so I played a game a while ago, and my wraith was just no fun to play with! So to spruce them up a bit, and make them more fighters than people who sit around and throw darts. I changed them to be more powerful, and more sword oriented. I also made it so the Witch King and Aragorn could go toe to toe, and finally there would be a counter to aragorn in the same points range! So without further ado, here you are:
The Witch King
F S D W C M W F
6/- 5 8 3 7 * 20 *
Ringwraith:
F S D W C M W F
5/- 4 8 2 6 * 14 *

The Nine Rings:
The Nazgul poses these great rings of power, and have refined their abilities in specific areas. Any roll of 6 to wound (5+for the witch king) automatically slays whoever is wounded. Any model with a D of 5+ has half their starting wounds eliminated, the number of wounds rounding down.

Will:
Being powerful creatures, the Nine can be devastating, but they rely on their Will to exist. To represent this they have no might, or fate but may spend 2 might (three for the Witch king) of their will as might each turn, and 1 fate (two for the Witch king)

Terror:
The Nazguls primary weapon is fear. Any model within 12" of the Nazgul suffer a -1 courage penalty (this can be stacked with other ringwraiths). In addition any model that comes within 6" of the Nazgul must take a courage test (with the courage penalty of the nazgul) or flee their maximum move. However if they pass, the nazgul have very little power over them and they count as terrifying. This excludes the Witch King.

Black Magic:
The Nazgul are surrounded by Black Magic, and any who manage to actually hit them find it impossible to actually hurt a Nazgul. Also, the magic is agressive so any who touch it are wracked with arches of pain. Any successfully wounding hits must be re-rolled, and any who actually wound the nazgul suffer a S4 hit (S5 for the witch king, as the dark lord Sauron protects him the most)

Magical Powers:
Black Breath: 2+6+/4" (activated at the start of the turn, roll for each individual. The activation requires no dice roll)
the Nazgul exudes an aura of fear, which causes visions of sheer terror and, in severe cases, causes the victim to fall unconscious and they scream as their nightmares envelop them. Any model in the area of effect must take a leadership test with the respective penalties to their courage from the Nazgul. on a 2-5 roll another dice, on a 1-3 the model is controlled by the good player. on a 4-6 (3-6 for Witch King) it is controlled by the evil player as the model hallucinates and turns on his allies in his confusion. On the original dice roll, if a 6 (5+ for Witch King) is scored, then the model falls unconscious and screams as the terrors of his dreams envelop him. He is removed as a casualty, and any around him must take a courage test, at -2 courage (one for the nazgul's presence and 1 for the blood curdling scream) As this ability requires so much concentration to keep up while in the midst of battle, they can not use their ring with it activated.

Screech:
The Nazgul lets out a piercing screech, that shatters eardrums and inspires fear in all enemies. 2+/12"
Take a courage test for every model in the radius, with the -1 courage, if failed the unit drops everything and covers it's ears. If they are attacked, they may not do anything, as they are still unprepared due to the fact they are trying to stop their ears from bleeding.

Dark Presence:
The Nazgul uses it's considerable power to make all those around him cower, and revitalize all it's troops. The Nazgul counts as banner this turn and his stand fast is increased to 8". In addition, any enemy banner bonuses are lost this turn in a radius of 4" of the Nazgul.

Hope you enjoyed this and thanks for reading, please comment.
The Nazgul uses his

It still doesn't seem a good representation of Tolkien's Nazgul. I had an idea that their Harbringers of Evil rule was cumlative (you'd have to raise the cost of course); multiple Nazgul would be pretty much invincible, but that's the way it's supposed to be.

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

How long have you been playing this game? 100 point wraith is more than enough to counter Aragorn with Sap Will + Compell + Transfix :|

The cumulative rule is waaaay too powerful.
The Black Breath is game breaking.
Screech is also game breaking

You've made completely broken rules for models that at the moment are really nicely balanced.

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Coordinator of the Great British Hobbit League

Screech is basically Transfix, except it's easier to cast and it affects everybody in range. I wonder what the point cost should be for that feature alone...maybe 150 points?

If the wraiths in the book were anything like yours, Sauron wouldn't have needed any troops. He'd just send the wraiths to walk over the Pelennor, shrieking all the way, kill Denethor, and sit on the throne. Wipe hands, job done.

Are there trolls on this forum?

I agree with the others that wraiths are already nicely balanced, there's no need to change their rules.

Sorry. Tried to be funny, guess it didn't work.

Interesting ideas, but I think they would make the Nazgul too powerful. What points range were you thinking?


You might want to consider mounting a Ringwraith on a Fell Beast if you want a more combat-oriented hero.

If you wanted to make them more powerful, I like General Elessar's idea of making Harbinger cumulative.

