Sherman's Lord of the Rings customs - Balin's Tomb

[Johngee]

Originally Posted by Joseph Sweeney

Hey all,

I have a few question. I live in central NY, and far from any game store. So where would be a good place to purchase the Lord of the Rings figures, would Walmart carry them, or should I purchase them off the internet, if so what's a good site to do so?

O, and Sherman, the customs are awesome!

The "Lord Of The Rings" HERO-CLIX version, just came out last year, so a lot of Friendly Local Gaming Stores either still have a few of them left somewhere, or they will gladly order them for you at MSRP from their distributor.

Besides the Starter Set with it's eight figures, I picked up all the rest of my collection from on-line stores through eBay. I hate blind purchases (not knowing what's inside the box), so it's worth it to me to spend a little extra cash to get only the individual figures that I want.

The older set of figures from Sabertooth Games, Inc.'s Combat Hex - LotR : Tradeable Miniatures Game (TMG) has been out of print for years and you'd be lucky to stumble upon someone's discarded collection at a flea market or yardsale.... However there is one guy on eBay, "BigCoin123," who seems to have cornered the market and has a huge variety of figures for sale, but not cheap.

IF you are into assembling models yourself with glue, etc. and able to paint them up in a decent manner, THEN GamesWorkshop-dot-COM is the place to go, because they have been making a Table Top LotR Strategy Game for years and I believe they still do, and they may have old inventory in a warehouse some where. Check if your FLGS carries any of them or the "White Drawf" magazine that you can look through for ordering details.

[Joseph Sweeney]

Originally Posted by Johngee

The "Lord Of The Rings" HERO-CLIX version, just came out last year, so a lot of Friendly Local Gaming Stores either still have a few of them left somewhere, or they will gladly order them for you at MSRP from their distributor.

Besides the Starter Set with it's eight figures, I picked up all the rest of my collection from on-line stores through eBay. I hate blind purchases (not knowing what's inside the box), so it's worth it to me to spend a little extra cash to get only the individual figures that I want.

The older set of figures from Sabertooth Games, Inc.'s Combat Hex - LotR : Tradeable Miniatures Game (TMG) has been out of print for years and you'd be lucky to stumble upon someone's discarded collection at a flea market or yardsale.... However there is one guy on eBay, "BigCoin123," who seems to have cornered the market and has a huge variety of figures for sale, but not cheap.

IF you are into assembling models yourself with glue, etc. and able to paint them up in a decent manner, THEN GamesWorkshop-dot-COM is the place to go, because they have been making a Table Top LotR Strategy Game for years and I believe they still do, and they may have old inventory in a warehouse some where. Check if your FLGS carries any of them or the "White Drawf" magazine that you can look through for ordering details.

Great! The sooner I get my hands on those figs, the better.

Thanks Johngee!

[Good Pig]

I wanted to put together your Amon Hen map this weekend and realized sadly that I don't have nearly enough terrain (or space!). Instead I put together a custom map that's kind of a hodge podge of all the different LOTR castles and is built into the side of a mountain. (picture coming later). I ordered some of the Heroclix miniatures, but in the meantime I'm proxying with some regular HS figures.

The armies being used:

The Fellowship
Frodo Baggins
Gandalf
Boromir
Aragorn
Gimli
Legolas

VS

Isengard
Saruman
Lurtz
Ugluk
Uruk-hai Raiders (common) x2
Uruk-hai Crossbows x2

I handicapped the bad guys by 100 points or so since they are all starting up in the castle and have height advantage right off the bat. So far I really like how the designs play together. Saruman makes an otherwise ragtag team of Uruk-hai formidable foes with his OM management and ranged firepower. I had a lot of fun lining up Lurtz for a Foul Strike special attack. Gimli's stout defense (tough) has so far given him great staying power up against the Raiders too. Gandalf on the otherhand has not been so lucky and got wiped out early by a Saruman + Lurtz tag team. If the d20 is my favor, we'll see if he has better luck the second time around as Gandalf the White. Another thing I love about these designs is how they are inclusive of classic Heroscape and have drawn me back to the simplicity of the original Master Set's cards.

