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Post by mrweasely on May 3, 2007 18:49:06 GMT 1
When Saruman or Gollum enters play, immediately add the Companion Action Token (CAT) to the Free People's dice. Spend it to: - Attack with an army containing a companion.
- Move up to two armies containing companions.
- Seperate a group of companions from the Fellowship.
- Move all companions.
- Move one group of companions up to three regions.
- Play a character card.
- Draw a character card.
- Set aside some character cards in hand. Draw an equal number from the character deck. Reshuffle the old cards into the character deck.
- Discard 1 character card to take a Fellowship Phase. (2 cards? 3? Some other cost?)
- Reclaim a group of companions in a revealed fellowship's last known position back into the fellowship. (GtW or Aragorn?)
- Activate Take them Alive, the little-used hobbit reincarnation abiilty.
Yes, many of these are radical / dumb / overpowered ideas. I wanted to list everything I could think of before elimnating anything. Anything missing? The Saruman/Gollum entry condition is wierd too. The argument is, before Saruman or Gollum is known, the true nature of the ring isn't fully understood by all members of the Fellowship. Okay, I just made that up because I thought it'd be cool to have a downside to Saruman.
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Post by mrweasely on May 4, 2007 4:37:49 GMT 1
I've been thinking about using this to declare & counter the turn stall. Its not 100% good for that. For example, if the Shadow can allocate 4 eyes (out of 9) and the Free are rolling 5 dice, then the free won't be able to play the token, because they can't pass.
Of course, with 4 dice, its highly likely that the last move will be a reveal, for massive damage. The free people rejoice at massive damage!
There's also a counter of seperating lots of companions the turn before, so they can't allocate 4 eyes. They have to get lucky and roll them.
The counter-counter-counter move is to have Lidless Eye.
But to all this, with an intra-turn declare, there's the fact that you have to get lots of eyes both the turn they first reach MM/Morannon, and, if you successfully stall them, the turn after.
So instead of two turns with 0 eyes allocated, we're looking at two turns with 3+ eyes allocated, where by definition the Free are getting at least as many action dice as the shadow, and the eyes are doing no good short of Nazgul Strike!
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Post by mrweasely on May 4, 2007 5:01:30 GMT 1
If you read all that, good job. If not the executive summary is: it turns turn-stalls into mush. Its better to use Cruel Weather to blow the FSP back into Moria.
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Post by Goodgulf the Grey on May 4, 2007 17:13:24 GMT 1
I like these options. I'm not a big fan of the Draw/Play Event card abilities on Action Tokens (NATs included) because they further weaken the already weak Palantir Action Die result. Also, it becomes too easy to use all the cards you draw with Action Tokens and there is no "hand glut" issues for the FP. These change the game in different ways (some are pretty radical). I would hold off on these ideas until you try out your other ones first. Regarding the requirements for getting the CAT -- I like the Gollum requirement but I'm not keen on the Saruman one. I would rather a different counter be involved with Saruman (my current version is Elrond). - Discard 1 character card to take a Fellowship Phase. (2 cards? 3? Some other cost?)
What about... - Discard the Companion Action Token and a Character die to Delcare the Fellowship
Why do you have take a Fellowship Phase as oppossed to Declaring the Fellowship? I don't see the need to discard Character Cards and the only time to use the ability is to Declare into Mordor so making it a one-time use is good. Here is a radical idea -- give the SP a Minion Action Token (MAT) during any turn where he places at least 3 Eyes in the Hunt box (he may roll more). This token can be used to: - Move all Nazgul and Minions
- Move up to two armies containing Nazgul/Minions
- Attack with an army containing a Nazgul/Minion
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Post by mrweasely on May 4, 2007 23:18:23 GMT 1
Good point on draw/play character cards. Event dice are for that.
Agree that the crazy things are too crazy.
Like the MAT idea, in general terms. It reminds me that I always wanted Mr Hunty to come with some sort of guarantee that I'd always be able to move the Nazgul, since he was being delegated Nazgul Management from Sauron. But this isn't about Mr Hunty, I'm just saying it could be tied to certain minions, & that would be neat. Balrog Action Token? Great Goblin Action Token? Wormtounge Action Token?
