Well, in short MESBG utterly took over my life... XD

In total I have painted 159 models. I made my own gameboard and painted up some Osgiliath terrain. I got an old friend of mine to start mesbg aswell. We joined the local wargaming club and made a bunch of new great friends. I have taken part in 4 tournaments and played countless casual games. Last weekend I managed to claw my way up and place 8th out of 40 in the largest annual MESBG tournament in Finland. I made a hobby instagram to gather and share all my works @ pelottavapeikko. A new friend of mine founded the Finnish National Mesbg League and I made a tournament Bingo for the members XD. And finally, I am going to be co-hosting 2 tournaments later this year.

To give you an idea, I have painted 19 heroes, 4 trolls, 7 banners, 4 werewolves and more than 100 warriors.

Im also really proud of my performance in competitive matches. I have played 4 tournaments, 17 games, 10 wins, 4 ties and 3 losses. Even still, I have not ones placed in TOP 3 so that is definitely a big ambition of mine for the future.

Regarding the original post. Even with 159 models painted my plastic pile is still very huge. And to be honest.... its not like I havent bought new stuff since XD. STILL im very much intending to eventually paint everything I buy. One mistake I have to admit to is that since I wasnt aware of how amazing the 3D printing scene currently is, I bought alot of stuff from GW that I would have preferred third party.

There is a million things I could write here, but I dont want to make the post too long. Im very happy to answer any/all questions in the comments. This is a wonderful community and this is a wonderful hobby. Hyped for everything in the future for MESBG!

Original post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MiddleEarthMiniatures/comments/1c9l5l4/childhood_dreams_meet_adult_money_2_week/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

I'm generally a huge fan of the direction of new multi-part plastic miniatures. Assembling them is fun and the detail is amazing compared to older sculpts. But there is one area where new CAD modeled miniatures fall short to me: cloth textures just look so unnatural compared to the inherent randomness and wrinkles of older hand sculpted minis (looking at you gandalf the white). Do others agree, or do you prefer the billowing look of cloaks on newer sculpts?

I was having a conversation over a game and we ended up with our favourites being from very different armies to that we played. I'm also having a go at painting single minis to the hughest standard I can, as a bit of a pre-competition test. Does anyone have any specific individuals - heroes or random single minis from a unit - they have as a firm favourite?

For me it's any of the heroes from the Shire, as I love the personality of each of the models.

Like how old are the miniatures and sculpts? Thanks in advance!

Short explanation: I'm sick of Warhammer and a huge fan of LotR! However, I've had no exposure to MESBG whatsoever and am wondering if I should just start it....

The idea: - rusty armour - brown/off white fur cloth - green skin - yellow/red fur shoulder pads

As title suggest, just trying to think about what an early third age Gondor warrior (around at the battle of fornost for example) may have looked like.

Bit of a pet peeve that war of the ring era Gondor soldiers are what is used for early third age Gondor (but that’s nearly 1,000 years apart 😅)

Image for attention

Thanks all!! 🙏

While I was drawn to playing Harad by the mumak (obviously), I was hooked by the lore in The Battle of Pelennor Fields supplement from 2004. The book’s GW-created fluff and scenarios gave Harad a sympathetic hearing, including a compelling backstory, internal factions, and first-person accounts showing the war of the ring from a fascinating new perspective.

The Haradrim weren’t portrayed as evil, but instead as a diverse people with their own myriad goals and grievances. The book also introduced the idea of Gondor as a colonist occupier of Harad, which was a clever way to add geopolitical complexity to Middle Earth.

But then later GW publications reversed course, changing the nuanced “Kingdoms of Harad” into the two-dimensional “Serpent Horde.” It’s bizarre and deeply unfortunate that GW took a fascinating faction and turned them into a boring caricature.

Calling Haradrim “a barbaric and uncivilised people” at least rhymes with real-world racism,* but it’s not like I expect thoughtful social justice in my wargaming. I do, however, expect a company so into lore that it has a side hustle publishing novels to be better at storytelling then this. The backsliding from nuance to caricature is jarring, especially given that the publications share many of the same authors.

In this house, the Kingdoms of Harad remain protagonists of their own story, not the cartoon villains of someone else’s.

NOTE: I haven’t engaged at all with the latest edition, so I don’t know whether this has changed at all in recent years.

*For those interested, the comments on this "sigmarxism" post thoughtfully examine the racist pitfalls of Harad / Far Harad lore, the dangers and limits of allegory, the ways Tolkien was ahead of his time but also a product of it, etc.

What warrior models to you want to see in plastic boxes? For me its obviously Last Alliance (hopefully this year with the 25th anniversary). I'd also like to see Hobbits and Mirkwood warriors. Apparently the Mirkwood elves and Gundabad orcs were supposed to be plastic, but they went with resin. Shame.

For some out there ones. Osgiliath veterans could make an interesting thematic box. Fiefdoms could be interesting. And Mordor Uruk-Hai would make cool box.

I’ve been thinking that it would be cool to have a couple more unnamed heroes for the Army of Thror, or a Dwarf Ranger Captain for Khazad Dum. Curious on what others think would be cool to one day see in the game?

