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Worthy of it's own thread I guess..

Hey guys,
We’ve got an early Christmas present for you fans of Middle-Earth out there.

The full rules for all the models from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey rules manual, available as a completely free download.

This means you just need a copy of Goblin Town (or any earlier Lord of the Rings rulebook) to use them in your games.

Enjoy!

PS: We make a painting guide for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which has detailed guides for all the models in the Escape from Goblin Town boxset.
Check it out:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/how-to-paint-citadel-miniatures/id581897549?mt=11

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=cat970015a&aId=29900002a

They do give away free rules.

Interesting. I wonder if they are hoping to encorage some older LOTR gamers to buy some Hobbit Miniatures by giving away free rules?

I guess they are worried about not selling many of the new Hobbit Miniatures after the gross underperformance of the Goblin Town set.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/531232.page

Not really new, but I'm not sure if they changed anything.

Can't wait to hear how this is bad news. Good on GW!

 pretre wrote:
Can't wait to hear how this is bad news. Good on GW!

The only reason it is 'bad' news is that it is very unusual for GW and does not fit with its growing trend of charging an arm and a leg for rules, over and over again. This probably means that GW is selling so few Hobbit products that it feels it needs to make the rules free to push sales.

I just take it as an indication of how much of an utter failure the Hobbit has been. And GW is still pushing Escape from Goblin Town, probably because it is sick of keeping the stock around.

Ahh, there we are. Thanks!

So does this invalidate the $85 rulebook released a year ago, or no?

 pretre wrote:
Ahh, there we are. Thanks!

You're welcome. Though I can't take very much credit for pointing out the blatantly obvious.

 Sidstyler wrote:
So does this invalidate the $85 rulebook released a year ago, or no?

No. The points values were given in the big rulebook but not in the boxed set. However GW never give points values in the boxed sets usually it's assumed the gamer would buy the codex/army book for their models. However there isn't a codex for the Hobbit game so the only way you can get the points values and rules for the rest of the characters in the films is to buy the big £50 book. What concerned me was that they said 'if you had any of the older rule books you could use the stats. whilst the stat lines haven't changed there have been some rules changes to the game so I don't think they are very backwards compatible. That said, as it stands the only way to buy the dwarves (other than EBay) is in the big box which has the rules.

Also I thought that they made a document available a while ago which had the points values for the models in the box. So it might be new that they've included the stats fro the trolls etc. And finally to be super pedantic. they've got the troll's descriptions and names and models messed up because it's pretty simple to identify which is the weak one with the cold which one is the cook and then the other one.

 pretre wrote:
Can't wait to hear how this is bad news. Good on GW!

It is English only of course

Bloodwin wrote:

 Sidstyler wrote:
So does this invalidate the $85 rulebook released a year ago, or no?

No. The points values were given in the big rulebook but not in the boxed set. However GW never give points values in the boxed sets usually it's assumed the gamer would buy the codex/army book for their models. However there isn't a codex for the Hobbit game so the only way you can get the points values and rules for the rest of the characters in the films is to buy the big £50 book. What concerned me was that they said 'if you had any of the older rule books you could use the stats. whilst the stat lines haven't changed there have been some rules changes to the game so I don't think they are very backwards compatible. That said, as it stands the only way to buy the dwarves (other than EBay) is in the big box which has the rules.

Also I thought that they made a document available a while ago which had the points values for the models in the box. So it might be new that they've included the stats fro the trolls etc. And finally to be super pedantic. they've got the troll's descriptions and names and models messed up because it's pretty simple to identify which is the weak one with the cold which one is the cook and then the other one.

This isn't just the points value of the miniatures in the box, it is the whole army section from the big book, including how to construct warbands.

That's nice of them. Bar the fact most hobbit players have the rule book already but hay it's free!

 dakkajet wrote:
That's nice of them. Bar the fact most hobbit players have the rule book already but hay it's free!

"So please for the love of God buy the miniatures! Please, pretty please, with sugar on top. But I can't reduce the prices at all. In fact I have to raise them. But if you don't buy them I'm going to be flayed alive by my evil overlords, so consider it an act of charity."

At this point buying Hobbit products is probably tax-deductible.

weeble1000 wrote:

 dakkajet wrote:
That's nice of them. Bar the fact most hobbit players have the rule book already but hay it's free!

"So please for the love of God buy the miniatures! Please, pretty please, with sugar on top. But I can't reduce the prices at all. In fact I have to raise them. But if you don't buy them I'm going to be flayed alive by my evil overlords, so consider it an act of charity."

At this point buying Hobbit products is probably tax-deductible.

Um..... I buy the hobbit/lord of the rings models.......

While I doubt this will achieve anything with regards to the business, it's a nice move nonetheless for those of us who haven't bought the BRB. In the unlikely event I decide to add some Hobbit to my LOTR games, this is pretty helpful.

Now all I need is to find some Hobbit minis at a reasonable price.

