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NickOnwezen wrote:
I personally started a Hobit/Lotr army today because there happened to be an event going on in my GW store and only 1 player showed up to play against the store manager. On a whim i asked if i could borrow a few store models to play the game and as an avid 40k player i found the ruleset such a breath of fresh air that i dropped in and bought a few boxes of Models that i will enjoy even if they just sit painted on a shelf and snagged the army book for my new army so i can play a few games at the store, I may be fortunate as there are still about 10 or so active players at the local store and today just happened to be a slow day. I think its gonna be a lot of fun playing! And i just wanted to let you guys know that new players still pick up the game now and then too!

...
I spent 4 years waiting for new players and they never came. It's like a blue moon or a good Shyamalan movie it's so rare that it might not exist. But I want to know how they're a breath of fresh air. They're a very clunky and broken ruleset that has a number of issues.

Are you postulating then that 40k is not more so .

Honestly i really liked getting a decent sized game done in a little under an hour playing a fairly intersting scenario (The last march of the ents one I believe its called.) I also like how cover is handled and the amount of opposed dice rolls beeing cut down. not having to lift up hands full of dice and waiting if your opponent makes his armor/invunerable/cover saves + feel no pain and whatever else but having a simple way for one person to roll whilst keeping in mind the factors like cover really worked for me.

I also paid like 125 euros for an army that I can stretch quite a bit points wise and is made up of all models that i like so yeah. I'm a fan so far.

NickOnwezen wrote:
Are you postulating then that 40k is not more so .

Honestly i really liked getting a decent sized game done in a little under an hour playing a fairly intersting scenario (The last march of the ents one I believe its called.) I also like how cover is handled and the amount of opposed dice rolls beeing cut down. not having to lift up hands full of dice and waiting if your opponent makes his armor/invunerable/cover saves + feel no pain and whatever else but having a simple way for one person to roll whilst keeping in mind the factors like cover really worked for me.

Games I would play with my friends would take 4 hours or more, even at 750 pts. Uruks vs Dwarves. Both sides had to roll 5s to kill anything and that was impossible since it was impossible to do more than 5 damage a turn. The ranged weapon system is so underpowered it might as well not exist and the games I played relied entirely on how many heroes you brought to the board. When I started playing 40k it amazed me how easy it was to kill infantry and how fast paced the game was. You had a whole access to a rang of different things and you could play however you want. The models were ugly (some of them not all) and broke easily. I haven't played any of the new stuff and I didn't bother as getting them as I knew a Lotr player would never appear at my FLGS. And they never did...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
40k has issues but unlike lotr it didn't operate under a flawed core. We may have threads filled with cries of "Taudar cheese" and "triptide cheese". Overall Lotr felt like a chore to play and not like a game.

That's an interesting assessment of the lotr rules. I think that a direct comparison between them and 40k is a little redundant as one is a narrative-driven skirmish game and the other is a pseudo-mass-battle system.

However, if we are comparing them, I'd say that the lotr rules are actually far smoother. The longer time taken to do damage is offset by the typically lower model count, and the shooting is actually representative of the relative power of bows in the setting of essentially medieval warfare. Historically, bows often saw far more use as harassment weapons than for mowing down troops, while the crossbow was more of a direct shoot-to-kill weapon. Anyway, I digress. While I admit the shooting rules took a hit with Hobbit edition, they're not that bad considering what they're supposed to represent.

Conversely, 40k exists in a sci-fi setting, so shooting is obviously more significant, and also deals with a higher model count by killing things faster. LOTR is at its best played with 20-40 models a side, otherwise it does become a little slow, whereas 40k gets better the closer you are to 60+ models (100+ for hordes).

Heroes are important in LOTR as a setting, so naturally take centre stage, but that's no bad thing. Some of my best games (in terms of sheer fun) have been a handful of heroes holding out against tonnes of enemies, and seeing how long they can fight it out.

It may just be that fantasy, skirmish or narrative rules and settings are something you're just not as into as sci-fi, but to say the lotr rules are built on weak foundations is simply not true.

@Nick: Welcome to the game, and may your dice roll high.

 Paradigm wrote:
That's an interesting assessment of the lotr rules. I think that a direct comparison between them and 40k is a little redundant as one is a narrative-driven skirmish game and the other is a pseudo-mass-battle system.

However, if we are comparing them, I'd say that the lotr rules are actually far smoother. The longer time taken to do damage is offset by the typically lower model count, and the shooting is actually representative of the relative power of bows in the setting of essentially medieval warfare. Historically, bows often saw far more use as harassment weapons than for mowing down troops, while the crossbow was more of a direct shoot-to-kill weapon. Anyway, I digress. While I admit the shooting rules took a hit with Hobbit edition, they're not that bad considering what they're supposed to represent.

Conversely, 40k exists in a sci-fi setting, so shooting is obviously more significant, and also deals with a higher model count by killing things faster. LOTR is at its best played with 20-40 models a side, otherwise it does become a little slow, whereas 40k gets better the closer you are to 60+ models (100+ for hordes).

Heroes are important in LOTR as a setting, so naturally take centre stage, but that's no bad thing. Some of my best games (in terms of sheer fun) have been a handful of heroes holding out against tonnes of enemies, and seeing how long they can fight it out.

It may just be that fantasy, skirmish or narrative rules and settings are something you're just not as into as sci-fi, but to say the lotr rules are built on weak foundations is simply not true.

