I plan on starting a Hobbit/LOTR SBG collection.

Currently i am most interested into 4 armies:
-Mirkwood
-Army of Thror
-Gundabad/ Azogs Legion
-Iron Hills

Now, i am on a low-ish budget, considering the prices of some miniatures (looking at you Forge World), and my current plan is to start with The Goblin Town starter set, the 2 Hobbit rulebooks, and to use the heroes in The Goblin Town set to start an Army of Thror list, currently planned something like this:

-Thorin
12 Grim hammer
-Balin (apparently 3 members of The Company of Thorin Oakenshield can lead Army of Thror troops, i am sure its Thorin, and i think other 2 are Balin and Dwalin)
12 Erebor Warriors
-Dwalin
12 Erebor Warriors or Grim hammers, which i will buy after i test play both

I think that plan is quite good for a beginner list, however, i want to start a Mirkwood list, both for a separate list, and to use the alliance system to get good archers for my Army of Thror. Now the problem is, Mirkwood is quite expensive, and i plan to buy only a few models at a time, but i want to start with 2 boxes, Mirkwood Rangers and Palace Guard, but then i need heroes to lead them.

My question is, do you think it is ok to use LEGO minifigures as proxies for house play, as i do have Tauriel, Legolas and Thranduil, and just those 3 alone are worth a small fortune?
This would be a short term way of going around the big price tag that comes with the hobby.

Thanks for your attention, and if you dont mind, feel free to recommend any other ways i can expand the 4 listed armies, i know i have only one evil army, but i will always have Goblin Town, because of the Starter Set, and i would expand to Azogs Hunters once i make 600-ish point armies for the other 4.

Thank you!

As long as it is fine with your opponent, anything goes. With Mirkwood, it's not the heroes who are expenisve, it's the troops, because you need more of them.

I think that would be fine for Army of Thror, but I've heard Grim Hammers are weak and Iron Hills looks just plain better. If you want to use Thorin's Company you could always do Erebor Reclaimed.

As for Goblin Town, that seems like a pretty good start. I wouldn't start more than 2 lists at the same time, though, because depending on your battle size it could be tough to get 4 fully functional lists. I have 7 and I've been collecting for 7 years.

As McGarnacle wrote, no problem if your game Partner agrees.

Apart from the Special form of a figure which indicates the Players which character is depicted by the miniature, tyo other attributes are important for sbg: 1. the base size for measuring distances and movement through narrow gaps, 2. the height of the miniature to decide if the figure can be seen behind an obstacle or if it itself is able to see a target for shooting or an enemy for a charge.

Lego figures would not have these 2 attributes. Maybe you could just use a miniature sized stick glued on a standard base together with some ID-Attribut like f.i. a green dot of colour for Legolas?

Whatever you choose, it will be o.k. as a workaround. Good thing will be, you can play with your armies, not so good is the look of these special proxy-heroes.

I once considered using Legos as proxies myself but I found the difference in scale to be to vast for man sized models. Trolls, ogres, and such might work though, if you could find the right sort of figures.

I would recommend having a look at the alternative miniature thread down in the help with minifigures section. They have a lot of ideas for using alternative 28mm miniatures as proxies or conversions. Alas most of those are for humans but there are some for other sorts as well. Some very nice conversion work has been done to make Perry miniatures into orcs so you might try your hand at that.

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"Draw your sword with a heavy heart, but swing it with a heavy hand"

They are currently sold out, but here are some great orc proxies
https://store.warlordgames.com/products/orcs

If you really want to change things up, Alliance plastic models 1/72 scale offers a range of "generic" fantasy minis with a familiar look to them. 1/72 is a bit smaller than 28mm. More akin to 20mm, but if you and your friends personal collections are comprised of them then there won't be an issue. They price point around $15 for 40 minis.

Another approach (one which I considered before settling on GW's range) would be to buy either wizkids LOTR/Hobbit clix minis or the older LOTR hex battle click minis and rebase them. If you are only looking for house play, the possibilities for proxies are more wide. Oh then in 10mm is cobblestones "generic" fantasy minis.

Thank you everyone for the replies, I am still probably going to use LEGO figures, although as some stated, I should work on only a few lists at a time, and that is for now Goblin Town and Army of Thror.

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That's my wee lad Gimli!

When I was starting out I used GW bases with colored stickers. Green = spearman, Red = archer, and so on!

I think it is more important to play and feed your excitement for the game than worry about doing things in the best possible way. I was fortunate to have a regular opponent who was tactically minded and more interested in the rules, the decisions, and trying out lots of different forces than in the craft and art of the game.

Here is another inexpensive generic fantasy retailer

http://www.scotiagrendel.com/Products/i ... 222_46_203

Another solution would be to use the warriors as stand in heroes. Give them a different paint job and put them on a rock to make them stand out. The Mirkwood rangers are perfect to represent Tauriel and Legolas. Thranduil is a bit more difficult.

That is what i thought. Generic Warbands consist of a hero and 12 units, and because The Palace Guard box and the Mirkwood Ranger box come with 10, i can proxy 1 as a hero, and then buy one of those 3 miniature boxes to fill up the squad, so with 4 boxes i would have 2 warbands. I am thinking of adding one unit with swords and one with bows, costing me a total of 110 euros, and then buy the Forge World Thranduil on Elk, as i just like the miniature and buying the horse one would be a waste of time and money.

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That's my wee lad Gimli!