Some hope for 2012?

[Hellfury]

Harry posted this not too long ago in the LotR discussion forums here

I know I don't post much in this end of the forum ... it's a round base thing.

But I was passing by and spotted this thread.

Whatever the apparent decline of LotR .... it is not over yet.

The Games Dev and the sculpting team have been expanded over the last 12 months.
My understanding is that one of the reasons for this is so they can give LotR and The Hobbit the attention it needs whilst not impacting on the capacity of the studio to continue to knock stuff out at an alarming rate for 40K and fantasy. (To avoid what happened last time around).

There are some significant releases on the way for LotR/WotR

Then we have this rumor tidbit by Troll-King from The One Ring forums:

Curtis and I heard from Bluewater that there are:
lot of new models on the way. Smaug, of course, sounds like people have seen him and it's beautiful
More goblins
Sounds like they're withdrawing all the old figures - by which, I guess they're revising some and reboxing everything.
Scale is absolutely, definitely the same: "we would never make our old figures obsolete"
LOTR & WOTR combined in one book. PLus a totally new book for the new range.
I'm sure there's lots more information will leak out soon.

Bluewater clear everything old out and introduce a new, bigger LOTR/WOTR table in Jan, so given that Wayland are remaindering the old boxes, my guess is some of it, at least, will be launched in Jan.
Cheers, Paul, aka the Troll-father

Let the speculation and wishlisting begin!

[Skaven13]

That's beautiful. LotR is still my favorite, so I am glad they are going to continue to support it. But WotR AND LotR in the same book? That's gonna be one hefty book!

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

Great news! I'm curious about the pulling/reboxing the old range, though - makes me feel like I ought to jump on the handful of figures I've been meaning to get.

On the flipside, that will hopefully turn out for the better for certain groups of players like Easterlings, Numenoreans, and 2nd Age Elves who are all currently packaged in boxes that aren't necessarily logical given the current set-up of the game.

Nice to have something to look forward to.

[Killshot]

I'm happy to hear this, love the SBG rules (never played WotR) and it's good news!

[Xelee]

LOTR & WOTR combined in one book. PLus a totally new book for the new range.

That's very promising - the widest possible audience will have the ability to get into all their games and they are in the business of selling models not books. So the rules can continue to be there, and published, to allow people to play wargames with all the models they buy.

[Bael]

Sounds plausible, except for maybe the January release..

[destroyerlord]

When was the last release for LotR? It was the dwarf stuff, with the Champion, the Loremaster, the cave drake and a few other things. Was that earlier this year or last year? I can't even remember. I'd say a January release date for new models isn't just plausible, its well overdue, though its a strange time of year for a new rulebook.

[Karak Norn Clansman]

Great to hear. Along with the existing Dwarven and Goblin range, The Hobbit releases will be a sweet time for Lotr.

[unknownps]

Thats great to hear.. it is hard finding people to game with but i will endure..

hopefully i get my brother in law into a few skirimsh battles.. as he loves warhammer but never get time to paint all the fig's hopefull this small scale will work for him..


SMAUG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.. ahhh it lifts the soul

[someone2040]

When was the last release for LotR? It was the dwarf stuff, with the Champion, the Loremaster, the cave drake and a few other things. Was that earlier this year or last year? I can't even remember. I'd say a January release date for new models isn't just plausible, its well overdue, though its a strange time of year for a new rulebook.

Sometime late last year. Same month that High Elves got their bunch of plastics, I think it was October.
So yeah, no new lord of the rings models in over a year.

January does sound surprising to me as a potential candidate for Lord of the Rings though. It's rumoured in Fantasy forums that Vampire Counts will be getting a re-release around then. But who knows, anything could happen.

[destroyerlord]

It's rumoured in Fantasy forums that Vampire Counts will be getting a re-release around then. But who knows, anything could happen.

Do we really think that LotR will get a full release month to itself though? It would probably make more sense that anything new would be released alongside a wave release for the other systems and not a book release, but like you say, with nothing new for over a year anything could happen.

