Well, here comes a newbie's report about my first Lure-experience.
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Friday:
First of all, I came by car. So in contrast to many other players I was unaffected by the railway stikes. That gave me the time to enjoy the trip along the Rhine and to check-in without any stress. Beforehand, I had been a bit scared, since I expected most of the people to know each other while I was completely new to everything and everybody. But Wolfgang and Alex (Zirilan) gave me a very warm welcome, and generally everybody was absolutely open, patient and helpful, so you made me feel at home very quickly. Thanks guys!
After the introduction by Wolfgang I took part in the German Hero Sealed tournament. This was a good opportunity to get back into the game again, and it felt like in the old days when my wife and I cracked starter-packs and opened boosters full of Swords of Gondolin, Risky Blows and Rain-Drakes. I lost the first match vs Dominik after a hard fight - mainly because of a failed corruption check late-game that left me without any item-MPs. Grmpf. However, I was lucky enough to win the 2nd and 3rd match vs Yven and David (from Spain), and I took 3rd place in the end.
Epic fail: I tried to test for a Magic Ring of Nature with Wizard's Test, and rolled a 12 twice.
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In the evening I joined a round of the infamous Arda drinking-game, which was absolutely hilarious.
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Saturday:
After breakfast I took part in the Cool Play tournament. I had prepared a deck that included both the scenarios "The wizard's pupil" and "Marvels of the northern world". Unfortunately, the deck wasn't streamlined at all and left me with 0 scenario points and many things started but not fulfilled.
In the first match I had the honour to play against the instigator and organizer Mr Cool Play himself: Alex. After an epic match, in which we kept each other busy with dragons and trolls and other nasty critters, we counted our MPs and ended up in a perfect draw. Zirilan got some more tournament points for cool plays and scenarios, but all in all this was one of the most gratifying games for me of the whole weekend. In bad English we might add: Big cinema!
The 2nd match was against Robert. Here I somehow didn't achieve anything, while he fulfilled the Denethor and the Aragorn=Tyrant scenarios. Well-done!
In the final match Wolfgang overran me literally with his vegetable-deck including shoe-counters on the table, honey-flavoured gherkins (tasty!) and celery slayers. After I lost Gimli 1st turn (boo-hoo) I had dozens of dead scenario cards in the deck left, and managed at least to kill 11 of his 12 creatures. Smash!
All in all, I came in last, but had lots and lots of fun anyway.
Epic Fail: In the game against Robert, Alatar tried to challenge Rogrog with The Hunt for 2 kill-MPs. An easy task with a Risky Blow + an Old Thrush. But I failed on the constitution roll. ... Exactly the same thing happend again two turns later.
Later that day Gunnar introduced us to a nice card game called King Arthur. And in the evening I joined a round of regular Arda (in which drinking was just an addition to the fun, not part of the business) and also had the chance to trade a little bit and to play a friendly casual game with Thomas.
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Sunday:
I woke up 3 minutes before the time I set on my alarm clock (so my roomates didn't have the chance to be annoyed by Naglfar - "Horncrowned Majesty"). And after packing and clearing the room I took part in the Pool Sealed tournament.
In the first match I had the opportunity to play vs Wolfgang again. The bad news was that several of my MPs had to be gathered in the north-east (Iron-Hill Dwarves etc). So my company ran into two dragons ahunt. It didn't kill any of the characters, though, but it was enough to slow me down so that Wolfgang won in the end.
The 2nd match vs Dennis went a lot better. This was mainly due to the fact that I drew my wizard (Alatar) much earlier than him, and since he had Alatar as well in his fixed pack, he had to find his 2nd wizard, who was on the very bottom of his deck, though. Very unlucky.
In the final match I was utterly and completely devastated by Herve. I didn't find my wizard in the whole game, lost Sam to a Call of Home, was too busy with fighting off corruption cars and foolish word to gather MPs, so that he won 6:0, and more than half of my MPs were from the characters of my starting company. Not good.
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Well then. What I haven't mentioned so far was all the small stuff in between the games. There was so much talking and chatting, in the game room and also during the mealtimes. The whole Lure went by so quickly, and at the end I felt like leaving a huge family meeting.
I had a great time, I would like to thank Wolfgang (who in the middle of all the organisation and activities
always had time to help or just chat), Alex (for a lot of bad English and other jokes
) and all the other organizers of the tourneys, and everybody I played against and talked to.
Looking forward to next year already...