Link

There are rumours that the plastics will be repackaged to contain one sprue per box and will increase in price, and that a new version of SBG is to be released.

The repackaging rumours are confirmed as can be seen here: LINK

Seriously? What the hell...

To be honest, I think the repackaging is a good idea, but not so much the price rise.

Selling by the sprue rather than by two sprues means that it's easier to collect an army - e.g. say you want 36 WoMT, then you can now buy three sprues rather than buying two boxes and having 12 left over. Or what about if you wanted, say a Dwarf-Elf Alliance? You wouldn't be fielding 24 Dwarves and 24 Elves unless it was a high pointage army; you'd probably only be fielding ~12 of each or in other words one sprue.

Oh - definitely. 12 models per box makes army building a lot easier and, in the grand scheme of things, more economic.

I just can't believe that the cost of plastics will now have practically doubled since I started buying them. How the hell do they justify almost a 100% cost increase. Almost any other company would have received the finger and been shown the door years ago - why in the name of sweet Tehlu's beard is GW still around to offend its consumer base?

Bottom line, monopolies are bad kids.

GW are still arround because they're a giant of the industry, and probably because a lot of its customers aren't aware that 'the Hobby' is bigger than GW. I bet if you asked a lot of the customers in a GW (especially the younger ones with no disposable income) to name a non-GW wargame they'd struggle to answer with anything other than chess or a computer game.

I agree the repackaging is good but the price, not so. Still, I have all the plastic troops I need so it doesn't bother me too much

On the note of new rules - spoke to the manager of GW Swansea today and he said that there definately is something happening next month for LotR but he couldn't say what.

Excellent, I've managed to persuade a few friends to start up the game so they've said they'll wait for the new rules to decide which army to start.

You could always try getting them to do battle companies in the meantime - all they'll need is one sprue, and with the repackaging it won't cost them all that much

Good point. Battle companies was always one of my favourite aspects of the LOTR game too.

Going by a post on TLA, the rules are changing so that you need 1 hero per twelves warriors (which I guess explains the repackaging) and that the heroes that you take will alter the warriors they lead.


EDIT:
from OR

Quote :

A few more details, each of the sourcebooks has army lists, 6 scenarios (the same I think, replacing those in LoME) and some “narrative” scenarios.

Each army consists of warbands containing a hero and up to 12 Warriors. Fellowship (and I think White Council) have a special rule allowing multiple heroes in a warband.

You can include any warband from the same faction (ie good or evil). So no more lists of who can ally with who.

There also appears to be no more themed lists, so a single Rohan army, and a single dwarf army etc. I can't confirm that without seeing the actual books, but that is what the description leads me to believe.

There are 2 battle reports and the points look about the same as before.

Deployment seems to take it in turns at placing warbands, although I don't think they have to stay together once deployed.

Interesting - Do we have an ETA for the new rules?

4th February is the release date for all the new models, new rules and new army books.

From TLA:

Coën wrote:

Well, this should be the last one!



Note: Isengard with Harad, Easterlings and Variags. Morgul Knights possibly not in Harad now (as in WotR), but mentioned specifically for Mordor. 'Gens Libres' means Free Peoples. Others are probably clear.

Some of the rule changes are great IMO. A little birdie on O-R has said that Haradrim warriors now cost 7 points instead of 5, which is FANTASTIC (since GW seemed to think that poisoned arrows and "forced" re-rolls were a hindrance, so lowered the point cost in the beginning).

LordFenrir wrote:

A little birdie on O-R has said that Haradrim warriors now cost 7 points instead of 5, which is FANTASTIC

Almost cirtainly fact if the website example is anything to go by http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=&categoryId=cat750022a§ion=&pIndex=1&aId=20400011a&start=2&multiPageMode=true

There are also example lists for:
The Kingdoms of Men
The Free People
Mordor
and Moria and Angmar

Has anyone picked any of this stuff up?

Not yet, mostly due to the cost - £15 is a tad too much for the books in my opinion.

Me neither for the same reasons above and I'm getting into other games like Bushido and Malifaux and I'm starting a new Trollbloods Hordes army.