Someone mentioned a balrog hiding in some ruins in another thread and it got me thinking, If a monster is occupying ruins that are on a rectangular base, can more than one company from a given formation be in base contact with them?

Monsters are normally on round(ish) bases and it specified that only one company per formation can contact them, but the defensible terrain rules say that all companies contacting the terrain fight directly.

Just wondering what people thought.

Hi Forgottenlore, I'vealways played it as 'yes' the base is what determines contact and the base is the base of the ruin.

As an aside, I am always careful to design terrain bases to not permit too many attackers to gang up on defenders but I would have Ruins (since they give +3) that allow three infantry bases to contact even on the one side. So you are talking quite a bit of added vulnerability if that Balrog is isolated enough to allow himself to be hit from three or four sides. In cases like that, my practice would be to get the heck out of dodge, if I have a monster in there.

The Command spell list (which Saruman has too) kind of put a damper on the Balrog appearances locally though.

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More than one. Companies are no longer charging the monsters base.

If someone was so extreme to say only the spearhead can charge it then I would say they cannot enter the terrain piece because by the same token in "Impacting Monsters" on pg.44, a monster is always a round and elliptical in shape.

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Urg yeah only AFTER the game I remembered the Balrog was Spirit and I could have been casting Light of the Valar at him with Saruman. I've never yet managed to bring down a Winged Nazgul with it, but it does make the defending payer more circumspect.. ehhe

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As said, the rules regarding fighting a monster are for fighting a monster. The rules for fighting a monster in terrain, use the rules for fighting enemies in terrain. Thusly, more than one company from a single formation may attack it - makes monsters more prone to damage

More prone indeed to more die rolls, but they do get higher defence due to terrain.. whether that is worth it is another matter. They are effectively immune from long range bow attacks without some luck or Might... But of course if 4 formations attack a defensible feature with a resilience 2 monster in it, and each scores one hit, they arent shrugged off and accumulate to allow to rolls on the appropriate monster Kill table...

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Taking the War in Middle earth to a new level!