Hey Guys,
Drats! Just as I was about to flip a HAR MT, take Pelargir and setup a southern FK empire!!! 
Well, as it appears FP have conceded now, congrats to my DS brethren and hats off to the FP for a hard fought and very fun game. This was actually my very first game of ME, but I was lucky enough to get placed on a team with a lot of very experienced, patient, and helpful players who quickly taught me the ropes, provided tons of great advice, and sent in the reinforcements I needed to hold the gap at a very critical point in the game for FK (when SG/NG actually made it through to my capital). The whole team played extremely well together, but my particular thanks to all the sage advice and guidance from the “old school” (grin)-- Michael, Tony, Bryn, Gary, Mike and Bob. You all have set my expectations for good team play at a very high bar.
As to your questions, Jason, I’ll let others weigh in too, but here’s my perspective:
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They’re in play, just not in the forefront as of yet. You would have seen them in force almost immediately had you not conceded. It took us a while to get Tinculin, and we didn’t have the WiK arti in use until recently, so they were about to emerge, but hadn’t been a big part of our strategy as of yet. As we were heading into a character game, that was about to change. I noticed that Shogmog narrowly escaped a sickness squad of your own this turn:eek:(but, fortunately for me, I had backups).
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I’ll let Mike (CL) tell that story. Suffice it to say, we got it early (QA – Tony-- fished it out of the pond in the very first turns), but, in later turns, it turned out to be almost as hard to hang on to as the One Ring. 
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No idea, but it was a ton. You can thank Paul (IK) for that one. He was a thief extraordinaire, and actually was funding several nations with his haul for a couple of turns. Kudos, Paul.
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Thanks. Camp early, camp often. I named emis and sent them out early on to camp as much as possible. I got very lucky with camping this game, which helped me support lots of troops. Also, I got camps going in the Misties quickly, which seemed to be dragon magnets. At one point, I had four dragons in my main army, and Michael accused me of being too greedy…so I had to stop keeping my emis in the mountains. The dragons were definitely a key part of the change in momentum, as I was able to take Ithil with their help (and support from my mates, of course), and then Oz. By then, the recruiting machine was in full swing and I, with a big assist from DkLs (Erik), was able to buy the TI to rebuild the bridge and then flood the gap with troops, spelling the end of NG as the hordes of Mordor spilled forth (or some such rot).
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I think that’s true. Already mentioned Paul’s thefts being a factor. A number of us camped heavily, which meant that we had a lot of resources to send around, gold to share, etc. Tony’s coordination of buy-outs helped immensely, particular in the lean winter months. My biggest problem was the last couple of turns, when I was supporting a huge deficit in wintertime from some very large armies surging into NG (and still trying to recruit as much as I could), but even then my taxes only involuntarily nudged up to 61% in the worst of those turns. Others had some higher tax bumps, but we were all able to make sure we had gold and stuff to sell to keep everyone in play.
I think the real key was the way Eo/NM, etc. were always on the defensive thanks to the combined efforts of Gary, Mike and Bob in controlling the Rhun/Rhovanion. I think one of my favorite things about how this played out is that, when you look at what happened, BS was mostly a military nation this game! The “Rhun” team developed and executed a great strategy, which actually may have been aided by some of the coordination problems on the Freep side that you mentioned, Jason. Coupled with Bryn’s incredible ability to stay alive and kicking in the Mirkwood (almost couldn’t believe his stand at DG!!), and Michael’s skillful ability (with some help from two of the three Duns players) to delay the inevitable demise of Angmar (once Rhu went Free), it meant that Fortress Mordor was never really threatened in any serious way (the closest being the armies sitting on my cap, but even they weren’t enough to really drive through).
Anyway, those are my quick thoughts on the subject. I had a real blast this game. Game 62 sold me on ME (and I’m in quite a few games now – just ask Clint!:D). I’m sorry to see it end, as I had loads of fun being FK on this team. Thanks, from my end, in particular to the strong, determined play from both Alan (NG) and Matthew (SG). You guys kept the meatgrinder going from turn 1 and made FK a fun and challenging nation to play. Had I not been able to get the dragons into play when I did, things might well have gone differently.
Good game, and I look forward to other games with all.
All the best,
Mark (FK)
Keep bigging them up and they’ll vote to keep playing thinking they’ve got us beat.
