Post by Alexfrog on Dec 6, 2004 16:32:24 GMT 1
Ok, I've played 5 times now...
Here's my current strategies:
As Shadow:
Use first two musters to get Saruman into play (one for war, other to muster him). Use next two, similarly, to get the witch king into play. You are now ahead on dice, for a bit at least, until they can get Aragorn and Gandalf.
Yes, this 'lets' them get gandalf. But to do it they still have to kill him off or break him off the fellowship. To kill him off, they need to draw a hunt tile, and the timing might not be when they like. If they break him off the fellowship, they cant use him to take this damage. Regardless, they lose the ability to draw cards by playing events with gandalf as guide.
Even then, gandalf is one die and you got two. They need aragorn to southern gondor for the other, and they were going to try to do that fast anyway, regardless of wether you bring minions into play.
Early on, in 3-4 player games where you have choice of card draws, draw muster event cards. After getting the witch king, play any of these you have that help. Later, you wont need them all that much, you'll then be focusing on the attack, and you should already have the army, advanced, where its harder to bring in reinforcements.
Use a couple more musters to get 4 more nazgul into play, to get to full strength. You want to be able to group 3-4 with the witch king, for the stronghold you are hitting, AND stick one on the fellowship, AND stick one in the next space (or two possible spaces), that the fellowship can go to if they declare themself, so that you are already there, AND then still have a couple more nazgul to lead other armies.
In addition, muster a couple more elites, to support attacks. Mustering regular troop sauron forces is not really worth it. You start with so many. Muster elites and nazgul. Most musters after this should be spend for Saruman, since he musters so effectively. Use orthanc units to upgrade into elites, and send them to Rohan. Save up a bunch of regulars from north/south dunland, group them to hit rivendell later on, probably meeting some sauron elites/nazgul from moria, on the way.
After the first couple turns, draw from the character deck. This deck has all the stuff for hurting the fellowship, putting the bad tiles in when they get to mordor, etc. You dont really need more musters, but you need help stopping the fellowship.
Turn 1, put 1 die in the hunt pool and hope to roll one more. You are trying to get musters. Also, they need to move characters to get aragorn down. They only have four dice...
Later, put 2 dice in the pool, or even 3 if they have shown a willingness to move more than once a turn. Your goal is to slow them to one a turn, so that you will win militarily before they destroy the ring. Get enough eyes (I like 3 total, so putting 2 in the pool), to make it painful for them to go multiple spaces a turn, so that they'll have corruption problems later if they do (and drawing lots of character cards helps).
When you draw cards that do mean things to the fellowships, play them. Other cards should be used for combat to take strongholds. Whenever you fight, group the witch king and 3-4 nazgul together for the battle. You attack strongholds one at a time, with this group of nazgul. Dont attack the one gandalf the white is in, with all these nazgul. For that specific one, bring in extra elites and only one nazgul. You want to beseige all of the places you are going to attack so they cant recruit, but then you dont need to fight out all those battles immediately. Fight one seige battle at a time, with 5 nazgul rerolls.
Because you are fighting most of your battles with the witch king present, you keep drawing more cards. Draw cards of the charater event deck with this ability, to get all the bad hunt tiles! And to get cards to hurt the fellowship. Play ones other than this in battle.
You need to win militarily before they destroy the ring. Focusing your cardplay energy on hurting the fellowship, while focusing the rest of your play on winning fast on the board, fighting one stronghold battle at a time with full nazgul support, should do well.
Also, muster the mouth of sauron as soon as condition allow it (which will be pretty late).
Elven rings: As shadow, the best way to use the elven rings you get, imo, is to create more eyes out of dice that arent helpful, on turns in which you roll a very low number of them. Obviously, if you are going to do this, you'll want to do it first thing, hopefully before the fellowship has moved... (Question, how does the timing work on this? Can I roll and then use a ringto make another eye before the light player can take a move, or can I only do it on my action turns?)
