Gb 19

Rob at HQ gave me the thumbs up to start posting this Gunboat game. He gave the admonishment about discussing our orders for this last turn. Turn 41 is the free turn so I am going to run the orders.

Thanks all for my most enjoyable GB game so far. I am not looking to gloat or bemoan any situation, but I would love to chat with all players in general.

For starters who is left standing and what nations do you control?

I am the original WK-DkLt player. I have been taking it on the chin from I think the AR and WM for approximately the last 40 turns. Nice fight there, to whomever you may be. Stubby, I have been gunning for your nation for the last 15 turns, and I finally got you. I am honestly impressed that you could get so many MTs up and stay alive as long as you did, and without the starting NM nations to give you props for most of the game. I thought you would be an easy victim, even with NG as a teammate, and I was definitely proven wrong.

I do not have much knowledge of anything/anyone else. I am guessing the CA nation has been running w/o a player to guide it, or else that player turned away from Angmar about 3 months back. Again, kudos to the allies and opponents alike.

South Gondor and Dunlendings here and I must say that the CL/FK/QA player made my life miserable for a LONG time.

Kudos to all the DS, well played game by all, especially the trio mentioned above.

I vaguely remember getting reamed as the DrL/Cor player. I was almost able to hold out with the Dragon Lord, too. Got Curufin early, and almost had #1. Just a few turns away from a full Curse squad, if I recall, though, losing a 50 Mage/30 Emmi to a 30 or 40 Emmi (Noldo) in challenge was stupid.

Did my characters at least get used well? Or did anyone find them?

Woodmen here.

A friend of mine, Kevan Mull, was playing Arthedain. We’d get together once each week and plan out the orders for the next turn. Lord, what a game!

I spent the first 20 turns of the game reacting, rather than going through with my own plans… the worst blow being the unexpected collapse of the Eothraim on turn 10. Sigh.

Initially I sent a portion of the starting woodmen force down to 2715 to weaken the Dragon Lord sufficiently that he couldn’t take my mtown/tower at 2711 or the Sinda city at 2514, while the remainder of my forces marched to 2405 to protect it and begin the buildup against 2305 to overwhelm the WK mtown/tower.

Witch King blocked me at 2406 (kudos to you) while his 300 HC / 300 LC took my town at 2405. I beat the WK blocking army, but decided to bring the remainder back to 2508 since there was no point in sitting at a ruins at 2405. Unfortunately, Rhudaur parked his entire starting force on Arthedain’s capital, and I didn’t see anyone moving against Goblin Gate for the first four turns.

I finally decided that I had to deal with Goblin Gate before 2305, or I’d get hit from the west by Rhudaur or the Dragon Lord. (I did, in fact, end up fighting the dragon lord more than a few times, so I’m glad I rid myself of 2409). But the turn I marched on 2409, so did the dwarves (and the Sinda a turn later). I went ahead and smashed the Dragon Lord forces (freeing up the dwarves to take 2409) and then ran into Rhudaur with 3300 HI or so to get rid of them for Arthedain, since he was still around at that point. I’m guessing that the Sinda, Dwarf, and Woodmen forces coming in from the east are what broke Rhudaur, since I think his forces were tied down in Arthedain and fighting Cardolan/ Dunland.

Rhudaur crumbled, but I then had to deal with the Dragon Lord raising at 2809 (I kept waiting for the Sinda to reveal it… never happened) and protect the Sinda town/towers at 2709 and 2608. I chased him down and wiped him out at 2708, only to have to turn my attention to the WK force marching down from 2305 and then the armada of evil icons pouring across Mirkwood from the East when the Eothraim collapsed on turn 10. Eight, nine, ten evil icons on my map was not uncommon. I never did get much help from the Sinda militarily, so I was eventually overwhelmed by the Long Rider, Dog Lord, Blind Sorcerer, Witch King, and Dragon Lord armies, plus various Long Rider and Dark Lt. agents, plus two curse squads. (It wasn’t fun having two characters cursed to death on the same turn, which happened more than once).

