"Battle of Five Armies OOB" Topic

Has anyone got an OOB for the Battle of Five Armies ? I'm also interested in maps, deployments and ideas for the terrain I will neeed to make.

I think Karen Wynn Fonsdad has maps and speculative numbers in the Atlas of Middle-earth but I don't have it in front of me to check at the moment.

I'd also recommend getting the Rulebook/Guidebook that came with the Warmaster BoFA Starter Set (they usually pop up on eBay fairly regularly) for ideas on forces and table layout.

Also, the book "The Hobbit" itself has good descriptions of they lay of the land and who was where, and in what order folks entered the battle.

I don't know if it's any help, but here is a look a the table I did for thos past Historicon:

More photos here:
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Btw, the "east" and "south spur" mentioned in the text do not match up with any map I've seen. Tolkien's map has the spurs roughly parallel, which means an east spur and west spur. But it's only a quibble. What you need is a narrow vale between "spurs" up near the Mountain, and widening the further away from the Mountain you go….

There is a HOTT oob here:

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Although its expanded into about 15-20 armies! Most scenarios ignore the fact that at least a few goblins climbed over the mountain to try and take the forces of Good in the rear.

Supposedly, early drafts of the battle had trolls and spiders joining the fray, I think they could be included to add a bit of color to the orc/warg hordes.

I believe Tolkien also describes a shallow stream running the length of the vale, and a couple small hills where Thorin makes his last stand (can be seen in the photo above).

There was a board game of the battle produced back in the late 1970s with a comprehensive OB, map etc but iirc it was pretty tedious to play.

Can't remember who made it as my pal David owned it, not me.

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Here's an OOB for Chipco's FR3 rules.

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I'll highly recommend the Atlas of Middle-Earth as well. It's an excellent source for data and maps of most of Tolkien's battles, including numbers and troop types. Plus, it's just a neat book to have if you're a Tolkien buff.

As for the Bo5A game from GW, it's a simple but fun OOB. 2 units of dwarves, 1 unit each of Lakemen with spears and bows, 2 units each of elves with spears and elves with bows, Gandalf as general/spellcaster, Elf King, Dain, & Bard as officers, and Thorin & co. as a reserve hero. Beorn and the Eagles are randomly arriving "monster" reinforcements.

The orcs have 8 units of goblin missile infantry, 4 warg rider missile cavalry units, and 4 warg units. One general, one goblin shaman officer/spellcaster (departure from the book), and two mounted Orc chieftains as officers. One unit of goblin infantry is supposed to be designated as Bolg's personal guard (heavy infantry), and the scenario includes an unseen contingent of goblin missile troops which scale the heights and begin launching range attacks (dropping rocks) on any defenders still occupying the mountain spurs. (These are automatically driven off when the eagles arrive.)

Suggested scenario additions are swarms of Giant Bats, spiders from Mirkwood (not in the book battle), dwarf archers (book is unclear on this), and Elvish cavalry (not mentioned in book).

Thanks for the comments and links. I started making the terrain at the weekend, and I'll be working on the armies over the next few weeks. I think I have enough figures, some will just need rebasing. I'll post some pictures on here as I go along with the terrain and then post a report when I do the battle.

GWA have you looked at the map in The Hobbit?

I think the most dependable number given is 500 Dwarves, you could work backwards from there.

Tolkiens map shows a south facing spur, and what would be considered an eastern spur running south-east. Much narrower than any of the refights shown.
30 degrees rather than ninety.
Makes more sense of choke points and numbers involved, and of Thror's map.

(Thror's map has east at the top)