Thanks for having me on! This was a fun and interesting discussion between good hobby friends with lots of nuance! Look forward to our next one 🙌🏻

Great to have been part of this - as we caveated multiple times, this is such a polarising debate but as ever the answer is in the grey area between. My favourite outcome would be that GW makes a huge effort to make all of its models available for folk. On my Numenor list - Feel free to listen to the Latest Entmoot to see how it did, but it surpassed even my own expectations!

Excellent topic guys. Thank you for everyone involved. This is such a huge topic and as stated if GW isnt addressing it the communitt will. I was surprised no one touched on pricing and price discrepancies between countries and even within the range. Also factors in the choice of 3d printing or using minis from Victrix etc.

The variation in international pricing bothers me a lot. I wish GW could set up regional production and storage sites to bring prices closer to what the UK gets.

There are basically three things I want from gw right now. Gw to have better access to thier range. That gw gives more small factions love, for example khand or arnor who basically have 4 profiles. And finally that gw start update the 20 year old range with new plastic models.

As someone relatively new to MESBG, but not table top war gaming in general I'm torn on 3D printing issue. For some context, I bought a 3D printer a little while back and have used it a handful of times for various projects, but never in any great capacity. However, since getting into MESBG I have found it very frustrating that models in the range are constantly unavailable and started dabbling with printing Middle Earth proxies. As someone who went through the death of Warhammer Fantasy, I would love to see MESBG live on for many years to come and will happily support GW to make that happen. Sadly it's hard to make that happen when you can't even buy the models for your next project.. eBay is a great option I agree but at that point I am just as happy to print out proxy models instead.

I personally 3D print all my generic troop models, reason being i am able to print out 15 viking looking models at once(used as dunland warriors), it takes around 4-5 hours to make them, it costs just under £3 in resin and i have the option to do that at any point, not only is it cheaper but is alot more convienient for me(currently the models are unavailable). Also the models look so much better than the old metal gw models... When it comes to named characters, i purchase the GW models, especially the new plastic kits such as glorfindel... but if its a model that isnt available such as Gil-Galad on horse, i 3d print a generic elf lord mounted, then use gw model for the dismounted version. If games workshop made more new plastic kits, especially with the troops (rivendell elves)... with all options available for each model in the box, eg... this box contains 24x elf warriors on foot, the sprues also included 24 swords, 24 spears, 24 bows, 24x shields, 1 banner and 1 war horn. So you can load your troops anyway you wish... then made the box around £25 i would buy them, and not print them, the elf with banner that came with the new elrond is an amazing sculpt... i would love an army of them... It annoys me when i purchase a box of orcs and i dont have enough shields to put on the spears, i then purchase another box to get the extra shields and now i have lots of wasted orcs that are good for nothing... never doing that again... id rather 3d print them for a fraction of the cost... Im all up for 3d printed armies as i love to see variety on the battlefield, like you guys mentioned, its completely fine with me as long as the models are clearly what they are presenting, so no hobbit with a shovel proxying as Aragorn...

This wasn't an important part of the discussion, but I actually think the GW team showed incredible good faith with the community when the Battle Host boxes were released because it was the first time since the new rules were released where a simplified version of the rules and simplified profiles were made available for download for free. Yes, it's only for the four big factions, but still - you can dip your feet into the game with no cost and get 350-500pts of a faction at a discount.

I just want GW to sell Arnor models again and I'd give my leg for a flushed out arnor.

recently I decided to purchase some 3d prints and they were nice. however, with some pondering and thinking (not at the same time, i can only do so much!) and hearing some lotr youtubers encouraging hobbiest to go to games workshop site and forge world site and buy the official models to suppoort the game. I realised they were right. i went and bought 4 armies or so from fw site and while it did cost a pretty penny, i was proud and happy to support gw/fw and do my part to see more investment into this great game and story of lotr. i think i do have a brand loyalty as well. ive been doing minatures from gw since the early 2000's and i do want to see gw do well, at least for lotr sake. 3d prints are cheaper and so i can understand people buying them and playing the game with it, but i personally am going to try and buy offical gw/fw where i can, as i can sense this game is about to get alot bigger and i want to feeed that fire as much as possible.

I used Elendil and Captain (with Erestor) in 650 for a small tournament but out of the 3 games i lost two mostly to magic fucking up Elendil's horse, one time to a black dart from a witch-king on a 6. Fortify spirit doesn't really do much against a 6 to cast. Then in the other game Saruman sorcerous blasted one of my own guys into Elendil and he also lost his horse

I interviewed GW Brussels for a Uni assignment and they told me that GW is unlikely to go with 3d printing for the actual production of minis because of quality. There is no company that produces better plastic models. And this is where they want to keep growing. Also, because of their experience with it and connections built over the years, it is probably also much more profitable.

When I saw Harry's list, I immediately thought, "that's got 30 spears - too many spears." Then I saw it had max model count and thought, "eh, spears are good." Personally, I'd max the bows, including swapping the shield on the captain for a bow - when you have standard war gear on a single warrior choice, you want as many options as possible. Also, I'd drop a few spears to weapon swap flails on a few guys - charge into two models, back up with a spear to keep F4 in the fight, Whirl to get an extra strike at S4.

My opinion on 3D-Printinting is actually very split.. While i can totally understand it hurts the company.. There are also decisions made by the company, where i start thinking they want us to print the models ourselves or to go to other sites and buy similar looking models.. As it was mentioned multiple times during the podcast, there are like 15 versioms of Elrond for example, but it took them 20Years to release a armored Glorfindel on Horse.. Or as another example the still Non-existend Gil-Galad on Horse.. And not everyone is either skilled or pationed enough to go and build a Gil on horse by themselves trough mixing 2 or 3 different miniatures with greenstuff to get ur own version. Another big point is as it was mentioned already in the podcast, the not existing range. Someone who would like to start Rivendell for example, isnt able to buy Cirdan for more then 2 years now.. so he either prints it himself, buys it from a 3. Party.. or buys it from Ebay.. non of these 3 versions would gain a profit to GW.. non of these 3 versions would keep "the game alive" So while im in the "lucky" position to have mainly all needed models thanks to the 15 years of being in the hobby, i can totally understand every person who goes to a 3. Party to gain the army he wants to play / start the hobby with.

I always support anything against GW now especially 3D print

Obviously, Games Workshop leaves a lot of money on table, if there is a demand for updated sculpts, access to currently unavailable models, and a wide creative range for digital sculptors to explore.

You guys missed the mark a little bit on this one. The discussion definitely felt like it was coming from heavily entrenched players with massive collections and personal friends working for GW. If GW is not willing or able to meet demand for models, 3rd party proxies are the only feasible way for new players to realistically build many different key armies without spending hundreds on the secondary market.

*sigh* I’d buy official models if they existed. Dol Amroth Man-at-Arms, Rangers of the North foot and mounted etc.

Ok but if I want an Arnor army, GW isn't supporting me. They don't have them on the store, not even to mark as "interested". And even if they did, they'd probably charge $65 for 10 dudes and I'll need to spend $300 for 240 points of troops

In 2015 I was 19 years old. In that time I entered a GW store, I pocketed a Bolg and discretely walked away the store with my new cool five-fingers-discounted miniature. And now I can play in Ardacon using it but somebody who designed and created 3d cool mahud raiders can't use them. Aha

It'd important to note that buying the rights to this franchise isn't buying the right to a monopoly in the miniature market for Middle Earth games - there are multiple other manufacturers with a license to produce middle earth miniatures and games right now, simultaneously with GW. GW don't have a license to monopolise the market, be that models made to the likeness of the movie or book is irrelevant