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Post by animalmother on Jan 8, 2007 2:10:39 GMT 1
Encyclopedia of Arda gives the following dates:
12 April 3018 At Bag End, Gandalf tells Frodo about the Ring. 23 September 3018 Frodo & Sam leave Bag End 20 October 3018 The Ring arrives in Rivendell 25 October 3018 The Council of Elrond 25 December 3018 Fellowship leaves Rivendell 17-25 January 3019 The Duel of Gandalf and the Balrog 16 February 3019 Frodo receives the Phial of Galadriel. 25 February (approx) 3019 The Fellowship spots its first winged Nazgul. 26 February 3019 Death of Boromir, Breaking of the Fellowship 28 February (Approx.) First Battle of Fords of Isen 2 March 3019 Second Battle of Fords of Isen 3-4 March 3019 Battles of the Hornburg 8 March 3019 Aragorn leads the Shadow Host from the Morthund Vale into Gondor 14-15 March 3019 Battle of Pelennor Field 25 March 3019 Destruction of the One Ring, Downfall of Sauron, end of the 92-day Quest of the Fellowship. 27 March 3019 Siege of Erebor broken. 17-20 March 3019 Dale overrun, survivors take refuge with Dwarves in Erebor. Late 3019 Destruction of Dol Guldor.
If a typical game lasts twelve turns, that would make one turn equal eight days, or about one fourth of a month. All of the fighting takes place in turns 9, 10, 11, and 12.
It should be noted that the Quest was in the Winter, which accounts in part for the slow pace of military events early, and their acceleration as Spring approaches.
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Post by animalmother on Jan 8, 2007 3:45:11 GMT 1
One way to make the game resemble the pace of the trilogy, without forcing any particular event to occur, would be to require the following "Winter" rules for Turns 1-8 (25 December 3018 to 22 February 3019):
1. The Shadow must put a minimum of two "Eye" Action Dice in the Hunt Box. 2. When the Shadow rolls an "Event Action" (Palentir) Action Die, the Shadow must play a card in its hand or draw a "Character" (Sword) card. It cannot use it to draw a Strategy Card. 3. The Free People player must set aside one of its four Action Dice as a Character (Sword) die.
These change would focus somewhat more of the early action on the Quest and the Hunt, and somewhat reduice the amount of military action for the first eight turn, corresponding to 25 December 3018 to 23 February.
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Post by animalmother on Jan 10, 2007 7:37:37 GMT 1
Better, when a new position for the Fellowship is declared, or when the Fellowship is revealed, and the path of the Quest is described on the map, allow the Fellowship to advance into TWO Regions (outside Mordor) for ONE point of advance on the Fellowship Track, if the two Regions entered are free of Shadow units. This would have several related desirable effects:
1) The Fellowship would move faster early in the game, thus more closely approximating the pace of the trilogy. There would also be less pressure to split the Fellowship very early, with Gandalf, Aragorn, and the other Companions often moving south at two Regions per Character Die. With faster movement outside Mordor, the game turns could be imagined as nine days each, and the game as it happened in the book could be imagined as an eleven turn war, with all the fighting on turns 8-11.
2) The Shadow would have more reason to put boots on the ground, between the Fellowship's last known position and Mordor. As it is, I never see the Shadow use an Army Action Die or Character Action Die to move a Nazgul or an Army purely to block the Fellowship's progress. Giving the Fellowship a double move through Free Regions would punish the Shadow for using only Eye Dice for the Hunt, and for using all his Army and Character Action Dice for a military 10 VP Strategy. This would tend to relieve some of the early-game Shadow military pressure. Early game Shadow military pressure is contrary to the pace of the book, and very difficult for the Free People to respond too, especially for novice gamers.
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Post by mrweasely on Jan 10, 2007 23:42:17 GMT 1
Interesting idea. Forget about 2 moves per 1 die, it also gives 1 move per 0 dice! vroooooooom!
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Post by animalmother on Jan 11, 2007 4:56:09 GMT 1
Now, be serious Mr. W. You know a free Fellowship move would be too much. There's no way for Shadow to invest resources to counter such a free move. It'd be like giving the Free People five starting Action Dice--something I'm sure was rejected in playtesting. On the other hand, letting the Fellowship traverse two free Regions per point of advance on the Fellowship Track would force the Shadow to place some Nazgul and Orc patrols in strategic spots, or risk seeing the Fellowship in Mordor much too soon. That by itself would ease early military pressure on the FP, without resort to more elaborate or intrusive balancing rules such as beefier Ents, Galadriel, or adjusting the Nations' at-start positions on the Political Track.