Arthedain and I arranged for Arthedain cavalry to save the day at one point at my capital (LR kept clearing the fortifications), we then cleared eastern Mirkwood of enemy armies and population centers while the darks crushed west mirkwood. My counterattack fizzled out because I couldn’t get enough troops in the field to drive the darks out of Mirkwood entirely without military support from the Sinda.

As for agents, since I went military at first, I didn’t start a major build up of agents until around turn 10, when I’d gotten rid of Rhudaur and saw the horde of armies coming in early. I was flat-out beaten in the agent war early, though I had a few nasty surprises for the Long Rider more than once… Arthedain and I wiped out a whole series of LR 80 emissaries at 3105 on one turn, and then wiped out most of his agents at 2908 just two turns ago (Only Gaurhir and Din Ohtar escaped with their lives).

My secondary base in Fangorn was overhwelmed militarily by the darks; I then switched to a pure character strategy and began to hit them wherever they weren’t, planning to sweep back into Mirkwood when their backs were turned. Kevan and I pooled our agents in one company and emissaries in another, though we split the emissaries later since it was over-kill.

My capital fell more than once…

2508 (taken by LR) to 2417 (taken by Dog Lord) to 2908 (taken by LR) to 3621.

It was amusing to have my capital in Mordor, though I doubt many of the mordor folks knew that they were hosting the woodmen nation. Laugh. I couldn’t be eliminated very easily; I had a full compliment of characters, four or five major towns scattered around the world, a pretty strong emissary company and lots and lots of good targets. (My pops also had a higher-than expected loyalty, since I kept my tax rate low as my capitals began to fall). My agents were doing fairly well too; another whole wave of 60-80+ agents were about to enter the fray and we’d already gotten the better of the Long Rider. Our real problem was that we could only hit one target at a time with agents. (The Long Rider consistently killed the company commander at our multi-turn agent battle at 2908. Although we got the better of him because we took him by surprise initially, it prevented us from getting the agents back into position in the west to go mow down several Witch King characters that were getting a little careless. So the LR did a good job in blocking our agent moves.)

I was actually gearing up to drive the lot of you back out of Mirkwood, though it would have lasted only as long as it would have taken you to march yet another horde of armies into Mirkwood.

My compliments to the darks! Lord, what a game…

I spent the entire game struggling under an avalanche of armies and characters. I mean good heavens, I fought the blind sorcerer starting army at my capital (2508) around turn 15?

I’m happy to forward my pdf to anyone who’s curious, I had about 200,000 gold in reserve as of last turn, though I suppose some of you might try to steal gold at this point (laugh).

My email is br_fisher@yahoo.com

I think this game stands out as the most fun Gunboat game I’ve played.

Dog Lord cavalry ran riot threatening or destroying 3716, 3612 the dwarves in the Iron Hills and then the Northmen around Mirkwood. The BS armies moved out the backdoor and helped the LR finish off the NM around Rhun knocking out the NM.

All Dog and BS then descended on the Eoplex with the LR armies joining us. The Eothraim were trying to block and recruiting massively as all these DS icons descended on him. Before we could come to battle the Eoth must have bankrupted himself and the Eoplex was carved up and everyone quickly moved along the Mirkwood road to attack the WM.

2711 was taken but I was a turn too late in getting my army there and the LR army headbutted the walls a turn before I attacked (apologies). We then turned on 2508 and this is where the momentum started to tail off. The Dog cavalry won at 2509 but got overrun with all their command artefacts and the BS starting armies got greedy pciking up Sinda towns instead of going stright for 2508 and turned up at the same time as the Arthedain cavalry reinforcements. Still not bad for the BS starting army.

LR with a little help from BS did take out 2508 but the Arth/WM did a great job in taking out the Mirkwood recruitment sites and putting the Dog Lord under a bit of pressure in conjunction with Sinda agents and some Dunlending armies at 3221.

