted and on foot) models are just gone from the GW web site.
2) Legions of Middle Earth no longer available (point values for everything, pretty much).
3) Shadow in the East no longer available (imporant Rohan guys in there).
4) In fact, all of the Sourcebooks are no longer available, only the main rules and the Journeybooks.

So... at the risk of sounding whiny and immature: WTF? How does a beginner assemble the rules he needs to play the models he wants? Is it just Aragorn vs. Sauron or nothing?

Hello! Good to see an SBG'er! Unfortunately GW have completely neglected their LOTR range for at least 6-12 months, some might rightly say a lot longer. Now that's not to say you can't find what you need

EBAY is your best option - most older items including sourcebooks are a lot cheaper than the retail prices GW used to charge however this may mean it is used. This is not a bad thing in my opinion unless the items are heavily painted in which case you may wish to avoid them. Damaged items are easy to fix with superglue and offer conversion opportunities. There are independant online stores who sell the newer models, check the 'Suppliers Forum' in the One Ring Board Index and there should be links

D.A. command - be quick!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LOTR-SBG-Knig ... 7650626269

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As for the shadow in the east profiles I believe the only rohan profile in there is Eorl the young (http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_Cus ... ofiles.pdf) The catch with Eorl is he REALLY limites unit choices and ally choices. For example, Eorl can only have mounted units in his force. So if you wanted any other models such as Eomer or Theoden, your out of luck. So as a beginner, I advise you not to go with eorl at first.

Yep, it's a pretty bad situation. It didn't help that the Hobbit movies got delayed, I'm sure that threw their plans off...but that's no excuse for how they've treated the game.
For Rohan, luckily for you the bulk of extra profiles are in the Two Towers journey book.

I think this highlights my quandry. Where does it say this about Eorl only having mounted units?
BTW, my theme/plan/whatever was to only have mounted units, so that wouldn't be a problem for me.

The e-bay tip is a good one. The linked auction is actually for models still available from GW, but I'll start looking for the no longer available stuff.

That would be in the Legions of Middle Earth rulebook which should still be available on the GW site or on eBay.

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All mounted armies are also quite difficult to field as you will soon find out if you have someone to play against. If the dice love you, you can take out the entire front row of a shield wall with calvary, but if they dont like you, you will quickly find yourself outnumbered and losing ground. Rohan has a decent foot section, so don't ignore it completly (So far my greatest success has been grimbold and his helmingas, but to date I've never beaten an isengard force). That said, if you do plan on continuing with an all mounted force, my recomendation is to bulk up on riders of rohan. Seriously, in a small amount, they arent that scary, but I've seen 12+ of these guys just rip into an enemies line. If your going for higher points then I'd advise you to start looking for an an ally (if your going with dol amroth then perhaps some of them, but gondor knights are a better fit (not as expensive as dol amroth)). Use your riders as your mounted archery units and your ally to spearhead your attacks, but as your new, im probably just complicating things more than actually helping you right now

It is OOP and currently not available in either place, but I did find a FLGS that had several copies lying around, as well as an old Dol Amroth Captain Foot and Mounted (also OOP) and some other metals that had not had the price increases put on, so I was just able to get myself a decent start.

It's still frustrating trying to assemble the information that I want to have available. Not only are most of the books no longer available, but even if they all were I couldn't afford to buy them all. Still, I think I have almost all of the rules for Dol Amroth and Rohan and that's a fine start.

I have played a few games against a friend who likes to run Morgul Knights and Black Numenoreans, so he's not pulling punches and can be very hard to beat. I have another friend getting into it who is going with the Dunedain, which would be stiff competition with the Morgul Knights, but I don't want to run the same army as him. Right now I think I'm going to start with Imrahil and Knights of D.O. and D.O. pikemen up to 500 points or so, and then start adding Rohan folks to that. Might not be a great army, but it'll be fun and cheaper in a dollars per point sense and I'll learn my mistakes as I go.

Thanks for the help and advice!

If you're looking for profiles and troop information, I suggest you start here:
viewtopic.php?f=46&t=14714

viewtopic.php?f=49&t=16149

And read a few of the posts as well since people keep on updating it with links, especially look for lonelyknight's army builder link, that will help you a ton for building an SBG army.

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My Lotr backlog: 305/952[][][][][][][][][][]32% completed
Painting Lineup: Mumakil x2, Rohan Heroes x8, Haradrim, SKoDA

Ah, that kinda helps a lot in the sense that it explains why I'm having so much trouble. All the Galadhrim are White Dwarf only?

Edit: Ahh, success! The White Dwarf archives on the GW site have rules for the Galadhrim! Thanks Sacrilege! I'd looked at the resource list before, but just didn't think to try the GW site for the WD articles. Somehow I'll piece this all together.