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.

The title really says it all. How expensive is War of the Ring per say compared to 40k and WHFB? But Im kinda interested in War of the Ring because my Dad plays Dwarves and my little brother plays Isengard. I kinda really like the forgotten realms with the Hobbits but that seems like a money project more expensive possibly then my Steel Legion IG army. The other force Im looking at is Rohan because the cavalry seem pretty cool.

It really depends on what kind of army you want.

A lot of armies have their most effective units in metal, which is very expensive. If you can make most of it out of plastics, and go for an elite force like elves you should be fine.

{Previous post deleted- I'm an idiot}


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Having played all three over the course of a couple decades, I have to say that GW really tries to keep price parity among their different games. (In other words, it doesn't matter which GW game system you're interested in, you'll end up spending about the same amount.)

WotR has the advantage that almost all your basic troops are pretty cheap. Working against that are the facts that 1) you need a crap-ton of basic troops, and 2) you need epic heroes, who are stupidly overpriced (one epic hero blister will cost you more than a box of 24 basic troops), and 3) all the really cool units are expensive to collect, due to being metal, or again, just stupidly overpriced.

Rohan is not a bad army. You can make an all-plastic force, if you are willing to spend some effort at conversions. And they are an effective army on the tabletop, too.

Absolutely awesome thnks for that answer fellblade. Im looking to get about a 1000 ponts someday. How about the starter set thouig? I would play as one of those factions but I wouldn't prefer it which is a big part of me making a new army.

Well, there is no starter set for WotR. There's the main rule book, which is an anomaly for GW in that not only does it contain the basic rules, it contains complete army lists for all the factions. Once you have that, you can start to figure out what you want. Your dad plays dwarfs & your brother Isengard? Someone must have the book. Read it.

The starter set for LotR, Mines of Moria, is completely unsuitable for getting into WotR. It gives you the Fellowship of the Ring (Forgotten Kingdoms, which is not an army, but a list of allies for any Good army), about three companies of goblins, and a cave troll (Misty Mountains, which is an army, but one that tends to be heavy either on troops or monsters- pricey either way). Now, I think it's worth it for the miniatures alone (at least it was when it cost $50), but it's not going to do you any good from a WotR standpoint.

I think 1000 points is not enough. 1500 to 1600 gives a decent army. In our group, going up to 2000 points tends to result in the same armies, but with more Epic heroes or monsters. Which is fun, too.

I have looked at the WOTR book. I still really like Rohan but I kind of dont want to play them unless they are all Cavalry. So I'm not sure how pricey that will be......

I did like the Minas Tirith (hope I spelled that right), Gondor Models. I like the way they look.

fellblade wrote:The starter set for LotR, Mines of Moria, is completely unsuitable for getting into WotR. It gives you the Fellowship of the Ring (Forgotten Kingdoms, which is not an army, but a list of allies for any Good army), about three companies of goblins, and a cave troll (Misty Mountains, which is an army, but one that tends to be heavy either on troops or monsters- pricey either way). Now, I think it's worth it for the miniatures alone (at least it was when it cost $50), but it's not going to do you any good from a WotR standpoint.

Agreed on this. I put together a Misty Mountains force as my first army and it was OK. But the contents of the MoM boxed set were not enough by themselves and GOBLINS are POOR in-game. At least you can use them as allies for another evil army.

MoM - a good deal. But agreed, not worth it as an "easy" way to get into WotR.

WoTR has the capacity to be much less expensive if you are willing to proxy, convert and "counts as."

For example, regular infantry are less than a dollar each if you buy them at a discount website. I picked up 3 boxes of Dwarves and 3 boxes of Dwarf rangers to start my army for a very light price.

Some of the options for upgrades I simply include in the unit with a bead next to a model, etc. As I find stuff uber cheap on ebay, I add it in to my planned forces.

We're finding it quite affordable for certain armies, with some patience and not having a need to own everything.

I would look into buying models second hand in the swap shop, bartertown or ebay. There are plenty of threads where people are looking to drop LOTR's models for up to 60% OFF retail just to sell them.

As a Gondorian player, I'll echo the sentiments that it entirely depends on the army you collect.

The plastics are very cheap - far cheaper per model than any of GW's other systems - but at the same time you tend to need a lot of them. Basically, each box contains 24 models of infantry, or 6 of cavalry, which is enough for three companies of either - and it's very rare to see a single block of troops made with fewer than 3 companies.