Eventually got back on track and took out the WM capitol at 2417 as well as some other Arth and Noldo sites in the Lorien. BS was churning out troops west of the Misties and another 4500 + 40wm had just crossed or were crossing over from Mirkwood.

BS had 3 curse squads and a 4th on the way but it can be hellish hard in Gunboat to find enough targets.

If it hadn’t been for a failed perceive secrets spell WM would have found a Dog Lord army nestling at the bottom of 3621 this turn. Must admit had me wondering whose all the other MT’s in Mordor were when I found that out.

Thanks again to the FP and especially Arth/WM who made this a great game to play in.

Ian

As it was my first Gunboat game, I don’t feel too bad about getting routed so quickly. I’ll put up a summary of my brief tenure when I can go home and look at all my PDFs.

From what I can remember:

I was confused by the Woodmen’s Turn 1 movements on Dol Guldur, but then began to wonder when I saw 4 or 5 starting Eothraim armies there on Turn 2. Should have blocked, and I was delayed enough to give away a big heaping pile of precious food.

Picked up quite a few decent artifacts, fairly quickly. Won my share of challenges and picked off a few characters, but Khamul with Curufin seemed to fail alot of assassination attempts. I feel I came really close to stopping both the Woodmen and Dwarves from taking Goblin Gate.

I screwed up my army movements coming out of the backfield and I went bankrupt (only slightly related) when the Corsairs could no longer shield me (they went bankrupt first). Almost got killed by/killed Elrond and company (with both nations’ characters).

Missed that the Corsairs had the DrL listed as Disliked, so I wasted about 3-4 turns trying to transfer a MT in the Deep South.

In the South, starting S. Gondor armies beat down my initial attempt to go after Harad (Turn 2) and a bad blocking scheme allowed me to lose an early MT to Harad Cav. Found it impossible to threaten back the Town, even with plenty of troops and a pretty good commander.

Noldo, Harad, and even just one wave of S. Gondor is really hard to fight against. I want to apologize to the QA, because I wasn’t very effective at helping out, and the Noldo/Harad got most of my stuff in the south.

I feel I would do much better next time, being more prepared and all. How do I compare with other gunboat Dr/Cor combos? I’m assuming the BS used some of my characters for their Curse squads, glad I could help at least that little bit. My last DrL turn, I tried to send characters to various Mordor pops for strategic recruitment.

Steve,

Sad to inform you but in over 70% of all games the Corsairs wins the South and Harad gets knoced out. I can’t comment on your play without seeing the turns.

tim

Noldo/Harad here… Ist thankyou all for a great game but the original NG/Dun
player would agree with me that ME pairing QA with FK/CL really swung the
balance of the game in favor of the DS. Harad had wiped out Corsiars while
Noldo had finished of the DrL and nearly all the starting QA pc’s were taken
by turn 25. If it hadnt been for ME’s decision of trio’ing the QA/FK/CL the
game would have been a FP win. Harad had lost no PC’s by turn 18 when
a skillfull QA/FK/CL counter attack smashed resistence and Harad withdrew
into a guerilla war. In the last 10 turns 4 Mordor DS major towns were taken
or destroyed by Noldo HC or emissaries including CL capital. Southern Mordor
was nearly all FP. :wink:

Again and again Noldo scouts with rank of over 120 missed CL agent
companies while the QA with double scouting found my characters. This
was the crucial difference in the game. previously Noldo agents had dealt
with countless enemy characters in the previous 25 turns but the bonus
of scouting for the enemy was the killer.

I was one of the players who pushed for the new gunboat rules of no player
with 3 nations, its a shame while some new rules like the OBN rule is
implemented mid game but this equally game changing tactic was’nt.
It was amazing the game carried for so long as due to work pressures I was
spending 30 mins max for both NE/Harad every week and playing blind
without any ME aids pretty much the last 20 turns.

Anyway Kudos to DkLts/WK & Dog/BS, Arth/WM well played but control of
Agmar was the aim of Arthy… SG… Thanks for the T2 support but after
that where were you?

