Redditch Tabletop Gamers Forum

(16-03-2016, 03:30 PM)jaqenhgar Wrote: [ -> ]

(16-03-2016, 02:43 PM)Simian Wrote: [ -> ]right, can someone spell it out for me, what force do i need to put together? what size? what heroes from the Free Peoples book can i or cant i use?

Oh and am i definitely able to use an ent?

If you are fighting a battle with your team mate, the total pts is 500pts split beteween the two of you so 250pts for you, with a reasonable amount of leeway if one is a few points under the other can use those points. If you agree to fight separate battles then you need a 500pt list. During a campaign turn your team may be fighting 0, 1 or 2 battles, so you will need to decide between the two of you what to do. You will need to pm each other.

For example, you may only have one battle that turn and decide to team up to fight it so 250pts each. Alternatively one of you can't make it so the other agrees to fight it on their own and takes 500pts from their faction only eg just dwarves/Ents (Ben) or Gondor (Matt).

I have left it up to you so it is as flexible as possible.

You are allowed to use an ent. You may pick heroes from the Durins folk list and include an ent as a warrior with one of those warbands.

Hope that clears things up.

yup, 100% clear now! cheers!

Hi Chris/All,

I had some issues/queries with the map etc, but as you are trying to keep it simple Chris I decided to say nothing and see what happened. However, what you and Will are discussing is the main issue for me too.

Maybe the question to ask, like in all games perhaps, is, 'What are the Victory Conditions?'

e.g. First to take 2 enemy cities/capitals, etc.

the flip side is - If Gondor loses Minas Tirith is that game over for Gondor?

If you only have one army you cant attack and cover your backside unless you live in a culdesac.

In a 'board-game' style of campaign then you normally go grabbing territory, but you have to hold on to your capital and surrounding/in between territory. At the end of a turn you may need to be able to trace a supply line to a city or back to home territory or your army starts getting isolated and gets depleted, cannot reinforce so easily, etc. and forced to retreat (if it can, if not major losses).

What you could do is leave a small garrison force behind in each space. Thinking out loud maybe that's the bonus you get for winning a battle, choose to keep it in the army, or leave as a garrison? Say 100 pnts, they could then retreat and collect into a bigger garrison (max 500). this also provides the route for reenforcements?

Anyway you can't normally just walk into every space and take it 'for free'. Cities and Key locations will always have a garrison/militia. The more significant the space (like a capital) the more significant the garrison. and/or in addition some locations, particularly cities, or Moria type places, for example, should always have garrisons. More important city nodes have bigger garrisons.

As you know... there are also some locations on the map that are at greater risk (harder to defend) than others. Fine if territory doesn't matter, but tough to defend and a disadvantage(?) if it does.

The challenge though is how to handle it. And I am not full of answers.

And there is usually a bonus for defences, city walls for example, defender gets to set up in defensive position, etc. and has some special defences up his sleeve, e.g. Moria balrog, Gondor summons un-dead army... etc.

Just thinking out loud (not arguing!) Simple is good... and this is not so simple stuff!

(17-03-2016, 02:50 PM)Agincourt Wrote: [ -> ]Hi Chris/All,

I had some issues/queries with the map etc, but as you are trying to keep it simple Chris I decided to say nothing and see what happened. However, what you and Will are discussing is the main issue for me too.

Maybe the question to ask, like in all games perhaps, is, 'What are the Victory Conditions?'

e.g. First to take 2 enemy cities/capitals, etc.

the flip side is - If Gondor loses Minas Tirith is that game over for Gondor?

If you only have one army you cant attack and cover your backside unless you live in a culdesac.

In a 'board-game' style of campaign then you normally go grabbing territory, but you have to hold on to your capital and surrounding/in between territory. At the end of a turn you may need to be able to trace a supply line to a city or back to home territory or your army starts getting isolated and gets depleted, cannot reinforce so easily, etc. and forced to retreat (if it can, if not major losses).

What you could do is leave a small garrison force behind in each space. Thinking out loud maybe that's the bonus you get for winning a battle, choose to keep it in the army, or leave as a garrison? Say 100 pnts, they could then retreat and collect into a bigger garrison (max 500). this also provides the route for reenforcements?

Anyway you can't normally just walk into every space and take it 'for free'. Cities and Key locations will always have a garrison/militia. The more significant the space (like a capital) the more significant the garrison. and/or in addition some locations, particularly cities, or Moria type places, for example, should always have garrisons. More important city nodes have bigger garrisons.

As you know... there are also some locations on the map that are at greater risk (harder to defend) than others. Fine if territory doesn't matter, but tough to defend and a disadvantage(?) if it does.

The challenge though is how to handle it. And I am not full of answers.

And there is usually a bonus for defences, city walls for example, defender gets to set up in defensive position, etc. and has some special defences up his sleeve, e.g. Moria balrog, Gondor summons un-dead army... etc.

