The longest Last Battle

[mrweasely]

Mordor Alpha had marched out towards Wooden Realm. Mordor Beta was still in its start position. Gondor was two spaces from war, but Aragorn marched them out to Ithilien anyway, and played The Last Battle early on.

Curiously enough, failure to play the co-packaged Daylight caused Lorien to fall, but only after absorbing Dunland, Moria, Dol Guldur, Gundabad, and Orcs Multiplying Again.

The game devolved to a sprint, with the Shadow trying to take the remaining defenseless Elven strongholds before the Fellowship rushed in for the kill. How many eyes do you allocate if blue dice aren't being added to the hunt pool? Answer = ZERO!

The turn stall happened. Challenge of the King couldn't find Smeagol. Wind from the West blew in a turn late.

The fellowship got three turns in mordor, but couldn't kill companions fast enough to get Gollum. Every dang tile was a numeric reveal.

Ents arrived, and sucked, as usual. They hit on 5+, right? Not 4+?

Shadow won with WR, Lorien, Rivendell, Minas Tirith, Shire, and Dale.

[Goodgulf the Grey]

The turn stall happened. Challenge of the King couldn't find Smeagol. Wind from the West blew in a turn late.

The fellowship got three turns in mordor, but couldn't kill companions fast enough to get Gollum. Every dang tile was a numeric reveal.

Just a thought...

If you are in a sprint and corruption doesn't matter then you should try and separate companions before Mordor (maybe leaving Strider to sprint quickly in Mordor).

In this example the FP was hit by a turn stall. This would have been a good time to spend Character dice sending companions in different directions to slow down the SP Military and allow Gollum to take charge and navigate through Mordor.

[mrweasely]

Yeah, maybe. Its just so hard to predict how Mordor will go, especially when there are a lot of blue tiles in the pool.

Nazgul Search took out Gandalf the Grey in Minas Morgul. That left Gimli and Merry spinning their wheels for a turn, with 1 corruption on the FSP. Then I played 'Challenge of the King' but no Smeagol and not even an eye! The first Mordor tile was a '1r', killing Gimli. The second was a '2r', but the reveal was a game-loser, so it got Mithril Coated down to a '0r', which in this situation was even worse for the Fellowship, since it meant they could possibly be revealed on the NEXT move as well.

[perry]

In our games, 'The Last Battle' has actually become quite used for its event effect...I think its potential has been underestimated, and therefore played for its battle effect more oftenly than it should.

Of course, the right circumstances have to materialize:

1) Shadow must not attack Minas Tirith immediately (in many games , shadow seems to go for DEW, Lorien & Rohan at first hand)

2) S&E should preferably not have entered the war (because that means that loads of extra units pour against Gondor)

Anyhow, with these two prerequisites above, the other conditions for the card (aragorn/gandalf with a free army) is rather easy to accomplish...To not add blue dice to the hunt pool , really helps up speed in Mordor..