Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 His Master's Voice wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
I never heard of one. WHFB is on a square base system after all, and relies on entire regiments, whilst LOTR is skirmish and uses round bases.

The SBG uses regimented block though, right? Should make conversion rather easy.

Damn, I need to locate an SBG rulebook copy and see if I can put something together.

No it doesn't, it doesn't even use units, each model moves individually. War of the Ring, which is a different game, uses movement trays and units.

 His Master's Voice wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
I never heard of one. WHFB is on a square base system after all, and relies on entire regiments, whilst LOTR is skirmish and uses round bases.

The SBG uses regimented block though, right? Should make conversion rather easy.

Damn, I need to locate an SBG rulebook copy and see if I can put something together.

The SBG doesn't, no. It's a skirmish game. War of the Ring had regimented blocks though.

In the SBG every model is an unit. There is a caveat: the way models are arranged together matters in many instances - you can build spear or pike walls behind shields, and, at least in the old version, you could shoot from behind the shoulder of an ally with no penalties.

 Manchu wrote:
I brought up plastic Heroes only because I doubt that GW will make Start Collecting boxes that include Finecast Heroes.

My understanding was that Finecast is dead. Any non-plastic miniatures that are produced for the new MESBG (which is probably all the heroes except the plastic Fellowship from the Mines of Moria starter) are going to be Forgeworld resin.

RazorEdge wrote:
MESBG will be made by a own Division of FW, so I guess we COULD see Start Collecting Armies for Gondor, Rohan, Mordor, Mirkwood, Mordor, Isengard, Eastlings ect. WITH one Charactere made from FW-Resin.

The thing is, if they shoot for the same price point as the AoS/40K boxes, there are going to be more than 12 warriors per box. So, under the SBG rules you probably are going to need at least two heroes if the force in the boxes are going to be playable as they come.

 His Master's Voice wrote:
The SBG uses regimented block though, right? Should make conversion rather easy..

No, that was War of the Ring, which used the round based SBG figures in movement trays to make ranked units.

 ImAGeek wrote:
It being an expansion of FW doesn't mean they can't do plastic - Betrayal at Calth is the first Specialist Games project and the SG team is also part of FW.

Betrayal at Calth was NOT a Specialist Games project. The first project for the new Specialist Games department is going to be Blood Bowl.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Don't the Easterling Cavalry (Kataphrats I think?) have command options and multipart models? There is precedent for it (if only in one of the last plastic kits made for LotRs before The Hobbit came along).

Yes you can make a mounted Easterling Captain and a War Drummer. That kit also has a casualty on the sprue. It is one of the best plastic kits in the line, along with the Troll kit.

 mdauben wrote:
My understanding was that Finecast is dead. Any non-plastic miniatures that are produced for the new MESBG (which is probably all the heroes except the plastic Fellowship from the Mines of Moria starter) are going to be Forgeworld resin.

Ha, well, I guess if you believe FC and FW resin are different. (Tom Kirby personally spits in each batch of FC while imagining customers' faces?) My takeaway is, the new stuff will be sold through FW and therefore there will be no possibility of any discount. This also makes me think that all new LotR stuff will be resin and that we will see no new plastic.

 Manchu wrote:
This also makes me think that all new LotR stuff will be resin and that we will see no new plastic.

Highly likely, at least initially.

Albino Squirrel wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
It being an expansion of FW doesn't mean they can't do plastic - Betrayal at Calth is the first Specialist Games project and the SG team is also part of FW.

Betrayal at Calth was NOT a Specialist Games project. The first project for the new Specialist Games department is going to be Blood Bowl.

I'm almost certain I read it was, but I can't find it now so you might be right. Either way I've definitely seen that the Specialist Games team are gonna be doing plastic stuff.

Albino Squirrel wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:
It being an expansion of FW doesn't mean they can't do plastic - Betrayal at Calth is the first Specialist Games project and the SG team is also part of FW.

Betrayal at Calth was NOT a Specialist Games project. The first project for the new Specialist Games department is going to be Blood Bowl.

Well basically same guys are also in the new SG so while not officially SG project de facto is. Guess it could be called SG's warm up project

I hope Haldir in Armour and the old Galadrim Metal Archers will in FW-Resin return. Rangers of Gondor too.

 His Master's Voice wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
I never heard of one. WHFB is on a square base system after all, and relies on entire regiments, whilst LOTR is skirmish and uses round bases.

The SBG uses regimented block though, right? Should make conversion rather easy.

