quantity is good in combi with quality,
for example morannon orcs (same cost as gondor troops but better) in combi with shaman drumm taskmaster enz.
that will beat most of the armies.

but aragorn and dead soldiers aren't strong enaugh to beat the strongest armies

That army in the picture is far from optimised, threw it together at the last minute. Only actually learnt how to use it reasonable well during the tourney lol.

Morrannon orcs have always been powerful for their pts cost, being as strong as uruk-hai as heavily armoured and having cheaper shaman/other support heroes. They demonstrate well the benefits of having quantity with quality.

However, numbers and skill at arms are not the only thing that wins battles, if an army of the dead player is locked up tight in a strong position the morannons may find it difficult, if your hoard is being led on a merry chase by elves through woodlands the extra bodies are about as likely to get in the way of you moving as to help you beat the enemy.

Was it Joseph Stalin who said "quantity is a quality in itself"?

Not had a chance to see how sbg works first hand yet so cannot comment, but in conflict there are countless other considerations that also have to be factored in. Both quality and quantity are perceived strengths remember

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I would agree in real terms and real battles, but when the rules are strictly numeric and the only variable is a dice (granted its a big bloody variable) I think there is a difference in numbers vs quality.

By and large, I agree with Ringwraith's reply. My Moria boards are a perfect example of this. They have tons of narrow gaps, bridges and walkways, small outcrops and tons of chasms. Dwarves seem like gods of thunder on those boards, but once they get into an open field, they have a much, much harder time.

I will add on top of his terrain point is that this game really depends the scenario. It sort of breaks down a bit when you don't have a well thought out scenario that goes beyond killing each other.

One area where Quantity will always trump Quality is with Heroes. For example, it is far better to have 3 Orc Captains on the table than 1 quality named Elven Hero. The Elf will not have the power or the might to combat what Evil can do with 2 times the might points during the game, let alone having 3 evil heroes to influence more areas of the game than the Elf can. Just as it is far better to have 2-4 cheap Nazgul on the table rather than one that is fully maxed out on a fellbeast.

Our group actually plays with a Might restriction. We say, at the beginning of every game, we have to have equal Might and set the number. It helps a ton when we play. Grant it we normally play with 500-1000 points, so having a quality named hero and a captain is more realistic.

LOTR is by far the most balanced tabletop game on the market to date. Also, the Quality forces have a decent price point for what you get. However, they do not quite have the power to carry through against Quantity the majority of times. I would rather see a Quality matter cost a few more points if that meant he could gain 2 attacks, a higher strength, or any other factor that would make him more worth his cost.

With all of this being said, the one place I really disagree with Ringwraith's post is that it is a mark of poor game design to make a points mechanic operate under the assumption that all battles and models will be conducted and used in a specific way to balance out its issues. I also don't think GW has written up these models with that goal in mind at all. But there is definitely a problem between quantity versus quality.

GW knows it is impossible, using math (and therefore points) to predict the terrain, the scenario, and all the potential conditions that will affect a model during play. So, when looking at points values, it is best to look at them in terms of the optimal conditions it will face during play, which is without any interfering conditions such as terrain placement and other tactical assumptions (such as Elves backing away from their enemy the entire game). Models points need to be balanced in a neutral zone, so then the entire game is about how a player will use those models that will determine how effective they will be during the course of a game.

GW has already done this some with the game. If every increase to a statline costs 1 point (as many people around here claim they do) they should be considerably more expensive. However, a fight of 5 is less useful in percentage terms than a fight of 4 so the increase has a lower points cost. Same goes for courage. An increase of courage from a 3-4 is more useful than a courage increase from a 4-5. That is why model’s like Uruk-Hai Berserkers and Elves are cheaper than they should be.

The reason why there is a gap between the quality and quantity issues comes from the way the game was originally designed. The entire LOTR game was originally balanced to play only the scenarios written in the rulebooks which had very specific model counts. Even the ones that came out in White Dwarf dictated which models you had to buy.

This was because of a blurb written by the original game designer back in the days of the fellowship manual. It said, in short, that if you played a points matched game outside of the pre-written scenarios than it might be necessary to adjust the amount of points each side received (especially when playing with lots of heroes). I remember playing a number of games all the way through ROTK where we were constantly having to tweak write ups, each side being a handful of points up or down to make games work.

Also, those original scenarios were often not points matched. Quality balanced against quantity because evil would only have a few more models, not the dozens onto dozens they can get now.

When the One Rulebook came out, GW did not do much to reassess the values of the original models when they were taken outside the context of those original scenarios they were intended to be played in. The points remained largely the same. That, plus power creep in later expansions, have created this massive issue between quality versus quantity and a number of other persistent minor problems with the game. Until GW reassesses all of it as a whole (which I doubt they will ever do), the problem will remain.

However, I still love it and never intend to stop playing it.

Happy gaming,

Commoner

This will be a long post, so I will appologise in advance.

To me, the issue of quality vs quantity has always revolved around two central problems - that units in the game are not directly representative of those from Tolkien's works, and that realistic armies consisting of large numbers of basic troops supported by a small number of elites will always be outperformed by more specialised troops.

Of course, these complaints are largely against my own aesthetic sensibilities. If you are prepared to take full advantage of all options GW have made available to your favourite race, then the game works out to be quite balanced. While we all often complain about stat creep (or at least I do), GW do it to correct balancing issues within the game, and introducing new units is perhaps an easier way to maintain the balance than constantly revising the existing troops... if you don't care about aesthetics.

The problem really comes into the game from the dramatic difference that 6D makes when compared to 5D for most armies. GW have clearly recognised this, as there are now many, many units with 4S available. Unfortunately, I feel this has shifted the game towards armies with absurdly high proportions of elite or specialised troops. This is a problem, as it means that if you are not careful, a battle can be won or lost through incorrect force selection.

Take for instance a Rohan army pitted against an Easterling one. If you decide to field that Rohan hero who allows you to upgrade your warriors strength to S4, you'll be ok... it should be a fair fight. If you don't choose to use that one specific (or perhaps Gandalf), then you're in for a very difficult fight. You will have no spears, so will need to defeat the enemy, spear supported line and wound on a 6. Cavalry may help, but the Easterlings can easily place up to 6 attacks against each of your horses. Easterling archers are also superior, so chances are, archery won't save you either.

God forbid Rohan should ever find themselves fighting elves.

Tolkien's vision

This is something which as come up from time to time on this site, and whafrog and others have gone to some effort to try and correct this.

At one stage, I even tried revising the rules to use a D12 system, in the hope that the larger possible outcomes from the dice would allow more differentiation between models, and allow myself to push the gap between the weak and strong. It wasn't long, however, before I realised that this would require considerable reworking of the combat rules, and a complete re-balancing of absolutely everything, so I quietly dropped the idea.

There is, however, a very simple solution to this problem: don't interpret the game literally.

If Tolkien were to have his way, every single elf would have 3 attacks, 3 wounds, and a bucket full of might. Clearly that would make elves very dull to play.

Rather than thinking of every elf model as representing an elf, think of 3 elves as representing a single elf. The elf's superior combat ability is thus reflected in his ability to hold off a hoarde of orcs in three seperate combats, shoot more frequently, etc.

In this way, you can be free to field a very "small" force of elves (represented by a larger number, of course) against much larger enemy forces, and still come off on top.