I didn't write this. I got it of
Miths post. He got it from another site. Hope this helps.
LotR is a lot simpler in the sense that the game
mechanics can be taught to anyone in 15 minutes and after that
you barely need to refer to the rulebook. The actual battles
are much, much more complex though. Far more realistic too.
For me, the key differences are the following:
1/ The
turn sequence. WFB and 40k both require that a player watch
while his opponent moves his entire army, then shoots with his
entire army, then attacks with his entire army. This limits
the ability of players to react to enemy movement and to move
out of the way of incoming fire. LotR on the other hand has
just one player move, then the other. Then the first player
shoots, then the other does. This allows for much more
realistic and adaptive movement, shooting, and combat
initiation. It is a concept so simple but so brilliant I
cannot understand why it wasn't adapted for use in 4th Edition
40k as well. It is undisputably a better, more realistic turn
sequence.
The LotR turn sequence requires players to
constantly think ahead, to use Priority to give them an
advantage. Unlike WFB, where once who goes first is decided
that is fixed until the end of the game, in LotR the player to
go first in each turn changes. At the start of each turn both
players roll a die, highest goes first. In the case of a draw,
the player who went second gets Priority. The implications of
this are that you know if you are more or less likely to go
first next turn and make decisions accordingly. Cavalry need
to charge in on turns where the player has lost Priority so
that in the following turn they are (more likely) able to
withdraw rather than be swarmed by infantry that negate their
bonuses. Even within the turns the alternating sequence makes
for very tactical play. Move up to a great firing position and
the opponent has a chance to hide before you get a chance to
shoot, or they can charge you to prevent you shooting, or they
can get a hero to expend a point of Might from their finite
store to allow them to move or shoot first on a small part of
the battlefield.
2/ Game length. WFB and 40k both have
much fewer turns in which to resolve things. 4-6 turns doesn't
give much room for to jockey for position and utilise movement
properly. Movement is the most important thing in any wargame,
whether it be to set up a charge, to outflank the enemy to
gain an advantage, to set up a good fire position, or to avoid
any of the above. I lost count of the number of games of 40k
where I was in combat on the second turn and after that it was
just a case of damage limitation for my Imperial Guard. Games
of LotR can go on to 20 turns easily in the same amount of
time and the ebb and flow of the battle can change things so
much.
3/ Army selection. WFB and 40k both rely heavily
on choosing the best army that you can. This doesn't make
players good generals, it makes them good recruiting officers.
I'm sure it is a valid intellectual exercise in of itself, but
pre-game decisions should not be the major influence on who
wins the game. Ideally the game should start with both players
having an EQUAL chance to win regardless of the troops at
their disposal. Also, the endless special abilities and magic
items and wargear choices in WFB and 40k do mean that often it
is a case of getting that uber hero/unit/wargear item/magic
item/banner etc into combat so it can steamroller the entire
enemy line and win you the game. I know both the other core
games periodically tweak the power levels of said things, they
have varied in effectiveness so much over the various
editions, but it remains a basic part of both games in many
ways. One of the reasons why Warhammer Ancients Battles
remains so superior as a gaming system to normal WFB is that
all the uber heroes, monsters, magic items etc are taken out
of the equation. When that happens all you are left with is
movement and application of force, which is how real battles
are won and lost.
Admittedly LotR has seen an influx of
ever increasingly powerful characters over the last couple of
years, the newer versions of Boromir, Gothmog and several
others can indeed tear big holes in the enemy army. At no
point has any single hero ever become a gamewinning choice
though, a similar number of points of troops always has the
advantage. There is no winning army in LotR, no selection that
gives an advantage over all others, no automatic choice that
the player cannot leave home without (apart from ensuring a
third of the army is archers, which always pays dividends).
