G56 Gunboat Ends

General
#1

G56 ends in a DS victory. Congrats to my allies for a game well played. We lost no nations at last reporting. Thanks to the FP for fighting hard. I was the Dragonlord/Corsairs and both positions were pushed to the brink repeated. I just caught all of the lucky breaks.

Here is a writeup of some things that happened along the way.

p.s. Gunboat games are fun.

Dragonlord/Corsairs
G56 Gunboat

Early Turns
I was placed as the Dragon/Corsairs in my very first gunboat game. My early plans were to use Corsairs and help finance the Dragonlord to survive the usual onslaught in Mirkwood. Corsairs would assault Harad by land and save the navy for later in the game.

Mirkwood was actually quiet to start and Dragonlord was able to bring 5 emissaries to Dol Guldur. I got lucky when my first full priced emmy character had a large level bonus. I then played for time and it worked out that I was able to ImprPop on Dol Guldur to a city on the same turn that the FP arrived. The early artifact hunt proved fruitful. I gathered Tinculin and Miramar since they were close together. Blue Ring was retrieved shortly after that. Dragonlord brought the Corsairs mage north to complete a Sickness Squad by turn 9.

Corsairs got lucky as Harad was not building armies everywhere. When the Corsairs armies went north Harad was outnumbered. However, Southern Gondor showed up at Vamag, 2135. Corsairs was out of position as SG eliminated the Vamag army and advanced on 2136. Corsairs caught a huge break when SG tried for the Capture and not the Destroy. His army was unable and was whittled down to about 500 troops as my counterattack arrived. I won the next turn as caught another monster break when I captured the SG subcommander and he was wearing the Ring of Impersonation! Dilly Dilly!!!

Middle Turns
Dragonlord spent most of those turns defending Dol Guldur as the waves began arriving from Woodmen, Sinda, Dwarves, and Northmen. But the city/keep was too much to overcome and the Sickness Squad was mowing them down. I worked hard to keep the loyalty at 95+. The FP were unable to coordinate. Northmen lost a large army when he went for the Destroy and the Woodmen did not. Also, it would appear that the Woodmen were not scouting for characters since I was able to personal challenge subcommanders. During this time the Sickness Squad went to the Sinda holdings in Lothlorien, but he must have doing his diligence, as no challenges were accepted. I also suspect he moved his capital to 2908. Clever move, that.
Corsairs retrieved the Ring of Wind from the sea hex of 1235. A DS ally reported the location in a Diplo. SG did show up to try for it, but brought way too small a navy. My fleet lost barely anything in the combat. I might add that I used a commander to retrieve the Ring. It took 3 full turns of 900 orders, but eventually it worked. When I returned I was able to build a super-agent and began tormenting the Harad. During this time Sinda had agents all over me. They stole huge amounts every turn until my economy was gasping. No new characters were affordable and when I lost one, I could not replace. I played the entire game with basically 12 characters. Tharudan was the FP superagent. I was tracking him, but could not work anything out. Also, Harad lost the north bank of his kingdom during this time. He was in trouble. QA and I began to squeeze him out of the south, as well.

Late Turns
Dragonlord was feeling a little relieved and then the nightmare arrived. Northern Gondor arrived with 11,000 troops on Dol Guldur. I had finally rehired and the Ice King had arrived with some cavalry and characters. To make matters worse, the Dwarves had an large force present. Dol Guldur was toast! Then the turns ran…and nothing happened. Weird! Then the GB Combos were posted by Clint and NG was eliminated? He went bankrupt! The IK company and my mages cleared my capital again. On T19 I decided it was time to visit the dwarves again. On T20 my company challenged 3 characters and won them all with no damage.

For Corsairs, my agent was unstoppable. I killed a few and sabotaged some fortifications. The QA and my armies pushed all the way to the capital. On T20 the Harad capital fell.

#2

hI

played the 16/19 combo

Early–

IK- I was able to send waves of troops into the gap. I used as much armor as possible and a few artifacts. The DS team did an awesome job early of maintaining the GAP! And props to whomever was dropping the bridges…I believe the OZ bridge was rebuilt and dropped a second time? I was also Abe to improve my capital to a city and back up to a city. After the gap was secure I ran my starting IK army north.

LR- EO was a thorn–burning and camping most of my starting camps I was able to use my little navy to burn/capture and luckily enough threaten most of the stating NM pops around the lake.

