A Swedish computer games company, Embracer Group, has acquired the rights to the Lord of the Rings from the Saul Zaentz company:
https://embracer.com/release/embracer-g ... r-tolkien/

The news about Middle Earth licensing is so complicated these days I've given up trying to guess who could do what!

I guess that Games Workshop have some years left on their existing licence and can keep making their game for a while yet. I could believe anything from them getting more licences to make Rings of Power etc. to losing their existing licence in a few years and having to close the game down.

Hopefully GW will be able to say at some point to let the players and shareholders know.

There is always a first time

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"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

What exactly Embracer Group bought was Middle-earth Enterprises, which was a sub-company invented by the Saul Zaentz Company to deal with all the Tolkien Legendarium merchandizing. Saul Zaentz bought the license from United Artists, who themselves bought the original license from Tolkien.

Middle-earth Enterprises covers Hobbit and LotR films, theme parks, and merchandise.

Essentially, we have three separate "chains of command" right now:

1. Tolkien Estate > Embracer Group (Middle-earth Enterprises) > Warner Bros (New Line Cinema) > Games Workshop = this is where MESBG is coming from.

2. Tolkien Estate > Harper-Collins = this is where the book publications come from.

3. Tolkien Estate > Amazon = this is where Rings of Power comes from.

It is easy to dismiss the takeover out of hand as having no effect on MESBG. For the near future, that is the most likely scenario. However, it is important to note that Embracer owns Asmodee, through which it owns Fantasy Flight Games (Journeys in Middle-earth, LotR LCG), which means if Embracer allows GW to continue producing MESBG independently, they are counterintuitively competing with themselves. Possible resolutions might include:

-Embracer buys GW
-MESBG is moved to Asmodee
-Either MESBG or FFG LotR range get canned
-Nothing; Embracer continues to license LotR to GW, a direct competitor, for a share of the pie

We will see what happens I guess. On a personal note--and this may sound odd on a forum about collecting toy soldiers--Embracer Group's initial announcement of what they intend to do with the IP did not seem very promising. Just more and more mediocre content and commercialization. It just sounded like superfluous drivel that is increasingly distant from Tolkien's legacy and worldview.

Thanks Jamros for that post, which is a great clear summary!

The different "chains of command" maybe opens up other possibilities. Perhaps GW could eventually lose the rights to make Hobbit/LOTR models, but could get a separate licence from Amazon and could continue the game, but only with second age figures. Or maybe they could get a licence for miniatures from the HarperCollins books? GW did some of their own Hobbit miniatures from the books way back in the 1980s ...

Much as I like the current miniatures, I also enjoy the MESBG rule-set more than other GW games, and if for some reason they had to stop the current range, I'd be in favour of them transporting the rule-set to a new world ... how about a Robin Hood vs Sheriff of Nottingham SBG, or a skirmish game in the Sigmar old-world using the rules?

You brought up a lot of stuff lol. Oh goodness, buckle up, this post will be stupidly long

First and foremost, this is a list of major companies who, at some point, have officially held the license to produce what we would properly call Lord of the Rings "wargaming miniatures" or scale models. Most of these licenses were granted directly from Middle-earth Enterprises (which used to be called Tolkien Enterprises) via the Saul Zaentz Company. The ones in bold still have active licenses:

-Heritage Miniatures (1978-1979)
-Grenadier Miniatures (1985)
-Citadal (Games Workshop) (1985)
-Mithril Miniatures (Prince August) (1987-present)
-Harlequin/Black Tree Design (1990s)
-Citadel (Games Workshop) (2001-present)
-----Sabretooth Games (2001-2003)
-----Forge World (2001-present)
-Knight Models (∼2011-2013)
-Wizkids (NECA) (2011-present)
-Fantasy Flight Games (Embracer) (2019-present)

So, there is precedent for more than one company holding an LotR miniatures license at the same time. In this instance though, Embracer owns sub-companies (Asmodee, Fantasy Flight Games, Atomic Mass Games) with a proven track-record of producing tabletop miniature wargames and miniatures-based board games, so it may feel counter-intuitive for them to keep licensing the IP to Wizkids and especially GW. Mithril Miniatures is probably far safer than GW is right now lol.