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"Not all those who wander are lost"

"With hope in our hearts, and wings on our heels" - Chariots of Fire

thx for the feedback, looking at all the rules, a few wraiths together would be all an army needs. I was thinking a price range of 250-275 points (same as aragorn with anduril and upgrades, it think) your all right that the black breath and screech are over powered. So I made scree 2+ 12" and instead of the previous rules just adding a -1 courage. The black breath would just be a 6+/6" inch range that takes half the wounds off a model. Note that these were more based off movie performance than the actual books, so the rules were a bit wonky. I would like to keep the nine rings rule, as I dislike how all the elven rings are portrayed but none of the evil rings (except the one ring,a and even then there are 3 good models who can carry it and only one evil). Let me know if you think these are still too powerful. If they are, any ideas? I just wanted to play the nazgul as a bit more sword oriented. In the movies (not really the books) they were more centralized around the sword. I was also thinking of making a vulnerability to water and fire, but I thought these were too rare in the lotr game. Any ideas of how to incorperate this. Thx for the feedback.

I dont think you ever see them fight in the movie, except the witch king which already has crown of morgul to make him more combat oriented. I agree with everyone else that its already balanced.

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http://noddwyr.wordpress.com

I have the rulebook from the mines of moria, so it's SBG, are any of you talking about WOTR? cause if you are, I have no idea what your talking about.

Crown of Morgul is the upgrade for the Witch King from the Mordor sourcebook (came out after MoM). We are all talking about SBG - Nazgul are well balanced the way they are now.

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Coordinator of the Great British Hobbit League

Okay, I understand that they are already well balanced, but I wanted to make them sword oriented and so I created a set of rules, I am just asking if these new rules are decent enough or whether they are too powerful. And I know tour next comment will be "take a fell beast" but these die much too quickly to arrows and magic, and are not economically friendly. Oh and I thought of a new rule that would allow an easy counter to the nazgul that represents their weakness in brilliant light:
weakness to light:
whenever a Nazgul is in the Blinding Light radius, they have -1 attack, courage and fight values. This provides a counter by buying Gandalf. Another question is how expensive are the named nazgul, and how powerful? I think this would be useful for helping balance the Nazgul.

I wouldn't call them more sword oriented, but more "everything" oriented, in that every possible aspect (cc, magic, banner, anti-banner) has been jacked up to extreme levels. I think Sauron would cry and beg for mercy if they ever looked at him the wrong way



We can't give out stats or points. You'll have to buy the Mordor book or browse one in a store.

Oh right, I fogot to mention I cut the dark prescence rule. The screech power seems a bit over powered as well. The black breath was modified in one of my previous posts. So far I see I took this too far and made them absolutly destructive. So now I'm working on re-doing The stats. I'm going to make them less powerful by themselves, but make it so that the more there are, the more powerful they become.

Yes, I said so, but aren't the Nazgul meant to be almost unstoppable?

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

Except they are stoppable as we saw at weathertop and at pelenor fields, also if we made them unstopable it would ruin the game balance.

I like the blinding light rule, but I think thats the only one that is good.
Screech I think should be modifed just like the special rules in the TT book where they can choose 1 turn to do so and it reduced a certain amount of courage.

In the trilogy the Nazgul win exactly zero fights. They *almost* get the upper hand when they outnumber untrained Hobbits, but couldn't close the deal.

Super bad ass Nazgul might be fun, but it's hard to balance them without them getting silly. They serve a narrow but important tactical role as is, they're murder on heroes. Give them another try as they are, you shouldn't have any trouble terrifying Aragorn once you get the hang of them.

I think you're missing my point, and in more ways than one. First, I'm talkling about the books, not the films. Second, I never suggested that a Nazgul can't take on Aragorn in SBG.

Concerning Heroes, that's another thing that bothers me about Nazgul. In the books they terrify and are almost invincible to the rank and file troops; they can only by stopped, and even with difficulty, by a gifted Hero. In SBG it's the exact opposite; the Nazgul are very effective at dealing with Heroes, but are next to useless against the normal warriors.

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

[/quote] Concerning Heroes, that's another thing that bothers me about Nazgul. In the books they terrify and are almost invincible to the rank and file troops; they can only by stopped, and even with difficulty, by a gifted Hero. In SBG it's the exact opposite; the Nazgul are very effective at dealing with Heroes, but are next to useless against the normal warriors.[/quote]

I agree, aragorn and other powerful heroes could fight off a ringwraith, unless all the nine were together. But troops? they got absolutely destroyed. I'm thinking to make it so that they are more represented in this way. So take out all the special rules pretty much (that i posted earlier, cause they kind of suck) make they're terror cumulative, and give them an extra attack or wound (going off the profile of Kings of men, as they were once "great kings of men" that fell into the shadow.) I'd also like to get rid of the rule where they have to give up one will if they were in a fight I find it really annoying when someone takes a few high elves with sheilds, bulks up their defense, and then shields on you! When they do this they are draining your will, and a few soldiers like this can drain a nazgul to 0, making them ineffective. I know everyone is going to think well just don't let them get into combat, but sometimes circumstance don't allow you to do that.