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Made in us
Gore-Soaked Lunatic Witchhunter







I'm looking into adapting some of the old Warhammer Fantasy armies to the Lord of the Rings system as a thought experiment, and I'm looking for more opinions from LotR players on some of the questions that have come up as I go.

1: Two one-handed weapons. I really want to avoid casually tossing two-Attack dudes into the game, especially after my experiences with Mordheim, but there are enough units in WHFB that claim paired weapons as a selling point that I do want to do something with them. My current theory is to let models with paired weapons use the shielding rules without paying for a shield. Assuming that this didn't carry any points cost and was just a free thing some models could do would this be too useful, too useless, bad at representing two one-handed weapons...?

2: Black powder weapons. By the end of WHFB crossbows and handguns were pretty similar; both were move-or-fire S4 weapons, the handgun traded 6" of range for an extra point of armour penetration. I'd rather not try balancing S5 small arms in LotR, or implementing some kind of extra-action-to-reload mechanism; any opinion on making it a cosmetic difference? (Pistols are an easy fix, I'm just treating them as 8"/S4 throwing weapons.)

3: Halberds. WHFB made them a flat +1S and they ended up being just better than the competition a lot of the time, especially as they didn't preclude shields. I'm thinking of allowing them to be used as either a spear or a weaker great weapon (+1S instead of +1 to wound) and not allowing them to be used with shields to let the versatility stand out without making either spears or great weapons irrelevant because of it.

Comments/remarks would be appreciated.

Balanced Game: Noun. A game in which all options and choices are worth using.
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Sacrifice to the Dark God Tzeentch




I can only think something about 3. what if you do the halberds as a great weapon spear that costs 2pt so the benefit is that you can use your great weapon at a safe distance but its more expensive than the spear and great weapon

 
   
Made in de
Contagious Dreadnought of Nurgle





1.
There are Lotr units with two hand weapons, and all of them have an additional attack because of that. Wild Uruks, Guardians of Karna, Iron guard, corsairs, morgul guys, Gimli, hobbit orks, Elladan & Elrohir, dragon knight of the easterlings - the list goes on. (I retranslated unit names from german, could be that some are off ). Just be careful with the points costs of these, as most of the units above are the best of their respective faction exactly because of that additional attack.

2.
Take crossbows and go on from there. Shorter range/ higher strength/ worse shooting ability should be enough to balance it.

3.
There are two halberds in the game already: Easterling halberds, which are pikes that, unlike other pikes, can be paired with shields.
The others are guys from Lossarnach who can choose to use their weapon either as two handed or as spear.

As you can see Lotr is also a GW system so some of the rules are pretty similar to WHFB .

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/05 16:55:53


 
   
Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

As above. There are plenty of examples of equivalent things in the LotR system already. Cost dual weapons appropriately and things are fine. Primitive firearms were slightly stronger than crossbows, but not absurdly so.

Id make Handguns strength 5, but with a shorter range and no ability to use Volley Fire. And of course you can't move and shoot them.

Halberds have several examples in the system as mentioned. Spear/Great Weapon that allows for a shield is the best choice I think.

Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in us
Gore-Soaked Lunatic Witchhunter







It looks like more has been added since I last paid attention than I thought it had; when I was actively playing LotR the big blue book and the LoME forces books were current (and the only models I remember getting an extra attack off of two weapons were Gimli and Elladan/Elrohir). I may need to go back and look at some of the more recent material.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
1.
There are Lotr units with two hand weapons, and all of them have an additional attack because of that. Wild Uruks, Guardians of Karna, Iron guard, corsairs, morgul guys, Gimli, hobbit orks, Elladan & Elrohir, dragon knight of the easterlings - the list goes on. (I retranslated unit names from german, could be that some are off ). Just be careful with the points costs of these, as most of the units above are the best of their respective faction exactly because of that additional attack.


That's exactly why I'm really leery of including it at all. Dual weapons granting an extra Attack works fine in WHFB because of how supporting attacks work; only the first rank gets the extra attack, and since you're giving up the extra rank from spears (and the ability to use shields) to do that it doesn't give you any extra attacks in a large unit, it's there to let skirmishers punch a bit above their raw weight of models. When it's just letting one dude do the job of two on a grand scale I'm worried it'd push the formation game aside somewhat by giving a constant advantage you normally need to position well to get.

Do you have much experience with said two-weapon units? How would you characterize their effect on gameplay?


2.
Take crossbows and go on from there. Shorter range/ higher strength/ worse shooting ability should be enough to balance it.


You're not worried putting S5 guns out would upset the role of melee/ranged combat? I don't have a lot of experience with artillery in LotR, if anyone could tell me how army-building changes in an artillery-heavy vs. artillery-light meta (if that's a thing) that might tell me more about how far I can push the WHFB ranged weapons.


