Original posted on http://www.councilofelrond.org/forum/viewtopic.php?

t=86 by zarathustra

Thanks to KVB for this great tutorial!

Tutorial Game for the Middle Earth Collectible Card Game

Both players involved used Challenge Decks (Kris using the Stewards of Gondor deck, Mark the
Return of the King deck).

Anatomy of a card.

Before starting a game, let's take a look at all the different types of cards. A first distinction that
can be made is that there are a lot of cards with the Lidless Eye on the back, while some have the
map of Middle Earth on them. Those last ones are sites, which I'll describe later. The first ones are
subdivided in 3 groups :
- characters (usually either lightblue for heroes or darkish purple for minions, with some
distinction for the main characters : the wizards (coloured as denoted in Tolkien's books),
Ringwraiths (red) and the Balrog (red)
- resources (rusty brown for heroes, dark blue for minions) and
- hazards (black).

Tapping

An important game term that can be useful to explain in advance is tapping. Tapping a card is
done by turning it 90° sideways, and denotes that a card has been used. In case it is an item, this
might mean the palantir has been gazed into and its power has been depleted for the turn being,
in case of a character it means the character has exerted himself already this turn (perhaps
fighting, perhaps gazing in a palantir) and cannot perform certain actions while performing other
actions at a penalty.

Dice

Middle-Earth uses dice to add another segment of luck & danger to the randomized cards in the
decks. Whenever this tutorial mentions to make a roll it refers to rolling 2D6, two six-sided dies,
and adding the pips on both dice together. This means that however dire the fate of Thorin
facing Smaug is, there is still a chance of heroism and survival (rolling a 12) for our brave dwarf.

Let's now go to the game itself.

Character Draft

The first part of the game is the character draft, where you decide on your starting company of
characters using the characters you selected in your pool. The character pool is the first deck
section we'll describe here, using those of the challenge decks. The character pool of the
Stewards of Gondor deck contains 10 characters : Adrazar, Anborn, Fatty Bolger, Glorfindel II,
Sam Gamgee, Theoden, Peath, Ioreth, Haldir and
Balin, as well as 2 minor items, the Horn of Anor and Cram. Generally, a character pool may
contain 10 characters and 2 non-unique, non-hoard minor items (2 classifications of cards that are
described in their text box). Now, when the draft starts, both players select a character from their
pool (in this case Kris selected Fatty Bolger while Mark chose Aragorn II) and place them face-
down in front of them.

Before going any further into the character draft, let us take a closer look at these characters.
Aragorn has a 3 in the upper left corner, which indicates his Marshalling Point value, i.e. how
valuable he is in the war against Sauron. Below his name is an artist's rendition of Aragorn. To the
left of this drawing is a white head and a black hand. The White head (and the numeral within)
indicate this character's MIND, i.e. how "stubborn" he is (it is harder to control somebody like
Aragorn than to control somebody like Bombur, after all), whereas the numeral inside the black
hand is this character's (DIRECT) INFLUENCE, which means how much control he can exert on
people he meets. Aragorn has a mind of 9, which is one of the highest in the game, and a direct
influence of 3, also a fairly high value. Below the character's art is the character's race and skill(s).
If we read Aragorn's card, we can see he is a Warrior/Scout/Ranger Dunadan - certain actions
which are limited to Warriors, or Scouts, or Rangers are available to him, while actions reserved
for Sages or Diplomats (the two leftover skills) are out of his reach. Aragorn is a Dunadan, one of
the many races of characters in Middle-Earth, a fact referred to on a few cards (as we shall see
further in the Tutorial). What else is there on a character card?
Beneath the character's skill and race is its text box, which contains special abilities of the
character, a quote from one of Tolkien's books and the character's home site. In this case,
Aragorn's game text states that he is Unique (Unique cards can be placed only once in a deck,
and can only be in play on one side - if the other side draws their Aragorn while yours is in play,
they cannot also play him) and that he has +2 direct influence against the Rangers of the North
faction (if Aragorn would ever need to exert his direct influence against the Rangers of the North
faction, his direct influence would be 5 rather than 3, barring other modifiers). Aragorn is also a
very important and irreplaceable character in Middle-Earth (being the last heir to the Throne of
Gondor), which is indicated by the -3 Marshalling Points if eliminated : if a player has failed to
keep his Aragorn alive, he is penalized by a 3 Marshalling Point penalty. Aragorn's home (as far as
he has any, being the wanderer that he is) is shown to be Bree.
A last statistic that is important for the game is the character's prowess/body, i.e. how proficient
he is at fighting the creatures of Middle Earth, and how resilient he is when he is wounded by
those same creatures. Aragorn's P/B is 6/9, commendable statistics.

If we take this same look at Fatty Bolger, we will see he is worth only 1 Marshalling point, not
surprisingly for just a fat hobbit happy to stay in his hobbithole while Sauron's forces threaten the
free people. He has a mind of 3 and a direct influence of 0 - he is quite gullible and easy to
command, but will not be able to muster anybody to his service unless he succeeds in delivering
an astonishing speech (i.e. rolling really good with the dice). If we read on, we see that Fatty is a
Scout Hobbit. His special text (Unique. Unless he is one of the starting characters, he may only be
brought into play at his home site. All of his corruption checks are modified by +1. He can tap to
cancel a strike against another Hobbit in his company) shows he is unique, gives us already one of
the uses for the Home Site attribute, shows that Fatty, as a hobbit, is slightly more resilient to the
siren's call of corruption than the common Middle-Earther, and gives Fatty an ability to rescue
endangered hobbits by tapping. Fatty's home site is Bag End, and his prowess/body is 1/8 - not
surprising for a halfling.
Once both players have selected a character, they turn them over, and put them in play if they
are different or non-unique. If a player reveals a unique character already in play or just being
revealed, the character is placed aside.

We have already talked about Direct Influence, which is how much control your characters can
exert over other characters or factions in the game, but not yet about YOUR influence, also
known as General Influence. Each player has 20 points of general influence, to be used to control
characters. Mark just revealed Aragorn, so he subtracts Aragorn's MIND (9) from his general
influence to find his REMAINING general
influence. During the character draft, all characters are placed under general influence (so a
player must stop drafting once he has 20 points of mind worth of characters in play already (or 5
characters, the maximum for a starting company), or has no playable characters remaining in his
pool), but during the game, characters can come under the direct influence of other characters
(for example, Aragorn could control a character with 3 mind, or 3 characters with 1 mind each).

In this tutorial game, Kris continued to draft Sam Gamgee (MIND = 4), Glorfindel II (MIND = ,
Adrazar (MIND = 3) and Anborn (MIND = 2), for a total of 3 + 4 + 8 + 3 + 2 = 20. Mark drafted
Arwen (MIND = 3) , Faramir (MIND = 5) and Annalena (MIND = 3) in addition to Aragorn, for a
total general influence used of 20.

