I played the first version that Games Workshop released for around the first year or so, and haven't been back to the game since (I moved, no players). Now my oldest two boys are interested, and since I liked the game when it first came out, I wanted to start playing again. After going to the Games Workshop website, I was quite overwhelmed with the amount of materials there. It wasn't easy to understand where to go or what to get.
Can anyone give me a quick overview of what has happened to the game in general since it's release, and where a good place to start now would be? Thanks in advance! I'm pretty sure the products are still in good supply and circulation, however I think GW are scaling down any new releases -mainly due to the fact that virtually everything LOTR has been released (except Tom Bombadil but that's probably a good thing). You can pick lots of figures up on e-bay quite cheaply as the 'fever' has peaked a while back. I would start with a box of Minas Tirith troops and a box of Orcs. You will need the rulebook, obviously, a large ammount of d6 and a surface to play on. The GW battle-mat is cheap (circ £20) and is 6feet by 4 feet and flocked.
Pick up a few hills and trees to add to the scenery (again e-bay) and take it from there. The battle-book from GW are good but not essential as some of the scenarios are a bit weak but if you wanted to play the game chronologically then they are are must purchase. If your boys like it then start to expand with mounted troops and the addition of heroes.
The Mines of Moria box set has all the fellowship and enough goblins (plus a troll) to have some decent skirmishes. That's great.
Your boys will love it! All that throwing of dice and killing the bad guys (or good guys) depending what side they play. I had my nephews over for a game and the youngest is 7 and he loved it. I talked him through a lot of the time but by the end he had grasped the rules enough for him to make his own command decisions on where and whom his troops would attack. Forgot to mention; buy the warhammer castle if you get into the hobby. It easily makes up a siege of gondor without being too picky. It's plastic and much much cheaper than what GW originally put out.
Thanks for letting me know, I'm glad to hear your 7 year old was able to grasp the rules ok, I thought we may try to simplify a few things when we start off with him just to make it easier. I saw that Games Workshop has released a few 'playsets' for this game (buildings), but they were exclusive and hard to get now. I do have a bunch of the MageKnight castles though, walls, corner pieces, entrance ways with gates, etc., I can get those out of the storage they are in and use those pretty easy enough, they look good too!
This rules insert. Rules for how to play the scenarios in The Road Darkens, skip to page 5. After escaping the Mines of Moria at great personal cost, the.
For me, I found it easier to get started by purchasing a used set of the Mines of Moria (it was even prepainted) from Kijiji or eBay. Then I added the Journeybooks which gives you specific characters/units for each scenario. This helps tremendously in letting you know what you need for the scenarios from the books/films. You also don't have to worry about 'points' (though there is an option to play each scenario with specific point allocations) which also makes it easier for the new player. Before you know it, you will have amassed a nice collection of figures and you will probably get a feel for what kind of Army you want to concentrate on from there. Or, if you don't want to continue, you don't have to.
The playsets and/or Journeybooks are a great way of having a self contained set of scenarios that are replayable and non-faction specific. The 5 new sourcebooks just released are highly recommended too. The Mines of Moria is a great starter set - you get all of the heroes a good hand full of goblins, and a cave troll, plus a little scenery. I played out the 4(?) scenarios with my 9-yr old several times. We then moved on to the individual movie scenario books. Unlike most GW (or any mini system for that matter) games, the books seem to be organized such that buying a single box of new troops will cover the first several scenarios, then another box the next several etc.
You can really keep going with minimal purchases over time if you want to. We had the most fun with the LotR Battle Companies rules - I don't think they were ever released in the US though.
This is basically a set of rules for LotR armies. You have a squad of around 8 men that fight skirmish battles and gain experience (individually). A death in combat is permanent and new troops must be recruited as replacements. This is the best bang for your buck as the figure count stays low. Do a google search on 'Lotr Battle Companies' - you will have no trouble locating the (free) rules in pdf form. There is a rulebook, equipment book, scenario book, and roster sheet pdf available that I know of. I am not a huge fan of GW rule sets in general, but I really enjoyed this one, and the system is much less of a financial commitment than most.
The fact that you get all of the heroes in the starter set is a huge bonus - you can keep going with just that group on the side of good for a long time.