Post by hendriks65 on Aug 13, 2015 11:05:37 GMT 1
Hi Henry, nice to read your play throughs! I always play the FP as well and my friend the Shadow. I have messed up MANY games by just being stupid, overlooking things, or not being clever. The Shadow IS very strong and the hunt for the ring is VERY dangerous, NEVER take ANY hunt corruption unless you absolutely can't do anything else.
Although Krieghund states that it is good to keep Gandalf keeper of Narya as long as possible in the fellowship, in order to get his narya die, he needs to be guide and the ring needs to have moved at least once. But the moment I get a 2 or 3 tile hit, I let him die and use the first WOTW I get to create the white wizard. Dices are VITAL for the FP.
My friend now also plays the witch hunter immediately when he can, try to move the fellowship with your last character die, potentially when you see the Shadow has no muster, so IF you get revealed and need to move outside of a stronghold or city you at least have the first turn in the next round to move again without the witch king hunt re-roll. My friend is always also attacking as soon as he can, which really IS the best Shadow strategy, relying on the fellowship to die is giving the luck out of hand to FP. Can obviously work as well, I've terrible bad luck as well but so has he, it very evenly balanced usually which is the BEST thing about this game after it enormous replayability value, we've had NOT ONE game that is similar and I know of no board game that offers that.
A great FP strategy against the witch king hunter is to move yourself into a small shadow army, remember the witch king MAY move along but this might be a way to shake him if you have an attack force ready in the area of a nice FP army with some good leaders. The route from Lorien to Mordor is most tough as very long and needs many steps, cruel weather / reveals can all move the fellowship out of hiding. My friend usually goes for an early attack on Lorien if he can, with me playing Galadriel and making sure the Elves are close or at war with good use of muster cards, the 3 army units there must be 5 the moment the shadow lays siege. If you have the card that a companion may leave a besieged stronghold, get strider in there or any other campanion that can be spared, but Galadriel is a companion as well for battle card effects. Use a trebuchet if you can spare the muster die. Use battle cards! It might fall, but you can do everything to delay that.
Another thing, unchecked mustering! Say the shadow attacks Helms deep, he needs a few rounds and maybe even a new turn, in that time Rohan is at war. Use EVERY muster die and muster card to build up a nice army in Edoras, with Treebeard looming maybe by that time, shadow might be bluffed into believing Ent cards are in the SP hands. My previous game ended in a FP military victory this way! Using the card move that army TOW regions if a companion is with it moved me STRAIGHT into an open Minas Morgul with 10 units! I left a few behind to cover and then could chose 2 more strongholds, 4 victory points, game over at the end of the rounds.
Decide VERY well on how to use your dices, each dice is worth gold for the FP, do not get side tracked into military adventures, sure building up the strongholds and using muster cards is great, keep the reduce corruption cards in your hand, get the 2 Sméagol tiles in there when possible, he is a great guide and ok give it to us then enters play but there is also a FP card against that one. Trebuchets may be mustered in active nations already, so a totally useless muster one time with all political actions done and no need to advance the dwarfs or north, build a trebuchet in Lorien. Great if you have siege engine battle cards!
But, I agree, for the FP it's a big struggle and I've also lost 75% at least of my games, if not 80...
A lot is in the cards we pull, that drives the game very often, use them and the dices at your most advantage. One time I lost Aragorn and Gandalf the White in a VERY stupid move, lost their 2 dices, corruption was at 8 and I wasn't even in Mordor yet, the game took 9 hours and in the end I only JUST lost against a military victory, so there is always hope, things can change rapidly!
Happy gaming, as I think it's THE BEST GAME EVER MADE!!
Although Krieghund states that it is good to keep Gandalf keeper of Narya as long as possible in the fellowship, in order to get his narya die, he needs to be guide and the ring needs to have moved at least once. But the moment I get a 2 or 3 tile hit, I let him die and use the first WOTW I get to create the white wizard. Dices are VITAL for the FP.
My friend now also plays the witch hunter immediately when he can, try to move the fellowship with your last character die, potentially when you see the Shadow has no muster, so IF you get revealed and need to move outside of a stronghold or city you at least have the first turn in the next round to move again without the witch king hunt re-roll. My friend is always also attacking as soon as he can, which really IS the best Shadow strategy, relying on the fellowship to die is giving the luck out of hand to FP. Can obviously work as well, I've terrible bad luck as well but so has he, it very evenly balanced usually which is the BEST thing about this game after it enormous replayability value, we've had NOT ONE game that is similar and I know of no board game that offers that.
A great FP strategy against the witch king hunter is to move yourself into a small shadow army, remember the witch king MAY move along but this might be a way to shake him if you have an attack force ready in the area of a nice FP army with some good leaders. The route from Lorien to Mordor is most tough as very long and needs many steps, cruel weather / reveals can all move the fellowship out of hiding. My friend usually goes for an early attack on Lorien if he can, with me playing Galadriel and making sure the Elves are close or at war with good use of muster cards, the 3 army units there must be 5 the moment the shadow lays siege. If you have the card that a companion may leave a besieged stronghold, get strider in there or any other campanion that can be spared, but Galadriel is a companion as well for battle card effects. Use a trebuchet if you can spare the muster die. Use battle cards! It might fall, but you can do everything to delay that.
Another thing, unchecked mustering! Say the shadow attacks Helms deep, he needs a few rounds and maybe even a new turn, in that time Rohan is at war. Use EVERY muster die and muster card to build up a nice army in Edoras, with Treebeard looming maybe by that time, shadow might be bluffed into believing Ent cards are in the SP hands. My previous game ended in a FP military victory this way! Using the card move that army TOW regions if a companion is with it moved me STRAIGHT into an open Minas Morgul with 10 units! I left a few behind to cover and then could chose 2 more strongholds, 4 victory points, game over at the end of the rounds.
Decide VERY well on how to use your dices, each dice is worth gold for the FP, do not get side tracked into military adventures, sure building up the strongholds and using muster cards is great, keep the reduce corruption cards in your hand, get the 2 Sméagol tiles in there when possible, he is a great guide and ok give it to us then enters play but there is also a FP card against that one. Trebuchets may be mustered in active nations already, so a totally useless muster one time with all political actions done and no need to advance the dwarfs or north, build a trebuchet in Lorien. Great if you have siege engine battle cards!
But, I agree, for the FP it's a big struggle and I've also lost 75% at least of my games, if not 80...
A lot is in the cards we pull, that drives the game very often, use them and the dices at your most advantage. One time I lost Aragorn and Gandalf the White in a VERY stupid move, lost their 2 dices, corruption was at 8 and I wasn't even in Mordor yet, the game took 9 hours and in the end I only JUST lost against a military victory, so there is always hope, things can change rapidly!Happy gaming, as I think it's THE BEST GAME EVER MADE!!