If anyone wants to swaps pdf’s email at happymadcat@yahoo.co.uk

G

Wow, lots of interesting points. and no one really commented on the difficulty they faced versus my WK and DkLt forces. I will take it that I had no part in the outcome anywhere;)

First, my apologies to RH player whomever you were. I did not understand your strategy of landing on 1407. I kept trying to help you defend Rhuduar/Angmar proper. Watching the combined CA, DW, DU and SE troops roll through you left me with a bad feeling in my gut. By T10 those same forces had knocked me out of western Misties as well.

T1-10 WK. My initial WK romp into 2405 with the WK cav worked. From there the WK went for the DW town/forts. I eventually fought with both CA and WM over the 3 towns/fort in the 02xx-04xx rows, but it was after mid game and not too important to anything. MURAZ focused on artifact hunting and camps. I had my extra curse squad mage artifacts located and in possession by T10. I tried to avoid taking all of the mage artifacts from my allies, but so many of the artifact locations poped up west of the Misties that it seemed pointless to wait for my teammates to get them rather than the NE or SE.

Turn 1-10 for DkLt was mostly about keeping Caravad from the FP (DW mostly) and then picking up some FP popcens in Rhovanion/Rhun that were retaken back and forth a few times. Somewhere around T10, the NG player crashed the DkLt capital just as I had sent timber for fortifications. Oh well… Also by T10 and well past t20, the DkLt primary purpose seemed to be keeping the WK afloat.

T10-15. Again DkLt kept transferring product and popcens to the DkLt. Had AR/WM decided to take out 2305 (WK capital from T10 to end), they probably could have taken out WK for good. By T15 the DkLt had given the Wk a couple of MTs around Mordor and thus secured the WK into the game for the long haul. I think that FP gold thefts also started to dig into the WK/DkLt flesh in a painful way, but by T20 the gold thefts were annoying but not otherwise chalging my game style.

By T15-25 the AR CA DW seemed to be pushing through the 2305, 2409 and 2212 passes in the Misties. At that time, my curse squad and solo assassin-agent were moving every turn with the focus of preventing FP troops moving east into the Misties. Hopefully this helped the other DS getting into Mirkwood. It sounds like it did. Actually by T25-ish I had a sense that the CA player may have given up, and I am not certain if this is accurate or not. I do believe I killed 5-10 characters, half of them AComms, in this time frame. Also in this time I think I killed 4 WM characters when they all issued605 at his capital and I did a gold theft with 2 +60 agents at his capital? Ditto I think the WM/AR emmissaries started dying to dragon encoutners on my mountain popcens. I think I must have had the lion’s share of dragons on popcens for the majority of the game. Finally, I actually 525’s 2212 and kept it for the rest of the game somewhere around T30. That was definitely a highlight for my nations.

Around T30 I was feeling very comfortable. I think I had 10 emmys at +80 rank and several more between 60 and 80. Both nations had several MTs, almost entirely from combat although several 525’s mostly on the DW. I had 2 curse squads. I also had a 3 man agent squad with 2 killers. Not much compared the CL and NE, but ,more than adequate for the tasks I had. I started focusing on DW and WM, although I soon realized that WM had too many popcens over too large an area for me to actually focus on him. I switched focus to AR instead of WM, and things started to look up again. WM or Ar seems to have gotten a WK AComm 2 or 3 turns in a row by this time. I finally started tracking the bugger via the comm artifacts he acquired off of my dead body, and I believe I had the him nailed and dead to rights with a 210 in T41, but I SS’d my nations.

I am not certain what team support I received, other than a couple of nattrans to the WK prior to T10. Although I am not certain what support I could have reasonably expected from my allies. I had hoped to see more character activity in the northwest, but that would have been about it. DkLt ceded any responsibility to helping in Mordor by T15, although I did move to help pickup the IK and DrLo popcens before the FPs could get them. I recrutied KHAMUL from the former CL capital. That was odd. It sounds like my allies had a great time across the board.

