"Figures for Battle of the Five Armies" Topic

My buddy got a hold of the ruleset for this boxed set and I know its almost impossble to get the full boxed set so my question is: who makes figures that we could use to game with? I'm not sure what scale, but to do large armies in a smaller area I was thinking of between 6mm and maybe 15mm at the large end. These can be plastic or metal, but probably metal in the long run. Any recommendations would be welcome, whether you can get army packs etc. Thanks

Bob Mc
Been away a long time with illness but back now.

Old Glory, not Old Glory 1, Magister Militum, Kalistra & Pendraken are the major players in 10mm figures. I don't think Old Glory does army packs, but I know the others do. & by Old Glory, I mean the Old Glory 25s company in the TMP manufacturers directory, not the Old Glory 15s company.

Kalistra tends to be noticeably bigger than the rest.

If you're going to stay with the 40mm x 20mm bases, the Old Glory figures that are on strips are only about 25mm or 30mm wide, so the base may look a bit sparse.

Magister Militum has been coming out with a lot of new & unique troops and army types.

For 6mm, MicroWorld Games has a very nice & growing fantasy range. & with 6mm, you could keep the 40x20 bases & just use more figures, & have it look like a bigger battle.

The game is 10mm fantasy figures. GWs I believe are a little larger but whatever. Copplestone castings have some great "not LotR" figures that would work fine for BoFA.

Orcs

Wolf Riders

Wolves

Heroes

Dwarves

Men

From here.
link

Elves are missing so you would have to find them from another range.

Hope that gets you started.

John

Copplestone Castings 10mm fantasy line is perfect, and quite obviously designed for gaming any Middle-Earth setting using the Bo5A rules (which, by the way, are essentially Warmaster rules). He doesn't yet offer elves, but his City men could stand in for those, with the Horse Tribes infantry becoming the Lakemen. He just added dwarves to the line as well. For Beorn you simply need a giant bear (or a 15mm bear), and many sources offer viable eagles, which again comes down to ignoring the stated scale of the manufacturer and just picking something that looks good to you.

For additional critters like the spiders and bats, you also have lots of options. I like Splintered Lights bat swarm. I also use Eureka's wood trolls as ents, though Splintered Light has some very nice options as well. Remember, size of fantasy creatures is relative. 15mm orcs and such could be 10mm ogres, and so on.

It's a great game, and you have lots of options. Good luck and enjoy!

I agree with Copplestone for the bulk of the troops. For the Elves I would go with Eureka:
link

I personally like the Magister Milletum for elves. =59679&cat[]=59825]link
EDIT Click on fantasy and then elf for the side bar selections.

I think Parzival has it right. The horse lord infantry would make better Lake Men.

For the Elves I would go with Eureka:

Eureka has a 10mm line? They have a pretty fabulous 15/18mm elf line.

Apparently yes!
link

-Will

Yes, Eureka has a fabulous 10mm line! :)

Oh, those Eureka elves are nice. And the sculpt isn't far off matching the original Bo5A plastic elves, just with a more dynamic pose.

You could use Copplestone's Horse Tribes infantry to represent the Lake men, and the City men that Joker posted above, as the Elves.

Oops! I see that Parzival has already suggested this.

I'd go 15mm, use Eureka minis for Orcs and Goblins and Elves.

There are some great lines out there for 15mm Middle earth, ive got a very large collection of 15mm fantasy.

Good luck

There are lots of 10mm and 15mm lines to choose from, and a lot of them are pretty damned impressive. Two things to consider. First, remember there is a lot of scale creep between many lines so be careful about whose figs you try to mix together. Second, the main problem with putting together any fantasy game isn't finding suitable grunts, it's always finding suitable character figs that proves the most vexing. Start by sorting that problem first and work out from there.

BTW there is a complete 5 Armies set up for sale in here in the Marketplace just now. Is that Kismet, or what!

I've started a thread on my Sword & Spear forum about my own Battle of Five Armies project (in 15mm). I'm posting about which figures I'm using so this may be useful for you.
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I've been doing a lot with 10mm lotr for playing Warmaster in Middle Earth. Its been fun finding some figures to do substitutions. Here are a few I have found with images if I have painted them up.

I just finished these guys. They are 15mm Picts from Cooplestone that I thought were perfect substitutes for half trolls if you wanted to copy the Games Workshop style for them (which I did). they are smaller than the troll miniatures by a decent amount, though they do look a little too big next to the BoFA plastic miniatures which are on the small side anyway. They look better and more in scale with the metal 10mm mini's I have found.

In the background is the 28mm GW half troll, and a GW hill troll and uru-kai for scale.

I also just finished up 220 easterlings from Tajima. They are a little large and the castings aren't the best but I like them overall and certainly the most film like easterlings I have found:

link

This next image isn't the best but I also picked up some 10mm elephants with howdah and elves on stags from Eureka minis.The elephants I just painted as they came for mumakil but the elves I picked up solely to convert one of them into Thranduil on an elk. They are all in the pic here:

link

Eureka also makes some 18mm armored trolls I picked up that are the perfect size match for the trolls in this game and I plan to use them as Olog-hai. Their tree trolls also make great ents.

link

Next in my painting queue are far harad forces, which I am using zulus from Pendraken. For the mounted cavalry of them I am using Sudan/Egypt 1882-85: Mahdist camelry, sword/spear. To make the Mahud king mounted I just took the zulu king figure and swapped torsos with one of the Mahdist Camelry:

pendraken.co.uk/SC21-p6539

link

For additional easterling and some gap filling in Gondor I am using a bunch of Old Glory figures, here is the list I ordered and am waiting on:

SAR-106 Arab Infantry Archers SAR-110 Arab Infantry Command
SAR-105 Arab Infantry Spearmen SAR-109 Arab Light Cavalry
SAR-102 Ghulam Cavalry , Armored Horse SAR-103 Ghulam Cavalry , UnArmored Horse
SAR-100 Saracen Mounted Command
SAR-101 Seljuk / Turcoman Horse Archers
SAR-104 Arab Armored Cavalry

In addition to the other Cooplestone recomendations from others I picked up the 15mm shapechangers and bears to use as Beornings in humanoid and bear form. The bears are a little larger than the Beorn figure that comes in BoFA box but they look great and still work:

link

I know this thread hasn't been updated in a while but I figured I would add in image additions since the last post for anyone looking for more alternate (or existing) figures in the future for Battle of Five Armies 10mm.

Dragons, all by Dark Sword Miniatures and all matching the size of the Games Workshop Smaug:

18mm armored trolls by Eureka that I am using and Olog-hai. They are in line with the scale of the Games Workshop hill trolls. Slightly bigger, but then they are wearing armor:

Ents, made with the tree trolls by Eureka

and the the Hill Trolls by Games Workshop that I am throwing in here just because you don't see pictures of them online that often: