It’s been a long time coming, but the Armies of Middle-Earth book is finally up for pre order today, and alongside it a huge wave of brand new miniatures, many of which are plastic! While we havn’t seen Armies of Middle-Earth ourselves yet (Our full review of that and the Matched Play guide will be coming as soon as we have our hands on the books) we have been lucky enough to build and paint all the new miniatures up for pre order today! In this full review we’ll be checking out all the kit, talking about how they went together and painting them up to see what they look like in the flesh

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending these kits over to us to review. If you would like to support the site then why not order your Middle-Earth goodies through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too?

We’ve also filmed a full unboxing and review of all these models, which you can see just below or over on YouTube

So without further ado let’s take a look at all the kits!

Hera, Daughter of Helm

First up we have Hera, Daughter of helm who we saw a long time ago now back when the War of the Rohirrim box was released! I was surprised that this didnt release alongside the box given how much of a main character she is, but thankfully she is available now for those who want to put together a full War of the Rohirrim era force (hopefully the other missing characters are on their way soon)

Surprisingly, the model has a couple of different options such as the ability to build her with or without her cloak (which actually changes the build quite a bit). I opted for the cloak-less version here to stand it apart from the box version, and I feel GW have done really well here at taking the anime look and making it more “realistic” to fit with the rest of the Middle-Earth range.

Hopefully the rest of the War of the Rohirrim charcters are accompanied with a full source book letting you play through the events of the movie.

Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth

Next up we have Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth, who is here in plastic for the first time! I’ve not actually built and Swan Knights before, but Imrahil has made me fall in love with the style, as this model is absolutely dripping charm!

The model was an absolute joy to paint up, and the pose is way more dynamic than the old metal one, with him now leaning into a lance charge with the robes and flag billowing in the same direction. As with all of the current Middle-Earth heroes you also get him on foot on the same sprue, and he looks just as good off his horse as he does on it! I feel I’m, going to slip very soon and pick up a Dol Amroth army once we’ve seen the details of the lists in Armies of Middle-Earth

Bolg, Spawn of Azog

This release is really nice in that it has plastic kits for The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings and War of the Rohirrim, meaning that there’s some love for all three settings. For The Hobbit we get a new plastic model for Bolg, Spawn of Azog!

The pose and change in base size on this one caused some grumbles when it was revealed, but the finished effect is really nice with Bolg hanging onto his Warg as it jumps down at an enemy. For a plastic fit this is quite a complex one with some small parts to recreate the armour style – if you have big fingers make sure you take your time as it can be a bit fiddly building the spiked armour on the books for example.

There’s also an optional box that can be attached to his back too – I’d recommend painting this seperatly and attaching later, as otherwise you’ll struggle to get to all the details.

Corsairs of Umbar Ballista

It’s not just plastic kits that we get in this wave however, as there are a couple of Forge World resin ones starting with the Corsairs of Umbar Ballista. This is another one that a lot of people have been waiting for, and now with Armies of Middle-Earth Corsairs players now have access to a lot more returning options

While having a relatively small parts count, I did find this one a little tricky to build, in particularly the balista itself which deffo needs a little dry fitting to make sure all the parts align correctly. Just take your time and you’ll have no issues however! Painting them up was great fun too, and I’m looking forward to picking up some more Corsairs to make a small force of them!

Beechbone the Ent

The final new model we’re looking at today is Beechbone the Ent! This is one that people have been looking forward to for a while as he has had rules for quite some time, but up until now people have had to make do with conversions. I’m happy to share though that the Beechbone model is absolutely gorgeous and my favourite kit out of these releases today!

He’s not by any stretch a cheap kit, with him costing as much as his brother Birchseed at £63.50 but I do feel he stands larger than the other two character Ents as you can see below:

He was also a little easier to build than Birchseed, with the main assembly only being a few pieces – though make sure you clean and sort the branches properly before assembly as it can sometimes be a tad tricky to see how they connect, but take your time and you will have no issues!

It’s great now that he is released, as the three named Ents makes a nice little 500 point force! Chuck in a couple of standard Ents and you have a full army!

This has been a great wave of models from Games Workshop for the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game, and alongside Armies of Middle-Earth I think this is going to be a fantastic jumping on point for a lot of people wanting to get back into the system. What’s awesome too is that we know there’s lots more models to come too, hopefully a sign that the SBG is going to be well supported for this edition.

All of these characters, the Armies of Middle-Earth book and the Matched Play Guide are all up for pre order today and released Saturday 14th June – We’ll be putting together our reviews of the books as soon as we have our hands on them!

Games Workshop sent Sprues & Brews free copies of these miniatures for review purposes.