This is what I have been facing, with slight variations for the last 2 years.

5 x Ringwraiths (Khamul, Betrayer, Dwimmerlaik, Knight of Umbar and Shadow Lord) 625 pts
1 x Gothmog 110 pts
1 x 8 co. Orcs with Taskmaster 185 pts
1 x 8 co. Orcs with Taskmaster 185 pts
1 x 5 co. Morannon Orcs with Taskmaster 150 pts
1 x 4 co. Morannon Orcs 100 pts
2 x Siege Bow batter @ 50 pts
1 x 2 co. Orcs with bow 40 pts.

Tactics are simple. Always go second and swamp the enemy with 'Pall of Night', 'Strength through Corruption', 'Enfeeble'; with the spells that are 'left over' I usually face 'Sunder Spirit' followed by 'Visions of Woe'. Any characters in the front line get hit with 'Black Dart'. Gothmog and the Dwimmerlaik stand either side of Khamul in one big unit. Knight of Umbar and the Betrayer usually work together in the second. Win rate: about 9 out of 10.

So what are the weaknesses?

Lack of units - other than Heroic Duel the main fear of the Mordor player is that the 'platform' for his Ringwraiths will be taken from under him. No unit, no Ringwraith. Hence the need to 'go big'. This usually means that the Mordor player needs to cast 'Wings of Terror' a couple of times a turn. With the need for this, a couple of 'Pall of Nights', at least, and 'Strength Through Corruption/'Enfeeble' (in order to hurt the foe). There's a bit of pressure on the spell-casters. A roll of '1' for effect or a failed focus is almost inevitable with so many spells.

Heroic Duels are not a huge threat to Khamul if he is with his bodyguards, as I call them, Gothmog and the Dwimmerlaik. The Dwimmerlaik means that on average you are going to need 3 Might to call Heroic Duel followed by Epic Strike. This gives any Duellist parity with Khamul when he calls his Epic Strike. On average each point you win by inflicts 2/3 of a wound against a Hero/Epic Hero and 1 against the unit. You need to win by a difference of 3, on average, to kill a Ringwraith. This result comes up, on average 10/36 times, when you take into account your +1 ernus for being the Duellist. In other words, a character, who can call Epic Strike with 3 Might, such as Balin has a 2/3 rds chance of blowing all his Might and not killing Khamul. The chances improve if you have 4 or more Might, but the likelihood is that with the Dwimmerlaik upping the cost, you are going to spend 4-5 Might to kill Khamul.

It gets worse. That Heroic Duel with Epic Strike is coming back at you, for free, courtesy of Gothmog.

Average result, after the flurry of blows is that Faramir, Imrahil, Balin etc., now lies dead, Khamul is still standing and Gothmog is wondering when the next idiot is coming from for him to kill.

Meanwhile, over on the other flank, the Betrayer and the Knight of Umbar are eating up your units. 'Strength through Corruption' means that against all but Dwarven Kinband he needs at least 5 or 6 to hit. Generally the Orcs will get 3+ companies into contact, with another 4-5 companies supplying +2 support. Even if you make your Courage test and their is no-one nearby with a higher FV for the Knight to mimic, you are looking at between 40-50 rolls. 13-16 hits, followed by another 9-12 with re-rolls. You are going to take around 20 hits-28. Most 4 company units disappear in the first attack. Fortunately, fear of duelling means that my opponent rarely uses the 1
Might of his Ringwraisths to call an Heroic Fight.

So what do you do?

Is there a solution or should such armies be, to all intents and purposes banned.

Over two years I have managed to beat such an army a few times. 'Coz I'm a bit slow (both in analysing things and in painting the required figures), my first attempts with Gondor were:

a) Massive number of Epic Heroes to try to Duel away the Ringwraiths - to have any effect you really need to somehow take out 2 Ringwraiths in the first turn.
b) Just Faramri and Boromir with the 'Desparate Heroic' Fortune plus a captain. The plan here was to take out one or two in the first turn and then 'power-up' Boromir for another wave of Ringwraith killing with the Fortune.

Duelling just isn't consistently effective enough against the Ringwaiths. All too often I'd blow all the Might and the Ringwraith would be still standing. Quite regularly I would roll badly and blow all my Might just to survive. A Hero heavy army is also too small to withstand the attacks of the Orcs. Before you know it, it is your platforms that are destroyed.

After reflection I concentrated more on trying to destroy the platforms for the Ringwraiths. To increase their hitting power I made my units quite large 4-6 companies. This was so simply countered with 'Pall of Night' that I feel ashamed that I couldn't spot this when drawing up the plan. Instead of ditching the plan my Gondor army then started to have strange allies such as Rhadaghast and/or Thrandruil who could blow away the Pall of Nights with their 'Call Wind' spells. Not only was it unthemed it also did not play particularly well as my opponent would cast two 'Pall of Night' on a unit to make sure!!!

