New blog entry on my War of the Ring blog. I give my opinion of the evil influence that Warhammer has had on War of the Ring and Middle Earth gaming in general. The opinion is completely my own and does not intend to be an attack on Warhammer Fantasy players.

http://lotrwarofthering.blogspot.com/

I welcome any comments or insights as long as they are objective or constructive.

Warlord

I agree about what you say about isengard troll and dwarves rangers.
In every nation's mythology and folklore tradition dwarves are creatures that leave inside caves and mountains. Even in Silmarillion it is mentioned that they stay under earth until the approval of Illuvatar. So the idea of ranger dwarf is strange.
Also Isengard troll is never mentioned in middle earth.
But I do not think that having a king champion is bad idea. King always had champions, I do not think that dwarf kings should be an exception.

Hi Warlord, Wotr has it's faults (a small number, easily fixed with say a single page of houserules....) but I rate the GW designers highly.

Wotr is the most mainstream GW game I've played. However my mates and I have got a lot of good use out of Epic and BFG both run vanilla and as basis for other types of games. Wotr has a kinship with those in that the underlying rules fit neatly in a smaller section at the start and the majority is campaign stuff, modelling guides, lists etc.

I tried playing WHFB 8th edition as one regular opponent is really keen on it. It's a lot of verbage for a game that does a lot less than wotr does.

I not infrequently give thanks for the fact that GW let some of its clever designers do their own thing backed by GW production values.

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Why would an underground Dwarf Ranger not work? Surely there would be an underground equivalent to above-ground rangers, so it makes perfect sense to me, especially when considering how vast the networks or Moria, Erebor and the Iron Hills are.

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Wise Old Elf

To Further what was said above. Dwarves have trade routes and borders to guard, they don't seem at all strange

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Most of what you say is wrong with WotR about an evil influence were created for SBG first. Only the Kings Champion was actually for WotR. Orc Shamans for example have been going for a very long time.

Whilst there is a problem with Warhammery stuff in LotR, I'm not sure you have you finger entirely on the problem at hand.

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I believe the dwarf ranger concept came from Warhammer, not Tolkein. They are OOP, but GW did produce dwarf rangers for Fantasy.

Just because Dwarven rangers exist in WHFB, doesn't mean their concept derives from that setting. Rangers of the North/Ithilien are at the very heart of the Lord of the Rings - the concept of cloaked, bow-armed warriors patrolling the borders may well derive from those instead. Had they been armed with crossbows and led by a slightly intoxicated dwarf with a beerkeg, you'd have had a point...

Shamans in WotR are pretty over-the-top with the more typical magical abilities (which are not at all limited to WHFB), but the SBG variety that preceded them by years is much more restrained, and fits pretty well in the Middle-earth I envision.

Agreed on behalf of the Isengard Troll and 7 additional named Ringwraiths however, they are not at all necessary and, in the case of the former, make the various forces simply more alike, which is a shame. The Nazgûl not only lost their concept of nameless dark shapes in the new forms, it was also apparently an excuse to include them in the armylists of e.g. Harad, where they don't belong as far as I'm concerned.

Have to add though, if you claim to love Tolkien's world so much, please write the good man's name correctly. Tolkein appears more often than Tolkien in that article...

Ha, didn't pass the spell check test

Dwarf Rangers - I'll have to politely disagree! As has been noted, rangers, hooded guardians patrolling the boarders of the civilized world have been in the setting. While the dwarves delve deeply into the earth, they do roam the country side. They aren't stuck underground by any means.

Kings Champion - I'm indifferent on this one. Having never played WotR I don't really get his way of play (monster I guess?) so I guess i'm not really offended. It's another option, a generic hero to go kill stuff with a weird ruleset.

Isenguard Troll - this one does feel a little out place, as the Isenguard army always felt a little homogeneous to me compared to Mordor. I still own one, so there's that. Rule of cool and all

Shaman's - While they use the mechanics of SBG/WotR magic, it could easily be interpreted as a dude that makes the other guys mad so they go kill better, or yeah, it is magic. Tolkien didn't exactly write from the point of view of the bad guys, and there had to be other magic users in Middle Earth besides the wizards, wraiths, and elves? Gandalf muttered about some ancient spells he encountered when the Balrog was trying to get through the door... or something like that. Been awhile since I read it.