Look at all the units in 40k and WFB that never get used, look
at all the wargear or magic items that are not worth the
points. I can't think of anything in the official LotR rules
that is a complete waste of time, everything gets fielded and
can contribute towards victory. (The pisspoor White Dwarf
rules Mat Ward keeps churning out are another matter, we'll
pretend those things don't exist, which is fair as he keeps
inventing stuff that isn't in the background material and
making unbalanced rules for them.)
5/ Deployment and
redeployment. As with army selection in WFB, how you deploy
your troops can win or lose you the game almost by itself.
With such large, unwieldy blocks of troops you are effectively
screwed if your big block of pointy death ends up stuck at the
wrong end of the line. One poster reduced LotR battles down to
a couple of basic forms, WFB to an outsider looks just the
same: make a line of troops and roll it forward into the
enemy. If you are lucky, you'll have just enough time and
space to slightly shuffle a unit along the line a bit, but
mostly you'll have to deal with the deployment you chose.
Again, I'm sure planning the perfect deployment is a valid
intellectual exercise in its own right, but that still puts
major limits on how you get to move your units in the game
itself to the point where the player can often just be going
through the motions in many ways.
6/ Battlefield
modelling. This is where LotR really shines over WFB. In WFB
you form up your blocks according to the random and arbitrary
bonuses attributed by the game mechanics. You really don't get
much say in the matter, you must include X, Y and Z to make it
an effective unit. In LotR, the bonuses are there, just most
of the time they are not spelled out so blatantly. A good
example are the pike rules. Novice players always wonder why
pikes don't have an advantage against cavalry, and start
trying to write some house rule where horses get skewered by
them. But look how they really work. A single pikeman gets
ridden down by a horseman, and that is realistic because an 18
foot pole can't turn to face a fast moving rider quick enough.
Historically accurate in a one-on-one situation. Line up a
whole load of pikes though to form a block, and the horseman
ends up in a losing situation, his two attacks leaving him
likely to lose against the three attack maximum of the pikeman
who now has support. The bonuses are there, you just need to
line them up in different ways to activate it. And flanking?
Sure, send the cavalry around to the sides and rear of the
formation and you can ensure that fewer pikemen can join in
the fight, bringing the odds back down into the favour of the
attacker. It is all there, it just isn't listed as "do this
and get +1".
7/ Formations. Okay, so in Warhammer you
can make rectangular blocks with your models, a deep one for a
rank bonus, and a wide one for better ranged fire and to
defend a wider area. Oh, and Bretonnians get to use a wedge
and skirmishers spread out a bit. That's it? Seriously? In
LotR I can make a block, a line, a hollow square/circle, a
wedge. Every single possible formation you have ever read
about or imagined can be replicated in the LotR rules, AND
they give real bonuses for doing so. I can make a double line
of spears and curl the edges back to form a circle if you look
like you are in danger of flanking the line. I can use a hero
to form the tip of a wedge and drive deep into the heart of
one of your formations. I can form dense pike blocks that
split apart to allow cavalry to pass through before reforming
again. I can keep reserves behind the main line to plug holes
in formations. The level of control makes WFB look like clumsy
and artfificial by comparison.
8/ Tactical control.
Warhammer games are not better at massed combat than LotR.
This is an illusion based on the fact that you put more models
on the table in Warhammer. So what? Is that block of 30
spearmen really 30 models? You move it as one block, you turn
it as one block, it fights as one block. Most of the models
never even get to fight, they are just there to provide an
arbitrary rank bonus and they get removed before they get to
raise a sword. I'm sure all the Warhammer players here can
tell stories of blocks of men being killed or driven off
without getting a single kill. So, I say again, is that really
30 men? Or 50? Or 100? No, it is one unit. The fact it has
multiple attacks and multiple wounds still doesn't change the
fact that the player still has just 5-10 units to move around.
LotR on the other hand, which treats every single
warrior as an individual, means we have usually 50 units to
move around. Those units can form up, break apart, reform ad
infinitum. Choose the shape of formation that benefits you
most and switch to it in an instant. In WFB, you can't split
up that block of 30 spearmen to chase two different units. You
can't decide to break some off to go and reinforce another.
