Black Uruks and Southron Horsemen

[Goodgulf the Grey]

These are some optional rules to utilize the Operational miniatures in the Strategic game.

Black Uruks: The Black Uruks may be mustered by the Sauron player if the Sauron nation is at War and they are considered Sauron units. One Muster die allows up to 3 Black Uruks to be placed on the board. Each one must be exchanged 1 for 1 with an existing Sauron Orc unit. The Uruks can be mustered in the same or in different strongholds. The removed Sauron Orcs are not returned to the Shadow muster pool but are instead set aside and are only returned, one at a time, when a Black Uruk is eliminated. (This keeps the Sauron total units identical).

Black Uruks are like Regulars with the following special abilities:

• Each Black Uruk in an army allows a leader re-roll for a combat die result of a 1. This doesn't prevent casualties from Confusion.
  
• Daylight has less effect on Black Uruks. An army with 5 Black Uruks is unaffected by the Daylight combat card and an army with 4 gets to roll 4 dice in combat.
  
• Black Uruks act as Elites for the combat card We Come to Kill.
  

Southron Horsemen

These units can only be mustered when the Southrons and Easterlings are at War. They are considered S&E units and are mustered like Elites with the following differences:

• They act as leaders.
  
• They may not be reduced to continue sieges.
  
• There can never be more than 6 total Southron Horsmen and Mumakil in play at any time.
  

As an additional option the Shadow player in charge of the S&E can replace any Mumakil on the board with Southron Horsemen during game setup.

[mrweasely]

;DExcellent idea! These puppies so need a chance to come out of the Third Age box!

Since you're not available to critique your own ideas, I'll fill the role:

Keep it simple!

goodgulf said:

These are some optional rules to utilize the Operational miniatures in the Strategic game.

Black Uruks: The Black Uruks may be mustered by the Sauron player if the Sauron nation is at War and they are considered Sauron units. One Muster die allows up to 3 Black Uruks to be placed on the board. Each one must be exchanged 1 for 1 with an existing Sauron Orc unit. The Uruks can be mustered in the same or in different strongholds. The removed Sauron Orcs are not returned to the Shadow muster pool but are instead set aside and are only returned, one at a time, when a Black Uruk is eliminated. (This keeps the Sauron total units identical).

Black Uruks are like Regulars with the following special abilities:

[/li][li] Each Black Uruk in an army allows a leader re-roll for a combat die result of a 1. This doesn't prevent casualties from Confusion.[/quote]
I like to say "five with three at six" to tell my opponent that I've got 5 dice with 3 rerolls, needing 6s to hit. Saying "five with three and two uruks at six" just seems like a mouth sandwich....

[/li][li] Daylight has less effect on Black Uruks. An army with 5 Black Uruks is unaffected by the Daylight combat card and an army with 4 gets to roll 4 dice in combat.
[/quote]
Simpler still would be replacing Daylight's text with: Shadow regular units have a combat strength of 0 in this round of combat. It means that dunlendings actually get to be better than regulars in one specific situation (which is obviated anyway by having 5 wargs).

• Black Uruks act as Elites for the combat card We Come to Kill.
  

While this idea is incredibly cool, the only three cards with We Come to Kill are the in-the-field reinforcement cards. Given that Black Uruks can be field recruited too (and rather quickly at that), I feel the synergy here is a bit dangerous. They should be fun with cardplay though. How about:

• Mordor Orcs may only be upgraded to Black Uruks while in shadow settlements
  
• Remove a Black Uruk: counts as sacrificing two guys for Relentless and Onslaughtl
  

...though Dunlendings already are kinda doing that....
Hm...1 leader reroll if the combat card is Strife or Desperate Battle?

Remove a Black Uruk: continue a siege as if by demoting an Elite?

Southron Horsemen

These units can only be mustered when the Southrons and Easterlings are at War. They are considered S&E units and are mustered like Elites with the following differences:

• They act as leaders.
  
• They may not be reduced to continue sieges.
  
• There can never be more than 6 total Southron Horsmen and Mumakil in play at any time.
  

Are they considered regulars, elites, or something else entirely for purposes of We Come To Kill, etcetera? Are they Leadership 2 units in 3-player games?

As an additional option the Shadow player in charge of the S&E can replace any Mumakil on the board with Southron Horsemen during game setup.

I think the constraints about unit count are overly fiddly...who maxes out on S&E elites anyway? How about just removing some mummys, cavs, orcs, and blackies from the counter mix at game start, and having done with it.

[Goodgulf the Grey]

I agree that the Black Uruks abilities could be reworked. I did intend for the upgrade to only be available in Sauron Strongholds - not in the field. "The Uruks can be mustered in the same or different strongholds."

I like the ability with We Come to Kill.

Not sure about the Daylight or re-roll ability -- just trying to come up with ideas. The re-roll ability was an attempt at limited leadership power.

