War of the Ring Strategy: The Strider Push
Recently I've been playing a lot of War of the Ring (three games in the last four weeks). With the expansion set both sides seem pretty well balanced, but the true beauty of the game is how both sides have so many different possible approaches to choose from in prosecuting their campaigns. One of the key challenges facing the Free People side is how to earn (and keep) their two additional blue action dice.Getting the first extra blue die is pretty easy. You simply spend a die to wake up Galadriel once Sauron goes to war. No longer must you quickly slay and resurrect Gandalf the Grey to get this die, which always seemed kind of weird to me. Activating Galadriel seems like a no-brainer to me, and I can't see any downside to bringing the great white witch onto the board, since you break even on your investment the next turn with the extra die. I think the only question is when to spend the die to bring her on. In general though, I think the sooner the better.
Even under the expansion set, the second die still only comes from morphing Strider into Aragorn. One of the most critical decisions the Free People player has to make in the game is whether to keep Strider with the Fellowship or to split him off in hopes of being crowned. Now I think its generally more worthwhile going for the die. With the new siege engine rules, Minas Tirith is now a much tougher nut for the Shadow to crack, greatly increasing the possibility that Aragorn will survive a good while after being crowned, maybe even lasting the entire game. Thus the payback on investing in the second die is now much greater. The loss of Strider from the Fellowship is offset quite a bit by the possibility of Smeagol joining the team, so the choice becomes that much easier.
It seems to me that if you're going to crown Aragorn, you probably want to do so as quickly as possible so as to maximize benefit from the extra die. I've seen this strategy labeled on various message boards as the "Strider Push." In other words, you spend every possible die and card you can during Turns 1 and, if need be, Turn 2, to rocket Strider down to Minas Tirith. Along the way, you'll probably want to dump off a hobbit in Fangorn to help muster Ents. I haven't counted spaces, but apparently with 3-4 character dice you can get him into the happy throne room, waiting for Will of the West to pop up. A good side effect of this approach is, assuming the Shadow player isn't sure what you're up to, he has wasted any dice in the Hunt Pool. Lots of dice in the Hunt Pool - push Strider. Little or no dice in the Hunt Pool - maybe still push Strider, but consider moving Fellowship to make him pay.
Of course a downside of this strategy is that the Fellowship probably takes an extended vacation in Rivendell for the first 1 or 2 turns. Assuming things aren't going too crazy on the military side, this shouldn't be a huge problem. To be safe, I might spend all my muster dice building trebuchets early to keep the bad guy a little intimidated.
Any thoughts? How would you counter this approach?
Labels: Strategy
posted by Ben @ 1:14 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Ben: "...waiting for Will of the West to pop up or use of an Elven Ring."
I thought you couldn't use an Elven Ring to flip a die to Will of the West. Or did they change that? (It was a dumb rule anyway)
Excellent catch! Yep, that was a mistake in my post. I've corrected it through the magical power of editing. Thank you. War of the Ring has enough little details to it that a quick review of the rules is a good idea before each time you play.
The Shadow player could do what Ben did to me last game: don't send Sauron to war until the borders of Mordor are teeming with orcs (that is, move all the Mordor units up to but not into Osgilioth before mustering them down the political track). Galadriel can't come out until either Sauron or the Elves are at war. The Free People are hard-pressed to get their troops motivated unless they are attacked, so if Sauron doesn't immediately go to war, they don't get the early extra die. In our last game, I had to push Gandalf in front of a bus so that I could resurrect him in Fangorn.
One key to combating this strategy is I think to make Strider afraid to enter Minas Tirith or Gondor in general. A big military push in the South might deter or negate the impact of the Strider push.
Another approach might be to simply focus on snagging your own dice and be content to have the game run on amphetamines. In my last game with Jeff I had two extra red dice by the end of the first turn by popping out the Balrog and Saruman. If the FP player waits to move the Fellowship until turns 2-3 when you have the extra dice to play with, he's forgone some easy early moves.
One strategy I would NOT advocate is going for an early Lorien rush from Dol Guldur. The combo of Galadriel (who can muster under siege), the nearby Ents, and potentially even Gandalf the White makes this a good way to lose an army.
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