[smaul]

fun to hear, lets hope that pans out with more to come

[Intrepid Adventurer]

WotR is still the best GW game system. I'm glad to hear it's getting some love (BLESS YOU Peter Jackson for making the Hobbit!). A good excuse to dust off my Elves again.

A new book, you say. As in, a new game? Or a new WotR edition (that would be ace).

[thrawn]

i really liked wotr but nobody plays and gw seems to have abandoned it. so i sold all my minis online and moved on.

if they can breath some new life into them, and most important, make models for all of the guys in the rule book, then i think me and my play group will get back into it.

also, i would rather they make all lotr/wotr finecast, the plastic models suck. they're too small to make them good in plastic.

[Mirbeau]

Sometime late last year. Same month that High Elves got their bunch of plastics, I think it was October.
So yeah, no new lord of the rings models in over a year.

January does sound surprising to me as a potential candidate for Lord of the Rings though. It's rumoured in Fantasy forums that Vampire Counts will be getting a re-release around then. But who knows, anything could happen.

Not Jan, I believe from next winter on things look very rosy for you lot. Not to say there isn't anything else planned for lotr next year.

[Glabro]

This is excellent, but this time around the rules need to be perfect (well almost, at least) straight away for both games. No more huge imbalances in the army lists, no more stupid weapon options (two-handed weapons anyone, spears being "like swords, but better") or combat mechanics that put an elf on an equal footing with a man against a goblin.

Same goes for WOTR, double time.

[decker_cky]

This is excellent, but this time around the rules need to be perfect (well almost, at least) straight away for both games. No more huge imbalances in the army lists, no more stupid weapon options (two-handed weapons anyone, spears being "like swords, but better") or combat mechanics that put an elf on an equal footing with a man against a goblin.

Same goes for WOTR, double time.

I'd imagine that the rules would be a tidying up of the current rules rather than any maor revision. WoTR mostly suffered from a few major imbalances that impeded an overall awesome and balanced ruleset. Fix epic duel issues and things like the nazgul issues and WoTR is near perfect. LoTR is a tight ruleset itself, which suffered largely from old stuff being worse than new stuff. Rebalancing lists is all that's needed for LoTR.

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

This is excellent, but this time around the rules need to be perfect (well almost, at least) straight away for both games. No more huge imbalances in the army lists, no more stupid weapon options (two-handed weapons anyone, spears being "like swords, but better") or combat mechanics that put an elf on an equal footing with a man against a goblin.

I can see where you're coming from re: elves/men vs. goblins, but that's only 1 possible match-up. Elves maintain the upper hand against every other evil force in terms of fight value while most men end up on equal footing (orcs and other evil men) or the underdog (uruk hai). Elves also have better ranged capabilities than most men, allowing them to whittle down enemy forces before combat, and higher courage.

Two-handed weapons are like spears, they're very handy if you have a normal warrior to fight alongside. The problem is when a sizable portion of your force is armed with them, but if you have a ratio of about 1:2 two-handed:regular weapons in your force, then they can come in quite handy.

[Optimus Anakin]

Well this is good news. I have stopped LotR for a while since nobody played. I played 40K but stopped that aswell. Getting back into 40K slowly.

If there is new LotR, I think I will be starting that again, something that will seem brand new. My son is older now, so it will be great for both of us to start it again.

[Glabro]

In my opinion, when particular match-ups or mechanics feel wrong, having other match-ups or mechanics be better doesn't make it up. It's not like everyone has a wide range of opponents and armies to play against.

So, the fact that elves' better Fight is represented better by fights against Uruk-Hai doesn't make up for the fact that it's not against goblins or orcs. We can even scale it up, dwarves or elite humans fight the same against orcs as elves.

It's just too simplistic a mechanic. Shooting has nothing to do with it, nor courage, we're talking about fight values only.

You don't need normal warriors to fight alongside spears, spears do everything "hand weapons" do and more.

WotR doesn't become perfect by just fixing Nazgul and Duels, not by a long shot.

But I don't want to get bogged down about the rules minutiae here. There are other threads for that. tt's just how I feel. I've argued in enough "rules conservatism vs. revision" threads lately so I don't want to turn this into one as well.