From the Mouth of Sauron Issue: E-25 Date: 08-19-94 First Word Thus begins our final issue of "From the Mouth of Sauron." First of all, let me say that with all of this First Word / Last Word swapping Tom and I have been doing, it worked out for the best with Tom getting the last say in the last issue. I've been on this ride as co-editor since issue 11, and while I've done a fair amount, Tom has always done the lions share of the work, and any kudos for what we've done go to him and his seemingly never ending supply of vim and vigor. Rather than harp on the new game and other stuff (we'll save that for later in the issue) I'd like to take this opportunity to thank a few who have made this game fun for me. First of all, my hats off to GSI. You've designed marvelous game, and while being in Middle-earth might get people to play once, only having a good game could keep people coming back. And I keep coming back. Thanks to Glen Mayfield for being a good ally in my first game. Were it not for his help, I wouldn't know as much as I do now, and were it not for fun people to play with, like Glen, this game wouldn't be as good. Hey, Glen, dispite our record in 62 and 131, I'd love to try another with you in the future. Thanks to Jeremy Richman who assisted in the drubbing of Cardolan and the Freeps in game 62. Jeremy, you have taught me alot, and while you claim to disagree with my strategies (I never received any submissions to that effect :-)), I think we did a pretty good job, given the hand we were dealt in game 131. Let's do it again sometime. Thanks also to Brian Lowery and Steve Latham. I couldn't have asked for a finer set of enemies, or a better game than what we're in right now in game 97. I hope it lasts for a long time. Thanks to the many others who have been so helpful in all of my games, Jeff Holzhauer, Chris Evans, Mark Graham, and Gordon Griffith. Finally, a hearty thank you to Tom Walton. Tom has had a tremendous influence on my playing, and aside from all the gaming related praise which I could heap upon him (and there is quite a bit!), he's also become, I'm glad to say, a good friend. And that's probably the best thing I've got out of this game. Thanks to all of you for reading my tribblings and scribblings, and hope to see you when "The Mouth" returns, 1300 years in the future. Brian Dragons Lomaw: Offer TEN thousand gold = recruited into army for Dark Servants. Thanks to Chris ? for the information. Personals - -------------------------- CAN YOU SWIM THE ATLANTIC WITH ONE HAN TIED BEHIND YOUR BACK? - -------------------------- CAN YOU DERIVE THE UNIFIED FIELD THEORY IN YOUR HEAD? - -------------------------- CAN YOU DO BRAIN SURGERY WHILE GARGLING? - -------------------------- If you can, then what are you doing wasting your time reading this? You should be somewhere making *************** ***BIG BUCKS*** *************** On the other hand, if you're just a poor struggling MEPBM player like the rest of us, just wondering why YOUR emissary orders always fail, then we need you. We've got a 5x2 team (5 players to play the 10 positions of each allegiance, + the neutrals) looking for some opponents, and frankly, we're desperate. That's why we came up with this stupid ad. We's prefer to play the Free Peoples unless you really want us to play the Twisted Freaks of Nature. If you've never played a 5x2 why don't you find another 4 people who're equally deprived and get in touch? Two of us are clueless newbies so don't be intimidated. But we're good, so don't expect a pushover. Besides, if you have a team, and contact Payton Turpin at 70337,1627@compuserv.com you won't have to put up with us posting this goofy message over and over and over and over and over and over and over... (Hint to the dense -- this is a threat!) We are: David Ruzic, Rich Eisenman, Jim Adams, Payton Turpin, & Sheldon Campbell. News From the Net ------------------------------------------------------- Post #1 ------------------------------------------------------- From: look_out@delphi.com (Just Me) Subject: Re: ME-PBM Game #172 Date: 21 Jul 1994 03:58:08 GMT >Hail ME-PBMers: > > The realm of the Dark Lieutenants in Game #172 seeks >to open lines of communication with any other lords/ladies >of Game #172 who frequent this newsgroup... > > And so shall rise the Shadow of Mordor, > > Urzahil, Lieutenant of the Dark Tower > > > >********************* >Carl Grosspietsch II >grosspie@cae.wisc.edu > Just sent in my orders last night, The Grey Druid, Ruler of the Woodsmen ------------------------------------------------------- Post #2 ------------------------------------------------------- From: forester@mozart.srl.ford.com (Brian Forester) Subject: ME-PBM and the One Ring Date: 22 Jul 1994 17:15:08 GMT I managed to locate The One Ring while playing the Dark Lieutenants. The character I have searching for it this turn is Carrog (Agent 85 (+45), Emis 20, Mage 41 (+80)). Anyone care to speculate on my chances of actually finding it? I was also suprised that Urzahil managed to locate it all. He has Locate Artifact True @91 + 30. -- Brian (forester@elvis.srl.ford.com) ------------------------------------------------------- response from freeman@cae.wisc.edu (Samuel Freeman) -------------------------------------------------------- Only rumor I heard is that powerful characters have a hard time holding on to the ring. They tend to lose it. If you do locate it, try transfering it to a grunt character. And please keep us posted on the outcome. The rules changed recently concerning Locate Artifact spells. GSI said that the One Ring would now be easier to find; they obviously wanted it to play more of a factor in the game. ------------------------------------------------------- response from dpd@iisc.demon.co.uk (David Darling) ------------------------------------------------------- How close was Urzahil to the Ring when he succeeded at the locate? The rumour I have heard is that the proximity to the ring of the character casting the locate is significant. I have also heard that picking up and keeping the ring is extremely hard. Keep us posted. ------------------------------------------------------- Post #3 ------------------------------------------------------- From: bcash@netcom.com (Brian Cash) Subject: pbm-me dragons Date: Tue, 26 Jul 1994 04:03:10 GMT Any idea how to recruit the following? Ruingurth Turukulon ------------------------------------------------------- Post #4 ------------------------------------------------------- From: stomljen@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu (You Better Work!!) Subject: MEPBM: changing icon Date: 26 Jul 1994 18:32:36 GMT I want to change my icon. However, I am still neutral with everyone and I am pressed to pick alliegence in two turns. Should I: 1. simply try to change it with a 60 commander 2. first change my relations with one of my nieghbors to tolerant and then try. (does having one neighbor at tolerant help any?). thanks steve ------------------------------------------------------- response from millera@MCS.COM (Alan Miller) ------------------------------------------------------- You Better Work!! (stomljen@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu) wrote: > I want to change my icon. However, I am still > neutral with everyone and I am pressed to pick > alliegence in two turns. Something to remember: Declaring allegiance to one side or the other has _NO_ effect on your relations with other nations. Don't depend on this to help you avoid DnStNat, because it won't. There may be limitations on whether you can join an alliance when you have Disliked or Hated relations with one of the nations in it, I'm not sure about that. ------------------------------------------------------- response from trubador@aol.com (Trubador) ------------------------------------------------------- Have your 60 commander issue Order # 175, ChAlleg (Change Allegiance). It's an Average Difficulty order so it should work. Any of your new allies to whom you may have previously been non-friendly, non-tolerant will be toggled back to neutral automatically. Good Gaming, Doug. ------------------------------------------------------- Post #5 ------------------------------------------------------- From: shpark@rodan.syr.edu (Sheeyun Park) Subject: MEPBM new scenerio Date: 27 Jul 1994 15:52:25 GMT I and a couple of friends are trying to start up a three week game of the new MEPBM scenerio. If you're interested send email to kellnerbl@50cts.afab.af.mil or shpark@mailbox.syr.edu. ------------------------------------------------------- Post #6 ------------------------------------------------------- From: tomtg@aol.com (TomTG) Subject: ME 158 Date: 27 Jul 1994 17:23:06 I have a friend out there who just picked up a Dark Servant position in game 158. He is not on the network but would like to get in contact with other Dark Servant players ASAP. If you will Email me your phone nos. , he will get in touch with you shortly. ------------------------------------------------------- Post #7 ------------------------------------------------------- From: tps@shadowrun (Tim Schroeder) Subject: ME: recruiting dragons w/o armies Date: 29 Jul 1994 22:28:09 GMT I know I can recruit dragons into my armies by responding to the encounters appropriately (demanding obedience, offering gold, etc.). Supposing, though, that I don't have any armies? Is there any benefit from the dragon encounter then? Here's my situation. I have a character in a hex with a recruitable dragon, and received the encounter. However, my last army is going to be crushed by the enemy this turn. Therefore, by the time the encounter reaction order happens, I will be army-less. I can hire a new army later in the turn, but that happens after the encounter. Is there any hope for me to get the dragon? ------------------------------------------------------- Post #8 ------------------------------------------------------- From: jurin@aol.com (Jurin) Subject: Forming a Team for New ME-PBM Circa 2950 Date: 31 Jul 1994 21:46:01 A friend and I are forming a team for the new game. We have not decided on Dark Servants or Free Peoples at this point. If you are interested in playing, please drop me a note and let me know who you are interested in playing as Dark Servants and Free Peoples. I want to get the team formed by the middle of August and have setup info and checks to GSI by the 20th of August. We are aiming to have this as an all internet team so as to avoid AT&T! Thanks, Jerry ------------------------------------------------------- Response from rbtg5094@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Bob Turkot) ------------------------------------------------------- Is circa 2950 being played now? I am playing 1650 and have heard only rumors about 2950. What's up and how do I get in on it??? ------------------------------------------------------- Response from dpd@iisc.demon.co.uk (David Darling) ------------------------------------------------------- A word of warningg here. GSI seem to be only accepting US are only accepting US players so you'll have to wait for the new version to be released be GSI on if (around December I think) if your outside the US. ------------------------------------------------------- Response from aray@cwis.unomaha.edu (ALAN WAYNE RAY) ------------------------------------------------------- Wrong, They are accepting people who live in Canada. I've played with someone who lived in Canada, and I've personally asked them about that also. They do accept people from Canada, and from what I understand there is a European version of this pbm run by someone else in europe, though I don't know who. ------------------------------------------------------- Post #9 ------------------------------------------------------- From: Colin@suilven.demon.co.uk (Colin Forbes) Subject: ME-PBM DRAGONS! Date: Mon, 1 Aug 1994 13:01:24 Can anyone help with the following dragons: Gostir (met with a Dark Servants, meek gets awat, but can he be recruited?) Scatha: Nimanaur: Scorba: Angurth: please port up, if you wish, but also reply via e-mail, as I do not always check this group! ------------------------------------------------------- Post #10 ------------------------------------------------------- From: v313mdm8@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (ROCHELLE NEWMAN) Subject: ME-PBM Game #175 (circa 1650) Date: Tue, 2 Aug 1994 02:18:00 GMT Just checking: Is there anyone out there in Game #175? I'm playing the Ice King... ------------------------------------------------------- response from v011l6fc@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (DAVE ROSSELL) ------------------------------------------------------- I'm playing the Long Rider in 175. Any other players on the net? ------------------------------------------------------- Post #11 ------------------------------------------------------- From: phredd@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Phredd Groves) Subject: MEPBM #175: Anyone out there? Date: 2 Aug 1994 16:43:51 GMT I'm playing the Dwarves in MEPBM #175. I'm looking for anyone in that game. I can be reached at: khazad@nwu.edu ------------------------------------------------------- Post #12 ------------------------------------------------------- From: sjmar3@giaec.cc.monash.edu.au (Steve Martin) Subject: ME-PBM Game #1 Australia Date: 4 Aug 94 02:14:32 GMT Middle Earth Game #1 in australia still has 7 positions avaliable, there are no neutral positions left but there are still some good and evil positions left. If you would like some more information about Middle Earth contact SFGA Pty Ltd. by e-mailing me or writing to : SFGA Pty Ltd P.O. Box 351 Newbrough, 3825 Vic ------------------------------------------------------- Post #13 ------------------------------------------------------- From: tolkien@aol.com (Tolkien) Subject: New ME-PBM team game challenge Date: 6 Aug 1994 12:04:04 ME-PBM, circa 2950 Grudge game challenge is announced. We, an experienced team of 12 players, wish to face a team of 13 players in the new version of Middle Earth PBM that starts in September. This game would have no neutrals, the kingdoms being split up among the two teams. We have played ME-PBM this way and find it very enjoyable. Since all kingdoms are immediatley filled set up time is as soon as GSI receives both teams set-up checks. Just think, no more neutrals to waste phone calls on. This is PBM at its finest. We wish to play the Goods. We can provide 13 players on our team vs 12 players from your team, but we enjoy the challenge of being the underdog. Please, experienced teams only. Also let it be know we have never lost a 12 on 13 game. Just to tempt you, we usually win the game by turn 15. So, all you great teams out there take up the gauntlet. We can be contacted at Tolkien@AOL.com The first experienced team to respond will be accepted, but we will keep all teams addresses and provide them to other teams that respond so that everyone can enjoy this type of game. ------------------------------------------------------- Response from etlplcr@etlxd42d.etl (Paul Comber XD/MS 4235) ------------------------------------------------------- hi, Surely this is not the game as it was meant to be played, neutrals are an integral part of the play balance. I also believe that the good side getting 2 neutrals is pretty good going certainly in the 1650 game they are lucky to get 1 . Rhudaur, Dunland and Easterling being all almost bound to go Evil. Are the set ups and characters already known for the later game ? If not then how can 2 equal sides be determined ?? ------------------------------------------------------- Response from Patrick F. McGehearty (patrick@convex.COM) ------------------------------------------------------- Neutrals in 1650 is not nearly so cut and dried as all that. In game 146, the Corsairs and the Rhudaur tried to jump the Duns early in the game. The Duns and Easterlings had already indicated they were leaning towards the Dark side, so the Darks provided the Duns with a backup MT. Then the Harad and the QA jumped the Corsairs. So we have a 3:2 split. In another game, the Rhudaur took out the Duns on turn 4 and then were taken out themselves a few turns later. The Corsairs and Easternlings both have dropped, leaving only the Haradwaith. There are many other possibilities. I agree that splitting up the neutrals before the game simplifies play considerably, especially given the unknown nature of the 2950 game. ------------------------------------------------------- Response from tolkien@aol.com (Tolkien) ------------------------------------------------------- Paul: True, equal sides can not be determined for the new game. That is why we like to play 12 kingdoms vs our opponents' 13. We prefer to be the underdog. We have learned the hard way that Neutrals are not always what they seem. It is common practice for certain teams out there to try and plant friends into neutral positions, thus truly destroying sportsmanship and the game balance. After having this happen to us, we decided to divy up the neutrals before hand, so everyone knows who's who. Nothing is worse than wasting big dollars on phone calls to neutrals, just to discover later they're laughing behind your back because they already knew the other side and were just trying to get info out of you. I must say GSI does a GREAT job on trying to weed out these planted neutrals, and I hope just punishment is dealt to the offending team also. SO if anyone is interesting in fielding 13 players against my team of 12 in a great game of ME-PBM, circa 2950 e-mail me at: Tolkien@aol.com ------------------------------------------------------- Post #14 ------------------------------------------------------- From: eichmann@ceres.amp.uni-hannover.de (Holger Eichmann) Subject: MEPBM: When can an army force its way past another army Date: Tue, 9 Aug 1994 16:53:10 GMT Hi! I want to stop an enemy army (around 900 HC, 1000 HI) with a part of my troops. Does anybody knows how many heavy infantry I need for this task? I fear, if I send only 100 HI, that the enemy army forces its way past my troops and rout them. Thanks for your help ------------------------------------------------------- Response from Patrick F. McGehearty (patrick@convex.COM) ------------------------------------------------------- I would expect such a force would walk over 100 HI without even noticing them (but you would lose the 100 HI and their commander). I don't have hard data, but have heard that 500 HI is the minimum to have good expectation of stopping a large enemy army. Anyone know more? ------------------------------------------------------- Response from wang@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Wei) ------------------------------------------------------- This is all hearsay but from several sources (not connected to GSI tho). I've heard that only numbers matter, and something like a 10:1 or better ratio will overrun your army. So I would send at the very minimum 200 troops, and probably more like 400. ------------------------------------------------------- Response from marc@shum.cc.huji.ac.il (Marc A. Volovic) ------------------------------------------------------- To answer your question - unless the ground is EXTREMELY advantageous (i.e. Thermopilae, etc), there is precious little chance of actually BLOCKING an eney army (Agincourt does NOT count, by the way - the French were seeking battle) with 100HI. If the ground is somewhat advantageous, use HI and missile troops, preferably long range capable (archers). If the ground is neutral, you WILL have to use cavalry to block, even if it is only LC (which, by the way, will take heavy casualties in a pitched battle against HC, but can block their advance pretty well by maintaining scirmishing contact)... Have fun, you have a problem :-)... Seriously, a final thought: Send a minimal *C/HI/MI unit. Maintain harassment fire against the Cavalry by the archers and use HI to protact same from the enemy HC. Use your OWN *C to prevent the enemy HI from attacking the archers by threatening your rear but DO NOT allow your own cavalry to become embroiled with the enemy HC. ------------------------------------------------------- Response from v011l6fc@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (DAVE ROSSELL) ------------------------------------------------------- As an aside, I believe that it's impossible to overrun an army with more than 900 troops in it, and I think the ratio is less than 10:1, although maybe 10:1 in strength points might be right. ------------------------------------------------------- Response from dcd@nasa.kodak.com (Dennis DeYoung) ------------------------------------------------------- I believe you can be overrun if the enemy has 5 times as many men as you. I don't think troop type or quality has anything to do with it. ------------------------------------------------------- Post #15 ------------------------------------------------------- From: bcash@netcom.com (Brian Cash) Subject: ME-PBM Game #178 Date: Sun, 14 Aug 1994 07:55:24 GMT Yo! This is Harad from game #178 (the old generation): any other 178ers out there? ------------------------------------------------------- Post #16 ------------------------------------------------------- From: panamon@netcom.com (Ian Verhaegen) Subject: New MEPBM circa 2950 Date: Tue, 16 Aug 1994 21:12:49 GMT As many of you are aware, there is a nice artifact list circulating for the Circa 1650 MEPBM. This particular list is organized into two sections. The first section is a list of artifacts by their artifact number, including their power and secondary power. The second section is a list of artifacts by artifact type, thus the artifacts are divided into agent/mage/2000 weapons/750weapons, etc... This list was devised and made by myself and my companion and destributed to a single grudge match team. Over the last year or so I have learned that this particular list has been destributed to a much wider audience. If any of you who have seen or now possess a copy of this particular list would be interested in seeing a similar list for the new 2950 scenario developed, please contact me. The more agents we have working together on this, the faster this list can be developed and destributed. All contributing members will receive a copy of the completed list as soon as it became available. ------------------------------------------------------- Post #17 ------------------------------------------------------- From: stomljen@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu (You Better Work!!) Subject: MEPBM: Help on the dragon Lamthac Date: 17 Aug 1994 20:25:14 GMT how do I recruit Lamthac for the Dark side? thanks steve ------------------------------------------------------- Strategy & Tactics: North Gondor >From Brian Mason Allow me to digress once more. In my first game of me-pbm (game 62) the Northern Gondor position was dropped early on, and despite the heroics of Celdrahil and friends under Glen Mayfield the fate in the North (and then for the rest of us) was sealed. In my second game of me-pbm (game 97) the Northern Gondor position was dropped early. Paul Mihok has again done a workmanlike job with South Gondor, but without the assistance of the Corsairs under Tom Walton the South would also have fallen. Therfore, when joining my third game of me-pbm with Glen and Jeremy Richman I decided to see what the fuss was about and try Northern Gondor for myself. Dave Holt offered some very elegant and beautiful strategy for the position in issue 19 of "From the Mouth of Sauron" and a typical strategy and tactics article would carry much extraneous data. Nevertheless, allow me to do two things: one, to briefly list the basic data so familiar in this column, and two, to discuss some of the specific strategies I've implemented in game 131. Basic Data ========== How does North Gondor compare to other nations? At the start of the game they rank as follows (Allegiance Comparison Tables, Tom Walton, "The Mouth," #3): item for comparison among all among Free Peoples =================== ============== ========================= Total Tax Base 1st 1st Resource Base 1st 1st Combat Strength 2nd 2nd Character points 7th 3rd Artifacts tied for 9th 4th North Gondor has very good production in the materials made by plains, but very weak in other areas. The variety of terrain types is not nearly as nice as that of South Gondor. Expected production (Population Center Development, Brian Mason, "The Mouth," #2) which has not been adjusted for climate for North Gondor (usually excellent, I might add) would be as follows: material le br st mi fo ti mo go =========== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== production 2976 274 118 9 10066 346 653 4235 Tactics in Game 131 =================== I'll discuss specific tactics I've used in this game which the enemy certainly knows about. Others I'll keep to myself. As in all games, this one had some pecularities, some of which are detailed below. - As mentioned in my Ice King S&T elsewhere, I opted to have my armies assemble into a big force at Osgiliath. I blew the bridge at Pelargir (only one road to Gondor!) and did not attempt to hold Minas Ithil. - My Initial character allotment was heavy in commander/agents to guard against the inevitable agent actions to come, and to eventually replace the commanders which will be assassinated or kidnapped. - After the first couple of turns, I began to move my armies in an erratic manner. I tried to not ever go straight at a target, but to always have two or more targets in range. Again, this is to protect from agent action. - I attempted to establish relationships early with all the neutrals. Unfortunately, this has been a very bizarre game, with the Harad the only neutral left in the game by turn five. - We had the misfortune of joining this game with four players who worked for GAD (or so they claimed). They were playing the Woodmen, Eothraim, Arthedain and Noldo. Despite the very fine play of some of the Dark Servants, if we eventually lose this game it will be from the inactivity and unreliability of the GAD players. Despite having a CI$ address, they would not respond to email and missed turns with consummate regularity. Even after about seven turns when two of them decided to play, they still would not communicate by email and still missed turns. - All that was to get to this. To be able to stand against the combined might of Mordor it is necessary to have reliable allies. There have been two battles at Osgiliath where the battle would have been lost were it not for the timely arrival of Amroth and the Sinda from Edhellond (thanks Glen!) While Southern Gondor has missed a couple of turns in my game his agressiveness is a boon to our side. - It is likely that you can hold off Mordor by yourself for awhile, however, good support allows you the luxury to begin other adventures. For example, in my most recent turn, two other armies of mine met an army of the Sinda at Dol Guldur and destroyed the place. This position is by no means a cakewalk. However, because of your vast starting economic and military strength you have lots of options. It is a great position to play, especially if you know you have some allies to count on! >From Tom Walton Actually, I have nothing. The strategy for Northern Gondor, other than what Brian covered, seems pretty self-evident to me. Strategy & Tactics: The Ice King >From Brian Mason Lets start this with a look at the basic data. Basic Data ========== How does the nation of the Ice King compare to other nations? At the start of the game they rank as follows (Allegiance Comparison Tables, Tom Walton, "The Mouth," #3): item for comparison among all among Dark Servants =================== ============== ========================= Total Tax Base tied for last tied for last Resource Base tied for 11th 2nd Combat Strength 14th 5th Character points tied for 12th 8th Artifacts tied for 10th 6th The Ice King starts in a pretty poor position. The only areas he is good in, resource base, is the very reason his tax base is so low: most of his population centers are camps. Expected production (Population Center Development, Brian Mason, "The Mouth," #2) which has not been adjusted for climate for the nation of the Ice King would be as follows: material le br st mi fo ti mo go =========== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== production 33 1015 397 44 1223 405 42 7134 This is a list of below of Ice King characters, their starting abilities, and their assignments. Name co ag em ma st assignment ============== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==================== Abdahkil 30 Mage #3 Baltab 30 Attack Commander Gaurhir 10 30 30 Train into Agent #3 Gorthog 10 40 Agent #1 Hoarmurath 30 20 50 30 Supermage Hukor 30 Defense Commander Kathog 40 40 Mage #2 Virsh 20 10 Train into Agent #2 Army Strategy ============= The Ice King military is the primary reason why the Ice King starts in such a disadvantageous position economically. An interesting strategy was put forth by the Ice King in game 131. He moved all but 100 men-at-arms to Osgiliath. I was playing Northern Gondor and had decided to send four of my six armies to Osgiliath to regroup. Since neither the Fire King, nor any of the other Mordor nations can reach Osgiliath on turn one, the result was decided quickly: a complete victory for Northern Gondor. Doing this makes the Ice King capital of Durthang (and thus the entire position) very vulnerable. Fortunately for the Ice King player in this game he was able to secure a backup capital from one of the other players before Southern Gondor destroyed the location. A more difficult plan from an economic standpoint, but possibly a safer one would be to hold on until some other Mordor nation (certainly the Fire King, and maybe others) is also prepared to move onto Osgiliath. It is important, both for the Ice King and also for the rest of Mordor, that Durthang be held. This means a significant garrison force (say about 2500 heavy infantry) well equipped. One of the biggest problems to an effective army strategy is the lack of locations to recruit. A possible move, for a defensive standpoint, would be to post a camp and fortify at 3023. This location will impede the progress of armies from the Gondors towards Durthang from Osgiliath and can give you an extra turn to recruit more troops and for you and your allies to get agents in location to deal with armies. However, all this is mere prelude to what is probably the forte of the Ice King. Getting into the character game. Economy ======= To be sure, you are hurting. Sells can be important to you, and the lack of fortifications at your camps prevents raising taxes to a high value. Losing your army is the best thing to do. But as a Klingon would say, "they should die well." Character Strategy ================== You will need some cash to name some characters. A couple of emissaries to go out and place camps and a couple of agents because of your bonus and possible stealth rank. I'd name two emissaries in the initial allotment and two agents. I'd strongly consider making agents all my subsequent creations. You have one excellent and two pretty good mages. I'd load all the mage artifacts onto Hoarmurath and have him start locating artifacts right away. The other two can train, learn and cast lore spells, and go get the artifacts which Hoarmurath finds. Gorthog should name an agent and then go out and get to work. Guard his way up to 50, and then begin stealing. Possibly work up an arrangement with another Dark Servant to steal from each other until such time as you are both ready to go steal from the wealth Gondors. Virsh can also be ready for agressive actions before too long. However, the greatest gains can possibly be made with Gaurhir. It will take him (her? it? look at that mug shot!) a while to get into a decent rank, however, the 30 stealth is marvelous, and if you are unlucky at getting stealth with your agents, Gaurhir may be your only one. Always have him train in agent rank but don't forget his mage ability. With his mage rank he can learn the movement spells, and if you can get a teleport that would be marvelous. A teleporting assassin, wowzers! On a personal level, this stikes me as a fun position. If you watch your economy and don't put yourself in a sweating bullets position, you can have alot of fun here. >From Tom Walton The Ice King is yet another one of those positions I avoid like the plague. Like the Fire King, the fortune of this nation rests entirely upon the competence of your neighbors. Get stuck with a bad draw and you're history even before the first turn comes back in the mail. Still, it is a nice little nation to play if you can expect some reasonably skilled strategy from the other Dark Servants. For example, the Ice King is one of the few nations wherein you can indulge both in the character game (agents) and the military game at the same time (well, you pretty much don't have a choice but to play the military game, at least not until the Eothraim and the Gondors are beaten). And unlike the Fire King or Dog Lord, you generally get to pick where, and even sometimes when, you want to engage the enemy. The biggest drawback to the position at start is the fact that it has only one major town - Durthang. This tempts the Free to come and destroy it in the first few turns, in the hopes that the Ice King will be forced out of the game. And sometimes it actually works. Still, this drawback isn't as dire as it first appears. If even a couple of your neighbors are competent, they'll realize that allowing another Dark Servant to be eliminated early will seriously hurt their own war efforts, and so will be inclined to provide you with a backup capitol in a pinch. Should this be the case, the Free troops committed to Durthang will essentially be wasted and will probably weaken one of the two major fronts enough for a counterattack by Mordor to punch through. An example: in one of my games, the Eothraim marched on Durthang with their army and destroyed it, but not before the Ice King got a new capitol. While the horse-lovers were engaged in wanton mayhem, the Dark Lieutenants and the Dog Lord found themselves essentially unopposed in the Rhovanion (it takes nearly the entire Eothraim army to capture Durthang). Seizing the opportunity, these two players sped into the target-rich plains and quickly managed to take every pop center within marching distance. The Eothraim never recovered sufficiently to counter them (after losing all those troops at Durthang) and were eventually forced out of the war. The Ice King, on the other hand, went on to become a major power - after exacting suitable revenge via agent actions on the enemy. So, Durthang isn't really threatened unless your allies aren't allies or the Free aren't aware that diverting troops will hurt them elsewhere. The only other comments I have concern characters. Invest in agents. Lots of agents. You'll never match the Cloud Lord, but with a few good artifacts you can place a close second. This not only furthers your own goals but protects you from any players who might be inclined to pay you a 'visit' in the end-game to knock you down a few places. Also buy up a few emissaries. With such a weak economy and little chance of gaining pop centers through military action (at least early on), your only way to get things moving are to place a host of camps. Put most down in safe places in Mordor, but a few in the mountains elsewhere (as a prelude to a second recruiting center) might be a good idea. The southern Misty Mountains, or the Grey Mountains, are particularly tempting. Strategy & Tactics: Rhudaur >From Brian Mason As this is the position I've played the longest of all in a game of me-pbm, I suppose I feel a close kinship with the position. Conventional wisdom, as I have heard regarding this position, was that you could not afford your military and you needed to decide early. Before discussing specific strategies and recommendations, let's take a look at the Basic Data. =========== How does Rhudaur compare to other nations? At the start of the game they rank as follows (Allegiance Comparison Tables, Tom Walton, "The Mouth," #3): item for comparison among all among Neutrals =================== ============== ============== Total Tax Base tied for 14th tied for 4th Resource Base tied for 12th 4th Combat Strength 6th 2nd Character points tied for 23rd tied for 4th Artifacts tied for 15th 1st Rhudaur has pretty good production, mostly because of the terrain types on which population centers are located. Expected production (Population Center Development, Brian Mason, "The Mouth," #2) which has not been adjusted for climate for Rhudaur would be as follows: material le br st mi fo ti mo go =========== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== production 692 217 103 4986 1178 179 2998 Rhudaur is a one of the few positions to never have "placed" in a game of me-pbm (Winners & Losers in Middle-earth, Tom Walton, "The Mouth," #8). This is a list of Rhudaur characters, their starting abilities, and their assignments. Name co ag em ma assignment ============== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==================== Arfanhil 40 Army commander #1 Briam 20 10 Capital command Broggha 20 10 10 Backup commander #1 Marendil 30 Army commander #2 Paddro 20 10 10 Backup commander #2 Seammu 30 Army commander #3 Sispar 20 10 10 Capital commander Valadan 30 10 Backup commander #3 Rhudaur and the Witch-King ========================== The discussions below are based upon the assumption that Rhudaur will maintain neutrality until at least turn five, and possibly as long as turn ten. Of all the armies in the Eriador area, those of Rhudaur are the strongest. However, joining a side and attacking early will probably result in you bearing the brunt of the retribution. Some of the discussion from and earlier S & T article on the Witch-King bears repeating. Of all the neutrals, none has a position which is so closely linked with that of an alligned nation than Rhudaur and the Witch-King. The share virtually the same map, and all of Rhudaur's population centers are well within striking distance of the Witch-King. Should Rhudaur join the Free, all of his population centers become prime targets for the Witch-King, being the closest enemy. Should Rhudaur join the Dark Servants, her population centers are more vulnerable to attacks from both Cardolan and the Dwarves than those of the Witch-King. It is not difficult for me to see why this position is so difficult to play. Should Rhudaur join the Dark Servants, many places open up for camp placement, as you really do not care what the Witch-King sees. Again, the the jumping off spots where the Cardolan and Dwarf maps do not overlap: 1808, 1810 and 1812 are good. Should Rhudaur join the Free, the issue of camp placement is a bit more problomatic. It is certainly advisable to place some on the Witch-King map (if only so he will think that you are developing mostly near home), but most of your population center development should be