Why does everyone seem to prefer the LOTR metal sculpts over the plastics? Is it because about a decade ago when most of the plastics came out the plastic tech was trash back then? I find EVERY material has its awesome parts and some worse parts, which aren't much of a hindrance. But I'm guessing with the older tech of the LOTR plastics there is a actual hindrance in sculpt quality? IMO the new Hobbit plastics are great.

Well there are lots of reasons. The old plastics didn't have the best detail like you said. The metals seemed to be better. Also the metal models aren't as fragile as fine cast or plastics and if there was a little bend it was easier to put back into place.

Just some reasons I'm thinking of right now. Although the plastics now are much better then they used to be in detail.

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The new plastics are...well, alright. They are far better than the original range of plastics. They are also, irritatingly, scarcely compatible in terms of scale. One of the benefits of WOTR was that scale mattered less. Mixing and matching Hobbit range figures with old LOTR Rohirrim, for example, at a skirmish scale is a bit obviously an issue.

The metals, on the other hand, have heft, higher detail, and last longer. I strongly suspect most people's finecast will be looking a bit duff in a few years. By contrast, I can strip a twenty five year old Prince August metal miniature and paint it good as new.

I actually had two or three all metal 1000pt WOTR armies before the theft - Rivendell, Mordor and Angmar. Ouch.

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Don't join the bandwagon and diss Finecast please. I've seen enough of that for 3 lifetimes. ALL materials have their ups and downs though yes, admittedly, metal stripping being one of its ups. Finecast has astonishing detail and I once read a blog I totally agree with, it said that the larger the model, the less prominent the flaws of Finecast became and the more prominent the pros. I <3 my GUO model. And I don't actually have any old LOTR plastics, save for 20 Uruk Hai. Its either metal Fiefdoms and Dwarves, Uruk characters (old) or plastic Goblins, Elves, Thorin's Company (new). Elves are tall I guess and the rest are short anyways, to me there is hardly difference worthy of thought, I've met 40kers who like using the old stumpy Terminators, but I don't see anyone complaining abouy them on the battlefield...

If I could make one all metal army, to go back to the original topic, boys, Id probably do Mordor because they have so many cool looking metals available. A ton of those random orcs, trolls, fell beasts....so cool. A lot of the metals have some ok poses but mordor has a large metal variety.

Also my 750 pt Isengard is close to all metal.
-8 uruk with shields arent but they never were made metal
-Mauhur I had to buy finecast. It already broke twice using it very sparingly....
-6 scouts are plastic

Other than that all ferals, crossbows, heros, and raiders are metal. I theortically could make an all metal Isengard.

Actually, Im close to an all metal Dwarf army too with Balin Dain murin drar vault wardens, iron guard, khazads and such.

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Moria / Misty Mountains.

For WotR one needs acres of gobbos for a decent sized army. An i would really love a fast array of these in metal.

i have even been (slowly) working towards this with about 4-5 co of archers in metal, and a similar number with shields. (oddly spearmen are rather rare..)

The metals just have a nicer variety than the plastics.

But please note the goblin plastics despite being old old in GW terms for LotR, they are rather detailed. In fact almost too detailed when you have several dozen to paint and want to bulk paint em all...

In this case its not quality that makes me want these in metal, just the extra variety, the clear difference to the almost ubiquitous plastic models, and the joy of their 'weight' when pushing them around in their trays on the battlefield.

Back them up with black shields and the metal cave drake ... and it is awesome. Though I do have the GW Spider Queen... it looks a little naff in my opinion.. flat and uninspired, so I instead use a Heresy Giant Spider on a resin base... looks really creepy as spiders should.

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