Hello all,

A few months back I decided that it would be cool to play WOTR in some of the First Age battles where Morgoth had many Dragons and Balrogs. Having downloaded the excellent SBG fan-made supplement by Andrew Graham, I decided to take a crack at converting his lists, and adjusting the rules, so that they fit with WOTR.

So I did my research, and solicited assistance from GothmogTheWerewolf, in determining theme, playability, and point values. What follows is the final draft of the lists.

However, they have not been playtested, and that is where you all can help. I invite you to help playtest the lists and see how they work, and after doing so, please give feedback here on this posting.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/wg3ak ... TR_v.2.doc

Enjoy!
Brian

I like the idea of a WOTR Gondolin.. Nice work!

Had some questions about the stats:
The good force have a lot of monster heroes with VHtK and R3. And on the opposite side only dragons and balrogs (with are a lot expensiver) and Gothmog with EHtK and R2. Maybe lower the prices of the balrogs and dragons and give Gothmog R3 aswell?

Hi, and thanks for the comment. Let me explain the reasoning.

From my experience, the Very hard to Kill is still too easy a task to do. A kill can be made with just one wound inflicted on the target--which is why three resilience has been given. Meanwhile, Dragons and Balrogs have only 2 resilience, but the table that you roll on takes at least 9 wounds for any possibility of a kill on these creatures

Mathmatically (if my calculations were right), the two adaptations, VH2K@3 resilience versus EH2K@2 resilience, works out and provides a equal chance for both targets of being killed.

Brian

Killerkatanas is correct about that calculation, also might as well make use of the sentence on the rulebook that says "Monsters [often] have a Resilience of 2 or more" as well.

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

Killerkatanas and GtW are slightly off with the calculations still.

It is hard to judge because of the incremental nature of the various flavours of the H2K tables, and additionally the natural 6 on the EH2K allowing an extra roll.

There are three ways to prove the relative difficulties:
1. Roll lots of dice and lose a weekend.
2. Apply some fancy advanced statistical analysis
3. Simulate it on a computer.

I did the latter, rolling virtual dice 1000 times and looking at the averages.

The results are in terms of the number of ROLLS on the table. (ignoring resilience for the moment) and the minimum in the test and the maximum in the test (not the theoretical min/max just the ones found in the set of rolls)

Hard to Kill: Average 2.6 Min 1 Max 7 (no surprises there)

Very hard to Kill: Average 3.9 Min 2 max 11

Extremely hard to kill: Average 11.4 Min 7 max 22 (natural 6s allowed a free reroll which didnt count against the total/average)


Now to use the resiliences:

On *average* a resilience 2 E2HK monster will need 11.4 * 2 = (almost) 23 hits to slay

Similarly a resilience 3 VH2K monster will need 3.9 * 3 = (almost) 12 hits to slay

So the R3 VH2K monster is twice as easy to kill as the R2 EH2K

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A second Edition for The War of the Ring:http://wessexcodex.wordpress.com

Taking the War in Middle earth to a new level!

There is a slight confounding factor, in that you need 3 full hits to score a roll on a table for a R3 monster (obviously).

So (to take an extreme example) if a group of bowmen score 5 hits on a R3 monster , they get one roll, and the extra two are discounted

Similarly 5 hits on a R2 monster would be 2 rolls with only one hit discounted.

But if bowmen scored three hits... it wouldnt matter one roll for either beasty

That does improve things for the R3 VH2K beast. But still is a deal squishier than the R2 EH2K.

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A second Edition for The War of the Ring:http://wessexcodex.wordpress.com

Taking the War in Middle earth to a new level!

Thanks for the feedback. The math that I did gave a slight advantage to the EH2K, but my math may not be as good as yours...

So, what then would you suggest the ratings be?

Brian

I have thought some more, crunched some numbers, regarding the 'lost' hits.

Assuming Monsters rarely get more than 6 hits in a single round:
Then about 15% of the hits end up discounted for R2.
And about 29% for R3

So... I estimate with the above assumption:

R2 EH2K needs 26 Hits on average to kill
R3 VH2K needs 15 Hits on average to kill

15 shots on a hero monster is still a lot to get over. I will look over your doc tonight, Killerkatanas, and make a suggestion. I am interested also in this topic due to the fact our gaming group was mooting the idea of Elf wars and the Silmaril Wars in Beleriand in the First Age.

As a thought... in general maybe EVERY H2K and VH2K in the main WotR should be R3. and EH2K R2 (stays the same) mainly as EH2K are rather large targets, just their sheer size and mass means it takes longer for all the little wounds to add up.

It would mean the necromancer, Glorfindel etc would be more attractive to actually take. But yet still suitably vulnerable to the Mighty hero spending a well timed Might point to poke them in the eye and do for them

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A second Edition for The War of the Ring:http://wessexcodex.wordpress.com

Taking the War in Middle earth to a new level!

I figure that R3 is good for a quick fix.

Something definitely needs to be adjusted for VH2K because you are correct, many of those troops, such as Treebeard, Glorfindale, the 3 Hunters, even Sauron, are not worth using because they are so easily killed.

My friend and I did a "monsters" game the other day with 1500 points. He had a Dragon, Balrog, and six Cave Trolls. I had Treebeard, Gwahir, Qickbeam, Beechbone, 4 other Ents and 2 other Eagles. Treebeard was shortly killed, followed by Gwahir--they just could not stand up to the hits inflicted, and only a minus 1 on the chart for being VH2K was not enough.

I ended up losing, but killed the Balrog and four other trolls. The Dragon ended with six hits on it.

That's good that your interested in the First Age Battles. I think they would be fun to play out too. Are you planning to make Army lists?

Brian

Yes, as happened last night, my poor old Fell Beast killed by one roll of a D6 on the H2K table. To easy IMO

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Harfoots-The first of the Hobbit people to cross over the Misty Mountains and enter Eriador.

Good old Radagast, I've never seen a model kill over 500 points on his own before I certainly enjoyed last night's game.

Yes, but in the end, he failed a courage test,............ and ran away!

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Harfoots-The first of the Hobbit people to cross over the Misty Mountains and enter Eriador.

When in a corner I fight all the more potently. Just think of next week when I'm at half strength. I have a few aces in places.

Back the conversation at large: I'm very excited about the Fall of Gondolin list, and especially like Maeglin's 'Epic Wormtongue' rule - very thematic and appropriate for his character.

If I was to suggest that you bring in King Elwe and Melian, I'd hope you wouldn't think me rude, but they are effectively a more powerful Thranduil and Galadriel (except married obviously), and I would be really interested in your take on them.

I would imagine, for example, that Melian might have a rule called 'the Girdle of Melian' - a special spell which surrounds her formation up to 12 inches. If an opponent wishes to enter the girdle, he must pass a courage test at minus 2, and lose warriors by the amount failed by. This is just an example obviously.

Some really cool ideas- I've always fancied the idea of doing first age battles using wotr rules! Great work

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Andy, son of Richard and brother of Paul of the One-Ring website