10.28.08
What we’ve been up to before this Blogg, Part 2 – Heroes
Todays Topic – Heroes
Today I’ll be talking about Heroes, since they are by far the most important creatures in the story of middle earth.
What is a hero?
Einar and I were discussing this specific topic since in most cases people only refer to named characters as heroes but when we watched the Fellowship of the Ring again we tried to figure out which characters in the fight scenes were actually important to the action. It became quite clear that the Cave Troll in Moria was the most important character on the evil team by far and that none of the individual goblins were even worth mentioning. Thus the troll had to be a major character in our system. At the same time it was clear that Merry and Pippin for example aren’t always Heroes even though we know their names, since their actions aren’t crucial to the outcome of the fight.
How does this work with the cinematic action?
As i mentioned earlier the cave troll is a typical character. In fact every time a troll enters the fight he is a major character, thus making him a hero even though they are just an “ordinary” troll. By applying the rule of thumb that every creature who is a major influence on the fight is a hero to all battle scenes from the films, we also see that a Mûmakil is a major character and should be considered a hero and no mere grunt.
How does this affect gameplay?
When playing our Lord of the Rings miniature game you will be allowed to choose between a lot of different heroes. These characters are the ones who will be able to affect victory conditions while ordinary soldiers are there to stall the opposing players performance on the field of battle and to support your heroes in combat.
To summarize
Heroes are major characters that affect the course of battle, these do not have to be named persons but can be simply large monsters or skilled fighters. All the way from a Moria goblin captain to a Balrog or Merry to Aragorn. It all depends on the scenario you are playing.
10.13.08
What we’ve been up to before this Blogg, Part 1 – Game Zone
Todays Topic – Game Zone
There are a lot of things we’ve worked on before we decided to start this blog. Today I’ll be talking about the game zone.
To define the game zone
When I’m talking about the game zone it will mainly be the area in which the miniatures move in order to interact with each other. That is, the actual table on which we are playing.
Cinematic actions
Most of the fights in lord of the rings take part in the heat of battle when both sides have collided and individual fighting most common with some mayor character or characters as focal point. We have decided to illustrate this by using a small area to deploy at the moment the table is measured 24″/56cm x 24″/56cm. This tiny game zone represents a small part of a larger battle. By using such a small table we both makes the game quicker since the time from deployment to fighting takes less amount of time and different tactics bow duels will be much harder to perform.
But won’t such a small game zone reduce the amount of miniatures we can use?
Both yes and no.
Yes it is true that we cant field the same number of miniatures at the same time since the table is to small. But that isn’t what we’re trying to do either. We want focus on the heroes and their actions not a bunch of random Orcs wandering around slaying some Gondorian farmers.
In order to use a lot of units and still use a small game zone we have decided to use the heroes as actual leaders of the warriors they are supposed to control. Each leader will have a number of units that will follow him to battle. Only a specific number of these soldiers are allowed to take place on the table at the same time. But as soon as one of these soldiers dies another can enter the game zone as soon as he is allowed to make a move.
An example from the second move, The two towers. At Helms Deep when the Uruk-Hai warriors are using the battering rams on the gate Aragorn and Gimli jumps on the bridge and defend the the spot for a brief moment while the Rohan soldiers makes a quick repair to the damaged section. During this time the fight still waves along the entire wall.
10.05.08
Project Lord of the rings
This is the first post in our Blog concerning our project for a Lord of the Rings miniature game. We are two people working on this task and the reason we are doing it is quite simple. We both love Middle-earth as a place of lore and the minatures that Citadel Miniatures have produced look amazing.
Why make a game if GW has already done one?
The main reason is that we do not find the current rules entertaining enough to utilize. If it wasn’t for the miniatures I probably wouldn’t even play the game at all! The second reason is that there is no room for great heroes like Aragorn or Sauron in the game as it is now.
We have some restrictions and visions concerning what we want with the game. These rules can be read in the post “Concerning the project“. We will also start making a rulebook which will grow in size as the project goes on.
If you have any questions or suggestions feel free to post a reply on the site or send an email to us at:
ued-squee@hotmail.com or mutantranie@hotmail.com
Until next time
Niklas
