Bringing the Hobbit to us! Opening the boxed set

Well, we won't be going to see the movie for a while, but look what happened to show up today!

Jon has observed my current obsession with Lord of the Rings SBG ad-nauseum for months, so he sent us an early Christmas present.

This one had the special Radagast figure included, so I can bring him back into my 1000 point Elf army!

Here is Cathy excitedly opening the box...

What could be inside?!!!  Note the Bilbo's Bash dice bag sitting there.  How did that get there?

So excited, the camera cannot keep up!  

I must say, I was way more impressed with the figures than I originally anticipated.  Cathy loved the Goblins!

She already found a favorite goblin.  I am sure he will have a name.

These gobbos are definitely a giant improvement over the original set from years ago!

Here's my Radagast.  Get ready, Rich!!!

These extra items were neat as well.  Having fun terrain is always handy!  Cathy wants to use the Goblin King as her big nasty troll with her Groblog army.

The mini rulebook was nice, and Cathy read certain parts that had worried me in the lead up to this release, trying to talk me down from the ledge.  I was terrified that the game would be completely redone, as the other two systems had been.  I didn't want to see a plasma pistol toting Gandalf and a Mordor steam tank showing up to battles or anything...

The quick reference guide is very nice, and much appreciated!

This image was in the mini rulebook.  It caught my attention right away, as I was going to get a bunch of plastic toy eagles from Michaels to fill out the rest of my Elf army.  These guys look a lot like the new big monster in the Empire range, don't they?

Certainly not the existing metal eagle they have now.

Is it safe to assume that we won't be seeing these for a while?  I don't have the Hobbit story memorized or anything, but my understanding is that the eagles would not show up until the second movie.  I could be very wrong, of course!