LotR lists for use in Mayhem

[Nord]

So I picked up a copy of the Mayhem rules in the winter sale at the Wargame Vault. Now that it's printed out I am leafing through, slowly picking up the rules and mechanics, which are nicely written and seem to be straight forward. There is one rule I am not convinced about and may well change, but I thought I would start by playing a few games straight from the book (or pdf) before deciding on any changes.

Anyway, I originally bought the rules to get more use from my Warhammer collection, since I hardly ever play 8th edition WHFB. The Mayhem rules suggest square bases (or elements) to keep things simple. At first, I thought I could easily fudge my way through this, but then I realised I do have some square base armies tucked away in a box on the top of the cupboard. So instead of using my Warhammer collection while I learn the rules, I will be using my 10mm Battle of Five Armies collection.

The first thing I will have to do is write army lists for my BOFA forces. I will keep it very simple as I don't have the complete set painted, just the men, dwarfs, wargs and warg riders. That's enough to try out a little ambush scenario I reckon.

My question is this: Has anyone written any Mayhem army lists for Lord of the Rings? It shouldn't be an onerous task I know, but I would be interested in seeing other interpretations if there are any. Google showed me a blank and I have searched in the forum too, but sometimes these things are cunningly concealed.

Any general suggestions are also gladly received. 

[capthugeca]

I haven't done LotR lists but have started doing lists and costings for my HotT armies.
I haven't stuck them up on my blog as yet but if it might help I could possibly do that by t he end of the weekend.

[Vermis]

I don't know of LotR or any other lists for Mayhem, but it sounds like something I'd try myself sooner or later.

Initial thoughts... like I said when putting together possible Skaven stats, I'd consider the basic human core profile - point of reference for almost everything else - to be Mov D6, CQ D12, BAR D12. Representing average fighting skill, toughness, morale, light armour etc. IIRC the BoFA humans are either shielded spearmen or archers? Easy enough to plug those in.

Dwarves: trying to remember the book and the game minis... well-armoured with mattocks? Mov D4, CQ D8, BAR D8, Axes, Heavy Armor and Shields? Some interesting TAGs that might suit dwarves too - Push Back and Shield Wall look tasty.

Wargs - Beasts, natch! Although there's a lack of dwarven cavalry to fight against, in which case Horde might be useful too. D12-D10-D20? Maybe make the mounted wargs Fast Cav instead/too, and a bit fightier and slower. What're they armed with, again?

[VoodooInk]

Nord, if you don't mind, could you post up the units that are in the boxed set [including heroes]? Also, if any of the units are a specific type of man, elf, dwarf etc., then that would help as well [ie Men of Dale archers]. I'm sure we can come up with some profiles!

Maybe make the mounted wargs Fast Cav...

I think Vermis is on the right track with this. I would give the mounted and unmounted wolves both the fast cavalry and beast designations. You could then add the weapons and shields to the mounted version.

[Nord]

The good guys I have painted are

Men with spears and shields
Men with bows (both from Dale)
Dwarfs with axes and shields, the models are not heavily armoured
Heroes - 2 dwarf heroes (one is Thorin), one men (Bard of Dale)

There is also one wizard (Gandalf), Beorn (he could be a beast/behemoth), eagles, and elves, not painted these yet and not sure about this, but think they have spears and bows (as per men)

The bad guys that I have painted are

Wargs
Wargs with goblin mounts, spears and shields
Heroes - two goblins mounted on wargs

There are also goblins on foot (lots and lots of them, sooooo many to paint  ) and I think there's a goblin hero or two, maybe a wizard, might be imagining that.

Pretty much agree with you on the humans, dwarfs I think move d6, CQ d10, bar probably d10 too. d8 would possibly make them too good, reserved for super dwarfs like Dain's guards?

I also picked up some metal blisters, but will save those for when I have got the basics under my belt.

[Barbarian]

I have Mayhem, and a lot of 10mm minis originally to play War of the ring at a reasonnable cost. I do intend to make some lists for Mayhem.

I have Uruk-hai and Rohirim armies.

[VoodooInk]

Here are some quick thoughts on how you might point-up some of the stands from the Battle of Five Armies box set.

