All scenarios courtesy of the 2003 Dagorhir Handbook
Woods Battles
Flag Battle
A woods battle is most often a “capture-the-flag type battle. After the teams have been selected, both teams will be led to Valhalla, where the times for the battle's start and end are announced (anywhere from one to four hours). Each team heads off in opposite directions to look for a strategic place to plant its flag. Once a site is chosen, the “Fortress” around the flag is fortified by lashing fallen trees and logs together, then piling up brush on top. (Rope and twine are very useful. Your teammates will bless you for bringing them). No living plants may be harmed. At the start of the game the entire team must be assembled around the flag inside the fort. Wise commanders will by this point know what strategies and tactics they plan to use, and will have directed the units under their command accordingly.
The goal is to find the enemy flag, capture it and return it to your camp, where you must plant it next to your own. Then your army must defend both flags from the enemy, who are sure to be in hot pursuit. If you return to your camp with the enemy's flag and find that your own flag is gone, you must quickly plant the enemy's flag where yours was and then try to recapture your own.
SCORING: Your team gets one point for every time one of the enemy is killed, and one point for every minute that BOTH flags are planted side-by-side inside your fort.
Whenever a flag is voluntarily touched by someone, that person's team assumes possession of the flag, and has only 15 minutes to get it back to their fort. The team loses five points for every minute that it exceeds the 15 minute grace period.
Note: The flags must always be on their poles. If you get to camp with only half a flag (either the pole or the banner is missing), your team will begin losing points unless the other half of the flag is found and reattached before the 15 minute grace period is up.
FLAG HERALDS: Each flag must have a Herald assigned to it. The Flag Herald’s jobs are to:
1.Track time of possession and points gained or lost;
2.Referee combat in the area surrounding the flag.
Capture One Flag
A simpler version: Two or more teams fight over possession of a single flag. Battle starts with the Flag Herald in a central location away from all teams’ forts. Points are awarded for every minute a team has the flag planted in their fort and for each enemy warrior killed.
Capture The Unit Flags Battle
This is a variation of the normal flag battle. The difference is that every unit is a team and has its own flag (a unit standard). In other words, instead of two teams and two flags, there could be nine teams, each with their own flag. Each unit must supply its own flag Herald, who must stay with the flag, as in a standard flag battle. A team may capture as many flags as it wants; if a team has three flags as well as its own in its possession, it gains three points per minute.
Capture the Princess/Prince
Same as Capture the Flag, except the goal is to possess a human being.
Gold Battle
Gold battles can take many forms; two teams, every unit for itself, or even free-for-all (everyone for themselves). At check-in each warrior is given one gold piece (a metal washer or some other small metal disk) to place in his/her pouch or to hang around her/his neck. The goal is to end the battle with as much gold as possible.
You may collect as much gold as you want, but you must always carry it on your person, and you must hand over all your gold to any player who declares they are looting your dead body. Gold may not be hidden, buried, etc., although you may give it away to your teammates, so long as you keep one piece; warriors may not give away their last gold piece for the purpose of safeguarding it.
Gold is generally collected through “killing” players from the other team and “looting” the gold from their lifeless bodies, but extortion, robbery, or other forms of persuasion may be used as well: “Hand over your gold, or I’ll tell my archers to shoot you down like the dog you are!” Killing may not be necessary to collect an enemy's gold; you can always threaten to kill them if they do not give up all their gold (you may give your last gold piece to an enemy, if you are dead or under threat of death). Nor does killing an opponent automatically give you the right to his/her gold; if someone takes it before you, you may have to kill THAT person to get it back. If dead people are inside a fort, and the Herald calls a cease fire to send the dead to Valhalla, and you haven't had a chance to get the gold off of the dead, TOO BAD! You may not search spirits going to Valhalla.
Fort Sieges
Teams takes turns defending a fort and seeing who can hold the fort the longest.
Field Battles
Field battles last about four hours. The fighting is nonstop, one scenario after another. The dead come back to life at the beginning of each new scenario. Here are some examples of the various kinds of battles, (some variations of which may also be used in woods battles):
Grand Melee
Battle between two or more opposing teams until there is only one team left alive.
Unit Battles
Each unit fights as a separate team in a grand melee.
Dagorhir Handbook New Millennium Edition 49
Free-for-all
Every fighter for his/her self until only one is left alive.
Honor Free-for-all
The same as the previous one, but all combat is honor-bound; eye contact must be made before a fight is begun.
Bridge/Causeway/Pass Battles
Using a wide trail or an area marked off with rope or hay bales to denote a bridge crossing a steep ravine, two teams fight until one is victorious. Anyone who falls or is pushed off the bridge dies from the fall into the ravine.
CAUSEWAY VARIANT:
Instead of a bridge, the marked area represents a raised causeway crossing a swamp. Anyone who steps off the causeway into the swamp must drop to their knees to symbolize wading through the swamp. Fighters may get back to their feet only when the step back onto the bridge.
PASS VARIANT:
(also called a Thermopolye Battle, after the pass where 300 Spartans led a tiny coalition force from the Greek city-states, holding off overwhelming odds from the attacking Persian Empire for several days): The sides of the battle area are the walls of a mountain pass; no one can step outside the “walls,” nor can anyone fire missile weapons that cross the sides of the pass. A true “meat-grinder” battle! Choose a wide forest trail with heavy brush on the sides.
