Strider Sprint vs. Shadow Military -- War of the Ring 2023 World Tournament

[@galahadb9723]

Regarding 1:50: Yes, I often move the isengard unit to Moria. It not only turns on combat cards, which can be tough to make use of otherwise because the two Devilry of Orthanc strategy cards have such terrible top effects (;-)) and a 9 hp army in Lorien might not be strong enough and with that extra Isengard unit you have 10 hp which should be enough and might even still work against Celeborn. And if you have to reinforce later on into the siege it gets more expansive. @4:40: I would have moved armys with the hybrid instead. If you go for Lorien + WLR you wont get the WK next turn anyways so you only need a single muster. And if you dont get it its not the end of the world either, you can just prepare armys and strike on turn 3 and no real value was lost. @24:00: Anticipating the urge from FP to try and make Mordor this turn, I think I would have ringed the M die to play Orc Patrol 2 steps from Mordor redrawing into a S card and then use the remaining attacks to try and take WLR cycling S cards (hope to get a good playable card from the Palantir redraw). If its Corsairs, Id use it instead to besiege DA. Once WLR falls I would, depending on army strength remaining, either move towards Erebor from WLR or take Dale and then move the Rhun armys to reinforce DEW. @31:37: I would play Orc Patrol. Corruption is not an issue at all right now so On on the Went doesnt do much for you. Orc patrol gives you a 30 % chance to deplete the pool by two tiles and deal damage and slow them down just as much as On on they Went would (one die). Since you dont have another good use for the C die (you want to move WK and two elites to Erebor with Shadow Lengthens) I would 100 % play a card here. Regarding your post tile discussion: The initial pool is 4/16 so you initially have a 25 % chance of drawing eyes with a tile drawing card. I think 40 % isnt ideal but if you didnt draw into eyes on the hunt then you will have to accept worse odds. The thing is: if you do nothing corruption wise you will probably have to get a SPMV on turn 6 to stop the FSP. On on they Went without adding eyes to the box might not even slow them down enough to see turn 9. So by playing Orc Patrol you give yourself a chance of a SPRV attempt when a straight up SPMV race is unlikely. You must draw corsairs and have enough dice to take Erebor, DA, Dale and Pelargir all in the next round. Whereas if Orc Patrol gets a reveal the FSP might end up revealed in Mordor so you still have a chance to play the red before they move and they might be at 6 corruption with 5 companions so you could consider allocating 5 eyes if you feel like you cant race now. Then they would probably only move a single time and not be able to dunk on turn 8, giving you two turns to get to 10 VP (even if turn 7 will not see much action but you also get the mouth etc and hopefully some progress). If you fail Orc Patrol you have to get lucky with a slow FSP in Mordor just l ike with On on they Went. So what it boils down to, for me, Orc Patrol gave you a significant shot at prolonging the game by a full turn, everything else does almost nothing for you. Orc Patrol had a very high ceiling, On on they Went will likely do next to nothing if you even draw into it unless you get really lucky in Mordor. FSP is at -4 effective corruption with a friendly-ish pool.

[@strider656wotr]

Thanks for this crazy detailed reply! This isn't even my video, but I appreciate the analysis.

[@WarOfTheRingChamp]

@@strider656wotr Totally agreed! Galahad is awesome. :)

[@WarOfTheRingChamp]

Thanks for all your thoughts! Good to know re: Isengard unit to Moria when attacking Lorien. I've seen you and RompSteel do it, and you're currently the two highest rated players, so that's meaningful. :) And we saw how well it played out this y game... Re: 4:40 and moving armies, I was a little worried that I would get 0 musters on 7 dice, but I guess that's only a 5% chance. I have 30% chance of rolling 2 or more pure musters (not army/musters), so that's the bigger concern. OK! Re: 24:00 That's an interesting idea. I definitely would have played Orc Patrol if the fellowship had a chance of making Mordor this round, but I figured it was better to save the Elven Ring if possible, since the other dice were useful as-is. So, I waited to see if they would get revealed, and only then would have played Orc Patrol. but maybe it's better to not waste the H dice on musters, and instead use them as attacks. I had 16 strategy cards remaining in the deck, so I figured my chances of getting Corsairs was relatively low in the next ~3 cards. Therefore, I prepared for Erebor, but perhaps it was over-mustering. I definitely did want to take out WR as well, but I was worried 5/1/4 wasn't enough to take out 3/0/1 very quickly, given the combat cards I had. Maybe it was still worth going for it, because it's not so crazy that I could take it with 1-2 more attacks. Would your plan have included Shadows Gather from South Rhun to Dale? I know you value Shadows Gather highly, but I often have trouble figuring out how best to use it. What are some of your most common / powerful plays with Shadows Gather? Thanks for your analysis of Orc Patrol vs. On On They Went. In the end, I agreed with you because I played Orc Patrol, but 40% chance of doing nothing doesn't feel great. I slightly disagree re: revealed from Orc patrol (1 die) being the same as the Stop from On On They Went (1 die), because with Strider, the reveal is any die, but with the stop from On On they Went, it's a C die, which could be in more limited supply. That said, my hope was to deplete the pool and then still have time to play On On They Went. :) Given the results of Orc Patrol, would you have allocated a lot of eyes turn 6, as they entered Mordor? Thanks again for taking the time to write such a thoughtful analysis!!

[@strider656wotr]

@@WarOfTheRingChamp he is the current war of the ring champ lol

[@galahadb9723]

@@WarOfTheRingChamp Would I consider Shadows Gather? If my redraw from Orc Patrol is something good and I take WLR in one die then I might be inclined to attack Dale afterwards. Depending on the state of my army I might prefer to put Erebor under siege before moving Rhun into Dale, so that Iron Hills cant make it into Erebor anymore. If WLR doesnt fall in one more die then you dont have the dice to play Shadows Gather I think. And Id rather play it with a P. And yes, that would be a good use for Shadows Gather. Reinforcing Erebor is a pretty common target for me. And it is not clear that you need to reinforce anything else. You have nothing left in Lorien and you probably wont have time to fail a siege, muster up something and then reinforce it. Would I allocate a lot of eyes turn 6? If Orc Patrol had hit something, probably yes. Since it didnt, probably no. If FSP was at 6 corruption or higher I would seriously consider it. But at 5 corruption and no red tiles in yet I think the risk/reward is probably not high enough. I expect FSP (with two rings) to dunk if they roll at least 4 movement in 2 turns. 83 % odds to get 4+ movement, 63 % to get 5+ movement. At 5 movement (+2 rings) its almost a guaranteed dunk unless Strider dies to the first random and FSP runs into a red. But thats only ~ 60 % to happen and 4 movement might not be enough so you have, I dont know, 25 % odds for the FSP not to dunk in 2 turns? The reason to allocate 5 eyes is if you a) want to buy yourself one extra turn because you feel like you cant win in one turn but can win in 1.5 turns or b) you think you have better odds of a SPRV then a SPMV. You are at 4 VP, Erebor is looking good but only puts you at 6 VP and Orthanc isnt mustered up, no Corsairs in sight, nothing close to being besieged. Its looking more like 2 full turns then 1.5 turns. So allocating 5 eyes does not seem to give you odds of a SPMV turn 7. And if you cant win turn 7 then FSP can dunk turn 8 even if you allocate a lot of eyes every turn. FSP is at effective -4 corruption, real corruption on 5. I feel like 6 corruption + lots of companions can work, at least kill Strider off early, but 5 corruption and lots of companions and a friendly-ish pool is a little too risky imo. So I think odds of a turn 7 SPMV without extra eyes beats the low odds of a SPRV attempt. And playing corruption for one turn seems like an even longer shot.

[@fabricedubois8142]

Love the switch to the hunt with Nazgul Search while keeping options opened for military victory. It was very close. Another tense game which unfold differently from others. Love this brilliant game so much.

[@WarOfTheRingChamp]

Sorry for my slow reply, and thanks for the comment! Totally agreed!

[@cacanter]

Great video, once again. So happy to see the free people take a different route to Mount Doom, makes the game more exciting.

[@WarOfTheRingChamp]

Sorry for my slow reply, and thanks for the nice comment!

[@strider656wotr]

15:05 Why didn't you draw for Fighting Uruk-hai?

[@strider656wotr]

never mind

[@WarOfTheRingChamp]

You caught it faster than I did. :)

[@joppe395-]

Could somebody explain to me why the FP-player choses to move a second time with the fellowship at the end of turn 6 (whilst he already had one movement with the fellowship)? If he declares the fellowship at the start of turn 7 in Morannon he can immediatly put the fellowship on the mordor track right? What is the advantage of having two movement whilst one would suffice?

[@justtemporaryreally4086]

If the SP had the Cruel Weather card he could have moved the fellowship one extra space away from Morannon. Being at 2 on the fellowship track made sure he could reveal in Morannon regardless.

[@benh6835]

Dear Ira, what do you think about downgrading Elites into Regulars as FP? I always do it, but now I'm thinking that it's pretty wasteful in terms of depleting the reinforcement pool. Let's say you have 2 elites 3 regulars in a battle and you take 2 hits. You can downgrade 2 elites into 2 regulars and stay at 5 combat dice for the next battle, but you are taking the Regulars from your reinforcement pool to swap into the siege. This gives you a net gain of 1 combat dice on the next battle but you effectively lose 2 hitpoints from your reinforcement pool. Now I'm wondering if it's better sometimes to take a single elite as the casualty. That got me thinking too about my overall reinforcement strategy. Normally I'm recruiting Elites with my musters because I want to stack as many Elites as possible in each Siege. But then I realized that if you recruit Regulars when possible, you get double the combat dice and an equal number of hit points for each muster used. While each individual fortress might be weaker with less Elites packed in there, you can potentially dish out double the damage per muster. This line of thinking is making me think about maybe spamming double Regular recruitments in general until regulars are nearly depleted, and also taking full Elites as casualties instead of always downgrading. Thoughts?

[@WarOfTheRingChamp]

Sorry for my slow reply, and thanks for your good question and analysis. You've already mentioned some good things, which I won't repeat. To add even more complexity to your analysis, I might suggest that it depends in part on how much time you have to prepare, and how many different targets you anticipate needing to defend. So, if I think that I'll have a lot of time to prepare, and it's only a single target (often Helm's Deep), then I'll prefer to have it stacked full of elites. Get 4-5 elites in there, with 3-4 leadership, if I can! Rarely will you ever have that much time, but if you can predict where Shadow will attack, then you should defend there. Of course, as Shadow, if I see a stronghold with 4-5 elites, it's almost certainly more efficient to march my army elsewhere. Regarding downgrading into regulars vs. taking a full elite but reducing combat strength, that depends on how much you anticipate needing your reinforcement pool, and how much you think it might matter to dish out extra damage to Shadow. Every round of combat, +1 combat strength equates to +1/3 damage, barring cards from Shadow. So, in the most clear-cut case, let's say Shadow starts by attacking Rivendell, no other Elven strongholds are besieged, they play Grond. They get 2 hits vs. my 2 elites on round 1. I'm almost certainly going to lose the siege no matter what (assuming they have a reasonable army there). I would rather preserve the 2 regular elven units in the reinforcement pool, because I can easily use them in Lorien, Woodland Realm, or Dol Amroth (with Cirdan's Ships), or maybe even Grey Havens! Alternately, if I'm fighting in Rohan or Gondor, where I have tons of extra regulars that I'm not using, then I'd rather maximize my damage output to Shadow. One further consideration is if I'm holding a reinforcement card, while my besieged army is already at 5 units. For example, Minas Tirith gets besieged with 3 regulars and and 2 elites, while I'm holding Guards of the Citadel. Shadow is besieging with 9 regulars and 1 elite, with 10 more regulars sitting in Osgiliath, with Lossarnach still open. Shadow starts by attacking Minas Tirith, getting 1 hit against me, while I manage to get 4 hits against them. In that case, Shadow goes down to 5 regulars and 1 elite. I would take the 1 regular, instead of downgrading, because Shadow is unlikely to continue the combat right now, for fear of losing the Witch-King to a counter attack, and they know they're not going to finish the combat next round. They'll probably take a move to capture Lossarnach and reinforce their MT army from Osgiliath. So, when I play Guards of the Citadel, I'll refill the army to full strength. Finally, the example in the previous paragraph is one reason why companions (captains of the west) in Strongholds are powerful. FP can take 1 casualty, making more room in the siege for reinforcements, while still rolling maximum combat dice! Good question! :)

