Let's Play: LOTR Fellowship Deckbuilding Game

[willpell]

I picked this game up on Tuesday of this week, and have played it every day since (albeit that this was a "solitaire" game, with me playing multiple "players", in all cases but one). I'm not a huge Lord of the Rings fan, but I do like deckbuilding games a LOT, and this is one of the best - simple, quick to play, very little setup time, and satisfying complexity. So I thought I'd play one more "solitare" round, and this time write it up for the Internet to behold.

I'm going to run just three "players" due to a shortage of space; the game can be played with two, but has enough political elements to make this unsatisfying. I've chosen the characters Gandalf, Aragorn and Frodo to play in that order, and selected the standard eight Archenemies for the game, not randomly per se but rather on the basis of how much they interest me (and don't annoy me). To begin with, I give each character their starting deck: six "Courage" cards which give +1 buying Power, three "Despair" cards which don't, and one unique card for each character which gives either more than 1 Power or a special ability. I shuffle the main deck and lay out the "Path" of five cards which are available to buy on Gandalf's first turn (along with the fixed card "Valor", which costs 3 Power and gives 2 each time it's played). Here are the five cards in this game's initial Path:

* Moria Orcs - cost 3, worth 1 power unless you've played another one already that turn, in which case it's worth 4. There are six of these "collect-me's" in the 116-card center deck, and one card which is worth 5 Victory Points if you get three Moria Orcs, so having them show up in multiples early has the potential to pay off big for a lucky player. However, just one Moria Orcs is less useful than a Valor, and thus will likely be ignored.

* Pippin - cost 2, lets you draw a card when played. Always useful. (Pippin and Merry are the only two Fellowship members who don't get a Hero card in this game, and so you can't play "as" them; all of the Fellows and several of their "NPCs" are represented by Ally cards such as this one.)

* Mirror of Galadriel - cost 3, worth 1 power, but more importantly allows you to look at the top card of your deck, and if it's not worth keeping, you can "destroy" it, permanently taking it out of your deck. This enables you to get rid of your initial Despairs, building a tighter and more efficient deck over the course of the game.

* These Are For You - cost 5, lets you draw 2 cards yourself while giving one card-draw to another player. This is one of the political cards I mentioned; in a two-player game it's distinctly less valuable than the also-cost-5 "Council of Elrond" which just gives you two cards, but in a three-player game, TheseR4U lets you help out whichever of your opponents seems to be less in the lead, potentially offering some competition for whoever's beating you the worst. (Both of the three-player games I've played so far, one solitaire and one with a couple of buddies of mine, ended with one player having an immense lead over the other two, in spite of collusion between the runners-up, but hopefully this doesn't prove to always be the case.) Because of its potential drawback of helping other players, TheseR4U is also the cheapest card in the game to be worth 2 VP (almost all of the cards other than those in your starter deck, and the Archenemies which you're trying to defeat, are worth 1 VP each, and so I will mention only the exceptions).

* Elven Brooch - Like the Mirror of Galadriel, this is a 3-cost Artifact (one of the four common card types, along with Enemies like the Moria Orcs, Maneuvers like TheseR4U, and Allies), which offers a +1 power when played, but it lacks the ability to divine and destroy your cards; instead, at the end of the game, it's worth 5 VP if you've managed to acquire five or more other Artifact cards. This is not as easy to do as it seems; you often are forced to acquire cards of the "wrong" card type just for efficiency reasons, and so getting cards like the Brooch to pay off is far from guaranteed. Still, they are among the few ways that you can potentially win the game even if other players beat you to the Archenemies.

Well, without further ado, let's begin the game.

[willpell]

Gandalf's first turn. Everybody starts with ten cards (nine of them identical), and you draw five of them on your first turn, then the other five on your second turn (barring card effects which might vary this formula, but are unlikely to do so this early in the game). After that, your deck will be empty, so you reshuffle your discard pile, including the cards you bought during your first two turns, and draw a new hand from the resulting deck; this process continues throughout the game.

Gandalf's opening hand contains two Courages, two Despairs, and his unique card: "Gandalf's Staff". It's worth +1 Power, just like a Courage, but it also allows you to destroy a card from the Path, denying your opponents the chance to buy something which you can't get yourself, and potentially sparing you from an Ambush (we'll get to what those are when they appear in the game). Since he has only 3 Power this turn (1 each from both Courages and the Staff), Gandalf decides to destroy TheseR4U, since it's out of his price range and would be worth 2 VP to one of his opponents; it is immediately replaced in the path by the even more expensive Black Riders, who do indeed have an Ambush, but one which would have had no effect on Gandalf even if he didn't ignore it.

* Black Riders - cost 6, worth 3 power when played, and they Attack the other players, causing them to discard a random card unless they have a Defense card in their hand. Like all the cards that have an Attack or Ambush, they're of card type Enemy.

Having not gained any new options through the use of his Staff, Gandalf simply uses his 3 Power to purchase the Mirror of Galadriel, puts it in his discard pile, and then discards his whole hand, including the cards he played and the two useless Despairs. Hopefully the Mirror will let him start destroying those on turn 3 or 4. He draws the rest of his starter deck - four Courages and a Despair - and ends his turn. After this, the empty spot in the path left by the Mirror is replaced with a new card, an Ally.

* Legolas Greenleaf - costs 5, and quite a bargain if you have a decent number of other Allies in your deck, as he's worth 2 Power for every Ally you play in a turn, himself included.

Aragorn drew the same hand as Gandalf, except that his special card is "Aragorn's Sword", which is potentially worth more Power in the late game, but does nothing special on turn 1. He opts to take Pippin, even though this leaves him with 1 unspent Power, because drawing cards is always good, but especially so for him. The empty spot in the path is filled with an Artifact.

* Light of Earendil - costs 2 Power to acquire, and worth only 1 when played unless you're either lucky or can peek at the top of your deck (such as with the Mirror of Galadriel). If your top card isn't a Courage or a Despair (or a Corruption; more on those later), and you either know what it is or manage to guess it correctly, the Light becomes +4 Power! Quite a bargain for its low cost.

Time for Frodo to get a turn. He did not draw his unique card, which is of course the One Ring; he's got the same hand which Aragorn and Gandalf are looking at, 4 Courages and 1 Despair, so if Aragorn had not taken Pippin last turn, he'd be able to afford both Pippin and the Light of Earendil. As it is, though, he can only get one card, and it can't be Legolas or the Black Riders; he decides that he'll take the Light just so Gandalf doesn't get it, as it's likely to prove too useful in combination with the Mirror. The Path is refilled with, of all Ally cards, Frodo's.

* Frodo Baggins, the Ringbearer - cost 4, worth +2 Power, and that's all if he's your only Ally. If you've got another one, though, Frodo will let you destroy one of your unwanted cards.

Back to Gandalf. Able to afford a 4, he sees no reason not to take the Frodo ally card, again mostly to keep the next player from getting something that would be more useful to him than to the player who's buying it. In its place, there appears a second Moria Orcs; if any of the players could manage to hit 6 power in one turn, they'd definitely want to snatch up the pair.

Aragorn's 4 power does him little good with the current lineup, and he knows Frodo can only come up with 5 on his next turn, so there's no great need to bogart a Moria Orc just to keep Frodo from acquiring the pair (Gandalf might, of course, but it's a tolerable risk, since only one of Gandalf's current 12 cards produces more than 1 Power, and he'd need to draw that one *plus* zero Despairs in order to get the Moria set). Instead, having no real interest in any of the cards in the Path, he just takes a Valor.

And back to Frodo, who has now drawn the One Ring. This card is an example of a Defense, a card which can be (usually) discarded from your hand to cancel an Attack or Ambush; compared to the Defenses you can buy, it's not very good, since it doesn't draw you a card to replace it, and might give you a Corruption, which is a blank card that chokes up your draws much as Despair does, but also causes you to suffer -1 VP if it's still in your deck at the end of the game. If you don't suffer any Attacks or Ambushes by the time your turn rolls around, and thus haven't had a chance to discard the One Ring (or simply chose not to), then it's worth +2 Power; since Frodo is the only one of these three characters who can get +2 Power on one card in the first two turns of the game, he has a slight advantage, potentially being able to buy a 6-cost card on turn 1 if he draws no Despairs. Instead, of course, he's gotten 4 power on each of his first two turns, and never had a 4-cost card (or a pair of 2s) to buy at the time, so he settles for the Elven Brooch, knowing that the One Ring will count as one of the five artifacts he needs to make this effective, plus he's also got the Light of Earendil for another one.

* My Captain, My King - The card which replaces the Brooch in the lineup is this Maneuver, yet another cost-3 card, which gives +1 Power and lets you destroy a card, while also forcing you to give another player the opportunity to do so. This is another of those cards which is a bit lacking in a two-player game, hence why I recommend not playing one.

With the game's slightly boring beginning out of the way, all decks reshuffled and all discard piles empty, let's take a quick break and get on to where the real fun begins.

[willpell]

Gandalf is lucky on his first "real" turn, redrawing his Staff as well as both of the cards he previously purchased; granted this means his next turn is going to suck, but he has the Mirror of Galadriel with which to blast the top card of his deck (a Courage rather than a Despair, sadly, but he destroys it anyway in order to thin his deck, as this is often strategically wise even if it risks costing Power in early turns). He uses the Staff to blow up a Moria Orcs, denying his opponents the opportunity to take the pair, and then devotes his 5 power (2 from Frodo, and 1 each from the Staff, the Mirror, and a Courage) to purchase the replacement card, the Uruk-Hai Scout, along with My Captain, My King. He thought about taking Legolas instead, as his Frodo could use a backup, but he wanted the destruction power of MCMK bad, and the serendipitous arrival of a powerful 2-cost card was too much to resist.

