I wanted to give
Oathmark another try and get my Middle Earth on with elves doing something epic. I drew up 3000 point armies for each side. Evil got a Dragon (700 points!) and I made the Nazgûl a level 5 spellcaster, but I gave him some orc and goblin spells because they seemed more in line with the books. The Nazgul causing dread with
Poison Cloud, Lifebane, Fear, Weakness or Afflict. The Elf spellcaster, was only level 4, but she got a
magic ring that gave her an extra spell, which she used to cast
Earthlines, giving her an extra spell casting die, effectively making her a budget level 5. Her other spells were
Trueflight (shooting),
Dispel, Confound and Mystic Shield.
The elves contained
a lot of archers, even drafting in my old Ral Partha archers for a big 18 figure unit, which naturally performed quite well. Although the smaller 12 figure units did alright too. My 6 figure unit of super elite Elf cavalry could dish out a lot of hurt, but it was also very fragile. Of course the game, played out over a week, was cursed with many duff rolls. Orcs need a 10 to hit the elf cavalry? They roll 2 of them. Dragon breathes fire on elf shield wall, nothing but smoke.Nazgul gets ready to cast a spell, fails his activation. Dragon runs away after being peppered by arrows? Orcs just shrug and keep advancing.
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| Army of Evil. Lots of Orcs and Goblins |
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| Elves. All bright and shiny, except for the sneaky ones in camoflage cloks. |
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| Early moves |
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| Ragged Evil advance |
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| Pathfinders sieze key hill. Which was a mistake. Should have put these guys in woods below hill to fight trolls and goblins, and put that big 18 figure unit of archers up here to shoot at everybody. |
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| Elf shieldwall, who spent a lot of time standing around waiting for the orcs |
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| Elves start shooting at the Big Damn Dragon. It's Enormous, so the hill doesn't block Line of Sight to it. |
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| Elf archers trying to secure flank, but have to deal with goblins and some trolls first. |
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| Looks scary, but rolled badly. Or rolled well, if you're an elf. |
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| "Somebody shoot that creepy guy on the horse!" Which they promptly do, killing him dead, but destroyed units don't cause any morale check, which seems odd. |
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| This charge should have gone better. What's the point of having 2 combat dice per figure if you can only ever roll 5? |
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| Trying something stupid. Even with a magic sword a heroic figure can't do much vs.Defense 14, and then it hits back with 5 dice and Fight 8! But the Dragon has accumulated 8 wounds and routs off table. Causing NO panic among the surrounding Orcs or Men. |
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| Game end: the Elves held after their King died. Cavalry have attacked flank of main orc thrust, destroying or mauling three orc units. |
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| Game End: other flank. Elves have cleared the woods of goblins and will now wheel to flank the Men and Orcs across the river. |
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| Staged but inspirational picture, in case you're viewing this on a phone and don't see my header pic. |
So some more thoughts:
- this was a pretty big game, with pretty complex terrain. Hard to make those tidy ranks. But if a game can't handle realistic terrain then it's losing my interest.
- some of the spells like Trueflight, must be intended to only last a turn, but it doesn't say so, whereas duration is specified with many other spells.
- lack of a short range shooting bonus bothers me.
- lack of javelins also bothers me.
- by letter of the rule, only units that break and run cause panic tests. A unit wiped out has no effect on it's neighbours. This will need a house rule I think.
- there should be some kind of Army Morale. Loss of key units (like your Dragon and your level 5 spellcaster!) should cause negative modifiers to Panic Tests.
- Champions can't be very heroic, they are very much lost in the press. Turin wouldn't be able to kill Glaurung with these rules. I guess my Elf King, like the Dwarf king Azaghal, wounded the dragon enough to make him flee. Saving the day but dieing in the process.
- Champions also lose their higher Fight value if they fight as part of a unit. It would be more complex math but giving the Champion dice a better target value would make the extra points more worthwhile.
- Rough terrain does not seem to effect charge or rank bonus. I really think it should. The Defensive works modifier seems too low to me.
The game was fun, but because I was playing solo I could fudge things. It might have been testing a live opponent's patience.
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That's an interesting report James, thank you. Lots of insightful comments. I have the Oathmark rule book and I’ve read it through several times, but I really don’t feel inclined to play it. Its beautifully produced but must be annoying as a “ flickthroughforarule” book as there are so many illustrations. I think it would take a lot of house rules and new profiles to make it work for anything Tolkien and I don’t think its worth the effort. Your comments confirm my own fears about terrain, heroes etc. It probably works well as a kind of Warhammersque battle game in its own right, using it as written and building the armies as suggested, but not for Tolkien. Maybe the new supplement will make it transfer better.
ReplyDeleteThanks for interesting write up. I'm yet to play, but like you Middle Earth is my inspiration. It certainly does seem strange that a unit wiped out doesn't trigger morale tests on nearby units. A number of people have commented on the max five dice in combat, so I'm interested to see that you're concerned.
ReplyDeleteThe 5 dice do keep it from getting too bloody.
DeleteAnd my Elf cavalry will keep rolling 5 dice even if only 2 are left.
Very nice and inspiring. It's very good to see everything painted, and that dragon towering over the rest of the troops is fantastic.
ReplyDeleteAbout what you said about Turin fighting the dragon, remember he couldn't even move the first time he tried to fight Glaurung, and in the second occasion he manage to kill him but attacking him from a conceal position and from beneath, wounding him in the soft underbelly!!
Thank you for posting this. If Thistle and Rose was in UK I would have a lot of those figures since I like them a lot (I mentioned before when I could buy them from Vendel I couldn't afford it, now I could I cannot afford paying high shipping rates along the "handling fee" by Royal Mail and any extra stuff they add sometimes.
Cheers.
Yes, valid point. Turin does kill Glaurung with stealth not in open battle.
DeleteYeah the US postal charges have gotten insane! Its like they dont care thats its cheaper to order things from China now. Just one of many things hurting that country right now.
I also only have read Oathmark so far, but the more I browse it, the less I feel inclined to play it.
ReplyDelete* The rule about maximum 5 dice per combat? That sorts of defeat the idea that combat is counted per figure instead of per unit? I would go for the Black Powder/Hail Ceasar approach and simply have a fixed number of dice per unit.
* Champions and commanders seem like a weird add-on to combat, sort of an afterthought.
* the procedure of rolling 2D10 and taking the max value also seems like a unnecessary gimmick.
I actually LIKE the 2 dice for activation. Gives a but of friction, but not too much. Too much failing activation is the biggest complaint I hear about Dragon Rampant. My Dragon with Activation of 2 still managed to roll double 1s at a critical juncture.
DeleteCommanders do command, and aren't just overpowered fighting units, which something the rules got right I think.