I'm hoping my FINAL question...

[Chairman7w]

Hi folks,

I had asked on the other board about "Should a player bother allocating Hunt Dice once the Fellowship reaches Morder.

Nigel was kind enough to respond with:


Absolutely! As the SP I'd allocate the maximum dice to the hunt I can once the Fellowship gets into Mordor.

Why?

Because of the 'Eye' tiles - each die in the hunt box (die mind you, not just eye's ) is a corruption point when an eye tile is drawn. Depending how the game has gone, there should be a significant number of 'eye' tiles in the bag ... and if the FP gulps at the number of eyes and decides to do nothing this turn, they don't move on through mordor, but get a corruption anyway! A win/win situation



That's the crux of my current question. I'm not really sure how there should be MORE eye tiles in the bag. What makes this so? Or maybe better: What can I do, as the SP, to make sure there's PLENTY of Eye Tiles in the bag?

Thanks in advance! Ed

[Veldrin]

All Eye tiles drawn while the Fellowship is outside Mordor is reinserted into the Hunt pool once the Fellwoship is Declared in Mordor.

The Shadow also has one special tile showing an Eye.

When an Eye tile is drawn in Mordor it gives Corruption equal to the number of dice in the Hunt box.

That is why allocating dice in the Hunt box is always good for the Shadow player, the FP will limit this by not having that many Comapnions present since the Shadow player can only allocate as many dice as there are Companions in the Fellwoship and only one if Gollum is the guide. Then all Eyes rolled in the Action roll are added to the Hunt box.

So as the Shadow player you must maximize the chance of drawing Eye tiles by adding your own special Hunt tile with the Eye symbol.

[glow=green,2,300]Veldrin[/glow]

[nigel]

Chairman7w said:

That's the crux of my current question. I'm not really sure how there should be MORE eye tiles in the bag. What makes this so? Or maybe better: What can I do, as the SP, to make sure there's PLENTY of Eye Tiles in the bag?

Thanks in advance! Ed

Okay, during the play of the pre-mordor bit of the game a number of tiles are going to be drawn (if none are then the Fellowship is looking good!!!) when the fellowship declares and enters mordor you have to do a little bit of work putting tiles back in the bag (it's in the rules). You put in all 'special' tiles that have been activated by card play along with any 'eye' tiles that have been drawn already, any other drawn tiles are discarded.

This means a fair number of the plain 1,2,3 tiles are going to be out of the bag before the Fellowship hits mordor - as the Shadow you want as few non-special tiles in the mix (and as few blue tiles) because you want to draw tiles with the stop icon.

So back to your question - what can you do to maximise the tile mix to favour the Shadow in Mordor:

1. Draw and play all the event cards that add red tiles to the mix

2. Draw as many tiles out of the bag before the fellowship hits mordor - which means successfully hunting as much as possible, which means putting enough dice in the hunt and ensuring nazgul (at least) are in the last known fellowship location (where the figure is) to get a re-roll - getting another for an army is nice, but possibly not worth the dice to pull off.

So sorry if I misled - what I was trying to get across in the other thread was that by the time the fellowship gets to mordor the ratio of eye:non-eye tiles should have altered in favour of the eyes (because they recycle and the others don't).

Nigel

[Chairman7w]

Veldrinand Nigel, thanks so much for your patience and help!

Okay - in my last game I still had 4 Companions with me when I reached Mordor, but now I see, that's a BAD thing since the SP can now allocate up to 4 Hunt Die each turn. Gotcha.

Boy - the makers of this game sure did do it right, huh? They really made a neat balance on both sides!


FP: Do I concentrate on getting the Fellowship safely through by keeping the companions with them? Do I separate the companions to help save my Strongholds?

SP: Do I allocate more to the Hunt Pool to find those little *&#%*@s??? Or do I use more dice to help my armies?

Heh - great game!

[eXistenZ]

I think everything is balanced... ok, keeping companions when entering mordor allows SP to raise the minimum dice to put into the hunt box (and increase damage by Eyes), but you also have more targets to sacrifice for avoiding corruption...
By the way, my question is: does gollum count as companion when he's not the guide for the sake of putting eyes into the hunt box? I mean, is there are, say, merry-pippin-legolas into the company, may I put at least 3 or 4 dice (the additional one due to gollum) into the hunt box?

[Veldrin]

Gollum is only in the Fellowship once all other Companions are dead or have left.

So if you have only one Companion in the fellowship the SHadow can only put one die in the Hunt box, then when that Companion leaves or dies Gollum steps in and the Shadow can still only put one die in the Hunt box.

[glow=green,2,300]Veldrin[/glow]