To give a starting company at least a tiny bit of starting equipment, each player may play 2 minor
items on characters in their starting company (with the condition that they are non-unique and
non-hoard, but that distinction is easy to make on the item's text box and not really relevant in
this tutorial game anyway). In this case, Kris played a Cram on Glorfindel and a Horn of Anor on
Adrazar, while Mark gave a Star-Glass to Arwen and an Elf-stone on Faramir.

Items are a new card type, so let's take a quick look at them. Being resources, they are the rusty-
brown colour for hero players, and have their marshalling points at the same spot as characters
do (and in fact every card worth Marshalling Points) - the upper left corner.
Minor items, however, are worth no marshalling points (being mere trinkets, to be honest), so
none of these 4 items have MPs (the other types of items are Major, Greater, Gold Ring and
Special - we'll see every type of item as we continue this tutorial game). Where a character's race
and skill(s) would be, an item has its type. Items that change a character's statistics (P/B, Mind,
Direct Influence)
usually have their effects both in the game text box as on the spot where the character's
corresponding statistic would be (for example, the Horn of Anor has a +2 in the Direct Influence
symbol (the black hand), where a character would have its Direct Influence printed. However,
it is printed between brackets - and the reason why is in the text box of Horn of Anor : Horn of
Anor only gives its +2 Direct Influence bonus when used to influence factions, and can as such
NOT be used to control characters. The Elfstone also has a [+2 DI] symbol, but as this extra direct
influence works against both elf characters and factions, it can be used to control characters (as
long as they are Elf characters). So, with Faramir (DI : 1) bears this Elfstone (+2 DI vs Elves) he can
control Annalena (a 3 MIND Elf character).
The last thing written on the card is its Corruption statistic. Items in Middle-Earth tend to weigh
heavily on the mind of their bearer, the more as the importance and value of the item increases.
Most minor items carry a low corruption of 1 point (as these 4 do), whereas a heavily corrupting
item like the One Ring carries a curse of 6 points!
With the character drafting over (in this case, nobody could reveal a character at the time another
player revealed the same character, as the character pools of the Challenge Decks are discrete),
players decide for each leftover character (never considered to be played, or "bounced" in the
character draft when revealed simultaneously with the opponent's copy of the character) whether
to remove it from the game or to place it in his deck (but a play deck may contain at most 10
characters).

Kris' starting company is Glorfindel with Cram, Anborn, Adrazar with Horn of Anor, Sam Gamgee
and Fatty Bolger. Mark's starting company is Aragorn II, Arwen with Star-Glass, Faramir with Elf-
stone and Annalena.

Kris rolls 2D6 and gets 11, Mark only tolls a 5, so Kris will start the game. Both players draw 8
cards (Kris draws Ioreth, a Hauberk of Bright Mail, Men of Lebennin, Stealth, Marvels Told, Orc-
Lieutenant, Orc-Watch and Doors of Night while Mark draws Gandalf, Beautiful Gold Ring, Sword
of Gondolin, Dark Quarrels, Ambusher, Cave-drake, Lure of Expedience and Twilight)

We see a whole lot of new card types here, so we'll pause the game once more to do some more
anatomy on them. Ioreth is a character and we know about those, so we'll just skip here and go
to the second new card : a Hauberk of Bright Mail. Another item, but this one is a major item -
the greatest difference between items based on their classification is where they can be played.
Minor Items can usually be found lying around almost everywhere, whereas Greater Items tend to
lie only in very dangerous places. The hauberk is of midling importance apparently, as it is a mere
major item. It is worth 2 MPs as can be deducted from the left upper corner, and gives a +2 body
bonus to its bearer. This bonus is repeated in its text, but it carries a condition : the bonus is only
given to a Warrior character, and cannot raise a warrior's body higher than 9. The golden rule
here is : everybody can pick up and carry an item, but only a Warrior gets to use it. Finally, there
seem to be plenty hauberks in Middle-Earth (as it does not carry the unique keyword), and they
are not very valuable - the item gives a mere 1 CP.

Men of Lebennin is another resource card, and this one is a Man Faction. Faction cards represent
the goodwill of a major group of people in Middle-Earth - while they hardly ever take a direct
role in the game, they supply sometimes high amounts of points found in the centres of
civilization rather than the uncharted wildernesses where wolfs tend to howl, and orcs prowl. The
Men of Lebennin give 2 Marshalling Points when convinced to join you, and how to convince
them is explained in their textbox : The character trying to influence them needs to be at Pelargir,
and needs to roll greater than 7 (although he gets a bonus to his roll of 1 if he is a Dunedan). As
the Men of Lebennin are a Man Faction, characters with a Direct Influence bonus against Man
Factions will also gain a bonus to their roll, but more about that when we'll play a Faction during
the Tutorial Game.

Stealth is a representative card of the second type of resources - events. Events usually don't give
any Marshalling points (as opposed to Items, Factions and the last type of MP resources : Allies),
but generally makes it easier for your brave companions to travel the lands of Middle Earth
without dying. This particular one is a Short Event (which means it is immediately discarded after
being played) and explains what it does in its text box : "Scout only. Tap a scout to play at the
end of the organization phase only if the scout's company size is less than three. No creature
hazards may be played on his company this turn." Now, what is a company size? As the name
says, it is the number of characters in a company - for example, Mark's starting company has a
company size of 4. There is one small exception : Hobbits, being the small and stealthy folks they
are only contribute 1/2 to their company's size, rounded up. This makes the company size of Kris'
starting company also 4 : Glorfindel, Anborn and Adrazar each count for 1, and Fatty and Sam
each for 1/2. If one of the hobbits would die or otherwise leave the company, its size would stay
4. So, using Stealth would require a scout to tap whose company consists of at most 2 characters
(or 1 character and 2 hobbits, or 4 hobbits) - and if he does so, no hazard creatures can attack his
company for the rest of the turn - a powerful card, but with severe limitations.

The last resource Kris drew is a Marvel's Told, another short-event. This one requires a Sage to
tap, and discards one hazard event from play. However, when it does so, it forces the sage that
tapped to make a corruption check at -2. Making a corruption check for a character means
making a roll and comparing that to the corruption point total of the character. If the roll equals
(or is 1 lower than) the character's total amount of CPs, he is discarded, and if it is even lower
than that, the character is eliminated (the difference between discarding a character and
eliminating it is that a discarded unique character can still be played (by the player who owns him
if he can return the character to his hand, or by his opponent if he draws a copy. An eliminated
unique character is dead or corrupted so much that the cause of the Free People means nothing
to him, and cannot be played again). A corruption check roll higher than a character's CP total
has no effect.
Marvel's Told, however, forces a Corruption Check at -2, which means the roll is reduced by 2 ... a
roll of 2 would now already discard a character without any CPs. If Glorfindel (who is currently
bearing a Cram worth 1 CP) would roll a 2 or a 3 after tapping to play the Marvels Told and
discarding the targeted hazard event, he would be discarded).

In addition to these resources, Kris also drew some hazards. Hazards are cards that simulate the
evil creatures and cruel environments created or mustered by Sauron or his master, Morgoth, and
are played during the game to harrass your opponent's characters. There are basically 2 types of
Hazards : Creatures (such as the Orc-Lieutenant and the Orc-Watch) and Events (such as the
Doors of Night). As Hazards are played during another player's turn, there is no need to look at
Kris's Hazards so far.

Turn 1:

Anatomy of a Turn

Let's quickly say what a turn is like before we go through an entire turn. A turn has 6 phases :
- Untap Phase
- Organization Phase
- Long-Event Phase
- Movement/Hazard Phase
- Site Phase
- End of Turn Phase

The untap phase untaps all the tapped cards of the player whose turn just started.
The organization phase is for two purposes :
- Reorganizing your companies and playing new characters
- Deciding where each of your companies will move this turn (usually defined by what cards you
have in hand and where your companies are right now)
The Long events phase is more or less a clear-up phase for Long-Events
Movement/Hazard phase is divided in little Movement/Hazard steps, one for each of your
companies. In this phase, your companies move from their current site to their new site chosen
during the organization phase (if any, squatting companies just stay at their current site), and your
opponent may play hazard creatures in an attempt to wound or kill characters in your companies,
or hazard events to demoralize or corrupt your heroes.
Site Phase is the moment your daring heroes enter the Free Peoples city or Dragon-Lair they
moved to, to rally the people of that city to
their side or to search the Dragon's Lair for his fabulous hoard.
In the End of turn phase, there is a bit of clean-up before your turn ends and the next player's
turn begins.

Untap Phase :
During this phase, the active player (i.e. the player whose turn it is) may untap all his tapped
cards (and heal
wounded characters who are lucky enough to be at a Haven, those few places in Middle-Earth
that are sanctuaries and as such mostly safe).
In this case, Kris has no cards to untap, so the untap phase quickly becomes the organization
phase.

Organization Phase :
The organization phase is used for 2 big purposes : changing company compositions (by splitting
up companies, playing new characters, or moving characters from general influence to direct
influence etc) and deciding where companies will move during this turn.

Changing company compositions

Kris has Ioreth in his hand, a character he really wants to play (because he also has a Marvels Told
in his hand, a Sage-only card that would be ideal to be used by Ioreth, as she isn't very good for
anything else), but right now, he is using all his General Influence. However, Glorfindel has 2
Direct Influence, and Anborn has only a Mind of 2, so Kris moves Anborn under Glorfindel's
Direct Influence (by placing the Anborn character card underneath Glorfindel's card, or another
method of indicating this). Kris can't change his
company compositions in any other way (as all his other characters have too little DI and too
much Mind), so he plays Ioreth. When playing a character, you must choose a site to place it at -
and you have the choice of any Haven or the character's home site. In this case, as Ioreth is a frail
old lady, Kris wants to keep her safe and plays her at Rivendell.

Movement
To explain movement, first we have to look at what a Site looks like, of course. Let's take a look
at Moria, for example. At the top of the card, where a play card's Marshalling Point value would
be, is the site type. Moria is a (s), a stronghold of evil. The Row of Icons next to its artwork is the
site's Site Path to its nearest haven, which can be read in its text box (for Moria, this would be (W)
(W), and its nearest Haven would be Lorien). Beneath the artwork, one can find the name of the
Region in which the site is located (Redhorn Gate for Moria). Everything else in the text-box or on
the card can be safely ignored for now.

There are basically 2 types of movement in the Middle-Earth CCG : Starter Movement, and
Region movement. When you examine a non-Haven site, it always mentions a Nearest Haven,
and always has a series of Region icons to the left of its artwork. If a company moves from the
site's nearest Haven to this site (or v.v.), these are the region types it would meet IF the company
would use Starter Movement (for example, a company moving from Lorien to Moria, a site with
Lorien as Nearest Haven, using starter movement would go through (W)(W)). Starter Movement is
only possible between a site and its nearest haven, or between 2 havens (Haven cards have TWO
Site Paths on them, namely the ways to their closest other Havens. Using Starter Movement from
Rivendell to Moria would require 2 turns, as the company would first have to move from Rivendell
to Lorien, and then from Lorien to Moria).
Region Movement is a bit trickier, and requires you to have a Map of Middle Earth, divided in
Regions. When you look closely at Starter Movement, it is easy to see it takes a lot of time : Half
the time you are moving back to a Haven; moving from Bag End to the Old Forest requires a side
trip to Rivendell. Region Movement means leaving the well-travelled tracks of Starter Movement,
and cutting your own way.
Examine the site where you started and find that site's region. Then, take the site you wish to
move to and find its Region, too. Then, using the map, try to find a sequence of adjacent Regions
until you connect both sites' regions. IF this sequence is four regions or less (including the
starting and ending region), this site can be legally moved to from the original site, using the
Region Types of all the Regions in the sequence as Site Path.

Wew, that was tough. Let's look at our example : moving to Moria from Rivendell. Using Starter
Movement, this would take two turns - let's see if we can do it quicker with Region Movement.
Close examination teaches us that Rivendell lies in Rhudaur, and Moria - we already know - lies in
Redhorn Gate. When we pick up a map, we can see that Rhudaur is adjacent to Angmar,
Arthedain, Cardolan, High Pass and Hollin
(roughly N, W, SW, E, S). Angmar, Arthedain and Cardolan are all in the wrong direction, so let's
try two routes : one along High Pass, one along Hollin. Right now, we have as sequence for these
two routes Rhudaur High Pass and Rhudaur Hollin. Let's first continue the Rhudaur High Pass
one. High Pass simply connects the Anduin Vales with Rhudaur, so there isn't much choice of a
third region, leading us to Rhudaur
High Pass Anduin Vales. From Anduin Vales, the logical next region would be Wolf & Foothills,
and then Redhorn Gate - Rhudaur / High Pass / Anduin Vales / Wold & Foothills / Redhorn
Gate ... 5 regions, so movement along this route would not be allowed. Let's see if the Hollin
route is more promising (of course it is, it's the way they do it in the books). Hollin, if we take a
good look at the map, is connected with Rhudaur, Cardolan, Dunland, and surprise surprise
Redhorn Gate - so we can end our route here already : Rhudaur / Hollin / Redhorn Gate. Three
regions, so allowed by the rules. Let's now look at the Site Path if you want to move from
Rivendell cross-country to Moria. Rhudaur is a (W), Hollin is a (W) and Redhorn Gate is a (W), so
the Site Path for this movement would be (W)(W)(W).

Now that we know HOW to move to sites, let's see WHY we would want to do so? I have already
mentioned Marshalling Points, but not exactly what they are - here's the simple explanation :
they are the way to win. Try to get as many cards with MPs as you can, representing your actions
to stop Sauron, and win the game. Okay, but how do you GET those MPs?
- Faction (and Ally) MP cards are easy - they say themselves where they want to be played. If we
look back at the Men of Lebennin card, it states it must be played at Pelargir - so to get this
faction on your side, you'll have to move to this coastal town in Gondor.
- Items are a bit tougher. When you look at a selection of sites, you'll notice they all say what kind
of item is playable there (well, most of them do - the ones that don't make a very clear message
through their silence). Take a close look at the text box of Moria and the Glittering Caves for
example. Moria says "Playable : Items (minor, major, greater, gold ring). The glittering caves say :
"Playable : Items (minor, major). So, the Hauberk of Bright Mail could be played at both sites, but
the Beautiful Gold Ring in Mark's hand could
only be played at Moria.

Knowing all this , let's continue with the tutorial game, where Kris is considering his options.

Kris examines his hand to see what he can do this turn and sees he has 2 cards worth Marshalling
Points : The Hauberk of Bright Mail and the Men of Lebennin. The Hauberk being a major item,
he could play it at the Glittering Caves, Isengard, Isle of the Ulond, Moria or Tolfalas (all sites that
have "items playable : Major), but the Men of Lebennin can only be played at Pelargir. He looks
at the Map and sees that
Pelargir is too far to reach from from Rivendell, so he will have to move in stages. With the Men
of Lebennin being a faction, he decides to send Adrazar to influence them (as he has a special
ability : +1 Direct Influence against all Factions). However, of the list of sites where the Hauberk
could be played, 4 are reachable from Rivendell : the Glittering Caves, Isengard or Isle of the
Ulond (within 4 regions from Rivendell) or Moria (3 regions away from Rivendell). BUT none of
these sites lie within 4 regions from Pelargir - so nobody who goes to get the Hauberk can
influence the Men of Pelargir in Turn 2. With this in mind, Kris decides to SPLIT UP his company.
Adrazar is needed in Gondor, so he will be send to Lorien (a good staging point for actions in
Eastern Middle Earth). Glorfindel is clearly the strongest member of the starting company, and
will be needed in the Wild, so he will be send to the Glittering Caves (the most obvious choice to
get the Hauberk, knowing what other cards are in the deck). Anborn has no choice but to tag
along with Glorfindel, as he is controlled by Glorfindel's fair voice (and Direct Influence). That
leaves two weak hobbits to care for. Glorfindel's company already has a scout, so he has no real
need of that skill, and the 1 prowess that both hobbits have doesn't lend itself to much heroics,
so they are send to Lorien with Adrazar. Ioreth will stay behind at Rivendell.

Happy with these movement decisions, Kris takes the Lorien and Glittering Caves site cards from
his site deck, and places Lorien face-down on Adrazar's company, places the Glittering Caves site
card face-down on Glorfindel's, and indicates that Ioreth won't move.

Kris now looks through his cards to see if he didn't forget anything, and sees the Stealth and the
Marvels Told. Deciding he doesn't want to meet any creatures with Glorfindel's company, he taps
Anborn and plays the Stealth on his company. No creatures will be able to attack Anborn's
company (it is playable because Glorfindel and Anborn are split of from the rest of the starting
company already, and have now a company size of 2). The hobbits are moving to a Haven and as
such would be able to heal even after they get wounded he reasons, while Glorfindel moves to a
Ruins & Lairs which is a lot less safe. The Marvels Told looks to be interesting because Ioreth is a
sage and as such will be available to keep dangerous Hazard permanent-events away.

Long-Event Phase :

This phase of the turn is only important if there are long-events in play or in a player's hand.
There are none, so nothing happens in this phase.
Movement/Hazard Phase :

Kris must now choose which company will move or stay first. As he has only 6 cards in hand out of
the maximum of 8, he decides to first stay at home with Ioreth - after each company's
movement/hazard phase, every player draws or discards to 8, and Kris wants to have 8 cards in
his hand to have more options when his other companies move.

Now, as this is the Hazard Phase, we'll go ahead and take a closer look at the Hazards in Mark's
hand, the only player who may play hazards now, to make life difficult for Kris's companies.

Creatures
Hazard creatures are the denizens of the lands of Middle-Earth who decide to attack a company.

Marshalling Points : The elimination of one of these vile monstrosities makes the world a better
place, and the amount of Marshalling Points found in the upper left corner of a Hazard Creature
is an indication of the amount of evil your characters just eliminated (both the Ambusher and the
Cave Drake in the hand of Mark give 1 MP when defeated).
Playability : All creatures have -where a character's Mind and Direct Influence would be - a list of
little Region and Site Type icons. These icons denote where this creature could be likely
encountered. For example, the Ambusher in Mark's hand has (B) and (F) as playability which
means he could be played on a company moving through a (B) or a (F). The Cave Drake has (W)
(W) and (r&l), which means he can be played on a company moving through double Wilderness (a
single Wilderness would NOT be enough) or a company moving TO a (r&l) site.
Prowess/Body : Hazard creatures have P/B similar to those a character has, although many of the
weaker creatures have a body of "-" (which more or less means 0).
Game Text : Here the number of strikes a Hazard creature has (which more or less translates to
the number of attacker characters) is written, and possible other abilities a creature might have -
for example, the Ambusher has 2 strikes, with the special ability that the attacker chooses which
characters face those strikes (normally, that is the defender's option, but more on that later). The
Cave-Drake's text mentions the same abilities (being very similar to the Ambusher card except in
playability) but also mentions again that he needs (W)(W) to attack, not just (W).

Hazard Events
Hazard events are cards that detain roaming companies without literally attacking them -
examples are roadblocks and corruption, or cards that augment Creatures. In this case, Lure of
Expedience is a corruption card which gives 2 corruption points and forces the character on
which it is played to make a corruption check every time a character in his company (including the
character the Lure is played on) gains an item. It also contains an inherent way to get rid of the
card. Twilight is another Hazard event, but can also be played as a resource, and can in fact be
played at any time of any turn - what it does is removing an Environment card (which can be
either a hazard or a resource).

Hazard limit
One final point about hazards : each company has a hazard limit, which is equal to the company's
size (with a minimum Hazard Limit of 2). This is the maximum number of hazards that can be
played during a company's movement/hazard phase.

Ioreth's company
Ioreth does not move and is at a Haven (), which means that none of the creatures in Mark's hand
can attack her - so he just says he is done playing hazards (as he has nothing to play - the Lure of
Expedience is best played on a character in a company that will move sometime, and the Twilight
has no targets). At the end of each company's movement/hazard step, both players draw or
discard up to 8, meaning in this case that Kris draws 2 cards, Treebeard and Choking Shadows,
and Mark draws none).

