The Ultimate Middle-Earth SBG Thread

The Oathmark Human infantry sprues have some rectangular shields that might work. Also, these Orcs are now up for pre-order.

Padre

 

All right, I thought it would be time for another of my conversion guides for building Middle-Earth models on a budget!

Today, it's easily the most notorious of GW's Forge World rip-offs, the Iron Hills Dwarves!




I'm a big fan of these chaps, and the main reason why I like the Hobbit films more than the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which by contrast focused too much on humans (not a flaw with the films specifically but with the story as a whole), but was really disappointed when GW postponed making models for them until they could make them in expensive Forge World resin and stick a dirty great price tag on them that forces you to sell a kidney if you want an army of them.

However, recently Fireforge has come to our rescue, with the release of their Stone Realm Dwarves plastic boxes. First up, the Iron Hills Warriors with spears can be replicated easily with the Stone Realm Warriors:




The kit contains two of the first and second sprues to allow you to make 12 Spear-armed Dwarves, enough for a full Warband. The Command Sprue supplies options for a Banner and War Horn, plus some additional legs which can be interchanged with those on the first sprue, or can be made into another four Dwarves if you buy the resin head and torso upgrade pack, which contains twelve additional torsos that are enough to do this three times:



My only concern is that most of the heads have round helmets rather than the flat angular ones worn in the film, but if you're experienced in casting like @Warden you could easily make more of the latter, or, given this is fantasy and it doesn't matter at all if you're playing games that are not in a GW Hobby Centre or tournament, you could just make do with adding some round-helmeted heads as well for variety. Similarly the shields are not exactly the same shape as those in the Hobbit films, being more like those of Bretonnian Men-at-Arms, but either you can reshape them with clippers and added greenstuff, or just keep them as they are and leave them to imaginative reinterpretation.

The same can be achieved for Warriors with mattocks and crossbows by buying the Hammerers or Crossbowman boxes respectively, which replace the spear and sword sprue that comes with the warriors with this heavy weapons sprue:

Or this crossbow sprue:

Each of these again contains enough to make 12 mattock or crossbow-armed Dwarves just with that box and with some additional bodies can take the numbers up to 16.

All of these sets cost just 20 euros, which is about £17, compared to just shy of £50 for 12 GW Iron Hills Dwarves with spears and £88 to make the same number with Mattocks or Crossbows. There really is no contest.

 

Additionally, Goat Riders can be replicated with the Rambukk Raiders box, which gives you two of these rider sprues:


And two Ram sprues:


The body halves are all interchangeable with each other which is top-notch, meaning you can have 9 different ram poses, and you also get another of the foot Dwarf Command Sprues in this kit meaning you can make another 4 foot Dwarves with some of the spare rider torsos and heads!

The only thing is with this box is that most of the heads on the rider sprues have been designed to resemble knights, but these can easily be replaced with spare heads from the infantry boxes. You get 6 in this box again for the price of £17, compared to £110 for 6 from Forge World. You'd have to be either extremely rich, desperate to play at GW shops and tournaments, mad or a mixture of the three not to consider this a valid alternative.


The only snag is Fireforge didn't make plastic versions of these bad boys:



However, I don't imagine it would be too difficult to find plastic or 3D-Printed chariot and ballista models elsewhere, using the Rams from a Rambukk Raiders box to pull the chariot and crewing both with some of the bonus infantry models you get from all the Fireforge plastic boxes.

 

I see your fireforge and raise you Wargames Atlantic conversions.

 

Not bad, WA Einherjar and Late Romans I presume?

But they don't exactly follow the look of the Hobbit Iron Hills Dwarves as well as the Fireforge models, you'd have to source mattocks and crossbows elsewhere, and WA haven't made any plastic Ram Riders, so Fireforge remains the option to beat for now.

 

And @The Red Devil, O Mighty One, the site refuses to show pics from Forge World now, could you please fix this?