* Uruk-Hai Scout: This is one of several cards in this game which is a "2-for-2", costing 2 Power to purchase and producing 2 Power when played. It also has an Ambush, and a nasty one; if it appeared in the Path normally after a player's turn, rather than through the use of Gandalf's Staff, it would force the next player two discard two cards unless they had a Defense. (Granted, sometimes you can just discard two Despairs or Corruptions and not have actually lost anything, perhaps even gaining a slight advantage from cards which count your discard pile for some effect - the heroes Samwise and Legolas, who aren't in the current game, both have such an effect on their unique card - but in other cases, when you have a really good hand or have been nailed by other discard effects in the same round, losing two cards can really hurt.)

The following cards refill the Path after Gandalf's turn:

* Flaming Brand - a 5-cost Artifact, this is worth 3 power when it's played, and that's impressive in and of itself, but it goes further with an ability that's of particular usefulness when combined with other artifacts such as the Mirror and the Light; like those cards, it looks at the top card of your deck, but in this case you can "draw" the card if it's not a Starter card and you correctly guessed its type. The fact that these cards are all Artifacts means that building an Artifact-heavy deck is a rather strong strategy, one which both Gandalf and Frodo have gotten a pretty good start on.

* Lothlorien - Not only is this the first 7-cost (the highest cost of anything that isn't an Archenemy) card to appear within this game, but it's a member of the game's fifth (not counting Starter) card type - a Location. These cards are unique in that they don't go into your discard pile at the end of the turn they're played, but remain in play indefinitely and have an Ongoing effect. Lothlorien is the single most expensive of the bunch, because of how powerful its effect is - you draw an extra card at the end of each turn. Thusly, while the turn in which you play it won't be very big, your subsequent ones are all enriched.

Moving on to Aragorn's third turn. He draws four Courages and his Valor, so he's got a total of 6 Power; it was a good thing for everyone but him that Gandalf destroyed one of the Moria Orcs. Aragorn happily purchases the Black Riders, and the following card replaces them.

* Strider the Ranger - Unlike other Ally cards representing Fellowship members who are also playable Heroes in the game, this one shares Aragorn's face but not his name. Its cost is a whopping 6, just like the card it replaced, but it's worth +3 Power when played, and it functions like the Elven Brooch in being potentially worth 5 VP at end of game, save that it looks for Allies instead of Artifacts.

Frodo also has six Power, courtesy of four Courages and the One Ring; not especially wanting Strider, he takes the Flaming Brand. Another Location pops out to replace it:

* The Prancing Pony - This card doesn't serve beer, but it does give you a Defense which is available from turn to turn, instead of having to luckily be in your hand at exactly the time you get attacked. You have to discard the Pony when it defends you, but it can then be drawn and replayed. And the cost to acquire it for your deck is a mere 4.

Four Courages, one Despair; Gandalf knew he was in for a boring turn, and here it is. But he could hardly wish for a better card to purchase during that turn than the Prancing Pony, which he eagerly snaps up. Only one card, his third Despair, remains in his deck; he draws it resignedly, then shuffles his discard pile and draws four more cards. The empty spot in the Path is filled with one of the most desireable cards in the game.

* Put It Out, You Fools! - This Maneuver offers you two things that every player wants, both on a single card - a Defense against attacks, and the ability to Destroy a card, whether when Defending or just by playing the card on your turn. You don't get to draw a card as with most Defenses, so you'll be down a card the turn after using it, but the destruction opportunity is almost as good in the long run.

Aragorn draws three Despair in one turn, so his turn isn't likely to be much good, but he does have Pippin, so he gets to draw a card. Unfortunately that card is a Courage, and so is the last card in Aragorn's hand...so, with only 2 Power, Aragorn can do precisely nothing this turn. He needed to draw his Sword with Pippin in order to have a turn, but instead he discards his hand, draws the Sword, and shuffles the discard pile to refill his hand.

Like all the other players, Frodo purchased two cards in his first turn, and so reshuffled to form a 12-card deck after turn 2; unlike Gandalf and Aragorn, though, Frodo has no way to draw or destroy his top card during this turn, and so he'll only be gaining three cards from his reshuffled discard pile this turn, along with his last two cards from this deck. Looking at his hand and his discard pile, he knows that these last two cards are going to be either his last Courage or his last Despair...so the Light of Earendil isn't going to be able to score more than 1 Power in any case. So Frodo has just 3 power from one Courage and the Elven Brooch, having drawn two Despairs this turn. He buys Put It Out You Fools!, draws those last two cards, reshuffles and draws three cards. Reinforcing the lack of luck for non-Gandalf players in these last two turns, the empty space in the path is refilled by one of the very few Fortune cards, which will give Gandalf a huge advantage on his next turn.

* Raging River - This is one of the five Fortunes, which are cards that cost nothing and have a one-time effect on the game, then being Destroyed. This one is one of the simplest Fortunes, and almost certainly the best one to get, because it simply gives you +3 Power that turn.

With the advantage of Raging River, Gandalf might well have been able to finally take out the Nazgul, the game's first Archenemy, who costs 8. But as luck would have it, Gandalf drew a Despair and the Prancing Pony this turn (which he's happy to put into play, but it's not doing him any good this turn), so with two Courages and the Frodo ally, Raging River just boosts him to 7. So the best he can do is buy Lothlorien, officially making him the Location King for this game. Raging River and Lothlorien are both replaced in the Path after this turn, one by another copy of TheseR4U, and one by this card.

* Don't Tempt Me, Frodo! - This 3-cost Maneuver offers a Defense, like Put It Out You Fools, but is like the majority of Defenses (not that we've seen much evidence of this in the game so far) in that it lets you draw a card to replace it. If you don't need it as a Defense before your turn comes up, then it's worth 2 power to you, making it a strictly better Valor if you're lucky enough to get it; this can make it a painful decision to give it up to stop an Attack or Ambush, and in some cases you'll risk letting it happen rather than giving up 2 power to Defend against it.

Aragorn's Sword sat out the last turn, to great misery, but all is forgiven this turn. The card gives +1 Power for each different *cost* among cards you play in one turn, and Aragorn has drawn his Valor (cost 3) and the Black Riders (cost 6), along with two Despairs and the sword itself (all cost 0), so his total power is 8; it's time to capture the Nazgul! Defeating (ie purchasing) Archenemies is how you actually win the game; they have VP costs that start at 4 for the Nazgul and goes up from there, and their abilities as cards are insanely powerful, so taking one early in the game gives you a huge advantage.

On top of taking the Nazgul, Aragorn has also Attacked the other two players with the Black Riders, causing them to discard a random card each. Neither player has a Defense in hand (Gandalf could have used the Prancing Pony, but this seems premature), but Frodo is lucky and loses only a Despair; Gandalf is not so fortunate, and discards his Staff. But the fact that they don't have Defenses is about to hurt Frodo and Gandalf twice over, because after the Nazgul dies, another Archenemy is revealed.

The new Archenemy is the Moria Swarm, another 8-coster, but worth 5 VP this time. It's very Artifact-centric; its ability when played lets you acquire Artifacts for free regardless of their cost (the Nazgul does something similar, but working for any card type with a maximum cost of 5; given that the costs only go up to 7, the Nazgul might be better, except that it gives only +2 Power when played while the Swarm gives +3). Aragorn has to draw his new hand at the end of the turn, and then he and the other two players are all hit by the Moria Swarm's Group Ambush (every Archenemy except the Nazgul has one of these), forcing them to reveal their hand and discard all Artifacts. Once again, Frodo lucks out, not having any of these to discard, but Gandalf is holding the Mirror of Galadriel and doesn't want to discard it, so he cashes in the Prancing Pony to stop the Ambush. (If he had used the Pony to keep from discarding his Staff last turn - not that he'd have known it was the Staff he'd discard, since it was random, but still - then he'd have lost the Staff at this time anyway, since it's also an Artifact.) As for Aragorn himself, he has no Artifacts in his freshly-drawn hand, but Frodo and Gandalf know what he's holding (four Courages and Pippin), so they can make a pretty educated guess as to what he can buy on his next turn, and Gandalf in particular will have the chance to screw him over with his choice of purchase.

Well, our first Archenemy has gone down, so I think it's time for another break. Frodo's turn is next, and it won't be a very impressive one.

[willpell]

It seems only appropriate that the card "Don't Tempt Me, Frodo!" should go to Frodo himself, and since he has 3 Courages and a Despair in hand (he's danged lucky not to have lost one of his Courages on the random discard), the only other things he could buy were a strictly-worse Valor and the Moria Orcs. So he happily snaps up the extra "+2 Power or a Defense" card to go with his One Ring, and passes the turn.

* Evenstar Pendant - This new addition to the Path is exactly like the Light of Earendil, except that it costs 6 instead of 2, and when you successfully predict the top card of your deck (and it isn't a starter), you get 8 Power instead of 4. It remains worth only 1 Power if you aren't able to predict your future successfully, so it's really only worth using if you have a few peek-at-your-top-card effects...but of course Gandalf is a wizard, so he's placed a priority on acquiring such cards, and Frodo also has a couple. Aragorn for his part has no interest whatsoever in this card (in the current game, of course; in another he might purchase it just for the cost of 6, but he's got the Black Riders so he's good for now).

Gandalf doesn't have a very big turn either; he's drawn two Despairs, and would be in for a completely dead turn if not for his Uruk-Hai Scout, which gives him 2 Power all by itself. The Mirror of Galadriel supplies a third, allowing him to afford a Valor; the Mirror reveals his next card to be My Captain My King, and he has no intention of destroying that, so he draws it instead along with three Courages, reshuffles his discards (including Lothlorien and the Prancing Pony), and draws his final card.

Pippin draws Aragorn a fifth Courage to go with his existing hand, and so he has a choice between two 5-cost cards; Legolas tempts him more than a little, but he has only one other Ally so far, so he decides a better investment is the card-drawing (and 2-VP-worthing) TheseR4U. As usually tends to happen, he reshuffles just as his predecessor in the turn order has done; he's fortunate enough to draw the card he just purchased, making up for the fact that the rest of his cards are all Starters.

* Isengard - Yet another Location refills the Path spot that's just been emptied; this one is especially good for Frodo, who will have the first chance to purchase it, because it lets you destroy cards every turn, and Frodo tends to acquire Corruption as the game goes on. You have to have the cards destroyed in your hand for Isengard to work, rather than just "hand or discard" as with most of the one-shot destruction effects; this limits its potency, but it does get to apply every turn, so it's a good way to get rid of your Starter cards in a hurry. (I'm a little unsure on whether you can play a Courage for 1 power and then destroy it, but I'm assuming the answer is "no", as common sense would dictate that the card isn't in your hand after you play it, even if it doesn't go to your discard pile until the end of the turn.)

Frodo is holding two Defenses and hasn't been attacked; such are the vagaries of a game where you're constantly cycling your hand. His first order of business is to destroy a Despair with Put It Out You Fools!, and then he counts his cards and discovers that he's seen all three Despairs and four of his Courages, so there's a good chance that the top card of his remaining 4-card deck is not a Starter card. Playing Flaming Brand, he names Artifact, hoping to see the Light of Earendil - but alas, no, it is a Courage. So all he gets is 3 power, plus 1 for a Courage and 2 for the One Ring. Not having many Allies in his deck, Strider and Legolas aren't really useful to him, and he hates to pass on Isengard, but he decides that he's already done enough in the direction of being an "artifact deck" that he can't stand to pass up the 2-VP Evenstar Pendant. It is replaced in the path by another copy of My Captain, My King...

...a card which Gandalf also has in his hand, using it to destroy a Despair and offering Frodo the same chance. Frodo has only Courages and useful cards in his hand, and is reluctant to destroy one of the former and reduce his power on the next turn, but opts to go for it, since he can still afford Isengard if it survives Gandalf's and Aragorn's turns unmolested. With the destruction attended to, Gandalf counts his three Courages and MCMK, sees nothing better in the Path, and buys Isengard himself, continuing his Location theme (somehow, the game always seems to work this way, despite there being no reason why the same player ought to keep getting all the Locations). It is replaced in the Path by a card Gandalf would have liked, but which Frodo is even more desperate to acquire - if Aragorn, who always appreciates card-draw, doesn't snap it up first.

* Seeing Stones - This exceedingly useful Artifact (which sports a picture of Saruman, and shows a flaming eye in the titular Palantir, so it's also the only card in this set which "shows" Sauron himself, although his awesome-looking war-form naturally adorns the box) lets you draw two cards for only a cost of 4, but this excellence is balanced by the "cost" of having to put any card from your hand back on top of your deck. The applications for this are nearly limitless - saving a Defense for next turn, setting up a conditional card like Aragorn's Sword or Gandalf's Staff to come back on a later turn if it's not useful enough right now, or most importantly enabling you to guarantee success on a Light of Earendil, Evenstar Pendant, Flaming Brand, or Mirror of Galadriel (plus you'll notice that these are all Artifacts). And if all else fails, you can usually just put back a Despair (or Corruption) from your initial hand, and have gained two useful cards at no real cost (past having a sucky card in your hand next turn).

Feeling sort of indebted to Gandalf for having unintentionally set up Seeing Stones for him to purchase, Aragorn chooses him to draw a card with TheseR4U (the card is a Valor, so this represents a significant improvement to Gandalf's next turn). The two cards he himself draws are both Courages, so he's left with 5 Power; unfortunately for the already-snubbed Frodo, he cares more about getting different costs and card-drawing into his deck (for the sake of Aragorn's Sword) than he does about spending all his Power each turn, so he gobbles up the Seeing Stones, denying them to both of the players who are collecting Artifacts. He draws the Nazgul, so his next turn will be awesome, and he refills the Path with a card that's much more useful earlier in the game.

* Recover Your Strength - this maneuver gives you +1 power, and if you play it first in the turn, you discard your hand and draw four cards. The best reason to ever purchase it is simply because it costs just 2, but even being cheap isn't enough to make it a terribly good buy, as most of the time you'll want to avoid triggering its effect because you'll have actually useful cards in your hand, and not want to risk losing them.

Having seen two luscious 4-cost cards slip through his fingers, Frodo is really hoping the Light of Earendil hits; he'll be wasting some power regardless, since there's neither a 4 nor a 7 in the lineup and he's not interested in buying the 5 and the 2, neither of them working well with his Artifact collection to date. Unfortunately, his deck is full-sized and he's holding the Elven Brooch as well as the Light, so he doesn't have too much confidence as he names Artifact - but luckily he reveals the Flaming Brand. So he's able to take My Captain My King, a consolation prize of sorts for the lost Isengard, as well as a Valor.

* Sting - The newest addition to the Lineup is a 4-cost and 2-power Artifact, which is in the same family as Elven Brooch and Strider, but differs from those cards in counting a card type other than its own. To make it score 5 VP, you must collect at least five Enemies - but the whole point of the game is to take down -enemies of the Arch variety, who do indeed count. So Sting is arguably more likely than the other two (which explicitly don't count themselves, although they do work well in multiples) to actually pay off.

Gandalf replays the Prancing Pony, then uses the Mirror of Galadriel to destroy a Courage off the top of his deck; he adds a Courage and a Valor (his last card is a Despair which continues to elude the Mirror's deadly beams) to the Mirror's 1 Power, and purchases Sting for his Artifact collection.

* Merry - Ah, there's our other non-Hero hobbit (apart from Bilbo of course; sorry, Fredegar fans, but Fatty Bolger didn't make it into this particular LOTR game.) This very useful 3-cost card is comparable to the Mirror of Galadriel, but differs in a number of particulars - he's an Ally rather than an Artifact, and is worth +2 Power when played instead of +1, but in exchange he's less powerful as a top-deck-affecter, being able only to discard the card you've peeked at, instead of destroying it. Of course, there are times when this is preferable, such as with the Elven Brooch or a solitary Moria Orc, cards that aren't currently useful but which you'd like to still have in your deck at the game's end. But in most cases, destruction is preferable, and with plenty of other sources of Power, I would say the Mirror is a slightly better card. Even so, however, Merry is always a welcome sight, being at the very least a strictly better purchase than Valor (given that there's never any reason to collect Maneuvers, you'd always rather have an Ally instead, even if it did nothing else besides provide 2 power).

Aragorn's first act is to play Pippin and draw a card; this is his Sword, and it marks his turn's transition from impressive to downright insane. He's holding two Despairs but he doesn't even care, because he has the Nazgul! This card's ability gives him a card from the Lineup for free, potentially the equivalent of up to 5 Power, as well as adding +2 Power itself; Aragorn's Sword is worth another +3 since he's played costs 0, 2, and 8, so with a Courage to top it off, he has 6 power. He has the Nazgul harvest Legolas Greenleaf, then spends his power on Strider the Ranger, instantly transforming his deck into "an Ally deck" despite having had only Pippin previously. Two holes in the Path are then filled.

* Haldir - This Ally is a simple "2-for-2", and requires no further discussion.

* A Gift - This card is a different story; it's our second Fortune, and it's the swingiest of the bunch, allowing you to take the top card from the center deck into your hand for free. This might give you a card of unimpressive power, even one you don't especially want (such as a Maneuver in a deck that's previously been mostly Allies or one that reliably topdecks Artifacts), but it also might give you an incredible 6- or 7-cost card whose power instantly upgrades an already-decent hand. More than perhaps any other single card in the set, A Gift is going to lead to many memorable events over a career of playing this game.

Holding an only so-so hand, with a frustrating 7 Power (frustrating in that it's not quiiite enough to take out the Archenemy), Frodo eagerly accepts his Gift, which turns out to be the Rivendell location, which he immediately puts into play despite having never seen it before this turn. (Like I said, A Gift can produce very remarkable results) This gives you +1 Power for each Ally you play, but Frodo doesn't have any Allies in play; I don't even remember if he's purchased any, and rather than search through this record to find out, I decide to pretend I'm playing this game normally and have to trust my memory, so with no idea whether this will actually work, I choose to have Frodo name "Ally" as he plays Flaming Brand. The card was a Courage, so it didn't actually matter what he named; Rivendell turns out not to contribute anything useful to the current turn, but at least Aragorn didn't get it.

With the 7 Power he does have, Frodo can't take down the Moria Swarm, so he contributes to the game eventually ending in a more roundabout way - he buys Haldir, Merry, AND Recover Your Strength, diluting his previous focus on Artifacts but gaining a new way to divine the top card of his deck, as well as some cheap allies that will be worth 3 Power each in Rivendell, and don't end up falling into Aragorn's clutches. For the first time the Path is empty except for a single card, and four new ones are flipped into it, ensuring that if players continue to ignore the Archenemy stack, eventually the main deck will run out and the game can end that way. Among these cards are a Light of Earendil which Frodo would have liked to have had instead of Recover Your Strength, another Sting, a second Moria Orcs, and this card:

* One Does Not Simply Walk Into Mordor - Besides being an Internet meme, this Boromir quote is also a powerful 6-cost maneuver which returns +3 Power when played, is worth 2 VP, and most importantly to Gandalf who's going to have the first chance to buy it, lets you draw a card for each Location you have out.

Gandalf is now drowning in spectacular options which he wants to acquire; 6 power would get him either Walk Into Mordor or the matched pair of Moria Orcs, and a second Sting would go very nicely with the latter, while the Light of Earendil is cheap and supports his existing Artifact focus. Alas, Lothlorien is among his current cards, and as I said before, this is a very nice card on all subsequent turns but contributes nothing when you first put it out. Frodo the Ringbearer, the Uruk-Hai Scout, Gandalf's Staff and a Despair comprise the rest of his hand, and this totals only 5 power. He's prepared to just buy Sting, but first he blows up a Moria Orc with his Staff in order to ensure that Aragorn doesn't take the pair (he has to risk letting Frodo get Walk Into Mordor, hoping that he won't be able to afford it and so Gandalf will get another chance). And the new card is a 4-cost artifact much more exciting than Sting, which he takes and replaces, before reshuffling his deck to include that new acquisition (which he unfortunately doesn't draw among the 6 cards which Lothlorien entitles him to).

* Boromir's Shield - Besides adding +2 Power, this Artifact is a Defense, and one that draws a replacement card when used. But what makes it worth 1 more cost than Don't Tempt Me Frodo, besides being an Artifact, is that if the Shield stops an Ambush from the Path instead of a Group Ambush or another player's Attack, you *gain* the Ambushing card for free, in *addition* to the card you draw for defending. This isn't terribly likely to actually happen, but on those occasions when it does...look out!

* Elendil - The replacement card for Boromir's Shield, this Ally is cost 5, +3 Power, and 2 VP. Not as exciting as the comparable Flaming Brand, but solid nonetheless, plus it's an Ally. A dedicated Ally deck would probably rather have Legolas for the same price, but Elendil is more useful in general, paying off better if he's your only Ally as well as being worth more at the game's end.

Once again, Aragorn has drawn the Black Riders along with 5 other Power (a Valor and three Courages), so he gets to force both players to discard at random and then suffer a Group Ambush, unless they have at least one Defense to reduce that to "or". Although he's the one player who isn't going for Artifacts, this isn't enough to stop him from taking down the Moria Swarm. Having no other Defense, Gandalf opts this time to throw the Prancing Pony in front of the Black Riders and risk whatever the next Archenemy might do to him, not wanting to trust his luck about discarding a Courage or Despair instead of the 2-power Frodo or the Mirror of Galadriel. Frodo, however, has the double Defenses he needs - actually, I just re-read the One Ring card and discovered that it is the one Defense in this game which *isn't* discarded when used, so he has an infinite number of defenses, but he'll want to use the other one second. (In an actual game, this logic wouldn't apply unless Aragorn's player was a little dense, since if he was smart he could play the Black Riders first and fully resolve them, drawing out Defenses before he proceeded with the rest of his turn, so the players wouldn't know how much his total power would turn out to be and thus couldn't assume he'd take an Archenemy. This is not, however, an actual game, so I might as well play as if Aragorn were enough of an amateur to play out his whole hand at once and not keep any secrets.)

So, using the One Ring, Frodo avoids the Black Riders attack, but has to look at the top card of the center deck. It's not an Enemy, so he's not corrupted. So we move along to the new Archenemy and its Group Ambush, which Frodo is immune to while Gandalf is at its mercy. This foe is Ulaire Ostea (a mis-spelling of Ulaire Otsea, a name coined for one of the Ringwraiths by the makers of an earlier LOTR card game, which is simply Quenya for "the seventh ringwraith"; the similarly-coined names of the third and fourth ringwraiths are used for other AEs in this game), who is cost 9 this time, and his Ambush forces everyone to reveal their hand, taking two Corruptions if they have any Allies. Frodo doesn't, but he Defends anyway just so he can use Put It Out You Fools! (which would do the same thing if he waited to play it on his turn, but whatever), destroying his Despair since he doesn't have a Corruption to take out; the other two players are not so lucky, as both of them have an Ally and lack a Defense, so they are double-Corrupted, although at least they both have several turns to try and destroy the Corruptions before they get shuffled into their decks.

As before, I'll treat the defeat of an Archenemy as a good break point.

[willpell]

Aragorn is 2 in 2 for dealing with the Archenemies so far, so the other players strike an informal alliance against him to keep him from developing an even more insurmountable lead. As the first participant in this compact, Frodo is holding only three cards and one of them is the Evenstar Pendant, so whether he gets to kill an Archenemy of his own or just gets a Valor or something this turn is entirely determined by whether he can guess the top card of his deck. But at the moment, he has no deck, so before he shuffles his discard pile, he studies it carefully, counting each non-Starter card type and discovering that this erstwhile "artifact deck" actually contains more Maneuvers at the moment, if the two Artifacts in the hand are discounted. Unfortunately, my shuffle leaves a Courage on top of the deck, so the Pendant doesn't work, and Frodo is down 7 power for that turn, having only the One Ring to make a purchase even possible. Not wanting to deprive his temporary Ally of the other Light of Earendil, even though it would help him avoid these situations in future, Frodo purchases a Valor and leaves the Lineup alone, ensuring Gandalf won't be Ambushed again.

Using the Mirror of Galadriel, Gandalf peeks at his top card and discovers it to be his Staff; he wrestles with the decision, but decides he will indeed destroy it, since it's only +1 power and its Path-affecting ability isn't super-powerful, and he hopes the game will continue for long enough that he can get enough more Artifacts not to miss the one which is worth 0 VP. He would have liked to destroy his Despairs, but unfortunately two of them are in his hand, along with a Frodo who has no other Allies to support him. So Gandalf fixes that problem by buying Elendil, still unable to afford Walk Into Mordor. He discovers that the decision to destroy his Staff was not especially beneficial at the moment, as the sixth card he draws is just a Courage; the destruction may pay off in the long run, but probably not for a while, and it'll never be possible to tell exactly how much.

* Twilight Ringwraith - The new card which pops up in the Path is the first (non-Group) Ambush which I can recall having seen all game; this 5-cost Enemy provides 2 Power when played, and sometimes allows you to recycle previously played Enemies (up to and including a matched pair of Moria Orcs, for a maximum of 5 extra Power), but all that doesn't help when it's Ambushing you; at that time it forces you to reveal your hand and discard all 3-cost cards, which I believe is the most common cost of cards in the main deck (again including the Moria Orcs), and is definitely the cost of Valor.

Luckily, while he has no Defense, Aragorn also doesn't have any 3s; what he does have is the Nazgul again, plus a Seeing Stones to let him draw two cards (which could safely be 3s), and two Despairs which he can use to discharge the Seeing Stones with relative safety. He draws Pippin, enabling him to redraw whatever he puts back for the Stones, and adding 2 power to Legolas; a Courage plus the Nazgul total up to 7 power, and the Nazgul captures the Twilight Ringwraith for free since there's nothing more worth having in its place. Though tempted to take Walk Into Mordor just so the other two don't get it, he then decides to spend all his Power on Sting and Moria Orcs, supporting the Ringwraith and his Archenemies, officially giving him "an Enemy deck" as well as "an Ally deck" - and sending three empty Path slots Frodo's way, with the possibility of either Fortunes or Ambushes (but the latter are far more common). Another Moria Orcs fills the space, along with two new cards.

* Uruk-Hai: This 4-cost Enemy is worth +2 Power, and its Attack forces opponents to choose and discard a card, having little effect in the early game when everyone has Despairs in their hand nearly every turn, but potentially devastating players who fail to invest in Defenses later in the game, when most of their cards are hard to part with. It also bears an Ambush, which gives the opponent a Corruption, making it a very solid card all around.

* Lord Elrond: One of several absurdly powerful high-cost Allies, Hugo Weaving is a 7-cost card which pays off only +2 Power, but he's worth 2 VP, and more to the point he can get you as many as four Allies into your hand for free. While getting all four cards is vastly unlikely, even one is powerful, particularly if that one is Legolas or Strider (or the other 7-pointer, Galadriel, who is even *more* potentially-absurd than Elrond).

Frodo is indeed Ambushed by the Uruk-Hai, and could use Don't Tempt Me! to defend, but that would give up the power which currently enables him to buy Lord Elrond, and with Rivendell on the table in front of him, he can't stand to take that risk (he does have a Flaming Brand in his hand which might fetch back the lost power, but his deck is not pure-Artifact by a long shot, and so he can't count on the Brand working; if reduced to 5 power for the turn, he'd have nothing worth getting). So, despite not being anywhere near the One Ring at the moment, Frodo gains his first Corruption, and then he plays his cards (carefully not setting down Recover Your Strength first), reveals a Starter card to the Brand, and then purchases Elrond.

* Seduced By The Ring - Yet another new card shows up in the Path; this one is a 4-cost Maneuver that's only worth 1 Power by itself, so it's not really worth having unless you plan to use it to full power. Doing so enables you to draw two cards, but first you have to gain a Corruption; naturally this is safer if you have a lot of Destruction in your deck - which, happily, Gandalf does.

Sad not to have been ambushed since he's holding Boromir's Shield, Gandalf first puts down Isengard, then uses it to destroy a Courage from his hand. This reduces him from 7 power to 6, but that hardly matters when One is about to Not Simply Walk Into Mordor. He also uses My Captain, My King to remove a Corruption from his discard pile, and allow Frodo to do the same. (Interestingly, all of the Maneuvers mentioned in this paragraph, and Seduced by the Ring which immediately precedes it, have Boromir in their picture.) Reshuffling his deck, Gandalf is spectacularly lucky - he draws Walk Into Mordor *and* the Prancing Pony, so if nothing interferes, he'll draw *three* extra cards on his next turn, which with Lothlorien will give him a total of *nine* that turn, an otherwise nigh-impossible feat.

The Path gains a new Mirror of Galadriel, and Aragorn doesn't have much else to consider buying; his hand is a Despair, two Courages, himself (in alias-using Ally form), and his Sword, which is worth only 2 for the costs of 6 and 0, represented respectively by Strider and the entire rest of the hand. This total of 7 won't give Aragorn a third Archenemy, so he settles for taking another Moria Orcs and Seduced By the Ring, hoping that his massive card-draw and the Sword will enable him to take in enough VP to make up for a few Corruptions. He should perhaps have taken the Mirror instead of Seduced, since the one makes the other safer, but it's sort of fitting for Aragorn to play arrogantly; he is the setting's Marty Stu, after all. Drawing his last card (TheseR4U), he reshuffles his deck and draws four more - the Twilight Ringwraith, with nothing to fetch since he no longer has a discard pile, plus Despair, Corruption, and a Seeing Stones which can put any of these back after drawing two more cards (for a total of eight cards drawn that turn, though if one of them is Pippin, he'll manage to equal Gandalf's impending feat).

* That Was Close! - Two 3-cost Defense-granting maneuvers fill the new openings in the Path which Aragorn has created; one is Don't Tempt Me Frodo!, while this other new one is worth less Power when played, but is much more fun to have when you need to Defend (assuming the game isn't two-player), particularly given the alliance which exists between the two non-winning players in this game. The player of TWC! gets to pick one other player, and both you and them can avoid the Attack or Ambush (a non-Group Ambush wouldn't actually affect the other player, so presumably they can't avoid it); if you alone are protected this way, you draw a card, but if you save someone else as well, you draw *two* cards, something which no other Defense in this game enables you to do (apart from a promotional card I don't actually own, though I've debated playing a proxy version).

Frodo has finally drawn Merry, but unfortunately the Evenstar Pendant is nowhere in sight; peeking at the Light of Earendil, he discards it for no other reason than to ensure that he draws two cards rather than one from his reshuffled discard pile this turn. Totaling 6 power across his very boring cards this turn, he purchases a Mirror of Galadriel and That Was Close!, letting Gandalf not tempt himself this time if he so chooses. The redrawn cards do indeed include the Evenstar Pendant, but not any way of helping it to work, although at least he does get a Despair to destroy with My Captain, My King. (Only then do I realize that I forgot the +1 power from Rivendell, so Frodo could have taken the Uruk-Hai in place of one of the other cards - but he didn't especially want to in either case, since his deck is mostly Artifacts and Maneuvers with a few Allies, and an Enemy would only further screw up his already tenuous topdecks.)

* Horn of Gondor - We're still seeing a lot of Boromir on Gandalf's turns; this Artifact rewards you for having a deck with many different card types, which is something that tends to happen anyway, in spite of all attempts to build a narrowly focused Artifact or Ally deck. This Artifact costs 3, and can pay off as much as 5 Power if you luckily draw a Location that turn in addition to the other card types (Starter cards never count for the Horn, nor do Corruption, and only a couple of *very* narrow loopholes involving cards such as A Gift enable you to get a Fortune card into your hand somehow, so a 6-point Horn is theoretically possible but vastly unlikely in practice). In practice, 4 is its usual maximum, but there's no guarantee it will provide more than 1; still, there are no shortage of 3-for-1 cards in the game which do something potentially useful, and the occasions when a Valor would have been better than the Horn are fairly rare.

* Still Sharp - This is one of the several Maneuvers which cost 5 and let you draw cards; in this case you draw only 1, but can then destroy a card (the game seems to "price" a destruction as being worth roughly as much as a draw, as long as it isn't coming from a Location which does it every turn - Isengard vs. Lothlorien illustrates the distinction nicely, although it's possible that Isengard would be worth 7 if it could destroy your discards instead of just your hand). It is the only one of that particular subset of cards which shows Boromir, but he seems to be extremely well-represented among Maneuvers in general.

No unfortunate incidents have gotten in the way of Gandalf's planned spectacularness; dropping the Prancing Pony back into play, he Walks Into Mordor and draws three cards, securing a Mirror of Galadriel and a My Captain My King. The Mirror discovers that Boromir's Shield is coming up, so he doesn't destroy that, but he does destroy a Courage from his hand with MCMK, giving the nod to Frodo who then dumps a Despair. Those cards have produced 5 power so far, but he's got a whopping 8 more even after giving up his Courage (there's another one in Cleveland his hand still). Naturally this means Ulaire Nelya is biting the dust, but he's still got 4 left, so he takes the Uruk-Hai as well. Unfortunately his next turn won't be very impressive - unless Boromir's Shield absorbs something powerful - as it includes Despair, Corruption, Valor, and the suboptimal-by-himself Frodo, who still has only one possible buddy in Gandalf's whole deck.

The new Archenemy is the Troop of Uruk-Hai, another 9-coster like Ulaire Ostea, but one who has no Group Ambush of its own - instead it destroys the entire Path, bringing out five new cards, and having any Ambushes so produced affect all players instead of just the next one. A second Horn of Gondor replaced the Uruk-Hai, and then both of them went away, along with Still Sharp and Don't Tempt Me and the long-neglected Light. Out come five new cards, one of them a Fortune, but only one Enemy is revealed; it does have an Ambush, but it's the Black Riders, which can't possibly affect anyone besides Aragorn. Except that, since this was an Ambush effect created by a card in the Path, I do believe it's perfectly valid to absorb it with Boromir's Shield! So, assuming for now that this is in fact legal, I'll have Gandalf put the Black Riders right into his hand, along with the last card of his existing deck (a Despair, but at least he can destroy it with Isengard). And he still has a Defense from the Prancing Pony in case anything else comes after him! Meanwhile, Aragorn reveals his hand, which for once doesn't contain an Archenemy, and Frodo is similarly safe. Once Boromir's Gandalf's Shield finishes removing the Riders, the new Path contains Strider, a Seeing Stones, and a Flaming Brand, along with two new cards:

* Cast it Into the Fire! - Yet another Fortune, but the least useful one overall, with a highly situational effect - destroying up to two cards. Everyone will take this card when given the chance, if only to deny it to the next player (it says "up to two" cards, so you can legitimately choose zero if you have nothing you want to give up, and the card will still be gone), but the chances of it actually being useful are only decent; at best you could remove two Corruptions, but you might well have nothing worth getting rid of, and so this isn't as happy a discovery as the other Fortunes. (I think it should have had a more impressive effect, to measure up to Raging River and Finding the Ring, although the latter further supports the parallel between drawing and destroying.)

* Drums in the Deep - I believe this (tied with Walk Into Mordor) is the most expensive Maneuver in the game at cost 6 (unlike the other non-Starter, non-Fortune card types, which all go up to 7), and it's completely worth it, because the card is "wild" - it can copy any card in the Path, and then destroy it. Like pretty much all cards of cost 6+, it's worth 2 VP, and its combination of ripoff power and Gandalf's Staff-esque ability to deny goodies to the next player make it a very sexy card indeed.

Aragorn finally starts a turn, unsure how he can manage to follow an act like Gandalf's; he gives it his best shake though, playing TheseR4U and letting Frodo draw a card, gaining a Nazgul for his trouble (now that the threat of Black Riders - who ought to be Nazgul, but the game cares nothing for such details - has passed), along with an otherwise-useless Despair which he puts back on his deck after drawing two more cards with Seeing Stones. These included his second Corruption, and he Casts both of these Into The Fire (my attempt at rendering this name into L33tsp3@k has failed miserably). He then follows this up by letting the Nazgul off its chain, having it fetch the other Seeing Stones (deeming them more useful than the Flaming Brand, since he'd just as soon leave the others trying to guess their top card without the ability to pre-arrange it, and not get into that whole game himself), and then plays the Twilight Ringwraith, whose discard-fetching ability is sadly unuseable at the moment. He caps the whole insane turn off with Aragorn's Sword, whose +4 Power for costs 0, 4, 5 and 8 gives him a total of 8; it's not enough to take down the Archenemy, but it does suffice to harvest another Strider for his Ally-centric deck, and a successful Strider is worth just as much as one of the Level 2 AEs (at least all of the ones we've seen so far - the Nazgul was Level 1, and the Troop will be the last one before we get into the more famous Level 3 bosses).

* You Shall Not Pass! - One of two new cards which fill up the Path after Aragorn's turn, this is a 2-cost Maneuver which is very straightforward - it offers a Defense, and whether you play it from your hand or discard it to stop an Attack, either way you draw a card to replace it. So it's always a handy card, though it'd have been more impressive earlier in the game.

* Mithril Vest - The other new card is as far on the other end of the spectrum as you could get from YSNP; it costs the full 7, and its effect is to gain the top card of the main deck, optionally putting it on top of your own. It also offers a Defense, and when discarded this way, it generates the same effect as when played, *except* that putting the acquired card onto your deck becomes mandatory. (How much of a difference this makes is something I haven't managed to discover; I've seen someone play the Mithril Vest once in my real game, but it's never proved terribly useful in my solitaire sessions, since it is after all hideously expensive. It also happens to be one of the handful of cards which could potentially put a Fortune card into your deck, not that this makes much difference in most cases.)

The third new card is an Uruk-Hai, which ambushes Frodo as he starts his turn; having taken a corruption, he immediately destroys it with MCMK, allowing Gandalf to do the same with one from his hand (though he's beginning to reconsider this alliance after noticing that Gandalf has only 16 cards between his hand and discard pile; Aragorn's thicker deck might prove valuable at game end, but it's also clogging his draws, and with Walk into Mordor in his sleek and sexy collection, Gandalf is certainly a force to be reckoned with). Frodo then plays the Evenstar Pendant, naming "artifact" hopefully, and being disappointed by a Courage. He plays another Courage from his hand, and has just 3 power so far; Haldir in Rivendell doubles that, and a Valor tops it off at 8, sadly leaving him short of the Archenemy, but enabling him to take the Mithril Vest (I debated YSNP and Drums instead, but as mixed-up as the deck already is in terms of card types, the ability to stack the top of the deck is critical to making the Evenstar Pendant eventually not suck). Elendil replaces this in the Path, and Frodo passes the turn.

Gandalf has two Despairs in his hand, and can only feed one of them to Isengard this turn; Frodo Ringbearer isn't working either, so the second Despair is safe for this turn, and probably the next since he's about to reshuffle. He's got just 8 power yet again, so the Troop of Uruk-Hai remains intact, but the Black Riders ask both opponents to discard a random card, costing Aragorn the 2 Power from Sting and forcing Frodo to put on the One Ring, which fails to corrupt him. Gandalf takes the two Maneuvers Frodo debated last turn (one of which does have Gandalf's picture on it, after all), and reshuffles his 17-card deck (20 if you count the in-play Locations) before drawing his hand of six brand-new cards, including that other Despair and two Defenses.

* Samwise Gamgee - Joining a Moria Orcs in the Path is this Ally, the last of the Fellowship hobbits we haven't seen until now; he's a strictly-better Valor like Merry, but instead of a useful-to-anyone topdecking ability, he offers the ability to destroy Corruptions (not Despairs) whenever he's played.

Aragorn's turn doesn't look too hot after losing Sting, but the Moria Swarm turns that around nicely by grabbing that Flaming Brand which he'd left behind last turn; unlike the Nazgul, the Swarm puts the gained card into its owner's hand, making it MUCH swingier, even if it occasionally "whiffs" because no Artifacts are out. Playing Pippin to draw a card, which proves to be a Courage, Aragorn then plays the Brand, hopefully naming "Ally" and revealing only another Courage. He is left with, yet again, 8 power; he takes Elendil to help with his collection of Allies and reluctantly leaves Samwise out of the same logic, because he really wants another Moria Orcs to go with his existing pair (and the Twilight Wraith).

* Council of Elrond - Along with Haldri and an Uruk-Hai Scout, this 5-cost card-drawing maneuver enters the Path after Aragorn's dynamic turn. Comparing very directly to TheseR4U, more distantly to Still Sharp, and still more obliquely to Seduced by the Ring, the Council is the most straightforward of the bunch - 1 VP and an effect of "Draw two Cards", period full stop.

Ambushed by the Uruk-Hai Scout, Frodo dons the Ring, and for the first time it corrupts him, although the news is not all bad - he sends a Moria Orcs to the bottom of the center deck, ensuring Aragorn won't get that one. The first card he actually plays during his turn is Lord Elrond, who recruits Pippin to Frodo's cause; between the two of them they generate 4 power in Rivendell, with 4 more coming from the One Ring, Elven Brooch, and a Courage. Last comes the Light of Earendil, which ensures that Frodo can at least take down his first Archenemy all game, but if he manages to guess his top card right, he'll be able to get Sam as an Ally besides. He guesses "Maneuver" on a vague memory of previous turns' observations, but finds only a Courage, so Sam sits the round out and Frodo simply recruits the Troop of Uruk-Hai, reluctantly exposing himself to the next Group Ambush as he discards the One Ring at end of turn.

After the Troop comes the first level 3 Archenemy we've had, the 10-cost Ulaire Cantea ("the fourth ringwraith"). Its Group Ambush tells each player to discard three cards or else destroy their most expensive card in the discard pile; for Frodo, that would be the 9-pointer he just took out, so he has thoroughly no choice but to ditch his three Courages. Aragorn also has an AE at stake, so he likewise has to dump some cards, although he's able to include a Despair. Despite having a Defense on the table in front of him and two more in his hand, Gandalf happily submits to the Ambush, since he has no discard pile and thus loses nothing (the rulebook clarifies that this is completely valid).

Gandalf then takes his turn, playing YSNP to draw a card - and getting his own Ulaire! Ostea also looks at players' discard piles, but in this case it's on his Attack; the player who beats Ostea can give his unwanted cards away, an ability that would be very nice if Gandalf didn't have the same empty discard pile which had protected him from Cantea. Ostea destroys the card you attempt to pass off if the intended recipient Defends himself, but the card can't be in your hand at the time; Gandalf has to simply settle for destroying a Despair with Isengard and a Courage with MCMK. As usual he gives Frodo the nod to share in the latter card's effect, letting him dispose of his Corruption. Totaling 7 power, Gandalf helps himself to the Council of Elrond and the ally Haldir, refilling the path with a Merry and a That Was Close!.

Holding only two pictures of Boromir, one of which is a Valor, and thus having only 3 power, Aragorn doesn't hesitate in the slightest to be Seduced by the Ring, and the difference is staggering as he draws Legolas and Strider, gaining 7 power and taking out Ulaire Cantea. (You gotta admit, that's some good seduction.) He draws what's left of his deck, including a pair of Moria Orcs, and then faces the Group Ambush of the new Archenemy - the Balrog, another cost-10. Since he has no Defense, he has to take the Ambush, which requires him to reshuffle his discard pile, creating a deck from which to discard the top card; this proves to be a Corruption. Gandalf hates to give up the Prancing Pony since he has Walk Into Mordor in his hand, but the risk of discarding his whole hand to a high-cost Balrog discard isn't worth it, so he uses the only Defense he has to avoid this. As for Frodo, well, he only has two cards in his hand and neither of them is a Defense, so he dumps his top card - which is Recover Your Strength, a 2-cost card, and therefore his entire hand deserts him right before his turn begins. "Recover your strength" indeed! Courtesy of the Balrog hit, Frodo then has to reshuffle his deck before redrawing his hand, that being the sum total of his turn.

I kind of forgot I was taking breaks after Archenemy kills, but it's definitely time to do so now.

[willpell]

Gandalf gets the first crack at bashing the Balrog, appropriately enough (its what Frodo gets for climbing a tree, presumably in a failed effort to to Recover his Strength). The wizard sends out his Black Riders first as usual, but a piqued Frodo actually protects Aragorn with That Was Close, simply so that he can draw two cards to replace it; the result is equivalent to gaining 3 power on his next turn, to say nothing of not having to discard randomly, and Aragorn is very thankful for the reprieve, since he had a matching pair of Moria Orcs at stake and nothing to Defend them with. Gandalf then takes a slightly shorter Walk Into Mordor, by way of Isengard and Lothlorien but without a stop at the Prancing Pony; he gets 8 power from the direct and indirect effects of that one card, plus 3 for the Riders and 2 for a Valor, then plays Frodo on top of the Elendil which he got from his card-drawing, letting him him destroy a Courage from his discard pile (he has no intention of using Isengard this turn, even if Valor is beginning to look rather anemic compared to his other cards). Mr. The Grey (in this movie at least) then caps off this incredible display of power with the Mirror of Galadriel, unsurprisingly opting not to destroy Drums in the Deep, and in a very minor cheat I decided to peek at the last card in the deck, confirming that it was an Uruk-Hai and that Gandalf has now purged his deck of all 0-VP cards.

Having strung together a staggering 16 power, Gandalf not only bashes the Balrog very well indeed, but deprives his opponents of Merry and Samwise as well. He then reshuffles his deck after drawing the Drums and Uruk-Hai, draws four more cards, and reveals his whole hand in response to the Group Ambush of the Witch-King, the next Archenemy. This Ambush comes in two stages, and the first doesn't affect him since he's not holding any Courages; he could have Defended against the second half, which can result in a whole lot of Corruptions, but since he's loaded for bear with Destruction tech and has just reshsuffled his deck, he sees no reason not to tell the Witch-King to "bring it". Frodo meanwhile uses his other Defense, Don't Tempt Me Frodo!, to avoid the whole issue, and that leaves just Aragorn to "suffer" the effect...the thing is, if only one person pitches any Courages to the Witch-King, then the Ambush has actually benefitted that player, who gets rid of their weak, 0-VP cards, probably upgrading their next hand, plus they get to give Corruptions to whoever they don't like. (The card says "may", so it seems as though if you were the only player who didn't avoid, you would not be required to give Corruptions to yourself; the rulebook's rather pointless FAQ entry for the Witch-King, consisting only of a repeat of its text and an example which clarifies its action, implies that you would in fact have to give out all the Corruptions generated if that many were available to give, but doesn't outright say what happens if you are the only valid recipient, so the matter remains unclear.)

So, as the only person who both didn't defend and has Courages in hand, Aragorn does some very welcome Destroying, draws two replacement cards (one of which is a Despair, but the other is Pippin so it's all good), and gives two Corruptions to Gandalf. He then begins his actual turn, having not been ambushed by the Path replacements, both of which are cards of much greater value in the earlier game (Recover Your Strength and a Mirror of Galadriel). Drawing his card with Pippin - which is another Despair, so it turns out that the Witch-King did manage to hurt him somewhat - he plays his two Moria Orcs and a Black Riders, totaling 8 power (even if the Courages had stayed, they would only have brought him to 10, and the Witch-King is a cost-11 Archenemy). Despite it being a bit late in the game, he takes the Mirror and That Was Close plus an Uruk-Hai Scout, given that the only slightly preferable thing was a full Uruk-Hai and that would stick him with Recover Your Strength as the last buy instead of either of the 3s. Meanwhile, Gandalf used You Shall Not Pass to avoid the Black Riders attack, and Frodo got to use his Mithril Vest for the first time, acquiring Still Sharp for the top of his deck; he then took his turn, discovering his own ally card in the line-up along with a new Artifact of questionable usefulness, and the fourth of the game's Fortunes

* Gandalf's Fireworks - Costing 4, this Artifact is worth only 1 Power, and has an ability which resembles the play effects of the Nazgul and the Moria Swarm, but is worse than either - it gains you a card with cost *exactly* 5, instead of *up to* 5, and puts it on top of your deck, which is better than leaving it in your discard pile but worse than putting it in your hand. It is often (and currently) true that no targets for the Fireworks exist in the lineup; Gandalf's staff can give them one extra chance to find a valid card, but even with that advantage, they will often "whiff" and be simply the second-most-overpriced Courage card in the game (naturally the Evenstar Pendant still holds the grand prize). So, overall, while they can occasionally be fun, the Fireworks are not really a terribly effective card, and when they show up this late in the game, it's generally best to just ignore them.

* Eagle Escape - This Fortune is highly variable in its effects, as it lets you get back a card from your discard pile; it is the only thing which can fetch a card that you've recently purchased, played or discarded prior to you reshuffling your deck (with the exception of cheap Enemies, as the Twilight Ringwraith can grab those), and that means it can have some particularly remarkable applications...particularly if you're playing Legolas or Samwise, both of which have a special card that looks for a full discard pile, but is perfectly capable of being drawn right after a reshuffle and thus inevitably failing to work. Since its power is only limited by the contents of your deck - with slightly less luck than is required through normal timing and reshuffling, it can give you the chance to play an Archenemy the turn after you defeated it - it has possibly the highest single-use potential of any card in the game.

Frodo has only three cards in his discard pile, and the choice of which one to make an Eagle Escape with is not a difficult one; few non-Archenemy card effects are more powerful than the Mithril Vest, and so he retrieves that and plays it again, gaining a TwilLght RingWraith from the center deck. Sadly he isn't running much of an enemy deck, and the only Enemy in the Path is too expensive for the Ringwraith to retrieve, so it will only be worth 2 Power to him, and he opts not to put it onto his deck, as the non-Defense application of the Vest doesn't require this - except that then I noticed that he was holding Flaming Brand, so I quickly changed my mind and had him topdeck the TLRW so that he could draw it immediately. He then played My Captain, My King, and decided it was time to stop choosing Gandalf as the beneficiary; Aragorn happily destroyed his Corruption, while Frodo could give up only a Courage, but figured this was still marginally better than discarding the card unplayed.

Playing Haldir for 3 power thanks to Rivendell, he then used the Mirror of Galadriel and discovered his next card to be Still Sharp (which I could have remembered from when the Mithril Vest acquired it); in retrospect I really should have played this turn very differently, not topdecking the TLRW and saving Flaming Brand for after the Mirror, but oh well, with a game this complicated and me playing three positions, it's inevitable that I'd occasionally manage to outsmart myself. Anyway, he ends up with a total of 10 power - meaning that if he had not destroyed his Courage (but had still allowed Aragorn to shed a Corruption), he could have slain the Witch-King this turn. So a turn of blunders ends with the biggest one of all, failing to take a game-winning card away from the two opponents who were already winning. Frodo had to settle for doing no better than to take his own Ally card and two Valors, since the rest of the lineup wasn't worth touching except maybe for the Uruk-Hai, and that wouldn't be enough better than one Valor to justify taking Recover Your Strength in place of the other one.

Gandalf was ambushed by an Uruk-Hai which entered the Path along with Pippin, gained a Corruption, and promptly destroyed it with MCMK, still letting Frodo share the benefit despite him having recently broken their alliance. Despite his latest fiasco, Frodo still decided it was justifiable to destroy a Courage from his hand, and Gandalf then added injury to insult: playing Ulaire Ostea, he put a Corruption into Frodo's discard pile from his own, a move that Frodo couldn't stop. (I think Ostea is unique among Attacks in affecting only one player; they nearly always say "each foe".) He then used the Mirror of Galadriel to confirm that his upcoming card was something decent, and brought his Power to 5; Elendil made that 8, Uruk-Hai took it to 10, and a Drums from the Deep copying and destroying one of the Uruk-Hai in the Path made it 12, as well as forcing both foes to discard. Down went the Witch-King, to a player who wouldn't have had a shot at it, had his predecessor not screwed up (and the subsequent archenemy is far tougher and would have remained outside Gandalf's reach, since there was nothing in the Path which could contribute more than 2 power via the Drums).

Unfortunately, even in six cards, Gandalf found no defense against the Group Ambush of the final Archenemy, the extremely nasty White Hand orc captain Lurtz. Besides having an incredible Cost of 14 (yes, Gandalf has already managed to surpass that once, but it's not precisely easy), Lurtz packs an absurdly punishing Ambush; you pick a random card from your hand after attempting to predict its cost, probably by naming the cost shared by the majority of cards in your hand, and if your prediction fails, you discard your entire hand and thus essentially skip your next turn. With a 6, a 5, a 2, and three 3s in his hand, Gandalf naturally names 3, giving him a half chance of escaping unharmed - but no such luck. Frodo feels somewhat karmically vindicated, but his hand is four cards with different costs, so he has a 75% chance to lose his hand. Naming "9" just because he has a "9" to name, he fails and joins Gandalf in Nowheresville, but at least he still gets to take a swing at Lurtz prior to Gandalf. It's all down to Aragorn, who is between the hand sizes of the other two players and can choose between two 40% chances of survival; holding both of his first Archenemy kills, he picks 5 over 8, since showing off didn't do Frodo any good, but gets the Seeing Stones instead of either of his 5s or 8s, and so all three players are left without cards. They therefore each take their null-turn, and it's back to Aragorn again.

* Bilbo Baggins - I forgot to note when this refilled the space in the Path left by Drums From The Deep. A 2-cost Ally like Haldir, he contributes only 1 Power, but offers you the chance to discard a 0-cost card and draw a replacement. Another of those cards which is a *lot* better in the early game, but still a nice addition to the list of Allies, whose low price makes him easy to acquire even while buying other things, and whose utility to Legolas and Galadriel and Strider make him worth having despite his individual weakness.

I guess I'd better pause now, as the game is entering its final heat; it usually takes a number of rounds after getting nailed by Lurtz's Group Ambush before a player manages to get back enough strength to take him down. One more post and then we'll be finished with this Let's Play.

[willpell]

Having missed his chance to play two Archenemies in one turn courtesy of Lurtz, Aragorn gets a compensation prize in the form of Ulaire Cantea, who lets him discard a pair of Courages and draw replacements; one of the new cards is a Despair, sadly, but the other is Strider, who boosts him by 3 power to replace the 2 he lost. Playing Seduced by the Ring this late in the game is particularly dangerous, since you'll have little time to destroy the Corruption and are likely to be stuck with it, but for a chance of killing Lurtz, it's probably worth it for a player who's already doing well, and so Aragorn does it, gaining his last two Courages as a result. Having not found a twin for his Moria Orcs out of all those cards he drew, Aragorn is left with only 10 power, so Lurtz remains where he is; instead, just for the sake of doing so, he takes four cards from the Lineup, leaving only Gandalf's Fireworks (and thus doing what Frodo refused to, take the Uruk-Hai + Recover Your Strength pairing instead of two Valors, along with two cheap card-drawing Allies that are virtually always worth having).

* Moria Orc Captain - This 2-for-2 Enemy, like the normal Moria Orcs, is a rare example of an Enemy card who doesn't have an Ambush or Attack; if you manage to get three of the normal Moria Orcs, the Captain is worth 5 VP, making it unfortunate that Aragorn put this card into the Path - it's cheap and useful, so there's no way his opponents will permit him to gain it.

Also entering the Path before Frodo's turn are a Council of Elrond, a Horn of Gondor, and an Evenstar Pendant. He's not Ambushed, so the hobbit gets on with his turn, playing both of his buddies - Merry to peek at his top card, which is a Courage so he discards it, and Pippin to draw the next card, Recover Your Strength. Since Merry couldn't manage to rig his topdeck, he plays Light of Earendil with absolutely no clue what he might find, guessing Ally just out of vague and purposeless hope. It proves to be a Valor, so the Light is only +1 Power, but so was Pippin thanks to Rivendell, and Merry was a full 3; two Courages and Recover Your Strength round out a total of 8, allowing him to take the Council of Elrond and the Horn of Gondor. (Despite its 2-VP value, he stays the hell away from the second Evenstar Pendant after the way it has failed him twice, and the Moria Orc Captain seems like it should be Gandalf's responsibility to bogart, since he was the one who blew up the first two Moria Orcs and ensured that only one player would ever have a chance of scoring the Captain.)