I am also more than willing to share my pdfs, and I will email the other folks inthe game off line.

Cl/FK/QA is here.

This was the most enjoyable game of MEPBM so far for me. I have to sit down and write a full report, but I would say that me getting the third nation in no way influenced the character war, as my scouts were done by 120 CL agent, I got QA agents to 60-es only late in the game. So, Happymadcat, there is nothing to complain about. One turn I just GUESSED your agents in the hex, as you bunched up all your guys and I could control your movements very easily with 428 on your arties.

If I would not pick up QA the nation would sure fall though, and south would be won by FP. However, in contradiction to what Noldo/Harad player says, he never controlled the ground. Happy, you just never saw my armies massing.
As for letting you burn CL capital - I failed to assasinate on that turn, and I was not too much worried as I was putting all efforts into finishing NG at the same time. SG and Dunns followed.

So, I can say that I took out NG, SG and would be taking out Harad and Duns in 1-2 turns if game were to continue. Pretty good, considering that due to some very strange moves from IK I lost FK capital early on and was even putting up a vote to surrender! Its good that my teammates had more guts then I did, otherwise this great game would never happen!

Kudos to all teammates, during the game I could only feel progress on the part of WK and BS. Kudos to enemies as well, especially Happy as Noldo/Harad put up a great although futile resistance :slight_smile:

Ren the Unclean rules!!!

dwarves/ northmen and for a short while NG

firstly i will give wk/drk lts a heads up you were a right pain in the ass.

northmen: i made big mistake early on moving all my forces to sea of rhun this just left them to be picked off by LR agents. and with the dog lord rushing into the area i was in trouble. LR agents didnt let up early on. from this moment i was just fighting to stay in. turn 8 dog lord let his starting cavalry loose on my pop centres and the result was devastating. i managed to stay in till turn 12 but dog lord finished me off.
conclusion: i think this is a week position especially in gunboat without eothraim communication. i was out done in all areas agents/ armies and characters.
also this 1 week turnaround probably didnt help

NG: was not really viable when i picked it up capital was camped by agents so couldnt really do anything.

DWARVES: in the beginning i thought of moving to take on the dragon lord first. but changed my mind and decided rhudaur/ WK would be removed from middle earth quickly (oops). the mighty dwarven army headed out on turn 4 towards goblin gate. just as dog lord moved into the iron hills.
goblin gate fell turn 6. rhudaur was then to feel the full force of the dwarven wrath. not sure but with the aid of arthedain/ cardolan/ dwarves/ noldo and sinda rhudaur fell before turn 10.
we were on a roll mt Gram was about to fall and the last DS nation would be driven from the NW never to be seen again very soon. some lucky (lol) play by the wk kept him hangin in till turn 22 when the awesome dwarves moved into Carn dum. at around the same time we decided to move back into the iron hills where the views are so awe inspiring.
DISASTER was about to happen, a strange illnes started to hit heroes armies where disappearing the mighty dwarves where about to start feeling the strains of war. turn 25 strangers started visiting our pop centres spreading disease and picking on poor dwarven heroes. we couldnt understand how we had offended the witch king and dark lts so much. they even started sending troops to the iron hills why couldnt they just leave us alone.
turn 30 the cowards at khazad dum started listening to all the dark whisperings and through their hand in with the dark side. the dwarven agents and emissaries had been trying to whitle the Dark Lts treasury down for the last few turns as they didnt think the dark lts needed that much gold.
we even opened a few little shops and holiday villages in mordor to try and win the dark lts over.
from turn 35 the signs were there the dwarven nation was in retreat.
conclusion:i happened to SS on the final turn. thanks for a wonderful game all. hats off to WK/DARK Lts your constant pressure was just to much. also the dog lord and long rider
on our side a special thank you to arthedain your aid around the old northmen pop centres was most helpful.
this was only a quick report sorry but busy as a dwarf running from damn curse squads
paul

