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Scenery preorder next week.

Hoping for Lothlorien Plastic Characters. No horses needed, so could do Galadriel, Celeborn and Haldir set much like the 3 hunters

Plastic Galadriel, Celebor and mirror makes senss. Would also "unlock" a lothlorien battleforce

See on one hand Lothlorien makes sense, as they could do a Battle for Lorien supplement to go along side the Defence of the North and round out the end of the War of the Ring. That would then allow them to move on to other time periods. The fact they did new Galadhrim Court Guard and dropped Orophin and Rumil would lend credence to this being the case.

But then they redid Elrond in glorious plastic and heavily hinted that Gil-galad was on his way. So maybe we'll see more Last Alliance stuff. Either way, Elves would seem a safe bet.

Johanxp wrote:
Scenery preorder next week.

What scenery?

 CptJake wrote:

Johanxp wrote:
Scenery preorder next week.

What scenery?

The statue head from Amon Hen.

I can see a Lothlorien thing. It would be nice to have a plastic kit of Galadriel and Celeborn in both their armour/war forms and the more standard robed versions.

Porting this over here for people who didn't catch it.

"Get of the Road" diorama.



Fantastic diorama, and I think one of the more iconic scenes from the first movie.
It looked great in the stream, which the quality of wasn't great, but on a closer inspection with high res pics, i'm less impressed then I initially was.
The hobbit faces are really off. They've been able to sculpt brilliant faces in the past that match to the actors near perfectly. But Frodo here looks positively corpse-like and Merry is quite gaunt and not at all his round faced self. Admittedly a lot of that could come down to the paint job.
Something to me is just off about the wraiths horse though. Maybe it's the colour disconnect around the head just doesn't work for me. I dunno. I'll reserve final judgement once I see other paints do their own renditions.


So much for my predictions about Last Alliance elves and another supplement!

 Snrub wrote:
Porting this over here for people who didn't catch it.

"Get of the Road" diorama.



Fantastic diorama, and I think one of the more iconic scenes from the first movie.
It looked great in the stream, which the quality of wasn't great, but on a closer inspection with high res pics, i'm less impressed then I initially was.
The hobbit faces are really off. They've been able to sculpt brilliant faces in the past that match to the actors near perfectly. But Frodo here looks positively corpse-like and Merry is quite gaunt and not at all his round faced self. Admittedly a lot of that could come down to the paint job.
Something to me is just off about the wraiths horse though. Maybe it's the colour disconnect around the head just doesn't work for me. I dunno. I'll reserve final judgement once I see other paints do their own renditions.


So much for my predictions about Last Alliance elves and another supplement!

I think it's a cool idea for a diorama overall, and I don't outright dislike it, but something really seems off about several parts of it. The Hobbit faces aren't great but that's something that does vary, but both the horse and the tree just don't look right for some reason. It could just be the paint scheme but it gives me a sort of "hyperealistic uncanny valley" feel rather than looking natural.

Why did they even bother putting LotR on the schedule. "We're here to tell you we can't tell you anything" somehow managed to be worse than nothing.

 Snrub wrote:

Something to me is just off about the wraiths horse though.

Well, it's brown, when it should be black, or near black.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

 Snrub wrote:
Porting this over here for people who didn't catch it.

"Get of the Road" diorama.



Fantastic diorama, and I think one of the more iconic scenes from the first movie.
It looked great in the stream, which the quality of wasn't great, but on a closer inspection with high res pics, i'm less impressed then I initially was.
The hobbit faces are really off. They've been able to sculpt brilliant faces in the past that match to the actors near perfectly. But Frodo here looks positively corpse-like and Merry is quite gaunt and not at all his round faced self. Admittedly a lot of that could come down to the paint job.
Something to me is just off about the wraiths horse though. Maybe it's the colour disconnect around the head just doesn't work for me. I dunno. I'll reserve final judgement once I see other paints do their own renditions.


So much for my predictions about Last Alliance elves and another supplement!

