Simple rules for dinosaur wrangling?

[Red Orc]

I'm trying to come up with a simple ruleset for a game where Morlocks (LotR Uruk Hai with pikes) try to round up dinosaurs (my younger son's plastic dinosaur collection). The basic idea would be that the Morlocks are trying to drive the dinos into pens and the dinos don't want to be driven.

What I have at the moment is the idea that the Morlocks have a movement  statistic, and a (small) strength statistic, which they can increase by co-operating - so while a single orc will have a big problem herding a dino, 3 or 4 acting together should be able to do it fairly easily.

The dinos should have semi-random movement, and a large strength statistic, which they can use to crush orcs. perhaps not even on purpose (eg, roll a 6, dino charges in randomly-determined direction, any Uruk model in the way gets crushed).

Are there other factors that I need to think about? I don't need random weather tables, equipment lists, different stats for dfferent kinds of dinos etc, just trying to keep it pretty simple. But morale of the orcs maybe? Should they become glummer while their comrades are turned to jam under the dinos' feet?

Thanks for your collective thoughts.

EDIT: I will say though, that just because I'm using dinosaurs and Uruk-hai, the details probably aren't that important. The game as I envision it would work just the same with Mahuts herding elephants, New York merchant sailors capturing Lost World animals, VSF big game hunters bagging large Venusian beasts etc. It's more about the mechanics than the actual setting.

[Belgian]

Sounds cool! Waiting eagerly to see your rule may do an attempt to create some myself (however very basic).

[AndrewBeasley]

A couple of things I would add to the mix:

1) Distance should play a part - the nearer the dino the better the control
2) Fire - better movement but more chance of a stampede (you did remember stampedes did not you)
3) Number of dinos - more in number the braver they are and so needs more Morlocks
4) Explosives - really gets them moving (and hopefully in the right direction)
5) Dogs - not seen any in scale with the LOTR figures but maybe some are around
6) Terrain - no dino is going to be bothers by a fence / hedge but the odd tar pit / river may increase the problems

Good luck with the rules and watch out - dino trampling is a danger to you health

Andrew
A Link to my blog