Interest in Lord of the Rings Campaign?

[jaqenhgar]

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?