The Battle of the 5 Armies

Seralkith · Post by **Seralkith** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 11:04 pm

Hey I was wondering if any one has ever played this game or not and if its any good/fun, and how many players it is meant for.

Thank you for your replies

The liger · Post by **The liger** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 11:46 pm

I've played the Battle of the 5 Armies once, and played a bit of Warmaster too. Basically, Bot5A is warmaster but more limited, with LotR armies. It is meant to depict battles on a massive scale, and therefore individual unit tactics are often less effective, and you need to play with the army as a whole, utilising the better save and faster movement cavalry get, but knowing that without infantry to support them, cavalry can't crush your opponents battle line in the same way that chosen chaos knights can.

Bot5A is I think, centered around 1 scenario, the Battle itself. This includes the main Goblin horde (Gobbos, wolf riders etc.) as the attackers, and the "Goodies" (Elves, men, dwarves, and Bilbo+Gandalf) as the defenders. All or most terrain is supplied too, including a nice hill, that can also be used in normal battles (I believe they released it as a terrain piece).

As far as gameplay goes, I love it. I really like the large scale it depicts, and how different it is to fantasy and LotR. It is based on an order based movement system, so basically, troops can only move by taking a ld test, and as you try to do more orders, it gets harder to pass (making multiple orders risky, but worth it if you feel lucky). This means that a whole new tactical phase comes in, as order priority and character moving.

And on the subject of characters, they play an extremely different role in Bot5A (and warmaster) than in LotR and even Fantasy. If you're bored of Aragorn holding up entire armies, and dragon mounted chaos lords, then this is the game for you! Characters can't even engage in combat, only support their own troops in fighting, and characters are mainly there for orders. There are also wizards, but spells are harder to cast in the game, and don't have as much of an effect.

So basically, Bot5A is a 2 player game, that depicts the epic battle between the Goblin horde and the alliance of elves, men and dwarves. It plays completely differently to the main 3 games, and relies at least as much, if not more, on tactics and strategies, as there aren't that many characteristics differing units, and not uberpowerful units. Therefore, you need to play the entire army, and plan as if you were in a real battle (that's how the order system works - to simulate runners carrying messages back and forth along the battleline). I think it's a really fun game, and I would advise everyone either to get Bot5A or Warmaster, as they add a great contrast to normal gaming, and are fun to play as well.

Alkkrision · Post by **Alkkrision** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 12:17 am

Battle of the Five Armies eh...guess that one completely slipped my mind, no one around here plays it. However from what I've heard, the game itself doesn't sound too bad, though personally I don't fancy it.

If you fancy the full scale battles, rather than small armies available in the other three game systems, then making other orders, you'd probably enjoy it. But if the idea of absolutely tiny models seems daunting for you, don't go along with it. That's my opinion anyway, though I have seen some pretty impressive models for the range.

Seralkith · Post by **Seralkith** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 4:13 am

Thank you very much Blade Liger for your reply, you too Alkkrisson. Now the game is only open to two armies, Good and Evil? Or does it sub catagorize into elvees and men etc.? I was thinking of getting it because it seems like there is alot to a box, and is a game that may posibly intrest non-warhammer gammers ( Risk or Axis and Allies players) into a game of it. If the box set is good enough to play with then I wouldn't need to have them pay for thier armies which is a bog deterant for most people I know.

The liger · Post by **The liger** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 5:31 pm

The main scenario has only the two armies - good and evil, and it gives you the armies. However, they also released lots of extra units such as bats and hill giants. I'm not sure how these work, but I'm thinking that you can play normal games (with sub-division armies, like all elves etc) on a points system, as well as the main game.

Also, it's good that it comes as a "game in a box" as you can buy it, and instantly play with friends, while they don't have to pay or paint anything themselves.