Another point: there are too many strong reasons in the game for the Free Player to break the Fellowship early. One wonders why, given the game's rules, old Elrond and Gandalf would have thought it necessary to organize the Fellowship at all? Why not just send forth the two poor Halflings? Viz.:
1) When Frodo, Sam and Gollum go alone, there's a maximum of one effective Eye Die in the Hunt Box, and every Eye Action Die the Shadow rolls beyond one-in-the-Box is simply wasted. So, stripping the Fellowship down to Frodo, Sam and Gollum at start strips the Shadow of an average of at least one Action Die or more per turn, as evey Action Die Shadow rolls would then have a 1/6 chance of being a superfluous Eye, which is wasted. So it's as if the Shadow starts with six Action Dice per turn, rather than the devastating seven.
2) While Companions can absorb some Corruption, they also increase the risk of suffering it. Keeping Aragorn as Guide is too risky, as he may be killed, permanently eliminating a much needed potential Free People Action Die roll. So separating Aragorn early is imperative. Keeping Gandalf the Grey in the Fellowship delays Gandalf the White too long -- especially as a Will of the West Action Die will be absent from the Free People Action Dice roll 625/1296 of the time. That's an almost 50% chance on any given roll of four FP Action Dice that there will be no Gandalf the White emerging from Gandalf the Grey. His extra Action die is imperative, so an early departure of Gandalf from the Fellowship is imperative.
3) The political impact of the other Companions also depends on an early split.
So all the great incentives are on the side of Frodo, Sam, and Gollum going sneaking off alone at the start, subject to only one Eye Die and one Hunt Die Roll, and permitting the hastening of Gandalf the White and Aragorn Heir of Isuldur. There should be more reasons to keep the Fellowship together, and especially to keep Gandalf and/or Aragorn in the Fellowship. The Hobbits could hide well, but they were not crafty or wise in the ways of the enemy.
Conjoined to the two free Regions per Fellowship Track point rule descried above, I would give the Free People a powerful incentive to keep either or both Gandalf and Aragorn in the Fellowship: For each of the two, Gandalf and Aragorn, who remains with the Fellowship, one Shadow unit is negated for purposes of determining if a Region is "free" of enemy units, for purposes of allowing two-Region moves with one Fellowship Track point. Thus, if both Gandalf and Aragorn are with the Fellowship when it is declared or revealed in a new Region, any Region with only ONE or TWO Shadow units are treated as free of enemy units for purposes of counting Regions traversed from the last declared Region and locating the Fellowship's new declared Region. If either Gandalf or Aragorn is with the Fellowship, any Region with only ONE Shadow unit is treated as free for purposes of determining if a two-Region move is possible.
This would by no means guarantee a Free People's victory, but it would give them an interesting strategic option which would tend to balance the game, and it would be true to the situation in the trilogy, where naive Hobbit gentlemen-adventurers needed the aid of the crafty Gandalf and Aragorn.
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Post by animalmother on Jan 11, 2007 17:31:12 GMT 1
To add more fuel to the preceding arguments, I count twenty-six Event Cards giving incentives to break the Fellowship, while only four Event Cards reward a united Fellowship:
Fifteen Character Cards rewarding a broken Fellowship: 3 Ents Awake Cards, Bilbo's Song, Challenge of the King, Dead Men of Dunharrow, Gwahir the Windlord, I Will Go Aone, House of Stewards, Mirror if Galadriel, The Eagles Are Coming!, The Grey Company, There and Back Again, There is Another Way, We Prove the Swifter.
Eleven Strategy and Combat Cards give an incentive to break the Fellowship early: Anduril, Book of Mazarbul, Blade of Westernesse, Brave Stand, Daring Defiance, Fear! Fire! Foes!, Heroic Death, Mighty Attack, Servant of the Secret Fire, The Last BAttle, Through a Night and a Day.
Three Character Cards, and one Combat Card, reward a united Fellowship: Axe and Bow, Athelas, Horn of Boromir. Wizard's Staff (combat card).
Six Character Cards equally beneficial whether Fellowship is united or divided: Mithril Coat and Sting, Elven Cloaks, Elven Ropes, Phial of Galadriel, Smeagol Helps Nice Master.
The remaining other Combat and Strategy Cards are equally beneficial whether the Fellowship is united or divided.
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Post by Goodgulf the Grey on Jan 11, 2007 18:01:30 GMT 1
I think that this is a mistake in logic. The limit is placed on the number of Eye dice placed in the Hunt box before the Shadow player rolls his dice. So with Gollum as guide the SP can only place one Hunt die. However, he might roll 3 more Eyes and these would still be added to the Hunt box (they are not wasted entirely - although they could be inefficient if too many are rolled).
