Dear All,

I hope that it isn't considered bad etiquette to start a new thread as one's first post, but being dreadfully new I'm really not sure that I have anything to offer you all, especially as I have not actually had the opportunity to play War of the Ring yet. I also offer my apologies if I have missed a thread covering the basics of my question - it's been a rather long week!

In essence I was wondering if people could outline how War of the Ring works. I'm not looking for somebody to post the rules. I have those (indeed I bought them quite a long time ago) and have enjoyed reading them. What I want to know is how the game actually plays.

I'm quite familiar with Warhammer and am used to the various tactics surrounding baiting/redirecting enemies to generate flank charges, using different magic lores effectively and determing which units should try and engage the enemy in various combats. Basically, I am looking for a similar primer for War of the Ring.

I would very much like to know what good players do in War of the Ring in order to succeed. List building suggestions are helpful, but they can only take a player so far (especially if you are looking for enjoyable theme games rather than powerhouse struggles). General advice here would be gratefully received (i.e. always have a wizard/spend no more than x% of your points on heroes/always have a mix of troop types), but I am mostly looking for tactical insights.

The reason for my query is that I have just devised a 1,000 starting army for the Game (based around Dol Guldur) and was slightly apprehensive about the cost (probably due in no small part to the 2 companies of castellans). I would like to be sure that this is the sort of game I'm really going to enjoy playing before paying a large sum of cash for an army, as I could quite happily just purchase a few models to paint.

So, hopefully you chaps can not only convince me to take up the game but can also give me a head start in working out how to play effectively.

Thank you in advance for your thoughts/tips,

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Michael

It's pretty much the same as Warhammer really, just a slightly different way to kill of models - just roll a bucket of dice.

Have you played SBG?

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

You might try playing the Strategy Battle Game first, which is rather more approachable, and easier and cheaper to start playing (you can have a lot of fun with the Mines of Moria boxed set, for starters).

Beyond that, War of the Ring is a way of using your SBG figures with a bigger army.

The base combatant is a Company.
Each company contains 8 warriors (for infantry) or 2 warriors (for cavalry). Monsters are treated as a type of company. Each troll, for example, is a company.

The strength of the company is represented by how many figures you have in your movement tray. When your company takes damage, you remove "killed" figures. Heroes upgrade a company's abilities. Several companies comprise a formation. Formations fight each other.

Flanking attacks, rear attacks, or defending terrain all modify the basic action. Heroic special rules further upgrade companies and there are various magician characters able to cast spells.

The key appeal for the game is

- everyone who bought a lot of figures since 2001/2002 can now...buy more.
- it resolves the big battles of the book series quickly. Granted, you can't do a one-for-one version of any of the battles, but you can certainly fight bigger versions of the battles. (This is useful since the official battle scenarios for the game have gotten bigger over the years)

While I am painting a WOTR compatible Rohan army at the moment, and while I'm sure I'll pick up Battlehosts, I'd doubt I'd play very much of this game.

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

WOTR has four primary phases moving, shooting, charging and fighting. Further each player has an opportunity to complete a phase before going on to the next phase, thus one player moves, then the other player moves. From the phases alone it is easy to see that the game is much different than Warhammer.

Since players take turns moving, the tactics of the game feels much different than Warhammer, as your opponent has the opportunity to respond to your movements. Going first has certain advantages, such as charge bonuses and the opportunity to shoot first, but going second also has it own upside, such as outmaneuvering your opponent. For example, a cavalry unit that goes first would have the opportunity to charge first and thus gain the bonus dice for charging. However, a unit that goes second may be able to move so that it is not in its opponents' line of sight and thus avoid being charged, but still be able to charge.

(Unlike Warhammer the charge distance of a unit is random. In my experience this does not play a big role in the game, as heroes and banners can modify the random roll.)

With the exception of cavalry, who need the charge bonus, charging is much less important than in warhammer, as the order in which models strike is determined by their type regardless if they charged. So the game does not revolve around getting off the charge.

There are no charge responses like stand and shoot or flee. Thus, you cannot bait with a unit without it potentially seeing combat. Thus the tactics are radically different than fantasy. In my experience you need units to gain a tactical advantage. Junk units are used to occupy or block your opponent.

Using terrain to your advantage is very important. I would say that more important than using it for its defense bonus, is using it to block or slow down the enemy force so that you can have more of your models fight a smaller portion of the enemy army.

Making a separate charge phase and positioning it after shooting increases the importance of shooting. Further, units are never locked in combat, so they can always be shot if they are in line of sight and in range.

Magic is very powerful, as it costs might to try to counter a spell. The most abused spells seem to be the ones that prevent units from charging, such as transfix and pall of night. One downside to magic, is that mages are weak in combat are regularly slain in duels.

