Thought you guys might like to know--I have a MASSIVE minis battle coming up, and I am going to use WW models to re-create Helm's Deep--and a LOT of paper minis from another company (uh, literally 1000) to re-create the epic battle of Helm's Deep from LOTR!  I'm using Budget Battlefields rules.

Here's the email I sent to my group:

<begintransmission>
300.

300 against 10,000.

That is what the old man told me, when he spoke of heroes and heroics
the likes of which the world had never seen then, and hasn't seen
since.  He spoke of the old ways.  Of King Aragorn, then known as
Strider, of Legolas, Master of the Bow, and the mighty Gimli, son of
Gloin.  And of the Wizard, Galdalf the White.  A time when these few
heroes stood at the sides of common men: farmers, smiths, fletchers,
and held off the most massive army of assembled evil of which mind had
ever conceived.

"Nonsense," I told him.  "300 cannot defeat 10,000, even at the
legendary walls of Helm's Deep. Nonsense."

His rheumy eyes became clear, and then distant, as if lost in thought,
under his massive hat, blowing smoke rings with his pipe and Shire Leaf.
Something grew in his silence and took on a palpable weight.

And then, I believed.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!THE BATTLE OF HELMS DEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Using the quick, easy to learn and fast and fun miniatures rules in
Budget Battlefields, the paper miniatures bought by Scott, and a
yet-to-be-built, to-scale paper model of Helm's Deep built using the excellent WordWorks Castleworks and DungeonWorks sets (visit www.worldworksgames.com for more info) as seen in The
Lord of the Rings,  NOW YOU CAN BATTLE ALL 10,000 orcs in the Battle
of Helm's Deep.  

The Only Question Is:  ARE YOU HERO ENOUGH?


SOME GUIDELINES

Hero Units will be either agreed upon or randomly assigned so everyone gets to play a hero unit (Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, The King, The Elven Commander (Haldir), Gandalf).  The massive castle model I will assemble will be directly based upon the battle scenes from The Two Towers. with 60 foot walls, and 90 foot towers, staircases, gates, etc. Wait until you see how beautiful the WorldWorks sets are!   Orcs will be all paper miniatures, except for orc commanders, who will be some of
my minis.  They will likely be mostly or all Elite, as they are the
fighting URUK-HAI.  The vast majority of human units will be paper minis, printed on color-coded paper for easy unit identification.  Human units will be comprised of 20 figures.  At least half of the

human force will be green troops, as in the movie.   All elven
character will be elite.  The King's few soldiers will be elite.  A
small number of human troops will be regualr Line troops. A 3 minute timer (egg) will limit each side's movement phase, and a separate 3 minute timer will limit each side's combat phase, to keep the game moving quickly.

As in the movie, on approximaely turn 10-20, the outer wall of
Helm's Deep will be breached.

On approximately turn 50, Gandalf will appear will the Riders of Rohan.

Other than the above, each side is free to alter its strategy fro the movie as it sees fit.

It is supposed that the human units will split amongst the human
players evenly or as agreed (e.g., if there are 300 humans, 100 elves,and 50 or 100 cavalry (who appear with Gandalf near the end of the battle) and five players, then each human player will have 5 units of 20 men plus a hero figure to play).

I will play the orcs, with assistance if anyone cares to forsake the human cause.

This single, massive combat is likely to take an entire 5 or 6 hour
afternoon.  

10,000 orcs.  Thats more than you have ever even thought about killing....

Email the board and let me know if anyone is interested before I start building Helm's Deep (and let me know if anyone can help assemble the figs or the Helms Deep Model).  Also, I have the rules both in print and on the computer if you want me to email them to you.

<end transmission>

The Helm's Deep model is going to be about 8  feet wide...and about 3-4 feet deep, and about 2 feet tall at its highest....AWESOME!

I never used BB rules before--anyone have any advice?  It seems pretty straightforward.  ALso, I plan on takiing digital shots of the scene, and round by round, as well as a desciption of how it went!

Whatcha guys think?

Sounds like it should be a blast.  Budget Battlefield is a great way to go...they're solid rules that are extremely easy to teach and play.  What are you doing about siege rules?  Just the standard breaking things rules?  What about any siege engines?  
Oh yeah...I want to see some pics of this!  

Definitely - pics are a MUST!!!! Can't wait to see what the finished set-up looks like!!!

Pics! Huorns! No elves! Yay!

Sounds amazing. If you can put some effort into sending some pictures our way I will make it worth your while with a free model set. I really want to see what youre up to here!

What's the timescale on this? As in when are you planning to run the game? I imagine a model of the projected size will take quite some time to put together, are you the only one involved on the creation side of things?

Thanks, Denny!  Pics will be forthcoming.  

Bob, a game date has not been set, yet.  We are getting together to play an RPG and will liely set out a timetable.

I imagine a full day for construction.  I have at least 1 volunteer to help.  Then, the game and lots of photos to record the beast for posterity.

Also, remember that the majority of those dimensions are a massive courtyard to the left of the main fortification (as you seige) so even tho it is 8' by 3' or so, most of it is blank courtyard.  So I dont imagine it is going to be quite as difficult.

Now the bad news.  Denny, I might end up having to use non-WW walls for the main walll.  CastleWorks walls are too short.  A dl wall I found elsewhere on the net (that doesnt look even half as good as WW models)  is what I will probably use.  The walls look to be about 30' high.  I am also considering the possibility of using WW walls with a riser underneath to make them the correct height, since WW looks better than everything else out there.

Here's another problem--the main wall of HD is curved, which i can easily accomplish witht he 'other' model's walls, but will be impossible or more difficult i think with the current Castleworks walls.  I am going to build some walls and make the decison today (in fact, I am going to assemble a few while playing the RPG my buddy is runnning).  I will post here and let you guys know what's what.

I'm sure Denny would be all in favour of you waiting for Castleworks Ultimate, which by all descriptions will solve your problems, but I know what you mean. With the current CW set, there is simply no way to 'stack' walls without serious modification, and I'm sure you have enough to do already! I guess it depends if you are able to wait until the new year (isn't January the new projected release date for CWU?).

What are you doing for the surrounding cliffs? Using the 'edge of the world' syndrome, but in this case the edge of the board?

BB rules is a top system! The Battle Magic expansion will come in handy creating Gandalf!
And in order to produce all those stats for the units you might want to check out this piece of free software called ArmyAssembler. It makes creation of custom units a breeze and can be found here


Glorfindel