War of the Ring Scenario: Cair Andros

My current project for my War of the Rings armies is to run/host the battle of the crossroads at Cair Andros.  I plan to run this at another private little convention (CabinCon part 2) on the long weekend in September (3rd through the 5th).

While Aragorn marches on the Black Gate, a force of men from both Gondor and Rohan loose heart and ask to leave to return home.  Aragorn grants them leave, however bids them to retake the crossroads at Cair Andros to regain their honor.

The forces holding the Cair Andros crossroads is a mixed force of Mordor and troops from the various Fallen Realms (Harad and Easterlings).  By this time Cair Andros, a once great city of Gondor, has been reduced to sporadic ruins.

This scenario represents the efforts of the men of Gondor and Rohan to regain their honor by retaking the crossroads of Cair Andros.

Scenario Map and Rules

Game Length:  This game lasts for 6 turns.  

Priority:  The forces of Good have priority for the first turn.  On subsequent turns, roll for priority normally.

Table Size:  The table is a 6 foot by 8 foot table divided into 4 sections.  At the center of each section is a ruins.  

A picture of the table layout is below.

Ruins:  Each of the ruins are a defensible terrain feature capable of holding a single formation of up to 6 companies.

Objectives:  Each side must fight to control each table section.  The side that controls the most table sections at the games end wins.

Controlling Sections:  The side that has a unit occupying the ruins for a sector at games end is in control of that table section.

Evil Deployment:  Up to one evil formation may be deployed in each ruin at the start of the game.  All remaining evil units must be deployed on the "top half" of the table (as pictured).  In short, deploy on the 1/2 of the table opposite from the "good forces" entry side.

Good Deployment:  Starting on turn 1, formations can move onto the table from any point along the Forces of Good Entry table edge as shown on the map.

Forces of Good (3000 points)

Men of Gondor

• Knights of Dol Amroth, 6 companies
• Knights of Minas Tirith, 6 companies
• Warriors of Minas Tirith, 6 companies
• Warriors of Minas Tirith, 6 companies
• Archers of Minas Tirith, 3 companies
• Archers of Minas Tirith, 3 companies
• Axemen of Lossarnach, 6 companies
• Clansmen of Lamedon, 6 companies

Men of Rohan

• Oathsworn Militia, 6 companies
• Oathsworn Militia, 6 companies
• Oathsworn Bowmen, 3 companies
• Oathsworn Bowmen, 3 companies
• Riders of Rohan Éored, 6 companies
• Riders of Rohan Éored, 6 companies
• Outriders Éored, 4 companies

Forces of Evil (2500 points)

Mordor

• Warg Rider Warband, 6 companies
• Warg Rider Warband, 6 companies
• Mordor Orc Warband, 6 companies
• Mordor Orc Warband, 6 companies
• Morannon Orc Warband, 6 companies
• Morannon Orc Warband, 6 companies
• Mordor Troll, single model
• Mordor Troll, single model
• Mordor Troll, single model
• Mordor Troll, single model

Forgotten Realms

• Haradrim Raider Warband, 6 companies
• Mahûd Raider Warband, 6 companies
• Easterling Cohort, 6 companies
• Easterling Cohort, 6 companies
• Easterling Archer Cohort, 3 companies
• Easterling Archer Cohort, 3 companies
• Easterling Kataphrakts, 6 companies

War of the Ring - Modified Rules

I've done a number of modifications to the War of the Ring rules in order to modernize them a bit and make them generally a better set of rules.  I actually very much enjoy the rules and they are still mostly very good.

The "issues" with the rules primarily revolve - IMO - around army lists and army creation.  Since I only play massed battles and don't play the skirmish version of LOTR, I don't care about the movement trays and individual basing.  I wanted large groups of massed troops that look and feel the part - the trays are to large and spaced out.

Below you'll find the links to the modified rules reference and what I've completed so far for the army lists (just Rohan and Isengard at the moment, and not the full lists for those - just what I needed for the Fords of Isen scenario).

Jays Modified War of the Ring Rules Reference:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ihof3bnbxe84fat/wotr_reference_v2.0_jays_wargaming_madness.pdf?dl=0

Jays Modified War of the Ring Army Lists:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5yar9dr500sdh65/wotr_army_lists_v2.0_jays_wargaming_madness.pdf?dl=0

NOTE: The army list is very limited at the moment.  I've only added the units I needed for the Fords of Isen game I ran.  I am adding much more to the lists, but you should be able to see the general idea.  Command becomes a "fixed" element of the formation, and I determine the per model cost of the original entry and multiply it by the number of attacks (9 for inf and 3 for cav).  I always round up to the nearest 5 or 10 (e.g. 46.3 becomes 50), which offsets of the cost of command which I don't include otherwise in the calculation.