Just thinking out loud (not arguing!) Simple is good... and this is not so simple stuff!

I second the query on Victory conditions, although my guess is that it would continue until people get completely eliminated?

The idea of capitals is interesting, although if this is used then there would definitely need to be a defence system. Otherwise it would be too easy to take capitals early on.

I was under the impression that this campaign was going to run for a fixed time with the campaign map positions then affecting a big battle or battles at the end with the winner of the big battle(s) declared the winner of the campaign. If you get wiped out I imagine Chris will GM a way for you to carry on but who knows what surprises Chris has planned...

(16-03-2016, 03:30 PM)jaqenhgar Wrote: [ -> ]You are allowed to use an ent. You may pick heroes from the Durins folk list and include an ent as a warrior with one of those warbands.

Just to clarify; between us in our teams (and two factions) we can we can mix and match our war bands from anything listed????

I'm happy to mix our army's and only take for our teams factions. (I know I queried last week if I could take wargs using the Knight of Umbar as a mordor contingent) <---- The answer was no - which was fair enough - stick to your teams factions. I just love warg riders

However, Mixing war band can get problematic for some armies with special rules. Haradrim, Easterlings and Arnor being a few. My suggestion would be to keep the war band legal as these special rules would possible a/ give an unfair advantage b/mess up the special rules.

For example; Harad can have a bow limit of 50% if there use only 4 types of unit (a,b,c,d) if type E is used in the force or contingent then it goes down to 33%. If I took an easterling captain and Used Type A units from Harad - this is a mixed war band from where??? what special rules do I use Harad or Easterlings.


Summing up; Personally I'm Happy to mix the army but not the war bands. Reasons above. Ultimately (as Chris say's) this is everyones campaign so I'm happy with democracy we can go ahead with the mixed war bands if everyone wants to, or not - I just thought it was a good point to point out

also I understand this makes it a bit difficult/ expensive to take an Ent I believe. Not sure what the option would be?!


Sorry Chris for giving you more things to think about!!!

(18-03-2016, 01:30 PM)Rob Lainchbury Wrote: [ -> ]

(16-03-2016, 03:30 PM)jaqenhgar Wrote: [ -> ]You are allowed to use an ent. You may pick heroes from the Durins folk list and include an ent as a warrior with one of those warbands.

Just to clarify; between us in our teams (and two factions) we can we can mix and match our war bands from anything listed????

I'm happy to mix our army's and only take for our teams factions. (I know I queried last week if I could take wargs using the Knight of Umbar as a mordor contingent) <---- The answer was no - which was fair enough - stick to your teams factions. I just love warg riders

However, Mixing war band can get problematic for some armies with special rules. Haradrim, Easterlings and Arnor being a few. My suggestion would be to keep the war band legal as these special rules would possible a/ give an unfair advantage b/mess up the special rules.

For example; Harad can have a bow limit of 50% if there use only 4 types of unit (a,b,c,d) if type E is used in the force or contingent then it goes down to 33%. If I took an easterling captain and Used Type A units from Harad - this is a mixed war band from where??? what special rules do I use Harad or Easterlings.


Summing up; Personally I'm Happy to mix the army but not the war bands. Reasons above. Ultimately (as Chris say's) this is everyones campaign so I'm happy with democracy we can go ahead with the mixed war bands if everyone wants to, or not - I just thought it was a good point to point out

also I understand this makes it a bit difficult/ expensive to take an Ent I believe. Not sure what the option would be?!


Sorry Chris for giving you more things to think about!!!

Hi Rob. I was allowing Ben to take an ent as he asked and no one had asked before. In general no you can't take mixed warbands. I want people to use what they want but with certain limits and Ben using Ents brings them into the campaign which I figure is fun for all. Furthermore he has no access to cavalry or monsters otherwise so I thought it make make things more interesting for him. For him to include a hero from the wandering folk list in order to include an ent seems like to big a points chunk for him to ever take them, and although Ents are tough I don't think this is going to give him an unfair advantage. In fact if he takes one his model count is going to be pretty low....

Regarding you using the knight of umbra from the mordor list - the mordor list is already chosen by Will so you can't use Mordor. Furthermore you already have access to cavalry and a very largemonster elephant thing, plus camels and the mahud and half trolls and corsairs...

So to sum up, Ben's is a special case to include Ents. If this seems like favouritism then sorry but I think it's fair and fun for the reasons listed above. There are no mixed warbands in general.

I am also going to allow Stu to take Eagles since he has asked and they are also from the wanderer in the wild list, which in game seems designed to aid the good guys when they need it.

If you are unhappy with your army choice Rob then it's not too late to change - Moria, Angmar are still available for the bad guys, so if you wanted you could pick one of those instead - Angmar has access to warg riders. Whatever you decide I think the map positions are now fixed.