I maybe want to take a FSP phase to switch guides mid-turn, to Card Cycle or un-reveal.
I'm definately unsure about permanently discarding the CAT when entering Mordor. Mordor can take half the game, and the overaching purpose of the CAT is to get companions out into the field.
The reason I proposed 1 character card as the cost, was because that'd turn useless character cards into FSP-healers at FP cities and strongholds. I guess my own weasely way of reintroducing the old "heal 2 / turn" proposal, that I think lost out a little bit unfairly. (people compalin that nobody attacks MT, and that it should be key - but its _by far_ the best FSP heal point, if only the Shadow feared healing).
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Post by mrweasely on May 5, 2007 21:01:21 GMT 1
- Move
up to two any armies containing companions.
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Post by mrweasely on May 7, 2007 16:20:17 GMT 1
One nice thing about using it to fast-heal: The Shadow, if it really, really cares, can block the 2/turn healing by allocating lots of eyes. Then the Free won't be able to "pass".
This is the same logic as turn stalling.
Ultimately, its a general characteristic of action tokens that the players care less about how many dice they have, and more about the quality of their moves.
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Post by mrweasely on May 8, 2007 3:47:42 GMT 1
I haven't had much time for testing of late, but I am 50% through with a game with a CAT as described in this thread. Specifically I'm playing with: - no-attack NATs
- remove "forfeit companion leadership" from free combat cards
- CAT:
- move all armies w/ companion
- attack with an army w/ companion
- move companions
- separate companion
- take them alive
- discard character card: take FSP-phase
The game's only half over. This one will go long. Frodo, sam, and Pippin are holed up in Minas Tirith, healing with 2 corruption. Merry and Denethor guard the crossing at Osgiliath with a large army. Mordor hasn't come over the Anduin...yet. Aragorn is in Rohan, defending the Fords of Isen with the Riders of Theoden. The standard pile of slavering wargs is standing by to unleash havoc, but is cowed by Gandalf the White in Fangorn. Gimli led a North army to try to break the siege of Rivendell, and died trying. Shadow has 6: Lorien, Rivendell, and Erebor. Shadow can get 8 easily: Edoras, maybe Pelargir, maybe Shire. The 10th point is going to be very hard, as everything has a pile of free Elites on it.
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Post by Goodgulf the Grey on May 8, 2007 18:50:22 GMT 1
I like the concepts here but the ability to declare into Mordor and avoid turn stalls is very strong. Do you think this will substantially weaken the Shadow Player and throw too much power to the Free People's? It seems that with both National and Companion Action Tokens that the Fellowship can manage quite effectively against the WK with only 4 dice and that without turn stalls the WK Character Card strategy is much weaker.
Obviously it will take a lot of testing, but I like the idea of actually using the companions in a variety of battles and forcing Cruel Weather and other shadow cards to be played "as originally intended". Also, this would actually help the Hunty Witch King in the expansion to be more viable.
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Post by mrweasely on May 9, 2007 14:08:28 GMT 1
You're right, the free may well be too powerful. If true, its a very funny feeling, being poor, opprsessed Sauron.
Seemingly, the proper question to ask when it comes to rebalancing the game is not "how can we make it even", but "what is so annoying about playing Free".
The answers were (1) Not enough energy to do anything (2) Game is blown by not rolling WoW and (3) companions just act as reactor sheilding for Frodo.
The equivalent question for Sauron, that up until now nobody has asked, is "What is so annoying about playing Sauron". Mainly, I hear mental crickets chirping.
