Games Workshop has generated a fair amount of buzz with their latest wargame, War of the Ring. Confusingly given the same name as the board game by Fantasy Flight Games, War of the Ring is a set of mass-battle rules that uses the same miniature range as GW's Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game.
Look and Feel
War of the Ring is available as a thick hardcover with glossy covers, jammed full of beautiful full-color shots of miniatures battles and stills from the New Line motion pictures. It shows typical high-quality Games Workshop production values. The cover is sturdy and the binding seems to be of good quality. One striking feature, at least for a GW game, is the completeness of the book - it contains the full rules for the game, along with full army lists that allow players to use almost every miniature ever released in GW's Lord of the Rings range, and a very strong hobby and scenarios section. The book also contains a number of battle reports to give a good sense of how the game plays out in practice.
Section 1: The Rules
The first section, roughly 1/4th of the book, is given over to the game rules. Basic gameplay looks a bit like a cross between the LotR Strategy Battle Game and GW's 10mm battle game, Warmaster. Instead of the more traditional I-go-you-go turn system of GW's other games, War of the Ring uses a shared turn sequence that is similar to the Strategy Battle Game.
The game turn is divided into four phases: the Move Phase, the Shoot Phase, the Charge Phase, and the Fight Phase. At the start of each turn, players roll for Priority; whoever wins Priority chooses whether he wants to go first or last in all of the phases in the turn. This opens up some interesting tactical decisions; is it better to go first, forcing your opponent to react to your actions, or to go last, giving you a chance to respond to (and possibly disrupt) your opponent's actions? Which choice is better will vary through the game, depending on what happens.
The basic unit in the game is the "Formation", which is composed of one or more "companies" of troops. Generally speaking, a company is a movement tray with either 8 models (for infantry) or 2 models (for cavalry). War machines and some special formations, like the Fellowship of the Ring or the White Council, have a different number of models on a movement tray (and use specially-sized trays), while monsters like Cave Trolls or Ents operate as individual models. Formations consist of at least one company, and up to a maximum of nine companies depending on the troop type.
There are some fairly simple rules about how companies in a formation are allowed to rank up with each other. Players are allowed to measure any distances at any time, which is refreshing for players who dislike the "guessing game" that occurs in many miniatures games. War of the Ring has some rules that will come up later on to prevent the game from devolving into a geometry fight, which I will touch on later. Companies use a stat line that is very similar to the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game profile.
The Movement Phase is surprisingly simple and elegant for a wargame. The player chooses a formation, and picks up and moves each company to where he would like it to go. No part of the company can move further than its Move value, which is generally 6" for most infantry and 10-12" for most cavalry. Musicians add an extra point of Movement to all companies in a formation, making them valuable upgrades. All companies in a formation must be moved before the player can start moving another formation, and companies in a formation can move through each other (but not through other formations). This system neatly eliminates strange measurements for wheeling, turning, reforming, and so on. Difficult terrain or enemies within 6" at the start of a move reduce a formation's Movement by half, and there are a few other special rules for flyers, disordered formations, and so on. Formations are not allowed to come into contact with other formations during the Move phase - that occurs during the Charge phase, later on. One small rules issue that the book fails to answer is whether a company can freely reverse its facing - some players interpret the movement rules to say that a company can turn 180 degrees for free, while others believe that it costs 4" or so of movement because the front-left corner has to move to where the rear-right corner was, and so on - as long as both players use the same interpretation, the game should work fine, but it is frustrating that the rules fail to address the question.
During the Shoot Phase, the player chooses a formation with a ranged attack, chooses a target formation, determines line of sight and range for each attacking company, and rolls to hit. Companies cannot normally shoot if they have moved more than half of their Move value in the previous phase. One nice feature of the game is that hitting, wounding, and armor saves are all resolved by a single dice roll, comparing the attacker's Strength to the target's Defense. This reduces the "buckets'o'dice" syndrome that plagues so many GW games, although it doesn't eliminate it. Each company generally has a number of attacks equal to the number of models in the company (8 for infantry, 2 for cavalry), plus a bonus determined by their Shoot value. "Supporting" companies, companies in a formation who can't draw line of sight to the target, each add an extra die to the formation's total shooting attacks, representing troops firing over the heads of the ranks in front of them. Annoyingly, the Shoot value doesn't tell you how many extra attacks a company gets directly - it grants a number of attacks equal to (5 - Shoot), which can be negative. One wonders why the Shoot value couldn't simply have been the number of extra shooting dice a company received, or why it couldn't have been a split in the Attacks statistic instead of a split in the Fight statistic (which really has nothing to do with shooting in this game). I guess that this was done to maintain a parallel with the Strategy Battle Game, but since the rules are fundamentally different I have a hard time seeing the value in this.
Regardless, every shooting attack has the potential to cause a "hit", using a table that is very similar to the classic GW "to wound" table. Companies have a stat called "Resilience", which determines how many hits are required to inflict a casualty. This is generally 1 for infantry and 2 for monsters and cavalry. If an infantry or cavalry formation loses enough models to shooting, it will be driven back a short distance. Monsters can be driven back, too, but suffer casualties a little differently from other companies - every time a monster suffers its Resilience in hits, it has to roll on a "Hard to Kill" table which either causes the monster to accumulate Wound counters, which add to future rolls on the table, or kills the monster outright. This is a nice way to make monsters tougher than regular troops, while still allowing them to get more and more heavily wounded on successive turns. Some monsters are harder to kill than others, being "Very Hard to Kill", "Extremely Hard to Kill", or even "Ridiculously Hard to Kill" - expressed either through a penalty to rolls on the "Hard to Kill" table or a different table altogether.
Again, there are a couple of rules questions that pop up here. For example, the game doesn't clarify whether formations can be driven out of defensible terrain by shooting - it seems that they cannot, but the rules aren't perfectly clear. Also, some Heroes have an ability that lets them inflict a casualty for every hit, regardless of the foe's Resilience, but it is unclear whether this is supposed to let them kill certain monsters outright or if it just allows them to make more rolls on the Hard to Kill table. These aren't huge rules problems, but they could have been cleared up very easily with a sentence or two, and it's surprising that they never came up in playtesting.
The Charge Phase is where formations come into contact. Again, the player nominates a formation, chooses a "spearhead" company from the formation, and determines whether the formation can charge its target. Forations that shot in the previous phase can't normally charge. The charge distance is determined by rolling a d6 and adding a number - 2" for infantry, 4" for monsters, 6" for cavalry, and 8" for flying monsters. On a roll of a 1, the charge fails, and on a 6 the charge grants extra bonus attacks to the charging formation. Variable charge distances are one of the ways that the game makes up for the free measuring at any time - even with careful measurement, it's hard to guarantee that a formation will charge successfully. Unit Banners allow formations to re-roll the Charge die, making them extremely valuable items for most formations. There are a few rules for determining how to rank up subsequent companies in a formation, as well as a sidebar on "the spirit of the game" which explains that the charging rules don't (and won't) cover every possible situation, and that players should basically try not to be jerks or rules lawyers when it comes to charges.
The Fight phase is where combat is resolved. The player with Priority decides in what order fights will be resolved. Companies strike in an order determined by their type - monsters strike first, followed by cavalry, and infantry strikes last. Another rules annoyance is that the Fight section does not contain enough examples to explain the significance of the striking order - while it appears that the main value of striking first is to deplete supporting companies, some players believe that these attacks reduce the number of attacks made by companies in base contact. While this appears to be a misunderstanding based on the way fighting works in Warhammer Fantasy Battles, the examples in the rulebook don't provide clear support for either interpretation. This is a fairly major rules issue, and significantly impacts the relative value of monsters, cavalry, and infantry. Hopefully the question will be addressed in a FAQ fairly soon.
Hits and wounds are handled in basically the same way as in the Shoot phase. Charging companies receive a number of bonus attacks based on their type; Cavalry, in particular, are vastly more powerful when they charge than when they are charged. Companies with a higher Fight value than their opponent also gain bonus attacks, and companies that are being attacked in the flank or rear suffer a penalty to the number of attacks they receive. The winner of each combat is determined in much the same way as in Warhammer Fantasy Battles - whichever side scores the most casualties wins, and the loser has to take a Panic test. Monsters each only count as one casualty, and only if they are actually killed, so monsters never actually take Panic tests unless they have friendly infantry or cavalry in the same fight. Each formation on the losing side rolls a die; generally, the formation will be Disordered, ruining its fighting effectiveness, diminishing its maneuvering options, and potentially causing it to take extra hits. The formation must make a Courage test at the start of its next Move action to shake off the Disordered condition. In some cases, the formation might instead flee the battle, or be Steadfast and suffer no additional penalty for losing the fight. Some troops have a special rule making them more likely to be Steadfast.
At the end of a fight, all formations are slightly separated from each other, so War of the Ring never has the same protracted, multi-round combats that occur in some other games. Players will sometimes have an opportunity to move depleted formations out of a fight, to bring in reinforcements, or even to charge Disordered formations and slaughter them mercilessly.
