Has anyone used alternate figures to make their army / armies and avoided the movies for themes?


For example I am thinking of using conquest games Normans for Gondor and Rohan.

Feanor has a brilliant set of "by the book" armies, and there must be others, but I don't really know.

Most of the time, alternative figs are used as a cost saver.

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"... Telchar wrought it in the deeps of time."
-On Andùril, The Lord of the Rings

for quite a while now the bulk of our army's for all factions other than orcs have been none GW try having a look at GRIPPING BEAST.COM i think this may give a good selection of alternative figs to use

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IF your invisible dont be surprised if people see right through you

Still looking for cheaper/better alternatives for parts of my monster/beast army but I am expecting some usable miniatures from the reaper kickstarter which include.
- Several dragons, there must be some usable ones (so not too big or too small)
- A bat swarm
- A bunch of ghosts which I will use for wights/spectres/shades
- A hydra which would be a cave drake, but could reasonably be used as a watcher in the water
- A couple of giants who may be used as trolls, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they may be too big
- Half a dozen giant vermin (spiders, scorpions and beetles) who might have the size for giant spiders

On top of that I have a smattering of miniatures from the mantic range
- Some trolls and ogres who could be used for trolls (I really don't like the design of the LOTR trolls)
- A trio of werewolves who could either stand in for some more trolls or some warg chieftains

Reaper miniatures is generally a good place to look for good and reasonably priced single miniatures, their selection is enormous and stretches over quite a lot of styles, genres and races.
And the quality of some of the figures is simply stunning
But if you want rank and file soldiers you can run onto some trouble since it can be hard to find larger numbers of models with the same equipment so it is mostly for single models like heroes

I have always thought that the mantic elves fit quite well with the LOTR range, they're both roughly the same scale/size and the armour design is not too different
Also they are dirt cheap, easy to convert and you can find most of the options for the rank-and-file elves.

Sgt Major carries the old Vendel line, which were very LotR themed.

http://www.sgmm.biz/Bloody-Day-28mm-Fantasy_c_23.html

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You don't have to be great to start. But you do have to start to be great.

http://www.wargamesfactory.com

These guys have very cheap and very good quality miniatures. They have a few historical ranges that could easily fit into the world of middle earth. Their viking miniatures could be used as Rohan or Dunland. They also have their own LOTR orcs. Check it out.

I have used these minis to substitute for 4 lotr armies.

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My old WIP thread - http://www.one-ring.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=16246&start=0