Arthedain is another good nation that gives the player an important role right from the start. You will need to communicate with the Cardolan player to develop a strategy for taking on your main enemy the Witch King. Barring any bad luck or intervention from other DS characters, the Cardolan/ Arthedain combined forces should be more than enough for the Witch King to handle. The ability to name 40 Mages is, in my opinion a poor special ability. The special abilities of the Arthedain are particularly poor across the board really. However, if you can eliminate the Witch King you are assured peace and prosperity for most of the mid-game, during which you can develop your nation into a top three position.
You must be diplomatic when taking on this position. You will need to co-ordinate with Cardolan and you must stop Rhudaur going evil. If this happens your position takes on a whole new perspective and you will do well to survive!
Strategy Guide by Brian Mason
Strategy Guide by Tom Walton
Anatomy of a Game - The First 8 Turns by Tom Walton & Brian Mason
Anatomy of a Game - Turns 8 to 15 by Tom Walton & Brian Mason
Arthedain Starting Information
Strategy & Tactics: Arthedain
From Brian Mason
How does the Arthedain compare to other nations? At the start of the game they rank as follows (Allegiance Comparison Tables, Tom Walton):
among all players
among FP
Total Tax Base
tied for 8th
tied for 5th
Resource Base
3rd
2nd
Combat Strength
11th
6th
Character points
tied for 20th
7th
Artefacts
9th
4th
Arthedain is strong in very many areas. A very significant weaknesses is the lack of a back-up capital, especially with the Witch-King so nearby.
If the Noldo Elves follow some of the suggestions in last week's Strategy and Tactics discussion, they can supply Arthedain with a back-up capital and also may provide powerful combat artefacts which can be very beneficial once the war starts.
And it should start soon. Arthedain and Cardolan should begin pressing the Noldo right away. Some help can be provided by the Dwarves, and the disposition of the Dunlendings and Rhudaur may pose a problem. Even so, an aggressive pairing of Arthedain and Cardolan can adequately hold back the Witch-King, even if the two neutrals join him. With the financial and resource aid of the Noldo attrition will wear the Witch-King and his allies down.
Arthedain is peanut butter. Cardolan is jelly. The pairing of these two is THAT important to the both of them. While the strategy presented here is that of Arthedain, many of the ideas can (and were!) be adapted to Cardolan, and the plans presuppose an active co-operative ally. If you are facing the Witch-King and all three neutrals, a scorched earth strategy will come in handy. Keep shoving in more troops and eventually you will be able to overcome the Witch-King. Destroying his population centres, which you cannot possibly hold will help in many ways: lower his loyalty, morale, production, and tax base. While fighting at your own population centres has the added fortification bonus, I'd much rather be attacking the enemy on his own ground, thus leaving your own relatively secure.
If you can count on non-intervention from the neutrals it might be possible to blitz the Witch-King and take and hold his population centres. If the Witch-King is gone, either or both neutrals have no hope of fighting Arthedain and Cardolan.
Expected production of Arthedain is as follows:
le
br
st
fo
ti
mo
go
total
1600
250
180
6000
700
400
3700
They have adequate leather and mount production to equip mounted troops. Their deficiency is in the area of bronze and steel production. In placing population centres it is important to recognise the areas on the map which are more secure than others. Specifically, what parts of your map are on maps of the enemy (or the neutrals for that matter). The area west of and including the 13 column do not appear on the map of the Witch-King or the two neutrals. It is in this area, this half dozen or dozen hills and rough hexes that the Arthedain should place his camps. Several of these should significantly improve his resource production in deficient areas.
Two of the special abilities of the Arthedain directly relate to their armies, and only serve to increase their ability. The other two special abilities are discussed here.
Arthedain starts with a good economy, but it can be made better by the increase of taxes. However, two of the Arthedain villages start with no fortifications. The ability of the Arthedani to build fortifications at one-half cost will allow them to build towers both here and at subsequent camps rather easily. Projected Arthedain timber production should be adequate for this. It is also worth mentioning and considering improving Arthedain fortifications at Fornost Erain from a castle to a keep.
The other Arthedain special ability, that of creating 40 point mages is of less value. While they do have the ability to act as field artillery as well as lore masters, Arthedain starts with no mages above apprentice level. To get these forty point mages before turn eleven (projected turn a 10 mage will become a 40 mage with Prentice Magery every turn (based on More Character and Skill Improvement by Tom Walton)) will require creating a 30 mage, waiting four turns, and then having him name 40 mages.
Two characters, Alquawen and Morwen, start the game being not terribly valuable. However, have them both InfYour and GrdLoc every turn and in time you will have very good agent/emissaries which can go into enemy population centres and InfOthr and StlGold: an especially nasty action.
The immediate character needs of Arthedain are two commander/agents to act as army subcommanders, a good pure emissary and a good pure mage (for above).
The emissary can be used to create camps, and later, to improve some of the Arthedain population centres. Some of the Arthedain population centres: Athrad Sarn, Eruimar, and Rood are either camps or villages in open plains. Production of the resources at these locations are adequate and will not drop significantly with improvement.
Specific turn by turn recommendations follow:
Each turn: Alquawen and Morwen train as described above. Army moves are optimised to allow for maximum recruiting and minimum food usage.
Turn 1 : 1407 army splits with most going to Argeleb II. Armies begin to reorganise under Argeleb II. 1409 army moves to 1106. 1211 army moves to 1409. 1109 army moves to 1108. First commander/agent named. Total of 1200 troops added.
Turn 2: Relations downgraded with Witch-King. 1106 army splits and moves to 1304. 1409 army moves to 1304. 1108 army moves to 1304. Argeleb's 1407 army moves to 1304. Other 1407 army stays put. Note that 1304 is just off the Witch-King's map. First emissary named. Tower built at Eruimar. Total of 1100 troops added.
Turn 3: Relations downgraded with Cloud Lord. Argeleb II takes command of most troops at 1304 and moves to 1704. His army consists of 600 hc, 600 lc, 2700 hi, 1800 li, 300 ar, 900 ma. 1106 army moves to 1006. Various left over recruiting armies (i.e. 100 troops each) from 1304 move to 1106, and 1207. Mage named. Total of 800 troops added.
Turn 4: Relations downgraded with Dragon Lord. Argeleb's army moves from 1704 onto 1804 (Carn Dum). 1006 and 1106 armies stay put. One 1207 army moves to 1109, the other to 1409. Second commander/agent named. Camp created at 1609. Tower added at Rood. Total of 1100 troops added.
Turn 5: Relations downgraded with Long Rider. Argeleb II destroys Carn Dum (if possible, otherwise he attacks the army present). All armies stay put and recruit. Camps added at 1110 and 1209. Total of 1700 troops added.
Strategy Guide by Tom Walton
From Tom Walton
In my experience, Eriador is probably the most volatile region in Middle-Earth and, aside from the Rhovanion (wherein dwells the doomed Dragon Lord), the most desperate for the Dark Servants. Despite the enormous strength of the Witch-King, this player faces at least three opponents at the opening of the game, with the potential to come to blows with five more very early on (Dwarves, Sinda, Woodmen, Rhudaur, Duns). Most players see the conquest of the Witch-King as a matter of time given competent play by his Free Peoples enemies.
With that in mind, crafting an early game strategy for Arthedain is essential, not only to pound home the nails on Murazor's coffin, but also to secure Arthedain's future position among the great powers of Middle-Earth. And, unfortunately, much depends on the actions of neighbours. Will Cardolan come to Argeleb's aid early on, or will it sit out the opening moves of the war? And what of the Noldo, known for their unwillingness to do anything other than collect artefacts and wrack up victory points? Which way will the two neutrals go, and when? Will agents from Mordor show up to aid the Witch-King, or will Mordor throw the First of the Nazgul to the dogs? The factors involved can change Arthedaini strategy and goals completely depending on various turns of events, the combination of which is far too large to address in this article.
For the purposes of simplicity, I assume that Dunland will remain neutral for the first ten turns, while Rhudaur will declare for the Dark Servants after the initial run of battles. I also assume that Cardolan will arrive, but late (about the same time Rhudaur goes evil), and that the Noldo won't be a factor in the opening game. I base this upon my observation of the game as the 'average' situation in Eriador. Of course, if Rhudaur goes good, or if the Noldo actually get involved, Arthedain is in much better shape and can alter its plans accordingly.
Arthedain isn't particularly strong in any area at the beginning of the game; indeed, most of its strength lies in its potential to become a great power in Middle-Earth later on. In order to preserve this potential, Arthedain must act immediately to drive its foes from Eriador with all the weapons at its disposal. It's critical, extremely so, that Arthedain go on the offensive and conquer the Witch-King as soon as possible; a long, drawn-out war, or worse, a counter-offensive into the kingdom itself, can cripple Arthedain permanently even if the Witch-King loses Angmar later on. The damage done will prevent Arthedain from later building up its strength and challenging other Free nations for the top three positions.
As per my notes in the previous Mouth, I don't plot turn-by-turn since my actions will vary depending on the placement of characters at game start. Instead, I resorted to a general outline broken down into five turn increments.
Turns 1-5: Consolidate forces and recruit heavy infantry as quickly as possible, at least 1100 a turn. The Witch-King will be recruiting at least this fast, so you must act to meet him man-per-man on the field. Position your forces so that they can meet at a single point and march into Angmar as one army, rather than be caught piecemeal by the Witch-King and destroyed. Don't worry about giving your troops arms and armour; the Witch-King won't be able to because of the enormous economic cost, and neither will you. Aside from which, you really don't have the characters to waste in the early game. In terms of new characters, I'd suggest naming two pure emissaries and two commander-agents. The commander-agents can recruit and act as guards for your exposed leaders, which is generally sufficient against the agents of Mordor early on unless they come with lots of artefacts. The emissaries should move for the western territories and begin putting down camps as quickly as possible in the rough hexes. If you can get permission from the Noldo (or you don't care what he thinks one way or another), putting camps in the woods hexes on the coast is also a good move.
The first critical juncture comes in this early phase of the game. Most Witch-King players are content to recruit like crazy until they're on the edge of bankruptcy, then march out and engage anyone who crosses their path. Another option involves splitting off the large numbers of cav in Witch-King armies into a single force, sending it north off-map, then back down into western Arthedain.
This move, while it weakens Angmar considerably on the main front, can be extremely devastating; if done with skill and surprise, Arthedain can be crippled immediately, and its chances of coming out of the war intact destroyed.
To counter a tricky Witch-King, I'd suggest taking your worst commander and placing him in one of the off-map hexes where the Witch-king is most likely to appear. Have him recon each and every turn; if an icon shows up, you know that you're in trouble and can march to block the invasion with your own cav force. Keep the commander there until you account for the whereabouts of the cav (say, by destroying it in battle). Granted, this character won't get any skill gains, but you won't see half your nation destroyed before your eyes, either. Forget about naming mages. Have your characters with mage skill prentice, but don't bother creating any more. They're absolutely worthless to you at this point in the game.
Turns 6-10: The Witch-King, having reached the end of his treasury and now on the verge of bankruptcy, will be marching out from Angmar. He'll be eager, even desperate, to run into someone; his deficit will be so high that he'll be driven to lose troops as quickly as he can. My suggestion would be to oblige him. Concentrate all those new forces you recruited and go intercept him before he can get into Arthedain. Because of the rough terrain, there are only two real approaches that heavy infantry can take into Arthedain, which means that the actual path the Witch-King chooses is easily seen before he arrives. It shouldn't be a problem to catch him out on the plains, unless you acted silly and recruited at odd places.
The titanic battle that will follow this meeting is another critical juncture. If the Witch-King received significant monetary aid from Mordor, it's possible that he managed to out-recruit you by quite a bit, in which case you'll not only lose, but your enemy will have sufficient troops left to continue the march. If he didn't get a whole lot of aid but is crazy enough to chance bankruptcy on a strong market, he'll still outnumber you by a fair amount. The average player, however, won't recruit this fast, which means that you'll be just about evenly matched. Regardless of who wins, the victor won't have enough troops left to do any damage, and this is quite good enough for Arthedain.
If all goes well and mutual destruction results, the threat from Angmar is essentially over. The Witch-King won't have a treasury to back up massive over-recruitment anymore, which means that you'll easily be able to match him man per man. With the arrival of any allied forces the conquest of Angmar only a matter of time.