At the end of the Rules section, War of the Ring includes the special rules for weapons, shields, and heroes. The equipment is nicely done, with fairly simple rules and believable effects; for example, shields add a bonus to a formation's Defense stat from the front, and grant a bigger bonus to infantry than to cavalry. Two-handed weapons grant a bonus to hit (making them more likely to wound) but a penalty to Fight value (reducing their bonus attacks or granting extra attacks to a more skilled opponent). Pikes grant a bonus to a company's Fight value, either reducing the opponent's attacks or granting the pikemen extra attacks, and remove the charge bonus from both the pikemen and from anyone charging them from the front - this makes pikes effective weapons against infantry, cavalry, and monsters, without having complicated special rules.
There are several special rules used by various formations, as well, but most of these merely modify the basic rules instead of adding entirely new abilities. For example, Expert Riders allows cavalry armed with ranged weapons to shoot even if they moved their full value, and to charge even if they shot this turn. Pathfinder allows formations to treat certain types of difficult terrain as open ground during movement.
Heroes and Epic Heroes have a profound effect on the game. Most significant is their ability to use Might; heroes have 1 or more points of Might, which can be used to modify any die roll made by the hero or the hero's formation up or down by 1 point per point of Might spent. For example, if a formation rolls a "1" on its charge die, a hero can spend a point of Might to make this a "2" so that the formation doesn't automatically fail its charge. Might can also be used to call Heroic Actions, or special Epic Actions for heroes who have them. A Heroic Action costs one point of Might, and usually allows the hero's formation to take its action first in a phase, regardless of who has Priority. Heroes can also declare Heroic Duels, which allow them to fight an enemy hero directly, possibly killing the enemy hero before the rest of the fight is resolved. Epic Actions allow for even more effects, such as increasing a formation's Strength or giving bonus attacks. Heroes and Epic Heroes also grant their Fight and Courage values to the company that they are with, representing their leadership skills. An annoying feature of heroes is that many of them have special rules that can never be used, because a hero's special rules are never conferred to his company or formation. For example, Lurtz has the Pathfinder rule, but as the rules are written, he can never actually use this rule - he moves exactly the same way his unit moves, no matter what.
While some players feel that Heroes are too important in War of the Ring, I think that their abilities are generally focused on command and control, instead of making them combat monsters like they are in Warhammer Fantasy Battles, Warhammer 40k, and even the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game. The idea that a great general's main contribution to a battle is his personal combat skill (or the skill of his personal bodyguards) never really sat right with me. I like the approach taken by War of the Ring, where heroes have a huge impact on the battle, but one which is most significantly felt in their ability to lead troops.
Magic is also potentially powerful in War of the Ring, but again, most spells modify a target's statistics rather than having a direct impact on the game. A few spells do direct damage, which is generally treated as a shooting attack. I'm not thrilled by this, as I only remember one Tolkien battle (in The Hobbit) where a magic-using character harmed enemies by shooting fireballs at them. Still, the spells are generally potent without being game-changing, which feels like the right place for magic to be.
The rules section wraps up with a few basic setups for battles. There are three scenarios; one is a classic battle to the death, while the other two focus on seizing and holding objectives. A nice touch is that, when an objective is contested at the end of a game, infantry beats cavalry, who beat monsters - this adds extra value to infantry and diminishes the superior combat ability of monsters, adding another layer of tactical complexity without adding much complexity to the rules themselves. There are also three basic deployment setups - along the table's long edges, along the short edges, or randomly arriving on different table edges through the course of a game. The scenarios and setup are not especially innovative, but add some nice variety to the standard deployment of some other games.
Armies of Middle Earth
The second section, taking up almost half of the rulebook, consists of the army lists. There are ten (sort of - see below) different army lists (5 Good and 5 Evil), and each army contains Common formations, Rare formations, Legendary Formations and Epic Heroes. The army creation rules are fairly straightforward: each army must have at least 1 Common formation and at least 1 Legendary formation or an Epic Hero. An army cannot have more Rare formations than Common formations, and cannot have more Rare companies than Common companies. An army may have as many Legendary formations and Epic Heroes as it can fit into its points allowance, but can only have one 'copy' of each Legendary formation or Epic Hero. Some Epic Heroes and Legendary formations are mutually exclusive; for example, if an army includes the Fellowship of the Ring, it cannot contain any of the Legendary formations or Epic Heroes who are also members of the Fellowship (with the odd exceptions of Merry and Pippin, which I assume to be an oversight). An army may also include up to 25% of its total points in Allies chosen from another Good army list, for Good armies, or another Evil army list, for Evil armies. These allies are subject to the same restrictions as the rest of the army, so all of your allies could be Rare formations as long as your whole army contains more Common formations and companies than Rare ones.
