I'm in the middle of reading Bernard Cornwell's excellent Saxon novels, in which virtually every fight is preceded by the warriors forming up into a tight shield wall, rims overlapping, with a second rank covering the heads of the first.

And in Unfinished Tales, Tolkein describes the Isildur forming his men into a shield wall when he is ambushed by orcs, shortly before being killed and the one ring lost.

But how could this be modelled in the The One Ring? Any ideas?

Everyone chooses Defensive stance and spends Hope to cover the guy next to them? Or make it an option in Defensive stance which only works if 2+ PCs choose it? It could double the shield bonus to Parry but you can't attack?

I don't think this can sensibly be done. A shield wall only really makes sense with a decent-sized military unit (say 30-40 people) otherwise you need more people to protect the flanks than are actually in the wall (and they are very vulnerable to flanking, unless you form a schiltron, which may be what Tolkein intended, but again needs quite a few to work). TOR rules are for much smaller-scale encounters, IMO.

The text (in Unfinished Tales) says that Isildur had about 200 men with him. In the text he is attacked by at least 2,000 orcs and forms a shieldwall (thangail). In this context it is worthy to note that Tolkien was aware of flanking maneuvers and says that the thangail could be bent backwards if outflanked, and in the extreme form a circular shieldwall if completely surrounded (what happened in the end).

Best
Tolwen

It's a standard Anglo Saxon and viking tactic - as Tolkien would have been only too aware but, as stated earlier it's applicable to larger scale combats rather than the sort of skirmishes we're likely to see in TOR. It's also worth noting that 'heroes' in all ancient tales from Greek through to Viking tend to forgo such defensive tactics in the literature and indulge in one to one combat - however uncommon that would have been in reality. Again, this is what we see reflected in TOR. Shield walls, phalanxes etc are group endeavours whilst heroic literature tends to be about the individual - realistic or not !

And yet Isildur commands his guard like a "real" officer, giving commands and directing them what to do until the end when the remnants of his force are overrun and he puts on the One

But as already mentioned before, this applies to another scale that is quite uncommon in a gaming situation (TOR or other systems). Some games have tactical rules (sometimes complete separate rules compatible with the basic RPG rules of their system) to manage such engagements.
If such situations occur nonetheless (not so unlikely if you let players get involved in military conflicts like the Battle of Five Armies, the Pelennor Fields, Helm's Deep or any other of the numerous battles in Middle-earth's history), in my experience it is best to play the events in the heroes' vicinity and area of influence by the regular rules and narrate the rest of the battle according to either
a.) the GM / LM's plans or
b.) the player's outcome (e.g. their performance decides the whole engagement)

Best
Tolwen

Hi voidstate and everyone,
I agree that Cornwell's (Arthurian and) Saxon stories are great for expressing a 'dark age' feel, especially in battles.

The use of the shieldwall would be central to most TOR characters' Battle skill knowledge. But everyone's right that it is a tactic for medium to large groups and rarely going to benefit groups of just 5-6 doughty heroes.

I dare say Set 2 or at least Set 3 of TOR is going to have rules for larger battles. We can look forward to 'proper' rules for shieldwalls on regular battlefields there.
But in the meantime, we can discuss it to our hearts' content.

I should say that despite the fact that that shieldwalls are logically prone to outflanking, the record suggests that quality was worth more than quantity: a shorter shieldwall of better soldiers could punch through their opponents' shieldwall and carry the battle before a longer shieldwall could 'roll up' a shorter one. And just a couple of warriors fighting as loose skirmishers in Defensive Mode can achieve a great deal to 'cap' an exposed end of a shieldwall, buying time for the centre to carry the battle.

TOR's combat mechanics aren't interested in the sort of (artificially!) static sense of positioning that comes with putting miniatures on a battlemap or hexgrid. Combat is assumed to be fluid, with combatants assumed to be able to reach and attack who they want in the space of a round -- unless, e.g. a Rearward-stance archer has two Close-combat-stance allies working to give him the time and space to get off his ranged attacks.
In that context, a shieldwall of 3-4 PCs is definitely going to get outflanked if they're on the defensive. If they link shields and go Forward Stance (in a mini boar's snout or svinfylking array) to steamroller the enemy before they can be outflanked then the tactic might be beneficial.
And anywhere that constrained space means a cliff-path, a bridge, a doorway or the width of a tunnel can be held by just a small number of combatants, then shieldwall tactics might be very appropriate.

I'd propose that

• shieldwall-members gain +1 Parry for each shieldwall-neighbour presenting a Shield or Great Shield and taking the same Stance as them.
• Combatants right behind a shieldwall that can't be outflanked for whatever reason can benefit from the shield Parry bonus of the person they're behind, plus the same shieldwall-neighbour bonus as he receives. This can benefit archers or characters attacking with spears or great spears from behind the front rank.

Cheers,
--Os.