If you're collecting a horde army like goblins, you'll need an awful lot of kits to make up your forces. If, on the other hand, you're playing an elite force like elves, you can put together an army with relatively little expense, assuming you stick with the basic, plastic sets.

The forces of Minas Tirith are unusually flexible, allowing for large and resilient forces in the form of their core warriors, archers and knights, good quality archers in their rangers, and the best heavy cavalry in the game courtesy of the knights of Dol Amroth. They also have a variety of specialised units, many of whom can be very useful (the Grey Company, Axemen of Lossarnach, Clansmen of Lamedon, Men at Arms of Dol Amroth and Blackroot Vale archers spring to mind) - but almost all of which are exclusively metal figures (the army of the dead is an exception, but I'm not a fan. And the Grey Company can be part-proxied with standard rangers, at least).

All of which means this: you could field a fairly cheap 1500 point army by basing your forces around Knights of Dol Amroth. An example:

Dol Amroth knights: 3 formations (for flexibility), of 4 companies (any less and they die a bit too quickly), with a captain and banner bearer (important to ensure they can charge when required, and then succeed in charging), and you already have 855 points worth of army for the price of four boxes of plastic models.

A screen of warriors of Minas Tirith - say 2 formations of 5 companies - leaving you with 5 companies of archers (divided into two or three formations) as support* - and that's another 425 points done, for another five boxes of plastic.

This leaves you with 220 to spend on leaders - enough for Prince Imrahil and and Faramir (leaving 5 unused points), or for Aragorn or Boromir (leaving 20 unused points - enough to give one unit of your choice a musician, which will make them move slightly faster).

All in all, for the cost of nine boxes of plastic, and one or two heroes, you'll have a decent 1500 point force - not only that, but one that'll look pretty damned impressive on the field, being made up of 80 heavy infantry models, 40 archers, 24 heavy cavalry and one or two heroes.

You could easily spice things up by switching out some of the models for rangers, knights of Minas Tirith, or the army of the dead. Things get more expensive if you start looking at the more specialised units (and god forbid you start an entire army based on the fiefdoms - that would be a very, very expensive endeavour), but a small formation or two won't break the bank.

My own army is an infantry-based force, so a deal more expensive - not least because I eschewed archers of Minas Tirith entirely in favour of rangers, meaning a lot of wasted plastic. I currently field 96 warriors, 72 rangers, 40 grey company and 8 knights of Dol Amroth, plus Aragorn and Faramir, all at 1500 points. It cost a fair bit to accrue, but mostly because of my reliance on relatively cheap massed infantry, my refusal to use my archers (I have 48 sitting around), my use of the Grey Company (of which 19 figures are metals, including Halbarad), of the rangers of Ithilien (meaning another two metal heroes to lead them, Damrod and Madril), and of two epic heroes on top. Even with all that, I can think of no WFB or 40k army that would be so large, effective and varied at the same price.

I'm a big fan, in case you couldn't tell


*you get one company of archers with every two companies of warriors in the box of plastics - annoying, if you don't want archers. Even more annoying if you only want archers. Fortunately, both are useful core units.

lotr seems rather cheap:
24 models for about 30 dollars?
40 k is 10 models for maybe 40 dollars..

but 40k miniatures cost many points
lotr miniatures do not.

for 2000 pts army, lotr might be more expensive...but its cool: 40 k 2000 pts is maybe 50-80 models or so
lotr 2000 pts is over 200 models

Yep - indeed, in my case 1500 points is over 200 models.

But then, there's elven armies. You could field a legal 1500 point elf army made up of nothing more than four boxes of Galadhrim Warriors, one box of Wood Elves one Stormcaller, one Command unit, two banner bearers, Haldir, Galadriel and Glorfindel, which would give you 1500 points spread across 127 models, of which 123 are used.

Total cost? £154.90. Not bad, really. As a downside, elves are one of the least competitive armies. Though it could be worse - you could be playing Angmar...

I started an Isengard army for WOTR and it wasnt that expensive but you need a good amount of models to have a good game and its better to get extra models to fill out the trays instead of buying a new pack which will have extra models left over which gets annoying when you dont have anything to with them , thats also why i started a hobbit army which are metal but you get four in a pack for £8 something but for two trays its £32 which is expensive but you dont get models left over unless you do not use them in a certain game.