Hello again all,
My brother and i want to do a large SBG siege game over easter.
Obviously, defending is an advantage. How many additional points do you think the evil forces should have in attack if the defending gondorian army is 1500pts!
Thanks,
Nathan

at least double I would say. and make sure you have lots of ladders otherwise it is stupidly easy for the defenders to defend the walls.

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12th GBHL 2013.
13th GBHL 2014
9th GBHL 2015


Mid Sussex Wargamers

Hey im new to the One Ring, but Ive been into SBG a long time.
Sieges are always best when there are at least twice as many troops on the attacking side as there are defenders, considering how tough it can be for attackers though sometimes I would double the points on the attacking side.

With sieges you need to make sure there are several points of entry and/or minor objectives, otherwise it becomes a boring dice rolling session with no tactics.

Agree with Whafrog, there needs to be lots of events/objectives to keep the game interesting.

Over a few playtests I've worked up a big Helm's Deep scenario that works well, it's loosely based on the one from the back of TTT Journey Book but with far more objectives.

To win the Uruks HAVE to break the gate down, blow the wall up, scale the walls and move off a board edge inside Helm's Deep. This ensures that there are lots of different mini-battles going on throughout the game and keeps things interesting. It also means that both players have to think very carefully about when and where to deploy their troops.

As for points we've played it with even forces on both sides, around 2000 points each BUT the Rohan cavalry which amounts to about half of the Rohan force only arrives half way through the game (turn 10 of 20). This means for the first half of the game the defenders are massively outnumbered. In addition, we play an endless horde rule so anytime an Uruk is killed he renters from the Evil board edge on a 3+. Also, if your defenders are going to be massively outnumbered then I'd recommend saying that they can't break (dogged defence, resigned to their fate etc.), for me the real fun of siege games is those last few defenders fighting against all odds to hold the walls, which is completely undermined if they all turn tale and leg it (never mind the in-game fact that they'd have no-where to run to).

It's really good fun and can go both ways, normally takes us about 8 hours to play, very much an even game!

I really love siege games, they require very different tactics to normal but I definitely think you need to work up a bit of a special scenario to get the most out of them!

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Finished 2nd in the 2014 GBHL. My Wife's so proud

Free SBG fanzine: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29569

Thanks for the advice guys.

Dr Grant that sounds good. Do you think this would work:

20 turns on a 48inch square bored, no force break points.

1000pts gondor defending the walls from turn 1.
2000pts mordor attacking, with dead troops rejoining.
1000pts rohan relief force from turn 11.

Evil objectives:
Kill Gandalf/boromir or key gondor hero.
Kill theoden.
Destroy the gate.
Claim two objectives on the walls.
That's 5 total. Evil need 3 to win.

Yeah that sounds more exciting/interesting than a straight siege.

The benefit of having the evil models only rejoin on a 3+ is that the defenders do start to wear down their numbers slowly. This reinforcement rule ends when the Rohirrim turn up.

Also, I would allow the evil side to break (count total models at the start - evil side is broken if on any turn AFTER turn 11 there are less than half the starting number of models on the board).

Objectives are a good idea, visually, you want the evil side to have to stay inside the castle to hold the objectives rather than clear the walls and then leave the castle to engage the reinforcements. Equally you want there to be some incentive for the Good player to try and retake the walls/castle.

I'd be inclined to go for something like the following:

Evil VPs
More evil models than good on the walls at end of the game - 5 VPS
More evil models than good in the Courtyard at end of the game - 5VPS
Gate Broken/unlocked from inside by evil - 5VPS
Each of Gandalf/Theoden/Boromir killed - 5VPS

Good VPs
More good models than evil on the walls at end of the game - 5 VPS
More good models than evil in the Courtyard at end of the game - 5VPS
Break the Evil army - 5 VPS
Gate unbroken/locked at the end of the game - 5 VPS
Each of Gandalf/Theoden/Boromir that survive - 5VPS

This should work out roughly even and should ensure that the game can go to the wire.

In the Helm's Deep one we also reward evil for killing minor heroes (Theoden, Aragorn and Gandalf were all worth 5 VPS). I think we 'named' 5 Good leaders before the game (Legolas, Gimli, Eomer, Erkenbrand, Haldir for example) and these were all worth 1VP each. This gives the evil player a good incentive to go hero hunting and could swing things in the event of a tie. You might also award good the same VPs for any of them that survive.

We've also tailored the evil army to not nullify the charging reinforcements. Obviously in the Helm's Deep battle we're using Isengard and they're not allowed any Warg Riders or shamans. The WR nullify the advantage of charging cavalry and channelled Fury takes the sting out of any cavalry charge. We found that is simply wasn't fun playing with these kinds of troops as the narrative of the game just didn't unfold as you'd hope.

I hope this helps and gives you a few more ideas, I hope to see pictures!

