WoTR is the game for you then.

My background is similar in that my previous experience is almost exclusively as an historical wargamer (I'm so old though that I can remember using the Fantasy supplement in the 3rd edition Wargames Research Group Ancient wargaming rules c. 1974). What I love about WoTR is the scale, it is better than most historical wargames rules of recent times, in enabling players to use large numbers of figures. I think it is only recently that wargames rule writers have cottoned on to this idea ('Hail Ceasar', 'Kings of War' and 'Clash of Empires'). Contrast my former wargaming love, 'Warhammer Ancient Battles' (WAB) with WoTR, the units in WAB were often as small as 5 figures, and 20-24 was the norm. WoTR allows you easily to play with double this. I disagree with hitherto about the inaccuracy of the rules in depicting warfare in Middle-Earth. From my reading of the novels battles were decided by the heroes and villains, not the success of the 121st Gondorian light infantry in their prolonged struggle with the 56th Orc Guard battalion.

WoTR is a difficult game to master. I find that there are so many critical decisions to make (Heroic Move or not? Add a Might to this roll?. Do I cast 'Pall of Night' and then 'Strength through Corruption' or vice versa? etc.) on top of the normal ones about where to deploy and where to concentrate that my brain can barely cope. Then again, as far as I'm concerned this is what makes a good game, not a list of modifiers to wade through. Look at the length of the rules section of the WoTR book. It is dwarfed by most new wargaming rule-sets and I applaud the designers for their brevity.

Xelee is right, some of the points values seem wrong. WoTR is only 2 years old and some things definitely need ironing out (though I doubt all of us would agree which things need ironing out . Then again, the first incarnation of SBG had some strange pointing, IIRC. Poor old Warhammer Ancient Battles never did address the problem of points values across the 'Ancient Period' so that 1500 pts of Ancient Egyptians stood the same chance of winning as 1500 pts of Vikings or 100 Years War French. A shame, as there was a point at which WAB seemed on the edge of creating a lively tournament scene. I doubt if any rule set has got the points values correct from the start. Rick Priestley wasn't even going to have points values in his new set of ancient rules.

As for the power-gaming .... first time each of these 'uber-combos' appears it seems game-breaking. By the second or third game most players that I play with have developed a counter. It's not just WoTR, there's one wargamer I know that never played WAB again after the whole of his beautifully painted Nomadic Horde army routed off the board in turn two when facing some Fear causing Vikings. It was his first ever game. He never persevered to develop a counter.

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

My understanding is on epic rampage you only reroll the dice that hit one time, you dont continue to reroll hits from the 1st (one and only reroll), that was answered on this forum back in the day, cuz we had the same issue.

2nd: why is it that hard for local groups just to let each person take turns picking the format of the game? I.e. 1000 points, one epic hero limit, no magic or 1 Epic Hero limit, one spell caster max?

For example first game my opponent says "use whatever you want on a legal list" next time we play I say "ok, 1250 points, 1 epic hero, no more than 8 total might on any side" Next guy in the group says "1000 points, no allies, and any heros have to be from the same era" when it is his turn to pick a game, once everyone has had a turn, start over.

I would think that would keep the game fresh, let everyone play the way they like once in a while, and for me I would find it challenging to have to figure out how to build a good army with some limits now and then

We have not limited our games but typically in a 1000 or 1250 game we have one or two epic heros at most, and the rest captains and our games seem really fun.

Maybe our group just doesnt see the power combinations well enough to use them cuz we haven't had any of those show up really.

just some thoughts.

_________________
Love games? Stop by my gaming blog and leave a post or two if you like. Fun Games

I don't know where you would have gotten that take on Epic Rampage since it specifically says to keep doing it until you roll all misses. I do think that would be a good change to ER.

I like the idea of taking turns setting the format and limitations. Only real problem I can see is people bring a list with them to play and then someone decides something that invalidates that list. Trying to tweak and edit a list last minute like that can be kinda annoying. My problem is that most of the people in my area seem very focused on tournament play and pretty much out of hand reject house rules and modifications.

Ill have to do some digging warseer is down due to a malware issue. I thought I remember it being something about only being able to reroll a die once. Might have been on the older one ring forum (did old messages get transferred over?)

Easy on the restrictions, we always know what the points are and have our lists ready before we show up to game.

so shouldn't be to hard to have all the restrictions in place for the game being played that night. or have a couple ready just in case someone is a no show.

_________________
Love games? Stop by my gaming blog and leave a post or two if you like. Fun Games

well I guess this page answered it for me...