I think it's a cool idea for a diorama overall, and I don't outright dislike it, but something really seems off about several parts of it. The Hobbit faces aren't great but that's something that does vary, but both the horse and the tree just don't look right for some reason. It could just be the paint scheme but it gives me a sort of "hyperealistic uncanny valley" feel rather than looking natural.

IMHO it hits that look because unlike in the movie scene, there's no unifiying lighting of the whole scene that blends the stark contrast between the dead tree and the bright green ferns and plants into a more muted, consistent colour palette. Basically, you can see that it was painted part by part and is not one, unified scene but just a random jumble of disjunct things.




In the first picture, you can see that there is effectively some 'patina' covering the whole shot that makes it all blend; the second shot is somehow digitally upscaled and re-brightened for 4k, and you can see that it starts to go in the same 'uncanny valley' direction because it just seems a bit unnatural because the brights are to bright to look realistic.

Another problem with the diorama is that its lighting seems inconsistent, because the tree is highlighted normally, but the hobbits look like they have a light source straight in front of them due to the background being dark-ish and their colours all being pretty bright in contrast. This gives the overall model a confusing look, as if there were two bright light sources, one normal and one spot-lighting the hobbits, which messes with your depth perception etc.

I think the tree has just been painted weirdly to stop it from blending in with the earth too much, that's an easy customer-side fix.

Hopefully the hobbit faces are again just a matter of the paintjob

I've been finding that Forge World just can't seem to sculpt horses properly. Someone on the team definitely can (Asfaloth), but by and large their attempts just come across as too bulbous and cartoony. It's particularly jarring here because it throws off the lanky and withered concept of the ringwraiths

As much as I love the classic Middle-Earth vignettes, I'm not sure they're up to it anymore. What's acceptable for tabletop gaming pieces, even at a premium, becomes much harder to tolerate on explicit display pieces with the sole purpose of looking good.

Tsagualsa wrote:

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

 Snrub wrote:
Porting this over here for people who didn't catch it.

"Get of the Road" diorama.



Fantastic diorama, and I think one of the more iconic scenes from the first movie.
It looked great in the stream, which the quality of wasn't great, but on a closer inspection with high res pics, i'm less impressed then I initially was.
The hobbit faces are really off. They've been able to sculpt brilliant faces in the past that match to the actors near perfectly. But Frodo here looks positively corpse-like and Merry is quite gaunt and not at all his round faced self. Admittedly a lot of that could come down to the paint job.
Something to me is just off about the wraiths horse though. Maybe it's the colour disconnect around the head just doesn't work for me. I dunno. I'll reserve final judgement once I see other paints do their own renditions.


So much for my predictions about Last Alliance elves and another supplement!

I think it's a cool idea for a diorama overall, and I don't outright dislike it, but something really seems off about several parts of it. The Hobbit faces aren't great but that's something that does vary, but both the horse and the tree just don't look right for some reason. It could just be the paint scheme but it gives me a sort of "hyperealistic uncanny valley" feel rather than looking natural.

IMHO it hits that look because unlike in the movie scene, there's no unifiying lighting of the whole scene that blends the stark contrast between the dead tree and the bright green ferns and plants into a more muted, consistent colour palette. Basically, you can see that it was painted part by part and is not one, unified scene but just a random jumble of disjunct things.




In the first picture, you can see that there is effectively some 'patina' covering the whole shot that makes it all blend; the second shot is somehow digitally upscaled and re-brightened for 4k, and you can see that it starts to go in the same 'uncanny valley' direction because it just seems a bit unnatural because the brights are to bright to look realistic.

Another problem with the diorama is that its lighting seems inconsistent, because the tree is highlighted normally, but the hobbits look like they have a light source straight in front of them due to the background being dark-ish and their colours all being pretty bright in contrast. This gives the overall model a confusing look, as if there were two bright light sources, one normal and one spot-lighting the hobbits, which messes with your depth perception etc.

It think it's that combined with the level of detail. Like with the tree you can see all those different sections of its bark in a way that makes it seem somewhat unnatural because of how apparent it all is as not being one thing, unlike the actual scene where it blends together and gives the expected apperance of a tree. Similar thing with the horses mane, it stands out too much and doesn't blend in so comes across as over-detailed in a way.

