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Trying to get into Lord of the Rings is not easy.

I chose Goblins so I could get all the starter set forces people are trying to get rid of but they are slim pickings here in NZ. So I went to GW Wellington and pretended to be new to the game, the guy was nice and had a test game with me. He knew all the stats and rules which was nice, learnt a few things and had fun. Then I could see his face change when he realized he needed to sell me on this game.

I asked about the rulebook which was all good and well, then I asked if it comes with the army rules. I was shocked to hear it doesnt. He then went to tell me that he is annoyed because he would like to try sell them to me but GW doesnt sell them. I was actually kind of put off by that. Any reason why they dont sell source books?

I then looked at the starter set and saw the $265 NZD price tag and not only does it come with all characters bar 40 goblins its not actually enough for 2 people to play a real game. In short the set gives you some characters and an incomplete force of Goblins.

All their box sets start at 60+ dollars. 12 Goblins are $60, 1 troll is $60 (or 3 new ones for $160 ish).

Its incredibly expensive and a lot of stuff seems like its missing and then there are no way to legally get the source books. The guy stopped trying to sell it to me since he couldnt think of any reason why I would buy them at such a price. Which was a pity because he put on a good show with the starter.

So is there an easy way to get into the game? Obviously I will have to download the source books to play, but getting the models must be easier than through GW or second hand.

I don't know what is better than to get them secondhand.
I got over 100 goblins (and a whole lot of other stuff) for €50,-
Secondhand is also the only way you can get all the OOP stuff.

Yea I guess I will be lurking on NZ second hand site then. Progress is slow thats all. Plus the ones that are on sale are normally in pretty bad condition.

I prefer to buy new, but I have to say that I haven't got the Goblin Town set yet, despite being a big fan of the SBG. It's too damn expensive for what you get. It's ridiculous that they're charging so much for it.

There's a shop in town that has it for 90 euro (so a tenner off), and that does almost tempt me to get it. But I could spend that 90 euro on a lot of other cool stuff as well. GW really mismanaged this release, which is a shame because I was hoping it would rejuvenate the game.

Yea for a starter its not actually very decent at getting 2 players playing the game. So you are in essence buying a glorified mission and maybe some goblins to bolster your forces. Not that the starter goblins would look right in when mixed with the other goblins by the looks of things.

Well, the starter goblins are a different breed- they've got different special rules and so on. The Moria Goblins are more militaristic and less of a feral rabble. But the difference in look is mostly down to the difference between the LOTR trilogy and the Hobbit trilogy style wise.

WRT forces, a force of all heroes is actually fine in LOTR, it can even work well. There are fewer force restrictions than in other games. So you do get two forces, but they are in no way balanced in terms of forces. Thorin and Company is pver 1000 points as an "army" and would have an interesting play style. You can download the rules and points legally and for free btw, they're available as a PDF. The goblins are around 350 points so they're not much in comparison to the Dwarves, but it's enough to play games with.

Really?

It looked like an exception rather than 2 usable forces. That combined with price really put me off playing it.

The starter set was a lot of fun, but it did not give me the tools to start playing the game seriously without spending hundreds more and starting fresh.

It depends what you want. If you don't mind playing an all hero force, Thorin and Company are not bad at all. Lots of people played with the Fellowship of the Ring in the LOTR game. The system is designed for heroic skirmish and does it very well, perhaps better than anything else on the market in my opinion.

I'd say the starter is worth it if you're interested in Thorin and Company or a Goblin force. If not, then I'd look at the LOTR line, which tends to be quite a bit cheaper to get into.

as been said before the rules are free to download from black library
http://www.blacklibrary.com/faqs-and-errata.html (if it doesnt load the exact page, reopen the link after accepting cookies)
under heroes and villains, the other stuff is just errata
the sourcebooks may be available on ebay
i myself have collected heaps of lotr stuff from ebay though most hobbit minis you will haveto get from gw store, which is expensive in australia and stupidly enough more expensive in NZ, though i have very little hobbit minis, only afew charecters and rivendell knights,
if you can find the lotr rulebook on ebay they have most profiles, i have the mini book and it contains profiles for all significant charecters and troops,and the big one rulebook has more, for others not featured in the films or book you would need the sourcebooks, but i have found them unnecassary.
but dont let this deter you, lotr/ hobbit is a great game, one of my favs and i have even had fun hunting for the peices i want and have had some lucky scores on ebay

That sucks Swastakowey.

I think a starter set should get you started. That's sort of the point isn't it?

Does anyone know why GW does this with its LOTR box sets?

OgrynBob wrote:
That sucks Swastakowey.

I think a starter set should get you started. That's sort of the point isn't it?

Does anyone know why GW does this with its LOTR box sets?

The first 3 starter sets both had 2 armies. moria vs high elves, rohan vs isengard, minas tirith vs mordor...........

the sets now are more designed to be stand alone products you build off of. So looking at it this way you find yourself a goblin town army and the START of an erebor army with all the characters you will need

In LOTR/The Hobbit, a group of heroes like the Company or the Fellowship IS an army. It's a heroic skirmish game, so it's perfectly fine to have a badass gang of heroes slaying their way through an army of mooks and minor baddies. It's one of my favourite things about the system, the way it lets you have a tactically satisfying wargame that plays out as a "small force of force" and heroic skirmish game.

as said by da boss its a heroic skirmish game, very story driven, and in the box sets arent supposed to give you a starting army like warhammer or 40k its supposed to get you started in recreating the scenes from the books or films, and i think the boxes are great for that, plus if you were to buy the fellowship or thorins company stand alone it would cos you abit, especialy thorins company, from games workshop, remember lotr isnt warhammer
hope that gives you more incentive

Agreed with the above. Both LotR and The Hobbit are hero-centric narratives, and the game plays to that very well, so getting the full complement of heroes in a box is always good (and having the whole lot together on the shelf is great too!). Just going from the films there's plenty you can do with them and a few extra purchases, especially if you play custom or themed scenarios.

