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I think 40K is getting slowly better with the new codices. I've been having some very fun games with new chaos and new orks. LOTR is still far more balanced and tactically satisfying though, but it's a totally different kind of game.
Fantasy remains solid and fun.
I currently play 40K, Fantasy, LOTR and BFG. I don't find it too difficult to fit them all in, but then I don't watch TV or play computer games that much, and my girlfriend is very low maintenence.

a balanced selection of armies, a simple, understandable and conflict free rule set, well priced minis and fun?

Yah they should definitely get rid of it! Just because all you 40K players can't completely cheese out a list and crush your opponent on turn 2, because its a game that involves strategy and planning to achieve victory rather than just a big wallet, it obviously should go.

I play WFB (another game that requires strategy and planning, seeing a theme here?) but love to play LOTR when I need a change and want some skirmish action.

Sure I would like to see less of it in WD and more articles, but I would just like to see less advertising even more.


Papa

I don't know anyone at all who plays this game.

Seriously, no one.

Weird...

The question is if the store owners know people who buy
the game. I buy 40k stuff, but don't play it...

First:
I didn't bother making a statistically correct poll because Dakka is predominantly used by 40k players. The main purpose of the poll was to generate some discussion on the topic. I have heard rumors that LotR sells badly. But I really have no idea how well it does.

Second:
The main purpose of WD is to advertise their product. On it's head this seems like a stupid idea. In America their is no mention of GW anywhere outside of hobby/comic stores. I learned about the game from a friend. Since GW seems to care so little about advertising the dump their coming soons into WD. Which is fine. That said as long as they want people to buy LotR they are going to keep it in WD so that people will know it still exists despite the movies ending half a decade ago.

Third:
Debating about which game system is better isn't going to change anyones mind. I know in my case I play 40k because it is the only si-fi table top system with any sort of following in the states. Infinity looks nice but thats looks more popular across the pond.

Have never played the game, don't plan to and don't know anyone who has played the game. That being said, they are now making The Hobbit movie, so they would probably do well to keep the range for at least a while and get whatever boost might come from that. I sh!tcanned my subscription to WD so I really don't care how much space it takes in the magazine anymore (although it was really annoying how much space they DID dedicate to it).

I have a large 40k Ultra army(4000+ points), a decent amount of LotR figs that can make up two smaller armies or one big one and I just recently started a dwarf WFB army(750 points pained 1500 points unpainted). But that is also opposite in order to the amount of games I have been playing recently in each system. I've been playing lots of fantasy(few games a week), regular games of LotR (one or so a week) and only ever play 40k in tournaments in my area (which is once about every 2 months). 40k has been reduced to tournament play only because regular pick up games just don't hold my attention any more, although I have played in two apoc games (20,000+ points) in the last three months that were great fun even though they were just random pick up games. Fantasy and LotR are way more entertaining when I just want to kick back and have some fun. The scenarios and game types just seem to be of greater selection and generally more fun than 40k now-a-days.

Tetchy wrote:

gorgon wrote: In many ways it does everything people would like to see out of a GW game. But there just isn't enough interest.

Well, I beg to differ. If you pop over to www.thelastalliance.com you will find an online community, larger than Dakka, fully involved with the game. It's just there is very little crossover between the sytems, and people who play both 40k AND LotR are in the minority as players of both systems. But, just because 40k was here first, doesn't give its players any moral right to crap all over the game. If you don't like it, shut up and shove off, basically. Its sticking around as long as it sells. "So there!"

(in a calm, strangely mechanical voice) Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.

*Ahem*

I don't think I crapped all over LotR, if you actually took to the time to read what I was saying. I agree that if it wasn't still profitable, GW wouldn't be producing it. But you ARE kidding yourself if you think the game has a bigger or equal following than 40K or WFB. And the point remains that given its current resources, GW would probably do a better job of supporting two core games rather than three. These aren't value judgments on LotR or even calls for LotR to be axed, although you probably won't understand that in your current frothy berserker madness.

Demogorgon wrote:I wish it could be evicted from White Dwarf though. It wasn't so bad when it was given a bit of space at the back of the magazine (when it was more popular to boot!) but now it is getting ridiculous. Plainly LOTR players are to a great extent a different demographic to those who play Warhammer. I just can't imagine them being that interested in buying WHite Dwarf anyway.

Whatever the case, LotR is selling well enough to receive an increasing amout of cover space and magazine space. Just because *you* don't like it in WD, that doesn't mean it's not selling and making GW some serious coin.

I'm actually really surprised that anyone cares how much space LotR is taking up in WD. What do you want? More really crappy articles about 40K? "Thank God! There's twice as much useless 40K content this month!"

