Lord of the Rings
Campaign
In honour of the release of the Lord of the Rings Movies (filmed in sunny New Zealand) Club members engaged in a Campaign based loosely on the books and using modifications from the Armati rules. We took the army lists directly from a website designed by a wargaming club in New Zealand, the excellent Waitakere Miniature Wargames Society site, the lists were designed by Mr David Billinghurst .
Back in rainy Glasgow, it came as quite a shock to see one of our clubs most well stocked Ancients army collectors (Paul Innes) suddenly produce enough fantasy figures in 25mm to ensure a visually exciting game every evening for a good number of weeks. We thoroughly enjoyed the campaign, and should you want to give it a whirl yourselves, the campaign map, rule amendments and army lists (in the traditional layout) are included in the column to the right of screen
For those more interested in how it panned out, well the short answer is that those in favour of pottering round the garden overcame those more inclined to a bit of a bevvie session after the fitba. Some have suggested that actually, the wood-elves of Mirkwood managed to get the ring to Mount Doom after a climactic battle at the foot of the mountain, but I'm not sure they were involved in the same game.
There was some debate about whether Galadriel (for she had joined her woodland kin) was actually intending on destroying the ring, but as this was deemed to be out with the spirit of the game, and it was time to pack up anyway.
Top strategy tip from the campaign, although not a particularly revolutionary one it must be said, is that 'Heavy Foot Infantry' are particularly vulnerable to the 'Elvish Agincourt', and as such, the wanton wastage of what little skirmish troops available to Mordor, Sauruman et-al in the very first engagement is not the best approach to take in the long-run. It should perhaps also be noted that as an expendable screen to cover deployment, orc-ish heavy foot are not to be recommended.
One of the highlights of the campaign was testing a new method of choosing terrain. Armati uses a points based system -3 pt per W (wood) or RG (rough ground), 2 per SH (steep Hill) and 1 per GR (gentle rise) - which tends to leave blank battlefields or smaller armies (not the point in such a campaign!)
We tried using a copy of an old Table-Top Games publication (see postal links to left of screen) with 100 pre-generated battlefields. Each player declared either open, intermediate, or close terrain preference if both chose the same, they got it, anything else meant intermediate was selected. This made for much more involved games than Armati players may be used to and we thoroughly recommend it!
Our own campaign suggestions
- The Citadels, shown on the map by Black Dots inside the spaces, have a fixed, permanent garrison of 1 core army (no bonus troops).
- An army of Core + 30 pts also started on each citadel - Bad Guys are square, good guys are round. non-dot spaces are open lands.
- Dwarves in Erebor and the Iron Hills, Elves in Northern Mirkwood and Lorien, Dalemen in Dale, Gondorians in Dol Amroth and Minas Tirith, Rohirrim in Edoras and Helms Deep.
- Orcs with Balrog in Moria, Saruman in Isenguard, Orcs in Dol Guldur, Mordor in Minas Morgul, Gorgorath and Nurn (one of which must be specified as the Witch-King), Haradrim in Umbar and Far Harad, and the Easterlings in Rhun.
- Players cannot change sides or engage in other such skull-duggery, its good guys v bad guys as per the book.
- The basic idea was to get a quick series of battles with a clear objective behind overall strategy.
- The Ring is secretly given to one (good-guy) starting army, it moves with that army (or changes when armies merge).
- In each battle, the Fellowship army must place a camp at its centre base-line.
- Camps have 3 hits, prot +2 and fire javelins up to 9" all sides and are FV 4
- If the battle is won by Mordor etc, the presence of the ring inside that camp must be revealed. Mordor gains the ring, and the race is on.
- The camp can be attacked during the battle, so the bad guys can win on a loosing battle, as it were.
- The winner is the holder of the ring in the Barad-dur/Mount Doom space (fully shaded) for a full turn, or following a successful battle.
- The towns had no intrinsic value, other than the citadels housing a defence (the core army referred to above), but there are no fortifications or similar. Should an enemy take a citadel, they then gain their own core army there as defence!
- There are no replacement armies or new builds, reinforcements etc (with 1 exception). Once your army has been crushed, that is it out of the campaign.
- Beaten armies must retreat to an adjacent friendly or neutral space, or be eliminated.
- We improved on the initial PROT ratings of some Mordor troops because they were getting decimated by archery, particularly after they lost their initial skirmish cover. The mid-campaign change was to increase Uruk Hai and Olog Hai PROT to +2.
- Dwarves and Elves cannot fight in the same army, to represent historical animosity, but they can send reinforcements as a flank march. Neither can Saruman and Mordor.
- Movement is Diplomacy style. Troops can retreat off table, but loose any garrison troops should the battle have been fought on a citadel. Gain a citadel.
- Flank marches as per Shako rules. Up to a third of force (but only 3 commands). Direction determined on map before set up, deep or shallow march declared, deep arrive in opponents half after turn 4 on a roll of 5 or 6. Shallow arrive up to half way after turn 3 on a 3 +
- Orc armies, Moria, Dol Guldur and the Misty Mountains, have immediate Orc and Goblin replacements (NOT Uruk Hai, Snarga, Warg etc), should they return to their initial citadel. This represents their fast breeding, and propensity to get eliminated on a regular basis. These are the only troops who can be replaced during the campaign.
- Wile the rules do state that following a defeat, an army is permanently destroyed, Dark Force armies can be reasonable assumed to gravitate to the Shire for a spot of compulsory industrialisation outside of the campaign itself, Gondor and its allies can be assumed to nip indoors to watch changing rooms.