Damn, I need to locate an SBG rulebook copy and see if I can put something together.

I'm afraid that's the War of the Ring ruleset, which is renowned for being as horribly broken and bad as SBG is good. With yours and Yodhrin's comments so far though, I'm considering knocking together some WHFB army profiles for SBG.

 Ketara wrote:
I'm considering knocking together some WHFB army profiles for SBG.

I was thinking the same, as I assembled some round-based Bloodletters last evening. But it also made me think, there is an awful lot of variety in Fantasy that you don't find in SBG. SBG is certainly well balanced and I think one reason is that there is not a huge range of weird things. Like what is a Bloodletter's Fight score? Compared to a Emprie State Troo- er, Freeguilder? Compared to a Stormcast Eternal?

One of the reason SBG is so good is that Middle-earth is fantastical without being over the top so you can have a nice balance of forces among the factions.

 Ketara wrote:

 His Master's Voice wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
I never heard of one. WHFB is on a square base system after all, and relies on entire regiments, whilst LOTR is skirmish and uses round bases.

The SBG uses regimented block though, right? Should make conversion rather easy.

Damn, I need to locate an SBG rulebook copy and see if I can put something together.

I'm afraid that's the War of the Ring ruleset, which is renowned for being as horribly broken and bad as SBG is good. With yours and Yodhrin's comments so far though, I'm considering knocking together some WHFB army profiles for SBG.

WotR needed another edition to fix it really. We play with an A4 sheet of house rules (xelee rules - the same ones basically everyone uses who still plays it). It had 2 big issues basically, magic was ridiculously broken, but actually easily fixed (like 2 tweaks), and the lists in the book weren't even close to balanced. Harder to fix, but doable for all but the elves.

There's a good Noldor list Xelee wrote that we use for high elves that makes them playable. Without those you have to rely on stupid shenanigans abusing certain rules with galadriel and the twins to get huge amounts of might, even then it's a struggle. Whenever people tell me how much GW worships elves, I tell them go try WotR, they're unplayably gak.

All that said the game looks incredible on the tabletop, really feels epic and tactical but different to wfb, characters feel like they do in the books and films. The book itself, despite it's faults was a real labour of love from someone who knew tolkien's work completely and worth getting if you can find a copy, as is the battlehosts book (first use of formations by gw iirc). The story scenarios are amazing but are apocalypse size but bigger.

Back on topic SBG is a great game, needs some tweaks on the stuff that came in with the hobbit, certainly some of the last releases were way too good. We tend to play with just LotR stuff and it's fantastic. The game itself was written for playing the story scenarios and shines in these; of my top 5 wargames ever 3 are Ambush at Amon Hen. I highly recommend getting the Journey Books if you can. The other supplements such as the scouring of the shire, khazad-dum, the ruin of arnor and the fall of the necromancer are also really fun to play.

For anyone interested in getting into it I highly recommend checking out this youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/GBHLPodcast

These guys have pretty much single handedly revived SBG, it's actually incredible the effect they've had in the few years they've been doing it. They even host their own tournament twice a year now, and though I'm yet to make it by all reports it's great.

 Manchu wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
I'm considering knocking together some WHFB army profiles for SBG.

I was thinking the same, as I assembled some round-based Bloodletters last evening. But it also made me think, there is an awful lot of variety in Fantasy that you don't find in SBG. SBG is certainly well balanced and I think one reason is that there is not a huge range of weird things. Like what is a Bloodletter's Fight score? Compared to a Emprie State Troo- er, Freeguilder? Compared to a Stormcast Eternal?

One of the reason SBG is so good is that Middle-earth is fantastical without being over the top so you can have a nice balance of forces among the factions.

Count me in on any project to write a Warhammer 'expansion' for LotR. I considered doing something similar when WFB blew up, but as one of the few who actually rather likes AoS (on paper, at least, I haven't had a chance to try it yet) I decided not to work something up. Happy to help with any similar project if someone wants to start one.

Ielthan wrote:

 Ketara wrote:

 His Master's Voice wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
I never heard of one. WHFB is on a square base system after all, and relies on entire regiments, whilst LOTR is skirmish and uses round bases.

The SBG uses regimented block though, right? Should make conversion rather easy.

Damn, I need to locate an SBG rulebook copy and see if I can put something together.

I'm afraid that's the War of the Ring ruleset, which is renowned for being as horribly broken and bad as SBG is good. With yours and Yodhrin's comments so far though, I'm considering knocking together some WHFB army profiles for SBG.