There are any number of problems you may run into in the early game:
incompetent or unresponsive allies. Regardless of what else happens, Arthedain simply can't conquer Angmar by itself unless the Witch-King is a complete idiot. While many Witch-Kings are, indeed, idiots, I wouldn't bank on this. Without allied aid, you're committed to a war of attrition which neither side can really win, and which'll doom your nation to second-rate status for the rest of the game. Even should you managed to eventually overcome your foe, you won't have the resources or time required to build your nation into a power capable of placing in the game.
Rhudaur goes evil early. Most Rhudaur players choose a side after the forces of both allegiances have exhausted each other in conflict. This makes sense from a neutral point of view, as it allows Rhudaur's massive armies to run free over their opponents for several turns. However, a Rhudaur player that goes evil early and joins the Witch-King in the fight against Arthedain will turn the tide immediately; the only hope is that Cardolan also arrives early, or that several Free Peoples come to your aid prior to enemy armies destroying all your towns. There isn't any counter for this if your allies don't help; you can't stand against a combined Angmar/Rhudaur offensive regardless of what you do.
Dunland goes evil early. Dunland usually sits out the war for quite some time; there's also a good chance that it'll drop (seems to drop more often than any other player except the Woodmen). However, if Dunland commits to the Dark Servants within the first ten turns, you might as well count Cardolan out of the action.
Again, the only option for Arthedain is to seek military aid from other Free Peoples; I'd work on the Dwarves, or failing that, the Woodmen (if the Dragon Lord has been soundly beaten, like he should be). Both of these players have a stake in seeing Angmar destroyed, and are more likely to respond quickly than others.
The Cloud Lord shows up. If the Cloud Lord arrives with many agents in tow, things can get difficult fast. While your commander-agents are capable of defeating most of Mordor's agents in assassination attempts/kidnaps in the early game, the Cloud Lord (with his bonus and the stealth his characters usually get) can wreak havoc on your forces. A well-timed strike can completely wipe out your armies, creating a gap in your defences the Witch-King will pour through. Unfortunately, the only way to counter this other than constantly moving your armies is to employ the aid of the Noldo or Sinda (which isn't terribly likely). Again, I'd suggest hitting the Witch-King ASAP to limit the damage the Cloud Lord can do, then begging allies for help and hoping the Cloud Lord gets tired of the sport and goes elsewhere.
The Mordor Switch. This is a move I've contemplated for a long time, but only recently saw in action in game 97. There, the Blind
Sorcerer and Witch-King traded major towns, with the BS relocating most of his characters to Angmar. This allowed them to recruit additional troops in the area without putting a burden on the Witch-King, as well as allowed them to add significant magical power to their armies. In effect, two powerful Dark Servants were marching out of Angmar rather than one. The end result (by turn 20, the last played) was that despite the close co-ordination of Arthedain, Cardolan, Rhudaur, and a very militant Noldo player, Angmar still hasn't been conquered. Indeed, things were in doubt for a few turns, as the crafty Dark Servants nearly defeated their foes with the help of a dragon and a few agents. Should Arthedain face this situation, again the only real hope is significant aid by allies. If Rhudaur also goes evil, the end could very well be near not only for Arthedain, but for all of the Free in Eriador. Trying to give specifics for Arthedain prior to the conquest of Angmar is very difficult, since so many things depend on the actions of allies and enemies. After the conquest of Angmar, your choices are more limited and don't require co-ordination with other players.
I'd suggest the following:
build up your economy as quickly as possible. Upgrade all of those camps you made earlier into villages. Try to get an emissary to a high enough rank to convert a couple of towns to major towns, to provide back-up capitols in case things get strange again in Eriador.
make sure you have camp/towers blocking all major access points into Arthedain. Thankfully, many of these towers are sitting around and only require the placement of a camp; but a couple of areas could use reinforcement in case the Dark Servants surprise you with an unexpected hit. I don't suggest building better fortifications than towers, as the war in Eriador will most likely be over before you can gather the resources together for significant upgrades.
name a couple of 40-point mages and start training them like crazy. Use them to gather information, track enemy characters, and find the lesser combat weapons to arm your characters with (for better challenge ranks). Don't name too many mages; you only need a couple.
In terms of military, recruit well-equipped heavy cav and send it down the road to hotspots in other areas of Middle-Earth. Many people trade a major town to get closer to the action, but I'd advise against this if you want to win the game. It splits up your characters and puts you within striking distance of Mordor's agents.
After the Dark Servants are driven from Eriador, you can look forward to a long and fruitful peace. This peace will not only allow you to send armies to the aid of your allies elsewhere, but build your economy and characters at a much faster pace than those closer to Mordor. Given a early defeat of Angmar and a long war elsewhere, Arthedain can shoot into the first three - and maintain its position - for the rest of the game.
Anatomy of a Game: The First Eight Turns
By Tom Walton and Brian Mason
Note: this series of articles was written quite some time ago, just around the time that turn 10 was being run. The game is now somewhat further along and not nearly as rosy-looking. You'll surely hear of it in future issues. In addition, I only wrote of 7 turns, while Brian wrote of 10; given my quick-as-molasses response time lately, we thought to go with the article as-is rather than wait a month or two for additions from yours truly.
One of the most interesting - and least-heard-of - aspects of Middle-Earth is how other people's games are progressing. Like many other players, I like to follow along in the developments of wars I'm not involved in, analysing the strategy employed to see how it falls out.
The reason we generally don't hear about such games is quite simple: because they're in progress, an article which covers the actions and plans of a nation has the potential of falling into enemy hands upon publication. Not a good thing. And after the game is finished, most people don't care to write about it, even if they could remember what the heck they did twenty turns ago. I've decided to pen just such an article, after taking the simple precaution of not naming the game that I'm in. Many people know that I'm playing Cardolan in a game, and many also know that my ally, Arthedain, is Brian Mason; but no one knows the game number, and very few people in that game know who we are. So the odds of the Dark Servants stumbling upon this article and matching it up against the game they're playing are pretty darned slim.
Besides, I could be lying.
On with the show.
The Pre-Game
While Brian and I have played together in several previous games, only once before have we been in a position to plan together - as the Northmen and Eothraim in game 204. However, that was a team game and neither of us was particularly thrilled with the nations we eventually ended up with. Team games, as you know, are quite different from normal games; they really aren't my cup o' java. So essentially, this was the first time in more than two years that we managed to get adjacent nations in a normal game. We didn't expect this and were quite happy to see our turn 0 set-ups, which were our first choices. The Cardolan/Arthedain alliance allowed for all sorts of interesting possibilities that we were eager to put into play.
