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Ridiculous prices (who the hell would pay $75 for 4 low-quality resign infantry models?), a boring/repetitive game that inevitably drags into some band of Dwarves + Bilbo against comical Goblins, where the LOTR game allowed for epic movie-style battles between Mordor and the forces of men. Terrible marketing on GW's part, poor quality miniatures.

My FLGS foresaw this debacle and didn't order any Hobbit products. He hasn't once been inquired by a customer about a lack of Hobbit products or seen anyone int he store looking for it.

Yeah, the prices are ridiculous on their faces. Still -- as GW has demonstrated again and again -- if someone wanted them, someone would buy them.

I spent a fair bit of time around Christmas sitting in a local GW store painting, and anecdotally there was more interest in The Hobbit than anything else from people who weren't already part of The Hobby. They would enter the store, walk around the demo tables, looking around at the Warhammer and 40k shelves briefly, and then they'd see The Hobbit section, recognise it and take more of an interest. The staff were pushing it pretty hard some of the time, too.

That said, I have to admit I'm not sure I recall anyone actually buying a boxed set despite that.

If Gee Dubs really wanted to appeal to the little child that just watched the Hobbit and the parent he dragged along with him into a glorified toy store, they should've made the models pushfit and slashed the prices considerably.

Very few parents have the income to drop $125 on something their child is going to end up breaking and/or losing. $125 gets that kid a used 360 or a DS which provides many more hours of peace and quiet than fragile toys would.

GW just appears to have done an abysmal job making this product line appealing. They're caught between inflated prices and lack of marketing. Without any buzz or anticipation for the product, they weren't able to overcome the pricing structure.

Hence, they end up with poor sales. Of the three stores in the area near my home that stock GW products, the only one to bring in any Hobbit was the nearby HobbyTown USA, which is a franchisee (and according to the employee I know well there) and has a minimum stocking requirement on the product by corporate. Otherwise, they wouldn't have it in. Their Hobbit products haven't moved and currently boast a thickening layer of dust next to their GW products.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
they should've made the models pushfit

FWIW, the models are extremely simplistic -- three parts each at maximum for orc hunters, at least.

What? Dude, don't mean to pick on you but your post is riddled with financially illiterate statements. Here are a few publicly available facts:

Current Period Year Ago Period Last Year
Region Revenue Operating Profit Operating Margin +/- Revenue Operating Profit Operating Margin Revenue Operating Profit Operating Margin
UK $15,613.00 $2,324.00 14.89% 3.97% $14,818.00 $1,618.00 10.92% $31,648.00 $4,835.00 15.28%
EUR $19,628.00 $2,638.00 13.44% 2.38% $20,382.00 $2,254.00 11.06% $40,757.00 $4,000.00 9.81%
NA $18,076.00 $1,547.00 8.56% -0.70% $15,419.00 $1,427.00 9.25% $33,621.00 $4,211.00 12.52%
Australia $5,597.00 $342.00 6.11% 11.21% $5,437.00 $(277.00) -5.09% $11,328.00 $(735.00) -6.49%
Export $810.00 $202.00 24.94% 12.70% $801.00 $98.00 12.23% $1,700.00 $89.00 5.24%
Asia $1,051.00 $32.00 3.04% 77.98% $818.00 $(613.00) -74.94% $1,737.00 $(624.00) -35.92%
All Other $6,682.00 $3,429.00 51.32% 4.35% $5,042.00 $2,368.00 46.97% $10,218.00 $4,732.00 46.31%

The UK has the highest operating margins outside of direct sales (export and all other). They do not maintain a UK presence "at a loss". North America has the worst operating margins, and they are trending down. The US does not provide "equitable income". Equitable REVENUE, yes.

Sorry for the ugly table, cut and paste didn't go as planned and I don't have time to reformat it.

 MajorStoffer wrote:

One thing I think is of some consequence however, is GW has a disconnect in their approach. They're undeniably UK-focused; they've got enormous market saturation in the UK, with stores being relatively commonplace, and public knowledge of the company and the game is higher than anywhere else in the world. However, they maintain that presence at a loss; the UK market is one of the strongest, but there's no way the starbucks-level saturation of GW stores is paying for itself. Meanwhile, with much lower saturation, the US provides equitable income, but even the US is of secondary focus to GW.

