GONDOR: THE SIEGE OF MINAS TIRITH, S. R. 1419

Original game by Simulations Publications, Inc. 1977
ADC2 version by Joseph D. Oliver (Jaydeeo@aol.com)


INTRODUCTION

GONDOR and SAURON were SPI's two "Middle Earth" folio-sized game companions to the much larger and better known WAR OF THE 
RING.  While neither ever was as well received as their bigger brother, both have their own virtues, mainly simplicity of 
rules and play and requirements of significantly less time and space.

GONDOR was lost in a wave of "siege" games published before and after it appeared, in less than a three-year period of 
time, from mid-1976 through early 1979.  Among them were Avalon Hill's revision of Dr. Robert Bradleys's CAESAR (ALESIA), 
Historical Perspectives' SIEGE OF JERUSALEM, 70 A. D., SPI's STRATEGY & TACTICS #66 issue game, SIEGE OF CONSTANTINOPLE, 
and SPI's ART OF SIEGE "quadrigame."  Further, it was during this very time that many fantasy-oriented gamers in general, 
and LOTR folk in particular, who might have been interested in the game only a few years earlier, were becoming converted 
to DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS and other time-consuming role-playing adventures, to the detriment of traditional board wargaming.

Notwithstanding the above, GONDOR is a great "fun" game.  While it shares with SAURON the same clean and reasonably fast-
playing melee and missile rules system, it adds enough interesting siege rules to make for a slightly more complex game.  
The game situation itself is tense and compelling, as in order to win, the Sauron player must demoralize the Westernesse 
Minas Tirith garrison, remain undemoralized himself, and control the road to Gondor.  Although he begins with seemingly 
overwhelming force, he faces a classic race against time, since significant Westernesse reinforcements arrive on turns five 
and ten.  The map, a standard SPI 17" x 22" folio-sized one, is small, but so are the total number of counters, and even 
though there are more than in SAURON, unit density still is not too high.  Few tactical games are well suited to PBEM, and 
GONDOR is no exception.  However, it is an interesting little game with regard to graphics, and no simulation with 
catapults, boiling oil, and severed heads can be all bad!


THIS VERSION

MAP

The map is a duplicate of the original except for a few terrain features.  The original rather hideous blue, green, and 
brown mountains have been changed to textured browns, and the original simple dark brown hexside walls, towers, and gates 
of Minas Tirith have been rendered in a more interesting and appropriate gray and black stone texture.  The title has been 
relocated to the top border, and both the Turn Record Track and Terrain Key have been omitted.

COUNTERS

Almost all of the counters are my hand-rendered versions of the originals.  The dark green field color of the Westernesse 
units has been lightened a bit for clarity, and some color has been added to some of the markers.  The single scan used is 
the line art for the "Severed Head" counter, which discerning players might recognize as a reduced and modified "Zombie" 
unit from SPI's DAWN OF THE DEAD, rather than that on the original GONDOR counter, which simply did not reduce and remain 
recognizable nearly as well as did the former.

Names on the counters were changed to Times New Roman, to match the factor numbers and letters.  I've yet to find a common 
font that looks better on most pre-20th century games, and regardless of what the original publisher used, it seems to be 
particularly appropriate for ancient to medieval era and fantasy games.  Also, unlike some obscure "old" styled fonts, it 
has the virtue of being available in the ADC2 map editor for use in place-names.  NOTE: To any serious Tolkien purists, I 
understand that there are LOTR style fonts, Runes and others, available on the Web.  Possibly at some future time, I may 
investigate these further and revise both GONDOR and SAURON, but in the meantime, anyone else should feel free to do so.

PLAYING THE GAME

Upon opening Gondor.OPS, initial forces are in appropriately named force pools and must be deployed.  The Westernesse 
player has been set up to allow hidden units, but with that feature disabled. The real and dummy Cauldron and Boiling Oil, 
twenty four pieces in all, must be edited to "hidden" as they are deployed, and a special marker (Cauldron with a red "?") 
will appear to the Sauron player.  A Gamemaster has been created for solitaire play.  Turn numbers are annotated for 
reinforcements and day/night status.  Clearly named force pools contain all reinforcements, and empty "Eliminated Units" 
pools have been created for each side.  Several force pools with self-explanatory names contain such siege-related markers 
as Ladders, Fireballs, Severed Heads, and Breach markers.  The only important departure from the board version is that 
disruption status is indicated by edit of piece detail, rather than by use of separate markers.  Two special demoralization 
markers, one for each side, can be placed at the bottom of map border area or anywhere else that is convenient, and may be 
edited for the current number of demoralization points accrued.  "Flip-to" definitions have been created for all units' 
front sides, but note that unlike in SAURON, here there are a few single-step combat units that do not have a reverse side.

The class data fields are set as follows:

#	Description		Type				Notes
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1	Melee			text (capital letter)
2	Missile			text (lower case letter)
3	Armor			number		
4	Morale			text (capital letter)			
5	Disrupted?		yes/no
6	Rally 			number				leaders only
7	Magic			number				some leaders only
8	Demoralization 		number				"D" markers only

Class names are self-descriptive, with a two-letter prefix.  The first letter indicates the side (s = Sauron, and w = 
Westernesse), and the second letter indicates step status (f = front, and b = back).


This ADC2 set for GONDOR, along with that for its companion game SAURON, was quite enjoyable to make.  I hope that you 
enjoy it also.  Have fun! 