You can't keep some men back as a reserve ready to join a
weakening formation. LotR can do all of this, that makes it
better.
9/ Realistic ebb and flow. LotR battles look
more realistic for several reasons. One of which is the
pushback rule. In WFB the big blocks of men crash into each
other and grind away until one side or the other runs or is
destroyed. In LotR, the battle lines crash into each other
just the same, but then things get interesting. The winners
push back the losers even if they are not killed. This is one
of the best things about the game. If they can't move back due
to the press of bodies they are more likely to die (which
simulates the danger of not having enough room to fight), but
if they are driven back it opens up a gap in the enemy
formation. The victorious warriors can then push into the gap
and drive the wedge deeper over following turns. In WFB the
big blocks remain blocks, in LotR a formation can be split in
two, reform into new formations, fall back and join up with
new troops to refresh the formation. A snapshot of any WFB
game shows unrealistic looking blocks of models. A snapshot of
any LotR game shows a swirling melee. The difference is not
just aesthetic, the player has to control the models in the
LotR melee to make sure they do not get surrounded and
isolated, to make sure that the various weapon types support
each other, to make sure that models do not get trapped, to
push open weak points in the line ... the level of
micromanagement in LotR leaves WFB's pushing around of 5-10
units looking positively juvenile by comparison.
Okay,
I know that last comment will sound contentious to WFB players
who will want to point out that unit X contains this banner
and that unit Y contains models that have bonuses for
something or other. I appreciate that, but LotR games have
bonuses for banners, special rules for weapons and heroes and
various other things, but put all that aside for a moment. In
LotR you control 30, 50, 100 units. WFB tends to have 5-10
units, sometimes as many as 15 even. All wargames boil down to
movement and application of force, and LotR allows more
control of this. There is no contest then, LotR is superior. I
can do the same things that a WFB player does, but I can do it
better and with more control. I can also do many things that a
WFB player cannot, things that real generals could.
10/
Heroes. LotR heroes have a limited store of dice modifiers
called Might, Will and Fate. These give them bonuses beyond
their normal ability to fight better, to kill more , and to
survive longer. They are a finite supply though, and the net
effect of using these points means that heroes can have a game
changing effect in small doses, but they run out. In LotR,
heroes get tired the longer the game goes on.
There is
more, much more, but I think you get the gist of things. I
don't wish in any way to come across as overly negative about
Warhammer. It is a still a good game in many ways, it is just
that LotR is better. I've read many rulesets over the years
and LotR gives a free-flowing game that rewards realistic real
world tactics. LotR can be learnt in minutes but still gives
victory to the best player nine times out of ten. LotR is very
adaptable, being suitable for any time period and weapon use.
GW themselves used a mod of LotR to form the best ever Wild
West set of rules recently. A friend is currently adapting it
to use for pirates, another chap I read of used it for Samurai
games, and I still plan to use the system for my Darkest
Africa models. There are still some areas in LotR that need a
little polish (some of which have been done in the latest
edition, some of which haven't), but overall it is a solid
game system that works and works well. No other gaming system
can do as much in modelling a battlefield, no other gaming
system offers as much control, no other gaming system is as
flexible, no other gaming system is so applicable to so many
situations. Using the LotR rules you can do everything from a
small skirmish to a giant battle, a castle siege to a ship
boarding action. A few simple principles cover everything you
could ever want to do, and you can teach it in just 15 minutes
and hardly ever need to refer back to the
rulebook.
Look beyond the simple mechanics of the game,
look instead at what the simplicity allows you to do. Simple
rules mean you have less things getting in the way of what
you, the general, wants to do. LotR may not be to everyone's
taste, and part of that may be the models or the background.
The system though can do anything you want it to, there is no
limitation on the player's tactical inventiveness.
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