I have been toying with a 1450 scenario which, hopefully, will be in
the next Bree. The idea is to have a more ICE/Tolkein historical
scenario with the conflict spread across the map rather than centred
on Mordor. Most nations will be economically stronger, particularly
the DS at the expense of 'Fortress' Mordor and some of
their 'specials'. One problem I had was how to limit the power of
some of these Dark Servant specials and Colin Forbes, with whom I
have chewed much of this over with, suggested the GM kills some or
all of the Dragons by challenge when the game is set up.
The no recruit idea is pretty good for game balancing.
That said, I am not sure that tinkering with 1650 is necessarily good
as I am not convinced the game is unbalanced and I think that Ned's
proposal was more concerned with freshening the play up rather than
changing it.
My feel is that the best option is a few more variant games such
as 'First Alliance' or '1450' which use the 1650 basics but use
alternative start ups and a few special rules to provide novelty for
the jaded.
As for other games, I have to admit Austerlitz got me for a couple of
years until I realised how, in my opinion, badly run it was, but
nothing else begins to compare with this as a strategy game. GSI
created an excellent wargame engine. Shame our hobby hasn't got 10 X
as many enthusiasts so the money would be available to develop some
serious simulation games.
Wistfully
Chris Courtiour