@Nick: Welcome to the game, and may your dice roll high.

This is personal experience and my friend and I couldn't play a "narrative" we could only play a game. We tried playing with everything we had and that blew up in our faces. Maybe they fixed all this but my experience with it was so horrible that lotr is a bad memory.

Well, If nothing else, I got myself the box with the 9 nazghul and bought the witch king on the fellbeast. if it doesnt work out i probably will not regret buying these models anyway as they are very cool .

@Paradigm: Thanks for the hearty welcome, and so far my dice have been mostly lucky in my 40k games, we'll see if that trend continues into the hobit/lotr

 Bronzefists42 wrote:


Games I would play with my friends would take 4 hours or more, even at 750 pts. Uruks vs Dwarves.

750 points is a fairly large game for LOTR. SBG is a skirmish game, it was not designed for huge armies - thats what WOTR is for. Complaining that big games of SBG take too long is like complaining that a game of 40K Apocalypse takes too long.


The game has had two updated in recent years that drastically speed up the pace of the game, Warbands and the Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey SBG Edition.

Armies are composed of Warbands (for army building and deployment purposes only). Warriors must be formed into groups of 12, and each must be led by a Hero. A Warband is deployed together with all members within 6" of the Hero leading it. After deployment, all models act individually as normal. The Warbands update also introduced new scenarios, most of which allow deployment right up to the board's centre. Opposing Armies can start the game within 1" of each other, if the players choose to deploy that way.

Both sides had to roll 5s to kill anything and that was impossible since it was impossible to do more than 5 damage a turn.

The latest edition, The Hobbit:AUJ SBG introduced new special rules that make it easier to kill models. Axe's can use a "Special Strike", that allows them to strike with an increased Strength (+D3) at the cost of Defence (-D3). Armies like Rohirrim can be potentially deadly, with large numbers of Axe wielding troops having a potential Strength of S7 (which would wound many things on a 4+ or 5+ ). Swords allow a model to "Feint", rerolling 1's to wound.

Monsters are also more powerful with no increase in points cost, as they can perform "Power Strikes" for no extra points cost. IIRC, These allow monsters to "Rend" (increases Strength and auto kills a single model), "Hurl" (throws a single model a random distance away as a missile - very useful if your opponent is kiting your monster by feeding it one model a turn) and "Barge" (allows a monster to knock down its opponents, and immediately charge again - again very useful for countering Kiting tactics and for breaking shield walls).

The ranged weapon system is so underpowered it might as well not exist.

Your ignorance is showing through here.

Shooting was widely considered in the LOTR community to be overpowered for a long time. In early years, there was no limit to the number of archers. You could have 100% archers, and just back your army 3" away and shooting every single turn. It was boring to play, and boring for your opponent. Certain factions with powerful shooting (Elves with S3 bows, Uruk Hai with S4 crossbows, Harad with poisoned bows, and Grey Company) were considered overpowered. Shooting was first nerfed with a cap (33% bow limit), and again in Hobbit SBG when the Volley Fire rule was removed (forcing you to shoot at close range - no more shooting at the enemy from your table edge) and with a -1 modifier to shooting rules when an archer moves. This forces archers to sit still to maintain accuracy, giving an opponent a better chance of closing the distance with a melee model.

And there are people who still argue that shooting is overpowered, backing their argument up with statistics. (e.g. The Miniatures Page).

and the games I played relied entirely on how many heroes you brought to the board

Thats not the consensus in the LOTR gaming community - it was always thought that there weren't enough Heroes in the game. Certain armies could take just one cheap hero, and then a massive horde of warriors. A massive army of Warriors rolling buckets of attack dice will beat a small Elite army with multiple heroes any day. Moria Goblins were especially notorious for this.

This has now changed, due to the Warbands update that requires One Hero for every 12 Warriors. SBG armies are now sprinkled with multiple heroes throughout, as it always should have been. The SBG from the very beginning was a narrative skirmish game focusing on the heroism of characters like Aragorn and Boromir leading (relatively) small forces of warriors.

When I started playing 40k it amazed me how easy it was to kill infantry and how fast paced the game was.

So you prefer games that let you roll bucketfuls of dice and remove fistfuls of miniatures from the board every turn? Clearly LOTR is not the game for you then. Personally, I've found all my 40K games to be very slow paced, getting bogged down with over-complicated rules and clunky combat mechanics.

Players who enjoy the LOTR SBG enjoy it because it is a very tactical and detailed game, forcing you to rely on maneuvering and clever tactics to outflank and disrupt your opponents to give your side the best chance of winning. There is not Auto-Win button in LOTR. You can't line up your army into a gunline, and destroy half your opponent's army on Turn 1.

You had a whole access to a rang of different things and you could play however you want. The models were ugly (some of them not all) and broke easily.

Are you trolling here? Many LOTR players think that (most) Warhammer models are ugly (myself included), due to the grossly exaggerated, unrealistic anatomy and cartoonish proportions, and over the top Heroic Scale visual style. And if you find your models break easily, perhaps you should try to take better care of them. LOTR models are not thick and chunky like Warhammer models. All of my own broken LOTR models were due to my own carelessness.

I haven't played any of the new stuff and I didn't bother as getting them as I knew a Lotr player would never appear at my FLGS. And they never did...