Heroes are important in that they give you the ability to move faster (at the double) They can also help kill the enemy with their special abilities.

In WOTR life is cheap. Models die in droves. This is caused by the super abundance of uber units and heroes. There are units that are guaranteed to kill an enemy unit if they get into combat. Thus it is generally a good idea to bring lots of models to the table. This allows you to absorb some casualties and outmaneuver the opponent.

Most of the better lists include very deadly units, and some way to deal with other very deadly units. The former units usually include multiple bonuses to wound coupled with high strength, rerolls, and epic rampage. The two ways to counter uber units is to prevent them from fighting with magic or to bog them down in cheap units.

I know that this advice is rather non specific. I can post more specific suggestions later.

Good summary. There are a lot of ways to do WOTR but compared to the other historical games I play, there are two key differences.

It is going to be a little hard to convey what we mean until you have played vs some experienced opponents but the two key things are definitely:

1. the sheer lethality of the game, with a consequent need to think about how to soak this up while you execute your plan. Shooting is especcially lethal and long range. Some armies can mass together shooting relatively cheaply, and if it is crossbow, that shooting quickly chews up even heavily armoured troops. Magic can also both hinder your movement (or magnify others) and add to the damage you take, and some lists can again mass up a lot of cheap high level magic. Even high unit defense can be avoided completely by many things.

So, our group exeperience has definitely been that numbers (of models and formations) are more useful than might/stat based counters.

2. The combination of the move order and heroic/epic actions may take a little bit of seeing to properly get your head around. Knowing it intellectually, and being able to watch for where 'bad things' might materialise on the tabletop, are different matters entirely. I know this is not what the theskinnyhobbit is really arguing (based on the rest of what is there) but be careful about thinking that getting the charge does not matter. The first charge determines where the fight will happen, and as both of you will probably be trying to engineer a whole interlocked set of charges to swing the fight phase your way, this can be very important. It is very hard to control this early on, since both sides will have access to heroic charge and, if both use it, this will be a diceoff.

My take this game, compared to other games, is that it is very fluid (while both sides still have their might) and the one turn threat ranges of things can be very large indeed.

As an aside on the less useful matter of list building: Unit upgrades are relatively expensive compared to more companies and in general Epic Heroes are a better deal than Captains etc. The exceptions to this would be the awesome Elven commanders and cheaper heroes like Dragon Knights and Shield Bearers.

I don't know why it would be neccessary to play a completly different game in order to ease into WOTR. Unless you are following the Fantasy lead to go 2000pts, its not that many models. Great games can be had at 1000 pts and even fairly enjoyable ones at 1500. I would tend to want an 8'x4' if possible for 1500+ though.

Thank you all very much for your thoughts. I have indeed played the standard game, although never 'competitively'. I enjoyed it, but only really liked recreating scenarios from the books (Amon Hen was my favourite, the 2 map version to be precise).


It sounds like the skill in War of the Ring is maximising the effect of your heroic/epic actions, employing magic effectively and working out when to push attacks (given the effects of priority) in order to control the fights engaged in, and get some flank charges. It seems to be a game that rewards flexible thinking, as well as a degree of planning and experience (seeing particular moves or getting a better feel for how combats/shooting will play out. I'm not entirely clear on how much flank charges help some units though, since they remain highly exposed to counter attacks due to the casualties being taken from unengaged formations first. For example, Giant Spiders can do lots of damage (and are cool) but seem to take a lot of damage in return (despite the dice penalty), even if they went in the flank of something reasonably squishy.

Nonetheless, the game definitely sounds interesting enough to tempt me. So I will probably very slowly start to build up my forces (I am currently in Russia and it's a lot more expensive over here!). My draft 1,000 point list is quite expensive, but 2 companies of castellans is an expensive purchase and I wanted them (and some giant spiders) to link the army to Dol Guldur. Of course, I am by no means set on this force - I find myself drawn to a new army every time I look at the book!

Can I ask what makes shooting so effective? I looked primarily at Elven shooting (admittedly), and found that unless the enemy had a reasonably low defence it didn't seem to be that effective. Crossbow units with the Betrayer, on the other hand, seemed like to disintergrate enemy formations in a single volley. Is shooting best used for its damage dealing capacity, or is the fact it drives a non-Stalwart enemy back the real advantage?

Can I also ask for some more, very general, advice on how to build an effective list? Since you need a hero to move 'at the double', should most units have hero to make the most of this (or at least, most units you are planning to fight up close with)? And should you try to have something from each unit type (i.e. some monsters, cavalry and infantry)?