Thinkertim,

I played North Gondor in the start of the game and yes I dropped the “none-drop game” around turn 8’ish, the Dun player dropped as well over the issue of you having 3 nations and the IK getting the LR nation. This was about the time of after sacking the FK capital and burning CL towns in Morder-the FK has HC in steel at his back up, I realized that something else was going on. Then the agent storm of LR and CL agents coming in on me and when asked if the QA was doing scouting of my nation and was basely told yes but maybe you still have a chance. However for me it was more an issue of gold rather then agents, which was something I knew I’d have to deal with in a NG game anyway. Had not the QA been given to you would the FK and CL been able to play the same game??? Being able to pool three nations gold and supplies is a huge edge in the early game as DS in a gunboat. Had you not been given the QA and the Long Rider not been given pooled with the IK and I stayed in the game it would not have went the same way, that’s for sure.

I do apologize to those I dropped on in this game, but I honestly felt the games integrity was not longer valid, and it was not the game we signed up for. After being plain mad about it for a few weeks I had to steep down from it. I am happy people had a good time with it despite this (though it seems the FP not so much), though I’m not surprised that having the edge of an extra nation it was a good game for you. I’m happy the issue’s been fixed in games to come.

Cheers,
JL

Happymadcat,

I had PLANNED to hit 2305 (as the woodmen), but two things diverted my first wave of forces.

(1) No movement early against Rhudaur & Dragon Lord by the Sinda and Dwarves. It’s all well and good to talk about hitting 2305, but with major-town/towers, it’s extremely dangerous to throw everything north if no one is striking against Goblin Gate. I waited four turns for any hint of movement against either Rhudaur or the Dragon Lord by allies (Sinda, Cardolan, & Dwarves) but never saw any movement. 1600 HI + starting forces of the Dragon Lord at goblin gate are enough to sack either 2508 or 2411, even if I defend them with small armies. I was forced into a choice-- take out the mtown/tower two hexes from my capital and protect myself first, as well as putting pressure on Rhudaur & Angmar in the West to help Arthedain, or go north against 2305 and get flattened subsequently by the untouched Dragon Lord troops flowing east from goblin gate. It wasn’t until I attacked in exasperation that the same turn, the Dwarves (and then the Sinda a turn later) appeared and moved against it. ARRRGGGHHH. By then I’d committed the forces to move that way.

(2) A second consideration was the lack of pressure on Rhudaur that I could see; Arthedain had Rhudaur’s entire starting force parked on top of 1407 (he couldn’t take it as Kevan simply bumped it to a citadel) and he was scrying Rhudaur for any hint that other Free were marching on him… none seen. If no one attacks Rhudaur, there are no consequences to his throwing everything west. So I had to consider smashing Rhudaur instead. The 3300 HI I sent that way was probably one reason that Rhudaur went under a few turns earlier, although the massive dwarven HI army would have done it on it’s own eventually.

As for the second wave of troops I’d readied, that too was planned for 2305. However…

(3) The problem now was that the Witch King had been raising himself and now was throwing armies with dragons my way. I fought him off, and frankly, could have overwhelmed him if he’d been alone or just witht he Dark Lts. The problem was that on turn 10 the Eothraim had collapsed and a horde (nine or ten on my map was not uncommon) of evil icons were flowing east and LR agents were sweeping by flattening fortifications and killing characters. My first obligation was to simply survive-- I had military battles with the Long Rider, Dog Lord, Blind Sorcerer, Witch King, Dragon Lord, and Dark Lts. at this point (turns 12-18)… plus unhealthy experiences with various curse squads, sometiems two on a turn. The Sinda basically hid behind his hidden population centers and watched the armies smash into me… I never received military support except for a single army of Sinda archers at my capital on a single occasion.

The Woodmen are hardly a military power in the early game, but I was forced to play the position that way to bog down and stop the invasion from the east. I failed, but I promise you that I stalled it considerably.