WotR needed another edition to fix it really. We play with an A4 sheet of house rules (xelee rules - the same ones basically everyone uses who still plays it). It had 2 big issues basically, magic was ridiculously broken, but actually easily fixed (like 2 tweaks), and the lists in the book weren't even close to balanced. Harder to fix, but doable for all but the elves.

There's a good Noldor list Xelee wrote that we use for high elves that makes them playable. Without those you have to rely on stupid shenanigans abusing certain rules with galadriel and the twins to get huge amounts of might, even then it's a struggle. Whenever people tell me how much GW worships elves, I tell them go try WotR, they're unplayably gak.

All that said the game looks incredible on the tabletop, really feels epic and tactical but different to wfb, characters feel like they do in the books and films. The book itself, despite it's faults was a real labour of love from someone who knew tolkien's work completely and worth getting if you can find a copy, as is the battlehosts book (first use of formations by gw iirc). The story scenarios are amazing but are apocalypse size but bigger.

Back on topic SBG is a great game, needs some tweaks on the stuff that came in with the hobbit, certainly some of the last releases were way too good. We tend to play with just LotR stuff and it's fantastic. The game itself was written for playing the story scenarios and shines in these; of my top 5 wargames ever 3 are Ambush at Amon Hen. I highly recommend getting the Journey Books if you can. The other supplements such as the scouring of the shire, khazad-dum, the ruin of arnor and the fall of the necromancer are also really fun to play.

For anyone interested in getting into it I highly recommend checking out this youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/GBHLPodcast

These guys have pretty much single handedly revived SBG, it's actually incredible the effect they've had in the few years they've been doing it. They even host their own tournament twice a year now, and though I'm yet to make it by all reports it's great.

Their tournaments are amazing, yes. Though the toilets always left a lot to be desired...

But I heard the former venue shut down and future tournaments will be at a new venue. With better toilets I hope.

 Paradigm wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
I'm considering knocking together some WHFB army profiles for SBG.

I was thinking the same, as I assembled some round-based Bloodletters last evening. But it also made me think, there is an awful lot of variety in Fantasy that you don't find in SBG. SBG is certainly well balanced and I think one reason is that there is not a huge range of weird things. Like what is a Bloodletter's Fight score? Compared to a Emprie State Troo- er, Freeguilder? Compared to a Stormcast Eternal?

One of the reason SBG is so good is that Middle-earth is fantastical without being over the top so you can have a nice balance of forces among the factions.

Count me in on any project to write a Warhammer 'expansion' for LotR. I considered doing something similar when WFB blew up, but as one of the few who actually rather likes AoS (on paper, at least, I haven't had a chance to try it yet) I decided not to work something up. Happy to help with any similar project if someone wants to start one.

Yeah why not see what we can come up with, at least scratch the surface a bit:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/686644.page#8572944

SBG is an infinitely better system than AOS (note Rick Priestly wrote the original SBG), I'm a fantasy player of 20 years, I gave AOS 50 games to convert me, but honestly it's just dreck. A truly awful system with little in the way of tactics, a very low skill cap, and it looks pretty abysmal on the table, especially later in the game where just devolves into a brawling mush of figures. It's aimed to allow kids to just push stuff around on the table as soon as possible, nothing more. Honestly when playing it occurred to me more than once "why didn't they just use SBG rules?".

Ielthan wrote:
SBG is an infinitely better system than AOS (note Rick Priestly wrote the original SBG), I'm a fantasy player of 20 years, I gave AOS 50 games to convert me, but honestly it's just dreck. A truly awful system with little in the way of tactics, a very low skill cap, and it looks pretty abysmal on the table, especially later in the game where just devolves into a brawling mush of figures. It's aimed to allow kids to just push stuff around on the table as soon as possible, nothing more. Honestly when playing it occurred to me more than once "why didn't they just use SBG rules?".

Happened the same to me.

Well in any case there is now a thread in which we're discussing how to convert SBG to make room for Warhammer Fantasy stuff so you can pick up this discussion there. Thanks!

I apologise if this has been the case for a while but on the GW direct site there is almost every single released miniature available for the LOTR range. I can see an order for camel riders going in shortly for myself.

badgermeister wrote:
I apologise if this has been the case for a while but on the GW direct site there is almost every single released miniature available for the LOTR range. I can see an order for camel riders going in shortly for myself.