I'll summarize the key changes below:

• Cavalry is 3 figures per base (3 wide).  Base size is 75mm wide by 60mm deep.
• Cavalry attacks are increased to 3.
• Cavalry companies can take 3 casualties (resilience is 2).
• Infantry are 6 figures per base (3 wide, 2 ranks).  Base size is 60mm wide by 50mm deep.
• Infantry attacks are increased to 9.
• Infantry companies can take 9 casualties (resilience is 1).
• Cavalry charge bonus is increased to +3 against cavalry/monsters and +9 against infantry.
• Drummers/Hornblowers allow a formation to reroll the result of a Courage test.
• Added a Bows (Mixed) entry for army profiles.  For some formations where having a separate "bow" unit doesn't make a lot of sense (e.g. Dunlending Warriors) this allows you to have a single formation using all the models available. Much like thrown weapons, this just means that those companies use 1/2 their attack dice when shooting (rounded up).  This represents that the whole unit isn't bow armed and that bow armed troops are simply mixed into the formation.
• Command is built into the army list profiles.
• Models are not removed from the companies, just use wound markers to track the depleted companies.
• Heroes are fixed with their units.  Epic Heroes can move.  For Epic Heroes, you can either put them on a smaller base (foot/mounted) that can just be "attached" to a formation, or you can create a couple of different stands/options for them.  Most I'm adding "fixed" army list entries where they are only allowed to join a small number of formation types.  For example, I have an infantry stand for Éomer for just Oathsworn Militia and another for Riders of Rohan - those are the only two units he'll join.  But, I do have the version of Éomer as king of Rohan, which I have a mounted base with Royal Guard.  I took this route mostly because I have a lot of different versions of the same characters.  I could just have easily mounted them on a minimal width base that is the same "depth" as the formation they would join (infantry/cavalry).

That's it off the top of my head.  The play and experience of the game is much improved IMO.  Stay tuned as I work to add more to the army lists.

Essentially, moving to a "groups/multiples" of 3 system is good - since for the most part, Games Workshop sells models in multiples of 3.

You can see a preview of the rules reference below.

You can see a preview of the current army list pages below.

CabinCon 2021

With our local conventions still cancelled the group and I decided to take matters into our own hands. We rented an event room at a local hotel for the weekend and spent it gaming.  This is our third "CabinCon" - which we do when for whatever reason we don't get to a local convention.

We did this at the DoubleTree hotel in Newark, California.  The event room was really great and overlooked the pool area.

Friday we kicked of with the battle of the Fords of the Isen using a lightly modified version of Games Workshops War of the Ring rules.  We played Struggle of Empires after that which took us late into the evening. Saturday we played the Battle of Corunna using Empires at War.  After that we got out some tanks and played What a Tanker.  We had a great dinner and then played board games into the evening. We wrapped up on Sunday with Napoleonic Naval.  Overall we had a great weekend.

Fords of Isen

I've been looking forward to this game for some time now. It was great to get it to the tabletop. Dan, Roy and myself ran the Isengard army while John and Wade ran the Rohan defenders.  This was a very close fought battle.  Rohan pulled off a minor victory in the final turn.

Battle of Corunna

We've had a bit of a hiatus from Napoleonic games, so it was great to get back to the period.  Roy put together a great scenario for this battle.  The British need to evacuate units to the port while the French advance.  I played on the British side and did my best to stem the tide of advancing French. The French pulled off a victory in the game.

Napoleonic Naval

We pulled out the big ships to play Beat to Quarters.  The Spanish/French fleet took on the British.  Each fleet had six ships, 4 third rates and 2 first rates.

The HMS Victory met a similar fate to the HMS Hood.  The Spanish 1st rate Santisima Trinidad fired a broadside on the HMS Victory and scored a critical hit, which resulted in the magazine exploding and the shop sinking.

Unfortunately I wasn't on top of the pictures for the weekend.  I didn't get any of the What a Tanker game and just forgot to take more pictures of the other games.  I was busy playing and enjoying myself.