Licence

Sacrilege83 · **Posted:** Wed Feb 18, 2015 9:51 pm

This is good news for a budgeted collector like myself. Offers a lot of breathing room for the account and expanding the wishlist instead of having to make cuts due to a closing window and there being a lack of funds.

Durak · **Posted:** Wed Feb 18, 2015 10:36 pm

Aulë, the Valar wrote:

One thing I don't understand is the WH and WH40k players pretentiousness.
I'm saying this because of the comments on the natfka link...

It drove me out of the local GW shop and I have only gone back to pick up a few things or ship there for free. "LotR is sucking up resources that could be devoted to our game!" was the rallying cry.

I mean, yeah, we need three different versions of space marine rules in four years... it's super important!

Rangefinder · **Posted:** Wed Feb 18, 2015 10:56 pm

I am hopeful this speculation/rumor is true.
The Hobbit/LOTR is a fun and scaleable system for all wargamers.

I have one foot out the door with my collection.
There is not much left I need or can't convert myself.

Zombicide and Malifaux are very tempting competition for my hobby dollars.

I almost feel bad about using the local GW for free shipping.
The manager is very nice guy and endeared himself to me.
There is space for Hobbit gaming on Saturdays in the store.
But in the end, there is nothing to browse at when I am in there.
I can see it all on the web, removing impulse buys once physically there.
My local hobby store has more GW than the GW store has.
...and, that. is. sad.

Isilduhrr · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2015 7:49 am

*grunts delightedly*

aelfwine · **Joined:** Sat Aug 22, 2009 12:23 am **Posts:** 508

Good for them, if true. I just won't be around to buy it.

As, like Sacrilege, a budget conscious gamer I am constantly aware of time and availability constraints. However, GW creates such a constraint with its constant price rises, so its all an effort to get things before they become pricier.

I still feel that buying the Escape from Goblin Town set was one of my biggest collector screw ups. I really should have just cherry picked from the range as they came out, rather than getting that set. Great little sculpts; just what is being portrayed is rather naff. Anyway, point being, I am behind again. Next year, I aim to finish off the collection, getting things like Rivendell knights, Dale warriors and Grimhammers for my "main" LOTR collection.

If we maybe saw some Beornings, and High Elf knights on foot, I will be strongly, strongly tempted, because those are serious gaps in my collection. However, I don't really want to be still buying these damn things in two years. But price will be a huge factor in my decision.

So this is an ambiguous announcement, which mostly doesn't interest me. But hey, if it gets me a few key representations between now and 2016, I'll take it.

Michaelc · **Joined:** Wed Jun 11, 2014 4:59 pm **Posts:** 58

Renewing the licence =/= continued support.

I doubt GW is worried about competitors "cashing in" on their hard work. Even if they let the licence lapse, the actual sculpts/molds/rulebooks/etc remain the property of GW.

For a new company to take up the range they would either have to start from scratch with a new range of sculpts that would have to compete with huge amounts of second hand GW floating around on Ebay OR they would lease/buy the rights to GW's work on top of acquiring the licence from NL and TE.

Durak wrote:

Or it's just to sell off as much stock as possible in the next five years so they aren't sitting on a bunch of product they can't sell.

^this is probably the most accurate.

Once the rumoured Iron Hills dwarves are released I doubt anything will be done for the SBG. The range will gradually disappear as it is sold out, unless enough people click on the "Email Me" button to justify a short production run of a particular model.

I would imagine most of their none-space-marine effort will be directed towards the attempted resurrection of the post end times WHFB range.

Dorthonion · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2015 6:56 pm

I had hoped the licence would go to a more inspired place (Perry brothers).

Harfoot · **Posted:** Thu Feb 19, 2015 9:35 pm

Dorthonion wrote:

I had hoped the licence would go to a more inspired place (Perry brothers).

That would have been brilliant, but i guess the licence fee must me massive and the Perry Bros is a very small company using outside manufacturers.

faradomin · **Joined:** Thu Jan 31, 2013 5:24 am **Posts:** 9

Eh, I kind of would have preferred them to drop the license sooner allowing another company like Knight Models, Perry Brothers etc. to make the models with more effort.

the morgul vale · **Joined:** Wed Mar 19, 2014 6:04 pm **Posts:** 46

The way i see it (if this rumor is true) is that it will keep the hobby going and also if GW do continue to produce models and expand into the narratives of the hobbit as they did near the end of the lord of the rings range i think it is all the better for us. i am definitely hope they do continue to produce models after seeing as the positivity and increase in sales around the battle of the five armies.

