Lord of the Rings fans- I want your help (if you're interested)

I know this might sound really weird, but hang in there with me…

I am wanting to make a Lord of the Rings wargame. A wargame is usually a historical set of rules which allow the player to re-fight historical battles. The player uses little model soldiers to represent his army, a ruler to measure how far the soldiers can move in one turn, and dice to determine how well the soldiers fight or how brave they are. The rules give historical boundaries which ensure that the army fights in a historically-reasonable way, but since the player uses dice, you don’t always get the same result as in history.

In real battles there wasn’t always the same result- some soldiers fought really well, others ran away, generals made different battle plans and there were different battlefields that gave different advantages. In a wargame, all these factors are represented. Although dice determines how well your soldiers fight, because your game army is based on a real army, good soldiers are likely to fight well, and bad soldiers are likely to fight badly. It’s all factored in.

Anyway, to explain my title, I am wanting to make one such wargame for Lord of the Rings. For the rules dictating how to move and when to shoot etc. the mechanics of the game, I am simply editing a wargame called Ironbow which I downloaded FOR FREE off this website- The Perfect Captain . If you like historical battle games and board games, check the place out!

The reason for my title is that while the basic rules are already made, I need to write down the characteristics of the different soldiers (Riders of Rohan, Knights of Dol Amroth, Woodelves, Dwarves, orcs, Mumakils etc.).

q       How likely they were to run away?

q       How happy they were to fight hand-to-hand or did they try to stay away from enemy swords?

q       How likely they were to chase fleeing enemies (instead of obeying orders)?

q       What would they do if somebody started shooting at them?

q       Were they better at fighting horsemen or at fighting foot-soldiers?

     How did they fight?

I will be scouring Tolkien’s books for this type of information, but if you guys think of anything, please let me know! Quotes from the books that talk about the fighting abilities of soldiers would be really handy. There is a good chance this project will take years (lazy me) if I ever finish it at all, but I will post an example of what information about LOTR soldiers I am looking for soon.

Josh

11:07 AM - Aug. 25, 2009 - post comment

Hey!

Thats really interesting! Good luck!! :D

I have read some of the Silmarillion. To me-it's a hard read. I really should get back into it. So I think I might start back up were I left off and try and finnish it. I just hit little bumps of boring parts or whatever and I have a hard time.
I have heard about the Unfinished tales. It sounds SUPER interesting!! I really should look into it at our library. So far I don't think I have been able to find it. I'll have to try again next time we visit the library.
So far I have very much enjoyed the Silmarillion. It's nice to get a little more detail and history and know why certain things happened and why certain things didn't happen. :)

I did like that the elves came from the point of veiw that THEY WERE SUPER COOl! But, it wasn't accurate so that was kind of a bummer.
That totaly makes scence though about what you said. They did a really good job in the movie making the battle of Helms Deep a big thing. And in the book...well not so much. And I would understand why.

Haha! You could be a poet! :D

Thats really cool that someone actually did jump into battle like that. It's rather crazy...and REALLY brave!
It makes you love Aragorn and Gimli that much more. haha Plus, you get to see them together as friends. It's a fun scene.

Well thanks so much for what I think is my longest comment! HAHA
I hope you are well.
God Bless,
Sheilla Kiwi

Rachsters - 9:46 AM - Aug. 26, 2009

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