It would help their sales more if they would reduce the ridiculous prices of the miniatures a bit.

 pretre wrote:
Can't wait to hear how this is bad news. Good on GW!

Yes it is great news, but since you asked I will try..

On the basis that GW literally never gives anything away when there is an opportunity to charge more than 200% an item's value, I shall predict that the rapture is imminent and/or the sky is falling.

 pretre wrote:
Can't wait to hear how this is bad news. Good on GW!

Its not bad news, but I wouldn't pat them on the head for it either. The state of LotR is such a mismanaged disarray, that such is essentially required in order to play with the models outside of the hobbit.

So essentially, its like thanking your local pickpocket for not robbing you today.

Or less cynically, congratualting your government for not taxing you on the tax you just paid. Thanks for the lack of double taxation!

Man, I love horribly tortured metaphors.

weeble1000 wrote:

 dakkajet wrote:
That's nice of them. Bar the fact most hobbit players have the rule book already but hay it's free!

"So please for the love of God buy the miniatures! Please, pretty please, with sugar on top. But I can't reduce the prices at all. In fact I have to raise them. But if you don't buy them I'm going to be flayed alive by my evil overlords, so consider it an act of charity."

At this point buying Hobbit products is probably tax-deductible.

Def buying the new Wood elves - they look great - much better than the Sisters of Lorien models............

 LuciusAR wrote:
Interesting. I wonder if they are hoping to encorage some older LOTR gamers to buy some Hobbit Miniatures by giving away free rules?

I guess they are worried about not selling many of the new Hobbit Miniatures after the gross underperformance of the Goblin Town set.

Actually I'm thinking it would be more since the mini hobbit rulebook doesn't come with army lists.

 dakkajet wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:

 dakkajet wrote:
That's nice of them. Bar the fact most hobbit players have the rule book already but hay it's free!

"So please for the love of God buy the miniatures! Please, pretty please, with sugar on top. But I can't reduce the prices at all. In fact I have to raise them. But if you don't buy them I'm going to be flayed alive by my evil overlords, so consider it an act of charity."

At this point buying Hobbit products is probably tax-deductible.

Um..... I buy the hobbit/lord of the rings models.......

Talk to your accountant and see if you can write it off as a charitable contribution.

In seriousness, I don't begrudge you buying the products or think you are stupid for doing so. They have objectively been massively unpopular though for a laundry list of reasons and it seems to me that these free rules represent GW's attempt to get someone to buy the products. You already bought them, so GW doesn't care about you .

 reds8n wrote:

This means you just need a copy of Goblin Town (or any earlier Lord of the Rings rulebook) to use them in your games.

Sounds like a push to drive sales of the Goblin town box without having to do a re-design. Now you can buy Goblin Town and use this free download to play Smaug games. If I can get a Goblin Town box cheap enough I might just do that.

It's not loaded for me yet, but I'm assuming this is more than just the stuff missing from the Goblin Town box a year ago?

This has everything for the Erebor dwarves, rivendell elves, hunter orcs, goblin town, the Trolls and the White Council. No Men of Dale or wood elf stuff.

This is making me consider buying the boxed set since I can now use my One Ring rule book with these stats (ignoring the new silly weapon rules) and therefore use the models without having to buy the enormously expensive rulebook.

What's putting me off a little is the price tag of 100 euro for the box!

It's nice of them, and I'll keep that file on my HDD in case I ever need it, but it doesn't really raise any desire to buy the box. I enjoyed The Hobbit, but I LOVED the Lord of the Rings movies. The game was fairly fun and the miniatures used to be dirt cheap for it (plastics at least) and I felt they had the rules pretty well fine tuned bu One Ring edition.

As Da Boss said, it is nice to be able to use these stats in the old game if I pick up new models, but The Hobbit prices are just way too much for me, I'm happy enough with my older stuff.

From December onward, stores can now order the unlimited Hobbit starter box which is 10€ cheaper.
The small starter box booklet doesn't include point costs of the miniatures, so you have been unable to actually play them outside the handfull of scenarios in the box. Still only covers the first wave of releases.

 Da Boss wrote:
This is making me consider buying the boxed set since I can now use my One Ring rule book with these stats (ignoring the new silly weapon rules) and therefore use the models without having to buy the enormously expensive rulebook.

What's putting me off a little is the price tag of 100 euro for the box!

I only have the One Ring rulebook (the big one ) too (along with about 5k points of LOTR mini's), I thought the game was very fun back then. I haven't bought a single hobbit miniature or rulebook though, so yeah, I might actually be tempted to buy some Hobbit mini's now that we have rules for them. Do you think that the points values given would be a bit unbalanced to use with the old rulebook though, considering the new monster and weapon rules?

 Pacific wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Can't wait to hear how this is bad news. Good on GW!

Yes it is great news, but since you asked I will try..

On the basis that GW literally never gives anything away when there is an opportunity to charge more than 200% an item's value, I shall predict that the rapture is imminent and/or the sky is falling.

The Mayans were right! They just got it wrong by a year.