"When did Discourse Miniatures...." Topic

…get so….reasonable?

Other than the Click-Bait headline I'd have to say that everything in this recent video seems very reasonable (speaking as someone who has admitted to laughing at some of the older videos):

YouTube link

I'm not completely sure how incensed the Warhammer community really is, it's not somewhere I hang out a lot (at all) but the points on figure pricing, especially for those outside the UK, does seem to be quite spot on.

That it is apparently cheaper to get someone in the UK to buy the box set and any other figures and then ship it to Australia privately does seem the wrong side of barking.

And I sort of have to agree that charging top dollar for very old figures does seem a bit much – I'm usually on the side of "well, they can charge what they like if people will pay it – that's a choice and I know what I'd choose", but the Brettonians were only ever "ok" (IMHO) and there's no way I'd pay £15.00 GBP-£20 for a single mounted plastic Bretonnian figure…that does seem a little bit off.

I agree that the GW box sets are pretty good value in general. but I've thought the rules packaging is a bit mean for a while. I like the LOTR game but the way it is packaged now in multiple rulebooks I wouldn't bother with it TBH – which is a bit sad. How come i was one possible to put the fluff, the rules, lots of scenarios and the army statistic lists all in one, not that big, book and now it isn't ?

The LOTR licence is on the way out.

If the rule books you speak of are LOTR, then GW are just trying to make extra money on the existing players.

It's no coincidence that TOW has the same armies as LOTR, yet, omitted all the non LOTR armies. They are aiming to shift players over.

The box of clothes is where TOW has jumped the shark.

I guess TOW sold better than expected? Because the box of clothes seems like such a cheap last minute thought that anyone online could quickly throw together. I think they felt they just needed more product to sell, and quick.

More on "the old world" topic.

Does she get paid by the word? I can never make it through one of her videos.

Locally, a number of GW players switched to Kings of War. I don't know if other areas have experienced the same shift. It would be interesting to see how many answer the sirens call -- especially if their army of choice has been hung out to dry.

@H Man, interesting observation regarding LOTR.

The LOTR reference was because I play that more than I play WHFB (or now TOW!) – the LOTR armies aren't in TOW or WHFB. On armies what the video talked about was how so many of the old WHFB armies are effectively dead in TOW, and also on the rulebook structure.

I was just relating that the approach is very similar to what they did with LOTR and, basically, it puts me off any thoughts of "updating" to the latest version.

When LOTR came out the rulebook was fied to the Movie Tie-In Box release.

So there was a Fellowship version, a Two Towers version (which brought in cavalry and siegework) and a Return of the King version.

In each book there was a whole bunch of stat's for the asssociated figures. Annoyingly some disappeared between books but that was ok because there was – in the end – a unified rulebook (big hardback version or very small paperback in the Mines of Moria box set).

All that was fine, and there were scenaro/campaign books that were pretty good and only a few pounds each.

The latest version of the rules though follows the "you have to buy the rules, you have to buy an army book, you have to buy the enemy army book if you want to game both sides", and then there have been some pretty useless army list type books – just lots of pretty pictures and not much content.

I understand what GW are doing – maximising income – but it seems a shame that a pretty "clean and simple" system has become this horrendous stack of books.

Using old models is a low cost solution: no design and tooling needed. I'm not too bothered by price I have 4 WHFB from back in the day.

Your pile of shame and sellouts tell me prices are fine if not a little low. Mantic and stores with product should be happy: maybe people will buy those things now.

This was kind of interesting as well on the "should models that looked great 20 years ago but are now very meh get priced at a premium level?" Skip ahead to 14:30 to get the main summary point which I find it hard not to agree with.

YouTube link

I do realise GW can do what they want, and I realise people have choices, I'm just not sure what's going on with these new boxes of very old figures.

20thmaine:
I've got a bunch of LOTR figures that I painted when they first came out. I'd like to get them back in action.

Which big hardbound rulebook would you recommend? I'm not worried about the latest rules. Just a more comprehensive set of rules than I got with my original Fellowship and Two Towers sets, 20 year ago.

If you can get it I would aim for the 2005 Hardback Edition of The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, it really was excellent – all the rules from the first three box sets, all the stats for all figures released to date (which was pretty much everything) loads of scenarios, loads of painting and modelling advice. It was a perfect product.

Failing that the smaller core rules version in the old The Mines of Moria Box Set which is the same but without all the scenarios (IIRC) and obviously much smaller print.

When they released The Hobbit version of the game they revised the rules a little and I wasn't personally a fan of the changes. They then set off down the "multiple books" pathway and we parted company for updates (I did buy The Pelennor Fields box set, but only for the figures! There was probably another rulebook in there as well….).

This must mean I have….about…6 or 7 versions of the rules. Blimey!

"the LOTR armies aren't in TOW or WHFB"

!

Empire-Gondor
Bretonians-rohan
Dwarfs-dwarfs
High elves-elves
Wood elves-wood elves

Orcs and goblins-orcs and goblins
Beastmen- orcs
Warrios of chaos-orcs/wild men
Tomb Kings- the dead/all the desert stuff.

The ones left out of the old world have no comparison in LOTR

Dark elves (maybe galadriel for 5 seconds)
Lizardmen
Skaven
Vampire counts
Ogres
Chaos dwarfs
Any I've forgotten

GW even changed the date of the setting to make it work re fluff.