Honestly, in my opinion, you can't really try to fit a historical game view point to a fantasy setting. Historical games are just that, historical. We know a bunch about armies of the past and those game systems try their best to re-create that. LotR is a fantasy setting. It's made up. There's dwarves, elves, monsters, magic, heroes, and villains. I think there's room for stuff that Tolkien didn't specifically mention. If it's not for you, then it's not for you. No harm no foul. I'll have to disagree that it's hurting the game.

Thanks for the post though. It was pretty thought provoking!

No offense, but youre taking this way too seriously. I read the whole note, and although I dont play WOTR, a lot of this is just you overreacting.



There is a ton of magic in middle earth. Are only wraiths and elves supposed to enjoy it? There is dark magic as well as light.

Idk about the WOTR rules for these guys, but fury is a totally realistic source of magic. It makes them berserk basically.



How do you think they travel, or go to meetings with other kingdoms?

How do you think they send envoys?

They need dwarf scouts leading the way. Every military in HISTORY has scouts. You really think the dwarves are the one army in history that wouldnt? Enough said.



I dont personally like them or understand why they are in the game. For one, I think they just want to give every army an option. Thats fair. Its a table top game dude.....

And honestly, Isengard is so powerful, Ive played it many many times and never wanted to use their troll.



Gimme a break. Is a King in real life the guy who goes and fights every one of his wars? No. Of course those dwarves fight too, but every kingdom can have its one ultimate warrior.



So can we not play a FANTASY game with units that are only fantasized about?

Simple.

Take two dwarves. Rip the 2 handed axe off one, and the shield off another. Buy some giant shields from another company, and find some spears. Boom. Vault Warden.




How boring do you want this game to be?

The wraiths are one of the more fun parts of the game, being all unique to their kingdom and having varying special abilities. They are a lot of fun, and make the game better and more challenging.

Whether or not Games Workshop(who I frequently bad mouth) has warhammer influence in the Hobbit/LOTR/WOTR, they have done a good job keeping the game interesting and fun.

You seem to take war gaming and turn it into something un fun. Youre stuck on 'this is how it was back in the day' mentality and nothing can crush a fun, fantasy game more than limiting its options.

If you wanna play a strict game stick to shield walls of troops who just run into each other and take out casualties.

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BLACKHAWK 2010 2013 2015 DYNASTY

I think Fury works a lot better than some of the other spells in the game, as it's all psycholgical working on the weaker minds of the orcs, rather than big and flashy like Sorcerous Blast, which is something that isn't really seen in LOTR. I mean, I love Sorcerous Blast, and it's necessary to make the Wizards worth it, but IMO it's one of the more out of place things in the game.

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Just to add a note, the Ring Wraiths are horrendously under pointed in WOTR and are one of the reasons you can break the game so easily. So the named ring wraith thing does make sense if you think about it in WOTR. However in SBG they do make things more interesting and are(?) fairly pointed so I think it's fine giving them special names and abilities.

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Fight! Fight to the last man!

If this was to be our end then I would have them make SUCH AN END as to be worthy of remembrance

I thought this was going to be about horrible spikey minis...

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Next time im living with my WOTR book Ill have to check them out.

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BLACKHAWK 2010 2013 2015 DYNASTY

Khamul especially is undercosted. But I must argue that that is the problem with their points, not their concept. I've always thought of each of their special rules just being the effect of their respective Rings. As for Isengard troll, I don't see why they shouldn't have a troll. Just because they aren't book or even movie accurate doesn't change the fact that it's a game. I feel like every profile in the game can fit into Middle-Earth, with maybe a couple exceptions like the Watchers of Karna. I find that the fluff is pretty good, while the crunch is what gets inaccurate. Courage 3 men of Minas Tirith? Warriors of Dale having identical stats to Warriors of Numenor? That's where I feel the problems come from. Yes, I know those are SBG examples, but it translates fairly well to WotR.

