The key GW Hobbit/LOTR rumour that everyone missed.

Just a quick morning note:  I am sure you have all been avidly following the rumours of a new edition of the War of the Rings and SBG rules. I was quite looking forward to this and the film and the new release would drum up a bit of interest in a game I quite enjoy. Even with last year's price rises - the LOTR mini cost wasn't TOO bad compared to the  market at large, as long as you were getting some of the better sets. Sometimes I pay a bit extra for models I really want and their LOTR range has some cool stuff in it, even if I do like to field large armies pretty much composed of historical plastics instead. However, OneRing forums tell me that the new way they will sell these figs is to halve the box size but only decrease the cost of the box by 33%. The GW website says it will be $44 NZD for 12 plastic figures, and not some of the best ones going either. That's more than what I pay for a box of 44 Gripping Beast Vikings.
This isn't a price rant - just a note - good luck getting too many people to play WOTR now. 

It is astronomically expensive by our standards. A typical 1000pt Gondor Army that I field spends over a third of the points in just three epic heroes but still contains 152 infantry models and another 12 cavalry. If I had bought all of those infantry new from GW this morning (and still converted those Axemen from plastics, not bought them as metals) then that's about $557 NZD just for the plastic infantry. That is 1000pts - a points level I am often told is too low. A lot of you will say "welcome to GW" but the reality is that many of the WOTR players were actually not habitual GW customers and will likely fall away again. I'm lucky, I already have most of what I want from GW and was planning any new armies using the likes of Conquest Games, Perry Miniatures, Wargames Factory, Warlord Games, and Gripping Beast anyway. 

But still, the likely dent in my favourite games popularity around here is a shame.I hope more people get the idea of playing with alternatives a bit more visibility. I do it, War of the Ring Blog does it, Hour of Wolves and Shattereds Shields does it, I am sure there are others - looks like a positive way forward for WOTR. Me - I have some theories about Esgaroth...

Thanks for reading.

Comments

  1. A pity - until this GW plastics were their only products that were decent value for money.

    But this is yet another nail in the (already tightly shut and pretty much zombie-proof) coffin of my buying a GW army. I'll play their games if they are good, but the models will come from somewhere else.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, that is madness! $44 for 12 plastic mini's.

    I'll buy them...yeah right!

    I love the look of their orcs & goblins and use them for RPGs- trademe is often the best way to get them though.

    Craig

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yeah they started out being the gem of their range, cool and generally well-sculpted plastics for a very reasonable choice. I got most of my stuff secondhand. However, even then, I didn't find their retail price to be bad value for what you were getting.

    Now though... I've no doubt they will have some very nice stuff in some of those kits as some of the more recent LOTR plastics were high-quality. And I even think that this wont be too bad for their skirmish gaming. You can always sell that kind of stuff to wargamers in small numbers: I have my General Maximus (twice!) for Impetvs, Sarmatian Cataphracts that were not cheap but 'correct' and even a Gripping Beats Viking Hero model. But I think the massed battle concept isn't going to fly if using their figures. Most of the models in WOTR exist to do nothing more than be casualties. So Who wants to pay $44 per 12 of them?

    And Than, they got you a couple of times and you are too old to be in their target market anymore, so I guess this is their planned-for 'churn' in action :P

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'll keep an eye out for this new rumoured rulebook... but theres no bloody way I'm paying $44 for 12 figures... which planet are they on? Seriously! Thank the gods I still have a mountain of unpainted LOTR stuff when I feel like returning to it...

    ReplyDelete
  5. One of the guys on the forum - Forgottenlore - chimed in with the gem that if you compared LOTR plastics to a selection of other games' larger sized metal sculpts, it wasn't such a bad deal!

    So it's still going to be played by some people but I'm with you, the prices are madness compared to the other stuff I like. So I guess it's more of that for me and I just hope there will still be WOTR opponents around in the future!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Word now is that it will NOT be combined SBG/WOTR in one book - which makes a lot more sense!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts