Epic Game with Two Tricky Turn 1 Choices - War of the Ring 2021 League
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ส.ค. 2021
- Arydia Kickstarter (mentioned in video): www.kickstarter.com/projects/...
1:30 Turn 1: Do you spend a ring to crown Aragorn and get North to war?
3:00 Turn 1: Do you lose Gandalf, lose a random companion, or take 1 corruption?
22:20 Turn 6: What cards would you discard for FP?
30:46 Turn 8: What card would you discard for FP?
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Game log for this game: www.dropbox.com/s/dol0xf08ho2...
Please send interesting game logs to WarOfTheRingChamp@gmail.com! - เกม
In my experience, the most consistent rule of War of the Ring is that if you ever decide to take a random companion while Strider is in the fellowship, Strider will always be drawn.
haha! It does feel that way sometimes! :)
Yes!
Always use Fear Fire Foes + Crown if it only costs you a ring. Eru wills it when he hands you the FFF card turn one. It gets you a more unusual and interesting game, one that only occurs 1/24 games. Actually less, because you aren't guaranteed a Will turn1 either.
Agreed! :)
Totally agree. :)
Great to see high-skill gameplay with a FP military victory!
Thank you!
Love the videos, Ira!!!
Thank you!
Thanks for another video. Glad you were able to convert the military victory.
Thanks, Jason! Sorry for my slow reply. Hope to have more videos posted again soon.
Came back to the video having watched a number of others and had a further thought on the turn 1 play.
Many of the games where you win by destroying the Ring, and that don't end up on a coin flip with the last few tile draws, rely on Strider pulling the Fellowship through the likely rough patch the Hunt will have at some point. The hide ability is super powerful for keeping the Fellowship moving, and Athelas can be a pivotal healing ability with Strider as guide.
Given your probably going to want to lose Gandalf for to bring back GtW and get your 6th dice anyway, splitting Strider on Turn 1 is a big commitment to a Free military victory. Maybe that's okay if you start with the right cards, but it feels more beneficial to Shadow to know they are likely dealing with a slow Fellowship and a stronger military approach early. They can take time to build a more methodical and powered up attack and devote fewer resources to the Hunt.
So in the round its not necessarily a mistake to go for Aragorn on turn 1, but if feels like it needs to be a conscious play to a military first strategy not just a reaction to a particularly opening hand that you then try to play a "normal" game from.
I completely agree that Turn 1 Aragorn often leads to slower, more cautious FSP movement - both because you can't move as fast without Strider's guide ability, and because you've removed a 3-point the corruption shield from the FSP and thus need to be more careful with them. But in exchange, you get to build up more military defenses, and thus can ensure a longer trek to Mount Doom. Also, I think that having Aragorn greatly increases your ability to threaten military victory yourself, which is significant.
@@WarOfTheRingChamp I don't suppose you've got any statistics on win rate by side by game length?
Effectively we're saying an early Aragorn is a play to take the game long; slower Fellowship but larger build up of FP military to enable a longer defense and potentially FPMV.
Whilst tactically cards / opponent moves are going to weigh in, strategically whether that "go long" strategy is a good option seems linked to how likely a FPs win is over longer than average games?
This is such a great question, @CyberFrog!!
I looked at the last ~5000 games played in 2021 and 2022, and threw away all the games that didn't report a game length or were won because one side conceded. And that yielded this result:
Turn 6 (or faster): 45% FP winrate (3% of total games)
Turn 7: 37% FP winrate (8% of total games)
Turn 8: 42% FP winrate (16% of total games)
Turn 9: 43% FP winrate (20% of total games)
Turn 10: 47% FP winrate (19% of total games)
Turn 11: 46% FP winrate (13% of total games)
Turn 12: 48% FP winrate (9% of total games)
Turn 13: 52% FP winrate (5% of total games)
Turn 14: 55% FP winrate (3% of total games)
Turn 15 (or longer): 56% FP winrate (4% of total games)
I think the "Turn 6 or faster" category is as high as it is because there were a handful of games won on turns 2-4, all of which were FPMV. So I think we can see generally that if the game goes on longer, it does indeed increase FP's win rate!
That said, I'm not sure what's causation and what's correlation. For example, maybe in longer games, Shadow happens to roll more eyes early on, or get fewer attack dice. So maybe it's not about anything in particular that the FP player is doing, but simply Shadow's luck. I'm not sure! But still, this does seem to point toward something interesting. Thanks so much for asking! Maybe I'll do a video about this and see what people have to say!
I think the turn 1 decision needed to be weighed by not just the chance of losing Aragorn or a Hobbit, but the impact those outcomes produce for the rest of the game. So a 17% chance to lose Aragorn, which totally bones you for the rest of the game, a 34% chance to hit a hobbit which helps greatly, and gives you the FFF card nuts. However the other 3 hits that can happen are sub optimal, so overall you had a 1 in 3 chance of something really good, a 50% chance of something that was not favorable, and a 1 in 6 of making the rest of the game significantly harder. I think based on that you just take the corruption. However im new to this game, so there could be much that im missing.
I like your analysis, except I'd consider "the other three hits" as perfectly great. By losing a companion, I get to switch to Strider as guide, which is what I want, and by not losing Gandalf, I get to save his card drawing Guide ability for next turn (after I've already hidden with Strider this turn). Also, I get to potentially lose Gandalf to a 3 tile in the future. If I just take the corruption (instead of losing Gandalf), then I can't hide this turn using Strider's ability, which is something I want...
The one thing we didn't really cover is that I could lose Gandalf, and then bring him back with a WoW in the future to Grey Havens or Rivendell, which would also allow FFF (Fear Fire Foes). So maybe that's the least risky route while still enabling FFF. And then some time in the future, I lose a hobbit and they end up in Fangorn, allowing Ents.
Learning a ton from these. Thanks. On turn 4, around 15:22, you use Guards of the Citadel to muster into Gondor under siege. Since this would have put 6 units into a besieged stronghold, you swapped in an elite for a regular. Then the regular went back into your force pool, rather than casualties right? I am new enough not to have encountered this yet and haven't found a rule about it specifically. Thanks.
Nevermind. Found it on page 26 of the rulebook.
Exactly right! :) Thanks for your nice comment, and for taking the time to follow up with the rules reference to help others - nice work!
At 1:00:27, Shadow uses their only muster die in Moria. This moment seems like a huge opportunity to take advantage of their bad dice. Can’t you just march your whole Lorien army straight down to orthanc? After you move into fangorn, they must use their only army due to move the helms deep siegers back to Fords of Isen. Then you can use your last army die to combine your Rohan and Lorien armies. Then you could use a ring to attack fords of isen, where you can fight til they retreat to orthanc. Next turn you can use any character or army die to start the orthanc siege before they get another action, and it’s tough to imagine how they stop you.
Things worked out for you either way, but do you think this approach might have been better?
Definitely worth considering! If I use a ring to merge armies in Fords, then they'll be able to use a ring to muster, so I think they'll get 1 muster in Orthanc, and I'll probably be facing a 2/3/3 army, assuming I get one hit on my attack into Fords. I'll take ~2 hits from them in the Fords attack, so I'll have a 1/3/1 army + 4/1/4 army. It's certainly good! Coming back to look at this later, I'm not sure how many Ent cards remain in the deck, but that's a nice benefit of fighting in Rohan too. That said, they could leave a regular unit besieging Helm's Deep when they retreat to Fords, so I'll actually need an extra die to break the siege, which gives them an extra turn to muster. Still, I think that would be a very reasonable try! Thanks for the comment!
40:25 is there a reason you did not choose to continue the attack? He only had one unit remaining and you would have wiped his nazgul and the witch king?
cool, you work on Arydia😱.
Indeed! :) Thanks for the noticing! :)
My son and I recently started playing and we enjoy watching your videos to see the strategy and analysis. I wondered if you have played the expansions and if you have plans to show any of those plays? My son likes the extra content of the expansions, but I find them more of a distraction from the core strategy. My brian probably can’t handle all the added complications!
Thanks for the nice comment! I recently played a couple LoME games, so hopefully I can do a video of those at some point!
@@WarOfTheRingChamp please do! your videos are great for familiarising oneself with the rules and ive been looking to get into lome
Could you explain what the dice order would be to both activate the North and crown Aragorn on turn 1?
I list that in the video at 1:38. :) When you play Fear Fire Foes, it activates the North and brings them to war. You need two companions - Strider, plus one other. Die 1: Separate Strider + the other companion. Die 2: Move companions. Die 3: Move companions with Fear Fire Foes. Strider is now in Dol Amroth (DA) or Minas Tirith (MT), and the other companion is now in The Shire (or Bree), so FFF works. Die 4: Crown Aragorn.
Have you got any servers, somebody wants to play?
General question, what is the average number of turns most games take? Just played a game yesterday and had a FP Ring victory in 9 turns. My friend commented on how fast the game went but I felt it was an average length of game.
Good question! Assuming you're talking about the base game, it definitely varies on what strategies you use. For example, if you separate Strider early to get Aragorn, you may move the fellowship a bit slower (since you'll need to be more cautious about corruption), but you'll also have more dice to devote to military defense (or possibly offense). If you leave Strider in the fellowship and move the fellowship as rapidly as possible (using non-character dice to hide the fellowship with Strider's ability, instead of trying to maximize military defense), then the ring could be destroyed as early as turns 6 or 7. I think a ring victory on Turn 9 is totally reasonable, and probably pretty close to average.
I think taking random first turn isn’t great because 3/7 times you’re not happy and 1/7 times you’re miserable whereas you’re only happy 2/7 times. I think crowning Aragorn turn one is worth it because of the dice you get
Great point re: crowning Aragorn! I'm not sure I really mind losing a level 2 companion to a 1 corruption tile - that's a fine outcome, I think. But I agree 1/7 very unhappy is bad. :)
How can i watch a live game?
I typically don't post live games because they take a lot longer than the videos, and the videos are already long! But, if you join the discord, there are some other content creators who sometimes post live games! :)
love the videos . how can someone play the PC version of this game. i want to learn to play well with practice. thanks
Sorry for my slow reply! I recommend you join the Discord (link in the description) and you'll be able to find lots of people to play there, help installing the Java client, etc. Have fun!
Turn11 - Am I wrong about GtW having 4 movement points If he ist alone or accompanied by a Hobbit?
Nevermind, wasnt aware that you had to move through 5 regions
Exactly :)
So for the Turn 1 choice here, have to say I think its over-reaching to take a random. Your odds of getting a Hobbit are 2/7 (optimal), 3/7 you lose one of B/L/G which still isn't great (2 corruption damage for a 1, and it turns off some other cards, Horn of Gondor etc) so not ideal, 1/7 you lose Gandalf *okay* and 1/7 you lose Strider - disaster.
So you're probably at best looking at 3 / 7 results that are okay or better. Less than 50/50 and with some big downside tail risks. Especially when you can just take the 1, keep the fellowship intact, and assume you'll pick up some healing at some point anyway..
At least for me, 6/7 results were "OK." I don't mind losing Boromir/Legolas/Gimli to 1 corruption at this point, since I can then change the guide to Strider mid-turn and use one of those musters to hide the Fellowship via Strider's ability on turn 1, and then make Gandalf guide again for turn 2. That's efficiency for the FSP. But, I still think your point is valid - that 1/7 "bad" result is really egregiously bad, and that might not be balanced out by the 2/7 "good" results (hobbits) plus 4/7 "OK" results (Gandalf, Boromir, Legolas, Gimli). It certainly made the game more challenging for me!
Do you ever play shadow?
Yes, of course! :) If you want to see some of those videos, here are a couple:
th-cam.com/video/iC2XS12tf0g/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/QB6XbmzNVyM/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/3_u8hT_zvcU/w-d-xo.html
No expansions???
For now, no, but hopefully I'll get some videos up with the expansions at some point. In general, I think the base game has plenty of depth and replayability, and with two action tokens for the FP, it's a very balanced game!
T1- why not take a 1 ring corr hit*? As to before that ,crowning Aragorn immediately? , that gives SP options, right off the bat. As to mobilizing the North to war T1 , well sure , split off a character and do it. Possibly saves some die rolls and make the DEW look less promising. Especially as you can then move the Elves toward into war pretty quick.
2 good FP cards drawn early , Take the 1 corruption
*am I an amateur? yes , I am but why lose a character for 1 corr pt?(minus the options you might get, but the detriments outweighs this). I don't think the odds out weigh the downside.
unless I misunderstand the rules in this case, or maybe something moved so fast I didn't see it.
1 corr? why worry about it this early?
Please hold off on judgment, I am commenting off the cuff, while watching, and may revise later
As to first question, I personally agree. That said, Ira is correct to point out that this is a tricky choice. Crowning Aragon early is good but comes at some costs:
1. The Elven Ring (Ira seems to view this as a large detriment, I personally find that the Shadow player often has enough flexibility with his rolls that giving him a ring is not the worst as your use of the ring is usually much more significant);
2. Bringing Aragon into play makes the Witch King far easier to bring into play, particularly if you plan on defending Gondor;
3. An early sweep into Gondor from the Shadow Player forcing you to either burn action dice to retreat Aragon, or risk losing him; and most significantly;
4. The opportunity cost of your action dice. You should get two Fellowship movement without a Hunt about 58% of the time with the play Ira chose. This is equivalent to winning the game a turn earlier if you go for the Ringbearer victory. It also puts far more pressure on the Shadow player to place more eyes in the Hunt (not immediately, but liekly soon). It also makes the rest of your companion movement more flexible on future turns.
I personally would make the Aragon play. It is often difficult to anoint Strider the longer the game goes on. But its close.
The second play is more straightforward to answer. Discarding the Guide is rarely right as Gandalf's early ability is very useful, and worst case you can likely discard him next turn if you draw a Will of the West. By discarding a companion you end up in a far better position 2/7ths of the time where you discard a Hobbit. 3/7ths (Boromir, Legolas, Gimli) are about net neutral, you may have discarded them to corruption later. 1/7th you discard Gandalf which as I canvassed above may not be the worst thing for bringing in the White earlier. So thus far its not looking terrible with a 29% chance of being fantastic. However, that 1/7th of the time you discard Strider you are truly screwed. Obviously this game ended up okay, but on average win percentage must plummet with an early strider discard.
Ira explains some additional reasons why he wants to discard:
1) He can immediately make Strider the guide (6/7ths of the time) and use his remaining action die to hide, insulating himself from Shadow Event cards;
2) He doesn't have to waste an action separating another group of companions. If he takes the corruption one companion has to be sent off towards the North West, whereas Strider wants to go South East. Of course you cannot separate AND move companions on the same turn. So if Ira wished to play 'Fear Fire Foes' he would have had to spend a separate action die to send someone that way, then use the move companions to get them there.
In sum for this second question then there is merit to taking the corruption and there is merit to discarding Gandalf (though I think this is the worst of the options). The play Ira chose has great highroll potential, and a reasonably small (~14%) chance of a big backfire. It was a clever play that didn't work great this time, but the choice is on a knife's edge imo.
@@seamusdove3695 It is "mixy. Yes I prefer having Gandalf the 2-3 turns to cycle cards and Strider is just on a back burner. You are right about getting Aragorn too early, the die is nice but he might be running for his life. Yes, I could see the options as to why he took a random but that 1/7 chance of losing Strider on turn 1? Nah. And losing him to just 1 corr? Maybe with 3 taking, the risk is more justifiable, but 1 seems a littlle low ball , And with 3 , I guess I would just kill Gandaulf to begin with. Even losing a 2 coor player to a 1 random, is kind of of a waste. I can see if a hobbit lost , that would help with FFF, so with a random death(as you note)- he had 2/7 good -hobbs, 1/7 bad -Strider, 3/7 OK(but party -1 corr) ,1/7 -Gandaul (-2 corr) but gets the White.
That it was a 1 reveal so maybe kill Gandualf to start for that reason? and get Strider in there.
or take the -1, on turn1 , I'd prolly do that as noted, but revealed , gonna lose another die for that , or worse, but that early, odds are SP doesn't have alot of "meany" cards.
Now losing Strider and the fact the SP was throwing so many dice at the hunt, as early as turn3-4 IIRC It kinda predetermined that the FP would try a mil victory even without Aragorn, as he couldn't effectively move the ring after/with all that.
Speaking of "running for his life" The Witch-King thing just went from funny, to sad over the turns. And with 6Nazgul + 5waurgs , =11 leaders in Rohan?i just don't know.
I got to fault him(SP) for allocating so many eyes for so many turns, it got so bad, by around turn 8 , It just seemed to me he might as well been playing to lose, or more accurately he was playing IRa 's game. Not a way to win. I stopped watching turn 9 becuaase it seemed like a joke , I may go back and see the ugly end/nice FP mil victory from what I am reading.
So for turn 1:
Taking a random: You have a 2/7 chance to get a hobbit next to the Shire for FFF which is great, you have a 3/7 chance to lose Gimli/Legolas/Boromir which will speed up Gollum and wastes only 1 corruption and you have a 1/7 chance to lose Gandalf which might get you a turn 2 GtW and isnt too bad. That means its 2/7 for a great result and 4/7 for a decent result and only a 1/7 chance for a terrible result. As FP Im happy enough with those odds, usually you cant just "play it safe" as the FP against a good shadow as you will be too slow. I agree it wasnt absolutley neccessary here but I definatley think it was a good call.
Crowning Aragorn: Crowning Aragorn doesnt give options to the SP. You enable one card (King is Revealed) and thats it. The bigger drawback to crowning Aragorn is that you lose 3 fellowship hp and the best guide ability in the game (well after Gollum). In this particular game however, crowning Aragorn turn 1 gives the SP a ring (and therefore his 4th muster) so that the SP can bring in both Saruman and the WK on turn 1. With this many musters on turn 1 and 9 dice for turn 2 an early full scale assault on Gondor is on the table which will probably threaten Aragorn to run away with another die. So then you have invested 5 dice to crown Aragorn and get him to safety, bring the North at war which will then never get attacked (but will enable an early WK) and have yet to reinforce the Gondorian defenses against a full scale assault. All that with the FSP on 0 movement. Thats why I think not crowning Aragorn turn 1 is the right call.
@@chrisperrien7055 The SP allocating 2 eyes for the Moria section was fine but he also wasnt making the best use of his dice previously and afterwards (not bringing in the minions earlier, moving armys at half strength to later reinforce them, leaving 10 regulars in Mordor while Gondor was completly surrounded etc.). And then he took fights with his reduced armys which forced him to reinforce and gave the FP time to muster up more. All that combined led to the SP having little threats which enabled a FPMV attempt. Just allocating 2 eyes wasnt the main issue.
@@galahadb9723 dang lost a reply. here is the short version, hard to retype mad
Yes, he made mistakes in alot of places.
Not backing the DEW after FFF, and then leaving Saruman alone. Beside the Witch-king "running for his life".
Total clown show , partially caused by putting too many dice in the hunt past Moria.
I'll lighten up.
It does kinda say something about the FP using the FFF card on Turn 1 or 2, or 3, is very nice for the FP player . And the SP player better do something about it.