WD doesn't have articles. They have battle reports in which the new army trounces some other army. They have model features showing all the cool stuff they've made. They have painting features showing how their professionals paint stuff. They have Golden Daemon results show how gamers "just like you" can paint stuff.

as I've mentuioned before, at the local store, the average LotR player is about half the size of the store owner. they don't buy WDs. all they want is painting aragorn and uruk-hai to make them battle each other. sometimnes they even use rules.

Putting together enough good, original content to fill a magazine (even around the advertising) is harder than people think. If anything, the WD guys probably like keeping LotR around for the extra content possibilities.

WD is a magazine for advertising GW products. LOTR is a GW product.
?
(Saying that I stopped buying WD long ago, it has nothing in it that the internet doesn't do better, for free, in an interactive format.

i used to play LOTR but now no one esle does, well in AUS anyway, yeah its a good game, but its time is over. So i think it should be moved to specialist games and get it out of WD. leavig room for converisons or new rules for 40k.

Here's the thing: the rules are great, and a lot of the figs are not only pretty good, but are a good deal. The plastic boxes especially work out to be around $1/figure. While I haven't bought any of them (my lead-and-plastic mountain is big enough), if I were looking for a skirmish fantasy game, and/or looking for true 28mm, (largely) well-sculpted, diverse and inexpensive fantasy figs, that's your product. LOTR and WAB (espeically Legends of the Old West and Legends of the High Seas) are some of GW's best current products, and I'd rather invest in that than another pile of Morley-sculpted oversized shaved ape in SKULLSZ!!!1 armor, or mutant re-re pointy hat-wearing panzy, or rules that might as well be yahtzee with figures. I've got enough of those already.

gorgon wrote:These aren't value judgments on LotR or even calls for LotR to be axed, although you probably won't understand that in your current frothy berserker madness.

I appreciate you must have misundestood my sarcasm...

I don't take "my dad is bigger than your dad" calls from 40k players seriously.

I could have gone into a long diatribe (and have, many times in many threads on many forums) as to why the basic engine of LotR is a very good technical masterpiece of game design. I also could have gone into detail with many supportive facts as to how Tolkien's work is the most popular piece of "speculative fiction" ever published.

Unfortunately I have learned that many 40k players are simply blind to such obvious and simple logic and only respond to the manners of the playground. Hence my less than serious comments. (I'll let you in on a secret: I didn't really blow you a raspberry )

I bare you personally no ill will, and apologise if you feel misjudged in my generalisations about the lack of logical debating skills amongst many young 40k'ers these days...

Lord Lankington wrote:
i used to play LOTR but now no one esle does, well in AUS anyway, yeah its a good game, but its time is over. So i think it should be moved to specialist games and get it out of WD. leavig room for converisons or new rules for 40k.

Interesting POV there. Not based on any facts other than your personal, limited experience of course.

If rather than assuming you could speak for the entire continent, you would have found that amongst Australian wargamers (which admittedly isn't a massive population), LotR is still a very popular game.

How do I know this?

Well if you scroll down this pagehere:

You will find that for TLA, the most popular LotR-focussed gaming forum on the 'net, your compatriots are the most common visiting nationality:

alexa wrote:Thelastalliance.com users come from these countries:
Australia23.5%
Poland21.6%
Canada8.8%
United Kingdom6.9%
United States6.9%

Also, if you look at the useage information you will find that access to TLA (a site that has been going since early 2003) while bottoming out in 2006 has actually grown through 2007 and into this year, whereas this site has remained fairly steady.

Now I don't want to read too much into one or two particular sites' popularity and how that correlates with the popularity of the games they primarily support, but at least it is something factual to hang an opinion on and it is a little more tangible than what is simply happening at your local GW store or club.

Anyone interested in playing LotR and finding it hard to get an opponent, I recommend they browse TLA's "Opponent Finder" forum and see what they can find. Or maybe look at their Frappr map of players.

Hope this helps!

@tetchy: what you probably don't realise is that Aus is a big place and i'd say that the majority of LOTR gamers is in the two lower states which are about 300-700klms away from brisbane.

also to everyone else in the world i would like to say sorry for Australians buying LOTR products and keeping it in WD and in GW stores

gdurant wrote:Just curious to see what people have to say.

I think it has some good rules that 40K could really take a page out of.
Dumb idea about it for us the players is to have 2 fantasy games that are unusable together with figures that don't even convert per game. Of course, GW has lost its freaking mind, so what do you expect?