So what on earth was I to do?

Last night, even though I lost, I think I came up with a Gondorian army that has a 50% chance of beating the 5 Ringwraith army in 'Field of Swords' using the 'Shieldwalls' deployment. The scenario and deployment mentioned are the ones that favour this Mordor type army the most, in my opinion.

I'll post the army later.

Stephen

_________________
"We may have cared about many things in life, but what will we have in our last moments.”
St. Teresa of Avila

That's rough. Ringwraith spam is probably the biggest area of the game that needs work. My first recommendation would be to talk to your opponent(s?) and settle on a gentleman's agreement to not use the 2-3 broken combos in the game because you are not having any fun playing.

My first thought after that was to counter with the OTHER broken combo in the game, the Might Battery. Also not very fluffy. But upon thinking about it some I am not sure that would work against the way he is using things. You still might try it, keep putting a bunch of might on a dueler and go for it. My recommendation would be to target Gothmog first because if you can kill him in the first duel he doesn't get to duel one of your other heroes. Still, that seems risky and not particularly thematic.

My next thought was to go the opposite direction. Go very very minimalist on the heroes and just take LOTS of formations. He can only spell so many a turn and if they don't have heroes he can't duel them and Gothmog can't copy anything. A lot of what he is doing seems to be aimed at countering your heroes and a limited number of formations, so don't give him any heroes to target and too many formations to stop. You will probably need to fight defensively this way, as you won't have the might or speed to go on the offensive.

Final thought (for now) I don't actually know if him doubling up on Pall of Night would be effective. Would an effect that doesn't actually have an effect when stacked, stack? And I am not sure that a single casting of the counterspell wouldn't dispel all instances of the spell. I can certainly see how it would, and I am not sure I disagree with it, but I don't think the rules address this issue.

Sorry, wish I could be more help.

We certainly play the 2 Pall of nights make no further difference (unless a 6 is rolled then perhaps the latter becomes more effective) & therefore can be dispelled by one call winds. Not sure how this translates across other spells like SUnder Spirit etc. as we haven't played it. But I suppose that 2 sunder spirits @ 2-5 roll would not provide a -2.

It would be interesting to see how alot of 2-3 company formations would go against the 5 wraith combo. You may even have enough for 2 waves of troops. Strength through Corruption might prove a bit of a killer though. (Personally I think the actual intention of this rule was to cast on ones own unit to increase strenght but seems far mor effective as an offensive weapon.) Also if Khamul casts it on his own unit when he is within 12 of an enemy unit I imagine can he bounce hits? Ick!

PS. I use Elves and haven't faced 5 Wraiths yet. I have a plan to cope with 1-2 plus Gothmog, but it requires a hang of a lot to go your way, for most of the game, including priority.

He has the answer and is building suspense.

I don't face five Wraiths because I play 1000pts. Formations in threes and fours and mobile Epics is my general approach. You have to be careful with this 'spirit of the game' malarky though! I had one person suggest I was being gamey by designing a list around bouncing Epics

_________________
http://www.roughwotr.blogspot.com

No not really,

It's just using the transfix, immobilise, sunder spirit, etc. to pin Khamul in place in a unit so he can't move, or "move" the big unit he's in, then trying to kill the other units with bowfire & spells.. Not much of a tactic really, but you need to "move first" so Khamul/his unit can't. (depending on what you roll on the spell effect dice of course).

As I said it requires a hang of a lot to go your way. Haven't tried it against an opponent yet but have had a couple of "test" plays at home, still a 50/50 though. We also play 1000 pt games so no 5 Wraith armies have appeared yet.

Unfortunately for me, magic plays too big a role in the WOTR games, so lacks a little of the "tolkien feel" to battles I'm looking for. I perfer the core/rank and file struggle with the odd heroic act. Ranks and file in WOTR tends only to provide a platform for the "killers", But hey - it's what we've got. I notice the battle reps in the WD and books don't tend to have the UBER forces that generally get discussed here. I think that was the feel GW were trying for but of course gamers wanting to win will try for the most they can. I wonder if a proper Codex, or Amry list having minimums & maximums would't level the playing field a little. It might also negate all the "Brokenness" we currently experience. GW wouldn't need a 2nd Ed. that way.

Probably won't happen, but that's my thoughts.

Xelee, would have loved to come to CHCH for the Natcon, but I'm working. All the best for the tourney.

Well he is promising us the 50/50 army list. Still, he has made it easy on himself with that soft, no Corsair Arbalesters, version.