Cut and paste are easily fixed with a stop-by at notepad.

I remember starting the first LoTR-game GW made and it got boring and repetetive quite fast. A bunch of people actually built armies, but have never played since.

Baxx wrote:
Cut and paste are easily fixed with a stop-by at notepad.

I remember starting the first LoTR-game GW made and it got boring and repetetive quite fast. A bunch of people actually built armies, but have never played since.

I thought the game mechanics were decent however over time with the additions of rules and models it came to me that the game was all about how many models you can field. I had a very nasty goblin army. But you are right. Very repetitive it got.

 Manchu wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
they should've made the models pushfit

FWIW, the models are extremely simplistic -- three parts each at maximum for orc hunters, at least.

That may be, but it would be an easier sell if the parent didn't have to worry about their spawn swallowing model glue or something. I know this from experience, because when I was a kid I got the... 3rd Edition I think? starter set (The one that had the crashed Aquila Lander in it. I beat myself up for not keeping it!). Anyway, my mom was wary about me having toxic glue around and I had to beg her to get it for me.

You can argue that you can easily remedy this by watching the little buggers but in this day and age few parents want or can do this. If it was just a push fit set, it would be another lego set or something to the uninitiated adult.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
they should've made the models pushfit

FWIW, the models are extremely simplistic -- three parts each at maximum for orc hunters, at least.

That may be, but it would be an easier sell if the parent didn't have to worry about their spawn swallowing model glue or something. I know this from experience, because when I was a kid I got the... 3rd Edition I think? starter set (The one that had the crashed Aquila Lander in it. I beat myself up for not keeping it!). Anyway, my mom was wary about me having toxic glue around and I had to beg her to get it for me.

You can argue that you can easily remedy this by watching the little buggers but in this day and age few parents want or can do this. If it was just a push fit set, it would be another lego set or something to the uninitiated adult.

Ah, the good old days, my parents didn't have any problem with me assembling plastic model planes when I was a kid, lol.

I'm not sure GW really wants to aim for the crowd that is old enough not to swallow parts but not old enough to handle glue or a knife.

brettz123 wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

brettz123 wrote:
4. And last but not least a lot of the GW sculpts look like crap. For instance the trolls and the orc characters are particularly poor sculpts. There shouldn't be sharp angles on flesh and frankly while I don't think Peter Jackson helped out GW by changing the look a lot of the stuff in the movie (see #1) GW didn't help themselves any with substandard sculpts either.

Are you sure this is a problem with the sculpts and not simply with the way GW had them painted? I've often thought different LOTR/Hobbit models looked ugly as sin because of the images of the GW painted ones, but then when I've seen them in the plastic/metal/resin I realise the sculpts are often quite good but they've been painted with hard edges for no reason and in an attempt to bring out the face they've just made it look cartoonishly silly given the models are actually realistic scale unlike the other GW ranges.

5. Is it me or has the Heavy Metal team gone down hill? Some of the orcs look like turds. Seriously check out Narzug..... looks like a giant brown turd.

I have a feeling it's simply how they're being told to paint, more cartoonish, simpler, harder lines and for certain models (I'd argue many models) it simply doesn't work. Look at some of the lines on Narzug's legs, they make it look like the muscles are squared off instead of rounded, but if you rotate the model in the 360 view, you can see they clearly aren't.

It's not just LOTR, look at the Savage Orcs on the GW site and you would think the muscles are all unnatural and square, but the sculpts are actually fine, it's just the way GW have told their painters to paint them.

Good points. I haven't seen them in person and am just going by the pictures on the website. Not going to drop the money to find out either .

How the Trolls will look like if painted properly:



In comparison with the Heavy Metal paint scheme:



I second that the sculpts are not a problem. The presentation of the sculpts are.

@heartserensde

Those are nice trolls.

I'd personally blame the setting of The Hobbit, really.

Like others have said, it's more of an adventure than a backdrop for battles of a noticeable scale. I think the 3rd movie will probably boost sales the most, more than anything else.

The lack of marketing is also a problem too, but to be fair, when's the last time GW marketed any of their products outside of their stores (Despite the like, 2 TV ads I've seen/heard about a long while ago)

As for the 3 Trolls, the $85 GW's asking for is still cheaper than 3 LOTR metal trolls. It's expensive but you're still saving (barely).


