The Hobbit – Lake Town House
We started into 2020 with a few articles on Middle Earth terrain, beginning with the Rohan House, and due to the positiv feedback on the overall coverage, I've decided to extend the series and take a look at the Lake Town House as well.
The Lake Town house is a plastic terrain kit in 28mm scale and as such worth a look, not just for players of the Middle Earth games but far beyond. So let's see what is in the box.
The houses are either available as a single kit, or triple bundle. The individual kit is only available directly through Games Workshop, the bundle should be available through your local gaming store as well. Pricing is 32,50 EUR for the boxed set and 90 EUR for the larger bundle, containing three houses. As the product was moved off the shelf, it is likely that they won't be delivered in the full colour boxed set but the white card board boxed with the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings logos on them. But that is of no concern, as the content is identical.
Each building set is a flat, roughly A4 sized box, covering two large sprues and an assembly instruction.
The sprues are densely packed with bits and parts, and not only cover the houses themself but quite the lot of optional parts, pathways and decoration. Casting quality is well done, with sharp details and medium amount of mould lines.
The main part of this kit, is a two story lake town building. There are a few options and variants. For example the upper front and back walls are two sided and give you a bit of option.
The houses are build from tall side pieces, and two part fronts / backs, which consider of ground and upper floor parts, as well as small triangles for the gables. The sides have hollows, to guide the passform and keep them in place.
I started by creating two L-shapes and glued them together. You can see, the alternative designs are shown on the insides. The structure is very stable at this point, so you could build it play-able or the roof detachable.
As for the roof, it is simply two large plates going over the gable, and cover a small dormer that can be freely positioned on either side. The dormer window has two sides as well and you're free to choose which design you like. To give you an idea of the different designs, I build two houses with different fronts / wall designs on the outside.
Beside the building there are wooden walkways included in this kit. A large platform to put the house upon, along with three long and a short walkways. They have posts to go around the edges, that can be freely mixed and used to your liking. That gives you a lot of options to individualise the walkways.
You don't need to glue them together, so you can re-arrange the walkways and platform depending on the scenario or setup you like to play.
The large platform is meant to create a base for the buildings. There are not fixed positions, you can put them on there as you please. And link the platforms with several walkways.
But that's not all, there are still further small parts to go along with the houses and walk ways. Each kit comes with an outhouse / extension, as well as a boat incl. rudders.
The small extension can either be added to one of the house's walls, or as a single outhouse of its own. You can place them on the walkways, a bit aside from the main building, as you'd expect from an outbuilding.
And yet, there is more. A lot of baskets, barrels, lanterns and wooden angles that can be added to the buildings and walkways, to give them even more live. I'd suggest you glue the smaller parts to the buildings and otherwise go for groups you can place freely as blockades or coverage.
To show you a set up, that you can build from one kit each, variant A on the left, variant B on the right.
Of course, you can combine multiple kits for more elaborate lake towns.
And just to point out, how flexible you are with the terrain, a few 28-32mm that fit quite well with the houses. An old Empire Militia, a Freebooters Fate Goblin, a Frostgrave Crewman, a Black Scorpion Pirate Dwarf, and in the second picture Footsore, Pro Gloria/Warlord Games Landsknecht and an old Citadel cannon crew.
Conclusion
Wow, this kit really went under my radar for a long time. It provides an incredible value for the roughly 30 EUR it costs, but I strongly suggest getting the triple bundle, as it will give you a proper set up for a small to medium sized table. The modular walkways and lots of smaller pieces are a great addition to this kit and give you a lot to play around with.
The kit is incredibly versatile. Of course, it is meant to be used with the Middle Earth games to represent Lake Town, but it will work with other games as well. For example could it be a coastal / harbour part of Marienburg if you're playing Warhammer or Mordheim-type skirmish. With all the walkways and proximity to water it certainly is interesting for Freebooters Fate or Wyrd. Put it on a snowy (or frozen lake) game mat and use it with Frostgrave, or recreate the Neck or more rural parts of the Riverlands from A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones.
Assembly goes surprisingly quick, and covers a few variants direct from the sprue without converting it. Yet, there are ideas to go beyond, as you can see from this article on Warhammer Community from back in 2016. I'll give that idea a go and chop some parts up and give it a try.
The Lord of the Rings and Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game are tabletop miniature games by Games Workshop.
The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.
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