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Pricing.

Lack of advertising.

And the fact that I think the LoTR kind of milked most of that cash cow already.

Kids these days have no attachment to and/or knowledge of the Tolkien universe.

Also, every LOTR vision was crap, in my opinion, the Jackson version blew everybody out of the water with how awesome it was.

It set a pretty high bar for the Hobbit to follow, which was always hard

The Ralph Bakshi film was pretty good.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The Ralph Bakshi film was pretty good.

I loved the Bakshi version growing up. I have an autographed copy of one of the cells from the Gandalf/Saruman confrontation on my wall as I type this.

I'll throw this out there, to go along with what was mentioned about GW being afraid someone else would pick up the license.

Reaper could have been in on the bidding war, what with their desire to expand the Bones line, and in-house manufacturing.

And with the Perrys no longer GW exclusive, anyone with a license could hire them to do sculpts that would be useable alongside the LotR lines from GW, since the designs would be controlled by the movie, not GW.

Box set price about 2x what it should have been if they wanted to move plastic.
Also box set not in odd locations such as Barnes & Noble bookstores.

I have sizeable lord of the rings forces, and I enjoy the strategy battle game and War of the Ring. I prefer the scale of the minis too, it's one reason why I am a bit of a rabid Red Box Games fan.

But two things killed it for me.
1. The prices. I could probably have tolerated this but for point-
2. Incomplete rulebook in the starter. One of my favourite things about the original SBG was that the little pocket rulebook had enough points and things to make basic warbands and play out scenarios straight away. I didn't have to buy a giant overpriced hardback to play. Now I see no reason to buy the boxed set, even though I have always wanted a miniature Thorin's Company with Bilbo. I think I will just take RBG models I like and make them that way.

Price.

This also basically sums up the entire problem with GW's Hobbit:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat970013a&prodId=prod1830008a

Pity about the price as those are lovely, if extremely static, sculpts.

 Harriticus wrote:
This also basically sums up the entire problem with GW's Hobbit:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat970013a&prodId=prod1830008a

£45, that's a little over £11 a model, that's about the minimum price for a single finecast figure.

I wouldn't buy it because it has no gameplay value and you can probably get the older LOTR metal models cheaper on eBay

 Harriticus wrote:
This also basically sums up the entire problem with GW's Hobbit:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat970013a&prodId=prod1830008a

I hadn't really looked at that yet, but click on the closeup of Galadriel. She looks like Rocky from 'Mask'. Edit: okay, maybe a bit more like Cher.

Yeah that link is a pretty good example. I think Finecast destroyed so much good will GW may have had left with customers. I can't think of a product they've released that has been more of a disaster than the money cost associated with finecast.

The LOTR game was initially very successful for a number of reasons. Contrary to what some may claim it was a very good skirmish game. It was flexible, flowed well, balanced and there where very few confusing or contradictory rules.

I've not been an active player of GW games in some time but back when I was I was firmly of the opinion that LOTR was the best core system they had. Though I was in a minority in that regard.

Aside from the fact the Hobbit is nowhere near as big a film as the initial LOTR film one of the biggest factors in LOTRs popularity was the LOTR was genuinely affordable to play. The boxed sets used to provide actual value for money and an 'army' complete with characters could be bought for under £25. That was big factor in attracting kids who where gaming with pocket money or with less affluent parents.

Now the Hobbit has followed the same insane pricing policy as the rest of GW lines and firces are unaffordable.

I still maintain that LOTR is a great game, but the Hobbit didn't stand a chance.

 puma713 wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
This also basically sums up the entire problem with GW's Hobbit:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat970013a&prodId=prod1830008a

I hadn't really looked at that yet, but click on the closeup of Galadriel. She looks like Rocky from 'Mask'. Edit: okay, maybe a bit more like Cher.

You really have to see the models in the flesh to appreciate them though. So much of the facial features come down to the paintjob rather than the actual sculpt. The sculpt can be bang on and then have it ruined by the paintjob.

I got some metal Sam and Frodo models for free as an apology when GW messed up an order, and I was shocked how good the sculpts were, especially the faces. I had seen the exact same models on the online store and thought they were terrible, the faces looked twisted and like they'd just gone 10 rounds with Mohammad Ali, but it was simply the paintjob, in reality the models were actually pretty good likeness of Elijah Wood and Sean Astin.

So much of how a face looks comes down to paintjob rather than the underlying sculpt. Have a look at this...

http://mamageekminis.com/blog/archives/765



For the exact same model you end up with 3 very different looks of varying distance from looking realistic.

Or even this...
http://www.coolminiornot.com/295616

The last one looks like drag queen makeup

I think if GW really wanted to show off their LOTR and Hobbit quality, they should put up unpainted or undercoated images of the models. Either that or emphasize to their painters to make them look more like the actors instead of exaggerating them and making them look cartoonish.

I'm going to be honest and say I don't have the skills to paint the faces to look anywhere near good enough, but surely GW can get some painters who can.

I do feel a lot of the accusations leveled at Hobbit/LOTR sculpts boil down to paintjob instead of the actual sculpt which to me look pretty damned good. I wish I had the painting skill to do them justice.

They could have put a dozen or so sets out to some of the more popular painting studios, along with a corresponding payment for those guys to paint them. For a few thousands dollars they could then have had a variety of different impressions of the models, populated throughout the internet, and really shown off the models to their full extent.

But I guess that would have come under 'marketing' ?

I think the sculpts on the white council are pretty nice when you consider the scale of the minis.

The worst sculpts for the LOTR range are always from Morley, or from when they have gone of piste without something in the PJ movies to act as inspiration. Then the cheesy, cartoony GW style infects the range and stands out like a sore thumb.