For what it's worth, LOTR is actually decent in my area. Not anywhere near the levels of 40k and WM/H, mind you, but it's definitely played (often by younger gamers)

I'd argue the old ruleset was a great introduction to how wargaming rules generally work, but that's a moot point.

I really want those troll models.... Tha picture isn't helping. :-)

One thing I've noticed is the smaller scale gives the models a brittle, somewhat cheap feel.

 Manchu wrote:
One thing I've noticed is the smaller scale gives the models a brittle, somewhat cheap feel.

Brittle? Hrm, I never noticed that. They do push the limit of sizes on things like spear hafts, but nothing I've ever noticed that was brittle. Though I haven't bought any LOTR models for a while, maybe they changed the formula of the plastic.

The only marketting of The Hobbit I saw was a Bilbo miniature handed out at the cinema with a flyer for the local GW store.
People were clamouring for the handout, as the cinema staff walked along the aisle, but their little plastic bag has a bit of paper and a TINY figure of Bilbo in it. It was too small to make out what it was in the dim light of the cinema, befor the movie started.
Almost all of them get dumped in the popcorn box and left on the floor.

It was a good idea, I assume off the back of the local GW. Grab a likely gamer from the hordes waiting to watch the movie, but it was handled badly, like the rest of the release.

Did they really make The Hobbit its own game, seperate from LotR? To me, that would be a killer.

It would be like Heroclix making a series based on the Marvel: Civil War story and have it be incompatible with any other Marvel series they have made...Well of course it's going to fail, "duh".

Anyway...what if:

GW was obligated to do The Hobbit? What if when they signed for LotR they also had to agree to do any future movie releases based in that same world? GW somehow got a prescreening and realized how much this would not work for a miniatures game and so they opted to only put in the most minimal amount of effort in the game/promotion?

Just read the first few replies, so this is based off some of the original questions:

1) LOTR was hugely popular at one time, possibly not in established GW groups, thus the notion that not knowing anyone who played means no one played. At one point my shop was selling 8 return of the king sets a week.

2) Prices were cheaper. 24 orcs for 20 bucks. Amazing. Now its 10 men of dale in stupid hats for 30 something. Starter went from 50 to 100

3) confusion that the Hobbit rulebook is actually the current redo of the LOTR rules.

4) fatigue. This is movie 4, not as much hook to it.

5) Hobbit isn't LOTR. Shorter more whimsical book, and the movie deviates from the book, less enthusiasm from tolkien fans.

6) models not needed to recreate battles. Trolls=no fight, Men of Dale=dragonfood, Dwarves= dragonfood.

GW won't Fething give me a bit of advance info, so how the could a store get ready for the realease. I tried hard. I failed. Stuff is rotting on my wall.

 mikhaila wrote:
Just read the first few replies, so this is based off some of the original questions:

2) Prices were cheaper. 24 orcs for 20 bucks. Amazing. Now its 10 men of dale in stupid hats for 30 something. Starter went from 50 to 100

I think a lot of us are immune (or at least use to) GWs prices. So when GW released the Hobbit miniatures their prices were in line with their other games.

GW has increased their prices so much in the 10 years since the LoTR has been released that they are now way too expensive for the person coming off of the street who just has a casual interest.

I have a friend who has seen me play Warhammer 40k and he wants to get himself and his kids into the hobby and I was going to start him off with the Hobbit starter set. He ended up going into a GW store to take a look around and he had sticker shock at how high the prices are (and he makes really good money). So much so that he does not want to get into the hobby anymore.

So I think GWs pricing is what is keeping a lot of people away from the game.

After reading this thread I had to check something on the GW site, and I have to ask why they have still not released Thorin's company. Is the only way to get it still only through the plastics in the game box? Much as I loath finecast I don't understand why the only figures of the main characters are still only in lower quality plastic and restricted to the game box. I'd settle for plastic because I can't have metal.

I suppose if they charged what they do for all other 28mm finecast figures, £12 a pop seems the baseline, then Thorin's Company would be easily £100+. I guess that just shows how insane their prices are on the Hobbit range.

