War of the Ring: Corsairs of Umbar

My Corsairs of Umbar faction is ready for action now.  Just finished up the basing today.  Took pictures just using some white plasticard sheets and my phone camera.  Special thanks to Bohdan Mykhaylyk for doing an amazing paint job on these figures!

The raiding for consists of 1 x captain (hero), 2 x assassins, 2 x 18 figure Arbalesters (crossbows with large shields), and 2 x 36 figure Raiding Parties (mixed weapons).

Below is the whole raiding force laid out on my painting mat.

In addition to the Corsair force, I also started into basing my Gondor army.  The first units done here are 2 x Trebuchets and a 36 figure Citadel Guard unit.

Nice to get these units done.  Next up is a bunch more Gondor units.

Never Mind the Billhooks: Edward's Retinue

My initial retinue (battle) for my Never Mind the Billhooks armies is done.  Well, mostly sonce I've decided I need to add a block of 12 x Pike and 6 x Skirmishers.  Really happy with how these guys turned out.

This is Edward IV's battle (red/blue), supported by troops from Stafford (black/red).  I have both mounted and dismounted command stands for Edward IV.  I need to finish Stafford's command stand.

Pictures below of the troops finished so far ...

I went back and forth on how I wanted to base them.  I settled on using 100mm x 50mm for the infantry (12 figures) and cavalry (4 figures).  Artillery is on a 50mm x 75mm base and commanders are on a 50mm x 50mm base.

War of the Ring: Revised Rules (Beta)

I've spent a good chunk of time on revising the War of the Ring rules.  Why?  The rules are fairly old and "very GW" in how they are written.  Of course they wanted to be able to bridge those who wanted to use their collections for both skirmish and mass battle engagements.  Really, it was just a build onto the skirmish system.  That being said, there is a lot about the rules I like.

Disclaimer: I'm posting this so I can track it and have it easily accessible to myself and for my gaming group.  I share it only in the interest of the community as a whole should someone out there also be interested in using these modernized WotR rules for their own purposes.

There are many things that needed to be say - modernized - for the rules.  Streamlining things that slow down the game that could be integrated together, collapsing easily forgotten rules into profiles so that what you see in a profile is accurate to everything that formation is equipped with (e.g. two-handed weapons decreasing a units fight), and simplifying things such as heroic actions (now called mighty actions), movement rates, formation sizes, and so on.  The idea is that the game is still very much War of the Ring, but plays easier.

I've done some playtesting of the rules and I'm happy with the results.  But, still calling them beta rules for now until I get more and larger games played out.

You can download the rules here:

War of the Ring Revised (Beta) Rules

Army lists are a separate document, which can be downloaded here:

War of the Ring Revised (Beta) Army Lists

I've created preview images of the 8 pages (A4 that print as 4 double-sided sheets) below.  You really only need these sheets in order to play.  Owning the original rules is handy, but not required.

As I mentioned, there are all new army lists to go along with the above.  Preview images of those lists below.  While I've done many of the armies from the original book - not all of them are there at this time (missing currently are the Elves, Dwarves and Misty Mountains).  The "larger" army lists are laid out so that the unit profiles are all on one page, with the faction specific special rules on the next page (or reverse side of the page if printed double-sided).  The small army lists have both the profiles and special rules on a single page.

So there you have it.  I'll be working through any updates that are needed as a result of playtesting and looking to use these rules to run a large WotR game at PacifiCon in September.

General Update: June

Just a quick update to let you all know I'm still kicking!

My son joined a competitive Volleyball club which runs a compacted summer program from mid-May to the end of June.  As a result I've been travelling around the US for various tournaments (last one is next week in Orlando, Florida).  As a result the project progress has slowed.  My massive backlog of basing is, well, only more massive.

With my Napoleonic Russian army mostly done, I'm focusing the bulk of my effort currently on the "two WotRs" ... that is the War of the Ring (LOTR) and the War of the Roses (Never Mind the Billhooks).

Bohdan has been making excellent progress on my Corsairs of Umbar ...

The force consists of 2 x 36 figure raider warbands, 2 x 18 figure arbalesters (crossbows), and some heros/characters.

I also have finished the first "battle" (brigade) for Tewksbury for the War of the Roses, but need to get them on bases ... more on that soon hopefully.  I have a crap load of plastic infantry to assemble for the 5 remaining battles.

So apologies for the lack of posting.  July should be a good month though.  I will be making a lot of basing progress.  Also, while I've been on the road I spent a lot of time modernizing the War of the Ring rules.  I've been doing some solo play testing to get all the updates/changes ironed out and feel like they are in a really good state.  Will post that up soon.