As I suspected...The game has changed significantly in recent years. Your view of the game though once valid, is now out of date. I suggest you learn about the new changes to the game before railing against it.

Having no opponents in your local area is an entirely valid reason not to play a game. I havn't played LOTR in around 5 years due to lack of opponents (though that has changed recently and I hope to start playing again soon - I'm going to a tournament in April). I mainly paint for LOTR, because I much prefer the LOTR miniature range over Warhammer Fantasy most of which I find to be too bland and cartoonish. Only a few races appeal to me - Vampire Counts and Wood Elves.

But not having players in your local area is in no way indicative of the quality of the game itself. Besides, as I understand it LOTR is far more popular in the UK than the USA.

40k has issues but unlike lotr it didn't operate under a flawed core. We may have threads filled with cries of "Taudar cheese" and "triptide cheese". Overall Lotr felt like a chore to play and not like a game.

Funny. I've read many, many comments on Dakka Dakka over the last month saying that it is in fact Warhammer 40K that operates under a flawed core, that its a terribly outdated relic of a rules system dating from the early 90's that needs modernising. And these weren't LOTR players...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bronzefists42 wrote:

This is personal experience and my friend and I couldn't play a "narrative" we could only play a game. We tried playing with everything we had and that blew up in our faces. Maybe they fixed all this but my experience with it was so horrible that lotr is a bad memory.

So, you played a game in a way that it was not designed to be played, and you decided based on the cluster feth of your own making that it was a poor game.

My main gripe with LotR (bear in mind I do still enjoy the game), is the fight system. I can surround a single elf with a thousand (ok, I couldn't in real-life due to base sizes but you get my point) goblins and if the elf rolls a 6, there is nothing I can do, no way to harm him. Fair enough, if the elf rolls a 6 he should be able to kill some guys, but it shouldn't prevent the tons of other models around him from even hitting him. I have a few friends that I play LotR with and we use a house-ruled fight system, which I believe I've explained, which works well.

My other, more minor gripe, is with Monsters and the fact they are horrendously overpowered. This does make sense, I admit, Monsters should be able to take on many normal troops, but again, thanks to the fight system, it's flawed. I can surround a monster with ten models, he can roll a 6, and then pick up one of my guys and hurl him into several others, automatically dismounting them in the process. Finally, there's no limit to monsters either, you can have a whole army of them. These factors make it very boring and frustrating to play against. I played against an army of the three named trolls from the Hobbit with my Rohirrim, and it wasn't fun at all. And, no, I'm not being a sore loser, I don't mind losing, I just like having a chance at doing more than two wounds to a single troll.

NickOnwezen wrote:
Well, If nothing else, I got myself the box with the 9 nazghul and bought the witch king on the fellbeast. if it doesnt work out i probably will not regret buying these models anyway as they are very cool .

@Paradigm: Thanks for the hearty welcome, and so far my dice have been mostly lucky in my 40k games, we'll see if that trend continues into the hobit/lotr

Sounds like you're off the the good start, and the Nazgul will probably be very fun to paint. They're very simple, but you can do a lot with varying shades of grey and black to really bring out the depth in the models. The Witch King on fell beast is an awesome model, possibly the best ever produced for LOTR, and is also great in game. Flying around and casting magic will be very useful, as it gives him huge range on his spells along with formidable CC ability.

@ Paradig: Yeah, I've finished assembling my fell beast, and i have to say this model is amazing. It even comes with a completely separate head for each of the two mounted models that the kit has (The actual witch king model and the unnamed nazghûl model). I just had to place a few magnets in the neck pieces to swap the entire neck, head and rider assembly so that now i can field it as both. I am really pleased that the model is that easy to magnetize. I'm probably going to pick up Sauron on tuesday when the store opens just to have The dark Lord and the Nine Nazghul.

@Edithae I kind of disagree, as my complaint with the 40k close combat system is the exact opposite. A hive tyrant with weapon skill 8 hits a space marine with weapon skill 4 on a 3+, only 50% of the time. But since its only double and not MORE THEN DOUBLE that same space marine still hits the hive tyrant on a 4+ which is still a 33% chance to hit. In 40k the models weapon skill doesn't matter enough. In LOTR i find that high fight gives you an advantage sure. but even with 3 dice the chance of rolling a 6 is 50%. if you have 10 guys surrounding a model with a high fight you SHOULD on a statistical average roll a 6 every time. Which means that while the fearsome model has an advantage it does actually get overwhelmed by the sheer number of attacks. Neither system is perfect but i feel like the LOTR system at least makes a high fight score MEAN something better then the game system I came from. Maybe its because I am inherantly comparing every system to what I have already played, but i feel like Lotr's system not only works well it also works fast.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Bronzefists42 wrote:


Games I would play with my friends would take 4 hours or more, even at 750 pts. Uruks vs Dwarves.

750 points is a fairly large game for LOTR. SBG is a skirmish game, it was not designed for huge armies - thats what WOTR is for. Complaining that big games of SBG take too long is like complaining that a game of 40K Apocalypse takes too long.


The game has had two updated in recent years that drastically speed up the pace of the game, Warbands and the Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey SBG Edition.

Armies are composed of Warbands (for army building and deployment purposes only). Warriors must be formed into groups of 12, and each must be led by a Hero. A Warband is deployed together with all members within 6" of the Hero leading it. After deployment, all models act individually as normal. The Warbands update also introduced new scenarios, most of which allow deployment right up to the board's centre. Opposing Armies can start the game within 1" of each other, if the players choose to deploy that way.