Kill the King/Queen
Each team has a designated king or queen (who does not have to be the commander). The object is to kill the other team's monarch before they kill yours. The monarchs are immune to missile weapons. This is usually a two-team battle, but can involve more.
Chess Battle
The two teams stand facing each other with a shield wall in front of each team. The Herald calls for different types of combat in the following order, allowing one or two minutes for each segment:
1.Missile weapons only.
2.Retrieval of missile weapons by owners.
3.Honor challenges (eye-contact honor battles).
4.Red berserkers (red weapon wielders attack their counterparts from the enemy army and the survivors attack the enemy shieldwall, trying to cleave shields).
5.Grand Melee.
Note: The shield wall must hold the line and cannot 'travel' during the early Battle Phases; one foot must stay planted until the Grand Melee. Warriors behind the wall may not advance to the center unless they are competing in the specific battle of the moment.
Flag Battle
There are two type of field flag battles. In one, the flag is placed in the center of the field and two teams race to capture and hold the flag. The team with the flag at the end of the grand melee wins. In the second, each team has a flag and fights to defend its flag and capture the team’s flag.
Cavalry Battle
Each team has part of their team stand (on horseback) and everyone else kneels (infantry). When a horseman loses one or more legs, he/she becomes infantry. The first lost leg counts as the horse's death, so the limb is still there for battle purposes. Leg armor counts only on the cavalry, not on the “horse,” so the first hit to a cavalry’s armored leg would still drop him to his knees.
Race Riot
A grand melee in which teams are selected on the basis of character races or nationalities.
Weapons Class Battle
Divide up by weapons types (spears vs. red weapons vs. round shields vs. two weapons vs. rectangular shields vs. archers etc.) and fight as a Unit Battle.
Honor Circle
All warriors form a circle and challenges are called for honor battles in the center.
Highlander
As in the “Highlander” movies and TV series, it is “The Gathering” and all fighters are
Immortals. Everyone is allowed only one blue or green weapon. This is an Honor-Free-for-All as above; you must make eye-contact with another player before you may fight them. You fight, take wounds, and die just as in a regular battle, but when you kill an opponent, they fall to the ground and count to 10. If, during that 10-count, you step in, touch your weapon to your dead opponent’s throat and say, “There can be only one,” you take your opponent’s “quickening” (their life-force) and you are healed of all wounds. If another fighter gets there first and takes your dead opponent’s quickening, that fighter is healed of any wounds. If no one reaches the dead fighter before she/he completes the 10-count, the dead fighter is returned to life fully healed and may continue fighting. Everyone keeps fighting until There Is Only One.
Zombie
This free-for-all battle starts with one or more Zombies fighting against all the “Living”
(humans, elves, orcs, etc.). Zombies may not run, but must limit their speed to a fast walk. When a Zombie kills a Living fighter, the Living fighter falls over dead, counts to 10, and resume fighting as a Zombie. When a Zombie is killed, they fall over dead, count to 10, and resume fighting as a Zombie. The Living always lose. Imagine you’re in one of those bad B-Horror movies; eventually, the field is full of Zombies shambling after the last few Living fighters, crying, “Brains! Must eat brains!”
King/Queen’s Choice
Commanders of the Armies each choose groups of 3 fighters to duel (one group of 3 at a time). When the last member of one Army’s group of 3 dies, that Army sends in 3 fresh fighters to combat the survivors of the enemy’s previous group of 3. Continue until one Army is wiped out.
No Shields or Armor (or Missile Weapons)
Grand melees with the better-equipped fighters giving up the advantages of their superior weapons for a short-lived, intense Clash of Heroes.
Boat/River Battles
Very silly and a lot of fun, allowing for all sorts of strategies. “Shorelines” are designated by rope, chalk lines (like on a football field), or the edges of a field. “Boats” are boat-shaped frames of plastic PVC piping glued together with T, L, and V joints. Boats may be anywhere from 8 to 20 feet in length, depending on how they’re constructed.
Fighters step inside the boat and lift the frame, then walk or run to propel the boat. Fighters may attack other boats, “swimming” enemies, or enemies on land. Any attacks that go below the framework of a boat are considered to have “hit the hull” and don’t count; thus, a common defense against an incoming arrow barrage is to shout “All hands below decks!” and raise the PVC frame up over the heads of all “onboard!”
If you fall in the “water” wearing ANY kind of armor or shield, you drown immediately. If you’re not wearing any armor or shield, you can swim (and even fight) in the water, provided:
1. You stay on your knees at all times; and
2. You keep one hand free for “swimming.”
Hence, fighters in the water cannot use red or green weapons two-handed, or fire a bow.
When two boats intersect (the PVC frames touch or overlap at any point), the boats are
considered to have rammed. Both boats must immediately be dropped to the ground and the fight becomes basically a bridge battle across the area of the boat frames until one side is wiped out. Then the survivors of the winning side may “un-ram” the boats and attack other objectives.
Dagorhir Snowball Fight
A blast! Rocks and thrown javelins only: no shields, no bows, not even a knife. Two teams fight, throw, and dodge until one side’s all dead.
Combinations
The scenarios above are time-tested favorites. As mentioned above, before testing a new scenario, it’s a good idea to discuss it with other veterans to see if a fresh look will reveal hidden flaws. The more rules the players have to remember, the slower and less exciting a battle is likely to be. However, once your players are familiar with each scenario, try combining aspects to make interesting, memorable battles, such as a Capture the Flag Battle with forts separated by a River that includes a Bridge and Boats!