In order to more firmly unite our peoples, Prince Hallas gave up all claims to the throne, swearing fealty to King Argeleb. The King was gracious enough to grant Hallas Cardolan as a perpetual princedom, and Reunited Arnor was born. Much rejoicing followed, and continued, until the ale at Metriath ran dry; at which point the King decided it was time to return to Fornost Erain (sans ale, there's nothing to recommend Metriath as a vacation spot).
After analysing the situation and deciding that we needed a decisive victory over the Witch-King which would also keep Rhudaur and Dunland off-balance, we opted to forego the typical, tried-and-true way of doing things: building up for the first five turns, then engaging in a mutual slugfest with Angmar somewhere between Cargash and Amon Sul. Not that the slugfest wouldn't work, but we didn't want the neutrals to get in on the action prior to wreaking a little havoc on the Plateau. On the off-chance that both Dunland and Rhudaur went evil, we wanted to be sure that we dished out enough damage to the enemy to keep from being overrun by superior forces.
We weren't labouring under the illusion that we could defeat all three nations at once, if they were co-ordinated. Middle-Earth doesn't allow superior strategy to overcome superior numbers.
The alternative we settled on was a wave' approach, wherein we would gather smaller armies - two to three thousand men - and send them into Angmar one after the other. This would keep the Witch-King on the defensive and bleed him dry of troops, at the same time confusing poor Rhudaur and encouraging him to caution. As the armies were going in one per turn, we always had a decent force between Rhudaur and our own nations, one which Rhudaur could see on his map and which could easily turn east if he got obnoxious.
While the single army wouldn't be strong enough to defeat an aggressive Rhudaur, it would delay him for a turn and allow us to send the rest of our reinforcements to the battle area.
We also decided to recruit like madmen, assuming that the worst would befall us and that we had no time to waste. Because Cardolan is capable of raising armies without cost, this resulted in my nation pumping out 1400 guys a turn on peak turns, while Arthedain could do the same at about 1300 troops a turn (early on; his recruitment would fall to less than this later). That's nearly 3,000 troops per turn aimed at the enemy, well above what the Witch-King could produce on his best day.
Our strategy was relatively simple and accomplished all of our goals. We found that our economies could barely support the plan, assuming that everything went decently well, and that was good enough for us. After all, it wasn't as if our enemies were going to err on the side of economic caution, and victory often goes to him who rides the edge of bankruptcy with the most daring.
Turn 1
The first turn was, of course, dull. Lots of marching, selling, buying, and creating characters. Not much to report, except that I settled on building four emissaries in the first five turns, with two more following on turn 6. This becomes important later. I didn't plot to build any agents, which may seem unusual. But consider: I'm Cardolan; I most likely will never see a stealth point, or an agent artefact. Chances are, any half-decent Mordor player could blow right through any guard I created. So why bother? If the enemy starts killing my characters, I'll just make more.
Brian volunteered to take on the duties of communicating with other players, which I happily agreed to as I'm most certainly the less diplomatic of our duo. Unfortunately, the only cards I got were from Dark Servants or neutrals in distant lands; nothing from the other Free. The same, I think, was true of Brian, though he did manage to establish contact with the Noldo for all of one turn somewhere in the early days.
More on that later as well.
Turn 2
I send out all of my turns by email. I get them by paper mail, but my distrust of my local post office (well-earned) means I'd much rather rely on the net to get my orders to GSI on time.
Unfortunately, the AOL server burped and ate my orders after the Netcom server dutifully delivered them. AOL has no logging/error-checking routine, so of course, I wasn't informed of any failure.
Which means that I was special-serviced. And that because my economic plans were so very tight, the turn's delay threw them into complete disarray. I had to re-plot all of my recruitment and sells, restructure my hiring of characters and forces, etc. It was a nightmare. And worse, the effect cascaded down the turns so that I ended up having far less troops in later turns than I otherwise would have. One lost turn resulted in an eventual decrease (by turn 10) of several thousand HI.
Being special-serviced sucks.
Fortunately no one took advantage of the fact that my armies were all in the middle of nowhere, unconsolidated and without orders. Aside from the brief-but-short-lived coup by nobles opposed to the idea of Reunited Arnor, this turn was also pretty dull.
Turn 3
Back on track now, my armies consolidated and the first strike force entered Angmar at Cargash. Pelendur reported that no one was home, which suited me just fine. A second army was gathering to follow him in under Lanaigh, and I was now recruiting at 1100 HI/turn.
At this point I had several emissaries out and about, and all failed to create camps. An unusual run of bad luck, but it sometimes happens.
Rhudaur was definitely in the game; we could see his armies moving. But neither he nor Dunland would respond to Brian's requests for communication. It looked bad regarding the neutrals. Still, Rhudaur hadn't attacked yet, and every turn he delayed was another nail in the Witch-King's coffin.
Still no word from the Woodmen, Sinda, or Dwarves. It's at this point that Southern Gondor sends out a message that Northern Gondor has dropped, but SG doesn't reply to further cards. SG later falls off the VP list rather abruptly, indicating that he, too has dropped, and so the front against Mordor collapses without much of a fight.
Turn 4
Earnil finally manages to destroy the Tharbad bridge. And a good thing, too; the troops were starting to get nervous, whispering that the damned thing had been enchanted with evil sorcery. My flank is now secure. The invasion of Angmar is in full swing. Pelendur burns Cargash without incident and moves to Eldanar, there to encounter a big chunk of Angmar's home defence. There's no way he's going to win that battle, so he turns over command to Imlach (actually, he and Imlach were leading separate armies at Cargash; I consolidated them) in an attempt to avoid blame. Lanaigh is already marching north, one turn away from Eldanar.
There's a brief panic as a Rhudaurian army appears on my map within striking distance of four of my towns, resulting in some really weird and strange army movements (intercept marches). I wonder at Rhudaur's genius, to pick this movement to invade when he can't see the rest of my forces, yet in some psychic fashion knows I'm not prepared to meet the threat. What insight! What daring!