far offmap, to protect them. While it is difficult for Rhudaur to maintain her very expensive armies, wise use of resources and selective retirement can make this possible. Army Strategy ============= The Rhudaur army is very strong, and given time to redistribute troops (as any neutral does), you can organize them into three effective battle groups. The first step is to retire all the men-at-arms. Assuming you are going into battle immediately, you might want to keep them: however, the cost (not so much in gold, but in food) is rather high if you are attempting to maintain your neutrality. Army group 1 (600 hc, 600 lc): This is the area where you should attempt to make the greatest growth, taking advantage of low prices in necessary commodities and recruiting at Fennas Drunin (on the plains). Either West and North against the Witch-King, or West and South towards Cardolan a large Cavalry strike force can be your primary offensive weapon. Army group 2 (1500 hi): This group is not very effective fighting in the rough terrain of Rhudaur, nevertheless it can take quite a punch. Build this one up with more heavy infantry to be used as a defensive force if you attack the Witch-King or as a second attacking army if you go after Cardolan and Arthedain. Army group 3 (1800 li, 1500 ar): These are kept together as they both have better modifiers than the other two in the terrain of Rhudaur. While they would form an effective defense if you attack Cardolan and Arthedain, they would make a formidable strike force if you go after the Witch-King. Your primary objective here would be the Major Town of Mt. Gram. Character Strategy ================== Of the characters listed above, two were listed as "Capital commanders." First of all, two of your exposed population centers have no fortifications. Using your very good timber production you can rectify this situation pretty quickly. Second, once you decide which side to join you will need lots of orders for downgrading relations. Having multiple characters for this is necessary. Third, you start with no adequate agents, mages, or emissaries. Spend the gold to make some good ones and get them cracking improving their abilities. In the interval Briam can improve his emissary rank while Sispar improves his agent or mage rank. Each of the three armies has a good commander and an adequate backup. Every turn, the back-up commander should do GrdChar and TrpsMan while the commander does ArmyMan and possibly buys +/or sells at the population center where he is stationed. Your production also allows you to make war machines. After you have fortified Fennas Drunin and Nothva Rhaglaw, it will be possible for you to make a large number of these. When attacking either the Witch-King or Cardolan, they are blessed with good fortifications, which will make your position difficult and expensive in troop losses unless you are prepared to destroy the foritifcations. This is one of the more difficult positions to play well. If you come out on the winning side in Eriador, you may emerge strong into the endgame, however, should the Eriador campaign drag on, you are bound to lose much, as yours is the most vulnerable position to attack, no matter which side you join. >From Tom Walton Rhudaur is a loser nation, no doubt of that. It also appeals to me as just about the worst underdog one could possibly pick to play. As such, if I ever opt to take this position I plan to go evil on turn 1. With this in mind, my notes here probably aren't very useful. If I played Rhudaur, I'd do so just to see if I could beat the Free and emerge intact. I can't see any other reason to actually CHOOSE this nation over the other 24 in the game. The situation is desperate in Eriador, not only for you but for the Witch-King. In order to have some small hope of actually beating your economically (and militarily, when combined) superior opponents, you must strike hard and fast right away. Here's a rough idea of what I might do: - declare allegiance immediately. This assures the Witch-King you aren't bluffing and allows him to deploy his full might against the Free. It also means that you can place camps in the Misty Mountains without having them constantly under attack by dragons (in fact, the dragons will now RAISE loyalty instead of lower it - a big plus against those Noldo emissaries). - send the bulk of your army southwest within striking distance of both Arthedain and Cardolan. Scout out the terrain to see if Cardolan is massing quickly or slowly. A quick build-up means trouble for you, a slow one means that you can pivot and hit Arthedain with your forces. - march a second army into Imladris to destroy the Noldo army. Continue on to Goblin-Gate. With luck, you'll be in time for the inevitable Free People barbecue held at the town, and just might be able to save it for the Dragon Lord. Very good for you, as this essentially secures the pass against the Free. Extremely good for the poor Dragon Lord, another loser nation. - limit character creation to commander-agents and emissaries. Make a point of building camps in the mountains, then improving them to villages and towns. This effort can make it quite difficult for the Free to track down and root out your pop centers, should things go bad in Eriador. - work on the Duns constantly to come in on your side. If the Duns go good, you're...well, done for. Other than that, fly by the seat of your pants and pray to Morgoth for divine aid. You'll need it. The Case For Archers! by William "Rock" Chasko In game 26, some shrewd DS players assembled a large force of archers, who marched out north of Mordor and dragged their coattails around picking off camps held by the FP, until they attracted the attention of the Eothraim, played by a friend of mine. The horsemen rode down the hapless bowmen, but suffered so greatly that the Eothraim military agenda was set back for many turns. Accenting the victory, the DS had chose "ambush" tactics to the Eothraim "charge". This clever and economical employment of archers is a trick that all ME-PBM players should add to their bag. The conventional wisdom in ME-PBM is that the only troop types worth recruiting are HC and HI. This article puts in a strong plug for the utility of archers, both as offensive and defensive weapons. Archers are certainly more economical than HI - you get more attack strength per unit gold spent in maintenance, and they are superior to HI in troop/terrain modifiers in rough, desert, and mountain terrain. The advantage of archers stems both from their "automatic" steel weapons and also due to the fact that they cost half as much to maintain as do HI. Assume that you recruit an army of 2000 in an MT over 5 turns, move it twice (total of 7 turns) and then fight (8 turns), with all of your troops dying. The maintenance on this 2000 man force is 32000 gold if they are HI and 16000 gold if they are archers. Fighting in the plains, with training at 10%, and assuming a modifier of 100 for both forces for troop tactics, the base army troop strength for the HI is 11,000 while for the archers, it is 8,100. This is an advantage of 2,900 (36%) strength points for the HI. Is that worth 16,000 gold? Depends. If that 2,900 was critical to winning the battle, it might be - but most of the time, I doubt it. If you fight the battle in rough terrain, the HI strength slips to 10,000, an advantage of 1,900 points (23%). Jacking the training levels to 50 (not likely in the time allowed) increases the HI advantage some 4-6%, depending on the terrain. Of course, the archers die *MUCH* faster than the HI - and that may be an advantage or disadvantage depending upon other factors. For DS in the middle-game, getting those archers killed off in the course of completing their mission may be desireable. The archers may be used defensively, to gut an enemy army in the field as described at the beginning of this article. They can also reduce an attacking army to a level where pop centers with minimal fortifications can resist the decimated attacking army. They are also useful as a nuisance force to threaten away enemy pop centers and force a military reaction. They are an economical way to constitute an effective fighting force when your operational goal is to inflict casualties and survival of your army is either unimportant or undesireable. Use them! In Response to Rock >From Tom Walton Rock makes a good point concerning the usefulness of archers in certain situations. He also admirably justifies the cost savings in terms of maintenance when compared to the expense of heavy troops, especially for cash-poor nations riding on the edge of bankruptcy. However, there are a number of other factors at work in the game which make archers less of a bargain than they appear to be. (1) The vast majority of battles in the game occur in plains terrain. This is because the natural focus of the conflict tends to be near certain hot spots: the area just south and west of Angmar; the vales of the Anduin; and in the Rhovanion south of the River Running. This terrain favors heavy infantry and heavy cavalry, giving them their full strength in combat. For most battles, then, archers have no terrain advantage over the heavy troops. (2) The defensive strength of the archer is 2, which means that giving archers armor of any sort is prohibitively expensive in comparison to the benefit (an increase of 0.6 points for bronze, 1.2 points for steel). Giving armor to heavy infantry results in an increase of 3 points for bronze and 6 points for steel. That means that the average heavy infantry troop with bronze armor is worth 13 points in defense, while the average archer with no armor is worth only two points. In other words, the heavy infantry troop can soak up seven and a half times as much damage as his archer counterpart. Even without armor, the infantry can take five times as much damage before being destroyed. So, when comparing maintenance with regards to DEFENSIVE strength, the heavy infantry is two and a half times more efficient than the archer, more so if he has armor. This is an important point. A high defensive strength means that the enemy must inflict more damage to kill the troop, in turn keeping the rest of your army live longer. The longer you survive, the more rounds you live, and the more damage you do to your opponent. An archer which survives one round will do six points of damage (unmodified); a heavy infantry troop which survives two rounds will do twenty points of damage (unmodified). This is a better than three to one ratio in terms of harm inflicted upon the enemy, again more efficient in comparison to maintenance costs. You can run some sample battles yourself with various forces to see why heavy infantry has a decided edge over archers in this regard. (3) It takes the same number of orders to recruit heavy infantry as it does archers. As most people discover, the Dark Servants especially must recruit like mad just to keep even with the Free in the early-to-mid-game. The only way they can do this is to match the Free troop-for-troop. Now, if the Free are recruiting archers, then the Dark Servants can do the same and rejoice at the lower maintenance; but if the Free are recruiting heavy infantry they'll soon own Barad-dur. When production of combat strength is critical, lowering maintenance costs by substituting archers can be suicidal. There are a couple of good reasons to recruit archers. First, they're definitely more efficient than Men-at-Arms, and thus make a good threatening force. If they run into opposition, they'll at least be able to bloody the nose of the enemy before they go down (those MA, on the other hand, will simply provide an opportunity for the opponent to increase his army morale, training, and leader command ranks). Second, archers can work well as a complement to a standard heavy infantry force. For example, if you have an army of 2,000 HI, adding another 500 archers will do two things: it'll increase your first-round punch in battle at a minimal maintenance charge; and it'll keep the rest of your troops alive longer to smash the enemy in the second round. An attached archer force can be a cost-saving addition to the main army. I rarely use archers myself because they're too inefficient in comparison to heavy infantry (and I usually need all the combat strength I can muster). But there are certainly valid opportunities to employ them with good effect during the game. COMMENTS ON 'TOLKIEN AND THE GAME' By Paul Erik Lundstroem I think that what bind all us gamers most together (apart from good opponents and a good game), is our love for Tolkien's world and work. There has been a lot of 'complaints' in the last issues of the Mouth (maybe all of them), that this and that hasn't been true to Middle-earth, and this and that are pure 'fiction' (sure is!), and so forth. I think, people forgets, that Tolkien never described things so detailed, that you could make a game, or a 'simulation', of his world! What has become true for us gamers, is not true for Tolkien's work, as such. Some complain about the number of Dragons (Tolkien named only 3 or 4 Dragons), and their power in the game, and it being non-Tolkienish. Also in the guessing about the new game, there has been some talk back and forth. Remember that the designers have to 'make things up', so the world becomes as detailed as we, the gamers, can play in it! For instance: the Witch-king spent several centuries building up his forces to remove the Dunedain from Arnor (and just barely made it!!) - in the game he'll recruit 1200 trolls every forthnight (and he should!)!! I don't think there even was 1200 trolls all in all in Tolkiens mind - they would have been much too powerful (in ICE's module on Mt.Gundabad, there is an elite unit of 200 trolls, and that's it! The Witch-king has about the same size of force at Carn Dum. I know ICE isn't the Professor, but that's as far as THEY pushed the amount of trolls!). Consider how many trolls can be recruited by all the Dark Servants evry 2 weeks - nobody questions this aspect of the game! Heroes spring forth every other week; Kings and Nazgul gets killed once in a while; bridges blow up; impregnable fortresses gets sabotaged(!) to nothing; Gandalf killing off a thousand orcs (or trolls!) - all this is not how things are in Tolkien's world, but we have accepted it as the truth, in the game! And that's what it is - a game. And a very good one, as that! So, all the talk about 'realistic' and 'not the Tolkien spirit' and all that, is a little bit of waste, I think. It's still fun to read all the comments about it, and it's sure worth discussing the differences between the game and 'the real thing' - just don't get all worked up about it - if you do, you need to get everything into perspective! WISHLIST By Paul Erik Lundstroem A comment in an earlier Mouth, got me thinking (a lot of them actually has!). There has been some remarks on the military aspect of the game being too rigid - everybody knows that HC and HI are best value for money! Several people has already made some very good articles on it, and what can be done about it. What sparked me off, was this: one guy had a traumatic experience in his first game (haven't we all??!). He played Northern Gondor, and had run into his first Dark Servant army. He (rightly!?!) presumed, that his Dunedain character was unbeatable for his orcish opponent, and didn't refuse challenge! He lost his character, his army (and a good deal of confidence!). This got me thinking a bit. Basically he was right in his assumptions, I think, but as mentioned above, this is a game - and the Orcs should also have a chance (do I detect the beginning of an 'Orcish Rights Movement' here??). But couldn't you differentiate the different nations characters?? The Woodmen shouldn't be able to have as powerful characters as the Gondors or Noldor! I know that the starting characters are reflecting this, and that some nations can buy better characters than others, but if a Noldo elf can have 100 in Mage skill, then a Woodman Mage should have a maximum of maybe 50 or 60, or something like that! Similar with a North Gondor Commander and the Woodmen. Wouldn't that make the Woodmen even more vulnerable than they are now?? Yes, but there should be some compensation. Maybe they could have more characters, or the characters could be cheaper! Both in initial cost and maintenance. It should be possible to balance it in some way. Every nation starts with 8 characters, but there shouldn't be any reasons, why there couldn't be a difference here as well. It would also help the weaker nations, if they initially had more Orders available (at a lower quality!), and reflect the fact the nations with powerful characters rely (or depend) more on those characters. I know this is certainly a wargame, but some of the nations are definitely more aligned for a 'character' game. I think the arguments in earlier articles on the rigidness of the types of troops, could also, to some extent, be used on the character side of the game. The differences there is between nations advantages are very minor (some more minor than others!) - and both troop types (as mentioned in previous articles), and character differences (as mentioned above), could contribute to a more versatile game. What do you think???? (the Woodmen, Gondor and Noldo were just examples - no hard feelings to all Ye happy Woodchoppers out there!!). The Blind Sorcerer strategy and tactics. by Michael Thomas The following are my suggestions on how to play the opening moves for the Blind sorcerer position and while it is not the strategy I employed, it is the one I now wish I had. I welcome anyone's critiques. WEAKNESSES Armies(Navies): You start with a large (and expensive) army made up of primarily worthless troops. You have weak commanders and are four turns of movement (with food) away from your nearest target. Characters: You have no emissaries or agents to speak of as well as crummy commanders, but you do have an abundance of the weakest class in the game, namely mages. Economy: You start with a large deficit, no enemy population centers within easy reach, no agents (to steal gold) nor any emissaries (to create camps) and expensive characters incapable of producing revenue for your nation. Also most of your population centers are unfortified making raising your taxes a bad idea. Special abilities: These range from mediocre to completely useless. With all this in mind should you now be demanding your money back from GSI? Not necessarily, you do have one thing going for you. STRENGTH Location: Your position inside Mordor is an excellent one from a defensive standpoint. Your capitol is unlikely to be menaced militarily at all, barring a near total collapse of your Dark servant teammates. And you have wonderful defensive and productive locations in the mountains in which to place your camps. These are my suggested moves for the first two turns... Turn 0 CHARACTER ORDERS Akhorahil 520 785 Ethacali 725 785 Gastmorgath 705 710 Leardinoth 725 740 Mardrash 325 740 Morarthdur 325 740 Naldurgarth 705 710 Pochak 345 425 Turn 1 CHARACTER ORDERS Akhorahil 300 520 Ethacali 430 705 Gastmorgath 705 710 Naldurgarth 705 710 Pochak 325 435 New Agent 325 605 New Emis. 325 734 Overall strategy- Get rid of expensive and useless characters and armies and create emissariesas fast as you can. Also natsell off everything right away (prices are at their highest for most items on the first turn) and dump your armies food to natsell when food reaches 2. This will quickly turn