Seriously, NO ONE would axe the LOTR title if there is even a ice cubes chance in hell of it making a doller, pound, or yen. To see the venom spewing tools that gop on and on about either stance, " Axe it, it sucks... or Keep it, its you're sisters cherry!" are both just a little bit out there for you to even be bothered with.
It's a game, thats all. If it has players, maybe you could go see what they are on about and play a game or two. If they have something that can give your treasured " WARHAMMER SHIZNIT FANTASY/40K SAUSAGE FEST" something to offer.

The rules are tight. the only issue is that the figures are lame in terms of size, and usability in other games. The most interesting thing is that the difference in the types of players almost is a given that they won't like each other. It's like if you were in a different clique, or tribe and you tried to go intermingle. You get a bit of resistance, but after awhile you get at least a de tant in relations between the two sides.

I've seen more female players of the LOTR game then males, and haven't seen too many of the male players that do play get into an on and on discussion running on almost an half an hour about shield drones, as opposed to a couple of quiet people coming in and playing thier game without too much of a fuss and then they leave.
That as well might be the reason for the duality.

Different strokes, and all that. The miniature games hobby is hurting, to sit back and bust balls over it is a non issue. You should really be asking the question, how can these rules enhance my own, in the current anarchy of the debacal that 40k and fantasy it becoming. GW is not the be all end all in gaming, its merely a choice.
As for the White Dwarf comparison, White Dwarf is a sales tool. Any other reason for it being around is minimal to that. If I want to sell well, I put the product in the advertising and show it to people. If I want to be in buisness, I had better pimp that !@#!. WD is a joke, stop putting money into it and set it aside for mini's.

I say if you want to play a game, go play the damn thing. You arn't married to it, so pick and choose if you want to. After the crap that went down over that RPG, do you still think you owe them anything other then a mere interest?

Lord Lankington wrote:
also to everyone else in the world i would like to say sorry for Australians buying LOTR products and keeping it in WD and in GW stores

To everyone else in the World, and particularly the Aboriginal population, I would like to apologise for "discovering" Australia, and dumping our unwanted convicts there...

I still wonder how the same design team can produce the tight LotR rules on one hand and the 20-year quagmire of 40K on the other. It just seems to say they don't take 40K seriously. Which is odd, as it's their biggest product.

gorgon wrote:I still wonder how the same design team can produce the tight LotR rules on one hand and the 20-year quagmire of 40K on the other. It just seems to say they don't take 40K seriously. Which is odd, as it's their biggest product.

Probably because so many of their existing customers are on the whole rather conservative? If they revamped 40k so it played as well as LotR/LotOW does then you can imagine the kind of 40k fanboi angst that would ensue! GW as a company probably would go bankrupt overnight. Their current level of turnover relies on those that are quite content with the ungainly morass that currently constitutes 40k.
It's quite a cleft stick they find themselves in. Clearly they *could* really tighten up the rules and make a decent game if they *wanted* to, and that would in the long term bring in new players who have always hated 40k because of its sucky rules. On the other hand they'd have to put up with losing all the business of the current indoctrinated hordes. WHich they can't afford.
Hence we have the "play nice and d6 it, while I stick my head in the sand" response to all rules problems. They know it sucks, but they daren't do anything else other than promoting the models and pushing the rules as secondary.

This is a bit like asking a bunch of bowlers if they should do away with fashion shows. Not the same crowd.

I play both 40k and LotR. I think LotR is a better game system, but 40k holds a lot of appeal since it's a scifi game. But, they're completely different games.

LotR does what a lot of people say they want in 40k - something other than the You Go I Go turn sequence. So, I'm a little suprised more people have tried it.

I think LotR suffered with the first movie, a little less so with TT, because all the scenarios were "how many goblins can Aragorn kill this time?" It wasn't much of a wargame. With Legions of Middle Earth, the focus is definitely towards having 2-3 heroes leading 30-50 warriors, and the game works much better at that level.

At Adepticon 07, Jervis said that the recent releases for lotr (Legions, and Arnor iirc) sold better than expected. He also said that in Europe/UK there was more collectors buying the figs and more give-aways through third parties (some magazine gave away 1 plastic fig an issue for a year, or something like that).

If it makes money for them, they should keep supporting it.

If they take LotR out of WD, what will take it's place? More "look at the shiny new models" pages? More pages about how Dave Taylor has mad converting skillz? More pictures from Golden Daemons and Games Day tournies? The magazine has a lot of junk in it already, removing LotR will just add to it.

I'd be happy if they started supporting/plugging SG more, BB and Necromunda are two of my favorites. But, there's not a lot of demand, and there are several other competing products out there that seem to be filling that 'niche' in gaming.