3.
There are two halberds in the game already: Easterling halberds, which are pikes that, unlike other pikes, can be paired with shields.
The others are guys from Lossarnach who can choose to use their weapon either as two handed or as spear.


Good to know. With precedent I'm comfortable taking the Lossarnach strategy and making it a great weapon/spear bimodal weapon that precludes shields, as a consideration to Black Guard and Phoenix Guard (two WHFB units with halberds and no access to shields) and to give spears an advantage beyond cost over halberds on units that can take both.

Balanced Game: Noun. A game in which all options and choices are worth using.
Homebrew oldhammer project: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/790996.page#10896267
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Made in de
Contagious Dreadnought of Nurgle





 AnomanderRake wrote:
It looks like more has been added since I last paid attention than I thought it had; when I was actively playing LotR the big blue book and the LoME forces books were current (and the only models I remember getting an extra attack off of two weapons were Gimli and Elladan/Elrohir). I may need to go back and look at some of the more recent material.


Ah, indeed a lot has changed since then. S5 is not as rare as back then, for example all Uruk Hai-heroes have S5 and there's a Mordor Elite-unit with S5 straight away. And with the hobbit a lot of very strong profiles have been introduced to the game (not necessarily unbalancing it, as they are expensive points wise).


Sgt. Cortez wrote:
1.
There are Lotr units with two hand weapons, and all of them have an additional attack because of that. Wild Uruks, Guardians of Karna, Iron guard, corsairs, morgul guys, Gimli, hobbit orks, Elladan & Elrohir, dragon knight of the easterlings - the list goes on. (I retranslated unit names from german, could be that some are off ). Just be careful with the points costs of these, as most of the units above are the best of their respective faction exactly because of that additional attack.


That's exactly why I'm really leery of including it at all. Dual weapons granting an extra Attack works fine in WHFB because of how supporting attacks work; only the first rank gets the extra attack, and since you're giving up the extra rank from spears (and the ability to use shields) to do that it doesn't give you any extra attacks in a large unit, it's there to let skirmishers punch a bit above their raw weight of models. When it's just letting one dude do the job of two on a grand scale I'm worried it'd push the formation game aside somewhat by giving a constant advantage you normally need to position well to get.

Do you have much experience with said two-weapon units? How would you characterize their effect on gameplay?


They are good in small numbers but get expensive fast. You probably know Uruk-Hai Berserkers - they also have two attacks but nobody would have used a whole army of them. A shield in lotr is worth a lot . Dwarf Iron guard with throwing weapons, 2A, defense 6 are pretty tough and can do a lot - but they cost as much as three goblins. Being outnumbered is never good in lotr. It can get nasty if these units have access to cheap spears increasing their attacks even more (Harad is a strong example for that).
Hobbit hunter orks cost only 8 points and have 2 attacks - many say that's too cheap.


2.
Take crossbows and go on from there. Shorter range/ higher strength/ worse shooting ability should be enough to balance it.


You're not worried putting S5 guns out would upset the role of melee/ranged combat? I don't have a lot of experience with artillery in LotR, if anyone could tell me how army-building changes in an artillery-heavy vs. artillery-light meta (if that's a thing) that might tell me more about how far I can push the WHFB ranged weapons.


If these S5 guns have only a range of say 12" I wouldn't be too worried. Be aware I'm not familiar with WHFB fluff about guns, if they are well developped or comparable to the earliest middle aged guns, so I don't know if it would make sense if they were that short ranged. Otherwise take 18" like an ork bow and let it cost 2-3points. Remember you can still only use 33% of your army with ranged weapons.
There is no artillery meta to speak of I'd say. The new dwarf ballista is pretty strong as it negates enemy shooting, but still not an auto-include. Artillery in lotr is too unreliable and expensive to play an important role and most battles are in the 300-500points range. I use artillery in large siege battles(1000points+) with my friend, but there they have something to hit and don't take away ressources from the rest of my army. Remember with artillery you have to hit twice essentially: First a to-hit roll, then you roll if your shot hits what you wanted (6), hits something your enemy chooses (2-5) or doesn't hit at all (1).
   
Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

WHFB guns are across a spectrum. Dwarf handguns were rifled, but I don't recall this translating into any stat difference. Maybe a longer range.

Rangewise they were all shorter than bows and crossbows. Crossbows and Handguns in WHFB are both strength 4, but handguns are armor piercing. Bows were almost exclusively strength 3.

If you feel Strength 5 is too much for handguns, you could maybe give them a rule saying they always wound on 6s.

Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in us
Gore-Soaked Lunatic Witchhunter







Sgt. Cortez wrote:
They are good in small numbers but get expensive fast. You probably know Uruk-Hai Berserkers - they also have two attacks but nobody would have used a whole army of them. A shield in lotr is worth a lot . Dwarf Iron guard with throwing weapons, 2A, defense 6 are pretty tough and can do a lot - but they cost as much as three goblins. Being outnumbered is never good in lotr. It can get nasty if these units have access to cheap spears increasing their attacks even more (Harad is a strong example for that).
Hobbit hunter orks cost only 8 points and have 2 attacks - many say that's too cheap.


I've taken a rough count across WHFB and I think I'll try leaving the option in for more elite units (Witch Elves, Chaos Warriors, that kind of thing) and see what happens.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Grey Templar wrote:
WHFB guns are across a spectrum. Dwarf handguns were rifled, but I don't recall this translating into any stat difference. Maybe a longer range.

Rangewise they were all shorter than bows and crossbows. Crossbows and Handguns in WHFB are both strength 4, but handguns are armor piercing. Bows were almost exclusively strength 3.

If you feel Strength 5 is too much for handguns, you could maybe give them a rule saying they always wound on 6s.


WHFB crossbows and handguns (at least in 8th) had the same price, but the crossbow was 30" range and the handgun was 24" and had Armour Piercing.

I'm going to try Strength 5, 18" range, move-or-fire, and -1 to-hit penalty initially.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sgt. Cortez wrote:
...There is no artillery meta to speak of I'd say. The new dwarf ballista is pretty strong as it negates enemy shooting, but still not an auto-include. Artillery in lotr is too unreliable and expensive to play an important role and most battles are in the 300-500points range. I use artillery in large siege battles(1000points+) with my friend, but there they have something to hit and don't take away ressources from the rest of my army. Remember with artillery you have to hit twice essentially: First a to-hit roll, then you roll if your shot hits what you wanted (6), hits something your enemy chooses (2-5) or doesn't hit at all (1).


Yeah, I was kind of worried about that. A lot of the artillery in WHFB may be too large for LotR anyway (full-size cannons, trebuchets, daemon-possessed siege mortars...), but I'd be chopping off a good-sized chunk of what some armies do. Futzing with the artillery rules and/or expanding light artillery options (the harpoon ballista off the Dark Elf chariot could totally be manhandled by a two-man crew, and the Empire does have a grenade blunderbuss...) is going on my to-do list.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/11/09 20:18:50


Balanced Game: Noun. A game in which all options and choices are worth using.
Homebrew oldhammer project: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/790996.page#10896267
Meridian: Necromunda-based 40k skirmish: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/795374.page 
   
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 AnomanderRake wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sgt. Cortez wrote:
...There is no artillery meta to speak of I'd say. The new dwarf ballista is pretty strong as it negates enemy shooting, but still not an auto-include. Artillery in lotr is too unreliable and expensive to play an important role and most battles are in the 300-500points range. I use artillery in large siege battles(1000points+) with my friend, but there they have something to hit and don't take away ressources from the rest of my army. Remember with artillery you have to hit twice essentially: First a to-hit roll, then you roll if your shot hits what you wanted (6), hits something your enemy chooses (2-5) or doesn't hit at all (1).


Yeah, I was kind of worried about that. A lot of the artillery in WHFB may be too large for LotR anyway (full-size cannons, trebuchets, daemon-possessed siege mortars...), but I'd be chopping off a good-sized chunk of what some armies do. Futzing with the artillery rules and/or expanding light artillery options (the harpoon ballista off the Dark Elf chariot could totally be manhandled by a two-man crew, and the Empire does have a grenade blunderbuss...) is going on my to-do list.


There are Trebuchets in lotr . The problem is, the mordor catapult and gondor trebuchet have strength 10 already, you can't get higher than that. So every cannon, mortar or what have you will probably be very similar to these two. And I'd be very careful with making artillery in lotr hit better. When you are wounded by artillery you lose all hp and this game is about heroes/ monsters. If artillery could easily snipe those, balance could be off quite fast. If I recall correctly that was one of the problems of WHFB - cannons sniping most of the monsters turn 1.
For the harpoon ballista have a look at the gondorian ballista, with its D6 shots S7 it might be exactly what you are looking for. The new dwarfen chariot also has a rapid firing ballista, but I don't know its rules.
   
Made in us
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Sgt. Cortez wrote:
 AnomanderRake wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sgt. Cortez wrote:
...There is no artillery meta to speak of I'd say. The new dwarf ballista is pretty strong as it negates enemy shooting, but still not an auto-include. Artillery in lotr is too unreliable and expensive to play an important role and most battles are in the 300-500points range. I use artillery in large siege battles(1000points+) with my friend, but there they have something to hit and don't take away ressources from the rest of my army. Remember with artillery you have to hit twice essentially: First a to-hit roll, then you roll if your shot hits what you wanted (6), hits something your enemy chooses (2-5) or doesn't hit at all (1).


