No, it’s Guillermo del Toro’s influence. He was the original director and a lot of the finished product will reflect his vision. He’s the guy who did Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy II, so you should know he has a thing for grotesque monsters.
And clearly there’s plenty of continuity with the LOTR movies - Gloin looks like Gimli and is carrying his axes, it’s the same Bag End, the same Gandalf. But it is ultimately a different movie series with a different tone. And we’ve never seen these Goblins before, so why shouldn’t they be something new? The Uruk Hai looked nothing like the Moria Goblins. Clearly, there’s a lot of variation in the species.
I’m really confused by some of the reactions here and on Warseer though, because it seems like there are a lot of fantasy nerds who were somehow only dimly aware that this movie was coming out, and that it would be in some way different from the previous trilogy. Like, getting annoyed at how the Dwarves look and so on. Did you guys not see the trailer a year ago?
And the idea of not going to see the first new LOTR movie in 9 years because the Goblins look weird is bizarre to me. I mean, it’s your money, but these films are like our Star Wars, aren’t they? And while Phantom Menace may have sucked, we all still queued up to see it…
I saw the trailer a year ago, and I liked a lot of what I saw, but not everything. I and many others have little against variation amongst orc-kin, but what buggers most of us is the complete lack of equipment besides a loincloth and a weapon (which looks good, by the way), and then the bulbous look would have been better if there had been some Moria-style gobbos thrown in there. There should have been some scraps of armour, fur and clothing on the goblins. I’m quite confident despite this that the movie impression will work well, but it doesn’t make for a good army on the tabletop unless conversions are thrown in, which I’ll do.
As for the dwarves, my problems with them are the somewhat high and lean build of some of them, and the small beards. I’ve nothing against the beard or hair styles, and the deviation from coloured caps doesn’t matter to me, and the outlandish appearance of the travelling dwarves even appeal to me (although I hope for something a bit more traditional for the warriors), but the beards are too small on most dwarves. We don’t need Warhammer dwarf beards, but at least the beard size shouldn’t have been far from what we saw of Gimli, Gloin and the dwarf kings in the first Lotr movie. As for the Bolg miniature, I think the red beard and lack of loincloth or kilt is disturbing, but that’s an easy fix for a converter. The beard might even grow on me.
That’s it for me. Of course there isn’t a completely broken continuity of styles from the Lotr trilogy, but there is a certain deviation that is worrying.
I’d rather wipe my butt with dollar bills instead of spend money on this overpriced garbage, the big reason Lotr had players was affordability, that is now out the window
I'd rather wipe my butt with dollar bills instead of spend money on this overpriced garbage, the big reason Lotr had players was affordability, that is now out the window
rpitts2004
Bingo, the comparatively low prices of plastic Lotr miniatures was a boon, and one I didn't exploit just as much as I in retrospect should have done. For the sake of my existing dwarf and gobbo forces I'll probably buy some Hobbit stuff, but how about other players, and potential newcomers to the hobby in particular?
These prices are grotesque, and many would-be customers will likely be scared away. Prices have always been steep in this hobby for as long as I've participated in it, but there are certain thresholds which GW should be careful not to overstep. I swear it is probably cheaper to buy four Forgeworld characters on foot for WHFB than to buy the White Council.
Do I smell hubris, or possibly greed? For almost half amount the money you got the same amount of warg riders back when the old ones were first released. :s
By the gods, now we can prove that at least Forgeworld’s Daemonsmiths (3 for £18) are cheaper per model than the new Lotr finecast characters. The White Council (4 for £45) is highway robbery, whilst this unnoticable little bubonic gobbo captain costs more than half the price of three FW Daemonsmiths: £10.
I think the thing that disturbs me most is the prices and I get the feeling that these will quickly become the norm across all the ranges.
The WF Daemonsmith set I think is a bit of an anomaly (look at the Inquisitor Hector Rex and retinue for a true reflection of pricing policy) but all finecast characters are £10 and up now with plastics starting at £8 so it’s not just The Hobbit.
On the whole I don’t find the new goblins particularly inspiring, the warg riders look to be the best of the bunch but I think I’ll save my money on this one thanks. I never got into the LOTR game and I doubt that I’ll be tempted by this.
One of the big things the LOTR did for GW was get the models out into a wide range of other shops when the movies were released, I don’t know if the same will happen with the new stuff.
I hope that GW haven’t shot themselves in the foot with this one but time will tell.
I like the wolf riders I just hope they do a 28 mm this time
But i have to give the wolves a shave ,i don't like there Elvis side burns :)
Kera foehunter
Aren't those the same as the 40k wolves? I got a few of those for my Khan on wolf.
Singleton Mosby
They're bound to be about roughly as large as the 40k Fenrisian wolves. However it will be much cheaper to buy the Fenris wolves, even though they actually are expensive (you should get 10 wolves for that price, just as with Dire Wolves).
Aren't those the same as the 40k wolves? I got a few of those for my Khan on wolf.