Mid game-

IK–ran armies north and sent out gold a few times to allies. Improves my PC’s. By this time–turn 10 /11 it was obvious that Mordor would stand so I built some cavalry to help the dragon lord.
Agents joined the squad with LR. Mage was close to Reveal PC.

Late–12+

Took over Rhun–I captured all starting Free PC’s. recovered all my starting camps—took a 1-2 PC a turn from the EO. also had a huge steal around turn 14? so he was gutted quickly… IK armies to EO plex to assist. Emmy squad flipped New NM capital. LR armies and Emmys took iron hills. Revealed and captured Sinda Mtown on Rhun lake.

Helped at Doe G–killed the Dwarf. also popped in 2711 and cleared it… was heading to northern mists when game ended…

#3

Hi,
Played as DkL/WiK combo as my first game in 5 years.
Made an immediate mistake moving the 2305 army out to be jumped on by Woodmen who then moved up and threatened away 2305 on turn 3.
Started with locate artefact rue so located ROW in the sea and sent info out on diplo. Also located and picked up ROC which I took to CLCapital and handed to the commander I reconned there.
Built up initial WiK armies in north getting both 1804 and 2006 up to cities pretty quickly. Helped by high prices and a couple of gold shipments from ClL I also managed to get 1804 a citadel.
Initial thrusts of FP came in overwhelming numbers, although main attack at first seemed to be against Rhudaur. Was lucky with dragons so destroyed first thrust at my centres and managed to put my dragon army into Rhudaur territory to help out. In the end the constant armies of Arthedain Noldo dwarves into my territory were too much at one point leaving just 1804 and 2006 intact. In the end dwarves took 2006 about turn 12 and Arthedain threatened 1804 a couple of turns later. By then I had DkL backup in mordor plus lots of camps. Over next 6 turns or so my WiK and DkL emissaries took every starting town of Arthedain, usually with 1 hit. I concluded he must have been running with high taxes. I hope this tipped him over.
When prices hit rock bottom my economies were in bad shape but by disbanding all armies apart from some seed armies I ma aged to keep level footing but couldn’t afford any new characters for either nation in 2nd half of game.
DkL put initial forces into Osgiliath and knocked down the bridge on turn 3 I think. Noticed it was put back up 2 or 3 turns later so knocked it down again. Reached 3028 before my armies were spent and finances didn’t allow new ones. Developed curse squad with urzahil,bolvag and murazor and at end of game they were on Dun capital.
Enjoyed my return to Middle Earth.
Mike Sankey

#4

6 DS reporting. I take it you won…

#5

Greetings friends and foes :slight_smile:

Having played MEPBM since 1992, Im probably one of the most experienced players, but due to the usual time constrains of raising a family with small kids I had to take a break and have been absence for the last four/five years.
So for my first MEPBM game in many years I chose the 1650 GB format and was happy I given my favourite DS nation “CL” paired with Rhudaur. Ohh boy I have had fun with CL through the years :slight_smile:

My early game was all about keeping Rhudaur alive with max recruitment and full focus on economy. A lot of Mouse/Cat play with Cardolan and Arthedain forces. That strategy went well not losing any pops until around turn 6/7 when **** hit the fan… Dwarves arrived at 2109 from GG-pass with a 3000 starting HI, Woodman arrived at 2208 with 2000 starting troops, and Duns arrived at 1910 with nearly 6000 troops.
Through a little bit of luck, help from WiK, some good decisions and good planning I actually managed to clear that wave only losing 2208 and 2109. Duns were afraid we had dragons at 1910, so he only attacked the small Rhd/WiK armies. We did not have any dragons and unlucky for him, the best CL agent was present and as he failed to put a backup commander in that huge army CL wiped that army out, while a Rhd commander challenged out the Woodman army at 2109 and the main Rhd army of 5000 HI was awaiting the Dwarves army at capital and took care of that !