Men with spears and shields
Men with bows (both from Dale)

In Tolkien's Middle Earth, normal orcs and men would roughly have the same stat line and likely represent the center point from a list building perspective. You might consider using MOV d6 CQ d10 BAR d12 for orcs and men as your baseline. This would give you room to flex on either side for goblins, Uruk, elves, and dwarves.

Goblin infantry MOV d6 CQ d12 BAR d20 [with the numbers you are looking at you might want to use the horde trait for the foot troops]
For the mounted goblins, I would equip them with a lance [to represent the cavalry spear] and shield.

Dwarfs with axes and shields

I wouldn't be afraid to us
Dwarf MOV d6 CQ d8 BAR d12 axe, shield, shield wall, drilled
Thorin MOV d6 CQ d8 BAR d8 heavy armor with weapons as modeled [heroic unit]

Beorn MOV d8 CQ d6 BAR d12 behemoth, rampage, terror, beat back [heroic unit]

Eagles MOV d10 CQ d10 BAR d10 behemoth, flyer

Gandalf MOV d6 CQ d8 BAR d10 wizard with blast, time stop, barrier [hero and general] leadership d12

I have Uruk-hai and Rohirrim armies.

For the mounted Rohirrim with spears, I think I would use MOV d10 CQ d10 BAR d10 cavalry, lance [cavalry spear], and crossbow [to represent the thrown spear]. I would equip the other mounted Rohirrim with weapons, shields and short bows as modeled.

Uruk-hai MOV d6 CQ d8 BAR d10 infantry, fear, weapons as equipped
Uruk-hai Berserker MOV d6 CQ d8 BAR d10 infantry, heavy armor, berserk, fear, weapons as equipped
 

[Nord]

First off, a pretty picture, to show what I can use in the initial battle.  Top left are dwarfs. Top right are men, I have split the archers into three units to expand the good army size. The three strips of spearmen, I will probably slim down to a square (ie 2 strips) for ease of gaming. Three command pieces, two dwarf and one men.
 
Front row is warg riders, middle row is wargs, I will probably just use 4 elements of each. Two command pieces, no banners. So the bad guys have numbers but a less sophisticated command structure. Seems about right to me.



Here's my take on the profiles for these troops.

Men: MOV d6 || CQ d12 || BAR d12 || spear, shield, ranked fighting
Men: MOV d6 || CQ d12 || BAR d12 || long bow
Dwarfs: MOV d6 || CQ d10 || BAR d10 || axes, shield, shieldwall - Note one unit is ELITE
Thorin: MOV d6 || CQ d8 || BAR d8 || Ld d10 || general
Dwarf hero: MOV d6 || CQ d10 || BAR d10 || Ld d10 || banner
Men hero: MOV d6 || CQ d12 || BAR d12 || Ld d8 || banner

Warg: MOV d10 || CQ d12 || BAR d12 || beasts, fast cavalry
Warg Rider: MOV d10 || CQ d10 || BAR d12 || fast cavalry, short bow - Note one unit is ELITE
Goblin Chief: MOV d12 || CQ d10 || BAR d12 || Ld d6 || one is general, other is hero

A few things I pondered about

1.Dwarfs could be BAR d8, they are quite heavily armoured
2. Warg Riders are part combat, part shooty, neither solely cavalry nor fast cavalry. I didn't designate lances as I guessed this was intended for true heavy knights, which these are not. So I gave them CQ d10 to make them slightly better than the wargs. Maybe a designation of spears for mounted troops is needed? I thought shield was inappropriate for mounted troops, more in keeping with infantry.
3. My CQ ratings are a little conservative. My reasoning for this was that d12 was average, d10 was veteran, d8 was elite/hero and d6 was legendary hero. I was thinking that this leaves little room for representing really poor troops, like goblin foot troops, but thought that this would be balanced by their lack of TAGs and higher BAR.

Can't wait to try this out now that I have made a first stab at things. It's not an even battle, but it will be interesting to see what effect the command difference will have - if I have calculated correctly, the good guys will roll 6 d10, while the bad guys will roll just 3 d6. I estimate that the good guys will get roughly twice as many command points each turn as the bad guys, on average.

 

[VoodooInk]

That's a couple of nice looking forces you have there!

