I am a war of the ring vet new to the sbg and have got a question about working out a fight involving multiple models. We ran into a situation where i had trapped an eagle by engaging it with 2x trolls and two goblins. After i had made base contact and completed my move, my opponent moved some dwarf models to come into contact with both of my trolls and goblins. By the fight phase, i had 2 x trolls and 2x goblins vs an eagle and 3 x dwarfs.

How do you work out this fight? Do you simply add up all the attacks on each side, roll for highest score, and determine who wins the fight or does the person with priority get to subdivide the fight into smaller engagements? Or is it something else we are not thinking of?

Thanks in advance

The player with priority chooses which models are part of which fight.
I am not sure if I understand your description of the models' position, but I think it would look something like this:
D
G G
E
T T
D D

(D=dwarf, G=goblin, E=eagle, T=troll. The upper Dwarf is touching both goblins, the other dwarves are each touching a troll and both goblins and trolls are touching the eagle.)

If you had priority, you could say that: the upper Dwarf will fight both Goblins. One Troll will fight a Dwarf. The other Troll will fight both a Dwarf and the Eagle.

I hope I was making sense and was to some help.

You have to break up all the fights, and as Elessar said, the player with priority does the breaking. The fights must be broken down so that no fight has more than 1:X, IOW, one side always has one model, the other can have one or more. So if you had a goblin charged by two dwarves, that's 1:2. If two more goblins charge one of those dwarves, you'd break it up so that one dwarf fights one goblin, the other dwarf fights two.

Thanks for the responses.

Based on what you said, priority makes a huge diffence when sorting out a fight. This is the case even if i do not have priority but do heroic combat.....my opponent with priority can possibly put my hero at a disadvantage by seperating him from the intended fight and surrounding the hero with enemies. I can see lots of might being thrown around to salvadge the situation.


I also now understand the ratio piece. The bottom line is every enemy must be fighti at least another enemy.

Thanks again.

It can, which is why you'll likely find yourself taking that into account in the Move phase to avoid it

Yes. On that note I have taken to making shieldwalls out of my warriors behind fights that I want to preserve so that enemies can't get in there and pull my warriors off. Very few things are more annoying than a troll that won't die courtesy of someone who keeps pulling off one's normal lads.

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"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”

There are three rules to obey when breaking up fights.

1) Every fight has one side with exactly one model on it.
2) Every model in base contact with the enemy must fight exactly once.
3) Only models in base contact with an enemy model fight, spear armed models not based by enemies don't fight, they add one attack to the model they are supporting.

So long as he observes those three rules the player with priority can break up the fights however he likes.

A related question:

When I have multiple attacks directed against a multiple wounds mini (say, an Uruk Berserker against a Captain), the Uruk wins, and then throws enough to wound the captain on both his attacks, do both of the attacks substract a wound from the Captain, or just one? And what if I charge an Ent with 8-9 Moria Goblins?

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"... Telchar wrought it in the deeps of time."
-On Andùril, The Lord of the Rings

From the rules: "If a model with multiple Attacks wins a fight then it strikes the enemy once per Attack. So, a Hero with 2 Attacks rolls two dice to see if he inflicts a Wound - both dice count so he either inflicts no wound, 1 wound or 2 wounds."

That is correct. Unless a model is immobilized, transfixed, or their equivalent, then you roll just as many dice for determining wounds as you did for winning the fight, with the exception of when the opponent is trapped.

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"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”