Specifically on GW's license (extant since 2001):

Games Workshop's license is through New Line (now a subsidiary of Warner Bros) via Middle-earth Enterprises to produce wargaming miniatures based on the Peter Jackson films, including some book-specific characters and events as well.

Not including smaller spin-off board games (like Wizard's Duel, Quest to Mount Doom, or Battle in Balin's Tomb), Games Workshop has used this license to create three different miniatures ranges and four different major game systems.

The miniatures we are most familiar with, 28mm true-scale, are associated with LotR/Hobbit/Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game; and The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Ring: Mass Battles in Middle-earth. These miniatures are produced through Citadel and FW.

The other two miniatures ranges were short-lived. GW's 40mm pre-painted range, which they produced through their now-defunt subsidiary, Sabretooth Games, was associated with game The Lord of the Rings: Combat Hex. In 2005, Games Workshop released a 10mm book-inspired Hobbit range which was associated with a game called Great Battles of Middle-earth: Battle of Five Armies. BoFA was based on Warmaster.

And, specifically on the Strategy Battle Game as a rules system:

GW has actually ported the SBG twice, both times to their now-OOP historical imprint, Warhammer Historical. The first time was Legends of the Old West (a game revolving around the American Old West) and the second time was Legends of the High Seas (a game revolving around pirates). SBG itself is a great set of rules, I agree, and it would be a shame to let it go extinct. It could work well as a Warhammer Fantasy skirmish game, but I imagine the backlash ("Why didn't you bring back Mordheim instead??") would be overwhelming.

As far as shifting partners, GW can't simply just approach the Tolkien Estate and say, "We would like to just make miniatures directly from the books." The Tolkien Estate does not have the ability to give out those rights because they sold them to United Artists--those same rights are now owned by Embracer Group via Middle-earth Enterprises. GW would have to approach MEE to do anything.

The Tolkien Estate reserved publishing rights (which is why the book publication license has bounced around from publisher to publisher, subsidiary to subsidiary, including HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin, Del Rey, Penguin Randomhouse, etc etc). I believe TV rights were not specified in the original United Artists deal, which is why Amazon was able to buy them from the Tolkien Estate directly. Amazon and GW could probably broker some kind of deal, but my guess would be that they would need to use MEE (Embracer) as an intermediary. I might be completely wrong though.

I hope GW doesn't touch Rings of Power. I have been increasingly unimpressed with the marketing the more and more they release. As a generic fantasy show, it looks meh. But as something that is supposed to be grounded in the lore, setting, and canon of Middle-earth, it looks egregiously terrible.

Thanks again Jamros for the long reply ... I enjoyed reading it!

I remember seeing the Warhammer Historical wild west book in the shops once some years back, could've been an interesting read.

Well, at the moment there's lots of new content for the game coming out still, with some great new models for Glorfindel and Elrond I'm looking forward to getting, so can't complain. And maybe the game could still survive with an independent scene like Blood Bowl did even if the licence ran out one day.

I don't think the show will be bad. It just won't be as good as Fellowship of the Ring.

But then, what could be?

Be better than the Hobbit, at least.

Also, it may or may not be worth GW's while to make models based on it. (I can actually imagine them holding off on any moves until the end of Season 1). But if there's any seriously cool designs, just watch someone like DaVale Games make an almost-kinda-sorta version of it. It really doesn't help that the GW LOTR range includes some of the most beautiful miniatures ever created. And some of the dumbest and ugliest ones.

(Compare to the newer A Song of Ice and Fire miniatures game range. The figures rarely reach the dizzy heights of the original Helm's Deep set, but they are generally all quite beautiful and well executed)

Furthermore, there might not be a whole lot of obviously-compelling models to make army groups with, so any GW production might be very limited indeed.

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Dreaming of getting back to painting...any month now.

Very interesting thread. We are just getting into LOTR and we were a bit reticent due to the somewhat uncertain future of MESBG as far as GW is concerned and also due to the large number of models that are unavailable to order. We ended up taking the plunge though as the various Battlehost sets, Osgiliath along with numerous items we wanted coming back into stock (following lots of 'email me when back in stock' requests) have allowed us to get pretty much all we are likely to ever want. A big and fairly expensive 'grab it while you can' buying spree.

