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I picked up the Big Blue Book quite a while back, but never got around to picking up the sourcebooks. I see that they are available from an online store here in Japan, but at Japan prices (overseas shipping pretty much makes Ebay a no-go). Which books do I definitely need, and which one can I skip?

What kind of army would you like to play?

I have never actually played LOTR. Over the years, I have amassed undead, elves, chaos, and samurai for WHFB/KOW, and will probably use LOTR as an excuse to finally paint up the Melniboneans that have been taking up space for the last twenty-or-so years. I assume that I need at least one good and one evil force to make the game work, and that the lists in the main book are incomplete. Other than that, I will bow to veteran players' wisdom.

You can play any force against any other force. The current source books make for a pick-up game - they are actually army books:

Kingdoms of Men - Minas Tirith, Rohan, Arnor, Fiefdoms of Gondor
Free Peoples - Eregion/Rivendell, Lothlorien/Mirkwood, Druin's Folk, the Shire, Misc. (e.g., Great Eagles, the Fellowship)
Fallen Realms - Isengard, Harad & Umbar, Eastern Kingdoms
Moria & Angmar - as per the name
Mordor - as per the name

I'm not sure which ones will best suit your counts-as approach, not knowing what models you plan to use or really what you are going for.

Thanks, that list helps a lot.

The three Hobbit books contain various units, both good and evil - here is a link to the Battle of the Five Armies source book which GW released as a free PDF:

http://www.blacklibrary.com/Downloads/Product/PDF/rules/HOBBIT_III_BoTFA_UK.pdf