It is a shame you can't come. It is hard to get people to go to Chch events (which NIers have an odd habit of referring to as SI events. Those from Invers etc are trvelling a bit themselves!) anyway. On top of that, the earthquake has made people nervous. I did have a base group to work with but you just can't 'lean on' people at the moment, like you could usually. I tend to work on the principle that it will be acheivable if enough are asked directly though - you just got in before I sent a 'just in case' PM to you to. If you are in town again, you should drop me a PM. I can manage a game table for evening games, and the club is a friendly place.

Re: the bit on balance, I think there are some tweaks to be made that can shift the game in that direction. I have some but someone else mentioned having Wil points (I have no SBG background) and that would nicely cut to the heart of all that is wrong with magic - the fact that most counters require might, but spells can keep being thrown out and many lists can cheaply take a heap of mastery levels.

_________________
http://www.roughwotr.blogspot.com

I'll assume your friend is power-gaming and might be using tricks.

A common trick with casters, is with that many casters make sure he finishes all of his spells consecutively so he isn't micromanaging for max effect ie Khamul casts Wings of Terror and failed, Khamul passes Focus and then goes to Dwimmerlaik casts Wings of Terror and is successful. Spells have to be cast immediately one after another. Its quite advantageous to bank your spells to make sure everything goes off as planned.

Another trick I've seen (especially with Wings of Terror) is your opponent rolling for on the double before the formation even moved so he can plan to flank you and not be caught in the open incase he fails. And to further that case I've seen where they have rolled all formations on the double so they can decide whether or not they are going to attack. Again... banking your on the the double to assure the best situation.

Army build wise I'm not sure. I've had success with lots of ranged fire, using Osgiliath Veterans and trebuchets. Also Grey Company striking first is pretty good with longbows. Maybe use orcbane.

_________________
http://drinkingwotr.blogspot.com/ - Links to my CrAzY House Rules, Games and 'poor man's' terrain.

Can you provide any rules support for that? I have several (in fact most) members of my group that insist you don't have to make the focus roll immediately after casting the spell, that you can cast, move, roll focus,cast again, do something else in the move phase, roll focus and cast again.

They agree that you can't bounce back and forth between casters, you have to finish one caster's spells before doing another's, but they insist that there is nothing forcing you to make the focus roll immediately after you cast the spell.

It does say 'immediately' in the magic section for Focus rolls but only so you can't bounce back and forth between casters. You can cast, move, cast again, about face, cast a third time, about face and move again.

_________________
http://drinkingwotr.blogspot.com/ - Links to my CrAzY House Rules, Games and 'poor man's' terrain.

Agreed (one caster has to finish all of his efforts before moving to another caster. This does help a little with moderating the casting too since if you have casters in different Formations then you have to finish one Formation's move (which includes the spell casting) before the next can do anything.

Along those lines, I hope I misunderstood but it sounded above like someone plays where they (or their opponent at least) may roll all At The Double rolls before anyone actually ATDs so they can be sure who is going to fail before someone is out of position???? I really hope that's not what was meant. Formation 1 has to finish all of their move activity, which includes ATD and spells, before you do anything with Formation 2, etc.

_________________
Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

Sorry chaps, I wasn't deliberately trying to build up tension
It was just that after my (as per usual) verbose first post I realised the time and that I should have been handing my mum her mother's day present.

Aragorn 200 pts
Faramir 90 pts
Isidlur 85 pts (renamed as Hirluin the Fair)
Erohir and Elladan 35 pts each

4x 4 co of WoMT 100 pts @
1x 3 co of KoMT with shields 90 pts
1x 2 co of KoMT with shields 60 pts
1x 2 co of KoMT w/out shields 50 pts
1x2 co of KoMT w/out shields 50 pts

1x 3 co. Rangers of Gondor 90 pts
2 x1 co of Rangers of Gondor 30 pts @
1 x 2 co of Minas Tirith Archers 60 pts
1 x 3 co of The Grey Company.

15 Might and 271 models according to Army Builder.

As some of you already worked out, I think the key to defeating the 5 Ringwraith army is lots of small units. Not only is this the perfect foil to the limited number of formations Mordor can deploy but it also lessens the effect of their spells.

The plan is to try and Heroic Duel any Ringwraiths with Elladan, Elrohir and Halbarad first (and accepting that they and many in the unit they were in would die). That way the Might of the Ringwraiths is used up in the first turn or so when the call their inevitable Epic Strike. Thereafter these Ringwraiths become a liability when attacking as Aragorn, Faramir or Hirluin(Isildur) can either Heroic Duel them on superior terms or very superior terms if the call an Epic Strike. The three major heroes, Aragorn, Faramir and Isildur all have Inspiring Leader which helps with the Terror tests.

In addition, I use the smallest units to try to slow the advance of the Mordor behemoths such as the unit containing the Betrayer and the Knight of Umbar. Re-rolls are not much use when your first attack did enough damage to destroy the one company you are fighting. Alternatively, I use them to hit flanks, rears etc.

