The point of this blog post isn’t really to break news that many people will have already seen but to share my excitement for the news and explain how it will shape what I’m doing in the near future.
First off, The Scouring of the Shire is like the one thing I always wanted to play in LOTR SBG. I remember being in to LOTR minis at the time it came out and reading about it in White Dwarf and thinking that sounded like mini heaven! The chance to play through stuff not shown in the movies (but really would have been cool to see) and on beautiful terrain really captured my imagination. Since then, I’ve always dreamed of making a really cool Shire board. In fact, I was thinking about starting to work on getting the minis needed for Scouring of the Shire within the next month or so. I have the original book pictured above and had been planning on playing through the little campaign and appendix scenarios in the near future.
So to see new sculpts, which look fantastic, and Hobbit Hole terrain along with a new book is just incredible. Beyond my wildest dreams and I’m so excited to learn more about it. I mean, just look at the pictures! It looks like it will be as easy as ever to play these scenarios and I look forward to seeing what updates they make as well.
So what does this mean in terms of my hobby goals? I don’t know if I mentioned it before on the blog but my goal was to paint up the miniatures and create terrain for an Unexpected Journey campaign. I already had Escape From Goblin Town (which isn’t part of that campaign but it does lead nicely into it) and I was thinking one board could cover the rest of the scenarios in the movie which would be great in terms of a realistic workload. It would also help me learn how to make terrain which is something I have never done before. I’m currently working on getting a Goblin Town board and a board for the remaining scenarios built as well as painting the minis but I have plenty more to paint and some of the models I need like Fimbul and Radagast on Sleigh are out of print right now. So while I plan on continuing to work on this goal, I don’t think I will be able to complete it before Scouring of the Shire comes out and I will jump into that while all the models are available and start working towards it instead. I hope that I’ll be able to play the full An Unexpected Journey campaign as it is my favorite Hobbit movie and I like the sculpts of the minis as well. I mean, I am about halfway there too since I have all of the goblins and Thorin’s Company painted but I think the diversion along the way is probably a good idea and will keep me from getting tired of painting all of the wargs that are needed for many of the AUJ scenarios.
Is anybody else out there as excited for Scouring of the Shire as me? I can’t wait for more details and will be incredibly excited to start painting up some of the models in the nearish future.
Kuribo's Painting 
Well my friend, I can say for myself that I’m not super excited about the shire but I am excited for you, and you enthusiasm is catchy. Actually I’m a little relieved that this is what the next big release will be, bc it will save me money 😀
I look forward to watching your progress on these projects. And you were the first to tell me of the news do that makes you my news leader.
On Sat, May 11, 2019 at 2:39 PM Battles in Middle Earth wrote:
> Kuribo posted: “The point of this blog post isn’t really to break news > that many people will have already seen but to share my excitement for the > news and explain how it will shape what I’m doing in the near future. First > off, The Scouring of the Shire is like the one” >
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I don’t know if the player base for MESBG is excited for this update either but I’m glad my enthusiasm is infectious! 🙂 I will look forward to your progress with Gondor at War because Scouring of the Shire all but guarantees that I won’t get to playing those scenarios anytime in the near future.
Thanks for stopping by as always and there should be a much anticipated battle report appearing on the site here within the next week!
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I think one of the hardest parts about the Scouring scenarios for me would be actually making The Shire look decent on the tabletop. Hobbit Holes being such a unique looking bit of terrain than it’s hard to think of what else they could be used for, even if I set my games on a particularly flat bit of the place (because bloody hills!)
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That is a very good point about the challenge. For me, I find it a hard temptation to resist even with the challenge. Creating a beautiful Shire table seems like one of the coolest things an LOTR player could have or accomplish in their collection. With that said, building hills is a real challenge and something I will have to figure out in the coming months 😀
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Building hills shouldn’t be so bad. Main thing to decide early is if you want “stepped” hills (better for gaming on) or rounded ones, which look better, but minis tend to fall very easily. Lots of wargaming tutorials about for the stepped ones, and the model railroad guys have lots for the latter.
A shire table would look amazing, but it’d be the permanent storage (and how often would you use them) for the 4-6-8-10 hobbit holes you’d need to make it really look fantastic. Much less useful across games than a great looking Amon Hen…
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Note – I’m not saying *don’t* make a Shire table – just pointing out why it’s not something I’d be doing. I’m all for you going nuts with it, and between foam card/foamcore with one side stripped and popsicle sticks/coffee stirrers, you can get a hell of a lot of the details shown on the nice FW frontages.
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No worries! I’m all about tackling goals that are darn near impossible or that take on a ton of time. For some reason, those are what attract me the most in this hobby.
With that said, I don’t know if I’ll build a formal board all out of foam or if I’ll go the mat with terrain on top approach. I’m inclined to do the second because I don’t have a great place to store a board right now. It won’t look quite as nice as a full-on board but it will allow me to build other tables in the future which is important. I’m curious to see the actual Scouring of the Shire book to better understand what kind of terrain and layouts GW is recommending for the scenarios but I’ll have to be patient since there isn’t a release date announced yet.
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Plenty of time to get started on hobbit holes, then! 🙂
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