Adrazar's company
Then, Kris decides Adrazar and his two hobbit companions will move, and reveals the Lorien site,
stating the company is moving using starter movement (). In the bottom left corner of Lorien
there is a 2 in a white and a 2 upside-down in a black box, which indicates both the moving and
the hazard player may draw 2 cards. Kris draws Balin and Concealment, while Mark draws a
Lesser Ring and another Cave-Drake. Mark plays as first hazard creature his Ambusher keyed to ,
but Kris taps his Sam Gamgee to play Concealment, cancelling the attack. Then, Mark plays a
Cave-Drake as second hazard. When Kris states he cannot cancel it, Mark may choose 2
characters, each of which is attacked by 1 of the strikes of the Cave-Drake (using the special
ability of the Cave-Drake, which says attacker chooses defending characters). He chooses for it to
attack Adrazar and Fatty Bolger. Adrazar taps to face his strike (indicating he is putting his full
focus on the fight), and is 3 prowess versus the 10 prowess of the Cave Drake - luckily, characters
attacked by Hazard Creatures may make a roll and add it to their prowess! Kris rolls an 8 and
"easily" defeats the Drake. Fatty then taps to face his strike, and the 5 he rolls is by far not
enough to defeat his strike. Fatty is turned another 90° to indicate he is wounded, and Mark
makes a body check, rolling a 7 where he needed a 9 to kill Fatty (when a character is wounded,
the player who wounded him makes a roll, if the result is higher than the character's body, he is
eliminated). Fatty lives! Mark then prepares to play another hazard, but Kris remarks that the
hazard limit against his company was only 2, because hobbits only count for 1/2 for company
size. Mark then states he has nothing further to play, and they reconcile their hands, Kris
discarding Balin, Mark being at 8 cards doing nothing.

Glorfindel's company
Then the final company composed of Glorfindel and Anborn (protected by the Stealth) must
move. Kris reveals the Glittering Caves, and indicates his company will use Region Movement (as
the nearest haven to the Glittering Caves is Lorien, and he has to start from Rivendell). He then
states that his company will move through Rhudaur (in which Rivendell is located), Cardolan,
Enedwaith and Gap of Isen (in which the Glittering Caves are located), which makes his site path
(W)(W)(W)(B)(r&l) - All the regions used are adjacent to the previous and the next in the
sequence, and there are 4 or less regions total, so this movement is legal. Both players draw the
indicated 2 cards (Minions Stir and An unexpected Outpost for Kris, a Cave-Worm and a Ent In
Search of the Ent-Wives for Mark). Mark looks sadly at the the Cave Worm (which he could key to
the Gap of Isen) and the Cave Drake (which he could key to the () or ) and then angrily at the
Stealth which prevents him from playing any creatures. He has only one hazard in his hand he
could play (given that there is no environment card in play to target with his Twilight), the Lure of
Expedience. He could play the hazard on either Glorfindel or Anborn, but decides to play a bit
more nasty, so he plans to put the Lure on-guard at the site.

What does playing a card on-guard mean?

A card played on-guard is placed face-down on the destination site of the moving company (or of
course the original site for a company that does not move) -which counts as 1 to the hazard limit,
just as playing a normal hazard - and can be revealed depending on 2 triggers : the company
faces the site's automatic attack (more on this later) OR the company performs an action during
the site phase which would tap the site (most of the actions a company could perform at a site)
and the card would do something right then. If the card is not revealed during the site phase, it is
returned to the player's hand.

In this case, placing the Lure on-guard means it can be revealed when an item would be played at
the Glittering Caves (because the Lure of Expedience states a character with the Lure must make
a corruption check when an item is played in his company), and by placing it on-guard it is a
surprise for Kris rather than something that could be calculated - because the Lure has an
inherent method to get rid of it (as printed on the card), if Mark would simply play it on Glorfindel
or Anborn, Kris might decide not to risk the corruption check and simply not play an item this
turn; by placing the Lure on-guard this is still a secret. Note that any card can be placed on-guard
(even a resource, a character or an unplayable hazard) - as a bluff.

Mark decides he has nothing more to play and says so, ending the movement/hazard phase of
glorfindel's company. Both players draw/discard to 8, meaning Kris must discard 2 cards (he
currently has Hauberk of Bright Mail, the Men of Lebennin, Marvels Told, Treebeard, Orc-
Lieutenant, Orc-Watch, Doors of Night, Choking Shadows, An Unexpected Outpost and Minion's
Stir in his hand, and decides to discard the Orc-Watch and the choking Shadows) and Mark must
discard 1 card (currently having Gandalf, Beautiful Gold Ring, Sword of Gondolin, Lesser Ring,
Dark quarrels, Cave-Drake, Twilight, Cave-Worm and Ent in Search of the Ent-Wives in his hand,
and discards the Twilight).

Site Phase :

Glorfindel's company
Kris announces he will enter the Glittering Caves with Glorfindel and Anborn. Normally, at
civilized places, they would simple walk through the streets of whatever town they would be, but
since they are in a cave, they get attacked by the site's automatic attack. This attack is printed on
the site (beneath the Playable : ). In the case of the Glittering Caves, this is Pukel-Man : 1 strike at
9 prowess. If the card placed on-guard by Mark was a creature playable at the site (which he was
not allowed to, given the Stealth) or a card that would augment the automatic-attack, he could
have revealed it now, and if it was a creature, the creature would attack after the automatic
attack, otherwise the augmenting card would gain an effect on the automatic attack. However, it
is not such a card, so Kris just takes the strike with Glorfindel, and decides not to tap Glorfindel -
a dire action which gives Glorfindel a -3 penalty to his prowess.

Why would he do so? Simple. To play an item (or ally, or faction) at a site, the character that will
control the item or ally or will influence the faction needs to be untapped, and taps when he
performs the action of playing the resource card. If Glorfindel wishes to play an item at the
Glittering Caves, he will need to stay untapped while facing the automatic attack's strike of 1@9.

Kris hopes for the best and rolls - a 9! The 5 prowess that Glorfindel kept after the -3
modification of his 8 base prowess + the 9 of his roll is easily more than the 9 of the Pukel-Man,
so his company may enter the site. He subsequently taps Glorfindel and plays the Hauberk of
Bright Mail, tapping the Glittering Caves in the progress. Mark now reveals his on-guard card, the
Lure of Expediency, and targets Glorfindel with it. Glorfindel now faces a Corruption Check of 4
(as he has a Cram which gives 1 CP, the Hauberk which gives another 1 CP, and the 2 CP from the
Lure). Luckily, the Lure of Expediency is a Hazard Permanent-Event, and Kris taps Ioreth and plays
the Marvels Told from his hand to remove the Lure, making a Corruption Check at -2 with Ioreth,
rolling a 5 - Ioreth doesn't run away cackling madly to herself, but stays at Rivendell telling stories
to the Eldar. The Lure is removed and Glorfindel need not face his CC anymore.

End Phase :

The hazard player returns all his unplayed on-guard cards to his hand (which are none here) and
then both players may discard one card from their hand before returning their hand size to 8.
Kris's current hand size is 6, so he draws 2 cards (Halfling Strength and Hobgoblins), whereas
Mark discards a card (the Ent In Search of the Ent-Wives) to get a hand size of 7 and then draws a
card (Concealment).

End of Turn : Kris indicates he has finished his turn, and Mark's turn begins now.

Current state of the game :

Kris has the Men of Lebennin, Treebeard, Halfling Strength, Orc-Lieutenant, Doors of Night, An
Unexpected Outpost, Hobgoblins and Minions' Stir in hand, and three companies in play :
Glorfindel II with Cram and Hauberk of Bright Mail controlling Anborn (both tapped) at a tapped
Glittering Caves, a tapped Adrazar with Horn of Anor, a tapped Sam Gamgee and a wounded
Fatty Bolger at Lorien, and a tapped ioreth at Rivendell.
Mark has Gandalf, Beautiful Gold Ring, Concealment, Sword of Gondolin, Lesser Ring, Dark
Quarrels, Cave Drake, and a Cave-Worm in hand, and one company in play at Rivendell : Aragorn
II controlling Arwen with Star-Glass and Faramir with Elf-stone controlling Annalena.

Turn 1, Mark:

Untap Phase :
Player #2 has no cards to untap, so he has nothing to do this phase.

Organization Phase
Reorganizing Companies
Mark sees his wizard in his hand, and rejoices. Your wizard is a character similar to other
characters in your deck, but with a few differences. For one, he does not require any general
influence to control (he is in fact a manifestation of you, the player). Secondly, he carries an
astounding amount of Direct Influence with him (a whopping 10!). Thirdly, because your wizard is
a manifestation of the player, he is very important for you - if he dies, not only do you lose a great
character, but you also get a -5 MP penalty (somewhat similar to the penalty you receive when
Aragorn II is eliminated). A wizard's home site is also important - while normal characters can
come in play at any haven or their home site, a wizard can only be played at Rivendell or his
home site. If we check Gandalf for his home site, we can see it is "any haven", so we can choose
to play him at Rivendell, Grey Havens, Lorien or Edhellond. Other wizards are more picky on
where they'll come in play.

Mark decides to play Gandalf at Rivendell to immediately use his 10 direct influence. He then
places Aragorn II under Gandalf's control.
Then, he puts Annalena under control of Faramir, who has 3 direct influence versus Elf characters
thanks to his Elf-stone.

Movement
Mark has 2 playable cards worth MPs in his hand (not counting the Lesser Ring, which is a special
item that can only be played when a Gold Ring item has been tested),so decides to split up his 5-
men company - Gandalf, Aragorn and Arwen will go to the Gladden Fields to play a ring, while
Faramir and Annalena will go to Isengard to play the Sword of Gondolin.

Long-Event Phase
Kris has a long-event in his hand now (the Minions Stir), but it is a hazard which must be played
during the movement/hazard phase, so nothing happens during this phase.

Movement/Hazard Phase
Faramir and Annalena
Mark decides to move first with Faramir and Annalena, and reveals Isengard - he's using Region
Movement and will traverse Rhudaur, Cardolan, Enedwaith and Gap of Isen (the attentive reader
will have noted that Isengard and the Glittering Caves are in the same region, so the site path of
Faramir and Annalena's company is the same as that of Glorfindel and Anborn last turn : (W)(W)
(W)(B), and because Isengard is also a (r&l), this site type is added to the site path for the full
playability of hazard creatures). Both players draw 2 cards (Kris draws a Sapling of the White Tree
and Saruman while Mark draws Stealth and Pukel-Men). Kris has a conundrum now. Let's see
what hazards he is holding : Orc-Lieutenant and Hobgoblins, Doors of Night, An Unexpected
Outpost and Minions Stir. The creatures are easily understood, but let's take a look at the other
cards. Doors of Night is a hazard permanent-event, which means it is not discarded like an
ordinary Short-Event, but will stay in play until otherwise removed (similarly to the Lure of
Expedience last turn, except Doors of Night is not played on a character but placed somewhere
off the side). It is also an Environment - and even one of the big ones. Doors of Night and Gates
of morning (its resource counterpart) are often the basis of decks, as many resources rely on
Gates of Morning to be in play, and many hazards on Doors of Night. An Unexpected Outpost is
one such - a short event which recycles cards from your discard or cycles in cards from your
sideboard (the sideboard -as the name says - is a side deck, from which cards can be fetched with
certain cards like Unexpected Outpost, or some activities as we will see later). The last hazard in
Kris's hand is a Long Event - finally we'll see what that elusive card-type does : A long-Event is
somewhere in between a short-event which is discarded immediately after having its effect, and a
permanent- event which is, well, permanent. Resource Long-Events are played during your own
Long-Event Phase, and are discarded during your next Long- Event phase (in effect being in play
for one of your turns and one of your opponent's turns), while Hazard long-events are played
during your opponent's movement-hazard phase (counting 1 against the hazard-limit, of course)
and are discarded during your opponent's next long-event phase (also, in effect, being in play for
one of your turns and one of your opponent's turns). Minions Stir is a card which boosts Orc
hazard creatures, giving them +1 strike and +1 prowess, or +2 strikes and +2 prowess if Doors of
Night is in play.

Kris could play both of his hazard creatures (the orc-lieutenant keyed to (W) or (r&l), the
hobgoblins keyed to (W)(W)) - but he wants to play his Minions Stir first to strengthen them,
especially if Doors of Night is in play. But if he were to play Doors of Night and the Minions Stir,
he would fully deplete his hazard limit (because the hazard limit against Faramir and annalena is
only 2). He decides to follow the middle road : He plays Doors of Night, and when it has
resolved, he plays the Unexpected Outpost in his hand . (in case you wonder why he didn't play
the Minions stir - maybe the second company will not move through the correct regions, and he
will not be able to play his orc creatures. With the Minions Stir being a Long Event, it would stop
working before Mark's next movement Hazard Phase, and the Minions Stir would be wasted). Kris
first looks at his discard pile, but only likes the Choking Shadows enough to recycle it, so goes to
his sideboard and selects a Twilight, to defend his Doors of Night from his opponent's Twilights.
He then shuffles both the Choking Shadows and the Twilight in his deck.

Kris has used up all his hazard limit, and is at 8 cards, so draws no new cards. Mark has 9 cards in
his hands, so discards the Pukel-Men.