_________________
Finished 2nd in the 2014 GBHL. My Wife's so proud

Free SBG fanzine: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29569

Yeah that sounds more exciting/interesting than a straight siege.

The benefit of having the evil models only rejoin on a 3+ is that the defenders do start to wear down their numbers slowly. This reinforcement rule ends when the Rohirrim turn up.

Also, I would allow the evil side to break (count total models at the start - evil side is broken if on any turn AFTER turn 11 there are less than half the starting number of models on the board).

Objectives are a good idea, visually, you want the evil side to have to stay inside the castle to hold the objectives rather than clear the walls and then leave the castle to engage the reinforcements. Equally you want there to be some incentive for the Good player to try and retake the walls/castle.

I'd be inclined to go for something like the following:

Evil VPs
More evil models than good on the walls at end of the game - 5 VPS
More evil models than good in the Courtyard at end of the game - 5VPS
Gate Broken/unlocked from inside by evil - 5VPS
Each of Gandalf/Theoden/Boromir killed - 5VPS

Good VPs
More good models than evil on the walls at end of the game - 5 VPS
More good models than evil in the Courtyard at end of the game - 5VPS
Break the Evil army - 5 VPS
Gate unbroken/locked at the end of the game - 5 VPS
Each of Gandalf/Theoden/Boromir that survive - 5VPS

This should work out roughly even and should ensure that the game can go to the wire.

In the Helm's Deep one we also reward evil for killing minor heroes (Theoden, Aragorn and Gandalf were all worth 5 VPS). I think we 'named' 5 Good leaders before the game (Legolas, Gimli, Eomer, Erkenbrand, Haldir for example) and these were all worth 1VP each. This gives the evil player a good incentive to go hero hunting and could swing things in the event of a tie. You might also award good the same VPs for any of them that survive.

We've also tailored the evil army to not nullify the charging reinforcements. Obviously in the Helm's Deep battle we're using Isengard and they're not allowed any Warg Riders or shamans. The WR nullify the advantage of charging cavalry and channelled Fury takes the sting out of any cavalry charge. We found that is simply wasn't fun playing with these kinds of troops as the narrative of the game just didn't unfold as you'd hope.

I hope this helps and gives you a few more ideas, I hope to see pictures!

_________________
Finished 2nd in the 2014 GBHL. My Wife's so proud

Free SBG fanzine: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29569

I have been thinking that the points may be a bit much and am thinking of reducing it to 1500pts attack.

This can leave 1000 defending and 500 relief force ?

Also, how far back do the reinforcements join ? 24 inches from the walls sound reasonable ?

Finally, do evil heroes get to rejoin and if so what might will date etc ?

Yeah I'm sure that'd be fine points wise. As long as you keep the points relative to each other there shouldn't be a problem.

As for the dimensions, we played on a 6x4 table and as far as I remember the inside walls of the castle were about 11" from the good table edge (one of the evil objectives was to move models off the good table edge, this ensured that once over the walls evil models could move off the table in 2 turns if uninterrupted).

The evil models deployed 13" away from the walls (again this was to avoid the ambiguity of the common 'at least 12 inches away' and ensured they could only scale/attack the walls from turn 3 onwards).

Evil reinforcements then came on from the evil table edge so roughly 36" away from the walls.

The good reinforcements came on from the same edge so also 36" away (and evil reinforcements stopped on the turn that good arrived).

We didn't allow evil heroes to rejoin. Once they're dead they're dead.

We also allowed the good reinforcements a special move on the turn they arrived. We said that they turned up once BOTH sides have moved and, in an exception to the normal rules, could charge on the turn they arrive. This ensured that they got a good first charge in and weren't immediately swamped and counter charged.

The most important thing was to not allow evil to take cavalry though, otherwise you'll end up with a line of warg riders sitting a few inches away from the good table edge that just completely nullifies the good reinforcements charge.

I can't stress enough how important it is for all the players to get into the spirit of the game, the evil player SHOULD be throwing everything into the attack right from the start. It's not much fun if he uses his knowledge that the good are turning up on turn 11 (which the orcs shouldn't know) to set up an anti-cavalry 'net' for when they arrive.

Hope this helps, most importantly, remember these are only the thoughts of my group in our Helm's Deep scenario, you should change anything you don't like to make the game more fun for you!

_________________
Finished 2nd in the 2014 GBHL. My Wife's so proud

Free SBG fanzine: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29569

The thought I had on that is to have the defender choose which table edge to have reinforcements come from at the start of the game and write it down on a piece of paper, 3 turns before the reinforcements arrive, have the attacker roll to see if they have noticed the approach of the reinforcements. If they do then they get to look at the paper with which edge the reinforcement will be coming from written on it; thus they can set up a defense and if they fail to roll then they won't know until they are deployed.

This throws in some randomness to the battles. Of course this is more on the generic side of siege not really directed at Helms deep.