Light Side:
For the light side, you need to be moving the fellowship more than 1 space per turn on average. Probably 1.5 minimum. This means that whenever the dark player is at 1-2 eyes in the pool or so, you need to be moving twice! Your number 1 priority, just like dark side, is to get more dice. Preferably, you'll sacrifice gandalf to the first damaging hunt tile (or first one that deals more than 1), and bring him into play again with a will of the west die. Also, you need to get strider to minas tirith ASAP. Hopefully, you draw an event that helps this, like dead men of dunharrow or we are swifter or greyhuir(sp?) the windlord.
You want to use an event die to play the card. If you move the fellowship a couple spaces first, it makes it easier. You preferably want to get the fellowship close enough so that 2 character actions (or one + card), can bring strider to minas tirith. Thus, you only use that many character actions in ways that DONT move the fellowship.
Your most precious action roll (after will of the west), is cahracter actions. You want to use as many as you can to move the fellowship. Early on, youll probably need a couple to get characters into position. I like to move characters to minas tirith and rohan (either to the fords or helms deep). Strider to minas tirith obviously, and I like to send at least one other with him, like Boromir. And a couple to rohan. Generally, I like to split the fellowship pretty early, like turn 2-3, after moving several times. I'll leave either 1 hobbit, two hobbits, or 1-2 hobbits + gandalf in the party, depending on how things go. (gandalf remains unless he has already been killed, and gets killed when we take damage in a hunt). Often, if I really want to get gandalf the white, I'll jusst keep moving the fellowship, so that I'll invoke a hunt tile, so I can kill him off...
One goal is to get down to 1 character remaining pretty quick. That character is a hobbit, who can split to take a damage. When that happens, gollum becoms guide, and he is the best guide there is, avoiding many of the reveal icons.
I usually get to gollum as guide a bit after leaving lorien, with several spaces until mordor. Until this point, I want to have 0 corruption, (or 1 corruption to heal at lorien). Killing characters off prevents earlier corruption, except maybe from event cards. But there are also several event cards to heal the fellowship.
As to the rest of the board, and other die rolls, I like to use event rolls to play cards that have the character icon, so I dont waste those dice on it. Muster rolls play cards to gather more troops, or to get units. As to moving naitons down the track, I dont like to do it. Generally, gondor with move to war when Pelargir or Osgilith is attacked + taken. This allows the mustering of an elite in Minas Tirith with the next action of the turn. If they dont immediately attack, you can get another. This plus a couple characters holds out well. Once minas tirith is besiged, you can use musters to recruit in Dol Amroth, before that seige happens.
In general I dont like to waste actions moving nations down the track, I like to have the attack on them put me to war. It can be valuable to get them far enough down the track that when you are attacked, plus the area taken, it puts you at war, so you can then muster an elite before the stronghold is attacked. Obviously, this is mostly for gondor and rohan.
For the elves, usually lorien is hit first. Generally the fall of lorien will take some time, and will provoke the elves to war. Once this happens, musters can be used to put elves in the next target location (probably rivendell)
Later in the game, if there arent useful things to do with musters, they can push some nation to war, like the northmen, and start mustering a big army. This can then attack a weak shadow stronghold, possibly mount gungabad, moria or dol guldar. This can threaten a light military victory, and force the shadow to defend (and thus not attack), and can give a backup plan in case the fellowship moving is going badly.
Elven rings are best used turning dice that you dont have a good use for into character actions to move the fellowship. Especially on turns when you dont roll character actions, or roll only one, and especially if dark doesnt have many eyes.
As to card drawing, in a 4 player game where you have choice of decks, I would go for the muster (strategy) deck primarily. This helps you defend better in places all over the board, and gives some useful thing to do with muster rolls. Also, you dont have many spare character actions to use on playing cards. Still, some character cards are important, because you need to heal the fellowship and put a couple good tiles into the hunt tile mix. The best way to draw a few of these is early on, wth gandalf as guide, using his ability.
