Hya guys - thought I’d put up a quick post. Looks like we had a decent start to the game - anticipated most (not all) of your moves and some ???s to fill in for some locations of armies etc but generally we’re happy. We’re trying out some new tactics in this game so we’re curious to know how they impact on your side in the long term… 
Guess Bulrakur had a nasty surprise uh!? :
:omg: 
Clint (player)
Clint (player),
Can you list who is playing what side and what neutrals got assigned to each side. I like to read these reports but first posts are good to list out what the game setup is for us not in the game.
Thanks - John
We’re the FPs - Cor/Dun FP, Har/Rhu DS no Easterlings. 1910/4217 with forts (normal WC rules apply).
Clint (player)
Good turn for us overall with a few important aims achieved. Looks like the Harad is for the chopping block.
Like the move on the Dwarves @2004 - that PC is a pain for the entire game! Looks like Bulrakur did get Gandalfed after all. Din bouncing helped (we didn’t even see him). Why did you retire the 4215 Army? Boon for us.
We see you’ve challenged off a few of the weaker characters but you must be wondering where our troops are by now uh? (Well not those in Harad of course). We like to build up before attacking generally.
Turn 2: Economy couldn’t be better methinks. Le/Br @2, St/Ti@3 Mi@43 Fo@1, Mo@14. Anyone about to go pop yet?
Nice move revealing Imladris - but there appear to be no troops to back it up. Hopefully we’ll keep 2514 but it’s looking dicey.
Shame about Thranduil - a calculated risk that went wrong… :stab:
That will do for now. Chat to you guys later - if you’d like to post that is… 
Clint (player)
Okay looks like you’ve got the economy back a little this turn but overall we’re very content. The Harad is deep trouble and our onslaught into Mordor now starts - hope you like the little surprises there. Hukor is a bit of a surprise but nothing unexpected from the Rhudaur… you might get 1510 this turn I suppose…
Goblin Gate falls to a threaten this turn which was very nice and Bulrakur seems to be playing with camps - what’s left of the mighty Dog Lord army anyway.
Feel free to chat of course … any time… :rolleyes: Imladras move was a bit telegraphed though guys.
Nice kidnap on Mahrcared, but we didn’t get so lucky against Ulfacs despite better over-all stats so that’s a tad annoying. Ah well I guess you need a bit of luck… :rolleyes:
Clint (player)
Would be fun if the other side new how to talk.
Good luck to both sides.
tim
Hi all,
here we go with a few quick notes from the DS, just from scratch.
So, how are things going?
In the northwest, we have recruiting FPs who send some armies down south
and do now seem to come to some action, with WK and Rhudaur having send some armies out to Arthedain, Cardolan and, yes, arriving at the Dun’s capital this turn, too. Just a try 
Besides, Mûrazor has NOT fallen asleep @2004…
Nice FP buildup in front of Morannon, let’s see what happens there.
Talking about the Cavalry of the Dog Lord, well it crushed one Eo-Cav and a dwarven army… and Mahrcareds Cavalry went down achieving nothing. A fate
that might continue…
Tough luck Gontran didn’t kill Azaghal in front of Goblin-Gate, but you can’t strike all the time.
Down south, everybody and his brother is beating on the Harad who’s doing fine under the circumstances.
Minas Ithil fell to the Fire-King, Gondor was rather keen on marching to Morannon then defending the pass, DS armies continuing to march out there.
Caras Galadhon is revealed and some visitors have arrived. Yep, the move on Imladris was very obvious, but we knew you could only hide one of both locations (2209 / 2514), and we would try to take the other
FP are trying to ruin the markets as usual, so far we’re alive and kicking.
The Ring of Wind is in our hands already, and the search goes on…
Good gaming
Carsten (WK / CL)
Masses of troops arrived in Morannon, part of our defense plans failed…
But the first capital to fall is that of… Dunland!
Well well… a small cav force was able to burn an almost undefended Larach Duhnnan to the ground.
Cute @2514 - wasn’t expecting that to fall but there you go. You forgot to mention the Ring of Wind though - thought you claimed that last turn.
Northman seems in trouble but we’ll take that for the Ice King. Harad is looking in some trouble - wonder if the Harad capital falls this turn uh?
Nice one with the Dunlendings - shame but guess the hunt is on now uh?