I hope that all explains my reasons for letting Ben take Ents as a special case. (And now stu to take eagles... mainly coswhy not and it's fun and no one else is taking them)

(17-03-2016, 02:50 PM)Agincourt Wrote: [ -> ]Hi Chris/All,

I had some issues/queries with the map etc, but as you are trying to keep it simple Chris I decided to say nothing and see what happened. However, what you and Will are discussing is the main issue for me too.

Maybe the question to ask, like in all games perhaps, is, 'What are the Victory Conditions?'

e.g. First to take 2 enemy cities/capitals, etc.

the flip side is - If Gondor loses Minas Tirith is that game over for Gondor?

If you only have one army you cant attack and cover your backside unless you live in a culdesac.

In a 'board-game' style of campaign then you normally go grabbing territory, but you have to hold on to your capital and surrounding/in between territory. At the end of a turn you may need to be able to trace a supply line to a city or back to home territory or your army starts getting isolated and gets depleted, cannot reinforce so easily, etc. and forced to retreat (if it can, if not major losses).

What you could do is leave a small garrison force behind in each space. Thinking out loud maybe that's the bonus you get for winning a battle, choose to keep it in the army, or leave as a garrison? Say 100 pnts, they could then retreat and collect into a bigger garrison (max 500). this also provides the route for reenforcements?

Anyway you can't normally just walk into every space and take it 'for free'. Cities and Key locations will always have a garrison/militia. The more significant the space (like a capital) the more significant the garrison. and/or in addition some locations, particularly cities, or Moria type places, for example, should always have garrisons. More important city nodes have bigger garrisons.

As you know... there are also some locations on the map that are at greater risk (harder to defend) than others. Fine if territory doesn't matter, but tough to defend and a disadvantage(?) if it does.

The challenge though is how to handle it. And I am not full of answers.

And there is usually a bonus for defences, city walls for example, defender gets to set up in defensive position, etc. and has some special defences up his sleeve, e.g. Moria balrog, Gondor summons un-dead army... etc.

Just thinking out loud (not arguing!) Simple is good... and this is not so simple stuff!

Hi Paul, that's a great point re victory conditions. As Will has said my initial idea which I failed to put in the campaign rules was to have a big battle or two at the end of the campaign with the extent of how well you've done in the campaign affecting the strength of your force / position in the battle. For example if one of the bad guy teams was winning then maybe the good guys would join forces to try and stop him while the other bad team has his own victory conditions.

I also like the idea of capitals and raising defence forces etc but I really am not sure I can come up with some rules that will work having very little experience of this. Also I don't think having small forces or fighting a battle with every territory will work with time constraints etc - as Will says there will be too many battles to fight!

So in terms of victory conditions, you get 1pt at campaign end in Dec for each battle won and each node on the map you control. I will then set up a couple of battles or a single one for those interested - in lord of the rings there is always hope even on the darkest of times. So the 'winner' of the campaign has to still win one more battle ala Sauron on the slopes of mount doom.

As Will suggested if your army is unengaged at the end of everyone's movement, it can be allocated to defend an adjacent territory someone is attacking but you already control. Gives your armies a wider defensive area.

So I propose two options:
Points accumulated can be transferred to raise a single defence force which cannot move but pts assigned to it are doubled eg 250pts gives a 500pt defence force. Minm size for this force would be 400pts. It can retreat if it loses a battle though.

The other option would be are starting regions are capitals which each get a 750pt defence force that can't move - this will discourage anyone from attacking them until they have built their own forces up. Control of a capital node at the end of the campaign gives you +2vp's per capital controlled.

What do you think?

Also I didn't want to go down the eliminating players route. It's almost like Will can read my mind - I was thinking if they lose the last node then I will create some more nodes for them to retreat into - it's a big middle earth after all and the campaign is only running for about 8months. Even if we manage to get two campaign turns in a month, which I think is very unlikely, that's a maximum of 16turns.

Yay I'm a mind reader. It's that palantir you've got.

Sorry to Chuck another idea in but I suddenly had a thought about capitals. What if instead of just being able to take them straight away you have to siege them? As in it takes a few campaign turns to take a capital? That way a defender could get his army back to the capital to break the seige? The defender could then have some bonus to make the seige breaking easier. We could also then see multiple armies involved in sieges which could make things more fun?

Other than that the other two options you've got also look good.

(18-03-2016, 02:32 PM)jaqenhgar Wrote: [ -> ]Also I didn't want to go down the eliminating players route. It's almost like Will can read my mind - I was thinking if they lose the last node then I will create some more nodes for them to retreat into - it's a big middle earth after all and the campaign is only running for about 8months. Even if we manage to get two campaign turns in a month, which I think is very unlikely, that's a maximum of 16turns.

I'm not a fan of elimination either. Especially when there is often a period when you can see the end is nigh but you have to keep playing... ...and yes big battle at the end, I'd want to still have something on the board even if it's only one unit!!!

I am happy with any of your suggestions above. You decide whichever feels right - it's your mind at work balancing it all out.