Probably why they have not been released as of yet. Even GW knows it would be stupid

Zero advertising, and INSANE price mainly, but also look at the initial models released, LOTR has the last alliance box, and moria goblin box released in very first wave of minis, this meant you could have a good and evil player ready for a good sized battle from the off (and at £12 for 24 minis no less!)
The hobbit just saw the release of the pretty ugly ass trolls and goblins, the only set of GOOD warriors was thorins company which came in a starter set for £70, which still requires the £40 rule book to play if you want points values and rules for ANYTHING outside of thorins company and goblin town. Thats a minumum of £110 just to get started properly. where as with LOTR you could buy the £20 rulebook between yourself and a friend, and get a £12 box of warriors each and there you go, 2 people with playable forces for £44, the kind of price you could twist dads arm into spending.

also, the biggest pull for LOTR would have been the fellowship itself, all 9 members, for £25... the hobbits equivalelt box (outside of goblin town) is the £45 for models White Council (Yes, £11.25 each) the kind of price that makes your dad hurry you out the shop and give you a little talk about the value of money.

 Blackmoor wrote:

 mikhaila wrote:
Just read the first few replies, so this is based off some of the original questions:

2) Prices were cheaper. 24 orcs for 20 bucks. Amazing. Now its 10 men of dale in stupid hats for 30 something. Starter went from 50 to 100

I think a lot of us are immune (or at least use to) GWs prices. So when GW released the Hobbit miniatures their prices were in line with their other games.

GW has increased their prices so much in the 10 years since the LoTR has been released that they are now way too expensive for the person coming off of the street who just has a casual interest.

I have a friend who has seen me play Warhammer 40k and he wants to get himself and his kids into the hobby and I was going to start him off with the Hobbit starter set. He ended up going into a GW store to take a look around and he had sticker shock at how high the prices are (and he makes really good money). So much so that he does not want to get into the hobby anymore.

So I think GWs pricing is what is keeping a lot of people away from the game.

Considering that LotR's was more or less free advertisement for GW they could have kept the prices down for the average person to get into the hobby. Then try to snag them into the more expensive games, like 40K They made their choices with how they managed their toy line concerning the Hobbit and they completely blew it. Some of us who cringed on the New Line Cinema contract. Loss of time, revenue, production that could have used on improvements on other aspects of the company instead of this fiasco. Little or no product moving due to price is what I am hearing and seeing for myself.

Very interesting thread. Looks almost as bad as Dreadfleet. Those trolls are unappealing models even if painted well, IMO.

If a good quality sculptor got ahold of the rights, and marketed them as collector/competition grade miniatures I think this would be more interesting to Tolkien fans.

Even if this was a self-contained, reasonably priced boxed set adventure game, it wouldn't even be all that interesting. It's the same game over and over. We all know the outcome of the story.

I wouldn't even want to paint these miniatures if the prices were slashed heavily. Even if you had all the stuff, seems like you'd be hard-pressed to find someone willing to play against you. They're too busy playing 40k etc.

 Cave_Dweller wrote:
Very interesting thread. Looks almost as bad as Dreadfleet. Those trolls are unappealing models even if painted well, IMO.

If a good quality sculptor got ahold of the rights, and marketed them as collector/competition grade miniatures I think this would be more interesting to Tolkien fans.

What do you feel is wrong with the trolls and the sculpts in general? To me they look quite well detailed and true to the movie renditions of tom, bert and bill.

I am reasonably impressed with the quality of Thorin's company as well. For plastic models they look great, are well proportioned, well detailed for their size (the amount they are zoomed in on the GW website might make you think otherwise, but if you see the models in reality you realise it would take a good painter to actually bring out the quality of the sculpts).

The goblins look like decent sculpts, I just don't like the aesthetic of an ugly pus oozing boil popping goblin.

Overall there's very few LOTR/Hobbit sculpts that I don't like, most of them I think are great. My only complaints with some of them are that in order to reduce the number of pieces on some of them they had a poor selection of draft angles on the moulds. But for the most part I think the LOTR and Hobbit sculpts are as good as 40k/Fantasy but with a nicer (less cartoonish) aesthetic.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Cave_Dweller wrote:
Very interesting thread. Looks almost as bad as Dreadfleet. Those trolls are unappealing models even if painted well, IMO.

If a good quality sculptor got ahold of the rights, and marketed them as collector/competition grade miniatures I think this would be more interesting to Tolkien fans.