Sithious · **Posted:** Fri Feb 20, 2015 12:03 am

I would not say that any company out there would promise more than GW has delivered. People can hate on them for lack of support (though their own fans of WHF and 40K hate us so who are they pleasing by making hobbit/LOTR?) and Prices, this is normal to us since day one, even when we got support it was 5 pages out of 100 in WD and we complained then about lack of support, go figure.
We don't know what the rights to use cost nor what the limits are.
I would say GW has been very brave.
To produce models in high quantities with 0 knowledge of how it would sell, so on top of a rights investment they have art, sculpting, writing, molds, engineering, production and shipping. and they don't know until after release if they will make a single penny. That is risky. So if sales are not doing well on one model type they are actually smart to hesitate on making more. If sales are doing well on another product line they are smart to put more effort in that direction.

There is no promise that any company would produce more models, would produce any rules or game system, or that they would make models outside the popular characters. GW giving up the license is no promise that someone will do a better job. Perry's may think their historics are more important and they have a market guarantee so they know how much to invest in time and effort, with LOTR which they have some knowledge, they don't know how much 'they' should invest in it. Same would be said for any company taking that risk. Ask yourself, how much money do you think you would invest? 100,000 for a few mold bases, maybe 50 models worth of sculpting, plastic, manufacturing, advertising, writing and publication of rules, web site management, rent for warehouses, people to manage all this stuff... it is easy to put GW down, but not easy to fill those shoes.

So... I am not saying GW is awesome. we all have things to gripe about there. But thinking the grass is greener on the other side of a wall you can't see over is only hopeful thinking and it may be that the grass is brown and patchy with lots of weeds and thorns.

abcdefg · **Joined:** Mon May 28, 2012 3:52 pm **Posts:** 273

Sithious wrote:

I would not say that any company out there would promise more than GW has delivered. People can hate on them for lack of support (though their own fans of WHF and 40K hate us so who are they pleasing by making hobbit/LOTR?) and Prices, this is normal to us since day one, even when we got support it was 5 pages out of 100 in WD and we complained then about lack of support, go figure.
We don't know what the rights to use cost nor what the limits are.
I would say GW has been very brave.
To produce models in high quantities with 0 knowledge of how it would sell, so on top of a rights investment they have art, sculpting, writing, molds, engineering, production and shipping. and they don't know until after release if they will make a single penny. That is risky. So if sales are not doing well on one model type they are actually smart to hesitate on making more. If sales are doing well on another product line they are smart to put more effort in that direction.

Wise words I think

Sithious wrote:

But thinking the grass is greener on the other side of a wall you can't see over is only hopeful thinking and it may be that the grass is brown and patchy with lots of weeds and thorns.

Love the metaphor!

Draugluin · **Posted:** Sun Feb 22, 2015 12:22 am

http://natfka.blogspot.com/2015/02/exte ... obbit.html This seems to confirm that the license extension is just to sell everything.

the morgul vale · **Joined:** Wed Mar 19, 2014 6:04 pm **Posts:** 46

if that article is true all i can say is its such a shame and a waste, it has always been on my mind that GW would try and faze out the hobbit/LOTR strategy battle game. it was mentioned that with the licence i thought there was an obligation to produce miniatures related the the hobbit or lord of the rings? all i want is a version of TBOTFA wraiths!

RotnyVana · **Joined:** Thu Jul 11, 2013 12:46 pm **Posts:** 20

Whatever their reasoning, I'm happy to have an additional five years to finish my collection.

Little_Odo · **Posted:** Sun Feb 22, 2015 8:31 am

RotnyVana wrote:

Whatever their reasoning, I'm happy to have an additional five years to finish my collection.

My thoughts precisely - when funds are tight and discretionary budgets tighter still then it is good to have a small reprieve to hopefully finish off those armies that we have been collecting for many years.

Draugluin · **Posted:** Sun Feb 22, 2015 5:47 pm

http://natfka.blogspot.com/2015/02/horu ... lease.html
Another rumor saying that LotR/Hobbit is going direct only in May.

Sikano · **Joined:** Wed Jan 14, 2015 6:28 am **Posts:** 76

Draugluin wrote:

http://natfka.blogspot.com/2015/02/horus-heresy-gaming-set-release.html
Another rumor saying that LotR/Hobbit is going direct only in May.

This seems more likely. New miniatures and all that are long term investments and will not make them enough money before the license ends. Also, direct only will help them not waste money on stocking shelves with product they may or may not sell

Paradigm · **Joined:** Sun Jan 11, 2015 11:56 am **Posts:** 264

Which will be very annoying indeed. Most of the LotR stuff is easy enough to pick up on ebay, but online discounters are the only way I can justify the Hobbit prices. Might have to reshuffle some plans to finish off my Iron Hills Dwarf army before May.

Kind of looking forward to the 30k/HH plastics, though!

Ulgurstasta · **Joined:** Mon Sep 10, 2012 2:13 am **Posts:** 13

It was my understanding that the license required that GW pushed out X amount of new minis each year?

Licence

Who is online