I went in expecting to be disappointed and ended up feeling worse.

It's ok, but pre-made dioramas aren't my thing.

I don't begrudge its existence for anyone who is minded to pick it up, but was hoping for something related to the actual game.

Actually it is (partially) designed to be gameable which was a surprise

from the MESB lead on facebook

Rob Alderman

In the post-Covid World, nothing quite lands when you intended it to. This wonderful piece has been in development for quite some time (in fact, it began before Covid was even a whispered rumour). Huge kudos to Brian for playing a pivotal part in the team of getting it over the line. At least 4 miniature designers had hands on this project, but most of what you see here is by his fair hand.

It's incredibly detailed, crazily true to the source material (of course, with details scaled appropriately to punch out at this scale) and what's more, the wraith comes on a 40mm base that slots into the display base, so you can use it in games.

The horse bridles that Weta designed are *insanely* complicated, we spent hours trying to dissect them and also realised that every single wraith's horse has a slightly different tack, layers of armour, bits of chains, etc, so we really had to make sure this was the one from this scene in the movie. Absolute madness!

An amazing group effort from all involved and a pleasure to work on.

I don't love it. I'll wait until I see the bare resin to properly judge it though as it might be the paint job is doing it no favors.

The horse's hair looks a bit thick though, like it was bred on the same place the 30k Space Wolves get their fur from.

It's fine, I guess? If it weren't really expensive it'd be a neat painting project/display piece. But it's not spectacular or novel enough to ever tempt me to pay FW prices.

I think it would've looked much better if the tree weren't cut off so low. It should extend a bit past the Ringwraith's head so that it acts like a frame.

Also Frodo and the Ringwraith are modelled on different moments in the scene. Like I appreciate them fussing over the details of the horse's tack, but then at the same time they're fudging what the characters are doing.

Could've solved both problems by having the Ringwraith dismounted and looming directly over the Hobbits.

I'm pretty sure I saw a better scratch build of it on instagram this very week.

And as a gamer it has zero value to me. 0/10

That...that's it? All we get is a diorama nobody wanted and feth all else?

 ZergSmasher wrote:
That...that's it? All we get is a diorama nobody wanted and feth all else?

Just another push to find decent STLs and a 3d printer for me.

The Iron Hills warriors that disappeared have reappered as reboxed full warbands with commands now. Seems like a fair price drop from before when they were blisters only too:

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/searchResults?N=250394657+759006339

Oh look, the World of Lotrcraft goat chariot is still up for grabs.

Secondary bit of news, they're hiring for a dedicated Middle-Earth resin designer. So it looks like they're finally past whatever licensing issue they were having after the take over:

https://jobs.games-workshop.com/search-and-apply/resin-designer-middle-earth

New FAQ is up:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/08/03/middle-earth-strategy-battle-game-designers-commentary/

Unsurprisingly, Assault on Lothlorien and Master of Laketown got worked on, for the better i think.

Interestingly, "In the Way" got a bit of a rework, which is surprising after all this time. But i do like the change.

Good changes all round I say. Surprised the Dragon Emperor LL didn't get a look in. Maybe its not as oppressive as I've heard?

Really a nice job here! I also like the new "In the way" rules.
I do think the Dragon Emperor LL is/was not as powerful as AOL or Isengard LL.
Curious to see how the meta will evolve.

Still salty that they haven't fixed the Rangers of Ithilien LL to not mandate Gollum, Sam, and Frodo.

Or at the very least, they should have made it a requirement that the Faramir and Friends box included them.

Ah yes. The narrative formation of specific moment not include people in that time.

Lol at try-hards just wanting free bonuses

 Kanluwen wrote:
Still salty that they haven't fixed the Rangers of Ithilien LL to not mandate Gollum, Sam, and Frodo.

Or at the very least, they should have made it a requirement that the Faramir and Friends box included them.

The original version of the legion didn't mandate them and was incredibly overpowered at games below around 700pts. There's method in the madness