Anyway, thats my current strategies. Feedback is welcome.
Here's my current strategies:
As Shadow:
Use first two musters to get Saruman into play (one for war, other to muster him). Use next two, similarly, to get the witch king into play. You are now ahead on dice, for a bit at least, until they can get Aragorn and Gandalf.
Yes, this 'lets' them get gandalf. But to do it they still have to kill him off or break him off the fellowship. To kill him off, they need to draw a hunt tile, and the timing might not be when they like. If they break him off the fellowship, they cant use him to take this damage. Regardless, they lose the ability to draw cards by playing events with gandalf as guide.
Even then, gandalf is one die and you got two. They need aragorn to southern gondor for the other, and they were going to try to do that fast anyway, regardless of wether you bring minions into play.
Early on, in 3-4 player games where you have choice of card draws, draw muster event cards. After getting the witch king, play any of these you have that help. Later, you wont need them all that much, you'll then be focusing on the attack, and you should already have the army, advanced, where its harder to bring in reinforcements.
Use a couple more musters to get 4 more nazgul into play, to get to full strength. You want to be able to group 3-4 with the witch king, for the stronghold you are hitting, AND stick one on the fellowship, AND stick one in the next space (or two possible spaces), that the fellowship can go to if they declare themself, so that you are already there, AND then still have a couple more nazgul to lead other armies.
In addition, muster a couple more elites, to support attacks. Mustering regular troop sauron forces is not really worth it. You start with so many. Muster elites and nazgul. Most musters after this should be spend for Saruman, since he musters so effectively. Use orthanc units to upgrade into elites, and send them to Rohan. Save up a bunch of regulars from north/south dunland, group them to hit rivendell later on, probably meeting some sauron elites/nazgul from moria, on the way.
After the first couple turns, draw from the character deck. This deck has all the stuff for hurting the fellowship, putting the bad tiles in when they get to mordor, etc. You dont really need more musters, but you need help stopping the fellowship.
Turn 1, put 1 die in the hunt pool and hope to roll one more. You are trying to get musters. Also, they need to move characters to get aragorn down. They only have four dice...
Later, put 2 dice in the pool, or even 3 if they have shown a willingness to move more than once a turn. Your goal is to slow them to one a turn, so that you will win militarily before they destroy the ring. Get enough eyes (I like 3 total, so putting 2 in the pool), to make it painful for them to go multiple spaces a turn, so that they'll have corruption problems later if they do (and drawing lots of character cards helps).
When you draw cards that do mean things to the fellowships, play them. Other cards should be used for combat to take strongholds. Whenever you fight, group the witch king and 3-4 nazgul together for the battle. You attack strongholds one at a time, with this group of nazgul. Dont attack the one gandalf the white is in, with all these nazgul. For that specific one, bring in extra elites and only one nazgul. You want to beseige all of the places you are going to attack so they cant recruit, but then you dont need to fight out all those battles immediately. Fight one seige battle at a time, with 5 nazgul rerolls.
Because you are fighting most of your battles with the witch king present, you keep drawing more cards. Draw cards of the charater event deck with this ability, to get all the bad hunt tiles! And to get cards to hurt the fellowship. Play ones other than this in battle.
You need to win militarily before they destroy the ring. Focusing your cardplay energy on hurting the fellowship, while focusing the rest of your play on winning fast on the board, fighting one stronghold battle at a time with full nazgul support, should do well.
Also, muster the mouth of sauron as soon as condition allow it (which will be pretty late).
Elven rings: As shadow, the best way to use the elven rings you get, imo, is to create more eyes out of dice that arent helpful, on turns in which you roll a very low number of them. Obviously, if you are going to do this, you'll want to do it first thing, hopefully before the fellowship has moved... (Question, how does the timing work on this? Can I roll and then use a ringto make another eye before the light player can take a move, or can I only do it on my action turns?)