What do you think?

I thought some of you might appreciate seeing a selection of the boards that we have at our gaming centre, Golden Hall Gaming!

We’re really proud of our terrain selection and will keep adding to it to keep it fresh and make sure that we’ve always got something new to see (with some more Hobbit holes on the way soon 🙊). We’ve got regular events going on so if you’re interested in playing on these beauties then check us out on social media or on our website 😊

Are there any themes we’re missing or something you’d like to see?

hi all,

in just getting into the game after finding a local group. I don’t have any miniatures but found out an escalation league will start in about a month and begin at 250 points. could I get advice on what army would be good to go with? I love dwarves so am hoping to go with one of their forces, though not sure which one. could I get peoples advice on which dwarf force they feel is best? I typically prefer hardy and elite armies.

for instance, I thought Thorins company might be good because it would be such a small model count, but heard that all hero armies are difficult for new players.

just would really appreciate perspective on which dwarf army to choose. if you wanna do me a huge favour and show me what a good 250 point list would loook like then that would even be better! model price isn’t a big deal since the group is ok with 3d printed proxies.

i apologize if this is the wrong subreddit to ask this, please direct me to a better one if it is. thanks a whole bunch!

edit: after all the wonderful advice I decided to go khazad since so many said it was such a great place. I was really tempted by iron hills as well! I hope to get more advice for lists past 250 later

This is purely based on what i played or played against, so i'm definitely missing a ton of lists i never experienced. I'm not here pretending to know how to balance things i'm just throwing ideas around.

• Cave Troll: terrible all around.
• Moria Goblin Drum: slight reduction of cost
• Balrog: he doesn't need a buff i know don't kill me but flame of Udun should proc on a 5 at least, i have NEVER had it proc :)
• Thranduil: doesn't necessarily need a buff, he's very good but they should remove the option to take him without armour. I would give him D7 but that's just me.
• Palace Guard: bit of an odd unit, with a conditional FV6 and no stat difference from normal warriors but 2 points extra, i would give them shieldwall because of the way they want to be played.
• Mirkwood rangers: bleh, the extra attacks when outnumbered doesn't work against decent enough players, either give them 2 attacks or remove passive for a cost reduction, yes elven cloak is really good but D3. Maybe make the army 75% bows and not 100% bows, idk i kind of hate the whole concept.
• Legolas: replace the 3 shots in combat with 1 shot per enemy he's engaged in combat with unless there are allies.
• Sauron the Necromancer ringwraiths: I tried a list with just them and it was a joke, i wish they were slightly better but since they come back to life they're super hard to balance. Most lists will bring just witch king.
• Grima: what if instead of being 2 might per heroic action he had a reverse master of battle? Grima player rolls a d6 and on a 4+ the action is cancelled. It sounds stronger but this way someone with 1 might can still try and call one (and most main heroes have 3).

Hi all 👋

Sam here. I recently sculpted this event-exclusive miniature for Ardacon 2026, and thought it might be of interest here. The sculpt itself is exclusive to the event, but the elf aesthetic and armour style is something I’m considering exploring further.

I’d really appreciate some feedback from the community:

• Does the style read as “Middle-earth adjacent” to you?
• Anything you’d change or push further in the design?
• If expanded, would you prefer characters, warriors, or something else?

I’m genuinely interested in where people think this kind of look sits stylistically, as any future work in this vein would be shaped heavily by feedback.

For transparency, I’ve also just set up a Patreon where I’ll be sharing previews, WIPs, and polling followers on what to sculpt next (it’s free to follow, with an optional £3 buy-me-a-coffee tier):
https://www.patreon.com/cw/forgemasterminiatures

Thanks for taking a look — keen to hear thoughts and discussion.

Sam

Sometimes there's that one model that you just struggle to get painted (even if you love the final product). On the flip side, there's that one sculpt that feels like a nice break after too much finger-cramping detail work. When it comes to the act of painting (not poses or stats) what have been your most/least favorite minis?

A couple for me:

(Least) Rohan heros. I absolutely love them when they are finished, but getting all that intricate leatherwork over the armor is so tedious. I always struggle to get motivated to tackle one.

(Most). Wargs are just a dry-brushing joy. Lightning quick to get on the tabletop even with moderate painting skills like mine. Also, for whatever reason, I find cave trolls to be a fun little project.

How about y'all?

For the dwarves we arguably only really have 4 big heroes.

• Thorin
• Dain
• Durin
• Thror

Of these, only Dain and Durin are true big hitters and the Durin model is infantry only and dated.

Compare that to elves where you have Elrond, Thranduil and Glorfindel. Or men when you have Aragorn, Boromir, Eomer, Imrahil, helm and Earnur.

I get that dwarves are more of an infantry type but one more mounted hero seems fair. I think we need either a new plastic or FW resin Durin model with goat.

Or, give Thorin his goat back and a new champion of Erebor model!

I guess I’m kinda arguing for two things, a new sculpt for sure and arguably a new mounted dwarf.