Tag Archives: war of the ring

Hell has frozen over!

There’s a FAQ out for War of the Ring!

It’s not quite where they normally hide FAQs, but you can find it here.

Haven’t really started reading it yet, but any FAQ > no FAQ.

EDIT:

And, there it is:

Q. Does an Epic Strike affect the Hero’s fight for both a Heroic duel and the ensuing fight?
A. Yes – there’s gonna be a whuppin’.

I think this is a mistake… but at least it settles the question.

War of the Ring

While poking around this mess called The Internet, I stumbled across Fear and Loathing on the Tabletop‘s collection of understandings his gaming group had come to for War of the Ring.  I though I’d mention them here. 

I find it interesting/satisfying that his group came to pretty much the same understanding re: the extremely controversial (to understate) Epic Strike interaction with Heroic Duels that several of us (though not all of us) came to.  It’s been a while, but I seem to recall having a different interpretation of how other Epic actions happen, however.

I can’t say that I’ve done much thinking about War of the Ring in the past nine months or so.  Not since getting disgusted with the contradictory, ambiguous rules or ridiculous balance issues.  There’s a neat game there, but those things are just too hard to ignore.
I hope Battlehosts fixes some of that.  If doesn’t, in some way, FAQ those issues (or come at the same time as a FAQ), I suspect that will be the death of the game.  ‘Round my parts, I don’t see much WotR action and what I do see often comes in the context of, “They need to FAQ it.”  If they let the opportunity pass… who knows?
I’d personally love to see some things rebalanced (sorry GW, but Fight is not the same as Courage, and neither are anywhere nearly as key as Defense)… but some clarifications would be a great start.

War of the Ring Escalation League Rules

I’ve done some thinking about the upcoming War of the Ring escalation league.

I’m a really, really big fan of them because leagues encourage regular play without imposing too much of a competitive atmosphere on things while, at the same time, making it easier to slowly work your way into a new army.

We’ve been talking about doing a Skirmish of the Rings league for a while now. Now, with War of the Ring out, we’ve been talking about doing one of those as well.

Something I’ve really wanted to see is a way to tie the skirmish game in with the larger scale game. That we have a fully fleshed out skirmish game that segues into a larger game is simply too good of an opportunity to pass on. This morning, on the way into work, I think I came up with how.

I’ve also tweaked the rules to prevent some of the abuses we’ve seen in the past, as well as to better reward the sort of thing we want to see more of, but have done an imperfect job of encouraging.

So, without further ado:

Draft Rules for the 2009 IFL War of the Ring Summer Escalation League.

Painting Progress – 20090426

I’ve got precious little painted in the past week, thanks to an unfortunate work schedule as well as a number of other obligations. The next few weeks don’t look like they’re going to be much better: in fact, I think I’m going to have to declare the weekend of May 15 – May 17 “Fuck you, this is my free weekend!” Weekend.

I did wrap up a rank of Haradrim archers and a Haradrim Banner, however. I still have to paint the design on the standard, but that will wait.


I also went ahead and converted up some hornblowers. They don’t make musician models for the Harad troops, but they’re certainly an option in War of the Ring (and, as of White Dwarf, 352, Skirmish of the Ring… where they’ll be tremendously useful for my Far Harad).

The conversions were pretty minor: just an arm and a hand swap. I used horns from the WHFB Wood Elves, with the expectation that they’d be suitably feral. They look really good, I think.

28mm elf hands, as it turns out, are just a tiny bit small for 25mm man hands. So, they’re darn close enough. I also ordered some Beastman horns, to see how they’d look. Those hands are much too large, which is unfortunate. Still: all of this is a much better approach than the once GW Fair Oaks suggested: by the $25 Rohan command kit, cut off the arm off of one of them, use it, and you know, just forget about the rest.

I also made a banner bearer for my Mahud Warriors. I went around and around on approaches, and finally settled on just using the rack thing that comes with the Mahud Chieftain/King model. Although I think the racks look awesome on those models, I need something to represent a banner, and I can’t think of anything that’s quite as appropriate.

War of the Ring: Army Status

There was a suggestion that folks should rattle off what they’re working with and where they are with it for War of the Ring. It’s not a bad one, but a forum thread feels like an odd place for that sort of thing… where as a blog (or as mentioned in the thread, a wiki) is the perfect place.

Painted:
17 Haradrim Warriors (Spears x12, Bows x4, Banner x1)

Assembled:
Suladan the Serpent Lord (Foot & Mounted)
Dalamyr, Lord of Umbar
Mahud King (Foot & Mounted)
Haradrim Chieftain
Corsair Captain
Corsair Bosun
4 Half Trolls (Normal x2, Two Handed Weapons x2)
12 Mahud Warriors (Normal x9, Blowpipes x3)
24 Corsair of Umbar(Shields x8, Spear x8, Bow x8)

Partially Assembled:
5 Mahud Raiders

Unopened:
12 Mahud Warriors (Normal x6, Blowpipe x6)

On Order:
24 Haradrim Warriors (Spears x12, Bows x12)
24 Corsair of Umbar (Shields x8, Spear x8, Bow x8)
Haradrim Raiders x6 (Normal x3, Bow x2, Banner x1)
4 Half Trolls (Normal x2, Two Handed Weapons x2)
Mordor/Isengard Troll
Hasharin

