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Post by Henry on May 16, 2013 12:23:28 GMT 1
Hi,
I play with a friend every week and the last two month we have disturbing continuous victory of Sauron. I got the feeling that the new Witch King is the reason.
We understood the following:
If the fellowship is outside a fellowship fortess the Witch King can hunt them down. He is placed at the same area and will follow automatically if the fellowship is declared in the fellowship phase of the game turn.
He will not follow if the fellowship is declared because of a hunt.
If the Witch King is with the fellowship and a character card is played either by a personal or event die, he draws a new card ever time.
Now, if the ring is found early, the WK is truely a monster, drawing numerous cards, making it for the fellowship extremely hard to survive. We had several games were nearly all character cards were drawn. The special hunt tile of the shadow came in play nearly complete.
We are no beginners. I played two tournaments and own the game since the first edition. Nearly 100 games I guess.
Is our usage of the WK wrong or do we oversee something else? At the moment playing the free people is quite frustrating.
Greetings, Henry
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Post by Krieghund on May 16, 2013 19:17:55 GMT 1
You're playing it right. The best defense against the Chief is to take things slowly with the Fellowship. It's not uncommon for games that involve him to take up to twice as long as other games. Fortunately for the Free Peoples, the absence of the Black Captain slows down the Shadow's military game as well.
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Post by Henry on May 16, 2013 20:36:07 GMT 1
Yes, they were extreme long plays. The witch king was lurking all the way to Mordor with the fellowship, but what chance does they have will all that shadow tiles for the hunt.
You may try it slowly, but a 6 is simple and after the Witch King got you, there is no escape. As I said, all the last plays were won by the shadow player, with a fellowship helpless in Mordor.
These masses of Character Cards were too much for these games. If the Witch King does not show of, no one is activated, so you need the right cards or separate Companions which are highly needed to protect the ring.
Well, as I said, its frustrating, for a bit of bad luck in the first few hunts may ruin the game for the fellowship.
We will try further on, we play every week once. I am just interested what other experienced.
Greetings, Henry.
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Post by Krieghund on May 16, 2013 22:35:51 GMT 1
If the Witch King does not show of, no one is activated, so you need the right cards or separate Companions which are highly needed to protect the ring. Is the Shadow not attacking? I very seldom end up using a Companion to activate a Nation.
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Post by Henry on May 17, 2013 9:52:07 GMT 1
In our last play the shadow did not even change to the witch king to the military leader. Gothmoc and the mouth of sauron lead the attacks. It was a long play again, but the fellowship was beyond hope stucked in Mordor gain. All 4 Shadow tiles plus 4 Eyes waiting, no Fellowship tile and ony 3 normal hunt tailes awaiting the ring bearers and Gollum alone.... desperate!
The Shadow attacts constantly, covering his fortesses against surprise attackts of the free people. He advanced slowly but inevitable.
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Post by Krieghund on May 17, 2013 15:51:56 GMT 1
We had no problems with the Chief being overpowered in playtesting. I wonder if there are some rules you're not playing correctly. I asked about the Shadow attacking because you indicated that you needed Companions to activate Nations. You do know that Shadow attacks activate them, right? There are any number of rules that if not implemented correctly could lead to imbalance. (I understand that you've been playing this game for years, but I've met a lot of people that have played games wrong for years!) Some examples of frequently misplayed rules: - The Shadow player may not place more dice in the Hunt Box than there are Companions in the Fellowship.
- Each failed die in the Hunt (or in combat) may only be re-rolled once.
- Each re-roll granted is for one die only, not for all dice.
- Only one Hunt tile is drawn for a successful Hunt, no matter how many successes are rolled.
Assuming you're playing correctly, it's also possible that you just haven't yet figured out how to effectively counter the Chief. For example, I'm curious as to why there were no Fellowship Special tiles in the Hunt Pool if the game ran so long. It seems there should have been ample time to get some of them into play.
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Post by Henry on May 17, 2013 17:25:16 GMT 1
Hi, Kriegshund,
at first, thank you very much for your detailed answers.
Well, we use the rules as you said.
It was only in our last play, that we had all shadow but no fellowship special tiles in Mordor. We were playing on an average of 14 turns at the moment, when the witch king is hunting the fellowship right until Mordor.
Some probabilities... Assuming that we move only once per turn, and there is only one eye:
if you want to pass Moria without success in the hunt the chance is (5/6)^4 = 23 %. The chance that the fellowship is not found is 50%, so the fellowship will not pass Moria unseen in half of the games and from now on the witch king will convey them the rest of the way to Mordor. I think that is tough. An early 6 and hunt success for the Shadow makes it really hard for the fellowship to my opinion.