Also, there is another incentive to keeping companions in the Fellowship other than cards -- corruption absorption. This is the primary use of companions by the FP.
Also, Gandalf and Aragorn have strong abilities when leading the Fellowship and they work well with Smeagol in the expansion. I wouldn't add any extra benefits for the FP for keeping them until you try out your idea of 2 region movement. I think that you will find that it is very strong for the FP and won't need any additional benefits (in fact it may be too strong already).
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Post by mrweasely on Jan 11, 2007 19:33:58 GMT 1
I disagree that the four character seperators favor an early-split to the fellowship. If you split early, and draw a seperator late, what good is it? Certainly There and Back Again is usually best when the seperated companion is Lego or Gimli. I will go alone works best if there's already corruption. The other two pack into besieged strongholds, and are potential siege breakers, but not if you use them on T1.
I disagree that Ent cards favor an early split I think they favor an early resurrection of Gandalf the White. After all, Ents are meaningless until he's there, and he can come back in Fangorn.
In the expansion, Wizard's Staff is by far the best early character card draw. It sucked in the base game.
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Post by animalmother on Jan 11, 2007 21:13:50 GMT 1
Dear Goodgulf, sincere thanks for correcting me on rolled Action Dice that are Eyes always going into the Hunt Pool, Legolam misread the rule, and I accepted his interpretation. You are a good wizard. Other than that . . . I think the case is still strong that more incentive for keeping the Fellowship united is needed.
Mr. Weasley, your points are excellent, and I agree with them. My main point here though still stands, which is that the original Plan of the Council of Elrond was that the Fellowship would accompany the Ring Bearer all the way to Mount Doom, but in the game there's not much incentive to accompany Frodo one-third of the way, especially in the cases of the key strategic pieces, Gandalf and Aragorn. It's a question of when they split off, not if they split off from the Fellowship, and most of the incentives are for their making an early split.
E.g., in a recent game, I kept Gandalf in the Fellowship until turn 3, then split him off. Then, for the next seven turns, I did not get a single Will of the West die roll. The odds of that are low: ((625/1296) x 7 or about 1/128), but it will often happen that Gandalf the White is unplayable for two or three turns, and in the meantime Sauron is crushing me with nine Action dice.
Aragorn is a similar problem, as Eastern Gondor and the Crown of Isuldor are a long way from Rivendell, so he'd better get started early if he's going to make it before it's too late to make a difference.
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Post by mrweasely on Jan 11, 2007 23:29:52 GMT 1
Gods! Don't split Gandalf the Grey for the die unless you have a Will of the West showing, or have some wierd cosmological conjunction of truly stunning proportions which require his attention. like this www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/143014 , and even then its debatable. In the base game, its even rarer, since there's no fallback 5th die from Gally. While Gandalf the Grey guides the fellowship, move the Fellowship like hell and take random casualties or corruption. In the base game kill Gandalf to block a 1,2, or 3 tile. Look at it this way: spend a die to seperate Gandalf, or spend a die to move the Fellowship AND probably kill Gandalf, which is the best seperation you can have. On base-game turns with a showing WoW, I'll spend Elven Rings to move the fellowship extra dangerously, to kill Gandalf all the faster.
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Post by mrweasely on Jan 11, 2007 23:40:26 GMT 1
To be fair, there are economies of scale to seperating lots of companions early, in that they diffuse all over the map on the same swords. I do sometimes play T1 Aragorn. However, is spending 4 dice to get Aragorn on T1 really that superior to spending 2 dice to get Aragorn on T4, AND having his guide ability the four extra turns, AND having his ability to fall on a '3' if things start go go super-badly for Frodo? The net difference is only one die, but T1 Gorn sucks all four swords and replaces them with random rolls. Strider guider sucks random rolls and replaces them with swords. T1 'Gorn also gets Lego to Lothlorien, and maybe a Hobbit to Fangorn, and (if you're Magic Geek) Boromir to Shire and Gimli to Old Forest Road. That's a lot of companions, and it surely does increase the potency of the Free deck. Perhaps he'll say "Yay, Eagles are Coming!" On balance, I don't really know which is better, but I do know breaking the Fellowship T1 does lead to some very dejected ringbearers in a lot of games. So play for FPMV with a stealth FSP. I'm not very good at that, personally. With me FPMV is either 'on' or 'off'. If its 'off', I'm in max-defend mode.
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