I didn't designate lances as I guessed this was intended for true heavy knights, which these are not.

Maybe a designation of spears for mounted troops is needed?

You can use the standard spear designation for mounted units if you like [depending on the role you want them to fill]. The lance  designation isn't only intended for heavy knights and is meant to represent all manner of cavalry spears. I could see where you could think that, but I simply avoided using the term 'cavalry spear' in an effort to not confuse it with the spear typically carried by infantry in various descriptions. Charge away!

Can't wait to try this out now that I have made a first stab at things. It's not an even battle, but it will be interesting to see what effect the command difference will have - if I have calculated correctly, the good guys will roll 6 d10, while the bad guys will roll just 3 d6. I estimate that the good guys will get roughly twice as many command points each turn as the bad guys, on average.

Since the bad guys on only a d6 for leadership, I would recommend setting the entire force up with a standing order to advance before the game begins. You can then take active control of some of your faster units in an effort to rapidly engage [and busy] the enemy. Whatever you do, it should be an interesting game!

[Funghy-Fipps]

Let us know how you get on! I am going to get a game of 'Mayhem' in before the month is out.

[Nord]

Questions from my very first test game of Mayhem!

1. If a unit is driven back by volley fire and assuming it is not destroyed by enemy, is it disordered and thus has to rally, or is it free to move as normal.
2. Can a unit volley fire at default range or less? It rolls three danger dice to hit the target even though one default dice would auto hit.
3. If a unit successfully completes a charge, does it fight a round of combat for free, or is it obliged to execute a further (initiate combat) command? I am guessing the latter, but this makes it expensive to charge and fight, which seems counter-intuitive, that's what troops do!
4. What happens when charging from difficult terrain? For example, wargs charging out from woods (DV2) - they would normally roll 3 dice to move from the DV2 terrain, picking the lowest, but then charge is roll 2 dice and pick the highest. Which takes precedence?

After a few turns of playing, the good guys had lost one unit of archers, the bad guys had lost one unit of warg riders and three units of wargs. This despite them being twice the cost of the good guys. The command rolls make a massive difference. Maybe I need to increase the command of the goblin chiefs to d8?

[VoodooInk]

Hey Nord! Sorry I missed your questions in this thread before- better late than never I hope. Let's get you some answers!

1. If a unit is driven back by volley fire and assuming it is not destroyed by enemy, is it disordered and thus has to rally, or is it free to move as normal.

The only effect from a successful volley fire attack is that of being driven back. So, being disordered doesn't happen as the result of this attack.

2. Can a unit volley fire at default range or less? It rolls three danger dice to hit the target even though one default dice would auto hit.

Sure! It means that you only have to roll to see if the enemy unit is driven back.

3. If a unit successfully completes a charge, does it fight a round of combat for free, or is it obliged to execute a further (initiate combat) command? I am guessing the latter, but this makes it expensive to charge and fight, which seems counter-intuitive, that's what troops do!

If a unit successfully completes a charge, then it performs an impact as part of the charge. This is a free attack that also enjoys the benefit of being a soft counter against most units.

4. What happens when charging from difficult terrain? For example, wargs charging out from woods (DV2) - they would normally roll 3 dice to move from the DV2 terrain, picking the lowest, but then charge is roll 2 dice and pick the highest. Which takes precedence?

Since the two rules are diametrically opposed from each other from a game mechanics standpoint, you would have to pay the additional cost equal to the DV of the terrain for the unit to be able to benefit from a charge. So, pay 1Cp to charge and 2Cp to ignore the difficult terrain penalty. Roll 2 dice and pick the best for your charge move.

After a few turns of playing, the good guys had lost one unit of archers, the bad guys had lost one unit of warg riders and three units of wargs. This despite them being twice the cost of the good guys. The command rolls make a massive difference. Maybe I need to increase the command of the goblin chiefs to d8?

I would recommend using the same leadership value for both armies for the first few games until you really get a handle on what the value of command points is in relation to the other components of the game. Using lower leadership for an army presents some unique challenges, requires some advanced techniques, and leaves little room for error for you to be just as effective as a player with a much higher leadership using equal points. It can definitely be done, but it's requires a different level of play. Something to look forward to!