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Post by Henry on May 17, 2013 17:27:33 GMT 1
hm, my math is not correct, it is more complicated, but I think the numbers give a raw example what I mean.
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Post by Krieghund on May 17, 2013 18:32:50 GMT 1
You also need to take into account that only around half of the Hunt tiles will reveal the Fellowship, so the chance of getting through Moria without giving the Shadow a chance to play the Chief is more like 79% with only one Eye. Of course, the Balrog and his draw can reduce that chance significantly, so it may be best to avoid Moria if he's in play.
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Post by Henry on May 17, 2013 19:45:02 GMT 1
Yes, avoiding Moria is an option, but without Lorien there is no hiding for the fellowship. In one of our plays the fellowship took the mountain pass and headed for Lorien, but was dragged back to Moria by "Cruel Weather". Just imagine: the Balrog and the Witch King followed both the ring. That was a true slaughter until a will of the west finished off the Balrog in Western Emyn Muil! That was one of the darkest plays we had ;-)
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Post by Krieghund on May 18, 2013 14:06:20 GMT 1
Why didn't the Free Peoples player separate Gandalf and use a Character die to eliminate the Balrog?
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Post by Henry on May 18, 2013 14:39:20 GMT 1
In that particular game Gandalf the white was locked in a siege in Lorien. He was needed to protected the Lady and keep Lorien safe for the Fellowship. We had always the option in mind to kill the Witch King, if he was with an army, either by destroying the whole army or using a card, if a hobbit was present.
I recalculated the probabilities roughly. The chance for a success with one die is 1/6. A critical tile has the probability of 50%, so for each turn the chance is 1/12 to be found and dragged out of Rivendell.
Therefore the probability to be found at least once in 4 turns is 1/3. That sounds not that bad. I seemed to have bad luck. That changes quickly if he had more one eye naturally.
Well, I will try next Wednesday a new idea. My adversary is reading this board as well, so I will report afterwards to you how it worked.
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Post by Krieghund on May 18, 2013 16:34:41 GMT 1
You'll want to re-examine the idea of taking Gandalf as an early Hunt casualty to get Gandalf the White. It's not as good a strategy in the expansion as it is in the base game. Keeping him in the Fellowship for a while can be very beneficial, especially until the Fellowship is clear of Moria.
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Post by Henry on Jun 3, 2013 12:50:51 GMT 1
Some plays later...
I have lost three free people games again, though the Witch King was not responsible as a hunter now.
The idea to spare old Gandalf the Grey as an early causualty is a good hint to minimize the effect of the Witch King Hunter. The new Gandalf should make presure upon the shadow by forcing Rohan to war, for example.
Well, as I said, I lost the last games nevertheless. My bad luck is awsome.
Last game:
The fellowship with Gimli and Legolas reached Mordor, the Ring bearer had 2 point corruption. 10 normal Hunt tiles, plus 2 free people and 2 shadow hunt tiles in the pool. Two healing cards on hand. Smeagol gone. Balrog dead. Galadriel had her ring left to block an eye, one already eliminated.
Rohan was has hard defended: The witch king, Gothmoc and the mouth of sauron were killed by Aragon in the siege of Helms Deep. Two Ent Cards killed masses of Orcs. Saurman was killed by the third Ent card a few dices later. Thus the shadow was reduced to 7 dices, while the free people fight with 6.
Anyone who would not bet on the free people?
First step in mordor. An eye killed the last companions. Gollum leads now. Second step in Mordor. Fellowship hunt tile: 0 damage. Third step in Mordor: 3er shadow tile, try again Third step in Mordor: 5 eyes were in the hunt, but I took the risk. A grey eye was drawn, well, Galadriel killed it. The shadow eye was drawn. Bingo 5 points damage and try again. Third step in Mordor: dice shadow hunt tile was drawn and gave 6 point damage.
some times late: The fellowship died with 13 point corruption on mount doom, though the forces of the shadow where shattered in middle earth.
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Post by Henry on Jun 5, 2013 19:01:30 GMT 1
And another game.
d**n!
I had luck the first turn, for the shadow player risked to place no eye into the hunt and threw none. 4 Steps for me.
But afterwards the very first hunt with one dice... the ring was found. I know the chance for that is 1/12, but the game is ruined for the fellowship player afterwards.
The witch king played 7 cards against me and though I did not sacrifice Gandalf I had nothing to counter.
In round 10 the coruption raised to 12 points - done.
Has nobody else these experience, I wonder?
Name it bad luck, but my serie for fellow ship losses is quite long.
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