 

Correct

 

As @Imrahil has correctly observed:

There will be a preview coming on Sunday which will be of interest. The main clues of note:

To be honest I can't think of what new models there could be though, as GW have pretty much got the Lord of the Rings range done over the past couple of decades. I can certainly see plastic versions of more Lord of the Rings characters coming. The Two Towers clue particularly intrigues me given we've already got plastic versions of most of the main characters there:

• Theoden
• Eomer
• Eowyn
• Gandalf the White
• Treebeard
• The Three Hunters
• Saruman and Grima

I can only think of Frodo, Sam and Gollum not yet in plastic (or not yet in a suitably-overpriced multipart kit in the case of the former two), and they aren't specifically related to Two Towers. Given they show a pic of Rohirrim vs Uruk Hai it may well be one or more of the more obscure Rohan or Uruk characters, but they aren't particularly special, fan-favourite characters.

One thing's for sure though, it's unlikely we'll see much actual fantasy and I wouldn't be at all surprised if GW focuses on the humans yet again...


Also for the first time GW have mentioned That-TV-Show-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named:

Fortunately they're not making any models for it yet, but I'm concerned that, now they've brought it up, they may be thinking about doing so in the future...

 

Why are you concerned? More models, from any source, are pretty good. At the very least they are conversion fodder

 

I'm concerned because if they make models for a wokefest show that is clearly set to be sacrilegious to Tolkien's creation, they'll be endorsing said sacrilege, and I don't want GW to start explicitly endorsing woke content. Too many institutions have already fallen into the clutches of the Left, I don't want GW to be yet another one for the pot.

 

As a liberal and non-conservative, I have to disagree with you.

Granted, I don't like what they're doing to the legendarium, but there's no need to put politics into it.

 

A little recap of yesterday's reveals for MESBG:

A new startersbox/duelset to replace the four-year old Battle of the Pellenor Fields:






The Battle of Osgiliath.
Two armies, ruins, manual, scenario book,, dice and rulers

Both armies gain new hero models replacing the old metal models:


Faramir, Madril and Damrod



Gothmog foot and mounted.

Gondor forces combining Warriors of Minas Tirith and Rangers of Gondor, Mordor formed by Marannon Orcs and a Mordor Troll.
Alongside the armies there are some sub-par ruins, supposedly modular.



And a updated rules manual and scenario booklet



Grrr, Imrahil

 

Second reveal is Battlehosts, it looks like just as with legendary legions you will have special rules whilst fielding the models of this box.
Not sure if these boxes will be cheaper then the models separate, there are quite more models in the box than visible on the cover



Total 32 miniatures


Total 48 miniatures



Total 33 miniatures



Total 32 miniatures

Grrr, Imrahil

 

Also ELVES

The Galadhrim gets some new stuff starting with the best: Glorfindel


I love the stands and the fact that there is a mounted model for him available now. The best thing for me is that he is dressed in the Rivendell armor style, he will fit seemingly in the army.

next up new models are the Guards of the Galadhrim Court from Forge World. For me this is a very low of sculpting...


(very slim and static poses, but I am most put off by the hands and faces )

Not that I was in any way thinking of starting a Lothlorien army, but I prefer the old sculpts

Grrr, Imrahil

 

The very exciting new, for me is moar ELVES
And even better they are Rivendell models.

A new and gorgeous sculpt for Elrond in full armor and even mounted in full armor:



This one will be on my wish-list

Alongside him a new banner bearer will be coming out:


not quite a priority, but nice to have different banners around.

Grrr, Imrahil

 

I'm really not impressed by this. Fewer models than the Pelennor Fields set, with the Mordor contingent being pretty much exactly the same as in that box but with 12 Orcs and the Fell Beast being swapped for Gothmog, and the Good contingent being far smaller than the previous one, probably for the same mad price of over £100. Not to mention that yet again the Good faction is a human faction, and that its focusing on The Lord of the Rings and trying to hide The Hobbit as much as possible. I was put off by the Pelennor Fields set mainly by the pricing, there's no way I'm getting this one which has a Good faction I like less than Rohan and has fewer models for the money.