Basically there are too many targets for spell caster's liking. My opponent tried Sunder Spirit/Vision of Woe and even Strength through Corruption to try to clear the little units which was fine by me as it meant fewer 'Pall of Night' against my core of WoMT. The cavalry proved to be the greatest in effectiveness, even without 'At the Double' they are still quite nippy.

Stephen

_________________
"We may have cared about many things in life, but what will we have in our last moments.”
St. Teresa of Avila

Celebdriel posted,


Funnily enough, it was the rank and file that had the biggest say in the outcome of my most recent battle. 2 co. of archers in some ruins beat off an attack by Orcs plus the Shadow Lord. Two turns in succession the Orcs failed their roll to re-order. Again, the little units of hero-less knights, as I mentioned in my earlier post, caused havoc as they got around the flank and rear of his big units.

Apart from duelling the Ringwraiths (without much success) my Epic Heroes major contribution so far has been to boost Courage with their Inspring Leader ability. It was definitely the Gondorian grunts that made the biggest impact.

I'll try to post a battle report next time.

Stephen

_________________
"We may have cared about many things in life, but what will we have in our last moments.”
St. Teresa of Avila

Troop based Gondor, eschewing larger units in favour of the flexibility of small ones, with a combination of sturdy WOMT and +1 to hit troops, then the efficient dueling Epics including a renamed Isildur - I am shocked, shocked I say.

Looking forward to the batrep.

_________________
http://www.roughwotr.blogspot.com

I'm just glad these sort of armies generally don't show up in "fun" games around here (I hesitate to use that term lightly as we take our games vary serious, but you generally won't find power-game-style lists or players in our LotR bunch).

Playing on the idea above of having some dedicated duelers to try to take out Gothmog / Nazgul I was just wondering about something. What about having a couple small ( 1 or 2 company ) cheap cavalry formations in the area. Have your dueler jump into one of those before charging in and trying to duel. As mentioned there's a chance you may loose or be counter dueled and rather than risk serious damage to your real block, let their duel take out a dirt cheap and expendable Formation. You need to be careful that you buffer these guys appropriately in the period from when you Move them to when you charge so you may not be able to do it regularly, but they can be so cheap to add to your army that if it's appropriate then use them and if not then you're not really out anything keeping your dueler in your big block. As an added benefit, they can be great harassing Formations to help create a pell-mell battle and distract your foe.

_________________
Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

Another thread just brought up Aragorn and Elendil, add in Gimli or some other Epic Rampager to a formation with 2-handed weapons and pop the entire formation in one combat. When your opponent complains, tell him that that is just as annoying for him as wraith spam is for you and perhaps you should houserule those and the might battery to playable levels.

I don't think we need to go as far as two men using the same sword! I'd put that in the same 'silly' league as my suggestion to field a 'woolley mumak' with the Angmar army. In anycase, Gimli has Rage, and you do not even need that vs def 3 2HW ORcs.

It does occur to me though, that in an environment where Blackshields instead of basic goblins is now the 'done thing' - Gondor players are really hampering themselves by not taking all the proxied Axemen of Lossarnach that they want...

_________________
http://www.roughwotr.blogspot.com

I tried that once and with Khamul reflecting hits he will go through them fast. I would not recommend it.

_________________
http://drinkingwotr.blogspot.com/ - Links to my CrAzY House Rules, Games and 'poor man's' terrain.

I don't think they are in the same " 'silly' league" at all, partly because one is stretching fluff and the other is taking advantage of a RAW loophole and partly because a Wooly Mumak is COOL!!!

I am pretty sure the orcs in question have Def 3(5) based on the point costs he gave.

You point about Gimli having Rage, were you saying he doesn't need both Aragorn and Elendil because Gimli can pump the Strength with rage and a +3 would be enough? If he is sure all the enemy epics are going to be in a Def 5 formation, then yes I agree with you.

BTW, thanks for the idea of a Wooly Mumak

That's why I was thinking Cav. Keep them back from the reach as much as possible. When your opponent has Priority (so they have finished their Magic casting options), hop the Epic into one, At The Double forward to charge range. If you don't make a big deal about their presence (and you haven't used this tactic with them before) they may just ignore them until you're plan is in motion.

The BIG gap is how to keep from getting it shot out from under your Epic but if you can keep it blocked by other Formations then you are probably ok.

_________________
Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

Beowulf,

I've started using a similar idea of small units with the Duellists. Normally one company strong. That way it is no big deal if he hands out dozens of hits on the unit whilst slaying your hero. Okay, it is a waste of the company and the 50 pts (35 with Elladan/Elrohir) that you spent. But Ringwraiths without Might really are not keen on being in combat with an enemy formation with an Epic Hero.

Stephen

_________________
"We may have cared about many things in life, but what will we have in our last moments.”
St. Teresa of Avila