Game 41 Ends!

General
#1

Greg Bair of the Ash Pit Goblins, Nation #16 here.

I wanted to thank the Free and Neutral nations for a well fought game. I was taking a bit of a pounding near the end there but am happy to say my Goblins weathered the storm! Have to say I was cursing that damned Leliel and Malar nearly every turn.

I think the format worked great! I did like going in blind as far as allegience. I’m not quite sure how the Neutrals fared and would be interested to hear. Perhaps next game it could be a 9-9-7 split with the Neutrals having both Kingdoms or a 7-7-11 split with the Free and Dark having one Kingdom each.

That said I’d love to give this format a go again if there are any takers with the newly updated 4th Age rules. I’ve played both open games and gunboat and definitely prefer this format (what to call it - Blind setup??) to the others.

Again, thanks for a well fought game. I look forward to hearing from all players in Game 41.

Greg
Game #41
Ash Pit Goblins

#2

Kyle Ford here of the Nameless, nation #11.

I had fun for my first FA 1000 game. I enjoyed working with the teammates on the Dark Servant squad. Very enjoyable game.

I like the action from the start. We were really sending Black Mask help against the Buccaneers. The SK had immediate confrontation as well, but being a Kingdom, held his own.

My opening struggle, was to get across the River to the north to fight Stout Brewing (free) / neutral (?). I was out played with the bridges, and had to redirect my troops to the Treefolk. The timing worked out so that I found the capital relatively undefended.

I learned that emis and agent actions were tweeked a bit from what I was used to from a 2950 game.

I’m also interested in another game of this format. Would be interested to hear about additional tweaks to the rules.

Kyle
Nameless, #11
Game 41

#3

Matt Ashley of the Raggers here…

Lots of fun with a late game push by the FP hard against me and the Ash Pit Goblins.

I pretty much concentrated on helping the Goblins deal with the FP and neutrals to the north and tying down the North Kingdom and the FP in the Gap to the south of me.

I felt very exposed sitting with my nation around 2013 but luckily had the Goblins to my back at 2409. I was a bit surprised that the NK and the FP in the gap did not come after me harder earlier in the game.

I’d be very interested in seeing how the FP and neutrals saw the game.

Matt

#4

Ken Weed here, I played the Vanyar. First of all, Congrats to the DS!

One thing I would say is that I would prefer that the players were allowed communication before creating their nations. As the free people, we ended up with alot of people with the same SNAs, and no real agent nations, and that cost us dearly, as replacing characters was very hard for us, especially good agents and ems. Our mages did well, and our armies held there own against more numerous and better positioned enemies.

I did enjoy the fact that my Queen, Leliel, got curses as my nation bonus. I did find some structural flaws in the nation I built, and was kind of bummed that I got bumped from my primary position to a secondary one that was poor production and terribly exposed.

I am curious, how many of the DS nations had Agent SNAs? Em SNAs?

-Ken

#5

Ken,
I had the emis, commander, summon storms and conjure mounts SNA. I figured as a DS that my team mates would handle the agent bit pretty well. I wanted to play an aggressive, raiding nation which I was able to do for the most part.

I think that we had 3 or 4 of our nations that had the agent SNA but I’ll leave it to Kyle or one of the other guys to answer that for certain.

You did get quite the crummy placement!

Matt

#6

I am curious, how many of the DS nations had Agent SNAs? Em SNAs?

The were 2 Dark nations that had ageny SNAs: The Rhûn Easterlings, who had ‘Name new Agents at 40’ and my own Goblins who also has the 40 agents SNA in addition to double scouting. Double scouting, in my opinion, is more important in getting the agent game going. I made the mistake in another 4th Age game of taking the +20 to scouting SNA which is unreliable - go hard or go home - take the 2x scouting if you go that route.

Only 2 nations had the ‘Name new emmisaries at 40’ SNA, the Sons of Owain & the Raggers. Our emmy company was effective, particularly in/around the Misty Mountains, working in concert with one of the agent companies.

Our most popular SNA was ‘Name new commanders at 40’, surprisingly - 4 nations took that- and there was the usual smattering of Conjure Mounts, Hire for Free, +20% Market Adjustment, Navy Stuff, etc. I’ve noticed from a 4th Age Gunboat I’m playing that the +20% SNA is going a long way towards my success as you’re not able to depend on the generosity of teammates.

We were certainly not slanted to the agent game at start but did a good job of forming companies with our agents and working in concert with one another.

Critical to our success was doing a market ploy every turn, ably coordinated by Matt of the Raggers & Ernie of the Black Mask. This certainly kept us in gold every turn and the Dark showed excellent teamwork all around, sharing resources, gold and character actions where needed.

I’d have to respectfully disagree on your point of knowing teammates SNAs going in Ken. The blind setup (allegience, location, teammates info, etc.) is what made this variant fresh. That said I was quite lucky in having a teammate protecting an entire flank but Lorien was my second choice, Rohan my first. Looking at the Free and Neutral nations stacked in/around the Gap I’m glad things worked out as they did!

What did you make of the original distribution of nations? I’d love to get a neutral’s take on this as I wonder if this distribution should be tweaked somewhat.

I’m itching to go again if there’s any interest!

Greg