Battles in Middle Earth

I wanted todays blog to be a little bit different. It's essentially a collection of thoughts I had the other day having seen The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and a chance to show off the characters from "Escape From Goblin Town".

"Bilbo Baggins"

"Thorin Oakenshield"

"Gandalf the Grey"

Today I wanted to talk about something a little different. Inspiration.

On Wednesday (12th December), my cousin and I arrived in Leicester Square, London, for the Hobbit premiere. After a day of Tolkien references, and shaking hands with the stars (Sir Ian McKellen and Martin Freeman!) I returned home with a massive 6.5'x2' The Hobbit sign and plenty of memories.

"Kili... Fili..."

On Thursday, Charlotte (my beautiful and very understanding other half) and I went to see the film in IMAX, and again on Friday with some friends from GW Kingston.

Personally, I think the film is incredible. It stays true to the book, adds some wonderful flourishes and uses the Lost Tales and other Tolkien works to fill the blanks left by the book and properly connect everything to the trilogy.

"Dwalin... Balin..."

As Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit gamers, this is very good news to us as, personally, I was wondering at the validity of some of the The Hobbit models fighting against those from The Lord of the Rings and how it actually properly fits in.

Instead, now, I'm marvelling at the opportunities. Grim Hammerers and Warriors of Erebor against Mordor Orcs now seems perfectly plausible. I'm personally quite excited at doing "Out Of The Frying Pan Into The Fire" replacing Azog's Hunters with the Nine as if the Ring had awoken earlier, and seeing how Thorin's Company cope.

"Oin..."

What if the Trolls had been fought back rather than petrified and Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin and Aragorn stumble across them before Arwen can reach them?

What if Bilbo and Gandalf knew the true nature of the Ring at the Battle Of Five Armies and thus proceeded immediately south to Mordor from Erebor?

"Gloin..."

What if Thorin had survived and joined the Felllowship... Or Gloin? What if Bolg had been at Balin's Tomb?

"Bifur... Bombur... Bofur..."

I could go on - these are just a sprinkling of the ideas buzzing through my head right now. It's hard to overestimate how excited the film has left me. I'm hastily painting up the The Hobbit: Escape From Goblin Town Models on top of those I need for my Journeybook Campaign with David Browning, and I fully intend to build no paint up a full Erebor army when the Grim Hammerer, Thror and Thrain models become available. Yes, that opening sequence is THAT epic that I want to do an Armies on Parade board based on it (totally stolen from David), or maybe an epic sized Goblin Town board...

"Dori... Ori... Nori..."

I can't believe it's a whole year until The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, I really want it now! Until then, however, I have plenty to keep me going!

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"
Thorin's Company & Gandalf the Grey & Radagast the Brown