around your economy allowing you, later on in the game, to become an effective economic and military power. CHARACTER: Akhorahil- Use him, at least early on in the game as an emissary. As soon as he reaches 30+ emissary create camps. With the order #300 you should lower your tax rate to 39%, this will cause a 0-2 point increase in loyalty in each of you population centers every turn. This is very important for a nation of camps. Ethacali- Name a new 30 point emissary, then join the army and improve as a commander, also research some useful spells. Gastmorgath- Research locate artifact true as fast as you can and get out there and retrieve them. Leardinoth- Have him name a new 30 point agent then retire this useless character whose slot is much better filled by another emissary. Mardrash- Same as Leardinoth, retire immediately. Morarthdur- While not useless you just have too many mages, retire him. Naldurgarth- Same as Gastmorgath, find artifacts. Pochak- Dump all your armies food for natselling, then retire all of the troops except 100 H inf. Retiring these troops saves you 10,700 gold a turn plus allows you to natsell off the armies food. Then train the remaining army to increase command ranking of himself as well as all commanders with the army. New Agent- Guard your capitol and increase your rank. New Emissaries- Name these guys as fast as you can until you reach your 12 character max. (6 total new 30 point emissaries). Get out there and fill up those mountains with camps. This will give you gold as well as tons of metals to natsell. Q: Throw away a 60 point mage are you crazy? A: Simply put mages are the weakest class in Middle earth. All other classes can make money for you while improving their skills, agents steal gold, emissaries create and improve population centers, commanders capture enemy population centers. The only way mages can make money is to get hold of the lost conjure mounts or food spells and cast them for natselling. But alas while doing this they don't improve their ranking. In fact their ranking barely ever improves, 1-2 points from a 710 order big deal. Any new emissaries you create will undoubtedly have their "natural" ranks end up passing by any of the straight 60 point mages you keep. Q: Dump my army!?! Won't I be defenseless? A: Yes, but you're practically defenseless against most free people nations with your army intact anyways and it's bankrupting you. If you try to use it offensively you must march four turns (spending 10,000+ gold plus food costs each turn) to reach the nearest enemy population center. Assuming you don't run into the Eotraim cavalry on the way you might be able to take one or two population centers before losing your army. But since your recruiting base is so far away you can't possibly expect to hold them for long. So all you have gained is the income from a couple of population centers for a few turns while you've spent around 80,000 to 100,000 gold in army wages and food costs. If you wish to use the army defensively what are you protecting? You might have one village, one camp and maybe your backup capitol attacked early in the game. (I think a threat to your backup capitol is unlikely unless your Dark servant brothers are folding around you). And if you kept your army intact you might be able to resist one ill though-out attack by a free nation. However the income from these population centers, at a 40% tax rate, is roughly 5000 gold a turn with natsells. Is it worth spending 10,000 gold a turn to guard them? And yes I realize the negative effects the loss of these population centers would have on the loyalty of the others, but I feel it is worth the gamble. SUMMATION: With a little luck you should escape the first few turns relatively unscathed. Remember your enemies won't know you have no army and it's no sin to ask your allies for help. You'll also have some gold to spread around your allies which will create good feelings in them towards you and then in turn they'll probably be willing to help defend you if you need it. In a relatively short time you'll have quite a nice little army of emissaries who can take away enemy population centers in more strategic locations. Then you may recruit armies from more accessible locations and begin your military campaigns. P.S. Thank you to all the players whose ideas I may have incorporated into this article, especially you Ji Indur! Hope you enjoyed it! Mike Akhorahil @ aol.com Reply to Akhorahil From Tom Walton It seems to me that Mike's plans for the Blind Sorcerer are more appropriate for a neutral nation than for one that belongs to an allegiance. Though Mike talks about asking for help from allies, I ask: why should they give you any? If you get rid of your mages and your army, what do you have to offer in return? I have trouble with two points. First, the ability to create 40-point mages is enormously useful if done correctly. These mages can learn scrying spells and scout out areas your allies can't see, locate characters/artifacts, and so forth. In return for these services, it's only appropriate that said allies supply you with sufficient gold to keep your nation operational. You obtain the information and artifacts, they supply the gold and pop centers. Not a bad trade really. For this reason, I see little value in retiring Blind Sorcerer mages. Quite the opposite; I'd take every opportunity I could to train them up, making them more efficient (and more valuable). Note that they can both train and cast spells at the same time, as outlined in the rulebook, so you give up nothing by doing both each turn. The mages can also be turned into offensive weapons once they get a hold of an artifact they can learn curses off of. In fact, the Blind Sorcerer is the only nation that can regularly count on creating two complete curses teams, possibly three with luck. In combination with locates/scries and teleportation, these teams can jump around the map causing incredible havoc to all. The second point I disagree with concerns the army. While Mike is quite correct that the most appropriate thing to do for the Blind Sorcerer is disband it, it's just about the worst thing to do for Mordor. Mordor as a whole needs those five thousand troops in battle to give them the edge over their opponents. Without these troops the Dark Servants start just about even with their foes in the area, a terrible position to be in for an offensive. Disbanding the troops will almost undoubtedly put an early end to Mordor's ability to mount a strike against the enemy. Lose the troops fast, yes; but don't disband them. Personal Commentary From Paul Erik Lundstroem Hi Brian! I was just sitting here and casually reading through the many past Mouths. I don't know if this is going to make it, for the last Mouth, but I sort of 'rated' all the stuff I've learned through the Mouth this last half year - and I came up with a peculiar list! I've learned a lot of ME-PBM through all you fellow gamers out there, but I've also learned something else! I think (if you had a prize!), that the most important stuff written in the Mouth, and some of the highest quality, must have come from Leslie Foreman! I think she has hit the spot, on a lot of us gamers - when you first read her comments, you sort of laugh uneasily, but then you realize that this is one woman that hits spot on!! There has been too little praise for her! I realize, I have missed her spot-on observations these last couple of Mouths, but understands that she has been very busy with even more important things! I just wanted to wish her (and her fortunate family!), the best of luck - with hopes that I'll stumble across her sharp wit again! Thanks! Best Regards Paul Erik Lundstroem The Art of Naval Warfare By Ron Cudworth Navies are one of the most wasted and misunderstood tools in Middle Earth. As such, they often sit idle, anchored in some harbor or port, forgotten except for their maintenance cost. What most players don't realize is that those idle ships can play a major role in achieving a decisive victory over an enemy or preventing a route of your forces. At the start of the game only the following nations have any type of naval strength. For the sake of this article, I grouped the ships for each nation by location. Great Sea Area Nation Warships Transports Location ---------------------------------------------------------- Noldor Elves 12 10 0708 8 4 0611 Sinda Elves 20 10 2325 Southern Gondor 10 5 2527 20 10 2227 20 10 2227 Northern Gondor 14 7 2927 14 7 3024 Corsairs 18 7 2438 10 4 2136 16 6 2137 16 6 2236 Haradwaith 16 8 2734 10 5 2730 Quiet Avenger 10 5 2135 8 4 3034 Cardolan 8 4 1614 8 4 1219 Sea of Rhun Nation Warships Transports Location ---------------------------------------------------------- Long Rider 6 6 4215 Northmen 12 6 4017 Sinda Elves 6 3 4413 Inside Mordor Nation Warships Transports Location ---------------------------------------------------------- Blind Sorceror 0 21 3929 ADVANTAGES As you can see from the list, there are three different theaters in which naval combat can occur; Great Sea, Sea of Rhun, and Mordor. Of these three areas, most naval actions will occur in the Great Sea area. Navies in MEPBM are for the most part a quick and efficient way to move troops, particularly infantry. With a navy you can move troops from the Arnor region south to Mordor in 4 turns. Infantry attempting this same feat would require 7 turns to reach the gates. Of course this is not the only useful feature of navies. Navies provide a means to cross large rivers whose bridges have been destroyed. They are also handy at preventing a population center from being threatened away without having to face an enemy armies. Probably the feature I like the most about navies is their ability to strike coastal population centers and disappear before enemy nations can respond. This ability plays havoc on many of the good nations in Arnor. Imagine the surprise of Cardolan if a Corsair navy shows up at 1219 and destroys the town. Even if Cardolan arrives the following turn with an army, the Corsairs will have already sacked and burned the town and returned to the safety of their ships. One final advantage of navies is that they can be used to keep valuable characters out of the line of fire. If your characters are travelling with a navy at sea, then you don't have to fear any attacks by enemy characters. Just make sure that you aren't adjacent to any shore hexes or you might find them getting cursed to death. DISADVANTAGES The most noticeable disadvantage of navies is their maintenance cost. At 50 gold per warship or transport, these costs run anywhere from 600 gold per turn for the Long Rider to 3650 gold per turn for the Corsairs. While that may not seem like too much, in a game with a poor market, these cost can quickly put a nation with a sizeable navy into heavy debt or even out of the game. Navies also run into problems if they want to capture or destroy enemy population centers. When a navy issues an attack/capture/destroy order, the troops anchor the ships and depart. After the combat the troops do not board the ships. A separate order must be given to pickup the ships. At this time you might be saying, "But what about the Move Navy order". Well while that order is nice and all, it does not pick up any of the warships in the hex. This would leave you with a bunch of transport defenseless and at the mercy of anyone with a few warships. Another disadvantage of navies during combat is character losses. Unlike normal army combat, naval combat can be very disastrous to the loser. If you lose a naval battle at sea, your characters are dead and their artifacts are basically lost. This can be very bad if you happen to have several characters travelling with the navy when it goes down. Finally, although you can obtain great fun and use from navies, their role in Middle Earth is very limited because of map geography and game rules. I would love it if navies could play a larger role in the game, but for now I will have to settle for their current uses. TACTICS Navies can carry 250 infantry or 150 cavalry troops per transport ship. Now the number of troops that you will want aboard your navy will depend entire on what you will use the navy for. For example if you are going after an enemy navy then you will only want a few hundred troops and one or two characters travelling with the navy. For the more aggressive player seeking conquest, you will want to carry as many troops as possible. First though, you have to decide between either capturing/destroying pop centers or trying to threaten them away. This choice will affect the type of troops you will want aboard. If you plan on threatening population centers, and this works quite well with navies, then you will want to carry only men-at-arms because of their cheap cost. To conquer or destroy pop centers, you will want heavy shock troops. The choice of shock troops will depend on whether you plan on anchoring your ships at some point. With or without armor, heavy infantry are better than heavy cavalry if you will be carrying max troops. For example, ten troop transports filled to capacity can carry 2500 HI with a defense of 25000/40000 depending on whether they have steel armour or not or 1500 HC worth 24000/37500. As you can see the heavy infantry can take and deal more damage. Therefore you will always want to carry heavy infantry unless you plan on anchoring you navy and making a strike inland. Then the speed of the cavalry will become important. Light cavalry and Light Infantry can also be carried, but only if you are concerned about the cost of the troops. Defending against Navies The best defense against naval attacks is to either remove any harbors or ports, if you are in a non-shore hex, or just have an army present. This works well and is almost essential to nations like the Quiet Avenger and the Long Rider. Both of them need to destroy the ports at their capitals or run the risk of large navies showing up to capture them. Another tactic that works to defend small navies is to place them in a hex with a large army. Even though the larger navy could destroy the smaller one, they would then have to fight the army troops present after the naval battle. If they lost then they would also lose their ships. Finally even though enemy troops may be safely aboard their ships when the good (No I don't mean Free People) guys arrive, that doesn't protect the commanders from character attacks if the navy hasn't retreated to sea. Final Comments Finally navies can also be used as good bargaining tools to cement relationships. While the Quiet Avenger may have the second weakest Navy in the Great Sea area second only to Cardolan), Haradwaith or the Corsairs would probably be very happy to obtain the Quiet Avenger ships if they were planning to turn evil. The same goes for Southern Gondor. As long as the Corsairs remain neutral, Southern Gondor has to fear the threat of a naval invasion by a superior Corsair navy. If the Sinda Elves or another good nation gave their ships to Southern Gondor then it would help to remove some of the that threat. I hope this article helped out some people. Please feel free to mail any comments, criticisms, suggestions, or congratulations to me at RCC6@Jaguar.UofS.EDU An Additional Note >From Tom Walton One point I would add: if your side has achieved permanent naval superiority (e.g., you're the only one with a fleet on the Great Sea), don't disband your warships. While you no longer have to worry about enemy players, sea monsters and pirates will still be just as active as ever. The more warships you have with the fleet, the less likely it is that you'll be attacked; and if you are attacked, your casualty rate will be lower if you pack a hefty punch. Also, in one Q&A with Bill Feild at GSI about a year ago, he said that transports and warships which were lost (navy disbands, nation drops, etc.) were added to the pirate fleet in the game, making it more dangerous. In a later Q&A he refused to confirm or deny this (let something slip, did you Bill?), but if true that means that you'll have more need than ever for those warships in games where large fleets are lost in this manner. Speculations on player positions in the 2950 game: The Neutrals By Brian Mason The information we have for these nations is very scant. In the 1650 game we have the Corsairs, the Hardwaith, the Dunlendings, Rhudaur and the Easterlings. In the 2950 game has replaced these five positions by the Corsairs, the Rhun Easterlings, the Dunlendings, the White Wizard, and the Khand Easterlings. It is not possible to do the kind of "in-depth" analysis presented in earlier issues of this series, nevertheless, we'll take a look at each position in turn and discuss its strengths and weaknesses. The Corsairs: This will be the absorption of the Corsairs and Haradwaith of the 1650 game. If it were to have all of these population centers, we are clearly dealing with an unbeatable foe. This, therefore, is very unlikely. This position will need to have many (if not most) of these population centers lost or degraded to make this position not too powerful. It is likely to start the game like the Corsairs of the 1650 game: with a large number of ships but very few troops. >From Tom: I would expect the Corsairs to hold a number of town/towers along the coastline of Umbar and Harad, with a few major town/forts (most likely Kas Shadoul and the Havens). It's clear from the 1650 game that the Corsairs are too powerful, so the degradation in power should be rather significant. This will make the Corsair position less defensible as well since their economic might won't be concentrated in a single easy-to-defend, hard-to-reach, place. I also expect that their characters will be significantly less capable than those in the 1650 game, more closely approaching those of Harad in the earlier era. Sea power, however, will probably be even more overwhelming; Cardolan no longer exists, Southern Gondor's navy has declined over the centuries, and many of the Noldo ships (and the Noldo) have left for the West. The Sinda are also no longer a naval presence. Rhun Easterlings: If you take the position of the Easterlings from the 1650 game and give all population centers north of the 21 row to this position you have a pretty viable nation with five town and one camp. Take one (or more) of these town and make it into a major town and poof! you have a nation. >From Tom: I believe that GSI will move many of these pop centers west into former Eothraim territory, to fill the power vacuum in the Rhovanion. This will leave the Rhun easterlings exposed to attack from many directions, but also able to make their own strikes in any direction. I see the Rhun Easterlings as character weak but with a good mounted force, at least in comparison to regional players. They'd need one just to defend themselves. The Dunlendings: In the 1650 game this position has four villages, four towns and a major town. This might be a bit too big for the 2950 game, but otherwise the position will probably be pretty much unchanged. >From Tom: I agree. Saruman will most likely own a couple of the pop centers, but I bet the Duns won't be altered much. The White Wizard: The changes you are likely to see in the Dunlendings will involve population centers being passed to this position. With Saruman as a player character, you have (probably) one of the four or so best player-characters in the game. It is also likely that you will have population centers in the Southern Misty Mountains, and on