What do you feel is wrong with the trolls and the sculpts in general? To me they look quite well detailed and true to the movie renditions of tom, bert and bill.

I am reasonably impressed with the quality of Thorin's company as well. For plastic models they look great, are well proportioned, well detailed for their size (the amount they are zoomed in on the GW website might make you think otherwise, but if you see the models in reality you realise it would take a good painter to actually bring out the quality of the sculpts).

The goblins look like decent sculpts, I just don't like the aesthetic of an ugly pus oozing boil popping goblin.

Overall there's very few LOTR/Hobbit sculpts that I don't like, most of them I think are great. My only complaints with some of them are that in order to reduce the number of pieces on some of them they had a poor selection of draft angles on the moulds. But for the most part I think the LOTR and Hobbit sculpts are as good as 40k/Fantasy but with a nicer (less cartoonish) aesthetic.

That's the problem right there. They look like the movie. The movie was entertaining, but not as good as LOTR. It just wasn't.

The characters also aren't as engaging.

I actually went over to the GW site and checked out the prices...it's just whack! I want some of whatever they're smoking. $85 for the rule book, $125 for escape from goblin town ( worst name I've ever seen for a game set!) and $85 for the trolls.

You'd better get a 2nd job and start selling blood plasma if you want to get into this game!

The quality of the sculpting on the trolls is mediocre at best, more in line with some of the D&D stuff Reaper does with its various lines, and for far less money.

In fact I'd rather buy and paint Reaper stuff any day of the week than this gak. Quite frankly these models are boring.

Sorry, you have me slightly confused, you're going to have to clarify some things.

 Cave_Dweller wrote:
That's the problem right there. They look like the movie. The movie was entertaining, but not as good as LOTR. It just wasn't.

Are we talking about aesthetic here? I agree the LOTR movies were far grander and I felt the story worked better (compared to PJ's stretching out of The Hobbit). BUT, do you also not like them aesthetically speaking? Other than the aforementioned boiled goblins, there's not much I don't like the aesthetics of in the LOTR or The Hobbit, I like the visual style and think GW captured it well.

The quality of the sculpting on the trolls is mediocre at best, more in line with some of the D&D stuff Reaper does with its various lines, and for far less money.

You're going to have to be a bit specific here because I'm not seeing it. They look fine to me...
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/wnt/blog.jsp?pid=8200050-gws

They could maybe use a bit more skin texture, but the skin texture would be out of scale if they tried to texture it more.

In fact I'd rather buy and paint Reaper stuff any day of the week than this gak. Quite frankly these models are boring.

Really? I'm not seeing the boring, I think for the most part they are well posed, well detailed and well scaled. They are smaller than your average 40k or Fantasy models, so are actually more detailed when you see them in the plastic/resin.

I don't disagree that the prices are crazy and I don't disagree the Hobbit movie had less of an impact on my than the LOTR movies and I don't disagree GW have poorly advertised them. However when it comes to the models themselves, I really am a fan of both the LOTR and The Hobbit models (with a few exceptions like the new ugly goblins and some poorly chosen draft angles on some plastic models).

 Manchu wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
they should've made the models pushfit

FWIW, the models are extremely simplistic -- three parts each at maximum for orc hunters, at least.

The Hobbit boxset models are so easy to put together. The Wargs, Hunter Orcs etc are as well, they're just a few parts, in the case of the orcs, a head, two arms and maybe a quiver to glue to the back. Hardly anything challenging at all.


My FLGS store started LOTR back up, granted only for a few weeks, but no-one has played the Hobbit scenario. We played scenarios from the original LOTR trilogy instead. I think that was the appeal, LOTR is more widely known by the general population, everyone remembers Helm's Deep, and the battle for Minas Tirith, and Sean Bean dying.again. but The Hobbit is essentially a giant nature trail, nothing has really happened in it. There's more excitement to be had for LOTR and the armies are more exciting, currently it's just a Goblin King and a shed load of goblins, hardly Helm's Deep territory when it comes to firing up the imagination. Also the advertising sucked nuts! I didn't see any advertising for the game anywhere, apart from White Dwarf.

I bought the box set because I loved the look of the models, I wanted to do a diorama with them when I eventually get them all finished. I do want all the Hobbit releases eventually, just as a collector/painter. I know i'll never play a game, which is quite sad because the rules seemed quite enjoyable!