mertaal wrote:
it doesn't suddenly make an army that doesn't take advantage of the new shiny toys unplayable. But it does change the way you might think about constructing your list and operating in-game...In my opinion, mixing things up and changing around the dynamic is a good thing, and keeps the game alive and vibrant.
Creaky wrote:
I seem to recall, perhaps not on this site, but certainly locally for me, some discussion when AUJ came along that Heroes and Warriors alike were overpowered. Eventually, it turned out that, whilst potent on paper, they still had disadvantages, weaknesses, or areas that they did not excel in, balancing things out. Azog is a beast, especially against Heroes, but if he looses a fight, or gets shot at, then he's in real trouble because he has very little fate and armour. I suspect we'll see something similar here - Tauriel and co are tricksy against hordes, but a tough hero, magic or some dedicated sniping might expose their weaknesses
I completely agree with the two posts above, new rules always seem overpowered as we haven't worked out ways to counter them yet. Sure a 100% bow limit Elf army with extra combat punch seems unstoppable now but bear in mind these armies won't have Stormcallers, won't have spears, won't have 2+ shooting and will be all D3. There will certainly be ways to crack it. I actually think GW have so far done a great job with the Hobbit releases of releasing cool new troops/characters with advantages and disadvantages without too much power creep. Hunter orcs are great when they win but die in droves when they lose. Thrian's awesome but doesn't get Burly, Thror's awesome but potentially only has 1 Fate, Azog's awesome offensively but his defence is low, Grimhammers are widely considered underpowered etc. I think the same will be true of the new releases, Tauriel sounds great but I'm guessing she's D4 (5 max) so will be quite easy to take down with shooting
Big Dog wrote:
Was planning on a spider list but with the rules being a bit underwhelming I might just buy some of the older spiders.
That's quite the understatement, they seem to be massively underpowered and overcosted which is a real shame as I was gonna get a few but they seem utterly unviable for points match games. Not to mention the fact that you supposedly need 6 and 18 (That's £200 of Finecast spiders!!!!!) for the two spider scenarios so sadly I'll have to give these a miss en mass, they're the only stat/rules rumours I've heard that I've been disappointed with to be honest (again, supports my 'no-huge power creep' theory). I'll probably still get one box though just cos the figures are so nice.
SouthernDunedain wrote:
Warriors of dale are slightly better fighters than the laketown guard and the laketown cannot take shields.
No shields?!?!? Wow, so do Laketowners officially take the crown as worst troop anywhere ever? Basic men without shields, hear me tremble!
It's a bit of a shame as they feature prominently in my master-plan tournament force for this year! Ah well, they'll still be cool figures to buy and paint and I'll just have to grin and bear the stats, I suppose they make sense fluff-wise for what looks like a fairly run-down town (love the look of movie Laketown BTW).
black1blade wrote:
Look at the hordes of batch painted hunter orcs! They actually have on one of the ones they painted for AUJ in the bottom left corner and you can really see the difference
You're nearly spot on but they're not batch painted by the studio, all those yellow/orange orcs are actually Duncan Rhodes' army! I'm sure they look nice enough and everything but it's a shame to see that the studio aren't even willing to put the painting resources into the game (it looks like they'd only need to do one more box of Hunter orcs and two more of Hunter Orcs on Wargs). I must admit I find that sort of thing slightly frustrating and lazy for big glamour photography for supplement books.
Bartelomeus wrote:
Man, those Gundabad Orcs are shiny. I was anticipating big, scruffy Orc's like we saw during the AUJ flashback.
See my comment above about the other models in that photo being Duncan Rhodes', it's actually quite possible that those orcs are his own ones and not the studio versions, they certainly look more batch painted than 'front of box' quality. I agree on the appearance but this is surely down to the paint job, I'll need a closer look to be sure, hopefully there's more pics in the book (14 hours to go!) but a dirty, rusty paint-job should make a big difference. Who knows though, perhaps that's how they're portrayed in the movie?
Just had another worrying thought, assuming Bear Beorn is Finecast like his mannish compatriot how much is he going to be?!?!? That's a solid lump of Finecast right there. Finecast Troll chieftain is £25, similar to that?
Thanks for the new Gandalf pic Southy, like many have said it's another gorgeous sculpt of him but near impossible to justify when I've got 4 unpainted Gandalfs waiting for the brush!
Looking forward to discussing everything in far more detail tomorrow when we all start getting our hands on the book!