either side, possibly just extending into the borders of Fangorn. This is probably the only neutral position which has good artifacts: you will likely have the Palantir of Osgiliath, Glosovagil (+1500 combat), and a lesser Ring of Power. (Note to those who are Tolkien purists: in the Council of Elrond, Gandalf describes Saruman as having a Ring on his finger and refers to himself as "ring-maker.") As a character, Saruman is likely to have stats something like: Command (30), Agent (10), Emissary (70), Mage (100). The capital of this position is, pretty obviously, at Angrenost. >From Tom: sounds on-target to me. The Khand Easterlings: Like the Rhun Easterlings, this position is probably just the southern part of the 1650 Easterling position. With a city, a major town and three towns you are in a pretty good position. >From Tom: don't see any major changes here. Nice military, lousy characters, little choice but to go evil. Kind of a boring back-water. Game 97: From Rhudaur's Point of View By Brian Mason A few months ago, a few of the players in game 97, namely Tom and I (on the Free Peoples side) and Brian Lowery and Steve Latham (on the Dark Servants side) agreed to give some kind of summary evaluation of the game. At the time, I suppose both sides felt the game would be further along than it currently is, so this is not a summary report. Rather, at least in my case, it is a story of the development and destruction of a postion. I've chosen to go through it for the first 20 turns, from turn zero to turn nineteen, as this will adequately demonstrate my development and subsequent failure in my attack upon the Blind Sorcerer and Witch-King. The format of this is as follows: First, I'll list the following evaluative numbers: victory points, total population centers (by type), character points (by type), and offensive and defensive combat ability. Then, on each subsequent turn I'll list activities responsible for the changes. Turn 0: Population Centers: (Major Towns: 2, Towns: 4, Villages: 1, Camps: 1), Character Points: (Command: 230, Agent: 40, Emissary: 10, Mage: 30), Army Strength: (Offensive: 31490, Defensive: 51960). Significant Actions: Retire all Men-at-Arms. Move all armies to capital. Name emissary. Turn 1: Victory Points: 600, Population Centers: (Major Towns: 2, Towns: 4, Villages: 1, Camps: 1), Character Points: (Command: 232, Agent: 43, Emissary: 44, Mage: 35), Army Strength: (Offensive:27002, Defensive: 41400). Significant Actions: Regroup armies into three groups (as per this months S&T article), name second emissary. Turn 2: Victory Points: 575, Population Centers: (Major Towns: 2, Towns:4, Villages: 1, Camps: 1), Character Points: (Command: 263, Agent: 45, Emissary: 77, Mage: 38), Army Strength: (Offensive: 27542, Defensive: 41400). Significant Actions: All armies keep high maintenance schedule. Name third emissary. Create first camp. Turn 3: Victory Points: 550, Population Centers: (Major Towns: 2, Towns: 4, Villages: 1, Camps: 2), Character Points: (Command: 296, Agent: 50, Emissary: 115, Mage: 41), Army Strength: (Offensive: 28514, Defensive: 41400). Significant Actions: All armies keep high maintenance schedule. Name third emissary. Create first camp. Turn 4: Victory Points: 600, Population Centers: (Major Towns: 2, Towns: 4, Villages: 1, Camps: 2), Character Points: (Command: 322, Agent: 63, Emissary: 124, Mage: 45), Army Strength: (Offensive: 29199, Defensive: 41400). Significant Actions: Again, the regular increases in agent and command ranks are due to each army group (with two commanders) executing three character improvement orders (ArmyMan, TrpsMan, GrdChar). First emissary dies in encounter with Dragon. Two camps created. Turn 5: Victory Points: 633, Population Centers: (Major Towns: 2, Towns: 4, Villages: 1, Camps: 4), Character Points: (Command: 362, Agent: 75, Emissary: 106, Mage: 45), Army Strength: (Offensive: 30009, Defensive: 41400). Significant Actions: Again, the regular increases in agent and command ranks are due to each army group (with two commanders) executing three character improvement orders (ArmyMan, TrpsMan, GrdChar). First emissary dies in encounter with Dragon. Turns 6, 7, 8, 9, 10: Victory Points: 667, 667, 667, 600, 808, Population Centers: (Major Towns: 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, Towns: 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, Villages: 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, Camps: 4, 6, 7, 9, 9), Character Points: (Command: 388, 410, 430, 450, 514, Agent:84, 94, 104, 141, 203, Emissary: 112, 121, 128, 138, 84, Mage: 51, 51, 81, 87, 90), Army Strength: (Offensive: 30798, 51558, 32433, 33658, 33660, Defensive: 41400, 41400, 41400, 41400, 41400). Significant Actions: One commander/agent, one commander, two agents, and one mage named. Five camps posted. Armies and attributes of army commanders and subcommanders continue to improve. Turn 11: Victory Points: 867, Population Centers: (Major Towns: 2, Towns: 4, Villages: 1, Camps: 8, Character Points: (Command: 522, Agent: 207, Emissary: 115, Mage: 90), Army Strength: (Offensive: 35220, Defensive: 43950). Significant Actions: Decision made to attack Witch-King and Blind Sorcerer. Plans for an assault on Mt. Gram. One camp dissolves. One emissary named. 400 light infantry recruited. Turn 12: Victory Points: 875, Population Centers: (Major Towns: 2, Towns: 4, Villages: 2, Camps: 7), Character Points: (Command: 543, Agent: 207, Emissary: 117, Mage: 90), Army Strength: (Offensive: 38510, Defensive:57906). Significant Actions: One camp improved to a village. One emissary named. 400 archers recruited. 400 heavy cavalry recruited. Steel armor added to all cavalry troops. 36 war machines built. Turn 13: Victory Points: 950, Population Centers: (Major Towns: 2, Towns: 4, Villages: 2, Camps: 7), Character Points: (Command: 555, Agent: 211, Emissary: 117, Mage: 92), Army Strength: (Offensive: 45767, Defensive: 68746). Significant Actions: 300 light infantry recruited. One camp improved to a village. 400 heavy cavalry recruited. Army moves on Mt. Gram. Turn 14: Victory Points: 950, Population Centers: (Major Towns: 2, Towns: 5, Villages: 3, Camps: 6), Character Points: (Command: 568, Agent: 221, Emissary: 117, Mage: 96), Army Strength: (Offensive: 47022, Defensive: 74748). Significant Actions: Capture Mt. Gram. One camp improved to a village. Cavalry army moves around West end of Rhudaur towards Witch-King. One village lost, one town gained, three camps dissolve. Turn 15: Victory Points: 729, Population Centers: (Major Towns: 2, Towns: 6, Villages: 2, Camps: 3), Character Points: (Command: 571, Agent: 240, Emissary: 125, Mage: 101), Army Strength: (Offensive: 38031, Defensive: 63495). Significant Actions: Army facing five Dark Servant armies, as the Witch-King fails to downgrade relations. Only have to fight one army. One character assassinated. Turn 16: Victory Points: 700, Population Centers: (Major Towns: 2, Towns: 6, Villages: 2, Camps: 3), Character Points: (Command: 494, Agent: 216, Emissary: 128, Mage: 105), Army Strength: (Offensive: 38609, Defensive:67995). Significant Actions: One character killed in army combat, one assassinated, two kidnapped. First attacking army destroyed. Turn 17: Victory Points: 667, Population Centers: (Major Towns: 2, Towns: 6, Villages: 2, Camps: 4), Character Points: (Command: 395, Agent: 194, Emissary: 128, Mage: 107), Army Strength: (Offensive: 36340, Defensive: 68220). Significant Actions: Second attacking army destroys two Dark Servant armies. One character assassinated, one character executed. One town lost to emissaries. Turn 18: Victory Points: 575, Population Centers: (Major Towns: 2, Towns: 5, Villages: 2, Camps: 4), Character Points: (Command: 255, Agent: 147, Emissary: 128, Mage: 87), Army Strength: (Offensive: 27351, Defensive: 47215). Significant Actions: Second attacking army destroyed. One character killed in combat. Turn 19: Victory Points: 400, Population Centers: (Major Towns: 2, Towns: 5, Villages: 2, Camps: 4), Character Points: (Command: 175, Agent: 155, Emissary: 131, Mage: 89), Army Strength: (Offensive: 13961, Defensive: 24700). What were the costs/gains of the attack? Cost: Rhudaur lost 36 war machines, 2530 light infantry, 2200 archers, 1400 heavy cavalry, 600 light cavalry, two commanders (70, 66), and three commander/agents (75/46, 22/32, and 80/35). Gain: From this, Rhudaur destroyed troops totaling 5580 heavy infantry, and 750 men-at-arms. No commanders or subcommanders are believed to have died. One Major Town/Fort was captured, a Town/Tower and a Camp/Tower were threatened, and a Village/Tower was destroyed. The more substantial cost was the evisceration of the military might of Rhudaur, and the opening up of it to subsequent attack, both by the military of the Witch-King and Blind Sorcerer, but also to their corp of emissaries. What could have been done differently to make it succeed? The plan, as originally conceived by me, was a three pronged thrust, whereby, the Witch-King would lose all three of his starting population centers: Mt. Gram falling to Rhudaur, Mt. Gunabad to the Dwarves, and Carn Dum to a coalition of the Noldo, Arthedain, and Cardolan. Only the attack of Rhudaur went off on schedule, subsequently allowing the Dark Servants in the North to attack and destroy the forces piecemeal. Future course of the battles: Subsequently, the Blind Sorcerer moved in and destroyed my backup capital. My starting characters, painstakingly improved were quickly decimated by the vastly superior characters of the Dark Servants. There has been some ebb and flow in the region, but currently the Dark Servants have a significant upper hand. To the best of my count, there have been at least eight different instances of dragons involved in combat for the Dark Servants since turn 18. Game 97: The Corsair Point of View From Tom Walton Over the 25 issues of the Mouth, the request I think I've heard most often is for articles summarizing how a game has progressed. Players want to hear about what other players did and what they planned, and how everything ultimately turned out. Alas, while the demand was high the supply of such articles approached a number close to zero. For this final issue, we have for your reading pleasure a set of such articles from several nations representing all three allegiances. Finally, you'll get to see how other people actually play the game and why they do what they do. Game 97 is somewhat unsual. It's my experience that in most games a side takes an advantage early on and general retains it, with the losers dropping out in increasing numbers as they each realize what the final outcome will be. In many of my games it's been painfully apparent who's going to win by turn 10, which of course kills the excitement. Not so in 97. This game has swung back and forth among the allegiances for 28 turns, with no decided advantage yet in the hands of Mordor or the Free. Many people have dropped, yet in such a way as to leave each side fairly well balanced. And the balance is quite classic: economic and military might belong to the Free, while characters/artifacts/dragons are definitely the realm of the Dark Servants. One note before we get going: this game is still very much alive, with critical (and thus secret) operations being carried out by both sides. As such, there are certain items of interest we can't reveal to you here as they would essentially end the game for that allegiance. This may leave you wondering 'well, why the hell didn't he do this?' He probably did, but he can't tell you about it just yet. In addition to that, I know that some of these operations under the Corsair banner are in part due to planning that took place near the beginning of the game (under the 'what do I do if I'm forced to go Free again' header). This means that a few of my most interesting developments, which have been in progress for the entire game, will simply be omitted. It's unfortunate; I'd love to gloat over them with you, to be sure. Guess they'll just have to remain secret until the end. Pre-Game I came in biased to game 97. In games 55 and 59 I played Harad and the Corsairs, and was both times forced into the Free game by obnoxious Dark Servant players who's egos far outstripped their actual skill (as I soon showed the little rodents). So, when I got the Corsairs I said "damn! I want to go evil and sack the Free coastline! Time for a little viking!" Think about it: why play the Corsairs? For that huge navy, of course. The ability to beat any other single opponent, to land nearly 6,000 men anywhere you like, is enough to get the blood pumping. The problem: there aren't any real Dark Servant targets. If you really want to have fun with the Corsairs, to indulge your fantasies of pirating and pillaging, you need to go evil to do it. These two factors were weighing heavily on my mind when I got the packet, and so most of the plans I made involving possible strikes against the Free at various locations and times depending on what they did. My plans to battle the Dark Servants were vague at best, as I was intent on joining their ranks. So, after several hours of thinking out the position I wrote up my cards to send out to the other players, putting in my token 'demand for stuff' to see who was actually interested in having the Corsairs as allies. The demands were quite small, involving a few +15/+20 command artifacts, a couple of combat weapons (so my commanders wouldn't have to 'refuse challenge' all the time) and as a bonus one emissary artifact if I went evil. I didn't ask for enormous amounts of gold, thousands of units of product, major towns, the Ring of Wind, or anything else of critical value. In comparison to what many other neutrals ask for, I thought I was being extremely reasonable (both sides could easily afford the artifacts, and in return they get one of the most powerful nations in the game to join their ranks). Funny thing is, this token demand was to cause problems far out of proportion to it's worth later on. You can't imagine my surprise...but I'm getting ahead of myself. Turns 1-5: The Nation Never being one to play it safe, I opted for the most expansive economic growth I could possibly cook up in the early game. It was my intent to become the strongest power in Middle-Earth in record time, with an economy that would allow me to field enormous forces and still run a surplus. The plan was ambitious, to say the least; I'd never attempted anything so expansive so early in the game, nor had I witnessed anyone else try it. Specifically, I wanted to double my tax base as quickly as possible and purely through emissary action. Since the Corsairs already start with a base of 60,000 gold, adding another 60,000 meant the creation of 24 new villages or twelve new towns - no mean feat. This would also vastly increase the available resources, which the Corsairs are quite poor in at start (all of their pop centers except one is a major town or better at the start of the game). To do this, I realized I'd need a large number of pure emissaries - six, to be exact. And they all had to be created within the first seven character slots. Fortunately, the Corsair characters are quite good and are multi-classed; I already had seven commanders, and these commanders could act as agents by improving their secondary skills. This meant that I didn't have to worry too much about being agent bait by foregoing the creation of pure agent characters. I also realized that despite my already-large tax base and an increase in tax rate to 60% (the highest you can go without an automatic loyalty drop), I'd need extra cash in quantity to finance the creation of camps and upgrades to villages. Once six of the villages came online they could in turn support the expansion effort on their own, but until then I needed money. I found the cash in three ways: first, I raised my tax rate as mentioned above; second, I sold everything I could from my stockpiled resources; and third, I disbanded all of my army excepting the fleet and 900 heavy infantry. This last may cause many players to cringe, but consider: I was a neutral in territory that wasn't even close to the front. No one in either allegiance had the resources to spare to start a war with me. That meant that the only possible early-game threat was from the Haradwaith - and I was willing to roll the dice on that one. Besides, I figured that by the time anyone came looking to see what I was doing, I'd already be building the army back up. I hoped. So, in the first few turns I consolidated my army and fleets, stationing a force at 2136 to counter the army at Vamag and another at the capitol. Three emissaries were created, as was one pure agent. The emissaries didn't train; they immediately left to go start putting down camps. I had every one of my characters train in a secondary skill (especially agent) to improve their abilities and their challenge ranks, while Meriot started learning how to locate artifacts. Turns 1-5: The Diplomatic Scene Of the 25 cards I'd sent out, I received a scant few replies. To my surprise, no one seemed at all interested in recruiting me to their allegiance, and some had been downright threatening. A couple of the Dark Servants also commented, in rather unflattering terms, on how silly I was being by making such outrageous artifact demands for my services(!). I was shocked. Knowing how powerful the Corsairs are, and how critical their location is (they can hit almost every Free position fairly quickly, or sail right up to Osgiliath and bang on Mordor's doors), I thought I'd see the allegiances trying to get me to come in as quickly as possible. The lack of response, along with the threats, were utterly unexpected. (Note: threatening a neutral in the early game is just plain stupid. There's no other way to describe it. Someone who does this sort of thing is a moron of the first order and should be silenced by his allegiance before he pisses off the unaligned - and powerful - nations. It's also been my experience that those who threaten are consumed by an irrational belief that they're quite good at the game - one that I've never seen supported, since everyone who's done this to me plays like an idiot. Just thought I'd get my two cents in here.) Since I wanted to join the Dark Servants so I could turn the Free coastline into a wasteland, I decided not to vent my natural urge for revenge by immediately declaring war. I did, however, start drawing up more concrete plans for a war with Mordor (sigh), thinking that perhaps some dickless wonder might eventually push me past my rather low tolerance for over-inflated egos (note the somewhat bitter tone here; Dol Amroth once again ISN'T mine). During this time, the only high point in communications with either side was the discover that Brian Mason, my most esteemed foe in game 62, was playing Rhudaur. I immediately offered to exchange information and such, and started working on him to come in with me as a team for one allegiance (with my sights set on Mordor). At this time, I didn't know Brian that well and the Mouth had a few months yet to start up. I also found that the Harad player was something of a dweeb and was playing at a less-than-respectable level. His actions spoke of plans either so obtuse I couldn't discern his intent, or of a complete inability to think beyond one turn. Though you should never underestimate your (possible) opponents, I placed my bets on the latter possibility. And a bit of bad news: the Dark Lieutenants player turned out to be the