The Ultimate Middle-Earth SBG Thread

Well, the starter set for the new edition of the SBG has been previewed for the first time:


The four new characters have an extraordinary lack of facial hair for Rohirrim and Dunlendings:








The set will have a fully-updated set of Warriors of Rohan... I will admit they're good models but it's a bit of an unnecessary insult when there are a good few factions that don't even have any plastic Warrior models (mainly Hobbit factions to boot - Mirkwood Armoured Elves, Iron Hills Dwarves, Gundabad Orcs e.t.c - though even the new Arnor stuff was all shitty Forge World resin):


Something more necessary though - new plastic Dunlendings to replace the metal ones:


And two Rohan House sets. Seems to be the same (inferior to Battle of the Pelennor Fields) value as the Battle for Osgiliath set it'll be replacing (though I can see GW bumping up the price further - I'm placing a bet now, this will be £150 when it comes out, change my mind).

In general this set is pretty much business as usual where the new SBG is concerned... if it's from the three Lord of the Rings films (especially if it's human), it'll be blessed by hard plastic, whereas if it's from The Hobbit Trilogy or GW's Middle Earth expanded universe, tough, it's going to be in Forge World Resin and ridiculously expensive because they don't care about either of those.

Also you can tell that it's definitely a Lord of the Rings set as the level of 'Humanity, F*ck Yeah' in it is going through the roof. Want to play some actual fantasy creatures? Get lost, we're trying to turn Middle-Earth into Westeros here!

Not to mention that of course it's based on the upcoming anime film that not many people are excited about. I suppose that's partly why GW wanted to add the new Warriors of Rohan and Dunlendings, so that people will be motivated to buy the box set even if the anime is rubbish.

As an added downer it's clear to see there are 2 characters and 24 figures a side, certainly delineating that the dogshit that is the 'Warband' format is still very much in evidence... and possibly going back to a universal Warband size of 12 regardless of Heroic Tier.

Looks like my Middle-Earth collection will continue to sit in its box gathering dust...

 

*Ponder pose activate*

Is it wrong that I'm looking at these models, and thinking "cor, they're good models" and instead of picturing myself playing ME:STB, I'm picturing the conversion potential for my TOW army? Well, with the Rohan at least. With the Tribesmen, it's the Norscan raiders potential I see.

 

Hell yes!

Given the scale creep that has occurred with Middle-Earth models across the years, I reckon these new ones would scale pretty well with the Fantasy models re-released for TOW. A brilliant idea! Your TOW army is Empire isn't it? The Warriors of Rohan would work reasonably well as Middenheimers or some other more northerly state that preserves some of the Norse ancestry of the Germans if that's the theme for your army, though not so much for the other more Renaissance-ified and specifically German states.

 

Yup. And they are even Middenlanders, technically. We'll have to see what happens because I am definitely tempted.

If I were to do so, they'd be fielded as veteran state troops, weapon being whichever ones are at the front of the formation. Might also swap the heads for something helmetless and with a proper Middenland beard. We all know that Ulric only smiles upon those who try to have as much fur as the white wolf himself.

Not to say that the Rohiran don't have nice facial fuzz aside from those two princes. But the helmets are too distinctly Rohiran. But again, we'd have to see when this box comes out. My money might throttle me angrily if I even look at the price tag.

 

If you're just after the figures then they'll probably come out as separate boxes, so you might as well wait until they arrive in that medium. That way you won't need to deal with the beardless special characters (unless you're after some of them as character models?) or Middle Earth books you won't need for TOW.

And if you're after helmetless bearded heads you could combine the two boxes - give the Rohirrim some of the Dunlending heads and cut any horse heads off any helmets you want to keep to make Veteran State Troops, and then give any spare equipment and shields to the Dunlendings to make them up as 'standard' State Troops or Free Company Militia.

 

One of the Princes has a bow for his on-foot variant, so he'd likely be used as the formation sergeant. Combining the two is a good idea, the problem is that if I buy the box, I'd be going halves with somebody at my local FLS who does play ME:SBG, so that they can get the book as well as the other half.

Buildings I don't mind, can always use a bit of extra scenery.

But yeah, odds are I'd be grabbing the individual releases when they release and I have some spare money... and a hopefully cleared project list... I swear don't have a problem... *tries to surreptitiously hide the dozen unopened boxes of miniatures waiting for their turn*

*Casual whistling activate*

 

Oh blimey, if you've got a problem then so have I - I've got quantities of stuff I haven't yet built because I've grabbed it when I saw it and haven't yet time to build it. It's just part and parcel of being a gamer and a shrewd collector of miniatures

 

The worst part is when I see a box of whatever miniatures and think 'Cor, those will work for that one conversion project in my head' and grab them there and then. Then two months later I'm looking at the unopened box and trying to work out what I planned to use them for and coming up blank.

Or worse, I had forgotten about them, found something else for the exact same project and used that instead, thus when I see them again I realise I could have saved myself money if I'd just remembered that I had the box of X and Y.