LOTR Army Lists for TRIUMPH!

[Bill Hupp]

Thanks DK.

[Bill Hupp]

DK,

All we are missing are Elves now. (You must have had them for the Battle of 5 Armies Game.)

I presume Elves are pretty obvious as Elite Cav, Elite Foot and Wood Elves Raiders and Skirmishers and maybe some LIght Spear.

Also, any reason why Elephants wouldn't work for Mumarkil?

Have people seen the Facebook page Wargaming in Middle Earth? It's a non-GW LOTR page (but not anti-GW.) Some cool conversions.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/151243738922969/

Thanks.

Bill

[Rod]

Bill,
I modelled my Battle Lore High elves on the LOTR movie scenes (not necessarily Cannon).

I went for Pavise as the main troop with some Elite Foot. For the mounted I actually used Cataphracts because it seemed like the Elves were more likely to be well protected and less reckless (i.e. not knights).

I would also consider Elite Cavalry as natural choice for Elven armies.

The "Wood" Elves were arches and light appear with some horsebow and elite cav.

[Bill Hupp]

Thanks.

[David Kuijt]

All we are missing are Elves now. (You must have had them for the Battle of 5 Armies Game.)

I presume Elves are pretty obvious as Elite Cav, Elite Foot and Wood Elves Raiders and Skirmishers and maybe some LIght Spear.

Also, any reason why Elephants wouldn't work for Mumarkil?

Re: Elephants/Mumakil. You're confusing me, Bill. Go back and read my post again. 4th line from the bottom (ignoring signature). Elephants are Mumakil; Mumakil are Elephants.

Elves have very little cavalry, although it depends very strongly upon when you are talking. If you read Tolkien carefully, you'll realize that the Numenoreans (and very likely most everyone else as well, including the Elves) had no cavalry at the end of the Second Age. After the fall of Gil-Gilad the Elves didn't fight a lot of battles except to keep their forested enclaves safe, the Battle of Five Armies being a notable exception. All the Elven Kingdoms at the end of the Third Age lived in lands that were very low on grasslands and plains, necessary for developing horse herds.

I would tend to suggest Horsebow for the rare Sylvan mounted scouts. I wouldn't have more than one stand of those on my armies.

Again from Tolkien, most Elven forces at the end of the Third Age would be Sylvan elves, who did not fight in armor. That means Archers or Skirmishers for their bowmen. Light Spear is good too. I'd have a small number of Elite Foot for the armored guard of Thranduil (Mirkwood) or Celeborn. Elves fighting under Gil-Gilad in the Last Alliance of Elves and Men would be Archers and Elite Foot mostly, although I do like Rod's suggestion of Pavises to reflect a thin line of armored warriors with a wad of archers behind. Since the forces of Mordor are mostly Rabble and Warband, that is interesting, although scary for the Pavises when they meet Warband.

More tomorrow.

[David Kuijt]

Dwarven Armies in Tolkien

Here are some thoughts about Dwarves in Tolkien.

Note that these writeups use a draft version of battle cards for Fantasy Triumph. Neither the point costs of those battle cards nor the exact rules are finalized yet.

In Tolkien military forces of dwarves are almost always heavily armored and equipped with mattocks, axes, and swords.

• Most of any Dwarven army should be Elite Foot.
• In several battles, one of which was Azanulbizar, armored dwarves fought in loose order in difficult terrain rather than in their normal mode (Elite Foot). Raiders are an excellent representation of this.
• Unarmored dwarves might appear in some rare situations, defending their homes or similar. Unarmored dwarf figures could be used as:
  • Light Foot (with the battle card "Slow" to make them 4mu movement)
  • Skirmishers (with the battle card "Slow" to make them 4mu movement)
  • Bow Levy
• If you decide to group armored dwarven figures with polearms or spears into a stand, rating them as Spear is reasonable. Since dwarves rarely fought any enemy with significant mounted forces, and Spear are (in essence) Elite Foot with specialized training against mounted, that's not really Tolkien dwarves. Still a cool dwarf army, but not Tolkien.

And a shout out to the Vendel range of dwarven figures that Bill Hupp recently purchased -- these guys are by far the best 28mm Tolkien dwarves you can imagine. Brilliant.

[David Kuijt]

Goblin forces from the Misty Mountains, Mount Gundabad, etc.

Here are some thoughts about representing Goblin armies in Tolkien. Note that goblin and orc are synonymous in Tolkien -- orcs are bigger goblins, but he uses both words for the same guys. No racial difference. And not green. You wanna do a Warhammer Goblin/Orc army, more power to you, but in Tolkien they are not green.

Note that these writeups use a draft version of battle cards for Fantasy Triumph. Neither the point costs of those battle cards nor the exact rules are finalized yet.