Sacrificing a Black Uruk to extend a siege might actually be interesting... Do you think that this + We Come to Kill would be enough to justify using a Muster die to change 3 Orcs into Uruks?

Other card options for Black Uruks:
Onslaught: Sacrificed Uruks inflict casualties on 3+
Cruel as Death: Uruks count as leaders for purposes of this card.

I wouldn't give any help to Desperate Battle or Deadly Strife since these are already very helpful Shadow Combat cards.

Southron Horsemen should be considered elites for all purposes except they may not downgrade to continue sieges.

I hadn't considered multiplayer games but maybe they would be able to continue sieges in mutliplayer games (I wouldn't give them 2 leadership) -- so they would be interchangeable with Mumakil in multiplayer games.

Finally regarding, the unit count constraints -- I agree that they are not really needed for S&E Elites but the Sauron Orc issue is relevant because giving Sauron more regular units makes FPMV even more difficult -- sometimes managing the Sauron regulars in reinforcement is an issue...Any suggestions on how to make this simpler?

[mrweasely]

Good points.

Overall, the changes should be balance-neutral, and not favor shadow. Making Daylight more powerful seems like the thematically correct way to do that, but Daylight is already pretty good, and it only appears on 3 cards anyway (Riders'o'Theoden, Celeborn, Last Cattle). Daring Defiance is much crappier, and appears three times, and only on companion seperators. So:
____________________

Daring Defiance: Play only if the Free Peoples leadership is 2 or more. Forfeit 2 leadership: Shadow regulars have combat strength 0. Upon playing this, the Free player puts on his out-rage-ous accent and says "now go away or I shall taunt you a second time-uh!"

Black Uruk faction

Muster: the Black Uruk faction enters play. Move up to ten mordor orcs from the supply to "removed from the game", replacing them 1-1 with black Uruks. Black Uruks may now be substituted for regular mordor orcs freely during recruitment (both cards & muster dice).

• And Your Little Dog, Too: Black Uruks are Elites for purposes of We Come To Kill.

So the net effect is: the early Sauron armies are prone to massive strokes of incompotence, but the armies get more compotent as the game progresses and Black Orks and Dunlendings turn up.

[mrweasely]

Southron Cav smell a bit weak at the moment: they give one die of leadership, but an Oiliphant gives potentially 5+5 dice by re-enabling another round of combat.

So Southron Cav can play Mumakil? How ironic.

Then again, in the interests of being balance neutral, they shouldn't be "all that".

[Goodgulf the Grey]

Okay I have some better ideas for these now.

Easterling Cavalry (formerly Southron Horsemen)
These units are Elites that can only be mustered in North Rhun or South Rhun. In addition, Elephants can only be mustered in Umbar, Near Harad, and Far Harad. If using the Cavalry then replace the S&E Elite Elephant in South Rhun with an Easterling Cavalry unit.
Easterling Cavalry are Elite units that have a Leadership of 1. However, they may not be reduced in order to continue a siege.

Black Uruks
Black Uruks are mustered like Sauron Elite units and are controlled by Mordor. They are treated like Elites for purposes of combat card effects and can be reduced to Regulars to extend a siege. However, they may only absorb 1 hit during combat and in this way function like a regular. Note that Black Uruks can be sacrificed as two units to cards like Relentless Assault but a single hit on Confusion would eliminate them.

Black Uruks have special rules related to the Hunt. If the FSP is in a region with at least one Black Uruk then the SP gets an additional re-roll for the hunt. In addition, if the Fellowship declares and traces a route into/through/out of a region containing Black Uruks then the SP may roll for the hunt with a number a dice equal to the number of Black Uruks in the region (with re-rolls only granted based on FSP location as normal).

(Modifed Post) Black Uruks only get to roll for the hunt when the FP is Declared (not when Revealed like SP Strongholds). The Reveal Icon would be ignored on any hunt tiles (ala Balrog) but Eyes would still do damage equal to the number of successful hunt rolls.

[mrweasely]

Have you tried creating a FSP-hunting army in Moria and shadowing them all the way? I guess ideally it'd contain the itinerant Balrog, the Hunty WK, and lots of Black Uruks. How's it work?

[Goodgulf the Grey]

I haven't tried the full shadowing army thing since it would take a lot of resources and generally it pulls them away from where they want to be going. It might make for a very long game as the SP would have little dice to use on Military and his goal would be to maximize the Hunt damage.

The two games I have played with this version of the Black Uruks have had little overall impact but they did result in one extra Hunt tile in the 2nd game. In general the expansion makes the corruption victory so hard for the shadow that I felt the Black Uruks could give them a little boost on the hunt. Also, my changes to Smeagol really reduce his effectiveness and make for a tense game in the expansion.

[mrweasely]

Two thoughts.

