Margana-the last battle

[Wilgut Spleens]

https://wilgut.blogspot.com/2021/08/margana-last-battle-malthodor.html

The concluding installment of a five year campaign in the fantasic land of Margana, an annagrammatiucal world of Tolkien, a solo campaign using Fantastic Battles Rules System

[Pattus Magnus]

Thats a great battle report! Very interesting to hear your impressions of the game and the campaign system. I have the rules, but haven’t tried them yet. I think I’ll have to give them a spin sometime soon!

[Grumpy Gnome]

Brilliant work mate! Great to see those Swan Knights… despite their tragic end.

I liked your summary of the rules and agree about the feel of Tolkien’s battles. Morale and magic surrounding it is essential to capture that Tolkien feel.

[fred]

Great campaign, and good to hear you have enjoyed playing though it and writing it up for the rest of us!

Very interesting comments at the end both around the special rules and the application of the rules to LoTR.

I suppose with LoTR - are the battles dominated by heroes, or is it the story telling of the battles that are dominated by heroes? (This may be a silly question for fictional battles…)

Interesting thoughts about Expendable, and the other negative traits. I’m fairly sure my mate asked for Expendable to be put in during play testing. Unreliable is more about keeping units in command range, rather than their willingness to engage. But does seem a good value downgrade, for a few units you can keep central to your commanders.

[Wilgut Spleens]

Thats a great battle report! Very interesting to hear your impressions of the game and the campaign system. I have the rules, but haven’t tried them yet. I think I’ll have to give them a spin sometime soon!

I dont think you will regret it!

[Wilgut Spleens]

Brilliant work mate! Great to see those Swan Knights… despite their tragic end.

I liked your summary of the rules and agree about the feel of Tolkien’s battles. Morale and magic surrounding it is essential to capture that Tolkien feel.

Thanks Rick, one day someone will produce a set of rules that nails that Tolkien feeling!

[Wilgut Spleens]

Great campaign, and good to hear you have enjoyed playing though it and writing it up for the rest of us!

thank you, it has been great fun ,and it's lovely to see so much positive feedback

"I suppose with LoTR - are the battles dominated by heroes, or is it the story telling of the battles that are dominated by heroes? (This may be a silly question for fictional battles…)"

That's a good question...I think the heroes play a huge part in LotR  battles  Theoden and Aragorn's charge at Helms Deep for example, The White Rider at the retreat from Osgiliath, Theodon at Pelennor, Sauron at Dagorlad..furthermore, a lot of the action in LotR is at skirmish level, particularly the adventures of the Fellowship. Any system that portrays LotR needs to accomodate both mass battles and skirmishes, in my opinion.

"Interesting thoughts about Expendable, and the other negative traits. I’m fairly sure my mate asked for Expendable to be put in during play testing. Unreliable is more about keeping units in command range, rather than their willingness to engage. But does seem a good value downgrade, for a few units you can keep central to your commanders. "

I agree completely, I love the trait system in FB and no way have I exhausted all its possibilities, I look forward to many happy hours trying to break the system!