Turn 5
What the - ? Rhudaur, after that brilliant move, decides to post a camp - and then marches into the marsh hex south of 1811, on the other side of the river. I quickly re-evaluate the man's genius. What possible reason could there be to march into that marsh hex? What, does he want to post a camp there?
Surely Dunland will be just a wee bit annoyed at being invaded? Ah, well. At least I'm not going to lose any pop centres. Imlach loses at Eldanar, though he inflicts some serious casualties before going down. Alas, Imlach is also assassinated, which indicates that the Witch-King is probably getting agent support from someone. Not that I really cared that much, as Imlach's army had already been toasted.
Unfortunately for the Witch-King, Lanaigh arrives with the new army (I opted not to divert him against Rhudaur, but rather continue on into Angmar - no sense in letting up on the Witch-King now). He turns over command to Pelendur ("hey, this is a battle I can win!"), who's skill at war is somewhat more impressive.
Also arriving at Eldanar is Dancu of the Witch-King with 800 trolls. I'm sure Dancu would rather have been someplace else when 5,000 Cardolani HI marched into view, but such is life.
Turn 6
Pelendur easily destroys both Dancu and Eldanar, accounting for two towns of the Witch-King. I'm a full two turns behind schedule because of the bloody special service, which means, of course, that I have to face two more turns of recruitment by our foe. Not to mention a teetering economy. Fortunately, my neighbour and King has been busy pounding on the enemy himself. When not chasing after that really annoying Angmarian cavalry looting and pillaging in Arthedain's back yard, he's in Angmar wasting the remaining towns and taking out the rest of Angmar's army. Brian has actually accounted for more enemy troops by this point than I have, primarily due (grrr) to the coup that took place in Cardolan a couple of months previous.
Whilst Pelendur is resting on his laurels at the smoking remains of Eldanar, a Rhudaurian army under Arfanhil shows. Figuring that he isn't there to congratulate me on my victory, a flurry of email goes back and forth between Brian and I discussing what we're going to do about Rhudaur's intervention into the war.
Frankly, I'm not terribly impressed with Rhudaur at this point. Had he joined the war earlier, prior to the complete destruction of the Witch-King's army and most of the pop centres on the Plateau, he stood a chance of putting a halt to our invasion. Now it's too late.
After a brief calculation of economic strength and forces, it's determined that I can hold Rhudaur at bay by myself while Brian continues to methodically destroy what's left of Angmar. Carn Dum will have to await our wrath a couple of extra turns, but we see no other changes that have to be made to our game plan.
In other news, Dunland's pop centres have begun to degrade. It appears that he had dropped the game on turn 1, and that Rhudaur sent one of his armies down there to threaten away what remained. It's at this point that I also realise that GSI has changed the emissary rules without telling anyone. Not only is the population limit in the 1650 game now lower, but it's also more difficult to create or post camps. So I wasted an enormous amount of time trying to create camps with my emissaries, who's skill levels are now too low to do such things, which means that the villages I expected to have online by turn 12 won't be there.
Another major blow to the ol' economic plan. Sigh....
Turn 7
It turns out that Rhudaur's army' consists only of 2,100 troops - and that they're the starting forces for that particular army. I easily destroy it and send Arfanhil packing. My estimation of Rhudaur's skill goes down another few notches. Not only did he not recruit any new troops, he didn't bother to replace or disband his poorer ones. He has the same armies he started the game with, and has been paying maintenance on them this entire time. What a waste.
Maerendil of Rhudaur marches into Eldanar on the heels of Arfanhil's defeat. Since we know where the force came from, we can make a fair guess at it's composition. Again, I should have a fairly easy time of it, wasting another 3,000 Rhudaurian traitors at small cost to myself. That accounts for more than half of
Rhudaur's starting army for less than a third of my standing forces, with at least another 1,000 of his troops in Dunland trying to threaten away the remaining camps.
Worse for him, though, is the fact that I moved a second army of 3,700 troops - mostly armed and armoured heavy infantry - to 1909, with another 2,200 troops right behind them. So I've something like 9,000 troops poised to descend upon Rhudaur's 4,000 or so, and my troops are on average much, much better than his.
Not only can I hold Rhudaur at bay by myself, it looks like I can conquer him by myself. Rhudaur's inauspicious attack actually had the effect of forcing me into war with him earlier in planned, meaning that I'll make up the two turns that I lost by being special serviced. I'm a happy camper.
Intermission
So far the war's gone well. While Arthedain has suffered some damage from Angmar's cavalry, that force is being run to ground and the captured pop centres retaken. On the other hand, the Witch-King has lost all of his pop centres except Carn Dum, Zarak-dum, and Gundabad. And while it may take us some time to reach Gundabad, both Carn Dum and Zarak-dum will soon be no more.
With regard to Rhudaur, it appears that I'll be invading and capturing his towns without much in the way of real resistance, with a strong likelihood of forcing him out of the game in the next two or three turns. Unless he has some other card up his sleeve, his capitol will soon be mine.
Dunland is, of course, out and almost all of it's pop centres have disappeared. That's unfortunate; I was hoping to capture a few given that I'm having such difficulty creating camps.
Outside of Eriador, we don't have any idea what's going on, other than that both Gondors have dropped and the active players in Mordor are having a field day in the region. Once Eriador is cleared, Brian and I are in for one hell of a fight when we start marching east. The only good news here is that Mordor has also lost a few players, and Harad is out as well. It could be the other neutrals are gone, but we don't know yet (a scry is in the works to see). The only thing that's really annoyed me in this game is that both the Noldo and the Sinda have the elven-sickness'. You know what I'm talking about: they sit on their asses training their characters and grabbing artefacts, dutifully refusing to join in the fight while racking up vp's. Both of these nations have done nothing to help anyone in the war; they won't even communicate.
At least if they dropped, we could recruit their characters and influence away their pop centres for our own use. As is, all of those resources are completely and utterly wasted in the hands of short-sighted little twits who somehow think they can win the game without participating even though Mordor already owns half the map.
Hmmph.
I plan on teaching them a thing or two out sitting out fights. My six emissaries are training like crazy and will soon be visiting allied pop centres if the allies don't wake up and smell the coffee. Whether or not those allies are active. That should get them worked up enough to communicate.
