The game was an epic one as always. The Free Peoples frantically striving to keep the hordes of Sauron and Saruman at bay. The forces of Shadow got off to a rather slow start. Baby hordes of orcs burst from the obsidion cliffs of Mordor, it should have been an Ancient Enraged Intelligent horde. But well you get the dice you get. It wasn't long until the women and children of Dol Amroth were so much Mumakil fodder for the Southrons and Easterlings.
Yet Gondor beefed up it's defenses so quickly it was a bit worrisome and Osgiliath was not attacked until late in the game. Although when it was attacked the strong force there was unable to defend against 4 hits in one roll slaughtering the defenders.
At this point the Fellowship is devoid of all but one hobbit, Merry. They have just passed Lorien without taking a rest. All of the Fellowship is dead but Strider has been crowned Aragorn and Gandalf is the White, both roaming the countrysides lending their 2 dice. Argh!
Aragron shot into Minas Tirith and fled in the next move after his crowning inauguration. Coward! Well better that then have the Witch-King make a soup bowl out of his royal skull.
But the witch king did have a nice collection of ladles made out of the royalty of Minas Tirith's femurs after the city collapsed in ruin in 3 turns.
A maurading band of Mumakil and Easterlings marched up towards Dol Guldur and then quickly doubled back right through Rohan taking Helm's Deep in a swift surgical strike.
The Wolves of Isengard made puppy chow out of the Elven defenders of the Gray Havens, Cirdan and his shipfolk putting up little resistence to having their bones snapped and gnawed. The dwarven defenders of Erud Luin watched on, thankful it wasn't them. At this point the forces of Shadow had 8 of the 10 points needed for victory. The Fellowship is now in Mordor, and suffering mightily under the power of the Ring.
Lorien is besieged by the Mouth of Sauron, Erebor is besieged by a small band of of Easterlings, the Woodland Realm is beseiged by another medium size force out of Mount Gundabad.
It looks to be that there will be no 'dawn for the world of men."
When the pitiful little trio, deep within the pits and ash of the Gorgoroth plain, ascend that awful precipice to destroy once and for all the Ring that binds the Dark Lord to this land.
And so the Free People's snatched victory from a certain grim defeat.
A little less conservative playing on the Shadows side should have clinched that game. Although a caveat is that the Fellowship was stopped quite often and reveal multiple times on their trip to Mordor and so the Free People's did not have any easy time of it. It was a fairly Even match. After counting the tiles in the hunt bag it was found that victory or defeat at the brink of Mount Doom was an even 50/50.
I love that game..can't wait till the expansion in September/October.