I'm liking the new way GW is handling Middle-Earth less and less.

While I understand Faramir being made in plastic as he's a main character, I do think it's pretty disgusting that GW are quite happy to shell out on making two other, far more obscure human characters in plastic, but less well-known heroes from non-human races are automatically given the short straw to be made in overpriced Forge World Resin (as with Glorfindel below).

This is the only thing that's good about this new set (and even then his Warg's mane looks comically too big). Still isn't enough to make me want to buy it, though, as I can get him when he arrives on his own a few months down the line.

These look fine, but I hope they don't replace the current Ruins of Osgiliath set with these and add an extra £10-£20 to the price into the bargain.

Oh, look, there's a 'Revised' rules manual now, which everyone will have to buy just to keep updated with the game, after they spent a considerable amount buying the first rulebook. If you wanted to add a few rules tweaks, why didn't you just release a free PDF with said tweaks? Just when I thought the new Middle-Earth rules looked particularly interesting and worth picking up, GW give me a reminder as to why I don't play their new games.

Interesting, I like the look of the Isengard one as a way to pick up the new Saruman and some more Uruks to build an army worthy of Mordor (currently I have 20 Fighting Uruks without any heroes to lead them), but I do worry that these will join the pricing conventions of the new overpriced Combat Patrol and Vanguard boxes.

Also another concern is that there's only one Hero (or one major hero and one very minor hero) per box, which means that you'd have to buy other Heroes elsewhere alongside these boxes just to make your army playable, because of the shit that is the 'Warband' army building format.

Unless... perhaps they are finally doing away with it once and for all, after ten years of it polluting the game as a pure and simple money-grabbing scheme? Perhaps this 'Revised' ruleset might be worth it after all...

Nice model, shame he's Forge World when some equally obscure human heroes get to be made in plastic, because of GW's obsession with Lord of the Rings humans, probably because they bear the closest resemblance to Space Marines/Stormcast.

I don't think they're that bad, but again, my beef with them is that they're Forge World. Stop making Middle Earth stuff in Forge World Resin GW, nobody likes Forge World except for when they make massive OP Titan models that shouldn't be used in non-Apocalypse games of 40K.

Now this will be on my wishlist too, as I have some Rivendell Knights and Elrond is such a good character. Better yet, because Glorfindel and the Guards of the Galadhrim Court are being released this week and Elrond is not, it looks very much like he's going to be in plastic! Of course, this is the 'New GW' we're talking about, this no longer guarantees an affordable price for him (chances are he'll be £20-25 for just 3 models), but at least he's in plastic and we can finally say goodbye to his Finecast incarnations.

Now GW, what about that revamped set of plastic High Elf Warriors that deserve to be made to accompany him?

 

You might be wrong on this one. The book is not a new edition.
The same rules set is still active and playable. This book is the rules of the last book, but they have incorporated all the Errata that has been shared since the last rules manual came out. you could see it as a 2.5 edition.

Also there are different pictures/movie stills inside.

In this way it is very unlike the other games from GW

Grrr, Imrahil

 

Subpar compared to the Battle of Pelenor fields. They could have gone easterlings and dwarves to capitalize on their earlier releases this year but instead they do this!

I really dislike that faramir and will stick to older models. It's not so much the posing as it is the sculpt of the jump that feels bad

Madril and damrod I'm behind though. I'll try and pick up the Gondor half on eBay for them.

More Morranon orcs. Yawn.

Troll....always usable so no complaints.

Gothmog.....has a sword instead of his Mace, which is regrettable. I agree that the warg mane looks overdone.

I really hope these are less than $100 but I'm not going to get my hopes up. They're basically getting started boxes for SBG.

Elrond, glorfindel, and the high elf banner are all solid-excellent and I would paint them all. Even though I have multiples of different models for each at this point.

The Galladrim guard are terrible. The Spears look extremely thin and flimsy, and I predict they will be a mess in forge world's resin quality. Also the heads are commonly undersized and small.