* Hope Remains - One of my favorite cards in the game, partly for its interesting ability and partly just because it bears a lovely picture of Galadriel, this is another member of the list of 5-cost Maneuvers, but it doesn't ever draw you cards; instead, it's a "+2 Power or a Defense" choice similar to Don't Tempt Me Frodo!, but instead of letting you draw a card when it defends you, it permits you to reclaim up to three Courages from your discard pile. This is unlikely to happen very often because you so frequently have no discard piles, or fail to draw your Courages early in the round; the card is dubiously worth its high price even when it shows up early in the game, and somehow I always seem to find it turning up late. However, it's one of those cards that makes you imagine how awesome it'll be when everything finally turns out just right, and I tend to like cards like that, even before they have pretty elf girls on them.

Earlier in the game, I briefly became confused about which of the two Artifact-collecting players had bought an Elven Brooch, and thought it was Gandalf but that I'd somehow misplaced some of his cards, explaining why his deck was so thin. Well it turned out I was just forgetting it had been Frodo, but now Gandalf had his chance to pick one up, as one had appeared in the Path along with Hope Remains. And the late game is the ideal time to pick up the Brooch, whose +1 Power is more of a liability than an asset in the early game. Speaking of confusion, I also managed to mix up Gandalf's deck and discard pile, accidentally seeing that his last card was an Uruk-Hai Scout; it made little difference, though, because after playing the Prancing Pony again, he Walked into Mordor to draw that card along with two from his reshuffled discards. One of these draws was the Witch-King, who I don't believe I've ever gotten to play as a card before; the Balrog was previously in his hand, and both of them destroy cards from the communal supply in exchange for Power equal to their cost, which is obviously incredibly strong. This makes it particularly unfortunate that I screwed up with Frodo and let Gandalf get the Witch-King....

The Balrog blew up the otherwise-useless Evenstar Pendant, then the Witch-King took out a Moria Orcs (naturally Gandalf would manage to take out one more of those, even without his Staff) and Elendil; this barrage alone would suffice to bring down Lurtz, but Gandalf was far from finished. Merry took out the top card of his deck, not even caring what it was (it happened to be Haldir), and then Frodo joined him, offering the ability to destroy a card but with nothing left which wasn't worth VP. Boromir's Shield, Sting, and the Uruk-Hai scout finished out Gandalf's ridiculous 9-card hand (counting the Prancing Pony), bringing his total power to no less than 24. Harvesting the Fireworks, the Elven Brooch, and a Valor (the Orc Captain would never make it back to Aragorn, so it could be safely ignored), along with Lurtz of course, Gandalf finally ended the game.

With the fighting concluded, one all-important step remained - counting all the loot to determine who won.
Gandalf - Lurtz alone is worth 10 VP, with another 8 each for the Witch-King and the Balrog, and 5 each for Ulaire Ostea and Sting (whose "five enemies" condition was nearly fulfilled by Archenemies alone, but there were also regular and Scout varieties of Uruk-Hai and a Black Riders - it didn't succeed by much, but succeed it did). Ironically, the Elven Brooch proved worthless, as there were only four other artifacts (Sting, the Mirror, the Shield, and the newly-acquired Fireworks) - the decision to destroy his Staff had indeed cost Gandalf dearly, not that it would make much difference after he took out 3 of the top 4 archenemies. Of the remaining cards, Elendil and Lothlorien were worth 2 each, as were the Black Riders, Walk into Mordor, and Drums In the Deep; the remaining cards were worth 1 each, and they were 16 in number, with one point canceled by a single Corruption which had been safely hidden in his deck during the final turn so he couldn't destroy it. The final total of this 28-card deck was 10 + 16 + 10 + 10 + 16 + 0 - 1, or 61 VP.
Aragorn - His copy of Sting was never at the slightest risk of failing to score, but if the duplicate Striders weren't allowed to count each other, they would have only just barely scored off the other five Allies in "Strider's" deck. Having never managed to destroy a single Despair, and losing Courages only to the Witch-King, Aragorn was left with 8 cards in his 36-card deck that weren't worth anything, but he also had a collection of Archenemies that nearly rivalled Gandalf's, with several "quest" cards (Sting and the Striders) on top of it, and a slightly larger collection of singletons (18 in all), so there was a real competition. He too retained a single Corruption, but had only three 2-point cards, and his trio of AEs were worth only 4, 5, and 7 points, so the final score added up to 18 + 6 + 15 + 16 - 1 = 54...impressive in any normal game, and would almost certainly have sufficed to win if not for Frodo's blunder helping Gandalf out (he'd still probably have beaten Lurtz in short order even without the Witch-King, though it's difficult to be sure with there having been a reshuffle involved, but lacking the ability to take two more relevant cards as well as the 8 VP from the WK himself, Gandalf would have finished the game with a much less unchallengeable position, and Aragorn would almost certainly have been the actual winner, even if his own fortunes had been affected by some ripple effect from Frodo's better play.
Frodo - For the record, Frodo's deck was almost as supermodelishly-svelte as Gandalf's, with exactly 30 cards; all three players ended the game with exactly one Corruption, and like Aragorn Frodo had exactly three 2-point cards; he also still had some of his starter cards left, specifically the One Ring (which can't be destroyed anyway - at least not until they release the third game in the series) and three Courages. For what it was worth, Frodo had no trouble at all scoring his Elven Brooch, and his single Archenemy, the Troop of Uruk-Hai, was worth another five points; all this accounted for only 10 of his cards, with the rest of the deck being singletons. So the total score was a mere 35...generally, something in the 30s is typical for a player whose luck and/or skill are particularly lousy. I'm not sure whether it'd be possible to end a game in the 20s or even lower, but it seems unlikely; 33 is the lowest I can recall having seen in play, so even without his fatal blunder, it's unlikely Frodo would have exceeded third place (he might just have been a bit less of an embarassment at it).

So, at long last, that's the game. I've seen scores higher than 61 in both of my previous three-player games, once by Samwise in my very first solitaire game, and once by an actual opponent running Gimli; like the earlier solo game, but unlike the one with real players, this also supports my observation that the first player tends to have a substantial advantage; assuming Gandalf does indeed win, which is virtually guaranteed at this point, the first player was the victor in three out of the five games I can remember (my initial two-player test, where I fell in love-at-first-sight with the game was also Gandalf > Frodo, but I forget which of them went first), although in one of those cases he was tied for total points and only won with the tiebreaker (having more Archenemy cards.

If anybody actually enjoyed wading through these Dread Marshes of text, please feel free to let me know. I seem to enjoy doing Let's Plays, and while I probably won't bother with one as text-intensive as LOTR:TFOTR-DBG again, it'd be nice to know that my efforts have accomplished something other than passing my time and wasting that of anyone who bothers to read me.

[ThroughTheWell]

I read it. From the description, I'm not seeing lots of choice in the game. Either you have the points to take one of the path cards, or you don't. Also, it bugs me slightly that the cooperative nature of the novels is redirected into this competative mismash. And by mismash I mean the odd combination of things that can help you win, including various evils (defeated I supposed, but along the way you also use them to help you win). So, the game play was useful to me in that I now think I don't want to own the game. FWIW, I own the cooperative boardgame.

[willpell]

I read it. From the description, I'm not seeing lots of choice in the game. Either you have the points to take one of the path cards, or you don't.

There can be occasions on which your choices are sorely limited, yes. Between 0 and 5 cards in the Path will be buyable, plus Valor and the current Archenemy. If you only have 2 points, thus that you can't even afford a Valor, your choices are slim to nonexistent, but if that situation occurs after the first few turns of the game, it means you haven't been playing properly by destroying your weak cards, or else you got slammed by Attacks and hadn't been purchasing enough Defenses to get by. Over the course of a full game, you shouldn't feel that you lack choices terribly often.

Also, it bugs me slightly that the cooperative nature of the novels is redirected into this competative mismash.

Yeah, that's fair; there's not really any way around that in the deckbuilding format. Still, the political cards I mentioned do give it more of a cooperative element than is typical in DBGs; it'd be entirely possible for players to find themselves unable to beat the current Archenemy themselves, so they try to help another player do it in exchange for that player helping them (though, as in a game such as Diplomacy, the other player is perfectly capable of then breaking the agreement). It's likely that the "Impossible Mode" variant makes the game into more of a "we have to work together to beat these guys" situation, although it'll still come down to trying to score the most points at the end; that's usually the case in games even when they're somewhat cooperative, as only a few are completely "players vs. game" with no competition whatsoever. (Granted, the first LOTR game I know of, Reiner Knizia's board game, is indeed purely cooperative, unless you use the expansion that allows one player to play as Sauron.)

And by mismash I mean the odd combination of things that can help you win, including various evils (defeated I supposed, but along the way you also use them to help you win).

Yeah, that part feels a little odd I'll admit; most DBGs distinguish between the cards you fight and the cards you purchase to fight them, but Cryptozoic's games seem to go for simplicity in order to make them quicker to play and cheaper to sell. I don't mind the tradeoff at all, and could live with it even in DC Heroes, which was much worse in this regard since the Villains didn't ever Ambush you, they were just like any other card you could buy. It's possible that the flattering comparison with this game's predecessor caused me to value it a little more highly than it actually deserves; I'm fine with that.

So, the game play was useful to me in that I now think I don't want to own the game. FWIW, I own the cooperative boardgame.

Shrug; it's not for everyone, and I'll still recommend the game to others whose preferences are different. And yes, I own the Reiner game as well, though I haven't played it in forever since it's so old.