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Post by mrweasely on May 12, 2007 6:12:35 GMT 1
I haven't had much time for testing of late, but I am 50% through with a game with a CAT as described in this thread. ... The game's only half over. This one will go long. Frodo, sam, and Pippin are holed up in Minas Tirith, healing with 2 corruption. Merry and Denethor guard the crossing at Osgiliath with a large army. Mordor hasn't come over the Anduin...yet. Aragorn is in Rohan, defending the Fords of Isen with the Riders of Theoden. The standard pile of slavering wargs is standing by to unleash havoc, but is cowed by Gandalf the White in Fangorn. Gimli led a North army to try to break the siege of Rivendell, and died trying. Shadow has 6: Lorien, Rivendell, and Erebor. Shadow can get 8 easily: Edoras, maybe Pelargir, maybe Shire. The 10th point is going to be very hard, as everything has a pile of free Elites on it. The shadow ultimately won this one. The final battle was WK versus GtW and Aragorn at Helm's Deep. WK got 3 hits with Deadly Spells (lucky), attacked with Fightin' Uruk Hai and drowned the companions in a sea of Wargy hit points. The Fellowship was one turn into mordor, taking its time, expecting nothing could blow through their incredibly hard remaining strongholds. They were wrong. Sauron still has some tricks to play.
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Post by mrweasely on May 14, 2007 23:11:29 GMT 1
I've played it twice now. One narrow Sauron victory, and one crushing Free victory.
Some observations:
DEW North and its Shire/Gray/Rivendell equivalent now suck. Well, "suck" is too strong a word, but those 10 vp not going to be your path to victory. DEW can be, and usually is, a real slugfest. Once the North is at war, they start squeezing troops into Free strongholds, or retaking Dale / Iron Hills to muster more. Another example: suddenly Bree can support Rivendell in a meaningful way. Base game looks totally 2d and boring compared to this.
My new favorite shadow VP, in order, are:
Pelargir, Minas Tirith, Dale, some elven stronghold or Erebor another elven stronghold Helm's Deep.
Minas Tirith is do-able early. If it gets companions, it becomes too hard. Heck, even Osgiliath can become too hard!
Companions are better and seeing combat, spread out across the map. Mobility is much higher. Suicide missions are attractive when so many companion combat cards fail to suck, and yet companions can actually move.
I'm not seeing any incentive to move all the companions into one super-stack, ala the historical Last Battle. There's not much point to leadership above 5, and captain of the west is best suited to a shrimpy army that's preparing to die, rather than a robust, all-your-base-are-belong-to-us style army.
I'm also not seeing the historical situation of all companions surviving three books. They have to be taken as random casualties. The hobbits, however, are pretty hardy. Good!
The shadow really is pressed for time. Y'know in the base game where two Big things can Really Go Poorly for Sauron, and yet he can still win? Remember how much harder things suddenly get for him then? Yeah. its like that all the d*** time. Sauron has to step up and bring his 'A' game, or spend all game smashing rocks against 8 hit, high-leadership strongholds.
I am thinking of letting him turn eyes to dice using elven rings though. Seems he needs something against Very Bad Action Die Luck.
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Post by mrweasely on May 15, 2007 21:35:03 GMT 1
Played this with a real person today. Carrock took Dol Guldur with [2/3/3], several turns passed, then it took Minas Morgul with the same army for the win. That was on Worthless Action Die turn with only 2 orcs in Mordor to defend.
Its been the only time I've looked at the board and concluded the FP had a lock on FPMV.
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Post by Goodgulf the Grey on May 16, 2007 17:51:43 GMT 1
How soon are you bringing in the Witch King in these games?
Have you tried delaying his appearance until later to limit the impact of NATs?
Are you bringing in the CAT when Saruman is mustered or only when Gollum is the Guide?
What about allocating more dice to the Hunt to limit Action Token Impacct? Has that helped or hurt he SP chances?
Are you allowing the SP to use Action Tokens also?
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Post by mrweasely on May 16, 2007 21:45:25 GMT 1
WK came out fairly early, I'd say turn 3. Because I planned to allocate 2 eyes, and because (for simple die counting reasons) I could tell it wouldn't hurt me that turn.
My eye-allocation was 1 eye for the first 2-3 turns, then 2 eyes, then 1 eye after Dol Guldur fell and I had to play more militarily just to retain the initative.
The companions were arguably underutilized that game.
The "initative" swung back and forth several times in that game. Had our action-die rolling luck been reversed on the last turn, Sauron would have won - he was at 9 vp anyway.
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