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/conte ... ue&start=2

"various Heroes have access to the Epic Rampage action, which is always good but is especially great when combined with a weapon like Anduril, Narsil or Aiglos. Not only do you get +2 to your rolls to hit, but each successful roll becomes another attack. Theoretically, if you were lucky enough you could completely wipe out a formation with this combination."

our dwarven player switched to Rohan after just a few games, I might have it confused with I think we had his whole formation reroll so maybe that was the change, Im so confused. :roll:

_________________
Love games? Stop by my gaming blog and leave a post or two if you like. Fun Games

I do recall some debate on whether you keep rerolling the misses on ER as well as the hits, until they ALL roll a miss, fortunately saner heads prevailed.

maybe that was it. anyway none of our guys used any super combos so we didnt have the automatic or 2+ to hits ever when we played.

_________________
Love games? Stop by my gaming blog and leave a post or two if you like. Fun Games

I think if there were combo-beaters that did not usually require as much cheeze as the original combo it would be easier to swallow. But some of the combos are just too encompassing. As posted before, I am not dissing on WotR, but it does need some maturity before it develops into a Magic: The Gathering style game of a few combos and all useless filler. When you and your players elect to build an army that LOOKS like it should (yes...like it should in MY opinion as a player more interested in keeping the faith with Tolkien than winning at all costs) then most of these issues don't come up. You will have a few major-power Heroes, some elite troops and large numbers of troops.

I think with some minor rule changes, and point balancing and perhaps even some better restrictions on army lists, WotR can be as fun at the tournament level as well. Even at SBG events you would see relatively balanced armies all the way up to the lead spot. You may see some armies far more often than others but they were still usually a range of forces. In SBG you almost had to have a balanced force. Generally 25% - 40% in Heroes/Captains, the rest in troops/monsters/elites. If you went much higher in Heroes then you would be vulnerable to hordes armies. If you went much lower in Heroes you would be vulnerable to the extra flexibility Might pools give your opponent. So most armies fell in this general makeup. But you didn't have to do this. You really could build a Hero-heavy army and have a chance of winning if you played well, or you could build a low-Hero Goblin horde and have a chance if played well.

I took much the same SBG Wood Elf army I play locally for fun to a Games Day in Baltimore and ranked 3rd in victory points (sadly GW only supported recognition and prizes for LotR at 1st place at that event, while all their other games were awareded to 3rd or even 4th...the never loved us). I did very well with it because it was a tuned list, was flexible, and I was very familiar with it and could adapt to various scenarios and most opponents I encountered. The list in SBG is important, but not critical, and there was almost nothing about the list itself that was "special" (Thranduil + Saruman the White with a Sentinel and horde of Wood Elves). But in WotR I cannot think of any list we would ever see played locally that would stand a chance against a 3 Nazgul + Gothmog army due to the combos. The over lapping special rules nerf direct assaults, magic and dueling.

Yes, if you go to a tournament you should expect to see the best lists being played to their max, but when those "best lists" really fall into a very small (proabably less than 5, or even 3) likely combos of Epic Heroes and the rest of the army can practically be filler then there's just not much to excite or inspire. So if they want to see the game thrive and people want to buy large armies they need to make large armies appealing and useful and reign in some of these balance issues.

In the mean time, my army of 100 Wood Elves is being joined by my army of 30 Companies of mounted Rohan to face off against massive hordes of Orc and Goblins that dwarf my army size. And there are a few Epics in there, but you won't see any armies that are complained about here. Only players having fun with the Rules as Written, but not as Abused.

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

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

I agree, and I think that, if battlehosts is out of the equation, the required number of changes to the game to make this happen is very small. The real test of a system is the degree of list-diversity you get in competitive environments.

The issue I hit with playing using informal restrictions is that this unwillinginess to be more specific meant the whole thing totally fell down when even one game in the group wanted to play very silly lists instead. No one is going to tell that player not to play, and there is always the "it is not the list, it is the player" cliche (or its close-cousins) to forstall thinking the issues through, if they are ever raised.

@BoromirofIpswich, of course everyone does not agree about houserules - if everyone did agree, they would just be the rules.

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

Xelee said "@BoromirofIpswich, of course everyone does not agree about [i]houserules[/i] - if everyone did agree, they would just be the [i]rules[/i]."

no one seems to agree on those either. :sad:

_________________
Love games? Stop by my gaming blog and leave a post or two if you like. Fun Games