Both sides had to roll 5s to kill anything and that was impossible since it was impossible to do more than 5 damage a turn.

The latest edition, The Hobbit:AUJ SBG introduced new special rules that make it easier to kill models. Axe's can use a "Special Strike", that allows them to strike with an increased Strength (+D3) at the cost of Defence (-D3). Armies like Rohirrim can be potentially deadly, with large numbers of Axe wielding troops having a potential Strength of S7 (which would wound many things on a 4+ or 5+ ). Swords allow a model to "Feint", rerolling 1's to wound.

Monsters are also more powerful with no increase in points cost, as they can perform "Power Strikes" for no extra points cost. IIRC, These allow monsters to "Rend" (increases Strength and auto kills a single model), "Hurl" (throws a single model a random distance away as a missile - very useful if your opponent is kiting your monster by feeding it one model a turn) and "Barge" (allows a monster to knock down its opponents, and immediately charge again - again very useful for countering Kiting tactics and for breaking shield walls).

The ranged weapon system is so underpowered it might as well not exist.

Your ignorance is showing through here.

Shooting was widely considered in the LOTR community to be overpowered for a long time. In early years, there was no limit to the number of archers. You could have 100% archers, and just back your army 3" away and shooting every single turn. It was boring to play, and boring for your opponent. Certain factions with powerful shooting (Elves with S3 bows, Uruk Hai with S4 crossbows, Harad with poisoned bows, and Grey Company) were considered overpowered. Shooting was first nerfed with a cap (33% bow limit), and again in Hobbit SBG when the Volley Fire rule was removed (forcing you to shoot at close range - no more shooting at the enemy from your table edge) and with a -1 modifier to shooting rules when an archer moves. This forces archers to sit still to maintain accuracy, giving an opponent a better chance of closing the distance with a melee model.

And there are people who still argue that shooting is overpowered, backing their argument up with statistics. (e.g. The Miniatures Page).

and the games I played relied entirely on how many heroes you brought to the board

Thats not the consensus in the LOTR gaming community - it was always thought that there weren't enough Heroes in the game. Certain armies could take just one cheap hero, and then a massive horde of warriors. A massive army of Warriors rolling buckets of attack dice will beat a small Elite army with multiple heroes any day. Moria Goblins were especially notorious for this.

This has now changed, due to the Warbands update that requires One Hero for every 12 Warriors. SBG armies are now sprinkled with multiple heroes throughout, as it always should have been. The SBG from the very beginning was a narrative skirmish game focusing on the heroism of characters like Aragorn and Boromir leading (relatively) small forces of warriors.

When I started playing 40k it amazed me how easy it was to kill infantry and how fast paced the game was.

So you prefer games that let you roll bucketfuls of dice and remove fistfuls of miniatures from the board every turn? Clearly LOTR is not the game for you then. Personally, I've found all my 40K games to be very slow paced, getting bogged down with over-complicated rules and clunky combat mechanics.

Players who enjoy the LOTR SBG enjoy it because it is a very tactical and detailed game, forcing you to rely on maneuvering and clever tactics to outflank and disrupt your opponents to give your side the best chance of winning. There is not Auto-Win button in LOTR. You can't line up your army into a gunline, and destroy half your opponent's army on Turn 1.

You had a whole access to a rang of different things and you could play however you want. The models were ugly (some of them not all) and broke easily.

Are you trolling here? Many LOTR players think that (most) Warhammer models are ugly (myself included), due to the grossly exaggerated, unrealistic anatomy and cartoonish proportions, and over the top Heroic Scale visual style. And if you find your models break easily, perhaps you should try to take better care of them. LOTR models are not thick and chunky like Warhammer models. All of my own broken LOTR models were due to my own carelessness.

I haven't played any of the new stuff and I didn't bother as getting them as I knew a Lotr player would never appear at my FLGS. And they never did...

As I suspected...The game has changed significantly in recent years. Your view of the game though once valid, is now out of date. I suggest you learn about the new changes to the game before railing against it.

Having no opponents in your local area is an entirely valid reason not to play a game. I havn't played LOTR in around 5 years due to lack of opponents (though that has changed recently and I hope to start playing again soon - I'm going to a tournament in April). I mainly paint for LOTR, because I much prefer the LOTR miniature range over Warhammer Fantasy most of which I find to be too bland and cartoonish. Only a few races appeal to me - Vampire Counts and Wood Elves.

But not having players in your local area is in no way indicative of the quality of the game itself. Besides, as I understand it LOTR is far more popular in the UK than the USA.

40k has issues but unlike lotr it didn't operate under a flawed core. We may have threads filled with cries of "Taudar cheese" and "triptide cheese". Overall Lotr felt like a chore to play and not like a game.

Funny. I've read many, many comments on Dakka Dakka over the last month saying that it is in fact Warhammer 40K that operates under a flawed core, that its a terribly outdated relic of a rules system dating from the early 90's that needs modernising. And these weren't LOTR players...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bronzefists42 wrote:

This is personal experience and my friend and I couldn't play a "narrative" we could only play a game. We tried playing with everything we had and that blew up in our faces. Maybe they fixed all this but my experience with it was so horrible that lotr is a bad memory.