Job well done Sherman! Can't wait to try out some of the others.

[Johngee]

Gosh, I hate when that happens and the d20 doesn't cooperate.

[Hive Lord 1233]

Gondorian Soldiers?
Archers of Mordor?
Urik-hia Pikemen?
Wildmen of Dunland?
Haradem?
Maybe a hero that lets the Urik-hia work a little better together without Saruman?

[Sherman Davies]

Thanks for the suggestions Hive Lord - one day when I retire from C3V I'll refocus on my own customs projects, but right now my new LotR customs (not to mention my superhero stuff) have slowed to a crawl.

There does seem to be some activity in the LotR Scape Project lately though, so they may make some of those units before I do.

Originally Posted by Good Pig

I wanted to put together your Amon Hen map this weekend and realized sadly that I don't have nearly enough terrain (or space!). Instead I put together a custom map that's kind of a hodge podge of all the different LOTR castles and is built into the side of a mountain. (picture coming later).

Yeah, the Amon Hen map probably requires between 2 to 3 RotV sets. I'd love to see photos of the one you built, though.

Originally Posted by Good Pig

Saruman makes an otherwise ragtag team of Uruk-hai formidable foes with his OM management and ranged firepower. I had a lot of fun lining up Lurtz for a Foul Strike special attack. Gimli's stout defense (tough) has so far given him great staying power up against the Raiders too. Gandalf on the otherhand has not been so lucky and got wiped out early by a Saruman + Lurtz tag team. If the d20 is my favor, we'll see if he has better luck the second time around as Gandalf the White.

I've never gotten around to testing my Gandalf or Saruman cards, so thanks for playing them and sharing some feedback! Sounds like it was your first game with these customs, huh? Did you like Gandalf as is? I've long considered overhauling him and replacing the Gandalf the White ability with something that better reflects the "sage adviser" part of his character.

[Alex Karasavidis]

Why didn't you make a coustom of my favorite character Tom Bobinal or the Belrog?

[Sheep]

Originally Posted by Alex Karasavidis

Why didn't you make a coustom of my favorite character Tom Bombadil or the Balrog?

Remember, spelling.

To answer your question, probably because there we no figures made for either character specifically.

[Porkins]

Actually, the Balrog had a figure. And it looked awesome. Tom Bombadil probably didn't get a figure since the figure makers were following the movie, and Bombadil didn't make it to the movie. I also thought that part with Bombadil didn't make any sense anyway...I mean what did that add to the story?

[White Knight]

Originally Posted by Porkins

I also thought that part with Bombadil didn't make any sense anyway...I mean what did that add to the story?

Just that fact that so many people remember Tom Bombadil is a reason for him to be in the book.

I quite enjoyed that part, even if it did take the story off on a tangent for a while.

[Sherman Davies]

I love the Tom Bombadil and Goldberry chapters of LotR, but I completely understand why they were left out of the movie. They would've been too different in tone from the rest of the narrative and do not contribute much plotwise that cannot be accomplished in different ways.

To answer the question though, I don't have customs for Tom and the Balrog for a couple of reasons. One, I mostly make customs of minis I own and I don't own minis of them. I do take requests for customs of minis I don't own, but it can take me a while to get to those requests. Two, the Balrog mini would be too big to fit on a Heroscape base and is thus, in my opinion, outside the scope of the game. Three, Tom Bombadil didn't strike me as very interested in fighting so would be an odd fit for a tactical miniatures game. Besides, his powers and abilities are so vast and vaguely defined it would be difficult to boil his essence down to a Heroscape card to my satisfaction.

[White Knight]

Originally Posted by Sherman Davies

Two, the Balrog mini would be too big to fit on a Heroscape base and is thus, in my opinion, outside the scope of the game.

See Chardar's customs:

Balrog

Auggies has them unpainted for under $10.