This is from wikipedia:

Orthanc was, according to J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, built during the end of the Second Age by the men of Gondor out of four many sided columns of rock joined together by an unknown process and then hardened. No known weapon could harm it. The Ents themselves could not break the tower, although they could split solid rock into fragments with ease. Orthanc rose up to more than 500 feet (150 meters) above the plain of Isengard, and ended in four sharp peaks. Its only entrance was at the top of a high stair, and above that was a small window and balcony.


Now that would make a great terrain set! Not sure that they could make it tall enough though. To give an idea of the size it might have to be, check out this link:

http://www.xboltz.net/orthanc.html

Seeing those images opened up a whole new possibility for terrain modelling- Legos! Just kidding. That tower does look pretty cool though.

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To crooked eyes truth may wear a wry face.

a nice looking set although I would agree, the walls still seem a little thin, but better than the last lot.
I particularly like the statues

I am now starting to want theses..haha.

Who has them? What do you think of them? Worth getting?

cheers

James

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[url=http://one-ring.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=50&p=298502#p298502]Corsair's WIP Thread - 03 Dec 12 Update[/url]

Next he should make Barad Dur.

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

I have 2 boxes of this .
I am currently working on them as I write this.
One of them I almost have completed.
If anyone wants a review of the product,give me a few hours and I will write something up.
the walls are actually thicker than the pictures show.
the only problem I am having is with the bigger sections.
some of them are slightly warped and not straight.

I'd like a review please. I'll probably get a couple of sets anyways, unless you say they're terrible, but I'd like to know what to expect.

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

JRRT's+ concept drawing:

http://www.tolkien.ru/texts/eng/pbjrrt/27.html

There are several other color drawings.The movie version is by far my favorite.

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"the same as a duck you must be made of wood"

**** The ruins of Osgilieth Terrain From GW.***
:a simple review from an even simpler man.

!! A note first. I am a complete illiterate when it comes to computers.
this is why I have not posted any pictures. i do apologize in advance
but seeing as I am shortly losing this computer to switch to a smart phone,
some things are just left alone.

Tools you are going to need:

SHARP!! X-acto blades.
clippers
Mounting board ( I used 1'x1' oak)
Blue tack.(get this at wal-mart or office supply stores) trust me you will need this.

Anyways,Hi! all and if you are reading this,then you are probably considering purchasing one of the new "Ruins of osgilieth" terrain sets that Gw has just released.
I my self have got 2 of the sets. You can review what comes in the box and see pictures of the actual sprues on the GW site.
First Impressions: It's Chunky. upon opening the box you recieve 2 sprues with the pictured wall pieces and a set of half stairs.
the pieces are not as thin as one would think.I measured the wall sections at
1/4 of an inch. (don't have my digital calipers working right now)
the highest piece (front wall with the big doorway in it) measures at 3 3/4 inches tall with the other two wall pieces coming in at about 3 1/4 inches tall.
the pieces seem to be about in scale,and the casting is rather crisp and the detail is clear.
I like how certain bricks along the wall line look pushed in or out.
Over all,first impressions were pleasing.

***Assembly and Preparation***
So,I open the box. I start to look inside an examine the sprues. Grab the clippers and start cutting. . . .5 HOURS LATER!! I have a finished ,cleaned and ready to go ruins.
Clean up on this thing is long. The main pieces are not too bad. there is a mold line that runs around the entire length of the pieces.
the real problem lies in the stairs and archways that you will think nobody can see untill you of course look at it from a different angle.

**Uneven and warpage** this is important to take note of.
It is touted in the ads that you can stack these pieces,which of course is true... the two main problems that I had with BOTH!! of my kit's is:
1) The top and bottoms need to be filed flat in order for them to stand on top of each other. You can't just scrape the mold line off and be done with it. where the two pieces were joined at creates a ridge that is rounded and so if you don't take care of that you won't be able to do the stacking thing.
(off course you don't have to stack,and just paint it up and no one will know any ways )

2)Warpped or slightly bent wall sections. BZZZZZZZ minus two letter grades there folks
this was in both of my kits.
You have to look at all of your pieces before even thinking about glue. On a few of my wall sections (especillay the big front piece) the walls were slightly warpped in,thus making that particular section convex which in turn "WILL" throw off your other walls alignments and then it looks like the "clown Brigade" has built your scenery piece.
One of my ruins is half done.So I just dealt with the Warpping issue and moved on since it's going to look like it was in a forest area anyhow.
you can bet the bank on the fact that the next one will be recieving some special Heat treatment before assembling.

****Creativity,assembly,and Construction***
So after everything above we come to the Building part.

Remember that blue tack I told you about? well rip off a hunk and start using your imagination. you can basically build these any way you want.
I used the blue tack to hold the walls together. then mounting the pieces on a 1'x1' oak board mounted on a lazy susan I could spin it freely and see how things would look from all directions.

***NOTE***
Although it says you can stack and go wild,keep in mind that the wall pieces have a floral or filligree patern denoting the outside of the walls,so this can be kind of limiting when you only have one kit.