So, you played a game in a way that it was not designed to be played, and you decided based on the cluster feth of your own making that it was a poor game.

I guess you are right, I have only myself to blame for my experience. My issue is that I prefer a "take a bunch of infantry" approach to games (Not just 40k and LOTR) and LOTR is a hero centered game.

Wow, can I just say fair play to you. You rarely see people taking the time to say stuff like that on the internet, too easy to not respond.

 Bronzefists42 wrote:

I guess you are right, I have only myself to blame for my experience. My issue is that I prefer a "take a bunch of infantry" approach to games (Not just 40k and LOTR) and LOTR is a hero centered game.

Have you tried WOTR? That game allows for massive blocks of infantry. The high GW prices are a barrier, but you could consider cheap 3rd party miniatures to use as proxies and conversions in LOTR armies. Rohirrim and Gondor are particularly well catered for in alternative miniatures. Anglo Saxon and Viking historical miniatures can be easily proxied or converted for Rohan (I'm doing a Rohan infantry army using Gripping Beast plastic Saxons). And Medieval / Early Crusade era miniatures can be useful for Gondor (lots and lots of chainmail, shields, swords, spears and cloaks).

Gripping beast does boxes of plastic Saxons and Vikings for £20 per 44 models. They also have a box of generic unarmoured models, £20 for 40 models.

I apologise if my previous comment was a bit vehement. Theres only so many comments along the lines of "The LOTR SBG is crap! I don't like it, so GW should scrap it altogether!" on Dakka Dakka that a LOTR player can read before snapping.

The LOTR SBG is the game that got me into wargaming, and though I also play Raven Guard Space Marines for 40K the SBG remains my favourite game. If GW scraps the SBG, I'll be done with GW altogether.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Bronzefists42 wrote:

I guess you are right, I have only myself to blame for my experience. My issue is that I prefer a "take a bunch of infantry" approach to games (Not just 40k and LOTR) and LOTR is a hero centered game.

Have you tried WOTR? That game allows for massive blocks of infantry. The high GW prices are a barrier, but you could consider cheap 3rd party miniatures to use as proxies and conversions in LOTR armies. Rohirrim and Gondor are particularly well catered for in alternative miniatures. Anglo Saxon and Viking historical miniatures can be easily proxied or converted for Rohan (I'm doing a Rohan infantry army using Gripping Beast plastic Saxons). And Medieval / Early Crusade era miniatures can be useful for Gondor (lots and lots of chainmail, shields, swords, spears and cloaks).

Gripping beast does boxes of plastic Saxons and Vikings for £20 per 44 models. They also have a box of generic unarmoured models, £20 for 40 models.

I apologise if my previous comment was a bit vehement. Theres only so many comments along the lines of "The LOTR SBG is crap! I don't like it, so GW should scrap it altogether!" on Dakka Dakka that a LOTR player can read before snapping.

The LOTR SBG is the game that got me into wargaming, and though I also play Raven Guard Space Marines for 40K the SBG remains my favourite game. If GW scraps the SBG, I'll be done with GW altogether.

I would if I could find a player for WOTR as I have been told it has good rules. Unfortunately the day I find another LOTR player is the one that I become king of Mars so it's rather unlikely.

I often find myself in the same position of not finding players, so I have multiple SBG forces, and can bring them out to show someone (or rope someone into a game) with no investment on their part.

It helps that the models are fun to paint for me, and I like the aesthetic (as I move from GW poor proportions to historical offerings).

The second advantage is that if I can get someone to play Legends of the High Seas (Pirates!) or Legends of the Old West (Cowboys!), then I've basically just taught them LOTR SBG (and vice versa). And I also have Viking era variants based on SBG. Its a very flexible system.

For me, I can't stand playing battle for historical things that happened in the past. It's why I can't play historical games, either, like Flames of War.

"Ok, let's put your fellowship versus my ringwraiths. Oh look at that, I killed the entire fellowship!"

Except that is NOT what happened, so your battle is meaningless. In FoW:

"Oh look, my late war Germans totally dominated and crushed your Russians" Yeah....that didn't really happen either. Whole game was pointless.

40k and fantasy are "happening right now", meaning I can imagine my soldiers fighting and doing well, taking planet after planet in the name of the dark gods of chaos. Feels like I'm doing something useful.

 Spellbound wrote:
For me, I can't stand playing battle for historical things that happened in the past. It's why I can't play historical games, either, like Flames of War.

"Ok, let's put your fellowship versus my ringwraiths. Oh look at that, I killed the entire fellowship!"

Except that is NOT what happened, so your battle is meaningless. In FoW:

"Oh look, my late war Germans totally dominated and crushed your Russians" Yeah....that didn't really happen either. Whole game was pointless.

40k and fantasy are "happening right now", meaning I can imagine my soldiers fighting and doing well, taking planet after planet in the name of the dark gods of chaos. Feels like I'm doing something useful.

That's another reason why I prefer 40k and fantasy more. With the lore being so open you can really do anything. Want Pre Heresy World Eaters to fight Grey Knights? Go ahead. Want to build your own Eldar Craftworld? Go ahead. Abaddon is killed by Bolter Bob and his handy dandy flamer? sure!

Thats true, but there are still a huge number of original things you can do within the boundaries of the Lord of the Rings Lore. There are lots of historical periods and events about which only a small amount of information is known, that you can cover and explore.