Light Side:
For the light side, you need to be moving the fellowship more than 1 space per turn on average. Probably 1.5 minimum. This means that whenever the dark player is at 1-2 eyes in the pool or so, you need to be moving twice! Your number 1 priority, just like dark side, is to get more dice. Preferably, you'll sacrifice gandalf to the first damaging hunt tile (or first one that deals more than 1), and bring him into play again with a will of the west die. Also, you need to get strider to minas tirith ASAP. Hopefully, you draw an event that helps this, like dead men of dunharrow or we are swifter or greyhuir(sp?) the windlord.
You want to use an event die to play the card. If you move the fellowship a couple spaces first, it makes it easier. You preferably want to get the fellowship close enough so that 2 character actions (or one + card), can bring strider to minas tirith. Thus, you only use that many character actions in ways that DONT move the fellowship.
Your most precious action roll (after will of the west), is cahracter actions. You want to use as many as you can to move the fellowship. Early on, youll probably need a couple to get characters into position. I like to move characters to minas tirith and rohan (either to the fords or helms deep). Strider to minas tirith obviously, and I like to send at least one other with him, like Boromir. And a couple to rohan. Generally, I like to split the fellowship pretty early, like turn 2-3, after moving several times. I'll leave either 1 hobbit, two hobbits, or 1-2 hobbits + gandalf in the party, depending on how things go. (gandalf remains unless he has already been killed, and gets killed when we take damage in a hunt). Often, if I really want to get gandalf the white, I'll jusst keep moving the fellowship, so that I'll invoke a hunt tile, so I can kill him off...
One goal is to get down to 1 character remaining pretty quick. That character is a hobbit, who can split to take a damage. When that happens, gollum becoms guide, and he is the best guide there is, avoiding many of the reveal icons.
I usually get to gollum as guide a bit after leaving lorien, with several spaces until mordor. Until this point, I want to have 0 corruption, (or 1 corruption to heal at lorien). Killing characters off prevents earlier corruption, except maybe from event cards. But there are also several event cards to heal the fellowship.
As to the rest of the board, and other die rolls, I like to use event rolls to play cards that have the character icon, so I dont waste those dice on it. Muster rolls play cards to gather more troops, or to get units. As to moving naitons down the track, I dont like to do it. Generally, gondor with move to war when Pelargir or Osgilith is attacked + taken. This allows the mustering of an elite in Minas Tirith with the next action of the turn. If they dont immediately attack, you can get another. This plus a couple characters holds out well. Once minas tirith is besiged, you can use musters to recruit in Dol Amroth, before that seige happens.
In general I dont like to waste actions moving nations down the track, I like to have the attack on them put me to war. It can be valuable to get them far enough down the track that when you are attacked, plus the area taken, it puts you at war, so you can then muster an elite before the stronghold is attacked. Obviously, this is mostly for gondor and rohan.
For the elves, usually lorien is hit first. Generally the fall of lorien will take some time, and will provoke the elves to war. Once this happens, musters can be used to put elves in the next target location (probably rivendell)
Later in the game, if there arent useful things to do with musters, they can push some nation to war, like the northmen, and start mustering a big army. This can then attack a weak shadow stronghold, possibly mount gungabad, moria or dol guldar. This can threaten a light military victory, and force the shadow to defend (and thus not attack), and can give a backup plan in case the fellowship moving is going badly.
Elven rings are best used turning dice that you dont have a good use for into character actions to move the fellowship. Especially on turns when you dont roll character actions, or roll only one, and especially if dark doesnt have many eyes.
As to card drawing, in a 4 player game where you have choice of decks, I would go for the muster (strategy) deck primarily. This helps you defend better in places all over the board, and gives some useful thing to do with muster rolls. Also, you dont have many spare character actions to use on playing cards. Still, some character cards are important, because you need to heal the fellowship and put a couple good tiles into the hunt tile mix. The best way to draw a few of these is early on, wth gandalf as guide, using his ability.
Anyway, thats my current strategies. Feedback is welcome.