Clint (player)
Turn 8
Well we think we’ve won the game but there you go. We always do and sometimes we get a nasty surprise. :stab: :bash:
Agents on our side are awful (some bad luck but good play on the DS’s side) but the pro side is that the DS’s agents aren’t much better…
Dol Guldur falls this turn, (2305 last turn turn 7) and the NW is pretty much swamped with FP armies (1910 & 2009 should fall this turn, leaving Rh on 4 start PCs plus some camps to hit, along with 5 WK pcs going up in smoke as well - down to 3 start pcs). East - pretty much contained all the troops there now so that should be pretty safe and we can actually start to aggress, we think, soon. South is going swimmingly - Harad down to 2 pcs this turn, QA is soon going to be feeling more pain shortly. Market has come down to 1s for selling and with the IK capital now elsewhere, Dog Lord @3624 we’re set to storm into Mordor over the next few turns. A few camps to burn and we’re set we think. Just need to see some nations die on the DS side and we expect that to happen very soon.
BS army has basically done nothing all game - we managed to keep it tied down so that’s great for us as well. 8.5/10 for the good guys I’ve leave the Germans to tell you the bad news… :hug: (Note I reserve the right to tell porkies here!) :eek:
Clint (player)
I think the last post I saw from the gm team is Clint thinks his team will win. Ask him how close he is to finishing as I would like to follow your team against the GM team.
Well yes we think it’s in the bag now but things can still go awry. I think I described the NW situation last turn and it’s pretty much going to be over there in the next 3 turns.
Harad looks to be deceased - either that or a very cunning play - QA soon to follow. NE we’ve held off the hordes there and we’ve taken the Ik/Dog capital and hitting the Fk capital this turn so we think that’s it not long before we crack Mordor so that just leaves “extra” pcs that we’re in the process of sorting out. Market is still low. 2809 has just got an icon on it, the turn that 2715 fell so Dragon Lord is still active. I could go into more detail on what, where etc but for now I’ll pass. VPwise we’re massively ahead and that’s a very good indication at this stage of the game as well.
They’ve got dragons but we’re dealing with that, agents are weak at present - first NG kidnapped this turn for example… Saying that they’re stickers to we shall see what we shall see - maybe they’ll pull a victory out of the bag after all… We’re not that interested in a One Ring victory. :eek:
If you want to play us send me an email so that I can bring it up with the team.
Clint (player)
Been a while but here’s the update. Turn 13 and Rhu and Har are out [we’re reasonably sure - but got it wrong with the Harad last time] with DrgLd, IK, FK, Dog and this turn the DkL to relocate their capitals. (WK’s pcs are all except one covered this turn so that should be fun).
LR et al attack into NM land has now been halted and we’re soon to retake the last PC there despite a surprise of 2k troops at Dilgul… We’re curious how so many got there but time will no doubt tell.
Economy if flat 1s (17 for Mi, 7 for Mo) across the board and gold transfers from half their team to the other half are now standard.
Germans are putting up stiff resistance but we feel that it’s only a matter of time as the first waves have now been superceded but the nth + mth waves… We’ve heard that they are tenacious so we’ve planned for a long haul on this one.
Clint (player)
Well,well…
contrary to our usual habits, we have just conceded our bitter defeat in ME58.
As Clint correctly guessed, the Rhudaur and just shortly the Haradrim are gone, and we would have lost the Quiet Avenger on this turn.
Though the Duns were the first nation to fall, the situation got quite fiddly to say the least:
With three northwestern Mordor capitals fallen and Barad-Dûr about to follow,
we have anticipated the next turns; whilst we would be able to keep the
remaining nations in the game for a few turns to come and put up some dire
resistance, two of our essential moves finally failed, and we can’t crush the next 20k of troops as we did the last 40k
We did too late adapt to the “everyone and his brother (and his nephew and the dog of his brother) to the arms and nothing much else” - strategy of the
FP (which has been played brillantly - very good gaming on part of the FP here) , in combination with a good market strategy. A mistake that allowed the australians to bare the palm in our last DS game, too.
We are now discussing and adapting our present DS strategy (which allows the DS to strike extremly hard in the mid-game), a strategy that failed in the upper examples, as our nations came up beaten out of the first turns; we have partly found a promising counter-strategy though already and hope to demonstrate it in our next game to come. We will be back…
So my congratulations for a game well played, hope to meet you again
on the battlefields of Middle-Earth
Thought you might want to see the end turn map turn 14