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I can understand the dislike of some things, like Isengard Trolls, but I agree with most people here. GW is trying to add flavor to Tolkien's writings(Which is plentiful and diverse enough by itself, let's not debate that here), and while I agree a lot of it might not make sense, I have to majorly disagree with you on most points.

Rangers and champions make perfect sense from a historical perspective. Many armies had scouts, and many armies would often elect to send champions to fight (sometimes forgoing an entire battle and instead having a champion from each army).

As for Orc Shamans, I'd like to point out that Tolkien himself suggests that many lesser Maiar took on Orcish forms. Without having read the WOTR rules, I can understand if some of the magic abilities (like Kardush the Firecaller's) can seem over the top, but where is it explicitly stated that orcs cannot use magic? Much less Maiar in orc form?

Most importantly, how many Warhammer Fantasy players have told you the environment is "limited?" for mass battles? Hell, most WHFB players are familiar (albeit indirectly via the Jackson movies) with Tolkien's archetypes for the races of Middle Earth. I understand that your issue lies more with Warhammer-type mechanics entering WOTR, but I don't agree with all of them, nor do I think that they should hold such a negative connotation as you use. It may not be an attack on Warhammer Fantasy players, as a player of WHFB it seems like a sly jab, as if without having some form of historic or "deep" basis for the setting makes it cartoonish and therefore inferior.

If you wish to lay fault on anyone, blame the rules designers and sculptors. But I'm glad that GW found the game popular enough to extrapolate on, and while I agree with you house-ruling things to fit your group's play preference, and care enough to re-create "canon" I don't think gives you a free pass to look down upon the other ways the game is played.

It's really more mundane than all that. Warhammer is the product of what the British RPG gaming scene looked like in around 1986. People played Dungeons and Dragons. The Citadel guys had a setting for Dungeons and Dragons and turned it into the background for their wargame. Games Workshop made these various RPGs under license from the US (including, we should note, Middle-earth Roleplaying). Between Citadel and GW, they started making miniatures for these various games. Eventually they stopped doing that, but they sort of took a lot of the concepts and designs from those games and put them in a blender, and out came Warhammer.

In such a situation, it would be more surprising if there wasn't something in WH that has strong parallels with the Hobbit game.

The visual designs for the Hobbit film were rather fantasy-ish, drawing on thirty-odd years of fantasy visuals for all sorts. Those visuals drew from the same well as Warcraft, D+D, and, indeed, Warhammer. They were rather lazy and indeed quite conservative in their visual designs. Not really subtle. No vague sense of groundedness (ala Fellowship) here.

Once again, the upshot is that there are going to be a lot of crossover between Midde-earth commercial products and things that draw from the same wellspring. That included Isengard trolls and Dwarf rangers.

It's worth keeping a weather-eye on: Middle earth is not plain vanilla fantasy; plain vanilla fantasy is just a pale imitation. The trick is to borrow just enough from other media to fill out areas Tolkien didn't describe, especially for gaming purposes. The trick is also to not overdo it. A tricky balance.

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Not boring at all, just my opinion. The post is an editorial which is meant to provoke lively discussion on this forum, which by the recent posts, I think I have done.

I'll have to write a few more op-eds as I enjoyed the discussion. Much better than the recurring "What do you think of this list?" or "Do you think we will ever get any new models?"

I'll probably have to preface it like The Palantir guys with a disclaimer that the opinions are my own and do not reflect those of The One Ring website.

Youre trying to limit the diversity of the game in my opinion.

Of course you provoked a discussion. I think most topics do unless repetitive.

Obviously your post isnt this websites one opinion. Nobodys ever claimed that.

Some how you've gone from stating your opinions, which came off as you wanting the game to be absolutely by the book and limited, to saying your goal was just to provoke a discussion. So, do you believe your opinions, or did you just state something as a catalyst for discussion?

I think its inherently wrong to take something in the fantasy genre and say to further it is un acceptable. Thats what I believe was done here.

If youre one point was to create a discussion, mission accomplished, lol. I just think some of the more entertaining things and diverse ideas in the game is the one thing youre attacking for some reason.

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BLACKHAWK 2010 2013 2015 DYNASTY