Murazor, First of the Nazgul, sends his greetings to all. A Dark Storm brews in the East, and will soon be unleashed upon the West. You mighty men may as well do as the Elves do and flee on white ships for fairer lands. These lands will soon be darkened with your blood, at least the Elves have recognized the futility of resistance and leave en masse, with only a few impotent tricksters remaining to buy time for their kin. Well, time has run out. There is no Last Alliance, only the last war of this age, and it brings your doom.
The Free Peoples of Middle-earth – Elves, Dwarves, Men, Ents, and Halflings – stand united against you. Our leaders have personally experienced the machinations of your Dark Lord and his master; our peoples are resolved to fight through to victory.
Our people are rushing to the banners; yours must be driven with whips. That alone spells victory for us.
Oh, and that little ring you put so much faith in? Well, I have it on good authority that it’s presently sailing to the West, where someone named Aule is planning to make it into a nail clipper. You can stop hunting for Smeagol now.
Aragorn II
Captain of the Dunedain of Arnor
Bearer of the Star of the West
The guy who mooned Minas Morgul three decades ago
Rumors do tell that our distant kin, the dark Dunadain of Umbar, have again bartered liberty for the scraps from Sauron’s table. We will ensure they regret that decision.
wow,
witch king to the north, dragon lord to west, east and south. mel brooks moment anyone? “gang bang the woodmen” at least if i march in the wrong direction this turn, i’ll run into opposition. for the love of the trees, can’t we all just get along? i get a few skill rank improvements, and my nearest bad guy neighbors get super-uber armies.
Bolg merely wishes to find a nice winter cozy in the woods. It gets cold up in Mt. Gram. We see you have scurried like ants to cover all your woodland huts, even recruiting the elves to protect a meager village. But surely we can come to some sort of accommodation? All we want is … well … everything. And don’t worry, we’re ready for the horsies …
We tremble in our meager hovels, dreading the time when the DS will roll out of Mordor and across Middle Earth… Our distruction is clearly near in this obviously lop-sided scenario…or so sayith the GMs who will not play WotR due to its drastic DS advantages.
Oh how we lament the coming devistation that you will shortly visit upon us…
dear murazor,
you roll into 2508 with 1800 troops, kill off 100 hi and stick around? are the women at 2305 that pitiful. i’m flattered that you spent 5k in troop costs to reside at 2508, but i was busy with a friend taking 2409 from your buddy khamul. please fiddle while your greenwood holdings fall.
Have you seen the picture of Blogath? That, my friend, is who Murazor keeps around for females.
Plus, if we left, we wouldn’t be able to see you spend another 5k in gold to recruit new officer fodder and stitch a banner together for them to die under.
As for Goblin Gate - nasty place. Dragons, cold weather, bad loyalty … good luck holding on to the place.
I tend to think the opposite. Adding a few troops to the DS doesn’t compensate for the huge additional tax base and recruiting capability of Gondor and Rohan. I’d be curious to know how many WotR games have been played, and the victory distribution.
The creator of this variant says the DS were puffed up without his prior knowledge and consent. The Company says it wasn’t them. So, draw your own conclusion. Does The Company have a history of ‘tinkering’?
That’s not quite right. Mr. Devereux tells me (I just asked him) that he was in on the “puffing up” of the DS concurrently with the design of the variant, even though it wasn’t part of his original artistic vision (if you will), which was mainly additions and changes to popcenters; further, he was in on it to the extent that he changed the proposed additional DoL troops from HI to HC for consistency’s sake.
This is one I don’t think you can pin on The Company (in Ominous Capital Letters).
Drew:
Thanks for the interest. Going back to the 10 December 2004 List, here is what was said exactly (I quote):
“RD: Well firstly; I am rather bitter because some of the DS ‘extras’ eg the extra troops and extra gold, were not my idea but were added at somebody else’s suggestion. I think but can’t swear it was Clint himself, and if so he can harly criticize me for making the DS too strong!”
So, from this I conclude there was a ‘forced’ collaberation at work.
Very interesting. I’ll have to go back and find that thread; however, from what you’ve pasted above, and the answer I got from Richard, sounds like to me the context of the bitterness is Clint’s claim of DS advantage, not DS advantage per se. Here is what I got from Richard the other day on the subject, verbatim:
[i]"RD: The scenario as submitted by me made additions and changes mostly to pops, but also also smaller changes to characters and one to artis.
Somebody else - I can’t recall who - said that DS should be further pumped up with armies and gold. I did not think this would make much difference so I went along with it to get the scenario launched. I even changed the proposed DoL reinforcement of hi to hc for the sake of consistency, not because I thought he needed it.
So I have to admit, I -was- aware of the extra troops and gold for DS, altho they were not in my original plan.
Hope that’s cleared things up, and yes you can quote me,
Richard."[/i]
My take on this whole controversy is that Clint placed a near mortal blow to the WotR scenario when he publicly claimed DS advantage. I’d be bitter too if it were my baby.
I find the claim of a DS advantage in this scenario simply BIZARRE. If you look over the pop center lists the Northies, Silvans, Noldo, Riders, NG, SG have all been substantially strengthened. Take the entire Sea of Rhun and the Northmen are still as strong as their starting 2950 position, for example…
The one actual advantage for the DS in this scenario is that the market is tough to deflate because of the extra cash and pops.
IMHO, the unbalancing does not result from the DS or FP positions. It results from the neutrals, which are usually prealigned in WOTR. The DS usually have to struggle economically when fully recruiting, and just that is vital for game balance. With KE and Cor on their side, the DS are totally in control of the rich south; with unmolested nations able to send gold and as camping ground. That turned out to be a big advantage in both WOTR games I have played.
I think the neutral effect that you’re talking about would apply equally well to standard 2950. The difference is the market; it’s tougher to squeeze the servants economically in WOTR than it is in standard 2950.
However, it’s a whole lot easier to squash the servants militarily in WOTR than in standard 2950 too. It really is a hybrid 1650/2950 scenario, and my favorite of the lot by a wide margin.