My local LGS dumped all their Privateer Press product, but still stock LotR. There's people playing it, but like a lot of smaller game systems, it can be hard to find a variety of opponents. It also seems that LotR doesn't have a strong online presence. Last Alliance is a great site, but it doesn't seem to have as much 'presence' in the gaming community as the PP forums or dakka.

I admit to some irritation with LoTR. Specifically, it makes money, while having a steady stream of releases and cheap as dirt, but still very good and detailed, models ($1 per model? Everyone who wants that for 40K or Fantasy, raise your hand!) I mean, what gives? Why don't they do the same for 40K and Fantasy?

gorgon wrote:I still wonder how the same design team can produce the tight LotR rules on one hand and the 20-year quagmire of 40K on the other. It just seems to say they don't take 40K seriously. Which is odd, as it's their biggest product.

LotR is a "clean sheet" game that doesn't have the high-detail baggage of older editions like a game like 40k.

40k has this constant tension of trying to keep things "the same", while still advancing the game engine and the Codices.

Oh, I agree this forwards/backwards compatibility thing is strangling 40K. But even when they're just building on top of the previous edition of 40K, they still can't write tight rulesets. If, for instance, 4th edition was supposed to fix the targeting rules from 3rd, why do we have all the arguments about "magic cylinders," etc.? It just seems like their brains go into vapor lock whenever they sit down to start typing 40K stuff.

I actually started with LotR last year and only recently came into the world of 40K this past summer, so consider this the opinion of a newb. While I loved the books and did appreciate the individual attention given to models, both in painting and in the combat system as well, I still find myself more drawn to my Necron force than anything in the realms of Middle Earth.

This is due, in part, to the closed nature of the LotR fluff mentioned before; it's a limited world that has prescribed boundaries. There are only so many races you can have and only so many variations on Aragorn. What's more, 40K appealed to me because of the ability to completely customize your army however you want.

With Jackson's movies (which I really enjoyed for what they were, HIS interpretation of the books), suddenly how we should model our Rohirrim, our Gondorians, and our Orks is entirely prescribed; there's very little room visually for variation. That to me is the most limiting aspect of the game.

Also, there is very little shooting involved in LotR, so it largely comes down to how you manage your close combats. I enjoy the variety of weaponry and ranges available in the 40K system as it offers vast variations in gameplay, even within the same army.

Should LotR be dropped? Not in my opinion. It's a good game, and a good way to draw LotR fans into the world of tabletop gaming. The rules are much simpler and much more intuitive than the behometh that is 40K. As far as which game I enjoy more, well that's a no brainer, 40K all the way!

The real question then is how would Sauron stand up to the Deceiver...?

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Or perhaps LotR is actually a highly-profitable franchise that isn't dominated by WAAC players who need to stroke their egos by "winning" a meaningless tournament?

I mean, it's possible...

Unfortunately, it isn't. As of 2006 LOTR only accounted for 10% of GW's sales figures, and the official estimate from the bean counters was that LOTR would continue to drop an addtional 5. to 1.3% each year after. (Which, for the record has happened right on target). LOTR sells worse than paint and glue.

Consider that for a moment. Worse than paint and glue.

Yet LOTR still maintains an equal third in coverage in the magazine, as well as releases. Looking at the Tournaments is just as enlightening, as pointed out earlier.

I'm not here to bash LOTR as a game or system. I could care less. In fact, I like the game mechanics when I play Legends of the Old West- I love some cowboy shoot 'em ups.

But the game is NOT a major game for the company. It's big, but it's not a core game that carries its weight anymore beyond the hype of the movies when they were in initial release. As such, it's presence should be reduced accordingly and assets should be moved to other game projects.

For the record, as personal opinion, I understand why GW cashed in. It served them well for that short period of time. But, on the whole, I've always viewed GW for its original games and universe concepts. Those are what keep me interested in playing. People have geeked out over Tolkein for decades now- they'll do it for decades longer, as well. But I was never crazy about GW running a game that wasn't native to one of its own backgrounds.

What should they put into WD? Glad you asked.

1. Letters to the editor. (This is considered the most read section in any magazine/newspaper)
Whats more important this sort of thing could serve an open forum from GW to the Community. I'm tired of people flogging gav thorp and jervis in hallways to get some answers. Granted a dev blog would be a good option too.

2. Chapter Approved. (This shouldn't be about just making new rules but fixing old ones that are broken)
Who wouldn't love to see rules for kroot anf LatD to make it back?

3. Pictures (Honestly I like looking at well converted/painted mini's)


4. Contest (For original paint schemes or army lists)