• Elite armored goblins are Raiders. The bodyguard of Bolg in the Battle of the Five Armies is differentiated as much better than rank and file goblins. Most goblin armies should have the General's stand as Raiders, and maybe 0-2 more such.
• Regular fierce orcs are best represented as Warband.
• Rank and file goblins (again, that just means smaller, less fierce orcs) are Rabble
• In Goblin armies that face human mounted forces a lot, grouping archer goblins and orcs together into Bow Levy is reasonable. Even there, the Rabble should outnumber the Bow Levy.
• Wargs, whether ridden by goblins, unridden, or mixed, should be represented as Javelin Cavalry with the following battle cards:
  • Slow (6mu move instead of 8mu)
  • Woodland Creatures (treat woods as open terrain and wooded hills as gentle hills, for combat and movement only)
  • Fierce (follow up on a win like Knights; cannot disengage)

Giant bats as appeared in The Battle of the Five Armies are best represented as a special rule for a scenario or battle, not as stands of troops. There is no text anywhere in Tolkien about anyone fighting a giant bat. In my Five Armies I have the following scenario rule, reflecting that battle:

For much of the battle hordes of giant bats from Moria darkened the skies, giving advantage to the Goblins as follows:

• Free Peoples command control distance is 8mu, not the normal 16mu. Broken Free Peoples commands still use an 8mu command control distance.
• Goblin Rabble move 4mu, not 3mu, so long as the skies are full of giant bats.
• Goblin Commands have no limit upon the number of times they can March Move (but the other rules for March Moves still apply – pay command points for each move, and cannot March Move within 8mu of enemy stands).

That's a scenario rule; it doesn't have a point value. Once the Eagles arrive, the giant bats are dispersed.

[Bill Hupp]

Thanks for the further write ups DK. And thanks for the shout out on the Vendel Dwarves.

Rod and I have a continuing conversation about figures on the market as alternatives to the GW figures (which we tip our hats to.) In 15mm we both think the Battle Valor figures are very nice. (See Rod's painted High Elves.)

The GW figures are wonderful sculpts, closer to what classic 25mm figure scale and IMHO anatomically superior. But they are primarily figures posed for skirmish gaming and the armor has been Hollywooded up enough to make me interested in a simpler, chainmail set of figures more designed to fight formal battles. (That led to the purchase of the Vendel molds.)

The Vendel line is pretty complete and has 4-12 packs of Dwarves, Orcs, Goblins, Elves, Giants, and Men. This is part of our post T&R process so we are just dabbling in it now and trying to get painted samples and figure out exactly what it covers and what it does not. We also got the Ancients line of Greeks and Persians and we have been wondering what from that line might match up well with peoples from Middle Earth. (We also bought the Border Reiver line and the Irish figures will work VERY well for some more men types.)

Yesterday I pulled out some figures from the line that I thought would work including Persian Egyptian Marines, Nubian/Etheopians, Elephants and various other allied peoples. That led to some reading on Haradrim and Easterlings. Seems like some of the chariots would work well too.

DK, the army lists are very helpful in terms of figuring out what we have and don't have. The figures themselves are fun, but ultimately we want to play with them.

Bill

[David Kuijt]

Yesterday I pulled out some figures from the line that I thought would work including Persian Egyptian Marines, Nubian/Etheopians, Elephants and various other allied peoples. That led to some reading on Haradrim and Easterlings. Seems like some of the chariots would work well too.

I'll post some Haradrim and Easterling lists later. Some of the Persians might do very well. Nubians/Ethiopians might be good for Men of Far Harad -- I used some Darkest Africa figures for those in my Pelennor Fields battle.

Chariots are interesting for the Wainriders, although mostly they were on wagons (wains) not chariots.

DK, the army lists are very helpful in terms of figuring out what we have and don't have. The figures themselves are fun, but ultimately we want to play with them.

Exactly!

[David Kuijt]

Sindar Kingdoms in the Third Age

I'm ignoring High Elf armies with lots of armored elves such as fought for Gil-Gilad in the Last Alliance. This discussion is some thoughts on how to accurately simulate the armies of Mirkwood and Lothlorien through the Third Age. Galadriel was a Noldor, but Celeborn was Sindar and almost all of Lorien was populated by Sindarin. Most Sindar (wood elves) fought unarmored or with very light armor. Due to older traditions (Thranduil was many thousand years old; Galadriel was a leader of the Noldor since the fall of the Two Trees and the making of the Silmarils and as such possibly the oldest non-Maiar being on the continent) it is reasonable to assume that both Mirkwood and Lothlorien had a small proportion of armored elves as an elite guard.

Note that these writeups use a draft version of battle cards for Fantasy Triumph. Neither the point costs of those battle cards nor the exact rules are finalized yet.

• Armored Spearmen: Spear, with battle card "Deadly" (+1 in melee, +1 pt per stand)
• Woodsmen: Light Spear, with battle card "Fast" (5mu move, +1/2 pt per stand)
• Armored Bow: Archer, with battle card "Deadly" (+1 in melee, +1 pt per stand)
• Light Bow: Archer, with battle card "Fast" (4 mu move, +1/2 pt per stand)
• Mounted scouts: Horsebow
• Skirmishers: Skirmisher
• Unarmored swordsmen: Light Foot

An interesting alternative (due to Rod) is to substitute 2x Pavises (with "Deadly" battle card) for 1x Spear and 1x Archer (both with "Deadly" battle card), representing combined formations with a line of spearmen in front of massed archers, as shown at the start of the LOTR movies showing the final battle of the Last Alliance v. Sauron. I'd be inclined to give the Elves a zero-cost battle card allowing them to choose either formation at deployment time; that seems cool and fun.

I'd have probably 0-2 Armored Spear, 0-2 Armored Bow, 0-1 Mounted Scouts, 0-2 Unarmored Swordsmen, and most of the army be Woodsmen and Light Bow.