Hi All,

I'm a member of the 1st Company Veterans and we're looking to run War of the Rings along side 40k, WFB, BB, EPIC at the next Open War Event. (a three game Swis Style, one day tournament, each game 2h 15m)

This is a friendly tournament and though we don't want to change GWs rules we do want to restrict the more colourful and combinations, to provide everyone with an enjoyable game.

I'd like your opinion on the rules that we've put forward.

http://www.1stcompanyveterans.net/events/open_war_14/1cv_ow14_war_of_the_ring_v2.pdf

Thanks in anticipation. Please note these are draft at the moment.

Cheers Scott

The lastest version, taking into account much of what has been posted, is http://www.1stcompanyveterans.net/events/open_war_14/1cv_ow14_war_of_the_ring_v3.pdf

I think you should allow more points for Epic Heroes and Legendary Formations.

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

Hi General Elessar,

Thanks for the feed back, what would you consider a good value?

At the moment my group is playing 1000 points with a 250 restriction. And it's just about right. We've not yet ventured into the 1000+ games due to very few people having armies that are large enough.

So 1250 with a similar percentage is 312.5 - would 300 hit the mark for you? I'd be nervous going any larger...

Were you happy with the other restrictions?

Cheers Scott

I was comparing the "Heroes points limit" to my (successful) 1000pts Gondor army; in my Gondor army it's around 350pts. So, for 1250pts, I personally would raise the limit to around 400pts.

As for the rest of the rules, there are a few that I don't like much: I think you should be able to have two Nazgul.

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

You do NOT know what you are saying.

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"War does not determine who is right, only who is left."
- Bertrand Russel

Looks okay. I'm not sure about every battle having objective markers on the table, but I'm guessing this has worked in the past?

Is Maelstrom deployment out due to time considerations or something else?

Why no battlehosts?

Why the limit on epics and legendaries? What is the problem you are trying to solve within this limitation? Is this a 'no dragons or balrogs' rule in disguise?

What is it about allies that none are allowed at all? I don't see a broken game by having an ent in an elf army or Carrock Wardens with the Dwarfs etc. or even a 75/25 split between Rohan and Gondor. IMO removing the allies option exacerbates the differences between some of the armies, creating more issues than it solves.


That said, your dot points on allies could perhaps be simplified to:

Evil armies: No allies are allowed. (A Nazgul taken under the Shadow of the Nazgul rule is fine)

Good armies: No allies allowed, with the exception of Gandalf the Grey and Radagast the Brown.


Tournaments run by my group have two restrictions at 1500 points:

1. No more than 5 levels of magic mastery per army
2. No more than one model with the Extremely Hard to Kill! special rule

The first removes magic monstrosities without specifically picking on Nazgul (but you can't have more than one - very sensible).
The second is there to limit herds of elephants more than anything else - the first rule stops multiple dragons or balroths anyway.
We've never seen allies as an issue.

Let us know how this one goes, it sounds interesting.

Hi All,

Thanks for all your comments.



There are two missions Field of Swords and Sieze the prize so the markers will be on the table 50% of the time. Please let me know if you thought this was unclear.



Malestrom is out because of the sheer randomness of it. You can lose the battle because of mission rather than because you were not as good a general. And in tournament situation that is not fair.



Well I've personally not got a copy and the little I have read, seems to enable some armies to include extra special rules, with a cost reduction. At the moment I'd not be confident that it's fair. Just one reason I started this thread. So thanks...



We just want games that are fair well balanced and maintained consitent/themed armies. And so yes, stopping the 4/500 poinnt models was part of it.



Magic seems to be a little bit cheap or over powered, which ever way you swing. So we were really trying to limit things like pulling in cheep elf magic etc.



That's really helpful, thanks.



Thanks, I really like the 5 levels of magic restriction. However the, "stops multiple dragons" etc. just gives me the shivers. Sound like you are the person to ask. Does having 40% of the army in one model make for a fair and fun game?



Will do. Thanks for the help.

Cheers Scott

The restrictions seem fine to me ferrumvir, they would dissallow the Gondor army I ran most recently (and the Angmar army I am planning) but they would allow the my list that came first tied in the last event we played, and also allow the list that tied with it. So it restricts some armies but allows perfectly competitive lists.

IMO, having read Battlehosts, almost all of the potential issues could be prevented by including the battlehost cost in the restricted amount, meaning it crowds out Epics and Legendaries. The one Battlehost that I think is likely to be a problem is the Gorgoroth Orc horde, since Nazgul possess formation wide abilities, which are already too much with 'normal' formations.

From experience, Maelstrom is highly variable, in that it very much favours the player who gets to go second. It is not bad, per se, but you would not want it for say the last round in a 'swiss chess' format, where it will likely be the decider.

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http://www.roughwotr.blogspot.com

On the subject of Allies, what I've found to work is "Evil - no Allies except for those 'Shadow Of The Nazgul' guys; Good - no Allies except out of Forgotten Kingdoms."

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"What's so civil about war, anyway?"

Thanks for your in feedback...

I'm surprised people have not thought that we were being too restrictive... So far most people seem to be happy.

Thanks again.

Cheers Scott

It is pretty commonplace in most games systems for 'non-official' tournaments to alter the standard in some way, so as long as the TO isn't being irrational about it, people will get in the spirit of things.

