Hi, all. I may be doing a large Pelennor fields scenario with General Elessar and some friends in a month or so for the One Ring magazine and I would like to know what you think about the rules. Are they fair? C&C welcommed.

The Battle for Pelennor Fields

Forces:

Good:
The defenders of Minas Tirith:
1,000 points worth of warriors and heroes from The Tower of Ecthelion (at least 600 points) and Fiefdoms.
Must include Prince Imrahil on armored horse with lance.

The Rohirrim:
1,000 points worth of mounted warriors and Heroes from Theoden's Host (may not include Hama).
Must include Theoden on armored horse with shield, Eomer, Knight of the Pelennor on armored horse, Eowyn on horse with armour (throwing spears optional), and Merry, Knight of the Riddermark who is a passenger on Eowyn's horse.

The Counter-Attack:
1,500 points worth of warriors and heroes from The Grey Company (at least 300 points), Fiefdoms, and The Dead of Dunharrow (at least 300 points).
Must include Aragorn with Anduril, armour, and elven cloak (bow optional), Legolas with armour and elven cloak, Gimli with elven cloak, Halbarad with the Banner of the Even Star, Eladdan and Elrohir (heavy armour optional) and The King of the Dead.

Evil:
The Main Force:
2,500 points worth of warriors and heroes from Minas Morgul, The Black Gate, and Baradur.
Must include The Witch-King of Angmar (full stats) with Crown of Morgul and on a Fell beast of player's choice (flail optional) and Gothmog (warg and shield optional).

500 points worth of warriors and heroes from any Fallen Realm Lists, may not include any Mumakil.

The Reinforcements:
1,000 points of warriors and heroes from any Fallen Realm Lists.


Deployment:

The game is played on a 6' by 4' table with a large hill in the North East corner and one or two other hills littered around the edge of the board.

The good player deploys The Rohirrim first within 18” of the North East Corner. The Evil player then deploys the Main Force in the Eastern Half of the board but not within 8” of any good model. The Good player then deploys the Defenders of Minas Tirith within 12” of the Western board edge.

Consult the table below to see when the Evil player rolls for The Reinforcements to arrive. He only rolls again if he failed the turn before.
Turn Roll
4 3+
5 2+
6 automatic

The Reinforcements arrive within 12” of the East half of the South board edge and may move, charge, and shoot normally on the turn they arrive.

Consult the table below to see when the Good player rolls for The Counter-Attack to arrive. He only rolls again if he failed the turn before.
Turn Roll
6 3+
7 2+
8 automatic
The Counter-Attack arrive within 12” of the West half of the South board edge and may move, charge, and shoot normally on the turn they arrive.

If both The Reinforcements and The Counter-Attack arrive on turn 6, The Counter-Attack must wait until the next turn before can arrive.

Objectives
For the Good side to win, they must lower the evil force to 1/3 of its starting size and must have killed either Gothmog or The Witch-King. If good lose 5 of their “must include” heroes, the best result they can achieve is a draw (Aragorn counts as two heroes for this tally).

For the Evil side to win, they must kill 7 of the “must include” good heroes (Aragorn counts as two heroes for this tally). If Evil have lost both Gothmog and the Witch-King, the best result they can achieve is a draw.

Special Rules

The Last Ride of the Rohirrim: For the first 3 turns of the game, all rohirrim (including heroes) gain +1 fight and +1 strength. Additionally, Theoden gains the “Mighty Hero” special rule for the entirety of the game.

“I am no man”: Eowyn gains +1 attack and +1 fight whenever she is in combat with one or more ringwraiths (including the Witch-King) as well as gaining +2 to wound against them if she wins the fight, (this does not stack with "The Last Ride of the Rohirrim) she will also pass all courage tests needed to charge them. Eowyn and Merry also start the game in disguise (they both count as a single rider of Rohan until they are revealed). Whilst hidden, Eowyn and Merry cannot use any might will or fate. Eowyn and Merry may be revealed at the beginning of a turn after priority has been rolled (a note must have been made before hand showing where they were at least roughly).

Shadow of Terror: The Witch-King's “Harbinger of Evil” special rule reduces enemy courage by 2 instead of 1 and his “Stand fast!” range is 12”.

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"War does not determine who is right, only who is left."
- Bertrand Russel

I like it, but why must you include Imrahil (and especially why does he have to be on a horse?)? Why not Gandalf, Pippin, and make Denethor optional? The reinforcements rule sounds good and so do the special rules, but I was thinking... it sounds like it's sort of in the good side's favor. One last question: why is Halbarad with the Banner of the Even Star, Eladdan and Elrohir included in the counter-attack list?

I'm basing it more on the books than the films. In the books, I think it was just Imrahil who led the sallying force out of Minas-Tirith to Pelennor. Gandalf and Pippin were busy trying to rescue Faramir from Denethor. And Halbarad I think came with when they captured the corsair ships, though I'm not sure about Eladdan and Elrohir. I don't think it's too much in Good's favour, Evil still has 500 points more and is going to out-number Good very heavily. I was thinking more about the victory conditions in general.

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"War does not determine who is right, only who is left."
- Bertrand Russel

I think you're evil numbers are too low, currently good is only outnumbered by 500pts worth of troops. I would either raise their point allowance or lower some of the good forces numbers.

Edit: A note of the Grey Company, if i am remembering correctly 31 Rangers of the North, Halbarad with the Banner of Arwen Evenstar, and Elladan and Elrohir rode to meet Aragorn at the Dimalt Road. They journeyed through the gate and then attack the Corsairs at Pelgarir. They then took the ships with an army from the Fiefdoms, not the Army of the Dead, and sailed to Pelannor where most of them were killed. Elladan and Elrohir survive the War of the Ring, Halbarad gets owned on the Pelannor.

Hmm.. Interesting, a very experienced player who's played pelennor fields many times said I should up the good numbers as they will be horribly out-numbered.

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"War does not determine who is right, only who is left."
- Bertrand Russel

i only ever played the Battle for the Pelannor once before and as the Counter-Attack. We were outnumbered by 300 pts. i think? It was 5 years ago, trying to remember, and we wiped the floor with Evil. One rule that we incorporated was a mandatory depolyment for the evil player at 6" of the Riders of Rohan so they were charging on turn 1. This allowed the riders to charge instantly, also Evil should be the first to deploy as there main army was set up before the riders attacked.

I am not trying to attack your work i am quite impressed at the amount of time and creativity you have placed in the scenario

Great scenario. Very interested to see the battle report.
The Fiefdom Army that accompanies the grey company on the ships is mostly the Clansmen of Lamedon. But I am in favor of your movie leanings over the books.

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Woodland Realms: 2382 pts: 18/08/2010