Once you have chosen the set up you like. Just make a note of them in a sketch book,and give the pieces a really good bath.
You have to wash these and scrub them good.

I'm out of plastic glue. So i scored each piece with a x-acto knife and then joined them with super glue.
the only hard part is you might want to use something like legos or a right angle to make sure each wall section lines up straight.
after that all you need to do is add some paint.Mount each section on to a board and finish up and play some games.

*******IN CLOSING********
The set's are nice. However with most GW material you get the most benefit out of combinig two or more sets. yea I know,it can get pricy real quick.

to be truthful all you would ever really need is two boxes and you should be able to make pretty much all you need for an evening's worth of gaming.

SBG Players: this is aimed at you. the sets work just as well as they do with War of the ring.
In fact I feel you actually have more options open to you for finely made terrain that your figures can interact with that most other pieces do.
while the wood planks and stone sections will support a fully loaded tray of WOTR figures. I often found myself trying to make little sections for figures to hide behind and run up stairs etc... so these sets are better for you guys then most.

War of the ring players: this is for you guys and gals.
keep your pieces open. the planks and stone shelf will support your figure trays,but you need to at least keep the pieces open enough for movement and to advoid confusion...other than that. GO NUTS!.

In the end. I know that everything can't be perfect.This is a pretty good effort on GW part,I am glad i bought the sets,just some things could be better like the warp issue.
however that issue aside I think that you can't go wrong with the purchase of at least a box to try.
overall rating: 7
Hope you all enjoyed this. If you have any questions
just ask,I don't bite. you can e-mail me ,pm me or respond here.

Just allow for some time,I got a daughter graduating tommorrow

peace out
-7

Thanks for the review 7Thunders

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

Thanks for the review 7Thunders. I was thinking of picking up a set, but may make it two sets now upon your advice. I was a little miffed by the last set of ruins as they were so thin. If the walls are as thick as you say then they should look more realistic on the table top.

That was a great review. I have a spare 2'x2' MDF board lying around so I might buy 2 sets and 2 LoTR terrain sets and build a nice skirmish sized board (which could possibly be later added to a larger board made from 4 sheets MDF).

That review has convinced me to buy a set.

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When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

Backlog Reduction Oath Participant - 6/53

Thanks for the review guess i´l probably buy some sets

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"I will take it. I will take the Ring to Mordor...though I do not know the way."
—Frodo, at the Council of Elrond

I don't know that they'd go so well with the original LotR sets, the thickness of the walls on the new set makes the old one look a bit ridiculous. I doubt I'll be using my old ones anymore once I set up the new ones.

I was going to get the old set for the statues, so I might only get 1 then.

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When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

Backlog Reduction Oath Participant - 6/53

I have always been keen to make an Osgiliath board. In fact, the idea of such a thing was a large part of what brought me to the game. Since then, building individual Gondorian ruins has engrossed most of my hobby time. But I never planned to use individual pieces.... I wanted to go all-out and make a built-in city, in the vein of Talesin's board. I imagined a well-planned table, inviting balanced and exciting games from either system. Perhaps I would build a centrepiece deserving of its own rules, or a section taken directly from the movies? I'm optimistic in this endeavor.

Now that Games Workshop has created a commercial Osgiliath.... I can't help but feel slightly cheated. I know I should be happy, but it pulls the rug out from under all of my planning and anticipation. Now I can just buy Osgiliath.

I suppose the board idea was never practical anyway. At seventeen, I live in my parent's tiny house, with no way to store even the minimal terrain I currently have. There's no "Lord of the Rings tabletop community" in my city, so I wouldn't even be able to put it at a gaming club. With their new Realm of Battle gaming boards, I don't even think Games Workshop would have use for such a table.

Perhaps for a while, I will be content to continue working with individual, modular terrain pieces in the basement. When I have the resources and space, maybe I can simply build on what GW has already created? Buy one to Mimic it, and create new structures? Grow my skills until the time comes when I have the capacity to make my own board, better than what GW offers. The wait for such a time will be difficult.

You shouldn't feel cheated. I See it as more of additional resources to what could used to build an Osgiliath themed board.

Now if GW made the Osgiliath cylindrical towers, I would be pretty angry at them given how time consuming it is to build one.

As long as you include structures which are physicaly impossible to build with the new kits then you can build your own board which can't be commercialised.

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When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

Backlog Reduction Oath Participant - 6/53

Also, Osgiliath is a reasonably sized city build in stages over hundreds of years and destroyed at least twice. It's going to have lots of styles, buildings and building types. So GW's ruins, your ruins, the Thormarillion models, the old Atenociti models should all live together quite happily on your gaming table.

Which is a nice way to say, of course - get back to work

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Dreaming of getting back to painting...any month now.

I've got a set of these too, although I am looking to getting another set just to increase diversity. Combining it with the other ruins that GW provides (via LOTR, and the old 40K), it should be possible to make a pretty decent looking ruined city

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Available for commission painting, PM me if you're interested.