Having done that, to a degree, we are largely immune to what changes might come insofar as GW is concerned, we will have the rules, books, figures and will be happy to play it as it is, we neither need nor want the periodic updates and relentless tinkering that 40K gets and, aside maybe from the GW figure line possibly dying a dead, we would hopefully not be affected to much. If FFG / Asmodee start churning out figures that are compatible size wise we might be tempted but, of the games we've tried, I've not been that impressed with anything that Asmodee / FFG have ever done TBH so I won't be holding my breath on that front. Anything Rings of Power based doesn't appeal either. Time will tell I guess. Just glad we took the plunge and bought up while we still can.

That's more than fair.

Right now, if I was starting, I would get two of the big plastic boxed sets and then use Oathmark miniatures and plastic historicals to make up everything else. The rules are good, and evergreen.

Also, having watched and generally liked Rings of Power, my prediction was right: there aren't really any iconic characters or designs that just absolutely have to be made into minis. The Men of Numenor designs are just uninspiring - though I think that's deliberate. The orcs are just...orcs. Dwarf designs don't stay far from other dwarf designs , and the elf soldier we have seen aren't particularly memorable. (Though if someone made high quality versions of Galadriel, Arondir and Bronwyn, I will be buying them in a heartbeat. And a box of Human peasants.)

Of course I realise: the LOTR and Hobbit trilogies did the Star Wars thing where everything was created with an eye on merchandising. So all the designs were created with at least an awareness of "how could this thing become a cool action figure/miniature/lego piece/lunch box decal." The visual designers here went for something far more subtle, creating incredible costumes, particularly for the Dwarves, Elves and Numenor which make these scenes very visually dynamic. Great for the show. But not something that demands merchandising.

Cosplayers will love it though.

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Dreaming of getting back to painting...any month now.

Looks like Games Workshop and Amazon have a deal ... but not the one we were wondering about!
https://www.warhammer-community.com/202 ... ry-cavill/

Amazon to make shows based on the 40k universe.

Maybe it means they could cooperate on Middle Earth too? Interesting development anyway ...

In all honesty, what would they make from Rings of Power? More orcs? Another elf hero? Galadriel on horseback? The only thing I can think of that I might buy is if they made a stand alone set of Galadriel and her troop fighting the snow troll.

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"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

I think there were some interesting options for models in Rings of Power, and I like the idea of a Galadriel vs snow troll box.

I admit that there's already enough in the existing range to keep me busy modelling and gaming for many years to come! But if they were going to go for Rings of Power, then my ideas would be:

ELF ARMY
Galadriel in ice-climbing gear
Box of plastic armoured elves from Galadriel's troop (inc. captain/banner)
Arondir
Box of plastic ranger elves (inc. captain/banner options)
Galadriel armoured on horse

ORC ARMY
Adar, Big orc (who fights Arondir in the village)
Chained warg
New box of plastic orcs (inc. captain/banner)
Snow troll

NUMENOR ARMY
Elendil and Isildur, both foot and mounted
Numenoreans, foot and mounted, plastic boxes (inc. captain/banner)
Halbrand

This gives three playable factions to start off with.

For a starter box you could have Galadriel on horse with 6 Numenorean knights and 12 Numenorean foot troops vs Adar with 36 orcs.

You could make a few scenarios from the village attack in the final episodes for a mini-campaign. Laketown militia would work as proxy villagers. Although it wasn't a huge battle, it was actually quite well sized for an MESBG game with 30 or 40 models a side.

If we threw some Forgeworld models into this range, I'd go for a Forgeworld Bronwyn & Theo and maybe a young Elrond and Gil-Galad pack (unarmoured, so not very useful in game!). Also Queen Miriel on horseback.

You could probably move on to do dwarves in season two. The dwarf Queen and fellow singers could maybe have tremor/collapse rock type spell powers to represent their ability to sing to the rocks.

..............

Obviously there are lots of elves, orcs and men already in the range, but for example a new sprue of plastic Mordor orcs would probably be welcome even to Third Age players, as you could blend them into a general orc horde. And with the new sculpting techniques available now they could be much more dynamic.

..............

ps. Interesting interview with GW Middle Earth product manager Rob Alderman on the "Nerd of the Rings" youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGZL-k6ziUg

Rob suggests future campaign book ideas he might like to work on one day would include a return to Khazad Dum (Tolkien named lots more dwarves who haven't been seen yet), and the Last Alliance. An intriguing reference to possible Middle Earth evil dwarves there too!