Gandalf, Aragorn and Arwen

Mark reveals the Gladden Fields, and says he uses Region Movement going from Rhudaur over
High Pass to the Anduin Vales ((W)(W)(B)(r&l)). Both players draw a card (Peath for Kris, Thorough
Search for Mark). As first hazard, Kris plays his Minions Stir, which means every Orc creature will
now receive +2 strikes and +2 prowess. Then, he must make a choice between which hazard
creature he wants to play first - and because the Orc-Lieutenant gets a prowess bonus if played
after another Orc Hazard, this is an easy choice.

Kris plays Hobgoblins, and keys them to (W)(W), his only option. Mark responds with playing Dark
Quarrels, a short-event that cancels an attack by Orcs, Trolls or Men. The Hobgoblins are orcs
and are cancelled. Kris has 1 hazard limit remaining (Gandalf's company size and thus hazard limit
was 3, and Kris already played Minions Stir and Hobgoblins), so he plays Orc-Lieutenant.
Normally a mere 1 strike with 7 prowess Orc, now he is 3 strikes with 13 (+2 prowess and +2
strikes from the Minions Stir, and +4 prowess because the company faced an Orc attack already
this turn - granted, the attack was cancelled, but the company is still considered to have faced
them). Arwen taps and plays Concealment - tap a scout to cancel an attack. The Orc-Lieutenant
can't find the company, and is discarded. Hazard Limit is reached, and Kris draws two card
(Stealth and Hobgoblins) and Mark draws 1 card (Glamdring).

Site Phase
Faramir's company
Mark decides to enter Isengard first. The automatic attack is wolves - 3 strikes @7 prowess.
Because there is one strike more than there are characters in the company, the one leftover strike
becomes a -1 prowess penalty for one of the characters for the duration of this attack - and the
hazard player decides which character gets this penalty (if there had been 2 additional strikes, the
hazard player could have chosen each character to get one of the penalties, or could have given
1 character both penalties). Kris decides to give the penalty to Annalena. Faramir will face his
strike first and decides not to tap - he is 2 prowess vs 7. Mark makes a roll for Faramir and rolls a
6, quite enough. He then makes a roll for Annalena, who does tap and is 2 prowess vs 7 (her
unmodified 3 prowess, with a -1 penalty from the excess strike) - he rolls a 4, and Annalena is
turned upside-down to indicate she has been wounded. Kris makes a body check for Annalena,
but rolls only a 7 - Annalena lives.

The company has faced the automatic attack, so they can enter the site. Faramir is untapped, so
he taps and plays Glamdring (Mark could also have player the sword of Gondolin, but decides to
play Glamdring because it gives 1 fewer corruption point and also is Unique, which means that if
Kris would also use Glamdring in his deck and play it before Mark does, Mark would be unable to
play his copy.

Gandalf's company
This company also enters the site, and faces the ghost of one of Isildur's brave soldiers who fell at
the Gladden Fields : Undead - 1 strike at 8 prowess. Aragorn taps to face the strike, and his 6
prowess + 2D6 versus the 8 prowess of the automatic-attack means he defeats it automatically
(the worst that can happen is that he would roll a 2 and tie with the attack). Gandalf now taps and
plays the Beautiful Gold Ring, tapping the Gladden Fields.

End of Turn Phase

Mark has only 6 cards in hand, so he draws 2 cards (Twilight and Noble Steed), whereas Kris has 8
cards in hand. Mark notices he can play the Twilight to remove the Doors of Night, so he does so
- the Doors of Night card is discarded. Mark now has only 7 cards in hand, but will not get to
draw back to 8 cards until the end of the first movement/hazard phase of Mark's turn.

Current Situation

Kris has the Men of Lebennin, Treebeard, Halfling Strength, Saruman, Sapling of the White Tree,
Peath, Stealth and Hobgoblins in hand, and has 3 companies in play : Glorfindel II with Cram and
Hauberk of Bright Mail controlling Anborn (both tapped) at a tapped Glittering Caves, a tapped
Adrazar with Horn of Anor, a tapped Sam Gamgee and a wounded Fatty Bolger at Lorien, and a
tapped ioreth at Rivendell.

Mark has Sword of Gondolin, Lesser Ring, Stealth, Thorough search, Noble Steed and Cave
Drake and a Cave-Worm in hand, and has 2 companies in play : a tapped Faramir with Elf-stone
and Glamdring controlling a wounded annalena at a tapped Isengard, and Gandalf with a
beautiful gold ring controlling aragorn and with Arwen in his company controlled by general
influence and bearing a star-glass (all tapped) at a tapped Gladden Fields.

Turn2

Untap Phase
Kris untaps all his tapped characters (but not his sites! Sites do not untap!) and heals his wounded
Fatty Bolger to tapped status. He could use his Halfling Strength to heal Fatty to untapped
status, but decides to keep that card in hand, in case Fatty or Sam get wounded during their
move to a non-Haven site now.

Organization Phase
Playing character
Kris has Saruman, and has two options to play him : Rivendell and Isengard (Rivendell, as every
wizard can be played there, and Isengard because that is his home site). Since he has another
company very close to Isengard (and a card playable on Isengard in his hand), Kris decides to
reveal his wizard at Isengard.

Movement
This turn, Kris wants to play his Sapling of the White Tree and the Men of Lebennin (leaving
Treebeard to be played by the Isengarder company next turn). Once the Sapling of the White
Tree is transported to Minas Tirith, a player can play the White Tree itself at - a card that Kris
discovers in his sideboard. But how to transport it to his main deck so he can draw it? Simply -
here follow some rules for easy interaction with the sideboard, for which no additional cards are
necessary :

- Getting resources in your deck :

During the organization phase, a player may tap his wizard to take one resource card from his
sideboard and shuffle it into his deck (as long as his deck has 5 or more cards left in it). An
alternative is tapping the wizard to take five resource cards from the sideboard and place them
on top of your discard pile.

- Getting Hazards in your deck :

During the Hazard phase, a player may tap and discard a Nazgul permanent-event (counting as 1
against the hazard limit) to take one hazard from his hazard and shuffle it into his deck (as long as
his deck has 5 or more cards left), or alternatively take 5 hazards and place them on top of your
discard pile.
A second way to get hazards from your sideboard in your deck (only useable if your opponent
has his wizard in play): at the beginning of the opponent's turn, you may announce you will halve
all opponent's hazard limits for the remainder of the turn (rounded up) to take one hazard from
your sideboard and shuffle it in your deck.

Thus, Saruman taps and shuffles The White Tree in his deck.

