Gondor for Experts!

[genghissean]

After losing my 2nd game as SP, I am totally convinced now that it is nearly impossible to beat an expert, even just a good Gondor player. The game IS broken for good players, no doubt about it. Here I believe is the best fix. We all agree these are necessary to make the game balanced, fun and more like a real "siege".

1. Remove the FP 2+ fate tile. This one really dumb and MUST go; allowing the FP to jump in one turn from 12 to 17, and then use one of the other cards to move the track to 18 mid turn. This is a stupid, boring way to finish a great game, also forcing the FP to win using a little more military strategy rather than total luck of a draw. This MUST be done.

2. Allow the SP to use all 6 trebuchets, instead of the 5 limit.

3. Remove 1 siege tower to allow 2 armies containing siege towers to attack over the walls. Siege towers are totally useless against a good FP. Thus, this rule makes it a tonne more fun and more thematic as the enemy pours over the walls. Highly recommended for fun purposes.

4. "Evil Counselor" Darkness card is removed from deck and the "0" fate tile is placed with the other tiles at the beginning of the game as if it had been played.

5. eye dice can be used as army dice for armies containing Mordor orcs ie. combined attacks, trebuchets if run by Mordor orcs, moving with the corsairs. This eliminates the bad luck of a sucky roll, and give the SP more strategy.

6. Legolas and Gimli. One or both are placed with an army for a battle and may be taken as a leader-casualty against a troll manuevour or combat card "remove a leader...remove 2 damage". Also, if Legolas is killed mid battle, Gimli counts as 3 leadership or combat till end of that battle using "Rage of Gimli" ability.

7. Gandalf has "Timely arrival" ability. If on the 1st round only, the FP rolls 4 Character dice, or 3 characters and an Orb. FP can use 1 dice to make a token a full Muster ie.flip two instead of 1. This represents Gandalf's arrival in Minas Tiriath and mustering the courage of the Minas Tiriath soldiers.

I find these changes "forces" a good, fun siege of Gondor, and makes for an exciting game, that doesn't end before all the fun begins (ie. see 1, the ring being thrown into the volcano before the siege really starts). It gives the SP more exciting options and a little more time to get his armies into Pelennor and force Arragon and Theoden to fight there way to the siege maschines, as it rightfully should be. Everybody I have played with love these rules.

I think these rules are GREAT! Let me know what you think after playing both good and evil at least once.

[gandalfrocks]

I am going to try these out. It looks like they might give a slight advantage to the shadow, but I think it will be a good change

[genghissean]

Nope. Still a slight advantage for the FP. Even with these rules, I have still NEVER seen a Shadow army at my MT gates. If you want a slight shadow adavantage. Allow combined attacks with all armies with siege towers, only removing 1. Maybe, but I still dont think it would.

[bomilkar]

Here is what we did:

"Depending on the Witch Kings position, the FP player draws 1-3 fate tiles, from which he may then choose one. The others are put back into the pile. HOWEVER, the fate track can not be moved further than the number of tiles drawn. So, if the Witch King is on position 2, the fate track marker can only advance 1 or 2 spaces.

If there is an SP special tile among the drawn fate tiles, the FP must use it, unless there is also an FP special tile, which may be used instead."

That's it. The game takes longer this way, because the SP player has much more control over the fate track. He cannot however, stall too much, because that would allow the FP to fortify their position and bring up Aragorn and the Rohirrim to maximum strength. We have played the Gondor scenario only 4 times with these house rules, but it seems to be quite balanced this way. In about every game, we had a couple of dark armies standing right in front of the city gates, trying to create a breach with siege engines and brute force. Then the Rohirrim and Aragorn would arrive, desperately trying to dislodge the besiegers before the vulnerable inner city would be exposed. Sometimes they were successful, sometimes not, but there would always be a big carnage on the Pelennor fields.

In fact, we liked this rules so much that we also implemented it into the Rohan scenario.

[genghissean]

Interresting. I think though, after a few more games, you will begin to see the necessity of adopting some or all of my variations. Try at least the siege ones, it plays out more like a siege ie.two armies coming over the wall simultaneous. Without these rules, no one ever builds towers.

Rohan. I find the Shadow to have the advantage, and implementing your rules, I cannot forsee the game being even close. I am 10-0 shadow player in Rohan, with NO variations. Gondor scenario, now that my opponents know what they are doing, lost 2 of 3 with old rules, and then we decided to switch, an now its llike a whole new exciting game.

Let me know what you think if you try them.

[bomilkar]

Should we find the Gondor scenario to be still unbalanced, we will most certainly try out your siege rules. I am still somewhat undecided on the siege tower rules, but I sure like the trebuchet cap at 6 instead of 5. Right now, balance looks fine, but we are far from being expert players, so impressions might change.

On the Rohan scenario: We haven't played this as often enough to make up our minds on balance, but decided to port over the house rule on fate tile drawing anyway, once for consistency, and second because we wanted to make the Saruman's choice between different positions more meaningful. With the new rules, Saruman actually has some incentive to choose 2 over 3, depending on the circumstances, since position 2 means that the marker will not move more than two spaces, while position 3 makes it very likely that the marker will move the full three spaces.

In our last game we found out that an early appearance of the Ents can make a huge difference to the SP. Playing the "Merry and Pippin" card, my FP opponent managed to put the Entwood in front of the Fords of Isen before the bulk of my host had crossed. Suddenly, crossing the river had become a nightmare for me, because it meant moving right through the Entwood. Had I not chosen position 3 early on, I might have been able to avert this blockade of the Fords.

But, as you might see, we still have a lot to learn.

[gebler]

We played these rules over the weekend! They're awesome! cudos Genghis! How did you come up with these? It really balances out the game and definetly makes the siege more fun and realistic. We built towers for the 1st time.

[genghissean]

Really, I should call this "Gondor for anyone who has played the scenario more than twice". You have to be either a newbie, a moron, or reeeeeally unlucky to lose as a FP in this scenario with the base rules. Played a lot over the weekend. I won both games as a shadow playing the full new rules. It was exciting down to the wire. Although as Gondor, I easily won, even with these rules. trick here is attack the towers as a FP. rohan does wonderfully.