The Dunedain had dozens of Chieftains through the Third Age. You could easily pick one, and invent some adventures for him.

The War of the Last Alliance lasted several years, with battles all throughout Middle Earth before Sauron's forces were finally pushed back to Mordor (the battle in the prologue of FOTR) and he was defeated by Isildur.

Arnor took thousands of years to collapse. First it seperated into three successor Kingdoms, Rhudaur, Cardolan and Arthedain. Each Kingdom fell one by one, until Arthedain was finally crushed when Fornost fell. Arvedui and his bodyguards fled to abandoned Dwarf mines in the Blue Mountains, then to the Ice Bay of Forochel where the King drowned on an Elven ship sent to rescue him when it was crushed in ice flows.

I've based my Fall of Arnor [Arthedain] force around Aranarth, the heir to the lost King Arvedui and the first Chieftain of the Dunedain. The theme being that Aranarth, as the heir to the lost Kingdom of Arnor, is trying to rally the scattered survivors of Arthedain. Aranarth was present at the Battle of Fornost where Angmar was finally defeated by an alliance of High Elves, Gondor, the remaining survivors of Arthedain and even a company of Hobbit archers from the Shire (supposedly). The Witch King was forced to flee to Minas Morgul when his army and kingdom was crushed. Aranarth's actions before and after the Battle of Fornost are unknown, allowing me to fill in the gaps.

We know that Aragorn spent several years in his youth travelling through various lands, including Rohan, Gondor and Harad, serving as a soldier under the name of Thorongil and helping to fight the forces of Sauron.

 Spellbound wrote:


Except that is NOT what happened, so your battle is meaningless. In FoW:

"Oh look, my late war Germans totally dominated and crushed your Russians" Yeah....that didn't really happen either. Whole game was pointless.

40k and fantasy are "happening right now", meaning I can imagine my soldiers fighting and doing well, taking planet after planet in the name of the dark gods of chaos. Feels like I'm doing something useful.

Errr I hate to break this to you but 40K is not happening 'right now', 40K is fictional. Winning a miniature game in a made up sci-fi universe (especially one whose fluff is largely stagnant) is no less pointless than one set in a real historical setting and to claim otherwise is ludicrous.

 Spellbound wrote:
For me, I can't stand playing battle for historical things that happened in the past. It's why I can't play historical games, either, like Flames of War.

"Ok, let's put your fellowship versus my ringwraiths. Oh look at that, I killed the entire fellowship!"

Except that is NOT what happened, so your battle is meaningless. In FoW:

"Oh look, my late war Germans totally dominated and crushed your Russians" Yeah....that didn't really happen either. Whole game was pointless.

40k and fantasy are "happening right now", meaning I can imagine my soldiers fighting and doing well, taking planet after planet in the name of the dark gods of chaos. Feels like I'm doing something useful.

Its all fictional. Its all what if's. Even 40k and fantasy.

 Spellbound wrote:
For me, I can't stand playing battle for historical things that happened in the past. It's why I can't play historical games, either, like Flames of War.

"Ok, let's put your fellowship versus my ringwraiths. Oh look at that, I killed the entire fellowship!"

Except that is NOT what happened, so your battle is meaningless. In FoW:

"Oh look, my late war Germans totally dominated and crushed your Russians" Yeah....that didn't really happen either. Whole game was pointless.

40k and fantasy are "happening right now", meaning I can imagine my soldiers fighting and doing well, taking planet after planet in the name of the dark gods of chaos. Feels like I'm doing something useful.

As gw says "forge your own narrative"

I like to think of LOTR as just being a generic fantasy world. I take the stats they give me and put my own background around it, if I feel like it. That's one of the reasons I really like it- it's so generic it's quite easy to come up with your own stuff in the general tolkien inspired fantasy arena.

LOTR is the grandaddy of fantasy, which means the game is easily adapted to whatever you want it to be, with a bit of imagination.

 Da krimson barun wrote:
For 35 euro I can buy:
Ten elf palace guard with no bitz
Ten spess marheens with ONE HUNDRED and seventy nine components that are also larger models with a captain(So he acounts for 20 LOTR monies already)I don't blame them for picking marines.I can't wait for TABA.30 euro plastic captains anyone?40 euro gundabad orcs?The ripoff choices are endless!

The palace guards have 2 spare sheilds that are useless.

 the big goblin wrote:

 Da krimson barun wrote:
For 35 euro I can buy:
Ten elf palace guard with no bitz
Ten spess marheens with ONE HUNDRED and seventy nine components that are also larger models with a captain(So he acounts for 20 LOTR monies already)I don't blame them for picking marines.I can't wait for TABA.30 euro plastic captains anyone?40 euro gundabad orcs?The ripoff choices are endless!

The palace guards have 2 spare sheilds that are useless.

basing?

I believe there is many factors over the dislike that SBG had from others over the years, since it's almost finished outright at this point there is some things to clarify and tackle.

1 Most kids love sci fi and big over the top heroes and guns, 40k is mainly popular because of this and for the rather unique background, I'm not a huge sci fan personally, but what always attracted me to 40k was the almost medieval themes in space, it was sci fi but it mainly stopped at that very basic theme, it is gritty, it is dark, it has lots of violence and there is no fruity modern "progression and hippie loveeee" going on in it, so it's easy to understand why it stands out and has remained popular, even if some of those over the top themes were meant to be sarcastic.

