Hobbit BOFA is Complete

mikeland · **Joined:** Wed Feb 20, 2013 1:08 pm **Posts:** 72

Could be complete, could be not. Applying rational thought and speculation to GW regarding this range seems entirely pointless, however, for what it is worth heres my 2p's worth:

My guess. 1 more month of releases, either in January or Spring. All finecast.
A week of Dain & Iron Hills Dwarves, a week of White council, a week of evil stuff e.g. trolls, orcs, goblins perhaps, and a week with Necromancer and wraiths. No new book, even as a supplement, either online profiles or profiles in WDW.

I could imagine that producing a new rulebook/supplement per movie was a requirement of the licence, and so the white dwarf freebie was ticking that box.

I think anything else we get from here on in will be merely to tick the boxes of the licence agreement, not because GW has any interest in this range. I think this has been the case since mid 2013.

All 14 plastic sets released were for the first of the original 2 movies, there have been no plastics at all for the second half of the story, despite some evidence that sets were prototyped. Plastic sets are evidence of investment, sometimes it takes quite a while for a plastic set to actually make money for the manufacturer, the finecast sets are cheap to produce and at these prices very high margin, I imagine they only need to sell a few hundred at the most to become profitable.

I can quite imagine that most if not all of this range will be direct online order by this time next year.

dpb1298 · **Posted:** Wed Dec 17, 2014 4:14 pm

Wise Old Elf wrote:

My local GW manager always seems clued up on Hobbit related stuff, and informed me he had definitely seen evidence of a Dain miniature, although he didn't go into details on what evidence. He said we should also assume that we'll be getting finecast clampacks of 3 Iron Hills Axemen, 3 Iron Hills Pikemen, and 2 Iron Hills Goat-riders. In mid-2015, he said we should also expect a new scenery box which can be interchanged between ruined Dale and Dol Guldur - not sure how that would work as they are both completely different designs, but I'd be interested in buying if that's the case.

On top of this, he has allegedly heard discussions of a final 'ultimate' book, but only containing Hobbit SBG stuff, not LOTR SBG as well. Finally, later in 2015 to coincide with the new book, he claimed to have seen designs and prototypes for a new Necromancer, and suggested we can also expect a new Galadriel (in screamy mode), Gandalf wounded, Gandalf mounted, Witch-king spectre, Bard's son Bain, Bilbo with Arkenstone, Bilbo the Ringbearer (all those listed in this sentence are rumoured finecast). He also mentioned a possible Gundabad troll, apparently in plastic with two weapon options and a seige catapult option, but I'm not sure if he said he's seen evidence of this or was just telling me something he'd like to see.

Obviously, take this with a pinch of salt. I doubt all his theories are true, I'm just posting them because he is always discussing Hobbit SBG with me and 9.9/10 his theories are also true. The fact that he's seen the development stage of the new Necromancer, and Dain and the Iron Hills units, is also trustworthy. A few years back he told me about designs floating around for Gulavar (even referring to the miniature by that name), and having seen the Dweller in the Dark and Great Beast of Gorgoroth miniatures, all about six months before they were released, and he wasn't wrong/lying them.

Cool, I am only disappointed in there not being any rumor of plastic kits.

Wise Old Elf · **Posted:** Thu Dec 18, 2014 4:38 am

dpb1298 wrote:

Cool, I am only disappointed in there not being any rumor of plastic kits.

I think GW are done with plastic for the Hobbit range. Understandably, it isn't selling, they're not pushing the products well enough, why waste money on plastics production. I've got nothing against that bold business strategy, albeit completely flawed.

jdizzy001 · **Posted:** Thu Dec 18, 2014 5:24 am

Either way, its a shame, this last film had great miniature potential, what with all the stuff that happened.

aelfwine · **Joined:** Sat Aug 22, 2009 12:23 am **Posts:** 508

jdizzy001 wrote:

Either way, its a shame, this last film had great miniature potential, what with all the stuff that happened.

Sort...of...ish.

It had great potential for an older style "plastic massed battles" type of game - think of the phalanxes of Elves and Dwarves and massed hordes of Orcs. As a low rate of production finecast range, there's a number of subjects they could use, but how many of them are worth sculpting and worth trying to tempt us into buying?

Whole lot of very uninspiring designs here. Also realised something odd - Moria goblins make a cameo appearance in this movie (for some reason) - and I came to the conclusion that the original Moria Goblin miniatures are cooler than their filmic equivalents. There really was little in the film that made me think: wow, I need those guys as miniatures in my life.

Alas.

legion · **Joined:** Fri Dec 27, 2013 6:58 pm **Posts:** 205

The movie did have it's share of odd creatures but the Gundabad orcs with Pikes should definetly be plastic (though we all know they wont be), and it would be nice to have those catapult trolls and Gundabad Berserkers (the white orcs that charged Thorin on the ice). And although I know they most likely wont make it, the Wereworms could be interesting from a gaming standpoint (even though they were pointless in the movie).

jdizzy001 · **Posted:** Thu Dec 18, 2014 9:43 pm

*potential SPOILERS*

Orcs with pikes
Big plastic set of lake town militia
Dwarf phalanx
Dain
Goat riding dwarves
More half troll things
New twilight nazgul
Alfred dressed as a woman

Azog in armor (i thought this one had been made)
Bard's son (all of his kids for that matter)
The worm things. I wouldnt want to see those guys but a mini is a mini
That would give us quite a bit more stuff

Hobbit BOFA is Complete

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