A copy of an article first published ijn "News from Bree"
#7, and also in Flagship ...
FACE TO FACE MIDDLE EARTH!
A tale of Glory, Panic and Twitch the cat...
"Come to Harlequin Towers in Cardiff and we'll run a face to
face game of Middle Earth" they said. And in a fit of
Millennium Madness eleven or so people jumped at the idea.
Well, it's not often that you get the chance to play
fourteen turns of your favourite PBM in one day is it? Well,
that's my excuse anyway.
Then the reality started to set in. Cardiff, by nine thirty
in the morning. From London. Arrggghhh! Fortunately one of
our number is the proud possessor of a rather nice and very
large car. Better still he offered to take five of us there
and back in the same day. As I said, Millennium Madness had
set in. So there we were, seven o'clock one freezing morning
at the end of December, heading down the motorway. It made
an somewhat surreal sight, five PBMers clutching maps and
files containing various bits of Middle Earth data, huddled
together in a car in the pre-dawn light, blearily staring at
the motorway as the strains of various operatic arias filled
the car. Most of us had just about woken up by the time we
reached Bristol, so breakfast was called at a service
station, greasy spoon all round, apart from one of our
number suffering from food poisoning. Not an auspicious
start, but it was too late now, we were almost there, and
only a little late.
The Harlequin house turned out to be quite accessible from
the motorway, and we were soon standing around the kitchen
holding mugs of coffee. Did I say kitchen? Well, yes,
something a lot of players don't realise is that the vast
majority of PBM companies are not run from impersonal
offices, but a room or two in someone's house. But there
wasn't much time for social pleasantries, there was a game
to be played and a war to be started!
Choosing teams was a fairly straight forward affair: there
were fourteen of us, including three of the Harlequin GM's,
so seven a side with a couple of people on each team playing
two nations each. The five of us stuck together as a team
and were joined by the two GM's deemed the least good as
players and a toss of the coin determined that we would be
the Free People's. Sensibly the two teams were split up, the
evil servants of Sauron got to stay in the kitchen, whilst
we had the upstairs living room, replete with comfy chairs
and a useful table.
It wasn't long before we had start-up turns in front of us
and the first turn strategy was planned. Fortunately one of
our number had been rather sad the previous night and marked
one of the glossy Middle Earth maps with all the starting
positions of the various nations. Lines were drawn on the
map and counters moved around, but not for too long, the
first turn was due!
Have you ever written a turn, posted it off, come back home
and, over a mug of tea thought, "I want my turn back, now
not in two week's time"? Well you know what they say, be
careful of what you wish for, it may happen. Barely half an
hour later, there were the first turns (literally) hot off
the printer. Manic activity now ensued, with mass scribbling
of turns and shouting out of information for various people,
previously delegated to the task, to mark on the map.
I'm not going to tell you what happened, not yet! In the
next issue I'll start a game diary of events from a Free
People perspective - though any of the Dark Servants are
more than welcome to write something as well. Suffice it to
say that by the end of turn 2, no less than two Nazgul were
dead, either drowned or impaled on an elven blade. By the
end of a very long day (past midnight in fact), the Free
People's were well and truly on top, but then I would say
that wouldn't I? Probably my own worst moment though came
not in the game, but when I (twice) attempted accidental
murder on an unsuspecting Twitch the cat, who had crept up
next to me on the sofa, unaware that my arms were about to
flail in that direction. Sorry Twitch!
We didn't get fourteen turns in the end, only seven. But I
really can't imagine fitting any more in during the course
of a single day. By the time we slouched in the rather
comfortable seats of the Jag again, we were all well and
truly drained. The good news though was that, the Dark
Servants not knowing when they were beaten, the game will
continue by post. Better yet at some point during the day
someone mentioned how good it would be to have more than one
day of this. Oh dear, be careful what you wish for.... Yes,
the loons at Harlequin are planning another such event,
though this time over a whole weekend! Sheer lunacy! What
sort of person would agree to a whole weekend? Oh, sod it,
I'll be there.
Late News: There are definitely plans for an event this
Christmas/New Year! Contact Harlequin for more details!