Carcassonne Central

I play and love Lord of The Rings and the occaissional 4ok game, anyone else ?

I have a friend who spent over a $1000 on LotR miniatures and only every played the game twice. He spent hours painting the pieces and they now sit in three (expensive) padded cases in his attic, where they will probably remain for years to come. I like the concept of Games Workshop games, but they are far too expensive for my blood.

L.O.L. ~ for a second there I thought you were talking about me . . . I too have spent over a thousand dollars on a collection of Lord Of The Rings (LOTR) miniatures and have only ever played a few times (maybe a dozen, well at least that's more than twice).  The difference is I don't paint very well, so that is what steered me away from the Games Workshop: Strategy Battle Game (...or Table-Top Strategy Game, I seen it called both names).  When I retired from the the National Guard in 2000 I looked for a war gaming hobby to fill my now free one weekend per month.  I drooled over the already popular GW Lord of the Rings model kits, but knew I couldn't do them justice, so I pondered instead the newly released pre-painted Mage Knights as an alternative.  Then the Peter Jackson movie versions of J.R.R.Tolkien's famous trilogy hit the theaters and Sabertooth Games, a small start-up company, produced and marketed their LOTR: Tradeable Miniatures Game (TMG) with pre-painted 40 mm plastic figures (compatible with the ones from GW) which were mounted on a base that contained all the stats normally found on the D&D-like cards or GW reference books, ...and there were sliders (later changed to dials) to record wounds and special actions for each figure -- like the "clickies" (MK, HeroClix, SportsClix, & HorrorClix, etc.) ...and it played on a hexagonized map, which did not require you to measure ranges with a ruler.  I was hooked and then finding their web site with FAQ's to clarify rules, Events Calendars, Public Discussion Forums, Private Messaging, etc. (similar to this CarcassonneCentral), just fueled my passion.  But I never could connect with other players within my immediate area and thus resolved to be a collector until my grand kids were old enough to appreciate the story line, the game mechanics, and my investment.  So I too have a ton of these toy soldiers in storage.  Unfortunately GW bought up the rights to this TMG competitor and (imho) forced them to go Out Of Production.