They are beginning with bretonians and tomb kings, perhaps the two that aren't as visually similar to LOTR, as cover no doubt. But it all goes middle earth from here.

The face tow is based on LOTR shouldn't be forgotten. Though it came from D&D (because that's not based on the novel's at all).

All the elves dwarfs, orcs are straight out on LOTR. Black orcs are urukhi, eagle riders, wolf riders.

Again, whether through D&D or not.

Regardless, it's pretty obvious what's going on.

Honestly I don't think the empire is Gondor, it's more late 15th / early 16th century Holy Roman Empire.

Brettonians aren't Rohan at all – they are L'morte d'Arthur: Grail Knights through a French perspective.

Beastmen are a twist on Greek Mythology – rather aggressive fauns.

Dark Elves – they are Melnebolians, straight out of Elric. Chaos warriors come from the same path – blood and souls for my lord Arioch.

Tomb Kings – that's just your average Egyptology obsession.

Elves and dwarves, orcs and goblins – yeah, tolkienesque. The dwarves are extrapolated forward to give the gunpowder and cannons. Tolkien's dwarves arguably should have had gunpowder and crossbows – but Tolkien didn't allow their craft to go that way. They could hue rock to make vast underground realms – but they didn't blast rock to do it!

Warhammer was never very much about Tolkien though, look at Reaper and Asgard figures – the big obsession was Elric, and D&D. And that carried forward in to Warhammer.

Groan.

Rohan/bretonians, both horse enthusiasts.

Empire/Gondor, the more relatable human faction.

So on.

GW just grabbed the closest they had available.

Tenuous IMO, I can't see that Rohan is any less relatable than Gondor, but let's just agree to differ. Especially since this is all rather tangential to the original post….

I see what your trying there, however it is very much in line with the original post. It questions the LOTR books and I am exploring and trying to explain that.

There are now more books to buy so GW can make money on existing players, and new players are no longer plentiful.

This comes at a time that GW is developing TOW, a natural alternative/replacement to LOTR.

LOTR is on the way out, being replaced by TOW.

"I can't see that Rohan is any less relatable than Gondor"

I expected that.

Completely missing the point, deliberately.

The armies of TOW are the best closest alternatives to what's in LOTR that GW can offer in one place at one time, fluff wise.

Feel free to offer an alternative suggestion. I don't believe there is one.

TOW is the best LOTR alternative that GW can provide within existing ip and fluff.

I can't see how we can possibly differ on something so obvious.

Baffling.

Only it isn't obvious.

GW sold WHFB and LOTR at the same time.

I never understood why they killed WHFB, but that's a different story, but why should they have any problem with selling TOW and LOTR at the same time?

This GW are about to lose the licence stuff has been doing the rounds since about 2010, and they still have it.

Why sell one game when you can sell two?

I think your suggestion that LOTR players will just trade in for TOW armies as you describe is wishful thinking. Rohan is so unlike Brettonia I don't see what the attraction would be at all.

And the games are so different as well, LOTR is much more like an historical game (have humans fighting humans and no wizards and it is just an historical skirmish game – I've used it often for Dark Ages battles).

The armies of TOW are the best closest alternatives to what's in LOTR that GW can offer in one place at one time, fluff wise.

But they are simply not other than on a wildly reductive mapping. WHFB/TOW orcs are really not at all like Tolkien, they just aren't. All that squigs and night goblin rubbish – what Tolkien enthusiast would happily trade for that?

Baffling.

It's GWs idea, not my idea.

Orcs are orcs. If you don't like squiggs, what about all the stuff GW made up for LOTR?

I had thought they may have made a game using that, with no LOTR references. Like the new adventures (not who) novel's.

Yes they sold WFB and LOTR at the same time, but they were quite different, due to the wide variety of armies in WFB, as I pointed out above.

TOW armies are just the LOTR armies/races. That's a different thing entirely.

I'm not bothered with whether squiggs are in LOTR or not, it's an orc army and that's my point.

Beastmen aren't in LOTR either, but the army is visually and thematically very orcy.

There is no point nit picking.

Elves didn't have dragons in LOTR either, so on, again, it's not the point.

If you choose to believe that TOW is not a GW facsimile of LOTR, that's a lot of effort.

In fact warhammer 1983 1st edition (from the supplements that had armies) didn't even resemble LOTR.

Editions there after followed that trend.

Things like dark elves, lizardmen, so on were there from the start, at least with army lists, if not being in the first release rules (which they may well have been??).

TOW represents the closest Warhammer edition to LOTR, going by armies. If not the closest thing GW has, or could do in any game with existing ip, outside of the LOTR licences, or things developed directly for them.

never understood why they killed WHFB

The theory goes that it wasn't selling due to cost and painting effort on large units. TOW has 20 man units and reinforced AoS units run 20 models so the size/cost argument is gone.

In unboxing my army I was struck by how Contrast paint etc. have really changed the effort game. Technique and materials have changed.

My guess is that like MESBG, plastic units will be $45 USD for 20-25 models.

I remember that when AOS came out you were allowed to pour buckets of figures on the table unchecked.

So any worry about number of models was never there from GWs end.

The problem is GW getting too popular.

Originally you would have people looking to collect and paint, some role playing with them.

Now you have many computer game people who know nothing about art or crafts and have no interest in painting things, they are only in it for the game and that it's popular and GOT has ended.