Yeah I've always liked the Far Harad/Harad stuff. Now I know it's coming back I might get some myself.

badgermeister wrote:
on the GW direct site there is almost every single released miniature available for the LOTR range

A lot of stuff is still missing. Pretty much nothing has changed in the last three months or so, just the regular stuff coming in and out of stock. For example, I recently ordered some Mahud Warriors but they went out of stock before my order was filled so I only got one out of the two packs I ordered.

Out of curiosity (again, no rulebooks in hand yet), does list-building break armies down by race or source-book? I'm trying to figure out of its safe to buy all different Free Peoples units, thinking they might mix together acceptably?

Also, any "learn to play" videos online that people recommend? I have always best learned to play a game from seeing it played out, while someone explains the rules.

Each of the five sourcebooks contains multiple lists (Except the Mordor book, which is all Mordor). Any good list can ally with and good list, and same for evil lists. To ally, you simply pick a Hero from each list and that Hero can lead up to 12 Warriors from their respective lists. The bow limit applies to each allied contingent in your list separately rather than to the overall force.


check out this vid from GBHL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkgHoUIK4l4

Good video, thanks!

 Manchu wrote:
Ha, well, I guess if you believe FC and FW resin are different.

Unless FW has changed their "resin" in the last couple years (I think its been that long since I bought any FW figures), I've got miniatures in both FW "resin" and GW "finecast" and they are definitely two different materials. The FW stuff is (was?) 100% better.

 Manchu wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
I'm considering knocking together some WHFB army profiles for SBG.

I was thinking the same, as I assembled some round-based Bloodletters last evening. But it also made me think, there is an awful lot of variety in Fantasy that you don't find in SBG. SBG is certainly well balanced and I think one reason is that there is not a huge range of weird things. Like what is a Bloodletter's Fight score? Compared to a Emprie State Troo- er, Freeguilder? Compared to a Stormcast Eternal?

One of the reason SBG is so good is that Middle-earth is fantastical without being over the top so you can have a nice balance of forces among the factions.

Yeah, IMO that's the thing, people are not going to duplicate their Warhammer Fantasy armies in the SBG rules. They are going to need to tone down the OTT rules and stats and magic. I mean, in terms of the Middle Earth setting, Aragorn was supposed to be a murder-machine, but is stats are not that insane. To me, that's a good thing but if you want the same OTT gameplay as the old WFB rules, they need to look somewhere else.

Taking your example, I'd probably look at the stats for something an Uruk-hai Berzerker as a starting point for a Bloodletter.

 Manchu wrote:
Each of the five sourcebooks contains multiple lists (Except the Mordor book, which is all Mordor). Any good list can ally with and good list, and same for evil lists. To ally, you simply pick a Hero from each list and that Hero can lead up to 12 Warriors from their respective lists. The bow limit applies to each allied contingent in your list separately rather than to the overall force.


check out this vid from GBHL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkgHoUIK4l4

Thanks for that info. The video was great at even quickly conveying core-rules, but tactical meat. I like what I saw.

Incidentally, which source books were the most recent? On Ebay I saw one Mordor book with an image from the movies on the cover, another with a GW Troll model wielding a flail. Both just say they are Mordor Sourcebooks.

 mdauben wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Ha, well, I guess if you believe FC and FW resin are different.

Unless FW has changed their "resin" in the last couple years (I think its been that long since I bought any FW figures), I've got miniatures in both FW "resin" and GW "finecast" and they are definitely two different materials. The FW stuff is (was?) 100% better.

Unless FC has been changed recently, they're very different. The reason FC models are on sprues is because the entire process is different (compared it to FW resin that will instead have a large block where the resin was poured in).

When they go to the extra mile saying for Smaug "This magnificent 42 piece miniature is hand cast using the highest quality resin (the same used by Forge World)" to me it kind of implies that every other model GW put out is NOT using the same resin as FW

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
Incidentally, which source books were the most recent?

- Kingdoms of Men
- Free Peoples
- Fallen Realms
- Moria & Angmar

and one each for the Hobbit movies (the Bo5A one is a free PDF)

 Manchu wrote:

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
Incidentally, which source books were the most recent?

- Kingdoms of Men
- Free Peoples
- Fallen Realms
- Moria & Angmar

and one each for the Hobbit movies (the Bo5A one is a free PDF)

Will these books become obsolete once the new Middle Earth book rules come out? I never did buy these. I am just wondering if I will have to buy these and start painting what I never did or just wait till the new onces come out.