woensdag 15 april 2020

War of the Ring

Remember a few months ago, with the announcement by Games Workshop that they would return to square bases for something called The Old World, and how they should rebase or do it with their round base forces?

Well, here is a fact for you: they already did in the past!

Enter War of the Ring, a massive 330 page hardback tome written by Matthew Ward and Jeremy Vettock back in 2008.  This rulebook allowed your collection of Middle-Earth figures to be amassed in regiments and fight truly gigantic battles on the table.


To achieve this, GW produced movement trays, 8 models per tray for infantry and 2 per tray for cavalry, to make nice square unit blocks for your forces, and a tray became a model as such.

The tome of course starts with an introduction what it is all about, together with all the getting started and such in order to throw yourself into the game.  Now, take in mind, a LOT of plastic rank and file troops will be required to make a massive armies, so many a night will be spend at the painting table.  But this is also ideal to get more people adding their collections together and relief Gondor on the Fields of the Pelennor...

With Battle in the Westfold, the book starts with a battle report to show all the things going on in a game, and how forces are build and behave on the tabletop.

And then we move to the Rules.  It first explains the difference between a company and a formation (basically, a tray vs a set of trays together), how to rank them up, what is allowed etc... think a bit like the Warmaster system of ages gone on how the units should touch each other.

Next the usual explanations on how to measure, what the statistics mean and do, and all that general info you'll need to understand the mechanics of the game.


The Game Turn is split up in a variety of phases, namely Priority, Move, Shoot, Charge, Fight and End.  These are generally, bar the Charge phase, the same of a regular game of Lord of the Rings to this day, and both players get to do all their actions during a phase very turn, so no long waits while your opponent goes through all his steps before you can do anything bar rolling saving throws and removing casualties.  I'm still a fan of this concept (but, for example, Dux took this to far with the counters drawing or card flipping) because one can react and adapt to situations on the table, instead of removing a quarter of an army before it is even your turn...

Every phase is then tackled one by one, with all the special movement for example as one is now working with blocks instead of skirmishing figures, with how casualties are caused and removed on the trays and the likes.


The biggest difference to the regular game is the Charge phase, and as a result also the Fight phase, as the angles of charges, flanking etc can influence the amount of dice one rolls to try to hit and kill his opponents.

There are of course also rules for Defensible Terrain, as a lot of the huge battles in the War of the Ring timeline involved massive sieges (Helm's Deep, Minas Tirith to name just the two most famous, but really, go read the appendices of Lord of the Rings to have heaps of inspiration as a lot went on in the world during the journey of Frodo).


Next up, we get a look at all the various arms and armour that is used by all the units in the book.  Pikes, bows, even blowpipes, they are all in there.  After that section, we get to the command companies, which are your captains, musicians and banner bearers and the effects they have on the game.


As we then go to the special rules units might have, we come to the shiny examples of Middle Earth, the named Heroes.  Gandalf, Lurtz... they are all there for you to put in your forces (yes, even Tom Bombadil and Goldberry) but keep in mind they won't "lawnmower" through forces like in the standard game.  Sheer numbers can (rather easily actually) overwhelm them if used carelessly.  They have Heroic actions, but their is also an even higher tier of hero in this game, the Epic heroes.  Commanders of armies, these are the big generals of the forces like Aragorn or the Witch-King, and come with their own set of epic actions and special rules.


Magic of course is also present in the game, and works a tat different from the regular game.  Sorcerous Blasting twenty trays away won't be an option in this game!  There are a different set of schools, and every wizard can tap from one of them as this reflects their range of magical skills the best.


And then we get to the moment supreme: to battle!  Now the player can go through the simple steps of getting a game in, like choosing forces, the amount of terrain, determine objectives... the regular final measure before one can play.  There are some standard scenarios included here to get regular games in as such, with predetermined goals and targets.

Armies of Middle-Earth is the big hunk of the book, as all the forces one can field are included here, with the statlines for each and every model that can be present in the game, so excpect a LOT of statlines.  No seperate army book shenannigans or power curves in GW's most noble of games.


On the side of Good, one can take Gondor and Arnor, The Kingdom of Rohan, The Elven Kingdoms and The Dwarf Holds.  The Forgotten Kingdoms are present as well, but this force can only be allied in, consisting for example of The Shire or the Eagles.


Evil marches to war in the guise of Mordor, The Fortress of Isengard, The Misty Mountains, The Fallen Realms and finally Angmar.
So that grants a lot of selections for your force, and the chance to add as I said earlier a few players Uruk-hai's together for example to build a large besieging force to attack the Deep...
There are some special features to a force, like Decrees which are basically magic weapons and special skills that will boost your force's units left and right, without going all over the top in bonusses.


Another huge section then follows, but isn't for the core of the game.  These are the hobby pages, talking about collecting armies, painting, the community... but also the fun, non-competitive stuff in the form of the special scenarios.  Recreate famous battles with these, and see if you can change history!





A truly fantastic set of rules, recreating the Middle-Earth skirmish game into a ture warmaster style game in scale 28mm, this is the ultimate tome for huge Middle-Earth clashes.


Look for it on eBay or the likes, you know you want to have this one in your collection!

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