Thank you again for taking the time to answer my questions, as a complete beginner to the game (who is thinking of dragooning a couple of friends into the game), I have found your answers very helpful indeed.

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Michael

What makes shooting so good is the 2' range of foot shooters and the range of affordable longer ranged seige units in a number of lists. Foot shooters can double move, then shoot (using heroic shoot). Also, in WOTR, they all have hand weapons and so remain useful melee troops, or even something more to screen other units (like your expensive knights). However, this really applies best to those lists with cheap foot shooters. I like any 20pt bow a lot and also have a lot of time for Isengard xbow as well. To be honest, Elves don't seem to me to be cost-effective for anything. However, it looks like you have your eye on the Evil lists?

I think that, as long as you look at keeping the raw body count up, there are a number of good ways to build an effective 1000pt list. I find Epic Heros such good value because they can jump from formation to formation to help with doubling and be at key points of the battle.

In regards your particular query about flank charges and taking hits back, it is definitely an issue if your Cav are low defense. While Cav strike first, your targets are probably going to be big enough (see my golden rule above) to soak casualties for the first few turns. If I am hitting a formation with Cav, I would want to be hitting it in the flank with heroic fight and ensuring the ratio of hits was sufficient to win the fight. Then on the second round of fighting, the target should be disordered and there will be only one dice per coy hitting back. Casualties are unavoidable in this game, so it is about keeping the ratio in your favour.

A shame! Elves were the first army that tempted me, as I am very fond of elves in the setting, and am a big fan of the Galadhrim range. I did find it quite tricky to make an army that seemed thematically 'pure' and remotely competitive though.

I really like the Castellan models, but every time I look through the book I find myself tempted to do a different army, with contenders from both factions.



This is encouraging, as variety is something I like in wargames. I presume numbers relates in no small part to durability (one would be content to have fewer Uruk-hai, Galadhrim or Dwarves than Mordor Orcs or Moria Goblins), but roughly how many bodies do you normally look to field? My initial list had 9 companies of Morannon Orcs (4+5), 2 companies of castellans, 3 companies of giant spiders, a troll, Gothmog, the Dark Marshall (best looking ringwraith!) and a captain in an orc unit (and maybe a drummer with the spare points). Am I looking at a list of 'roughly' the right proportions, or is it too small with the castellans taking up so many points (5 points fewer than the orc formations... including the captain)?



Finally, thank you for your answer regarding cavalry. I thought that heroic fights seemed an almost essential component of the game and ended up including Gothmog in my basic list because his 'Overlord' ability seemed essential to get the most out of the castellans and the giant spiders, since neither can get heroes of their own. (Although strangely epic heroes seem to be able to join the spiders...)

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Michael

Your army list is a bit on the low side in terms of companies and formations, but not critically so. Some of the magic heavy lists have very few companies and formations.

The Morannon orcs are a solid troops choice. The Castellans are a threat, but cannot be joined by other heroes. If you want to make the most of their spirit grasp then you should take the Tainted. Gothmog is a good choice. However, the orc captain is not. He will be killed in a duel and hurt the formation. Trolls can be deadly, but they are also more fragile than you might think. They work best as a flanker. I would probably drop the troll or the spiders, most likely the troll, as they are both expensive flanking units. If you do not have enough units to make a battle line, they will not be able to flank. If you want to save points (and money)consider warg riders over the giant spiders. You may also want to add some shooting such as a siege bow, or more troops.

Almost all of the forces have viable builds. If you like elves you can make a competitive elf list. One advantage of playing evil is that many of the forces can use regular orcs. So if you invest in them, you can field lots of different armies.

I did not mention ambushers or pathfinders in my first post. These abilities are game changing, as they give you the opportunity to get behind your foe. Giant Spiders should be able to get rear charges with their high rate of movement and pathfinders. Broodling swarms are not quite as deadly, but have the ability to ambush and are much less susceptible to archery/magic.

Good points, I hoped you would chime in with the Elves, just because I don't see them working as well as other lists, doesn't mean they can't @ 1000pts.

Ambushers are very useful. I suggest small ambusher units (so they always fit and are east to place just right) and monster abushers are ideal, when you can get them.

I have seen trolls work well as something to disrupt the frontline when the other units don't add terror. They advance behind an infantry screen (since anything with the 'hard to kill' table is a real victim for a bow unit with access to might) and then all charge in. The trolls go first and aid overall combat resolution and then cause terror tests.

If it's Mordor, then we haven't discussed Wratihs yet. With some of their abilites, maximised build using them probably make Evil players view the non-evil lists in the same light as I view the Elves. Personally, I think you can't go wrong with any of them, as the worst start out as good value for points and go from there.