Yeah, I was kind of worried about that. A lot of the artillery in WHFB may be too large for LotR anyway (full-size cannons, trebuchets, daemon-possessed siege mortars...), but I'd be chopping off a good-sized chunk of what some armies do. Futzing with the artillery rules and/or expanding light artillery options (the harpoon ballista off the Dark Elf chariot could totally be manhandled by a two-man crew, and the Empire does have a grenade blunderbuss...) is going on my to-do list.


There are Trebuchets in lotr . The problem is, the mordor catapult and gondor trebuchet have strength 10 already, you can't get higher than that. So every cannon, mortar or what have you will probably be very similar to these two. And I'd be very careful with making artillery in lotr hit better. When you are wounded by artillery you lose all hp and this game is about heroes/ monsters. If artillery could easily snipe those, balance could be off quite fast. If I recall correctly that was one of the problems of WHFB - cannons sniping most of the monsters turn 1.
For the harpoon ballista have a look at the gondorian ballista, with its D6 shots S7 it might be exactly what you are looking for. The new dwarfen chariot also has a rapid firing ballista, but I don't know its rules.


True. Siege guns and trebuchets are going to need a look eventually, at the moment I'm thinking about the space in between the ballista (the Gondorian one is a good model for the High/Dark Elf repeater bolt throwers from WHFB, definitely) and the handgun, where things like Skaven team weapons, the small ballistae off elven chariots, and the troll-scale bows off the new Treekin (=Kurnoth Hunters) live.

Some of it's pretty straightforward (Skaven jezails are long-ranged cavalry-killing rifles carried by a two-rat team, so they'd pretty much just be long-ranged handguns), but the grenade rifles and the small ballistae may need to be more accurate than full-size artillery while still leaving scatter in as a thing. Probably a to-hit roll where a hit is just a hit, and on miss a different scatter table where a bigger chunk of the table is an outright miss.

I've been looking for the Iron Hills chariot, but nobody's got a review of that book that's going to tell me what the ranged attacks do, so I may have to wing it.

Balanced Game: Noun. A game in which all options and choices are worth using.
Homebrew oldhammer project: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/790996.page#10896267
Meridian: Necromunda-based 40k skirmish: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/795374.page 
   
Made in de
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There is a scatter mechanic in lotr when shooting artillery, on 2-5 your enemy chooses a model in 6" around your target, on most of the ballistae that area goes down to 3".
Since there are a lot of artillery units in whfb you could decide to make the smaller of them using not actually artillery rules (so no "instant death"). This way, you could have something with say S8, without "scatter" but at the same time not taking out a cave troll with one shot.
Another way could be special rules to differentiate the artillery a bit more. Some mechanic to let Skaven artillery explode for example. But at this point you are nearly creating a different rules system and could possibly think about playing AoS instead.
   
Made in us
Gore-Soaked Lunatic Witchhunter







Sgt. Cortez wrote:
There is a scatter mechanic in lotr when shooting artillery, on 2-5 your enemy chooses a model in 6" around your target, on most of the ballistae that area goes down to 3".
Since there are a lot of artillery units in whfb you could decide to make the smaller of them using not actually artillery rules (so no "instant death"). This way, you could have something with say S8, without "scatter" but at the same time not taking out a cave troll with one shot.
Another way could be special rules to differentiate the artillery a bit more. Some mechanic to let Skaven artillery explode for example. But at this point you are nearly creating a different rules system and could possibly think about playing AoS instead.


Given that one of the primary reasons I started this is that I really don't like AoS I don't think I'm going to go do that.

Balanced Game: Noun. A game in which all options and choices are worth using.
Homebrew oldhammer project: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/790996.page#10896267
Meridian: Necromunda-based 40k skirmish: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/795374.page 
   
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 AnomanderRake wrote:

Given that one of the primary reasons I started this is that I really don't like AoS I don't think I'm going to go do that.


Understandable. Perhaps the easiest way would be to start with the armies you/ your group owns and think about what makes their respective artillery units special/ what do you want to port to lotr. You could put a list here and maybe we can come up with possiblities to differentiate those units.

I'd still be careful with the introduction of overly strong/ many artillery units to lotr. You were worried about S5 guns, think about what artillery with area effects could do in a game with only 20-30 models per side. At the same time you obviously want to see these cool models on the table so you don't want to give them unreasonably high points costs.
   
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Not all LotR games have 20-30 models per side. The system scales quite nicely to much much larger games.

It's one of the few systems I think that perfectly transitions between Skirmish and War game.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/15 17:34:22


Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
 
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