Balin's Tomb with endless AI-controlled Goblins, a Cave Troll and the Fellowship split between two players (competing for kill counts) has to be one of the most fun, replayable and easy things you can do with miniatures. Even non-gamers would be having fun after a couple of rounds of Aragorn and Boromir wading through Goblins while Gandalf hurls some magic around.

If I had to buy the GW stuff new, there is no way in hell I could get into this game.

I have roughly 200 - 300 minis for LotR that are based for the GW game (and are also GW minis); most still unpainted (only some Moria Goblins, Uruk-Hai, and Rohirrim are painted... Maybe 15 or 20 Gondorians). But I doubt that I would even have those were it not for being insanely lucky at buying Second Hand.

I do wish they were cheaper, but... Wishes, horses... Beggars...

MB

well its actualy cheaper in the long run than gw's other 2 games , i have also been lucky enough to get a heap of lotr minis second hand and very cheap but this game is still cheaper, and almost with its current kits, the mirkwood warriors and warriors of dale for example are rather expensive but when you look at kit like the hunter orcs, warriors and erebor etc with a hero added you have right there a warband,
the escape from goblin town box with a pack of warg riders and a bo of hunter orcs and you have plenty of scenarios to play with, and if you use lotr minis instead its again cheaper,
so yes some kits are overpriced ( all of gw is overpriced) its still cheaper than its cousins

Aye, it is much cheaper to get into than 40k or WFB, largely thanks to how well the game scales up and down from 10 minis a side to 70+ slogging it out. The biggest gripe about the price comes from those of us who remember the 'good old days' where you quite literally got double the minis for the price than you do now. Back in 2003-ish, £15 got you 24 of a given mini, now it gets you 12, and that's before you even look at the new stuff. You pay nearly twice as much per box for the new Wood Elves, and get half the figures compared to the old ones. The quality has got better, but not enough so to warrant a 300% price increase over 5 years.

Back then, you could have most of a 400 point Gondor army (1 box of WOMT, Boromir blister) for the price of a box of Mirkwood Rangers now, and the £118 they ask for Thorin's Co in armour could get you 3-4 complete armies, with options, plenty of heroes, and change.

/grump old man mode...

Yea I dont judge thew cost on the game but for miniatures.

I wont buy something if I feel the product does not deserve that price. I do not feel that 12 Moria Goblins can ever be worth 64 NZD. I simply hate feeling ripped off. Especially when I can technically just get any old goblins and have the same effect for way cheaper. Even if you only needed 12 goblins to play the game I wouldnt buy that box at that price.

Its just for what they are, they arent worth almost my weekly food bill (for 2 people) for just 12 of goblin models.

But yea keeping an eye out for good trade me deals still. My collection will simply grow slowly, which is fine.

I think once you free yourself of the GW mindset it is easier too.

Historical ranges can fill out Kingdoms of Men, and Fantasy figures are not _too_ hard to find unless you're really enamored with the Weta look. The Wargames Factory Orcs are a cheap alternative, though some modelling skill is needed to make them look really good. I'm partial to Red Box Games (feeling like a broken record!) though they are admittedly a bit pricey, I feel like they're competitive with GW prices now, which is crazy for what is a boutique range in metal...

Red Box Games do seem to have some awesome range of stuff, they were my first port of call looking for BotFA character substitutes. As I couldn't find any way of getting their stuff in the UK without paying more for the postage than the mini, I settled for Reaper instead, but even they have plenty to offer for LotR gamers too.

There is plenty of choice out there, that will only become more prevalent as GW support the range less and less.

Yea pretty much, the only problem I can see is if all your opponents use GW the scale tends to be different (unless you use historic). The lord of the rings kits are more true scale than most fantasy ranges as far as I can tell.

But I agree.

I would echo da Boss's points about using other miniatures.

And, as should be obvious due to my other thread....

While I think Weta's design work for the movies is beautiful, I don't think it at all represents Middle-earth (any more than three guys in black robes handing out beer and pizza in an auditorium is handing out communion at a Catholic Mass - were have a lot of similarities between the two, but a Catholic Mass it is not).

So... I tend toward using other miniatures for many of the forces.

And... I hope to eventually provide a complete line of miniatures that do adhere more closely to Tolkien's statements and artwork regarding the people's of Middle-earth.

MB

Don't be afraid to just download and print off PDF files from the internet. The average player won't have a problem with it, especially if the books in question are no longer available. Just don't turn up at a an actual GW store hoping to play with a printout rulebook. If GW is no longer willing to sell the rulebooks needed to play the game, then you're under no moral obligation to travel the length and breadth of a country physically visiting GW and other Wargaming stores trying to hunt down a hard copy (as is frequently insisted on the Facebook groups and forums).

Some copies can also be found on ebay, though the average price is naturally climbing fast now that they're OOP.

Yea we did that already Got all the source books etc online.

It would be nice to have the books but oh well.

Thanks to this thread I just got a bunch more reasonably priced lord of the rings minis.

So it all works out in the end.

There have been plenty of rumours going around that the books are going to be having another print run.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Yea pretty much, the only problem I can see is if all your opponents use GW the scale tends to be different (unless you use historic). The lord of the rings kits are more true scale than most fantasy ranges as far as I can tell.

But I agree.

Plenty of solid options there:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/120/628040.page#7496009

Nice, cheers for that.

Those orcs aint bad either.