Singleton Mosby
There's a certain similarity in pose and style but they are completely different. Consider that the Hobbit stuff must look like the Hobbit movie and that 40k stuff shouldn't look like that at all.
They're bound to be about roughly as large as the 40k Fenrisian wolves. However it will be much cheaper to buy the Fenris wolves, even though they actually are expensive (you should get 10 wolves for that price, just as with Dire Wolves).
Admiral
Fenris wolves are 40k units so you of course only get 5 models in the box at £15. 40k tends to give you less models/box.
LotR Warg riders are £18 for 6, Hobbit buys you the same for £25. While the new models look better it's almost 50% more... about par for fantasy models, but I guess you'll need less. I don't know, my main gripe is that they are ugly and seem expensive.
Fenris wolves are 40k units so you of course only get 5 models in the box at £15. 40k tends to give you less models/box.
snowblizz
That is true, and it's also a minor reason for why I have WHFB as my first game system, and also considers Lotr to be my second although it mainly comes down to size of collection.
On a positive note regarding the dwarves, whilst I would have liked a few more axes even more, I will grant Weta Workshop that they've done a good job on the dwarven weaponry. It's a disparate arsenal with two advantages. One, it gives the impression of an informal travellers' weaponry, with Bombur even having a meat cleaver. Two, it hints at a range of unique dwarven fighting techniques not necessarily used by the wider military, but picked up out of necessity and personal inclination by the exiled Erebor dwarves. Now I hope that the dwarven soldiery from the Iron Hills will mostly have proper dwarven weapons.
I’m slightly gutted by the goblins. For all that The Hobbit was ‘just a story’, the thing that always intrigued me about goblins in it was that they were described as an autonomous civilisation, without a ‘Big Bad’ lording it over them all.
So Bolg was their King, Mount Gundabad was described as their “capital” and they had cities, outposts and strongholds - I don’t have my copy of the book with me to find the exact quotation, but it always gripped me as a kid.
I'm slightly gutted by the goblins. For all that The Hobbit was 'just a story', the thing that always intrigued me about goblins in it was that they were described as an autonomous civilisation, without a 'Big Bad' lording it over them all.
So Bolg was their King, Mount Gundabad was described as their "capital" and they had cities, outposts and strongholds - I don't have my copy of the book with me to find the exact quotation, but it always gripped me as a kid.
TheVoice
Yes, this was something that intrigued me too and which will make the new goblins relegated to a meek slave role in Lotr for my part. On the whole, I think most people finds interaction between humans, elves, dwarves, hobbits and orcs to be the most interesting part of Tolkien's Middle-Earth, not its mythology and gods. That's also the reason why I collect a gobbo force in Lotr and am keen to acquire low-level shiny stuff such as the Warg Marauder and Gundabad Blackshields, yet I have little to no pull to collect Sauron or even the Balrog.
Well, the Balrog might make it into a Chaos Dwarf collection in a converted fashion sooner or later.
If you take a Middle-Earth book, turns up the mythology and (especially) drains away the good humour, you'll end up with something not too popular or enjoyable akin to the Silmarillion. In fact the grand, mythological dimension of Tolkien's Middle-Earth could actually have worked well, had it only contained more interesting and fun stuff as can be found in every polytheistic mythology.
The Goblins of Goblin Town aren’t the same as the Goblins that serve Bolg that take part in the Battle of Five Armies - those are the “Hunter Orcs” in the other kits. The mutant Goblins are very much a tribe of backwater troglodytes, hence their degraded appearance.
I'm just realising how little I remember from reading the Hobbit. Or is a lot of this stuff in the Silmarillion?
cornixt
It's the stuff of Weta Workshop and Peter Jackson. We were given no in-depth description of the gobbos in Goblin Town, but to be fair the Hunter Orcs (who chase the dwarves after the Goblin Town visit on wargs) are the Goblin Town denizens in the book, who frequently raided and harassed the sparsely populated countryside's human woodsmen settlements. There is also no reason why Bolg's vast army to a large degree wouldn't consist of roughly the same kind of orcs/gobbos as those in Goblin Town.
I actually don't mind some dedicated hunter orcs chasing the dwarves. If done with some storytelling agility (such as having a Goblin Town band chasing the dwarves but failing, and thus calling in the Hunter Orcs, who probably dominates the immediate surface lands in Weta Workshop's version) this might improve the story. However, we still don't know how the orc army for the Battle of Five Armies will look like. As for me, I hope for a wide variety of orcs and goblins, including those mutant (why mutated in the first place?) Goblin Town troglodytes and Moria Goblins or something similar. A mix of degenerate dregs with stronger, less disgusting orcs is the best way to go.
As for troglodytes, most goblins in the north of Middle-Earth who live in the mountains are probably troglodytes or at least partially underground dwellers.
At the start on the thread you where talking about how things have changed and the goblins that look more like there belong in a undead army prove that point a bit. However last year i went to the hobbition set and that i the same put back to look the same with 2 small differences the tavern that burns down has been re build but the frount of it heading to the water is stones and was grass, and the party tree is a lot older now. speaking to the tour guide it may not last much longer