The joy was short, because shortly after I realized that the FP really meant business….they went all in for the destruction of Rhd. The next waves from Cardolan and Arthdain was supported by a new large Dwarf army from capital and new Woodmen armies. This was too much pressure to resist singlehanded and my focus was now to defend the Rhd capital for as long as possible by upgrading it to City/Keep, while the other pops were taken.
In the large stage of the game some of the best CL agents sieged Rhd capital and wiped army after army as FP were not able to coordinate an attack to take out the City/Keep. This strategy succeeded until turn 18 where Duns, Cardolan and Arthedain arrived together with 13.000 troops and 13 supporting characters. FP finally managed to take the Rhd capital despite that Rhd had a small dragon army defending. But CL had also arrived with EVERY capable agent, so over two turns EVERY single FP character present was slain and all FP armies destroyed. That’s a pretty high price to pay even for a capital I would say :slight_smile:

Down south only real action I experienced was the capturing of the entire northern Harad which was planned and coordinated through nation messages with a very well playing QA/FiK. CL agents sabotaged fortifications at 2730 and 2732, while 6000 Rhd/CL troops ambushed northern Harad together with QA and FiK troops as well. Also a special Kudos to the QA/FiK player for deploying a skilled double scout agent to the CL agent company, arranged through nation messages, which was then doubled by CL so I received information each turn of the scouts. That was especially a huge factor in identifying and taking out all those 13 FP characters at 2008.

So overall a great game that ended a bit too early, mainly because the DS in my opinion were better skilled overall as they managed to defeat FP in almost all strategic areas.

BR
Kim Andersen

#6

Nice to see so many returning players - and especially Gunboat recaps. Always cool to see behind the curtain so to speak. :slight_smile:

#7

BLOOOD bath at 2008! well done

#8

I played the Dun

On turn 1 the FP received this diplo from the Eo “EO will build up armies and harry Mordor entrance. Will take out DS camps in area”. I knew this was a losing game at that point.

The Eo has a small window of opportunity to hit the DS and really hurt them. The Eo in this game elected not to do that. The FP must bring the hurt to the DS early as time is on the DS side.

We tried (NG and I) to break through the western pass but we were easily repulsed as it became clear to the DS that the Eo was not coming at them so the DS were able to concentrate forces on the Western pass. Even though I sent a large contingent of Dun cavalry to the western pass there were too many DS nations all piled into the Western Pass since nobody was knocking at the North Gate. In addition, the SG actions appeared to be confusing - we were never able to determine what he was trying to accomplish - so the SG was also ineffective.

The NW and the south are a sideshow. The war is won or lost in Mordor and since we never came close to getting in Mordor it was a losing effort. I have seen too many games where both the WK & Rhud are put out early and it made zero difference in the game - the FP lost. I have also seen games where the WK & Rhud cleaned the NW up putting out both the Card and Arthedain only to see the DS lose the game as Mordor was overrun (I played the WK in one game and did just that and still lost).

So when the Eothraim states they are not attempting to penetrate Mordor - hang on because it’s going to be a rough ride for the FP. The DS were good players and immediately saw what the Eo was not doing and shift considerable (and overwhelming) resources to the West pass.

So hat’s off the DS - you played well and deserved your victory.

Eothraim players - learn from this mistake and don’t make it going forward. The Eo has the best starting armies in the game - use them! And use them immediately!

#9

Thavius, how did NG get eliminated when it had 11,000 troops sitting on Dol Guldur? I thought mycapital was a goner.

#10

The LR took a town unexpectedly. The calculation was close (obviously too close). We wanted a force that was unstoppable that could then move down to Mordor. A large portion of the army was HC st/st and the rest HI with 6 commanders or so - oh and lots of war machines. The plan was to move to Morannon and begin wrecking Mordor.

A few more turns and the Dun nation would have had a curse squad. My plan was to start picking off the CL agents - one at a time.

#11

it was expected to me!

whit

#12

Very well played by the DS! Your executed strategy was cohesive while ours were completely disjointed. You threw a lot of meat into the western pass early. We had a lovely battle involving 3 dragons (1 FP vs 2 DS) and many thousands of troops died. The real keys, from my perspective were so many DS nations contributing troops to that effort early and particularly the repeated destruction of the bridge. I think I needed to push the nation harder earlier and not quite so hard later (obviously lol). It really did come down to Whit’s capture of one town at just the wrong moment. I was less than a thousand gold short of survival. The market had crashed a couple turns earlier (which was rather surprising considering how strong it had been) and I should have immediately scaled back the armies but thought we could pull it off. I think the game was likely already a DS victory at that point, but it would have been fun to take Dol Guldur and try to survive the assassins long enough to take Morannon. Mordor was already a sea of cities at his point, so it would have been too little, too late in any case.

Doug - NG

#13

Dk Lt and WiK final odfs attached

#14

Hey Kim and Mike,

Good to have you back. You should give Kin Strife a try. Great Setup Options and due to less Overall nations, easier to Play with a small Team. There are still some veterans playing and looking for competent Opposition.

PS Happy New Year!