2 There was plenty of kids and adults who only bothered with 40k, let alone FB and SG games. When LOTR came along I think probably a good number of 40k and sci fi type gamers could have cared less, they probably felt they were paying for content they would never read or look at in WD, and they knew this contributed to release schedules too ( not saying it held back 40k, it was all the money GW made from LOTR that gave them the funds for the big multi part kits we have today ), or at least that is the vibe most have towards it.

3 Competing with GW's much more expensive and growing model count FB would have taken some players and also taken games away from new GW players getting into LOTR due to the movies, so a bit similar to the 2nd point.

4 Having much cheaper minis and less needed would have also caused certain players to stop focusing on 40k and FB as GW's prices rose and rose more each year, in fact LOTR SBG was a mostly cheap game, even if your army was mainly metal it was still loads cheaper than what 40k and FB were then and now, The hobbit is a whole other topic but those kinds of prices really started in the wotr era where they slapped their fans in the face by cutting 24 man to 12 for the exact same price. It was quite easy to own multiple mid sized armies for SBG during it's height due to costs, at the very least the average gamer would be able to walk into a GW an start an army that would be easy and cheap to expand in one go without worrying too much for the future. Even as early back as 2010 this was becoming harder for new players to start up both 40k and FB without plunking down a good amount of coin. It's far worse today to the point I have to question how all but the most higher end middle class or rich could afford to start any GW game, their starter boxes have reached the price of consoles that are 3-4 years old now.

While today the prices are more extreme and many of the range is gone, it's still mostly cheaper to create a 750 point SBG army ( the biggest problem is the lack of heroes and the rising used costs of them for warbands which are needed with the hsbg rules but lotrsbg has more accurate styled army lists to reflect tolkiens world ) for the price of say a monster or vehicle 40k or AOS kit. Since the movies are still popular but not enough to really get the general public to check sbg out, it's mostly a flop now and will die a slow run out of stock death and when the license is fully ended .

5 The history already written needs much clarification, there is two things to be said over this. The most anal tolkien purist will mainly scoff at any unwritten text over events, so we will simply ignore this kind of snob as their presence is not desired and their mindset is not the norm of tolkien fans, many of us respect and do our best to remain true to tolkiens middle earth and vision however. This kind of logic would work with Horus Heresy and anything else that has pre written fictional history.

Sbg does skirmish and smaller type armies very well, it in no way reflects even a mid sized battle in middle earth though, in order to do this you would most likely need close to 500 troops, many battles in middle earth were in the thousands, literally thousands of orcs men and elves and dwarves. Because it's a game and because there is room for some abstract things and imagination, we can for example pretend that our 750-1500 point SBG armies are either smaller skirmish forces, such as patrols or garrisons and the like, or that our known epic heroes and troops are really that "main front line" with thousands of troops on either side behind them.

WOTR does this a little better but its still nowhere near the size of what armies would be in the fictional history, an example would be the battle of fornost where the witch king is driven off finally from arnor, having about 500 hobbit archers, 20,000 warriors of arnor and thousands of wood elves, high elves and gondor aiding them, A far cry from some pidly 12 man unit of warriors of arnor and some rangers, but again this sort of abstract stuff is needed due to real life costs and practicality with a gaming board with even say 500 models on it.

So there is room to replay battles for entertainment and ignore things like aragorn literally dying to some mob of orcs, he may die in game but we know that its a game and this would not happen for real, the second clarification over pre written events is this: There is a huge wide scope of un written battles by captains, small bands of free people and so on that is not detailed enough that there is room to play these with what history we do know, such as lorien being attacked by DG 3 times and finally lorien destroying and wiping out DG for good, these sorts of little passages and details create many scenarios that work well with SBG. All sorts of things that are totally within keeping with tolkiens lore and situations that would have happened monthly, rangers of the north doing hit and run raids on orc camps, patroling the shire and barrow downs, aragorns travels in the east and in mirkwood, the hunt for smeagol you name it this is what SBG does very well and should be considered by those types who claim this or that is is written, well plenty is not as its these mysteries little battles and events that often turn into deep long threads between tolkien fans trying to figure out what could of or would have happened, which is not much different than playing some of that out on the table with a strong tie to the fictional events.

 The Shadow wrote:
I think GW are starting to pitch the Hobbit and, to a lesser extent, LotR as a "Tolkein Collector" kind of thing, hence the higher prices and lack of extra bitz.

I see a lot of people I've never seen before coming into my GW and buying a Hobbit box or two. I imagine they'll just be assembled, painted and used to adorn a shelf, probably next to various editions of LotR books.

I use them extensively when running MERP and ONE RING (from cubicle 7) So I am definately one of those folks you see. They are great for rpg in tolkein settings. honestly it was the ruleset I had hoped they would use to base AoS off of instead of giving me a watered down half arsed attempt at warhammer again,.

 Da krimson barun wrote:
Why?Is it because: MY CODEX IS DELAYED WAAAAAA!

I saw a lot of this sort of whining on the internet during the glory days of LOTR. I'm not sure if there was actually any basis to the complaints (I didn't notice that 40K and WFB releases slowed up appreciably) so I pretty much ignored it.