Armies may also choose a certain number of Fortunes or Fates (for good and Evil armies, respectively). These are basically extra special rules, such as giving one formation weapons that are especially effective against certain foes, or altering an opponent's die roll once per game. The main problem with these is that one of the Fortunes, Counterspell, appears to have more general utility for its points cost than the rest, and becomes an easy choice for Good armies. Fortunes and Fates don't appear to be really game-altering, though, and instead allow players to spring a minor surprise on their opponents.
The ten armies are really only nine armies - one of the Good armies, the Forgotten Kingdoms, can only be taken as allies - but cover the Lord of the Rings miniatures range very well. I don't have time to go over the lists in detail, so I will give a very brief synopsis after some general thoughts about the lists.
First, the lists contain a mix of Second and Third Age models, so the rules don't actively discourage an army containing, say, Boromir and Isildur leading a force of Knights of Dol Amroth supported by Riders of the Dead. This will probably cause disgust when Tolkien purists encounter an "unhistorical" army, but it's likely that most players will try to maintain a fairly thematic force outside of competitive play.
Secondly, the Good armies tend to be a bit one-sided. The Gondor and Rohan lists don't have any magic or monsters, while the Dwarf list doesn't have any cavalry or magic. The Elven list is a little short on cavalry and consists exclusively of expensive elites. The Evil armies, on the other hand, all contain a mix of infantry, cavalry, monsters, and magic-users, with both expensive elites and cheap grunts. This makes the Evil lists more appealing from a thematic standpoint, although the ally rules mean that Good isn't really at a disadvantage from a gameplay perspective - it simply means that they need allies to round their forces out, while Evil can usually make a balanced force using a single list.
Thirdly, the rules suffer from more unclear wordings here. Legendary formations are listed as costing "x points + y points per company" - the wording about command companies implies that the x points includes the command company, but the first battle report in the book makes it sound as though the x points don't include the first company. This all sounds a bit confusing, because frankly it is. This is another significant rules point that you will need to clarify with your opponent before a game. It seems pretty clear from the battle reports in the book and in White Dwarf, and from the relative costs of Legendary formations and Epic Heroes that the Legendary formations don't include a "free" company, but it is an easy mistake to make and the book makes no real effort to clarify things.
The army lists are:
Gondor & Arnor - includes most of the forces of Men who are not allied with Sauron, except for...
The Kingdom of Rohan - includes all of the Rohirrim.
The Elven Kingdoms - includes the forces of Rivendell, Lothlorien, the Wood Elves of Mirkwood, and the ancient High Elves.
The Dwarf Holds - includes the forces of the Lonely Mountain, the Dwarf stronghold of Moria, and any other non-evil Dwarf settlements in Middle Earth.
The Forgotten Kingdoms - includes Hobbits, Ents, Eagles, the Fellowship of the Ring (as a formation), the White Council, and various other heroes and formations that don't fit neatly into other Good armies, but are clearly allied with Good.
Mordor - includes the orcs and trolls who fight directly for Sauron, along with the Ringwraiths, Sauron himself, and Gollum.
The Fortress of Isengard - includes the orcs and evil men who fight for Saruman.
The Misty Mountains - includes the goblins of the Misty Mountains, their wild Warg allies, the spiders of Mirkwood, cave trolls, dragons, and balrogs.
The Fallen Realms - includes all of the evil men who fight for Sauron.
Angmar - an odd list, consisting of ghosts and spirits, supported by orcs and barbarians, allied with Sauron.
Collecting, Painting, & Playing Battles
This is the hobby section, including a very brief painting guide, some information on making movement trays, and some information about collecting an army. The section touches on terrain, but notably doesn't have any information on actually building terrain.
The main part of this section is taken up with rules for recreating various battles from the books and the films. Each battle gives suggested forces, deployment, special rules, and victory conditions; most also include a brief synopsis of the playtest results. I really enjoyed this section, as it gives a lot of insight into what the designers were thinking when they created the game, as well as what the intent was - like Warhammer Fantasy Battles and Warhammer 40k, and unlike Warmachine/Hordes and many other games, War of the Ring is clearly designed to be a fun, beer-and-pretzels game rather than a competitive tournament game. This section of the rulebook serves as fair warning to players who wish to play competitively - don't expect War of the Ring to be a perfectly balanced system that addresses the shortcomings of GW's other "core" games.
Conclusion
Overall, War of the Ring is a solid game, and I look forward to playing it. My main criticism is that the rules are described in a slightly sloppy, rushed manner which leaves some significant questions unanswered. While I don't expect a set of rules to answer every possible question, some of the issues are pretty glaring and it's hard to believe that they never came up during playtesting. A secondary, but minor concern is that the game requires a fairly substantial outlay in miniatures to build an army, and many of the specialized units like Half-Trolls are ridiculously expensive to collect. The excellent Lord of the Rings plastic range means that collecting a large number of core units shouldn't be too hard for any army, though.
