The War for Middle Earth: The Return of the Blog.

So, it has only taken me three years to come back to this project. In between have been some flirtations with the Great War, 2 new businesses, moving house, and the usual vicissitudes of life.

In short, life got in the road.

But I am back, and I have been rethinking my approach. One of the reasons why the idea stalled was I was making it too complicated and generally overthinking it. Time to simplify. And the easiest way to simpify is simply ti use something I already have. SPI's old War of the Ring.

So I have mounted the map, put it up on the wall, set up the campaign game and we are ready to roll.

The SPI War of the Ring had two games - the character game and the campaign game. The character game was 'OK' but most people agree that the campaign game was a bit broken and well, a bit dull. It should have been fun, people wanted it to be fun, and when I first opened it as an adolescent (Xmas present), it looked fun. But it wasn't fun.

So to deal with that, I will make a couple of simple changes. Well, hopefully simple.

I will take the character game out altogether. The campaign opens just after the breaking of the fellowship. Boromir is dead, Frodo and Sam have literally disappeared off the map, and Merry & Pippin are in Fangorn with Gandalf the White. Aragorn, Gimli & Legolas are in East Emnet.
The ring will be destroyed after a random amount of time. We assume the ringbearer will succeed eventually. Sauron never imagined that destroying the ring was the goal of the West, and so did not guard against the possibility. The drama for the players comes from the not knowing when. If the forces of evil move quickly, then there will be no good cities left, and the orcs will rule even without Sauron. Alternatively, if Good can hold on long enough, then Sauron will ultimately be defeated. So then the race is on for the evil player - how much can they conquer in as quick a time as possible, but they are still limited by the shadow poiint mechanism. For good, holding on as long as possible to give the ringbearer a chance to save the world before it is too late.
So...each turn, evil has shadow points that it can use for moving armies, attacking or searching for the ring or all 3. Nazgul give bonuses. For good, they just have to hang on. Pick where to make a stand and when to fall back.
When will the ringbearer succeed? How about this for a trial mechanism Roll for progress, each turn. d6. +1 for gandalf helping (taken off the board). -1 for every SP and -0.5 for every nazgul used in searching (can't lead armies). When the total adds up to 20 or 30 maybe (I can fudge it)?? then the ring is destroyed . Rolls by umpire.
Evil armies must have a nazgul with them to move (max of 9 armies).
Shadow Points increase by capturing good cities/regions?
Saruman player?? Just one move at a time?

Some stuff to work out, but basically if I follow the SPI rules, and depart from them when it seems more fun, then all good. Its my campaign so like all good umpires, I will do what I like.

In terms of scale, I still like the overall relationship using the three rules sets for skirmish (LOTR SBG), intermediate (GW WOTR) and grand tactical (Warmaster/BoFA).

So the figure scale is roughly:
Skirmish scale - SBG Rules 1 figure = 1 man
Intermediate scale - WotR Rules - 1 figure = 15 men; 6 figures = 1 Company of 90-100 men; 4 company bases is a 'formation' of 400 men (cavalry formation of 8 figures on 4 bases = 100 riders)
Grand scale - BoFA Rules - 1 figure = 25-30 men; 10-12 figures = 1 base (1 WotR Formation); 3 bases = a 'regiment' of 1000 men (1 base of cavalry of 4 figures is a WOTR cavalry formation, so a regiment of 3 bases = 300 cavalry).

The points on the campaign map counters can be up to 25 and 30 point counters for orcs, and around 10 to 15 point counters for good. So for a single strenth point could represent 500 pts in the SBG (roughly 50 to 70 figures a side - about as much as you want for a skirmish game); 100 points in the WOTR rules (so a 10 point counter is about a 1,000 point WOTR army) and I will work out the equivalence for BOFA when I get there - perhaps it is 50 or 25 points.

Overall situation at turn 1.