(End of Tom's report)
Turn 1, Arthedain
Like Cardolan, Arthedain's earliest goal was to recruit as fast as possible. In past games, playing both Cardolan in 62 and Rhudaur in 97, I retired Men-at-Arms on turn one. In this game I decided not to o so. First, I considered it likely that the Men-at-Arms would die n the first wave (thus making the retirement a moot point, and second, it would involve using an order than might otherwise be spent improving the army strength).
In our "wave after wave" approach, the plan was for Cardolan to strike hard first. The hope was that he would engage most of the troops and emasculate Angmar. Then, Arthedain would move into a relatively undefended capital of Carn Dum and destroy it.
In accordance with these plans we recruited 1100 heavy infantry, 100 heavy cavalry. Armies moved in shorter, segmented movements so that hey either ended at a location to post camps or to be able to recruit on the following turn. All moves are designed to eventually place most troops under Argeleb who will lead the attack on Carn Dum and to leave small recruiting armies behind in Arthedain.
In preparation for the future development of Arthedain we named a 30 point mage to plan to take advantage of our nation advantage.
Armies/Navies : 14100
Pop Centres : 5500
Characters : 6800
Revenue : 28000 (+1700)
Reserve : 20000
Turn 2, Arthedain
Preparing to continue along the same lines, we continued to recruit a further 800 heavy infantry, transferred troops to Argeleb and transferred palantir to the new mage. We considered it very unlikely that Argeleb would have the luxury of using a palantir every turn, and given the maps of Arthedain and Cardolan, we both considered palantir scrys essential to advance planning.
We were both surprised by two developments. First, our first palantir scry revealed that the Witch-king had already improved Carn Dum to a city and one of his villages to a town. The improvement of Carn Dum to a city implied that I'd need another 1900 heavy infantry (see Population Centre Combat II, in "From the Mouth of Sauron" issue #39). This would effectively delay my attack by two turns, which would place more pressure on Cardolan and on my economy.
The other big surprise was that Ashdurbuk Zalg had appeared with an army at Malborn High. With 4500 troops of the Witch-king accounted for in my scry it was not likely that the Witch-king had forces present to take my capital. However, as unlikely as it might be, it was necessary to guard against it anyway. If he were lucky with dragon encounters it forced me to do two things: one, move armies to attempt to contain him and two, maintain at least a token force at Fornost. These had the effect of delaying my troop recruiting and consolidation and placed further pressure on both Cardolan and my economy.
We continued development plans by naming an emissary.
Armies/Navies : 19100
Pop Centres : 5500
Characters : 7500
Revenue : 37600 (+5500)
Reserve : 21200
Turn 3, Arthedain
Our armies made multiple intersecting moves that were designed to protect 1106, 1307, 1407, and 1409. Unfortunately for us, Ashdurbuk's army was all cavalry (122 HC, 600 LC) and he was able to get as far as 1006.
Arthedain recruited a further 500 heavy infantry. At this point, it was clear that we did not have the troops necessary to chase down Ashdurbuk. Rather than engage in some attempt to do so, we opted to continue with our previous plans of focusing on the Witch-king population centres. The problem of how to do this with the continuing loss of revenue was beginning to present itself as a problem.
Armies/Navies : 22300
Pop Centres : 6500
Characters : 8420
Revenue : 37600 (+ 380)
Reserve : 33596
Turn 4, Arthedain
We moved our two large armies to consolidate and began building up. As expected, Ashdurbuk continued to attack, this turn moving to our village at 0807. We switched our recruiting at Fornost to heavy cavalry, recruiting 500.
Armies/Navies : 24300
Pop Centres : 6000
Characters : 10080
Revenue : 33000 (-7080)
Reserve : 24198
Turn 5, Arthedain
Argeleb moved a huge army to 1704. The assaults of Ashdurbuk continued with his move to Culwic. His attacks have devastated the Arthedain economy, taking out 15000 in tax base and an additional 5000 in gold production. The army at Fornost added a further 500 heavy cavalry. It was hoped that this all cavalry army with Argeleb's would be enough to destroy Carn Dum. The only thing which could prevent us are an increase in fortification level or a large garrison. While there is little we can do about the former it is hoped that the constant waves of Cardolan might stop the latter.
We considered it unlikely that Ashdurbuk would return to defend Angmar. His force is not large enough to make any difference in the campaigns there.
Armies/Navies : 30500
Pop Centres : 5500
Characters : 10480
Revenue : 27600 (-18880)
Reserve : 5918
Turn 6, Arthedain
Obviously, not knowing the size of the Arthedain force, Angmar marched an army out to attempt to slow the Arthedain march. It was promptly overrun. While there was no keep at Carn Dum a large army of 2000 troops awaited Argeleb and Marl Tarma.
Carn Dum would not fall.
Cardolan sent 15000 gold to Arthedain to keep their war-ravaged economy afloat. Recruiting falls to zero and their is no garrison at Fornost.
We sent an army out in search of Ashdurbuk. While the army we sent was not large enough to destroy his army the goal here was to weaken his army so that it could not take population centres and to stop him before he got to ours. We unexpectedly encountered a very small Witch-king recruiting army at our former village at 0807.
Armies/Navies : 34700
Pop Centres : 6000
Characters : 10700
Revenue : 28900 (-22500)
Reserve : 1145
Turn 7, Arthedain
We destroyed the Witch-king capital defence army of 2000 troops and then moved to the town/tower of the Witch-king at 1906. We decided if we could not take out the Witch-king capital we would do the same sort of damage to his economy that he has done to ours. In addition we destroyed the small recruiting army of 100 cavalry.
Marl Tarma moved his cavalry force to stop recruits from Mt Gunabad.
Armies/Navies : 34700
Pop Centres : 5500
Characters : 10160
Revenue : 25900 (-24460)
Reserve : 15519
Turn 8, Arthedain
Arthedain continued the destruction of Angmar. We destroyed the town/tower of Shedun and moved to Mt Gram which is undefended. After threatening our former population centre back at 0807 we moved to our former town at 0707 and found Ashdurbuk's army. While we do not have enough troops to stop him, we hope that this army and the one moving in behind might be enough. Marl Tarma met a new army moving off from Carn Dum.
We continue holding our own by not recruiting and selling every turn. Scrys show that the former Dwarf town/fort at 2004 is now a Witch-king major town/fort. Yet another objective.
