There and Backpedaling again

Tonight started with Lord of the Rings, with the Friends & Foes expansion. Jacqui, Michael, Simon and me started on the intermediate level (Sauron at 12). After getting one of the worst runs of luck at Bree, we retroactively decided to start at 15. We took the beating at Moria as well, running up to seven foes. But we'd stacked it fairly well. By the end of Isengard, we used up a fair chunk of resources to end the board with no foes, which let us skip Helm's Deep, but draw four foes. Fortunately, with Gandalfs help, Mr. Frodo (the ring bearer) could defeat all four foes which let us skip Shelob's Lair and jump straight to Mordor. With almost no cards. By this point the corruption had become noticeable. We made a run for Eowyn and got her, which gave us all a much needed card when the Fields of Pelagir event hit. Then we were off to the races, and Michael's brave sacrifice allowed us to reach Mt. Doom, and Gandalf helped pull me back from the brink for the Dunk.

A fairly close game, and a somewhat lucky win, even after setting Sauron to 'easy.' I have to pull this out of the closet more often.

After that followed two obligatory Cash N' Guns game. In neither game did the Huggy Bear survive. The second game had a reasonable chance to end with everyone dead. With two cards left, Jacqui had two wounds and Michael had one. But Jacqui had two guns. Sadly, the perfect game did not occur, and Michael won with almost $200k.

Finally came a game of Ark. This time, I drew all of the cool "Drive out" animals and won handily. I'm ready to start playing with the "Drive outs let you add a 1/2 disc only" variant. They are too good, otherwise.