Worlds 2014 - Other notes of the Weekend

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dirhaval
Posts: 791
Joined: Tue Feb 06, 2007 5:39 am

I played a casual ARDA game on Saturday night; since this was not part of the tournament I placed this story here.

Overall, I like ARDA. Hope to see it continue. It is better than FATE that no new cards or complex rules are needed.
Here is my experience in that game of five.
My roll was low for the Wizard so I was given Alatar. Starting cards for selection was quite unfair for the others.

My starting characters were: Glorifindel, Beorn, Cirdan, Dain II, Brand, and Strider. I willing gave Sky Strider since she had Aragorn II.
My selection was Dain II, with three dwarves, and Cirdan with the idea to stay near Gondor since...
my starting MPs were Emerald of the Mariner, Knights of Dol Amroth, Red Arrow, Reforging and Wormsbane.
I thought to send Dain II to dragon-country and keep Cirdan in the south.

My starting hand included Fellowship and An Unexpected Party that included three low-mind dwarves with Dain II.
Cirdan control Gildor. All start at Edhellond. There were six turns. I must of played 7-9 spells almost always
accompanied with a corruption check support resource such as Old Friendship x2, New Friendship x2, A Friend or 3 x2.
This greatly annoyed my fellow wizards. You know I studied during spellcasting class in Irmo School for Istari and earned honors in Friendship.

Turn 1 had Alatar visit Dol Amroth to play the faction. Cirdan went to Stone-circle to play Reforging, and Dain II went to Haudh-in-Gwanur.
I found Auto-attack enhancers on the Ruins, so Dain II skipped his site phase, which was common.

Turn 2 had Alatar visit Vale of Erech to play a drawn faction. Cirdan, tapped, moved back to Edhellond. Dain II moved to Cirith Ungol
to face orc strikes. Again, Dain II was not able to enter the site due to hazards enchancing the Auto-attack. Alatar influences the faction.

I also drew Nenya x2 and Narya x1 during the game, but had no desire to trade. I was sitting happy with my MP cards.
I like the idea to draw a card after everybody's turn to refresh the hand.

Turn 3 had Alatar move to Edhellond to team with Cirdan. Dain II was called north so he moved to Dead Marshes hoping to
play Wormsbane. No luck for the dwarves due to tapping. This turn found me playing Smaug on Sky's company at Lonely Mountain.
I assigned one strike to Radagast who taps and rolls a 12! beating the prowess of 17. Slapped silly you can say.

Turn 4 had Dain II move to Caves of Ulund. I avoided Lonely Mountain for fear of wizard influencing Dain II. Sky had her wizard there.
All four dwarves are tapped so no site phase. This is four turns and nothing for Dain II. Hama is played with Alatar. Cirdan and Gildor
join them with Fellowship. They moved to Haudh-in-Gwanur to play Red Arrow.

Turn 5 had Dain II stay at the Lair to play Emerald of the Mariner. Secret Passage is played on The Stones and the other four move there.
Wormsbane is found there with Hama carrying it. Now I have Glamdring, Tom Bombadil, and Narsil in my MP hand.
At this time I had 24 MPs. One more turn will do it. In my hand were: Wizard's Fire x2, Sacrifice of Form, Old Friendship.

Turn 6 I played it safe. I was using 11 GI. Faramir was available to play. I thought about playing Faramir and sending him to Old Forest.
Then Alatar and Co. would visit Carn Dum. Dain II went to Buhr Widu due to the low prowess single strike Troll AA. I played Lapse of Will at this time.
I decided to send Alatar and Co. to Old Forest. But first I played Wizard's Fire x2. Now, Alatar's company has -5 prowess to all incoming attacks!
This was sick. I also had Concealment too in hand. I played Fell Winter the turn before on Gene, but would not had done that if I wanted
to send Faramir to Old Forest. I did not play Faramir. All arrive safely to Old Forest with an AA of wolves 3 strikes with 2 prowess!
I thought about tapping for Concealment to be dumb, but opted to keep a character untap to help with Hama's 4 CP. He carried Elven Cloak.
I called with 27 MPs. Dain II was untapped at Buhr Widu, but I did not risk losing him facing that attack untapped. If I had a dwarf scout
then I would of called after Turn 4.

Gene was the player ahead of me. He was playing a Saruman Dwarven Ring fetching Greater item bonanza. Someone played Ren the Unclean
that corrupted the dwarven ring wearer Gloin. bye-bye 10 Mp. I won the game because of that with my 27 MP including 3 kill MP.
Narsi and Glamdring stayed in my MP pile.

That was fun. I had a nice time. Do not be surprise if you find me playing with such cards in a tournament deck someday :)
lucas.kubisch
Posts: 20
Joined: Mon Jun 09, 2014 6:51 pm

Hmm i guess the marshalling points are where its at, i had sapling of the white tree combo, army of the dead combo, and return of the king, but got sick of using aragorn and wanted to make room for spell cards , did any one win by destroying the ring?
Goblin King
Posts: 237
Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:49 am

dirhaval wrote: Gene was the player ahead of me. He was playing a Saruman Dwarven Ring fetching Greater item bonanza. Someone played Ren the Unclean
that corrupted the dwarven ring wearer Gloin. bye-bye 10 Mp. I won the game because of that with my 27 MP including 3 kill MP.
Narsi and Glamdring stayed in my MP pile.
Yes, I was the guy who played Ren and forced the corruption check. My hope was not only to kill Gene, but also to kill you! I wanted to force you to make as many corruption checks as possible. And, as you recall, while you were making the second round of corruption checks in end game, failing any one of them would have cost you the game. But you made them all and earned your well-played victory.
For my part, the party of hobbits were having a pretty good game until I ended up caught Minas Tirith after playing a faction there, storing two saplings of the White Tree and playing a character at his home site.
The thing I love about Arda is the games usually end up being very thematic and very close in the end. It was a great time!
lucas.kubisch
Posts: 20
Joined: Mon Jun 09, 2014 6:51 pm

Sounds like a dope game, i love when you have doors of night and the nazgul are abroad and than ren can be unclean all day or atleast each turn lol, ren always pops up when i have no hobbits and each of my fav characters have three to four items, i like starting with strider and elves, also threw fram framson in the mix, had an interesting game the orher day where some how gandalf ended up with the one ring and even though his company defeated like five nazgul and shelob at mount doom there was no one left untapped to help him with his corruption check which he failed upon playing cracks of doom. Then i only had ten marshalling points wich didnt out weigh the negative thirteen from dead elves in my graveyard :( what a great f'n game i hope theres a statue somewhere of the iron crown enterprise creators
dirhaval
Posts: 791
Joined: Tue Feb 06, 2007 5:39 am

Nice to hear of the One Ring with Gandalf. Is there any house rules variant that allows using the One Ring
so to keep it in play longer for more fun? That is if the player taps characters to support the CC with a bonus
not +1 but plus the taping characters mind, then that will allow the One Ring to be used more AND if
this happens then player cannot destroy the One Ring. It is an idea.

I was wondering how the game continued to six turns. I would think that someone
would call on Turn 4 or Turn 5. It was close at the Council; Hama had 4 MP with 4CP.
Gildor had Red Arrow for 3 MP and 2 CP. There's Dain II with Emerald of the Mariner.
Good times.
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