same quy that played Harad in game 59. As the Corsairs, I'd made a sneak attack on him while he was fighting the Dark Servants; he didn't take it in a very sportsmanlike manner, so to avoid any conflicts I kept my identity secret in game 97. Turn 6-10: The Nation The plans to build up the economy were moving like clockwork. I put down a number of new camps and my emissaries were increasing their skills rapidly. I also had similar luck with my other characters, all of which were making large gains with each order. Meriot actually learned the 'locate artifact true' spell quickly and determined soon after that most of the nifty items hadn't been grabbed yet. I targeted a few of these for pick-up and send a couple of characters out to retrieve the goodies. This made me wonder if perhaps many of the players were new, since veterans snap up the better mage and agent artifacts right away. The fact that they were still laying around by turn 10 made me think that either there'd been big drops or that the better mage nations were being played by less-than-experienced souls. My economy was stable enough by turn 7 that I started recruiting again. All new troops were either heavy infantry or heavy cavalry, and new production from camps in various rough hexes allowed me to equip them with good arms and armor fairly cheaply. By turn 10 my army was stronger than it had been at start, and much more durable. I breathed a small sigh of relief, since some tense diplomatic moments made me think that I might get hit while I still had only 900 HI to defend my nation with. Everything was going great, and I was actually ahead of schedule on the buildup at this point. Turn 6-10: The Diplomatic Scene Despite my hopes, the diplomacy with both sides was terrible. Most of the Free wouldn't even respond, and when they did it didn't even qualify as lukewarm. On the Dark Servant side, some players were enthused about having me join Sauron's ranks but didn't want to part with even the most petty of artifacts. Others wouldn't talk at all, while a few (most notably the Quiet Avenger) continued to make threats. I had planned to join a side by turn 10. There's no reason in the world why a neutral shouldn't be prepared to declare allegiance by this time, and in games where I play an allegiance power I mark a neutral for death if he fails to declare at this point. In my opinion, such a player is simply trying to rack up victory points without doing any of the fighting; so even if he joins my side, I'll come visit him with agents and emissaries and take him out of the top ranks. I'd much rather go down myself and take the offending neutral with me than have the neutral win because he sat on his ass the whole game. By this time I was primed to declare allegiance - and no one wanted the Corsairs to join them. At least not enough to deliver a couple of artifacts to my commanders so I wouldn't have to 'refuse challenge' at every battle. I'd toned down my demands to a couple of +10 command artifacts and a few combat weapons, with again no takers (and a host of negative comments about how greedy I was!). I was also pretty damned bored. I play the game to FIGHT, not to pick my nose and watch others have all the fun. Ten turns is five MONTHS without a good battle, and I was hankering for some death and mayhem. Unable to curb my violent impulses, I looked towards my neighbor - the incompetent (and still neutral) Harad for a bit of fun. I figured I'd occupy myself with his conquest while the allegiances got their act together. And perhaps they'd take me a bit more seriously if my nation included the mighty Haradwaith. Among the Dark Servants, I was having a few problems. The Witch-King made some suggestions to me that I should drop the game, as he liked it the way it was and didn't want me to spoil it; the Cloud Lord was always willing to brandish his "I'll come punish you with agents" stick; and the Quiet Avenger was making threats of conquest on a regular basis (now this guy was truly out-to-lunch; the Quiet Avenger conquer the Corsairs? Give me a break.) Despite the fact that these are fighting words, I was still holding out the hope that Mordor might actually recruit me into the war; Southern Gondor's coastline was ENTIRELY undefended, enough to make any Corsair drool. Among the neutrals, the Easterlings had gone evil, Brian declared for the Free on turn 11, and the Duns dropped the game (with just about everything degrading before anyone could reach it). I knew Brian fairly well at this point, and I was disappointed that he'd gone good since that meant I had a fair chance of fighting against him again, not with him. Players in both allegiances had also dropped out at this point, but I'm no longer clear on the order in which this happened. I do remember that Northern Gondor, a player about as bad as Harad, had dropped after losing almost all of his armies, characters, and artifacts to the Dark Servants. Turns 11-15: The Nation The economy was really booming at this point; I'd just hit the target level where new camps and villages were essentially free (because of previous build-up). My emissaries were having a heyday, with even the ones created on turn 6 being good enough to go on the offensive because of skill increases. My other characters were also doing quite well, with some agent ranks exceeding a score of 50. I determined that this would be adequate to defend against most assassinations and kidnappings, but named two more pure agents for additional protection. Since it looked more and more likely that I'd be going Free, these agents would be necessary to protect the prime characters from Mordor's assassins. The army went from large to outrageous, as I built up to slam Harad but good with a three-pronged invasion. It was quite nicely planned to take every single town and major town in just two turns, and I believe it would've worked; but I never got the opportunity to test it out. Harad dropped the game while my forces were in mid-transfer, out of position, and all of his towns had degraded to camps or nothing by the time I marched. While I eventually ended up taking all five of his major towns, I lost 40,000 gold in tax base and 24 resource points because the player dropped. Needless to say, I was quite peeved at being deprived of even a token fight. I also just about finished picking up the artifacts that I wanted, and had transferred most of them to the appropriate characters. Turn 11-15: The Diplomatic Scene I'd pretty much figured out at this point that I was never going to get any command or combat artifacts from either side and was so bored that I had to declare simply to avoid losing interest in the game. It was still a toss-up; Brian was doing his best to recruit me to the Free while a couple of the Dark Servants (especially that annoying Quiet Avenger) were regularly ticking me off. But Southern Gondor was engaged in the Ithilien and had almost nothing left to defend his homeland with. I estimated I could take Dol Amroth, 2527, and four minor towns in two turns with little in the way of opposition. How often does that sort of opportunity drop in your lap? Better yet, the Noldo had opted for a military game and almost all of their forces were away; that meant I could conquer Southern Gondor in about three turns, then be in Lindon three turns later - smashing those silly elves. I never saw anyone else do that as the Corsairs, and I wanted to be the first to take the entire coastline of Middle Earth as mine. In the North, Brian's addition to the Free nearly spelled the doom of the Witch-King and his ally the Blind Sorcerer (who had towns up that way), both of whom were hanging on by the skin of their teeth (along with the aid of numerous dragons and Cloud Lord agents). Near Mordor, Southern Gondor was kicking various butts by himself, as his opposition was less than skilled in military endeavors. However, a number of Free had dropped, including the Northmen and Eothraim, so Mordor was expanding unchecked in the Rhovanion. The Easterlings were also causing problems, though not nearly as many as he should have been capable of. My most pressing concern in Umbar at the moment was the Quiet Avenger. After I sent armies into Harad to take the major towns, the Quiet Avenger moved in a couple of forces of his own and again threatened to conquer me if I didn't declare for the Dark Servants (he also demanded that I give up the towns that I took). Now, I've never been very tolerant of that sort of thing, and have always attacked and destroyed anyone silly enough to actually display their foolishness on their sleeve; but Gondor beckoned...so I talked to the other Dark Servants and asked them to please reign in their cohort before I lost my temper. The reply was mixed. Half of those who answered said they thought the Quiet Avenger was a jerk and sure, go ahead and conquer his ass. The other half said the Quiet Avenger was a jerk but he was also a Dark Servant, so any action on my part to curb his invasion would be construed as a declaration of war on Mordor. Talk about unity among the Dark Servants. Turn 16-20: The Nation Umbar was enormous at this point. I had 500 victory points for pop centers, 500 victory points for armies, and 500 victory points for characters. I didn't have that much for gold, as I was at this point buying enormous quantities of stuff to outfit my troops and to keep the treasury low to discourage agent theft. (A note: Since turn 6 or so, Mordor had been making occasional forays into Umbar to steal gold. Some of the theft was conducted by the Dark Lieutenants, more by the Cloud Lord. I had essentially ignored these acts because they were sporadic rather than constant, and never more than one agent at a time. I had also beaten the crap out of a couple of their agents with my guards, a most satisfying retribution.) It was at this point that I made my intent known and declared for the Free. Ignoring my overwhelming might (which involved moving some mighty big armies into the Quiet Avengers range so that he could scout out their size), my southern neighbor marched right into the heart of Umbar and again threatened to take me out if I didn't go evil and give him stuff. I was speechless; was this guy suicidal, or brain-dead? In any event, I said 'to hell with it' and attacked the Quiet Avenger. On the first turn I took Vamag and destroyed most of his army, wrapping up with the capture of his capitol a couple of turns later. His resistance was so pathetic I took only minor losses during the campaign, and actually had a MORE troops after the final battle than I had when I first attacked (because of recruitment). A couple of Dark Servants responded with declarations of war and that pretty much put me in the Free camp whole-heartedly. No more diplomacy because I'm not neutral anymore. Turn 16-20 The problem here is: how to best support the other Free? If the pressure can be taken off the remaining players in my allegiance, we can simply bowl over the Dark Servants with our superior economies. This means that I need to in some way distract Dark Servant characters and armies so that my allies can recover and go on the offensive. During this time, the battles are pretty much dead-locked everywhere but no-man's land (the Rhovanion, what's left of Northern Gondor). With this in mind, I decide to go with a two-part plan I'd envisioned earlier in the game. The first part involved a massive landing in the Ithilien with an army large enough to attract some notice; the second part required a medium-sized heavy cav force to move into Khand from off-map and wreak a little devastation. This two-pronged attack would no doubt draw off Dark Servant armies and agents, who'd think that they were responding to an imminent Corsair invasion of Mordor. While I had the armies required for the campaign, everyone was out of place because the Quiet Avenger campaign scattered my forces. I spent the rest of this time period reconsolidating the expeditionary forces and moving the home guard off-map and away from probable scout/scrying areas. Turn 21-25 The invasion didn't quite go off as planned. While putting together the fleet, I found I lacked a single agent order to cover everyone at the consolidation site. I picked the least able commander and left him without a guard for the turn. Up until this point, I regularly guarded (and often cross-guarded) every single commander and prime character at all times. With the agents and commander-agents at my disposal, this didn't present a problem. During this one turn, I found I needed an extra order to transfer some troops, which shorted me a guard order off that commander-agent. And wouldn't you know it? The Dark Servants picked Adumir, the unguarded character, to assassinate. This in and of itself was of little concern, but the fleet sailed that turn to Osgiliath and Adumir was selected to be my sacrificial lamb for the invasion force. With Adumir dead, the fleet commander arrived with no one to split the army off to. Really, really unfortunate. At the same time, my cav in Khand made a sudden appearance from off map on to a major town and town of the Easterlings. My opponent had left nothing to block road access should I take this tack, nor did he even bother to scout or scry the terrain that I'd obviously have to march through to see if I was coming. Though I'd come from off-map, I had threatened away 3538 on the march and that should have tipped him off that something was up. Apparently it didn't. In Khand then, I destroyed both the major town and town, marching to the remaining town and the Easterling capitol. Again, no one tried to block me, nor did any agents from Mordor show up to contest my actions. Rather confused, I wiped out the small Easterling army at the capitol, destroyed his other town, and put the entire army at Sturlurtsa to draw some attention. No response. I said "what the hell" again, burned the Easterling capitol to the ground, and took off for Mordor's back door. In the Ithilien, I'd drawn a new back-up for the navy and moved up a third army into position for strike. I then moved two forces into 3028 and 3026, making sure I had enough troops in each to qualify as 'huge' on the Dark Servant pop center reports. My thought was that if that didn't get their attention, they were already asleep at the wheel. I threatened away both sites and again marched on Osgiliath, this time taking the road so that I wouldn't miss any oncoming armies that might want to defend Mordor. While the military campaign was underway, my emissaries were hard at work stealing away pop centers from the Dark Servants. In a few turns I'd grabbed two major towns and a town, again with no response by agents (who should've been covering likely targets in order to catch the group coming in). Remember, the point of this whole invasion was to get Dark Servant armies and agents off the backs of my allies and arrayed against my nation. It was never intended that they do any real damage; they were simply supposed to distract the enemy while the other Free recovered. So their success, due mostly to the fact that the Dark Servants did NOTHING while I attacked, was entirely unexpected. By the end of this time period my forces had burned a city, a major town, and two towns; and had taken two major towns, a town, and two villages. That's a total loss of 52,500 gold in tax base and 24 resource points, all from a campaign which I thought (and intended to be) doomed from the start. I was quite happy with the damage done, but most displeased that Mordor's agents had decided to continue bothering my allies when they should've been busy countering my moves. I was also mightily perplexed; did Mordor think the Corsairs so ineffective they didn't even bother to show up? And why did no one come to fight for the Easterlings? In fact, where the hell were the Easterlings? I knew from my own scouting that losing over 50,000 gold in taxes was damn near a mortal blow for the Dark Servants, so why didn't they put up some resistance? Turn 26-29 More players dropped between turns 21 and 29 from both sides, leaving whole regions undefended. This was worse for the Free than for the Dark Servants, as the entirety of Mirkwood and the Rhovanion lay open to conquest without opposition. Also, no one was left to contest passage through Northern Gondor into Eriador. The Dark Servants once again took the advantage in the north, primarily because the Cardolan player was being a putz and refused to help in the fight. This allowed Mordor to sweep through Rhudaur and do considerable damage, though a bit too late to affect that nation. In the South, Southern Gondor proved more than able to hold his own, keeping his nation intact despite repeated invasions and agent strikes. The army in the Ithilien ran into a very nice Dog Lord force of 3,000 well-trained heavy cav in steel - obviously his pride and joy (for me, 3,000 heavy cav in steel is about one out of six of my armies). Though the Dark Servants might think otherwise, I was overjoyed - finally I get to destroy some of Mordor's forces! I was sure that they'd simply hit me with agents and waste the two armies I had (both had lousy commanders and no backups), so the opportunity to inflict yet more harm before the armies went down was a welcome boon. In the ensuing battle I did indeed wipe out his army, though I lost all of my troops either to battle or the army commanders being kidnapped. At this point I implemented the second phase of the plan I'd drawn up, since the first phase had gone so well. While most of that second phase is still in progress and can't be talked about yet, here are a few things which'll happen before this goes to print: - the cav force which destroyed Khand moved off-map and north. Rather than fly through Mordor's back door and get hit by agents, it's now in Rhun destroying all the nifty - and unguarded - pop centers in the area. Yet more damage to Mordor. Especially that poor Easterling bastard, who STILL hasn't moved to block my armies. - a secondary invasion force landed in Gondor to take back a major town that GSI mistakenly gave the Dark Servants. Linhir (2527) was lost to emissaries even though Gondor had an army there during the turn - a computer error which wasn't corrected. I decided to do the correcting for GSI. Where shall this huge army sail to next? - emissaries are at yet another major town and will take that before Mordor can respond. These same emissaries have put a number of other pop centers into jeopardy with loyalty reductions, allowing any single good character to move in and swipe them. This scatters the targets and makes it more difficult for the Dark Servants to figure out where I'm going (watching Dark Servant agents move to the wrong pop centers is quite funny, actually). - there are more Corsair armies on the march. Where might they be? In the obvious places? I don't think so. Remember, Mordor managed to take out two of six standing forces, both of which I've already replaced. They can see two; where are the other four? Are you guys using your palantirs? Aren't you a little bothered that the South isn't brimming with forces? A Word on Info Gathering One distinct advantage we've had over Mordor is in our information gathering activities. The Free (those of us who actually play, that is) have been quite diligent in scrying/scouting/locating/uncovering secrets, giving us a very good idea of where Mordor's forces and characters are, and what they're up to. We've also scouted out most of the new pop centers that the Dark Servants have