I tend to think of it as an advantage of these type of events, rather than a problem.

HRM raises a good point about allies. For the Good side, you allow the two better casters from the FK list. However, you are effectively saying 'Half of the Good armies can have no monsters', is that what you want?

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http://www.roughwotr.blogspot.com

Definitely leave them out then, as TO you would want to be familiar with everything that might turn up, and it's an optional extra anyway.



I understand that, and I think if you don't want dragons or balroths, just say so. There will always be some collateral damage with any restriction, the trick is to minimise it. One army I saw would not get through here is a Last Alliance themed elf army led by Gil-Galad.



You've gone a long way towards doing this already. At 1250 the ability to take elf allies is limited anyway. The limit on epics keeps out the Thranduil types or at least limits who else you can have along. I'm not sure an allies ban is actually needed on top of what you already have, as this does a great job of stopping potentially problematic allied epics and legendaries.

One concern is that every good army might turn up with either gandalf or radagast, not because they want to, but because their other options for dealing with certain bugbears have been removed (ents, eagles, dwarf warriors etc). That might not happen though.



Yeah the limit of 5 for magic hit a chord with everyone we ran it past, so I think we are on to a good thing there.

On the 'fair and balanced' side, I feel powerful units and epics are a fun part of the game. However, what is never fun is an army that goes straight through another one like the proverbial hot knife through butter. I have no love for those games, regardless of which side of the equation I'm on. That thought was behind our second restriction.

One 'big deal' per army tends to be okay in my opinion, not that I would want to sink the points into a balrog or dragon at 1250 anyway.


It's really clear you are wanting to provide a level playing field for fun games, and who could object to that? Oh, right... while I'm not sure about the allies ban, it's not a deal-breaker. I'd happily turn up if only I were in the right hemisphere.

An ally ban is pretty restrictive in that it can cut into some well themed forces, but if someone is going thru the effort to set up and organize a tournament then the force composition is up to them. We did one here for SBG that had several composition rules because your army "reinforced" itself between some matches so it had to be fair and legal at each stage.

I do think that the Mastery cap is a nice way of controlling things. Elves may have a problem because so many of their Heroes have at least some degree of magic, but that's the price they pay. We haven't looked at such an option locally yet but after reading this discussion I think I'll throw it out to our local group. In a similar way that you can't have more than a certain number of Fate/Fortune options based on points, putting Mastery limits at various point values also sounds like a good house rule. Right now it's not uncommon to find an Evil force with several Shaman scattered around in addition to one or two Nazgul. The Shaman are almost exclusively for casting Wings of Terror every turn so they zip around the board and gives a huge tactical advantage over most Good armies.

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

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

Hi All,

Thanks for all your comments, here is version 3

http://www.1stcompanyveterans.net/events/open_war_14/1cv_ow14_war_of_the_ring_v3.pdf

I've up'd the points for Legendary and Epic, though with the other restrictions I think this may be superfluous. And in actual fact I would quite like to see how I and my army would handle a Balrog etc. (I suspect run for the hills!) So maybe I should ditch the restrictions. Still not confident to do so...

I've relaxed the allies a pinch, but that just makes my concerns on relaxing the above worse.

I've also pinched two of Lorelorn's comments word for word, thanks, hope you don't mind.

I've also specifed how to calculate the Legendary Formations points - Can of worms springs to mind! But enough people have already asked me that I felt the need to put it in!

Thanks again for the help.

Cheers Scott

I am predicting Witch-king and MoS combo for all Mordor armies...
Seems good, not much more to comment on. Good to see that you restricted the extremely hard to kill table monsters.

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"War does not determine who is right, only who is left."
- Bertrand Russel

No, not at all - glad you found them helpful! I'd be very interested to hear how the tournament goes. Latest version looks improved and clearer.

So basically no one can run a well themed Mordor last alliance army under your rules since Sauron needs to be the general the nine are arbroad cannot be added.May I just point out that in instances in lore more than one ringwraith fought in a battle.Also by not allowing Allies Gondor cannot team up with Rohan like in the lore,no Army that Aragorn is in in the books except the Rangers can be done and also no good Last Alliance army can be done.Also no Ranger Hobbit team ups either.Just my two cents there run it any way you want to just pointing out some armies thaat won't show up.

You're not going to be including Sauron in 1,250 points anyway so I don't think that is an issue. I think allying is acceptable as that will force players to be a little imaginative with using what they're given.

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"War does not determine who is right, only who is left."
- Bertrand Russel

I've seen a Balrog and Goblins list @1000, which actually does ok as long as the Balrog is positioned correctly until he gets stuck in, so they might want to try Sauron with some of the cheap Mordor foot. The big models can be effective if they are not dealt with properly early on but can be an aweful risk of randomly dieing, taking most of your points with them.

However, the point of this structure does seem to be to restrict big monsters, which is fair enough. I am still not sure why that Balrog was leading a raiding party

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http://www.roughwotr.blogspot.com

Wait, so Sauron, The Nine Are Abroad, and 300 points of Mordor orcs is your idea of a 'well-themed last alliance army?' Cause that's what you get for 1250 points.
Sure you can. Did you read version 3?
If you've followed the discussion you'd see the emphasis is to allow as much as possible at 1250 points while ensuring balanced match ups. Some things do have to go, such as taking 15 levels of magic.