I see dozens saying:LOTR models are terrible and warhammer is the best,

Very subjective. Personally, I think the LOTR range contains some of the best miniatures GW ever released (along with a few clunkers, too). As you said though, the aestetic was very different. Both 40K and WFB minis are "heroic" with oversized heads, hands, and weapons. Most of the LOTR figures are much more realistically proportioned, and many of the character figures are beautifuly done "portraits" of the actors from the movies.

Is it the rule set?

IMO the Strategy Battle Game rules are some of the best that GW ever wrote. Period. I can understand if some people just like 40K or WFB better, but its hard to argue that they are better rules systems than the elegant SBG. I seldom if ever have read actual players of LOTR complain about broken rules, unbalanced lists, or other complaints as much as players of GW's other two "core" systems, where complaints are endemic.

Tau:We are the best shooty army EVER.We ignore cover and stuff.We have riptides.We suck at close combat.Its a shame you'll never get there.

I've got a Tau army and I disagree with this. IMO Firewarriors are not shooty enough to offset their lack of any close combat ability at all. My army was routinly slaughtered by close combat armies like Space Wolves or Tyranids. Maybe that's changed a bit in the more recent editon of the rules, but previously Tau was a mediocre shooty army in a rules set that totally favored close combat.

Or is it the rule that states:I can't play uruk hai vs gondor because Im trapped by what's written in the book.Because I have NEVER seen that rule.

Becuase such a rule does not exist. Now, lots of players (like me) favor playing "histoical" scenarios from the books and/or movies but many LOTR fans use "points match" games and play whoever they want against whoever their opponent wants. Its not different than 40K or WFB where allied or even the same forces can fight each other.

IMO most of the complaints against LOTR are just people justifying their choices in games by bashing the alternatives.


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 Spellbound wrote:
For me, I can't stand playing battle for historical things that happened in the past. It's why I can't play historical games, either, like Flames of War.

That's fair enough. I don't really understand the feeling, but picking games is entirely subjective so this is as good a reason as any to chose not to play a game.

"Ok, let's put your fellowship versus my ringwraiths. Oh look at that, I killed the entire fellowship!"

Except that is NOT what happened, so your battle is meaningless.

See, this doesn't bother me. If the game is just going to just recreate the events of the book, whats the point of playing? The idea in this scenario that the Fellowship might actually lose, that's where the excitement is for me.

In FoW:

"Oh look, my late war Germans totally dominated and crushed your Russians" Yeah....that didn't really happen either. Whole game was pointless.

On the one hand I can relate to this. I resisted moving to Late War with FOW as I like the "uncertainty" of early and mid war. It seemed to me that during those periods the outcome of the war was more up in the air (I know its arguably that historically Germany never had a chance of winning, but in that time period it seemed like they could). I felt that, in Late War, it had become a forgone conclusion that Germany lost, its was just a matter of time till they got crushed between Russians and the western Allies.

On the other hand, FOW is a company level game. While overall the Late War was a steady retreat for the Germans, do you really think that a company of Germans never beat an Allied company, during that time period? While it was savaged by years of fighting, the German Army still contained many highly motivated, experienced, and well equipped units.

I keep saying it:

Their stylistic choices, and welding themselves to Peter Jackson's world, over Tolkien's limited the scope, and narrowed the choices, making many people have a false impression of Middle-earth.

The SBG itself is nice for a Skirmish game.

But the WotR fails as a Mass Combat Game (GW simply has never been able to produce a Mass Combat game that is anything other than a Kludge).

Combine that with figures that are too expensive, and a range that is too narrow, over a domain that spans millennium, and you get people losing interest quickly.

As far as the world is concerned, there is no shortage of either skirmish, or large armies that fought.

There are untold Orc Invasions from the First Age onward.

There are various Strains of "Easterlings" (which were not so "Easterly" in the First Age) who were always invading.

In the Second Age, you have the Númenóreans and the Hill Men of Middle-earth engaged in various Wars (with and against each other, and against Orcs or "Dark Men").

In the Third Age you have the Initial Easterling Attacks of the first Millennium.

You have the Wainriders and Balchoth. You have Black Númenóreans, Kin-Strife, Haradrim, The Wars of Succession in Arnor (between Arthedain, Cardolan, and Rhudaur), again, more Orcs.

You have the war of the Orcs and Dwarves.

You have the various Wars in which the Éothéod fought prior to the Ride of Éorl.

You have the Kingdom of Dale fighting Easterlings (alongside the Éothód just after their Migration from Rhovanion).

The Battle of Five Armies.

And Mordor is ever present.

For Elves, you are more limited to the First Age, but they also fought epic wars during the Second Age in Eregion, Lindon, and Lórien against Sauron. And the Last Alliance.

I am pretty sure that when the license is freed from GW to be supported by a company that takes the role more seriously the genre will do better.



MB

I don't think the game was disliked. The game was very popular during the release of the first three movies. Due to dwindling support after that, the game scene quieted down. The hobbit movies (and Smaug), made the scene liven up a bit again recently. With the poor acceptance of AOS, and the dwindling 40k scene, I have seen this game become popular again.

The crew that played around here found that it played better than fantasy/40k/AOS, and it is a true GW skirmish game.

The games are fast, more realistic, and fun. The only issue we saw was people would make small armies, so they didn't buy much. As people didn't buy as much, FLGS's didn't stock as much... and now we have to buy everything online from GW or ebay.