What all of that mess will eventually get me (in terms of War of the Ring) is:
– Suladan
– Dalamyr
– 51 Haradrim Warriors (~6 Companies)
– 24 Spears
– 24 Bows
– 1 Banner
– 1 Chieftan
– 1 Hasharin
– 6 Haradrim Raiders (6 Companies)
– 3 Spears
– 2 Bows
– 1 Banner
– 50 Corsairs of Umbar (~6 Companies)
– 16 Shields
– 16 Spears
– 16 Bows
– 1 Captain
– 1 Bosun
– 25 Mahud Warriors (~3 Companies)
– 15 Normal
– 9 Blowpipes
– 1 Chieftain
– 6 Mahud Raiders (3 Companies)
– 5 Raiders
– 1 Chieftain
– 8 Half Trolls
– Troll (Mordor, Isengard or Cave)

I’ve got some work cut out for me to converting up musicians and standard bearers on the Mahud, as well as a musician for the Haradrim. I don’t plan on buying any more models past this until I get the chance to play the game a bit more.

I’ve done a lot of thinking about how to run a more balanced force while maintaining my Harad theme; it’ll involve a lot of conversion, I think, and flat out model subsitution (for ghostly troops and seige weapon crew). It’ll make getting spun up on the game a lot harder, but I think it’ll ultimately really pay off.

Neologism: Skirmish of the Rings

Skirmish of the Rings [skur-mish uhv thuh rings]

1. The skirmish-scale Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game published by Games Workshop.

2. Not the War of the Ring game published by Games Workshop.

I’ve gotten tired of talking about one of the GW Lord of the Rings games with someone and one of the involved parties getting confused about which game we’re actually talking about.

With this designation, it should hopefully be more clear.

Painting Progress – 20090420

Didn’t bother taking any pictures for this past week’s work: very little is picture worthy.

I finished a third (and final, until I pick up another box of them tomorrow) rank of Haradrim spearmen, got about halfway through a first rank of Haradrim archers, assembled six more Mahud warriors (though I’ve got another 12 still waiting in blisters) and did most of the assembly of five Mahud Raiders.

I should be getting an order of more stuff for * of the Rings in the next couple of days. This is good, because once it’s assembled, I’ll be able to start taking clumsy stabs at low-level games of War of the Ring. It’s unfortunate, however, because right now I’d much rather be painting stuff than feeling like I have to grind through assembling a bunch of stuff. At least by next week I should be able to play respectable games of Skirmish of the Rings fully painted.

Painting Progress – 20090414

This weekend was the IFL Winter 2009 Fantasy Escalation League Tournament. I’ll skip over the details; the short version was, it was a pretty good time with two very enjoyable games and one that was somewhat less so. I’m done with Fantasy for the next while.

In the meantime, I’ve finished my first company of Haradrim Warriors for Lord of the Rings/War of the Ring. I’m dissatisfied with their faces (especially the eyes), but faces are hard enough to do at 28mm. Drop things down to 25mm and it’s even harder.

Now that I’ve got a feel for painting them, the rest of the plastics should paint up very quickly. I expect I can knock out four in a bit more than a day. The metal figures are significantly more detailed, however, so they’re likely to be a lot more work.

Painting Progress – 20090407

Finally finished the Barracudas. These things took way longer than they should have to paint, and I’m not altogether pleased with them. I didn’t do nearly as good a job of prepping the resin miniature as I could/should have, and my wash/extreme highlighting combo is a lot of work for not a lot of payoff here.


I also started in on my Haradrim. There’s still a bit more work to do with them: I don’t think I’m going about basing them the best way I can, and I think the skin and eyes need a bit more work/blending. For the most part, though, I’m happy with how the cloth is coming out.

War of the Ring

Now that I’ve finally gotten the chance to read through War of the Ring, on top of actually playing around with the minis (’cause it’s all about the toys), I’ve done some more thinking about what I’m going to try to do for War of the Ring.

I’m not sure how much I’m going to want to buy into the game, so the fewer sets and metal models the better. Although I love Far Harad (Mahud and Half-trolls = awesome!), $45-$60 a company is just too damn much.

I get 3 company’s worth of Haradrim in each box (1.5 companies with spears and 1.5 companies with bows). This is kind of annoying, because it means I’ve got to keep the number of my stabby Haradrim about equal to my shooty Haradrim. I’d rather not end up with a box of unpainted archers.

A friend of mine found a really good deal on some Serpent Riders on eBay: $1 for a box of six and something like twelve hours left on the auction. Still waiting to see if that comes through, but for now I’ll assume it did (otherwise, I’ll replace the Serpent Riders with Haradrim Raiders).

Also, I’m kind of excited about turning a Troll into a Troll from Harad. It seems reasonable to try to have a monster but I don’t really want to rock a Mumak. Plus I kind of like the idea of localizing any of the allied units I might want to run.

So, that gets me:

Suladan, the Serpent Lord
Abrakhan Guard – Hornblower
Haradrim Warband x3 – Hasharin, Taskmaster, Banner, Hornblower
Haradrim Warband x3 – Bows
Haradrim Warband x3 – Bows
Serpent Rider Warband x3 – Chieftan, Banner, Hornblower
Mordor Troll

I’m sure there’s a lot of room for improvement, but it’s a relatively inexpensive start for me.