Armies/Navies : 30510
Pop Centres : 5500
Characters : 10620
Revenue : 25900 (-20730)
Reserve : 6310
Turn 9, Arthedain
Mt Gram is destroyed. To move onto Zarak-dum (2004) we will need to get food in our army. To do this, we will actually have to take a population centre. Marl Tarma destroyed an army of 1000 troops. Apparently, in addition to being a damn fine player, the Witch-king is good at encounters; Ashdurbuk had a dragon. The net effect here is that we will do minimal damage to his army, and will lose two of our armies.
Armies/Navies : 28967
Pop Centres : 5500
Characters : 11420
Revenue : 25900 (-19987)
Reserve : 1078
Turn 10, Arthedain
Despite having the Ring of Barahir stolen, which effects Argeleb's skill rating, we threaten Morkai. The extra revenue will make a difference, and it is likely that the loyalty is low. Ashdurbuk destroys yet another Arthedani army, taking minimal damage, and now has two dragons. Marl Tarma's army destroyed and is destroyed by another army with a dragon. Scratch 400 more Witch-king troops.
Ashdurbuk is at a new population centre which he will take and further erosion of the Arthedain economy is in the cards for upcoming turns.
Armies/Navies : 19743
Pop Centres : 6000
Characters : 11880
Revenue : 30650 (- 6973)
Reserve : 0
Reunited Arnor: The Story Continues
By Brian Mason and Tom Walton
When we left off on our last article, we ended the review of our joint Arthedain/Cardolan game at turn 10 for Arthedain and turn 7 for Cardolan. A great deal of water has passed under the bridge since then (well, not the Tharbad bridge, admittedly), a good chunk of it less than pleasant.
Here to bring your more of a game-in-progress are your kindly co-editors, bracing themselves to regale with tales of humiliation, defeat, and revenge. The current turn is 18 at the time of this writing, and simply out of a sense of self-preservation we won't bring you up to current events; but close enough for you to get a feel of where things are going (the word 'toilet' pops to mind).
This makes many times (far too many) that we have been engaged in a game where the situation is grim and the prospect for victory less than Arlan Specter's chance for election. We seem to enjoy these hopeless situations when we aren't overrun by "Hivers" (but that's another story...)
Cardolan: Overall Summary
When I left off, Cardolan was doing fine in spite of an early special service turn that pretty much killed all the nifty pre-game planning I'd done. I'd raised a vast army, was pounding my enemies into dust, and generally having a ball pillaging across the countryside. There's nothing like a bit of honest mayhem to get my blood pumping.
Arthedain: Overall Summary
Things were not quite as rosy in the northlands. We had taken some rough shots from the Witch-king, and our economy was on life support, but we had managed to do some damage to the Witch-king as well. Unfortunately, our success had drawn the interest of some of the agent corp from Mordor. But more on that later...
Turn 8: Cardolan
Pelendur and somewhat more than 4,000 troops met Durkarian outside of Eldanar. Since Durkarian only had about 1,000 trolls at his disposal, the fight was somewhat one-sided; the Witch-King's forces were creamed in the battle, along with the town - which I burned to the ground. 'CaptPop' is for wimps.
Rhudaur decided to join in the fun by intercepting Pelendur's victorious army at the ruins Eldanar with 2,100 unwashed barbarians.
While a bit annoying because it pinned my army, it was a good opportunity blow away a chunk of enemy forces at minimal cost.
Elsewhere, I'd managed to gather another 3,500 troops at 1711 in preparation for the Grand Invasion of the homeland of the traitorous Rhudaurim scumbags. Imagine turning on their own kin like that....
Having learned the hard way that my emmies weren't going to be able to create camps, I pulled them all back to my own pop centres and started doing 'InfYours' to raise their skill scores. Yet another commander and emissary were named, the latter to bolster the meagre efforts of those I'd already created. No sense in cutting back on the corps after already investing as much as I had.
Turn 9: Cardolan
Suffice to say that Pelendur walloped Arfanhil but good. Losses amounted to 700 guys, compared to the 2,100 we put to the sword. Not bad, not bad. Unfortunately, Pelendur was just settling down to yet another victory party when a large army under Marendil appeared to make life difficult. Such is the fate of heroes.
The army invading Rhudaur was put under the command of Roelstra, Hallas's son, and moved to 1909. Recruiting continued unabated in the princedom of Cardolan, helped by the cheerful efforts of my emissaries (and press gangs). Other than that, not much was happening in my neck of the woods.
Turn 10: Cardolan
Contrary to expectations, Pelendur was defeated - just barely - by Marendil's half-naked savages. Marendil was aided by the fact that his army outnumbered Pelendur's by a goodly amount of troops. Bummer.
Roelstra's army crashed into three small Rhudaurian forces while trying to leave 1909. At this point I took a moment to gloat over my impending victory and the subsequent invasion of Rhudaur that was sure to follow. Victory was one sweet step away. That is, until I learned that one of those small armies had a dragon in it.
Have I told you how much I hate dragons lately?
My one emissary I left in Dunland, hopping from degrading pop centre to degrading pop centre looking for something that wasn't enemy-occupied, ran into Throkmaw. Still hating dragons with a vengeance, it was somewhat ironic to realise that a stroke of pure luck put a weapon in my hands that would result in mutual annihilation at 1909. In the space of a single turn I'd gone from being just shy of crushing Rhudaur altogether to being utterly defeated by a damned dragon to pulling off a bloody, Pyrrhic draw. I was pissed. Really, really pissed. All of this careful planning and co-ordination - for nothing. It all boiled down to some goddamn random roll in the bowels of GSI's computer. Hell, I might as well of saved myself the fees for the last 10 turns.
(More grumbling deleted in favour of saving bandwidth).
Turn 11: Cardolan
Needless to say I lost the entire army at 1909, and - curses! - destroyed two of the three Rhudaurian forces; but not the one with the dragon. Throkmaw went to Finduilas's new army at 1711, sealing the doom of just about all of my forces on the board. I had to send my dragon against Rhudaur's dragon and didn't have the wherewithall to mount another offensive on the heels of the next battle. Rhudaur would get a breather.
The special service on turn 2 was really coming back to haunt me now, as the economy bottomed out. Had the dragon not appeared, I could've destroyed much of Rhudaur and captured the rest with the armies at hand, halting recruitment until the situation stabilised.
As it was, I lost everything and my treasury zeroed out. And I'd accomplished virtually nothing other than doing the same to Rhudaur and burning a couple of towns in Angmar. Two towns in ten turns; not good, not good at all.
