GB 28 ends

[Spivo]

Oh well, DS victory, not really super convincing, but 5 FP nations out and only 1 DS nation, shifted the balance I guess.

I played FK/DarkLt, and my main plan was to assault Mirkwood with the army leftover from taking Osgiliath.

No LA/LAT hurt me to begin with, but managed to get RoC, which made me content.
Tried entire game to get my hands on curse arts (even tried to locate #135, thinking I was playing 1650…), send out diploes to loan one, never had one the entire game, kinda disapointing for a nation with numerous mages.

Early game:
Someone blew up the bridge at 3024 turn 2 or 3, which made my progress to get 3024 a lot easier.
I let WK take a beating (sorry), but had to gather enough troops to blow away NG troops, rather than sending smaller units that would die one at a time.
Finally managed to attack him, and drive him away and threaten Oz.

Ren the Unclean had some luck spotting WM leader at one of my camps, and PC’d him, fun stuff…

Middle game:
Attack on Mirkwood was in two stages, first send agents in to clear Sinda capital, then attack it.
First thing went fairly smooth.
Second went not so smooth, as my reveal showed he had build a twr…
My army was to small to clear it, so had to wait a turn for my sappers to blow it, and then took it, following the other hidden town.

Meanwhile Sinda had his cursers ready, and after a few turns I was down Carrog, Gothmog, Urzahil, Celed, and a few minor commanders

Carrog was my only real loss, as I didn’t have any curse arts, so didn’t care loosing mages.

I build up my forces in misties, ready for later game…

Late game:

Build up 2 MT’s in misties, and hit Silvan MT in Fangorn, and tried (oh my god I tried!) to attack Dunland, but my comms kept dying before the army moved

Review…

Wouldn’t really change anything… I kept Sinda/Silvan and more busy chasing me around Misties, only ever saw Noldo/Rohan in Mordor.
So if you wanted to make a score, DS won simply due to the fight being fought at FP area, and never in DS area.

Surprised to see NM die so fast, not surprised at Dwarves following.
Surprised to see Dunland die… not surprised to see NG follow.
WM dying was weird, but not super weird.

Allies…

Never felt I had any, didn’t fight any fights with my allies, didn’t get anything from them, hardly got any diploes.
Got diploes from QA/LR, but we did nothing near each other, so didn’t really benefit me much.

[Thavius]

I played the Dragon Lord/Khand Easterlings.

Early on I tried to get some artifacts with Maben locating and porting around. I managed to pick up Tincullin - I suspect because the nasty spirit encounter killed the FP character sent to pick it up. I did a locate on RoI and Elrohir had it at 0203 (where Maben happened to be). I challenged and killed Elrohir and took the ring.

I gave the ring to Khamul who took it to the Silvan capital and was killed trying to assassinate the army commander there. I managed to steal the ring back and leave.

The DL was hit hard early on and was a major drain the KE to keep the DL in the game. I was down to 3 pop centers at one time. The KE were just a gold source to the DL for the first 12-15 turns of the game. I managed to turn the DL around and was building a decent economy by games end.

Once the DL was able to survive without draining the KE treasury the KE took off. I created a huge army that was unstoppable. I only got to use it a couple of times before the game ended.

I was also just puting the finishing touch on an all KE curse team. How often does that happen? I was almost ready to move out and start cursing - another 2 turns - I had two mages left to learn curses. I had two mages with sickness and one with curse when the game ended.

I was going to reveal the Silvan capital in another couple of turns as well. At least I had a good shot with Gorovod who had an 81 mage rank at game end (would have been a couple of points higher when I got to the capital).

I was surprised how the Northmen went out so early. Why the Duns went out? How did the Corsairs get knocked out?

[mbjohncock]

Noldo signing in

I teamed with John who had the RoR. He is a friend of mine from previous games.

I was saddened to have to call an end to this game, but felt our team was clearly outclassed. The game was effectively over and to stay would have just been stubborn.

I ended with RoW, Collohesta and Em Mere Vardo. I lost elenya to the DrLd in what was debacle for me. I could have sickness him, but expected my A54/st20 + art to be able to kill him. I died and he got my art. That hurt, but not as much as doing 2 reveals that worked, but failed to reveal 2809.

I was fairly happy with my efforts. I saved 1409 from the IK, I took 2409 and 2715. I reduced the fort at 2305 for the Rangers, hit Morrannon, Barad Dur and would have had Minis Morgul as the loyalty made it almost certain to fall to my RoR ally or to me the turn the game ended.

The DS were better though no doubt about it. Well done one and all. To my allies I am happy to offer advice if any ask, there seemed a few new guys on our side. How Dunland and the Woodmen died would be interesting to find out.

Onward and upward. I can’t dwell on this game too much.

Mike

[PMauer]

Quit and Long signing in.

I had the fortunate, and slightly boring, advantage of being untouched entire game.

Never saw any agents or emmisaries harrassing me, so was free to build and attack.

I send Long Riders armies to attack NM, and found little resistance, which apparently killed him. Then onwards to Dwarves, and killed him.

Then my job in NorthEast was over, and I focussed on QA.

Build a port, and made a large fleet to attack SG. Send 3000HI in steel/steel to his capital, which was undefended.

My agents had an early setback due to Din O dying trying to kill NM chars.

Kept track of RoW entire game, but luckily Noldo never attacked me.
Ended with a HUGE surplus, of all ressources and gold. Set tax rate to 39% and in the last turns I only sold to have gold to buy timber for more ships.