built (quite a few, actually; Mordor proper is brimming with new camps/villages and even major towns!). These operations have helped us enormously in our endeavors. For example, my emissaries have avoided agent ambushes on several occasions because said agents were tracked by us. This is easily done, as we know most of the names and can always track agent/curses artifacts to see where the concentrations are occurring. The Dark Servants are keeping par with us in the north but are doing an abysmal job in the South. A single scout/recon/scry would've located my infantry army on the march prior to moving into the Ithilien; a single good agent could've nailed it before it could act. The same goes for my cav in the east, which could have been found by one or two agents scouting from key positions a half-dozen turns running (now that force is in the open and will be harder to hunt down). Oh, and never underestimate the power of the double-agent.... In Conclusion There's a great deal I couldn't relate or even hint at in this article. At this time it seems that the war is a bit dicey in the North, but in a few turns that will definitely change. In the South, Gondor is intact and I hold a marked edge in troops and position over Mordor, despite the fact that I'm only one nation. Earlier, both Southern Gondor and Rhudaur were suffering because of character losses. Now that's no longer a real concern. With the gold at our disposal, we can each afford to move our capitol every turn and still have a combined surplus of more than 50,000 gold in revenues - not to mention what we could sell to raise more cash (I think I need to buy new warehouses; what the hell am I going to do with 30,000 leather?). So, now that we're all set character losses are no longer a concern. Like the Harad in any game, we can simply replace them each and every turn. Agents at the capitol? Send in a sacrificial lamb and move it; no big deal. And of course I still have a slew of very skilled agents and commander-agents to give Mordor a bad time (as the Dark Lieutenants well know). It's been my experience that once the Free are past the point where character losses are a concern, Mordor loses much of it's power. If assassination does little except cost you gold, if you can destroy just one target with that army, then eventually the Dark Servants will fall. With most of their might concentrated in the character game, their advantage in this department can simply be ignored by the Free with their relatively enormous economic strength. We probably won't outfight them; like Grant, we'll simply wear them down by throwing army after army at them until there's nothing left. We also have a few other weapons which we can't speak of as yet, but here's one I've hinted at. The Corsairs have some of the best emissaries in the game (90+) and are using them to good effect; other Free powers also have comparable emissary teams. Mordor might wonder what these teams are doing if they aren't on the offensive, and how they're going to guard against them all when they join in the fun. If I alone can swipe a major town every turn - with just three characters, or only half the team - how will they fight the rest of the full teams that we have? And Thanks I couldn't help but do a little gloating in the article. Still, there wouldn't be a reason to gloat if some of the opposition wasn't so good. Without the absolutely heroic efforts of Brian Lowery (Witch-King) and Steve Latham (Blind Sorcerer), this game would've been over for the Dark Servants ten turns ago. I'm not only impressed with their ability to hang on under the bitterest of conditions, but also with their consumate skill in recruiting dragons. How many times did you guys save your butts that way? Seven, eight? Jesus, I lost count. Too bad GSI fixed the bug about tagging dragons, eh? Though I've had a few personal clashes with both of my opponents, they've given me my most enjoyable game to date. Without good opposition, there's no point in playing; and these guys have proven time and time again that they bound and DETERMINED not to lose. Hence the fact that Mordor isn't a province of Gondor again. I still think you're doomed, my enemy. But even if you do go down, you fought one of the best campaigns I've ever seen in Middle-Earth. Out of the twelve games I've been in, you've definitely made this one the most enjoyable of them all. And hell; if I do end up losing to you, I certainly won't have anything to be ashamed about.... Tom Game 97: From the Point of View of the Blind Sorcerer By Steve Latham As the readers of the *Mouth* have been given quite a biased opinion (for obvious reasons) of game 97 for the past year (and because the editors asked me to) I am writing this summary of game 97 from the Dark Servant perspective. First off let me set the stage and summarize the players involved. I play the Blind Sorcerer and my friend and co-worker Brian Lowrey is playing the Mighty Witch King. Most of my knowledge of game 97 stems from these two positions. The Ice King, The Cloud Lord, and The Long Rider all live in Ontario Canada. The Dragon Lord lives in Florida and the original Dog Lord lives in Ohio (I say original because this position recently changed hands due to financial concerns on the first player's part). To be honest, I forget where the Easterling resides. These are the positions remaining active for the Dark Servants. TURNS 1-6: The BS's strategy at game start was to establish an economy and find artifacts. Most of the army was retired on the first turn and work was begun. The WK's strategy was a mixed bag. The cavalry was combined and Cykur was sent out to threaten towns in northern Mirkwood and the plains. This tax-base would subsidize the war-effort in the West. Meanwhile Ashdurbuk was sent into Arnor on a suicide run to keep Arthedain from striking right away. The Eothraim did not come in the back door so the retiring of the BS army did not turn into a disaster. Mt Gram was given to the BS by the WK and an army was begun in Angmar. The Ring of Wind was retrieved on turn 6 and the career of the infamous (I like to think so) Sharpkathoz was born. Ashdurbuk's head was handed to him (on a card sent by the Arthedain player) and he returned to Carn Dum (which had been made into a city) to plot revenge. Zarak Dum was threatened away from the Dwarves and also made into a city. During these early turns no attacks were made on Angmar. Camps were laid down in the Misty Mountains for Dragon spotting. In Mordor the the war faired well in the early going. The NG did not use the refuse challenge order and lost many a commander to the Dark Lts. and the Fire King. The Ice King and the Long Rider's southern army cover Osgoliath early but lacked the resources to take it at this point after a battle with NG. The Fire King stepped in and finished the job. At this point the QA had never been heard from (it turns out that this position was dropped right away and not picked up by somebody until around turn 5). Also, communcation with the Dark Lts was difficult as he would only communcate through the mail or with cards. The Cloud Lord attacked the towns along the south-western edge of Mordor and also appropriated the first Dragon for the DS. SG found out about this the hard way. In Mirkwood, the Woodmen never materialized (I like to tell the WK that it is because Akhorahil stopped in Buhr Widefiras on his way to receiving Mt Gram and intimidated him into dropping). The Dragon Lord and the Sinda were very timid players and did basically nothing but stare at eachother. The Dwarves caught the Dragon Lord just west of Mirkwood and destroyed his Goblin Gate army. On the plains the Dog Lord and the Eothraim duked it out. Not much is known about the goings-on in this theater. In the East the Long Rider pummeled the Northmen by killing every character in site. He did not move his capital and lost every starting character by turn 8 or so. He dropped somewhere in there. The Neutrals: The Corsairs said they would not turn until the end of the game in order to keep options open in case of back-stabbing. Some of us were offended by this attitude so it was decided to just leave the Corsairs to their own devices. (Some mildly nasty mud-slinging went on in here but we won't get into that.) Rhudaur was courted in a big way by the WK but could not be swayed. This should have been a big signal to the WK as to Rhudaur intentions, but it was played straight (by both sides) until icon change. Then, naturally, the gloves were off. The Easterlings were persuaded to turn DS with gifts of metals and artifacts. He changed his icon on turn 8 and did....nothing. The Harad and Dunlengings dropped. TURNS 7-12 Angmar: On around turn 8 Cardolan finally attacked Angmar. They were met by Ashdurbuk Zalg and crushed, losing a few characters in the process. Cardolan has not been seen in Angmar since. On turn 11 *The Battle of 1805* took place between the forces of Arthedain and the Witch King/Blind Sorcerer. 4200 Arthedain troops under Marl Tarma vs. 2800 under Rogrog, 1400 under Ashdurbuk, and 2100 under Leardinoth. After the battle the WK was greatly depleated but victorious. In the after-math of this battle Arthedain lost 4 characters to kidnapping and personal challange. Also on this turn the Noldo lost Elrond in personal combat to Murazor. Arthedain was hurting after this but would be back... The Noldo influenced away a WK town and hired an army under Glorfindel. Mordor: Southern Gondor raged into the Ice King capital and captured it. Olbermarl was handed over by the Long Rider as a temporary capital. Also on the same turn the Ice King turned his town just north of Osgoliath into a MT. The Dark Lts helped the Ice King repel SG from Mordor. Meanwhile the FK was building a HUGE army to march on the SG capital after having captured Minas Anor. The BS took Pelergir with Emissaries (with help) and handed it over to the IK. The East: Pochak of the BS marched north to help the LR with mop-up duty and continued on to the Iron Hills. Eventually removing the Dwarven presence from there and continuing on to Mirkwood. Smaug was added to his army while in the Iron Hills. Mirkwood: The Sinda and the Dragon Lord finally met in battle. Celedring was killed by Thranduil in PC but the 4000 strong Sinda army was wiped out by a dragon. The Noldo attacked Goblin Gate and moved toward Dol Goldur. Cykur of the WK continued to threaten pop-centers and be chased around by the dwarves. The WK handed Mt Gundabad off to the Cloud Lord so that another DS could have a presence in the North. The Dk Lts and Dog Lord continued a mystery war with the Eothraim. The South: The Corsairs annexed the Harad territory. The QA position was picked up and this player attempted to annex part of Harondor also. TURNS 13-20 (or THIS GAME REALLY HEATS UP) Angmar: On turn 13 Rhudaur moves to Mt Gram and turns good. However, the BS sensing this may be coming has vacated and met up with the Witch King at Morkai (2005). Here they have caught Glorfindel's army of 900 HI. Morkai became known to the DS as the Blood Hex (probably something worse by the FP). On turn 14 many things happened. Rogrog is killed by Glorfindel in personal Challenge (a misunderstanding of the challange rules caused this as Ashdurbuk challenged Glofindel with a larger challenge rank, but who goes first is actually determined by *natural* challenge rank, no artifacts). Rogrog had no back-up commander and the WK lost a 1500 HI. Glorfindel was defeated at Morkai by the remaining 3600 DS troops. Pelendur of Cardolan was in the hex and was killed by Akhorahil in PC (I believe he was leading a company of emissaries). Rhudaur captured Mt Gram and moved into Morkai. The WK moved all his remaining Angmar forces (less recruiting 100 troop armies) into Morkai. Meanwhile in Arthedain's capital, Argeleb II personal challenges Sharpkathoz (who was not refusing because Murazor was in the hex and challenging Argeleb. GSI says the name was mis-spelled). Sharpkathoz pulls off the miricle upset and only takes 9 points of damage. Scratch one Dunedain King. Sharpkathoz moves and joins Akhorahil's army at Morkai. The stage is set for turn 15. Game 97 turn 15 was the turn from hell for the Blind Sorcerer and the Witch King. The BS had already down-graded Rhudaur to Hated. The WK, suffering from delusions of persuasion, had not downgraded. His *easy* order given by a 40 commander failed (can you imagine the Witch King's populace not supporting something he told them to do?). The BS was left to attack the Rhudaur forces on their own while their ally WK's three armies stood there and watched. Needless to say, it was ugly. Sharpkathoz was captured by Arfanhil, turning over the Mantel of Doraith (stolen from Elrond earlier), a palintir (taken from a kidnap victim, the Ring of Wind, and freeing three hostages (2 Arthedain and one Cardolan). It was a major mistake having him in the army but it was assumed that the battle would be won and he would move with the army to the next battle. The bright spot was that he escaped to Mt Gram (where he could not attempt to steal the ring back the next turn!). This second battle of Morkai set the DS back in Angmar for at least 10 turns as the BS presense was whiped out and Arfanhil's army still present. Fortunately there were Cloud Lord and WK agents present in the hex to kidnap/assassinate/steal the next turn as we know that Arfanhil had to refuse challenge along with everybody else in the hex. This hex was a HOT bed. Ji Indur, Khamul, Murazor, Akhorahil, and other assorted evil luminaries were present. Also there was Aivnec the Dragon in a WK army, who sat by with an amused smile as Akhorahil's forces were beaten by Arfanhil and his Thoronrim Eagles. It is hard to discribe how badly the one failed downgrade order hurt the DS cause in Angmar. Most of the WK forces had moved away assuming victory to face an on-coming Noldo force some 2500 strong. Dancu remained to defeat Arfanhil the next turn, who was killed in the battle. His backup Valadan was killed by Ji Indur. The Rhudaur agent present was killed by another CL agent. The ring was stolen back by a WK agent. The Mantle was stolen back (or recovered) by a CL agent. As this army was defeated, Regent Marendil showed up in Morkai with the next wave of Rhudaur troops. The last of the WK troops returned. The BS hired a 200 HI army (Morkai had been turned over by the WK) and battle number four at Morkai loomed on the horizon. The WK and the BS had a mere 2100 troops left at Morkai. Due to poor planning and a lack of orders the exact troop count of Marendil's army was unknown. The DS thought they might win. An emissary was on hand to make Morkai a town. Khamul, Ji Indur, Murazor, and Akhorahil were all still there. Marendil attacked with 1400 HC and 600 LC which were well armored and well trained and proceeded cut through the rag-tag DS army and destroy Morkai. However, neither he nor Arfanhil's successor Broggha left the hex alive. The next turn the emissary reserected Morkai as a camp, but alas Elladan showed up a few turns later fresh from Rivendell to destroy it once again. All in all at least five Rhudaur, one Cardolan, and one Witch King minion lost their lives in Morkai. Where was Ashdurbuk with Aivnec you ask? Well, he had to move to Cargash to stop Gaerdae of the Noldo who was arriving from the West. Aivnec whiped out the proud Noldo but Ashdurbuk's army was destroyed in the process. Sharpkathoz showed up on the scene to relieve Gaerdae of his life and his artifacts. He also received the Ring of Wind back from the WK. While the WK was on the defensive all of the pop-centers in Angmer were gobbled up by Rhudaur and the Noldo. Only Carn Dum (Capital), Zarak Dum, and Cargash remained to the WK in this theater. Constant dragon recruitment would prove the only defense against the coming on-slaught of the Noldo, Rhudaur, Arthedain, and the Dwarves (I believe the Cardolan player was pronounced brain-dead somewhere in here, he decided to turn his attention to Mirkwood). Around turn 16 or 17 Din Ohtar of the Long Rider and company left the feeding grounds of Lothlorien for Angar. The agents struck and Fornost once again, in one turn attempting to kill 9 characters through personal challenge and assassination (I believe 6 were successfull). The Cloud Lord was also very active in the region. On turn 20 the disaster at Morkai was balanced. An army of 1600 HC under Baydor the Blank of the BS landed on Fennas Drunin (1910), the Rhudaur back-up capital. On the same turn Harnalda (2010) and Thuin Boid (2009) were influenced away from Rhudaur by emissaries. This prevented any armies from attempting to re-enforce Fennas Drunin. Indeed Herubrand of the Noldo was stopped in Harnalda by the tower as he rushed from Rivendell. Fennas Drunin was destroyed the next turn and Mt Gram was avenged. Meanwhile Seammu of Rhudaur captured Cargash and 1500 Arthedain HC caught a poorly outfitted WK army of the same size and destroyed it. Mirkwood: The Noldo, with an army most likely built at Rivendell and Goblin Gate captured Dol Goldur from the Dragon Lord effectively ending his military presence in the game. The Dog Lord continued to attempt to take the Eothraim major towns in eastern Mirkwood. The Long Rider and Pochak of the BS headed for Aradhrynd (2908) of the Sinda. There 700 BS troops with Smaug and 1900 Long Rider troops with Aivnec (fresh from eating Noldo at Cargash) defeated 4100 Sinda and captured the city (doesn't seem fair does it?). Amroth was captured by the Long Rider. The Sinda made a major tactical error in this battle. He had two armies (1000 and 3100). He intentionally split his attack, attacking Pochak with the smaller army and attack Uvatha with the larger army. This prevented him from killing enough of the LR army to prevent him from taking the city/fort. He must have known that there were two dragons present from his pop-center report (unless he mistaked them for player characters, Smaug? nah..) This gave the Long Rider a descent recruiting base in Mirkwood. Cyker continued continued his threating ways, still having an army consisting of all the starting WK cavalry. He threatened both Sinda towns in Northern Mirkwood, Buhr Fram, and the northern Northmen pop-centers. During the game he ranged from Carn Dum to the Iron Hills. He was assassinated by Arantar, a Sinda (we believe) agent on turn 22 while recruiting troops for an offensive across the Misty Mountains. His army was destined to retake Goblin Gate and capture Rivendell. The Dwarves Marched out of Moria (well, it is now) under Thelor II and threatened Buhr Fram and captured Mt Gundabad from the Cloud Lord. Also during this time-frame all of the hidden pop centers in the Mirkwood area were revealed by the Ice King. Morder and the South: The Ice King with the help of the Dark Lts. removed SG from Mordor, the Ice King having recruited Lamthanc. The Fire King raised a HUGE army and began the long, hard march to the SG capital. He was running his nation on the edge of bankruptcy. Unfortunately he was defeated by the US Postal Service and *special serviced* dispite having mailed his turn a week before its due date. His economy blew and he was out. On the very next turn the Dark Lts did the same thing, although it was more from a lack of planning. This all happened on or around turns 15 and 16. About this time the Corsairs must have decided to turn FP to make it more of a game in the south as SG was basically having to stand alone agains the IK, the FK, the CL, and the DL. The QA