Finduilas, being eminently unqualified for command, handed her army off to Maegwen, who led Throkmaw and friends against the remainder of Rhudaur's army (complete with Itangast). They intercepted the enemy at 1710.
An enemy army briefly appeared at the Dunnish capitol, did nothing, and left. I had no idea what they thought they were doing. Larach Duhnan still belonged to the Duns; I checked.
Arthedain
Meanwhile...
Elsewhere...
Sarkar had met that pug-ugly commander, Ashdurbuk Zalg, at 0807. I had expected mutual destruction (which, quite frankly, was fine with me), but guess what Ashdurbuk had in his army. okay, I'm waiting... bzzz. Time's up. Yup, it was a dragon. Scorba toasted Sarkar's army and left Ashdurbuk relatively free to have some more fun.
Marl Tarma had run into another army of the Witch-king at 1903 led by the Witch-king himself. I knew my army was superior this time, so I could plan on pulling Marl Tarma back to the capital to add more troops but guess what Murazor had in his army.
O, isn't the tension just electric?
Yup, another dratted worm. This time Culgor showed up to give me some fun. Scratch another army. Our sole remaining army, under Argeleb, threatened away Morkai bringing our total to two towns and a major town taken away. Now, normally, I'd never lower myself to threaten or capture an enemy pop centre, but I needed the spot to get some food in the army for next turns fun.
Fortunately, Cardolan passed control of a gold-bearing camp to me, improving our economy quite a bit.
Ah, the thrill of living on the edge.
Turn 12: Cardolan
The two forces at 1710 destroyed each other, as expected. What wasn't expected was that Itangast had left Rhudaur's army - but Angurth had joined it! Gads, where was he getting all of these stupid dragons??
Brian was reporting similar sightings up north, with no end in sight.
I quickly scraped together another 1900 troops and sent them to 1711, knowing I couldn't hurt Rhudaur but worrying that yet more dragons might be on the way. Rhudaur took the opportunity to march past me to 1712, apparently not caring whether or not I invaded.
This worried me. I also wondered where the hell he was getting all the gold to finance these forces, since my scries showed that he was creating these armies, not splitting them. Sometimes it just isn't your year.
Arthedain
A quiet turn up North. Ashdurbuk Zalg's army (now with two dragons, imagine my thrill) threatened away a town from me (tit for tat, I suppose). However, he decided to back off (to get more troops, I suppose), which is fine with me. I have nothing to stop him. In an action which would have much to say about the future, an assassination attempt was made on Argeleb. Thanks to a good subcommander/guard it failed. For now.
Marl Tarma was challenged by Ren the Unclean. Great, more Nazgul in the neighbourhood. Property values drop precipitously. Argeleb moved his army on to another Major Town of the Witch-king. Zarak-dum. No defence worth mentioning. Gentlemen, light your torches.
Turn 13: Cardolan
Pelendur resumed command of my expeditionary force and marched to 1909, hoping that Rhudaur would reverse course and follow him. No such luck. A large (???) enemy force ignored him completely and moved to Argond at 1514, defended by a newly raised militia of only 300 men. Goodbye, Argond. Bummer again.
While tempted, I won't begin ranting over how Argond would never have been threatened if there weren't any damned dragons in the game. Or how I'd be taking Rhudaur's capitol at this point.
Here's a clue for you. You can bet that War of the Ring doesn't have any dragons in it, nor will it ever. Nor balrogs, wizards, or random army-killers of any sort. You either win through skill or kiss your ass goodbye.
Hmph.
Arthedain
I don't know if I can add anymore to Tom's dragon ranting. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to stay in a game with a list of encounters. It needs a book-keeper. We weren't being beat by warriors, but by accountants (flames to /dev/null). Dancu had 1200 trolls defending Zarak-dum. It wasn't enough. Zarak-dum was torched.
Murazor challenged Argeleb, and Murazor wasn't even in an army. Geez, they aren't even smart accountants!
Turn 14: Cardolan
Argond is torched by Arfanhil, but Pelendur makes it to Fennas Drunin (1910) meeting only another small Rhudaurim army. What's good for the goose...teach you to mess with me, enemy pig-dogs. You should've turned back and fought Pelendur when you had the chance. Agents show up in Cardolan and start stealing. Agh, just what I need. Yet another indication that every Freep east of the Misties is out. I begin recruiting like a madman again; damn the economy, damn the agents!
I'm going down fighting!
Arthedain
We threatened Amon Sul away from the Witch-king (big deal) and ran into an army of Rogrog at Morkai. We're trying desperately to rebuild our nation, but it's difficult. A new invading Witch-king army pops up at 1505. Oh, joy. Is it Ashdurbuk and his twin-dragon army.
Turn 15: Cardolan
Burn, baby, burn! Pelendur crushes the enemy (no dragons, thank the Valar) and roasts Rhudaur's backup capitol. A fair retribution for the loss of Argond.
For some reason Rhudaur sits tight at the ruins of 1514, meaning that none of my pretty intercept marches catch him (I didn't expect him to pick his nose for the turn). I have eight armies on the map, seven recruiting (not bad for a broke Cardolan missing a town).
Good news to leaven the bad: 4,000 elves march right past me unnoticed ("um, Brian, is that your army I see???"). They're on their way to munch on Rhudaur. It's good to see that our replacement elven player believes in raising - and using - troops.
While things look irretrievably grim overall, at least they're brightening a bit in our corner of the world. I begin to plot another invasion of Rhudaur....
Arthedain
Argeleb munches on another army of the Witch-king. But the army does its job. It stops Argeleb, and his backup is killed. He is a sitting duck.
Ashdurbuk goes to the unscathed village of Rood, and prepares to... scathe it.
Conclusion
Well, it appears that only three Freeps are still in the game: Cardolan, Arthedain, and the Noldo. Things look bad - very bad, our only hope being that a bunch of DS get bored and drop. We've discussed - half-heartedly, cuz we hate the tactic so much - building backups in other portions of Middle-Earth; but the consensus seems to be that we hold Reunited Arnor to the end.
So be it.
I don't think either of us are gonna like the end much. Especially since the entirety of our defeat is due to those blasted wyrms, the bloated, scaled, scum-sucking, sore-licking- etc!