[@benh6835]

@@WarOfTheRingChamp thank you for the guidance I will incorporate this into my strategy

[@luudest]

How do you assess the „Strider Run Strategy“? Is it an all in strategy? Do you have numbers regarding the success of the strategy?

[@WarOfTheRingChamp]

I think it depends a lot on the dice, and it's a pretty broad question. Generally, I think Shadow is happy to attack weak strongholds, and FP are happy to hurry and destroy the ring. If you lose Strider as a random companion, that can obviously slow down FP a lot, without his guide ability, so you often get your corruption up relatively high before entering Mordor.

[@Pinkerton000]

It's amazing how similar this is to how my last game in round 2 went. For me, the fellowship got there with only 1 corruption, though. It was amazing!

[@WarOfTheRingChamp]

Sorry for my slow reply, and thanks for the interesting comment!

[@NigelIncubatorJones]

Would I put extra elites in South Rhun? Probably, but I tend to over prepare, mustering up like McClellan before launching attacks.

[@WarOfTheRingChamp]

Sorry for my slow reply, and thanks for the comment! Glad to know your view! :)

[@horn6773]

Do You ever play with expansions in thick client? Would love to see such game.

[@WarOfTheRingChamp]

Sorry for my slow reply. I may post some expansion games at some point, but I play it much less, and I'm also not quite as expert with the expansions! I personally find the base game to be sufficiently complex! :)

[@doppelganger2012]

Very entertaining thanks so much!

[@WarOfTheRingChamp]

Sorry for my slow reply, and thanks for the kind words!

[@michaelvaldivia2262]

I do make the move to Isengard to Moria. Just the opportunity of using a "decent to good" combat card it's well received!

[@WarOfTheRingChamp]

Sorry for my slow reply, and thanks for your insight!

[@joshdavis3743]

17:58 I'll save you the math, the odds were 100% you wouldn't take it, since it didn't happen :). If you had taken it the odds would of been 100% for taking it.

[@WarOfTheRingChamp]

I think you're making a good point about adjusting the reality of the situation! But, one of the main reasons I do this channel is to try and improve my play by analyzing games, so I think it's useful to think about this, building my statistical intuition for future games. And, having run a rough calculation, with 3 rounds of combat, desperate battle round 1, and 3 leadership, I get approximately 65% chance of taking Lorien with Fighting Uruk-Hai. But, if you consider the Heroic Death with a single extra HP, my chances drop to only ~45% (considering only 3 rounds of combat). So it's not a crazy gamble, but it's also far from guaranteed. Having the full 5 leadership seems to increase my chances by ~10%, so it's definitely worth thinking about that, too! I could have organized my Nazgul better, with Nazgul search first, had I properly anticipated a ring.

[@joshdavis3743]

@@WarOfTheRingChamp It was a joke lad :).

[@strider656wotr]

@@WarOfTheRingChamp this is the calculations I expect from you. I just play the game and hope for the best