was attempting to annex some Harad territory and the Corsairs used it as an excuse to remove him from the game, which was accomplished in 2 or 3 turns. Of course he could not have know yet that the Fire King and the Dark Lts were out of the game. When these three events happened the DS thought the end was near. (Tom's note: being a co-editor and this the last issue, I can make comments with impunity. How much of an "excuse" did I need to attack the Quiet Avenger? He marched into the heart of Umbar and threatened to conquer me! Jeez, and Ithought I'd been patient with that guy....) Angmar was hanging on by a thread, the Noldo looked strong in Mirkwood (and the Sinda still had two cities to recruit with), and the Ice King was suddenly alone at the front door. The Easterlings, the Dragon Lord, and the Dog Lord were all fairly ineffective at this point in the game. Turns 21-25: Angmar: The Dwarves swept over Mt Gundabad and to the north of Zarak Dum. He moved onto it with a huge army commanded by Thelor II. With him were two agents (Grais being in the 70s) and one or two back-up commanders. Spike of the WK was there with a paltry 500 troops. Murazor was there to add challenge power. Ji Indur was there along with the Long Rider Company. Thelor II was known to have a challenge rank of at least 160, probably around 190. Murazor challenged the agent Grais (who refused but was killed by assassination). Ji Indur was warned to refuse challenge but neglected to do-so (though an order change was called in, but was not processed for some reason). Thelor II killed Ji Indur in personal combat. The Dwarves, bolstered by there General's personal victory captured Zarak Dum, freeing the dwarven slaves and capturing Murazor. The celebration was short-lived. Thelor II was killed by Din Ohtar the next turn, freeing Murazor, and only one of the Dwarves left the city alive (Bombor I believe). Zarak Dum was retaken by emissaries a few turns later and then finally destroyed by Arthedain/Noldo. While this was taking place the Ashdurbuk was busy at the Carn Dum defending it from Sarkar of Arthedain. Sarkar was defeated (basically by a dragon) and killed by Sharpkathoz, who wounded both Argeleb II (an new imposter who is a woman) and Meneldir on the mission. The first assault on Carn Dum was turned away. Sarkar had come very close to capturing the capital. He had shown-up with a large enough army to defeat a dragon, and war machines. His attack on the city reduced the castle to a fort but was not enough to take it. His army did survive and retreated out of the city back towards Arnor. The second assualt came a few turns later. Seammu of Rhudaur attacked Ashdurbuk's army. Each had a dragon. It was a devestating battle for both sides. Seammu was killed in the city. The WK army was once again destroyed. However, the fortifications have since been raised up to a Keep and Carn Dum has not been attacked again (yet). Mirkwood: The Sinda met the Long Rider at 2410, just southeast of Goblin Gate, and the Sinda were defeated. The door to Lothlorien was now open. The Noldo swung around to Eastern Mirkwood and Elrohir reclaimed the Eothraim pop-centers (who it seems gave up at some unknown time). Mordor and the South: The Corsairs, having destroyed the QA, made a feint at Mordor and raized Khand to the ground. The Easterlings put up a futile struggle and were beaten. Help did not arrive from other DS who were engaged too far way to be of service. However, the Easterlings still carry on the fight from their new capital at ****** (yah, like I would reveal it). Epilogue: This brings me to the end of my scattered naration of the first 25 turns of game 97. There may be a few in-accuracies as to exact turns, but the highlights of the game from the Angmar point-of-view are all covered. My hat is off to the Free People, especially Rhudaur and Arthedain who have lost many characters each so far. The Dwarves have recently joined them in that department as well as losing Khazad Dum (I wonder where his capital is now?). I hope that all players can experiencs a game like this one with basically equal teams. I have been involved in 5 of these games and none approaches this one as far as enjoyment and challenge (which is not to say that the others were bad, except 150 were I was the Duns). I was also the Sinda in game 104 which spurred the debate in the bytes of this magazine about the neutrals (I was not one of the players who irritated the Harad). I am the Dark Lts in game 152 (still haning onto Osgoliath by a thread) and the Long Rider in game 156 (just put the Northmen out but we are getting our butts kicked otherwise). If you are in either of these games feel free to reach me at ozz@majiq.com. It look like 97 is going to be a long and bloody campaign. I can't wait... Index to the Mouth compiled by Brian Mason [Tom's note: if there was ever an example of Brian's crazed passion for the game, this is it. He did all of this himself, going through every issue to create the index. An enormous effort I wouldn't even have attempted. Thank the Valar for my co-editor, eh?] Below is a list of articles contributed to "From the Mouth of Sauron" over the past 25 issues. The articles are more or less grouped by type and alphabetized by title. Editorials, queries, riddle, dragon, and encounter information is not included. In the case of the latter, these have already been encorporated in the general info files. SPECIFIC GAME DISCUSSIONS ========================= A Lost Cause (or how the Ice King Bit It in 7 turns in game 101) (or, Justifying the Early Demise of the Dark Servants in Game 101) (23) - Nunya B. Sness What Fun I could Have Had if I had Stayed In? (24) - Ronald C. Cudworth FICTION, HUMOR, ETC. ==================== A New Nation (14) - Brian Mason Attolma (15) - Patrick Wynne & Carl Hostetter Capital Pun-ishment (20) - Darin Fitzpatrick Commentary (10) - Leslie Foreman Commentary (12) - Leslie Foreman Commentary (14) - Leslie Foreman Commentary (15) - Leslie Foreman Commentary (5) - Leslie Foreman Commentary (6) - Leslie Foreman Commentary (9) - Leslie Foreman People's Midwinter Meeting (13) - Jeff Holzhauer Reports on Game 158 (24) - Jeff Holzhauer The Council Debate (3) - Brian Mason The Lighter Side (3) - Jeff Holzhauer Tolkien and D & D (14) - unknown Top Ten Rewards for Mouth Submissions (19) - Darin Fitzpatrick GENERAL STRATEGY ================ Allegiance Comparison Tables (3) - Tom Walton Arriving at an Equation to Represent Skill Rank Increases (5) - Brian Mason Building a Framework for your Team/Nation's Success (16) - Wes Fortin Diplomacy in Middle-earth (19) - William "Rock" Chasko Drops, bankruptcies, and other defeats (19) - William "Rock" Chasko Economics in Middle-earth (2) - Tom Walton Food and Army Movement (8) - Jeremy Richman Looking for Statistical Trends in Data (5) - Brian Mason NPC skill ratings (2) - Tom Walton Population Center Development (2) - Brian Mason Team Play by the Dark Side (19) - Patrick McGehearty The One Ring (22) - Tom Walton The Problem with Army and Troop Training (4) - Brian Mason The Problem with Army and Troop Training, II (5) - Brian Mason The Problems with Dragons (14) - Tom Walton & Brian Mason The Role of the Neutrals (19) - William "Rock" Chasko Winners & Losers in Middle-earth (8) - Tom Walton NATION STRATEGIES ================= Comments on the Sinda S&T, Issue 19 (20) - Dave Holt How Many Woodmen Could a Dragon Lord Chuck if a Dragon Lord Could Chuck Woodmen...? (9) - Dan DeYoung N. Gondor Strategy (or how game 101 was won in 20 turns) (19) - Dave Holt On the Witch King S&T Article (23) - Paul Comber Strategy & Tactics: Arthedain (13) - Tom Walton & Brian Mason Strategy & Tactics: Cardolan (5) - Brian Mason Strategy & Tactics: Northern Gondor (25) - Brian Mason & Tom Walton Strategy & Tactics: Rhudaur (25) - Tom Walton & Brian Mason Strategy & Tactics: South Gondor (24) - Brian Mason & Tom Walton Strategy & Tactics: The Blind Sorcerer (8) - Brian Mason Strategy & Tactics: The Cloud Lord (15) - Tom Walton & Brian Mason Strategy & Tactics: The Corsairs (14) - Brian Mason & Tom Walton Strategy & Tactics: The Dark Lieutenants (18) - Brian Mason & Tom Walton Strategy & Tactics: The Dog Lord (24) - Tom Walton & Brian Mason Strategy & Tactics: The Dragon Lord (8) - Brian Mason & Tom Walton Strategy & Tactics: The Dunlendings (17) - Tom Walton & Brian Mason Strategy & Tactics: The Dwarves (9) - Brian Mason & Tom Walton Strategy & Tactics: The Easterlings (20) - Brian Mason & Tom Walton Strategy & Tactics: The Easterlings (21) - William "Rock" Chasko Strategy & Tactics: The Eothraim (8) - Brian Mason Strategy & Tactics: The Fire King (21) - Tom Walton & Brian Mason Strategy & Tactics: The Haradwaith (24) - Brian Mason & Tom Walton Strategy & Tactics: The Ice King (25) - Tom Walton & Brian Mason Strategy & Tactics: The Long Rider (16) - Brian Mason & Tom Walton Strategy & Tactics: The Noldo Elves (12) - Brian Mason & Tom Walton Strategy & Tactics: The Northmen (23) - Tom Walton & Brian Mason Strategy & Tactics: The Northmen and Other Comments (13) - Dave Rossell Strategy & Tactics: The Quiet Avenger (11) - Tom Walton & Brian Mason Strategy & Tactics: The Sinda Elves (19) - Tom Walton & Brian Mason Strategy & Tactics: The Witch King (22) - Brian Mason & Tom Walton Strategy & Tactics: The Witch-King (14) - Wei Wang Strategy & Tactics: The Woodmen (3) - Brian Mason Strategy and Tactics: North Gondor (20) - Dan DeYoung The Woodmen (4) - Wes Fortin OTHER NON-FICTION ================= Customer Service (20) - From Bill at GSI How I got Screwed by GSI (24) - Tom L. My Experience with GSI, Or "Customer Service in a Monopoly" (19) - David Foreman News from the GSI Seminar at Origins (24) - Willam "Rock" Chasko Of GAD games and Middle-earth in Europe (16) - Darin Fitzpatrick Place Names (8) - Brian Mason Proper Usage of Nation Titles in Middle-earth (16) - Darin Fitzpatrick Questions and Answers with GSI (24) - Jeremy Richman Tabs, Spaces, and Screwed up Tables (21) - David Foreman The All Email Game (21) - David Foreman What Would J.R.R. Have Thought? (19) - William "Rock" Chasko CHARACTER STRATEGIES ==================== Emissaries in Middle-earth (9) - Tom Walton Mages in Battle (10) - Tom Walton More Character and Skill Improvement (3) - Tom Walton Naming Less than Ideal Characters (23) - Darin Fitzpatrick Personal Challenge Combat Results (4) - David Foreman Train Your Characters! (2) - David Foreman THE 2950 GAME ============= On the New Information about ME-PBM 2950 (19) - Darin Fitzpatrick Speculations: More Comments on the New Game (18) - Tom Walton, Eric Schnurr, & Brian Mason Speculations for Middle Earth PBM 2940 (22) - Lucas T. Cuccia II Speculations on player positions in the 2950 game: The Rohirrim (20) - Tom Walton & Brian Mason Speculations on player positions in the 2950 game: Further Comments on the Dark Servants (25) - Tom Walton & Brian Mason Speculations on player positions in the 2950 game: Imladris/Mithlond Elves (22) - Brian Mason Speculations on player positions in the 2950 game: Lothlorien (19) - Brian Mason Speculations on player positions in the 2950 game: Mirkwood Elves (20) - Brian Mason Speculations on player positions in the 2950 game: North and South Gondor (24) - Brian Mason Speculations on player positions in the 2950 game: Rangers of the North (21) - Brian Mason Speculations on player positions in the 2950 game: The Neutrals (25) - Brian Mason & Tom Walton Speculations on player positions in the 2950 game: The Rhovanion Free Positions: Woodmen, Northmen, and Dwarves (23) - Brian Mason Speculations: The New Game (16) - Brian Mason & Tom Walton Speculations: Encounters in the New Game (18) - Tom Walton Speculations: Dark Servant Pop Centers in the New Game (21) - Tom Walton On Resuming "From the Mouth of Sauron" We have both enjoyed both the work we've put into this project as well as the interaction with so many players of the game. I hope that our goal of "leveling the playing field" has been adequately met. I believe all of you have been made aware of our position on why we are stopping "The Mouth" now. Both of us are eager to start the new game, and to maintain in it a certain degree of mystery and suspense for ourselves and for others for as long as possible. Nevertheless, with the work of some intrepid people (some of whom, who shall remain nameless, are subscribers to this publication), it is likely that the "New Game" will also lose its novelty and that once more the "list owners" and "information hogs" will gain a significant advantage in the game. At that time (and our guess that it will be 6-12 months from now), it will be time for "From the Mouth of Sauron" to resume publication, for it once more to provide information to all subscribers and smash the illuminati. Our request of you is to, periodically, keep us posted on the "New Game" as you play it. To collect your data, and to hold on to it. Sometime, in the not to distant future, we will send out an "all call" to subscribers of "The Mouth" asking that you send us all relevant information on the new game, setups, population centers, characters, map ranges, encounter information, riddles, artifact abilities, and anything else, and we will then, as before, bring all up to date. Until that time, may all your games go well (unless you have the misfortune to be playing against us!). Tom & Brian Last Word From Tom Now would be the time to get maudlin', I presume. Let's travel down memory lane a bit, shall we? "From the Mouth of Sauron" first started out as a paper rag for a team which eventually started in game 117. This was back in May of 1993. The Mouth changed from that point into "The New Player Packet", which saw five separate editions and eventually grew to a size of 150 pages. This packet was put together to 'level the playing field', so to speak, between new players and veterans. The info advantage that veterans had was enormous and virtually precluded any new (or relatively new) player from having a chance at winning a game. I thought to change that. In late September or thereabouts, I found the New Player Packet becoming far too expensive and time consuming to produce and mail out. My address was freely distributed and I was getting requests for it left and right. Hence the move to email, and the birth of the new "From the Mouth of Sauron" as well as the information files that we provide free to everyone who asks. Originally, the email Mouth was simply meant as an info distribution center wherein you could contribute or not as you wanted, but everyone would have access to it. Many email lists were out there, but most veterans refused to share them with anyone but their friends. What was different about the Mouth and the files was that anyone - anyone at all - could have them for the asking. Even people I didn't like (pretty big of me, eh?). The response to the Mouth was far more vigorous than I ever anticipated. Overwhelming, you might say. In the space of two issues, the Mouth went from a simple "here's some more encounter info" file to a full-blow email magazine, in response to subscriber demand. And subscriber demand was very high. I was both thrilled and somewhat daunted, as I didn't really have the time to actually produce an email magazine. This situation lasted for ten issues, with the workload becoming more burdensome than I ever intended. But in a sense I'd given my word to do the Mouth, and so I kept at it. The most frustrating part of this process was that subscribers demanded a whole bunch of stuff, but weren't particularly willing to write much of it. Thus, I had to hunt down writers and solicit articles, hoping that their good will would move them to bail me out (thanks, David and Leslie!). Which brings me to Brian Mason. I met Brian as an adversary and game 62 and was impressed both with his skill and his consumate wit (you should see some of the cards we exchanged). Brian started contributing to the Mouth, and as I got to know (and like) him, I thought "hey, maybe I can sucker him into becoming a co-editor, then pawn the work off on him! Hmmmm...." (I treat my friends well). So I proposed this joint venture, all the while praying to ancient Norse gods, and was blessed with a positive response. Brian came on board and took up much of the work that I'd been doing, also bailing me out when the AOL mailer became overloaded with the number of lists I was keeping (resulting in frequent, disastrous crashes). Brian not only did most of the work, he also improved the Mouth enormously, making it a far better email mag than I was capable of producing on my own. Brian's presence also made it possible to produce another 15 issues without having to end the Mouth prematurely. This puppy tends to be alot of work, even with two people; without Brian, I would've had to shut down much sooner because of a lack of time (I was actually considering it right before Brian said "yes" to becoming co-editor). So that's the history. The Mouth has been alot of work, alot of frustration ("okay, we're about to print; so where's that article that so-and-so promised me?"), and a whole lot of fun. I also take great satisfaction in the fact that Brian and I have made it a bit easier for a few new players to hold their own in their first games (my hate mail from some veterans tends to confirm this). But most of all, I enjoyed the Mouth because I got to talk to literally hundreds of different people from all over the world and found that I pretty much liked almost all of them (well, you can't like EVERYONE, can you?). I'd like to thank all of those people, especially the ones I got to know well, but the Mouth would be another 3 or 4 pages long. And I'd probably forget a few names, which wouldn't be good. So to all of you who've I've played with and against - and haven't had any terrible spats with, ahem - I thank you and hope that you really kick some ass in all your games (unless you're fighting me, of course). I'd also like to thank Brian for his tireless devotion and work, which he continued with even though he's a busier man than I am - and has a family, to boot (and Brian, I'm STILL jealous that you have a job I can only dream about, you lucky dog). Brian is not only the best ally I've ever had, he's also a good friend outside of Middle-Earth, in the real world - even though we've never met face-to-face (I don't even know what Brian looks like). Someday I plan on rambling on down to whatever far part of the world Brian happens to be in at the time so I can actually have the pleasure of shaking his hand and shooting the breeze over a cup of joe. A couple more things for this last issue. First, the Mouth will be back at some time in the future, when the new guys are once again getting creamed by veterans with secret lists they jealously guard. And second, you'll see me in one of the very first of the new games. I won't be advertising, but I can tell you that I'll be playing a Free nation - and most likely burning everything in sight, much to Jeremy Richman's dismay. So if you have a crazy barbarian ally or enemy going hog-wild with molotov cocktails, yet refuses to identify himself, you might just be right in thinking that it's me. And if any of you devoted Tolkien fans feel the need to experience the rustic charms of the great state of Oregon, drop me a line and perhaps we can get together to recount our most glorious victories or our most tragic defeats. Or maybe simply argue over the merits of the Broncos and 49'ers (the Broncos will win the Superbowl someday, I swear). The first round's on me. Tom