 LuciusAR wrote:
The LOTR game was initially very successful for a number of reasons. Contrary to what some may claim it was a very good skirmish game. It was flexible, flowed well, balanced and there where very few confusing or contradictory rules.

I've not been an active player of GW games in some time but back when I was I was firmly of the opinion that LOTR was the best core system they had. Though I was in a minority in that regard.

Aside from the fact the Hobbit is nowhere near as big a film as the initial LOTR film one of the biggest factors in LOTRs popularity was the LOTR was genuinely affordable to play. The boxed sets used to provide actual value for money and an 'army' complete with characters could be bought for under £25. That was big factor in attracting kids who where gaming with pocket money or with less affluent parents.

Now the Hobbit has followed the same insane pricing policy as the rest of GW lines and firces are unaffordable.

I still maintain that LOTR is a great game, but the Hobbit didn't stand a chance.

QFT - pretty much my feeling

 Kingsley wrote:
Instead of people being drawn in by Heroquest or Space Hulk, they are drawn in by Dawn of War or Space Marine.

The first GW computer game I played was Heroquest in 1990 (ish), GW have been making (and even publishing) games for a very long time, they had a gap of about 10 years after the decidely average Rites of War but they are obviously after the licensing money in a big way now.

Thats beside the point though, a computer game and a physical game are completely different things. yes they may bring in a few people but objectively whats the difference between the Imperium of DoW and the Wasteland in Fallout or Skyrim or any other games setting, how many people will go out and buy skyrim fanfiction? Undoubtably there are a few but its a very niche market. A boardgame is physical which will resonate much more with the player given that GW wants people to buy little plastic men.
My very first experience with GW was in an Argos catalogue where I saw Space Crusade which I subsequently got for christmas which I played a lot, the next Christmas I got a copy of Space Marine and the Ork and Squat Warlords book and following on from that GW made literally £thousands on my purchases over the following 15 or so years. Will the same thing happen with the current generation of children assuming that they are even old enough to play these games (Space Marine has a 15 rating)?

Do GW lisenced games even come with that little promotion booklet anymore? They even used to give away miniatures, does that still happen?

Games are advertising but they don't function all that well if there is no reference to the the tabletop and what GW wants to sell. I have never seen a GW advert on the web that didn't first involve me going to a GW controlled site and if I did it was so long ago I can't remember it.

As for the Hobbit it suffers from 4 main problems in my estimation.

Price - obvious

Poor quality sculpts - for a flagshop product GW really didn't cover themselves with glory

Rules - I have never had much time for the LotR skirmish game, games always tended to end up as a massive brawl in the centre of the table, and while the battle game seemed a bit more interesting it still didn't seem to be a great game (I have limited experience here though)

Finding players - I haven't even seen a game of LotR in about 3 years now, and that was a one off, and no one seems all that arsed by it.

I see no reason why I should buy any Hobbit stuff, I am very unlikely to actually use it.

I wish GW would reinstate Epic as a core game and leave LotR to its fate

The face on an LotR Model is probably smaller than of a grain of arborio rice.

 Palindrome wrote:
I wish GW would reinstate Epic as a core game and leave LotR to its fate

Now that I definitely agree with.

 Kingsley wrote:

 Palindrome wrote:
I wish GW would reinstate Epic as a core game and leave LotR to its fate

Now that I definitely agree with.

Epic and Battlefleet Gothic have a lot of potential if they were brought back and taken seriously; I still think BFG has one of the best rulesets GW has produced in a long time, and Epic really captures the feel of 40k in all its grandeur. When Space Hulk did so well, why not consider some other older products? Especially ones like BFG and Epic which are cheaper to collect, and can appeal to a broader market increasingly worn out by 40k and fantasy prices.

 Palindrome wrote:

As for the Hobbit it suffers from 4 main problems in my estimation.

Price - obvious

Very true. 85 aussie dollars for 6 cavalry models? Seriously?

Poor quality sculpts - for a flagshop product GW really didn't cover themselves with glory

Eh - not really. I think it's more to do with the paintjobs, myself. The miniatures are actually quite nice.

Rules - I have never had much time for the LotR skirmish game, games always tended to end up as a massive brawl in the centre of the table, and while the battle game seemed a bit more interesting it still didn't seem to be a great game (I have limited experience here though)

Not really. If you play with both cavalry, archers and infantry, maybe a few monsters, you'll find that the game is extremely tactical. Actually, even with only infantry it's extremely tactical. You can launch ploys, false rout, etc. It's quite amazing what people do in the game. At least, where I play it is.

The success of Space Hulk has to be contrasted with the failure of Dreadfleet.

Since I strongly believe GW should stock boxed games (made by themselves or Fantasy Flight Games, perhaps) it would be interesting to discuss their recent offerings in that area.

 Pacific wrote:
They could have put a dozen or so sets out to some of the more popular painting studios, along with a corresponding payment for those guys to paint them. For a few thousands dollars they could then have had a variety of different impressions of the models, populated throughout the internet, and really shown off the models to their full extent.

But I guess that would have come under 'marketing' ?

More importantly, it would come under 'letting the proles know that there are other companies than GW in the hobby'.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:

 Palindrome wrote:

As for the Hobbit it suffers from 4 main problems in my estimation.

Price - obvious

Very true. 85 aussie dollars for 6 cavalry models? Seriously?

Don't forget their $70 finecast commander.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:

Not really. If you play with both cavalry, archers and infantry, maybe a few monsters, you'll find that the game is extremely tactical. Actually, even with only infantry it's extremely tactical. You can launch ploys, false rout, etc. It's quite amazing what people do in the game. At least, where I play it is.

I played LotR for about a year with a combined arms Gondor army against a variety of opponents in 2 different clubs (maybe 15 games in all) and every game that I can remember devolved into a scrum in the centre of the table.

Well, it never really happens in the games that I play.