DaveT wrote:
That was another great read. Your to-scale walls and resulting huge siege towers look great.
Did you have the siege towers as legal targets for the trebuchets? Taking one out would have helped Good, I'd guess. On the other hand with only two on the table maybe it would be too imbalanced if Evil loses one?
I hear you on the bewildering lack of equipment specified in the old books, something that's generally much better these days (if still not perfect). I'd have thought that the horse option would be closer to the movies and books than the Fell Beast, though. Isn't this the iconic scene where he and Gandalf have their standoff? Might help with the balance problem as well.
Anyway, nice job and I look forward to the next one!
Thank you very much Dave!
Yes, the siege towers were legal targets, but I decided not to focus on them because Evil started pretty close to the walls and they had 4 Wounds each. Statistically I would then maybe make them lose 1 Wound each turn, but by turn 4 most Orcs would have probably already made it off and there would have been a good chance to not score a Wound, extending the period for which Orcs could escape and climb the walls.
It appears that the Trebuchets haven't really done much for the outcome of this scenario, because they only killed some random Orcs at the back, but it's possible those orcs would have otherwise made it to the walls and thus given Evil a win. The Trebuchets also were a common target for the Mordor Catapult, a number of Orcs from the siege tower and even the Witch-King, which helped the other Good troops stay safe from those (at least more so than if there were no Trebuchets).
In my BGiME playthrough of a similar scenario I did use my Trebuchets to fire on the Siege Towers, but that resulted in the awkward situation where I scored 3 wounds, but then there was a bit of disparity between the old and the new rules. In the new rules a Siege Tower only has 3 Wounds, in the old situation they have 4 Wounds. I try to play with the newest rules possible, but there I ruled that, because of the hugeness of these towers, 4 Wounds were more likely. But you are right that that would make a tremendous impact on the game. And I have to say I'm a bit disappointed with how the Siege rules are handled in the newest edition. They are scattered across different books, not always clear and it feels quite incomplete. In this supplement the Siege rules are generally clear, interesting and well detailed.
The horse for the Witch-King would indeed be closer to the books. But I think a Winged Beast is necessary here, because in 6 turns the Witch-King wouldn't be able to do much, even with a horse. Maybe to balance things more every turn it should become increasingly likely that Rohan arrives, so a 6 is needed for turn 6, but then a 5+ for turn 7, 4+ for turn 8, etc.
Thanks for your comments! I don't know when the next one will happen, but I'm hoping to play and post about it this year.
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