The fact that I was thrown into direct miltiary war for survival on turn 10 also drew off Arthedain attacks into Angmar. We reduced the Witch King to a single major town/fort at 2305 (Rhudaur had gone under) but his assault stalled at 2204 due to lucky army movement from the Witch King, a curse squad, and agents. If arthedain had reached 2305, the Witch King would have been eliminated (or it would ahve been likely). He was simply lucky, coupled with good play. By the way… “we” means Arthedain, the Woodmen, and the Dwarves. The Dwarven army continued to pound Angmar after the war in Rhudaur was over. My thanks to the Dwarves!

(I sent in agents to 2305 to attempt to clear it in coordination with him, but all assassinations failed and a few of my agents were killed). As I said, the Witch King was lucky (though his play was excellent. So yes, Pearly, you had a great impact on the game. I would have loved to hit you with everything I had as the Woodmen, but I was fighting off a rather huge invasion across Mirkwood at the time).

As for the second Arthedain HC force, Kevan and I discussed it-- it was a choice of sending it to 2305 or (I anticipated) saving my capital at 2508 in two turns and stalling the invasion. Both were good moves. Kevan opted for saving 2508 (his choice), which is the only reason my capital held another nine or ten turns despite the massive number of armies that swept across mirkwood. He then used that army to sweep northeast mirkwood of enemy population centers, take out 3112 (an evil recruiting base), and marched as far as 4415. So that move worked well, though hitting 2305 would have also been a good move.

My third wave of HC moved out of Fangorn and cleared the last of the Eothraim cluster (all in Dark hands) along with Emissaries. If I hadn’t cleared it, the Dog Lord and Blind Sorcerer would ahve continued to raise armies there to hurl west (ditto for the Long Rider). The avalanche of armies that you eventually saw in the west were stalled fifteen to twenty turns by the battles in Mirkwood; it was a question of guessing where to commit what troops that I had.

(I saw a Cardolan attempt on 2305 as well; they too were attacking the Witch King but fell to the same curse squad coupled with army moves and agents as the Arthedain attempt on it. The Woodmen simply had no troops to attack 2305 with as I was being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of armies pouring out of Mordor and across Mirkwood).

Bradford (Woodmen)

Oh, as for a souped-up Rhudar…

I think that this is a mistake. Rhudaur needs the support, but it throws off the game balance and game flow. If you’re going to strengthen Rhudaur, you need to do something comperable for the Northmen and Eothraim to strengthen the Free’s flank in the east. Perhaps removing the harbors at 4017 and 4015, and put a tower at 4415, while giving each of the Eothraim commanders agent skill.

The vastly strengthened Rhudaur at the game’s start was one reason I felt obliged to move West and make certain that he was overwhelmed, rather than hit 2305. It’s also one reason I believe that Rhudaur felt secure to send his entire starting force to 1407, rather than run blocking armies.

I totally agree with you that the FP equivalent of DS’s RH-achilles heel is IMHO the NM. I will skip a lengthy discussion about my basis for this belief, and skip a discussion on the merits of tit-for-tat’ing improvements to any nation’s start-up pdf.

I reiterate that I thought the WM played a well game. However, I will strongly disagree that any WK army/curse/agent movements were un/fortunate accidents. The only goal (other than survival) I had for the WK between T12-ish to T25-ish was to prevent FP armies from crossing any of the Misty Mountain passes for any reason.

I took a lot of pride in bottle necking numerous AR and CA and DW troops often during the same turns. However, I reiterate that I thought the WM player (you) did a damn good job of staying alive and (nearly) killing the WK nation. I would love to swap pdf’s with you and the Ar player to get a better picture of what happened. Let me know if you want to swap.

Hey, I never said that playing 3 nations do not have an advantage to playing 2. Sure it does, as it allows for better overview of things and info gathering.
I have to say though, that when I took QA, it was almost bankrupt, without Corsairs support, and I had to put lots of funds into it just to survive. Obviously, it came at the cost to FK/CL positions. It took me 7-8 turns to secure back up and get some QA characters into action. So, it wasnt such a boost as you think, but once I got everything under control, it went with a breeze from there on.

Cheers
Tim