1) The recruitment of these babies could be governed by event cards, not by more reliable and abuseable muster dice. Sean's new event cards are a natural place to introduce them: Many Kings to the Service, Horde from the East, Orc Patrol, Shadows on the Misty Mountains, Pits of Mordor, Hill Trolls, etc.

2) Black Uruks want to be combat wombats, not bloodhounds. One ability I was thinking of was: after the leader reroll, eliminate a BU to cancel all hits and force both sides to retry their combat & leader rolls. Another is: if siege engines are tied and there's a BU in the battle, the Free player may not remove a trebuchet.

[Goodgulf the Grey]

1) I'm not a big fan of adding new events just for these miniatures (although I'm not opposed to re-wording some of the weak events so that they become a little more tempting/useful to use).

2) I was looking for something that would make them different and help the corruption strategy (without unbalancing it), but I see your point too. I don't like the first suggestion since it adds more rules and actually changes some fundamental rules with combat. The 2nd is better and got me thinking about the following:

Black Uruks: These units are Sauron Elite units with the following special rules...
1) They cannot be reduced to extend a siege
2) They can be reduced to prevent the FP from sacrificing a siege engine for superiority.

This would be simple and they would only be better than regular Elites in select situations and they would work well in conjunction with Trolls which is a good thing.

I'll have to try them out this way and see if they get used with this ability. If it is too weak then the other option is to just treat them as Elites and allow any Shadow Army with them to prevent FP Trebechet sacrifices but I think this is too strong and would undermine the whole usefulness of siege engines for the FP.

[mrweasely]

BUs should probably be "regulars" because their bases are small.

[Goodgulf the Grey]

You're right

I went back and read thru your original post idea and it is pretty good...

Black Uruk Faction

Use a Muster die to bring in the Black Uruk Faction.

• Replace up to 10 Sauron Orcs in the supply with Black Uruks on a 1 for 1 basis (these Sauron Orcs are removed from the game)
  
• Black Uruks function like Sauron Regulars for mustering purposes except that they cannot be mustered by Event cards.
  
• Black Uruks act like Elites for the combat card We Come to Kill
  
• Any army with 5 or more Black Uruks is unaffected by Daylight and Confusion combat effects.
  
• Two Black Uruks may be sacrificed to prevent the FP from sacrificing a Catapult to obtain Siege Engine Superiority.
  

These changes make the Black Uruks powerful but with more drawbacks. They are better in combat, but mostly only with large numbers. The effect on siege engines is costly to the SP but it is an option when a lightly defended stronghold needs to fall. Not using Combat cards to muster them means that the SP will need to spend a lot of dice to get them on the board OR move them together from nearby strongholds (Morannon and Minas Morgul, Morannon and Dol Goldur, or Dol Goldur and Moria most likely). This alone will keep them from being in every game and only coming into play when strategically viable.

[mrweasely]

goodgulf said:

Use a Muster die to bring in the Black Uruk Faction.

• Replace up to 10 Sauron Orcs in the supply with Black Uruks on a 1 for 1 basis (these Sauron Orcs are removed from the game)
  
• Black Uruks function like Sauron Regulars for mustering purposes except that they cannot be mustered by Event cards.
  

I like that.

• Black Uruks act like Elites for the combat card We Come to Kill
  
• Any army with 5 or more Black Uruks is unaffected by Daylight and Confusion combat effects.

Oh man, WCtoKill is one thing, but nerfing the two Free combat cards that actually don't suck goat seems mean-spirited. I guess it'll never happen that 5 BUs get in the same region, though. All in all it just seems a bit odd.

What about something more 'soft power' like being able to move two led BU armies with a single character die, or able to move & attack with a BU army even if no leaders are present.

• Two Black Uruks may be sacrificed to prevent the FP from sacrificing a Catapult to obtain Siege Engine Superiority.
  

Goodness, that's expensive!!

[Goodgulf the Grey]

Oh man, WCtoKill is one thing, but nerfing the two Free combat cards that actually don't suck goat seems mean-spirited.

Well you did want them to be combat wombats right

Another take would be:

• Black Uruks act like Elites for the combat card We Come to Kill
  
• Each Black Uruk sacrificed for Onslaught or Relentless Assault counts as two units.
  
• Sacrifice 2 Black Uruks to prevent the FP from sacrificing Catapults when siege engines are equal OR sacrifice 1 Black Uruk for this effect if there are 5 or more Black Uruks in the attacking Army.
  

This would still make them dangerous in combat and not impact the FP combat cards. Also, there is still some incentive to put them into a large army. The siege engine effect may be too fiddly right now but it allows for some play-testing and then maybe one option will work better (if any). I don't want it to be easy for the SP to break the siege engine stalemate since this is one of the FP's best weapons in Twilight (after Galadriel and Smeagol).

[mrweasely]

"When the Free sacrifices a trebuchet, roll a die. If the result is less than or equal to the number of Black Uruks, the sacrifice is in vain, and neither side gets siege superiority during this round of combat.