Then, Kris decides he will keep Saruman at Isengard. He want to move Glorfindel and Anborn to
Isengard too (because Saruman is already tapped, and won't be able to play the Sapling), but he
notices he has only one copy of each site in his site deck - only havens may have multiple copies
in your site deck. However, because Isengard is already in play, Kris may announce his company
will move to a site on table. Checking the distance, he sees the company can easily move from
Glittering Caves to Isengard: they're both in the Gap of Isen! Sam, Fatty and Adrazar need to go
influence the Men of Lebennin, so Kris finds his copy of Pelargir in his site deck. To make sure his
characters will reach it safely (after checking whether he can even get there from Lorien) he taps
Sam to play another Stealth.

Long-Event Phase
Clean-up
There's finally a long-event in play (Minions Stir), but as it was played during the previous player's
turn, it will stay in play for another turn.

Movement/Hazard Phase
Saruman
Saruman sits in his High Tower and doesn't move. Mark checks his hazards and sees Cave-Drake
and Cave-Worm. Cave-Worm is only playable keyed to regions, so he won't attack a sitting duck.
The Cave-drake, on the other hand, attacks R&L. And poor Saruman's fortress is long since
ruined. Because Saruman is alone, the second strike of the Cave-drake becomes a -1 prowess
penalty, so the current situation is Saruman : 4 prowess (6 base - 1 for being tapped, - 1 for facing
an attack with 2 strikes) vs. Cave-Drake : 10 prowess. Kris rolls and gets a 7. 11 (4+7) beats 10
and the Cave-Drake's attack is defeated, because his one strike that was assigned was defeated.
Kris places the Cave-Drake in his Marshalling Point pile and gains 1 kill MP. Mark has no other
hazards to play, so both players draw/discard to maximum hand size : Kris draws 2 cards and gets
"Tom" (Tuma) and And Forth He Hastened while Mark also draws 2 cards (he only played one
hazard during this phase but remember : he played a Twilight at the end of his previous turn, so
he started this turn with only seven cards in hand); he draws Marvel's Told and Ghosts.

Glorfindel and Anborn

Glorfindel and Anborn indicate they will move to the Isengard already in play and that they will
do so moving through the Gap of Isen (BL).
Both players may draw 2 cards, and Kris draws the Rangers of Ithilien and a Little Snuffler
whereas Mark gets his second Beautiful Gold Ring and his second Cave Worm. Mark then
gleefully plays one of his Cave Worms which indicates, amongst others, the region Gap of Isen as
one of its haunts. 1 strike with 16 prowess threathens Glorfindel and Anborn. After long
deliberation, Kris decides to take the strike with Glorfindel. He has more characters than the
attack has strikes, so he taps his Anborn in support of Glorfindel. What does that mean? Simply
the opposite of what excess strikes do. Excess strikes give -1 prowess penalities, and characters
tapping in support give +1 prowess bonusses for characters involved in a strike- however, a
character tapping to support may not be facing a strike of the attack himself. Glorfindel taps for 9
prowess and rolls a 7, tying with the 16 prowess Cave Worm. For his second hazard, Mark
decides to use his second Cave Worm. All the company's characters are tapped, so Mark gets to
choose which character will face the worm's one strike. After some thought, Mark decides to
attack Glorfindel with it. Glorfindel is 7 prowess (8 -1 for being tapped) and Kris rolls an 8, failing
his strike. He is tapped and Mark rolls a body check, rolling 8 which means Glorfindel lives to tell
the tale of how a Cave Worm backstabbed him while he was still cutting off the head of the first
one. Two hazards played, hazard limit reached.

Both players refill their hands to 8 cards; Kris discards Peath and his Little Snuffler, Mark has 8
cards in hand.

Current hands : Kris has the Men of Lebennin, Treebeard, Halfling Strength, Sapling of the White
Tree, Rangers of Ithilien, And Forth He Hastened, Tom and Hobgoblins in hand, while Mark has
Sword of Gondolin, Lesser Ring, Stealth, Thorough search, Noble Steed, Marvels Told, Ghosts
and Beautiful Gold Ring in hand.

Sam, Fatty & Adrazar

The hobbits reveal their new site and it is Pelargir in Lebennin, with a site path of [W] (Wold &
Foothills), [B] (Rohan), [F] (Anorien) [F] (Lebennin). Both players draw 2 cards (Dark Quarrels and
"Bert" (Burat) for Kris, Concealment and Nothing to Eat or Drink for Mark). Mark has only one
non-creature hazard in his hand right now, and it is not playable, so Kris plays his Halflings
Strength to untap Sam and then the players just go to discard to hand size (Kris discards
Hobgoblins and Halfling Strength, Mark discards his Ghosts and Nothing to Eat or Drink).
Site Phase
Sam & co
Sam & company enter first. Adrazar taps to influence the Men of Lebennin. As previously
explained, to play a faction, you need to tap a character and make an influence attempt, i.e. the
roll with all modifiers must exceed the target number as stated on the faction card. In this case,
the target number is 7, and the faction provides an influence bonus of +1 if the influencer is a
Dunedan - as is the case. Adrazar may also add his direct influence to his roll, which is 4 here (1
base, +1 vs factions from his ability, +2 vs factions from the Horn he carries around). Kris rolls a 5,
which becomes a 10; easily higher than the 7 required. The site taps and the faction is placed in
Kris's marshalling point pile.

Saruman, Glorfindel and Anborn

Saruman and his two companions are all tapped (or worse, in Glorfindel's case) so usually there
would be no reason to enter the site (because almost all MP cards require you to tap a character).
However, Kris has a And Forth He Hastened in his hand, a resource event that can be played to
untap a character in your wizard's company - he could use that to untap Anborn or Saruman (but
not Glorfindel, as he can't untap until he is healed again). First, though, they need to pass the
site's automatic attack : Wolves, 3 strikes @7. Three strikes, so each character in the company will
face a strike. Saruman takes his first - he has 5 prowess and automatically ties his strike. Glorfindel
is 6 prowess (8 base - 2 penalty for being wounded) and automatically wins his strike. Anborn is 1
prowess (2 base - 1 for being tapped) and Kris rolls a 3. Anborn is wounded and Mark rolls a 12
on the body check - First Blood! Anborn is removed from the game - while defeated hazard
creatures are worth kill MPs for the player who defeated them, killed characters are worth no kill
MPs.

The automatic attack is passed and Kris plays his And Forth He Hastened now, untapping
Saruman, who taps again to play the Sapling of the White Tree, tapping Isengard.

End of Turn Phase

Neither player wants to discard a card, so both simply draw to 8 cards (Kris drawing Saruman,
Alone and Unadvised and Dodge, Mark drawing no cards)

Current Game situation :

Kris has Rangers of Ithilien, Saruman, Treebeard, Dark Quarrels, Dodge, Alone and Unadvised,
Tom and Bert in hand, and has 2 companies in play : a tapped Saruman with Sapling of the White
Tree with a wounded Glorfindel bearing a Hauberk of Bright Mail at a tapped Isengard and a
tapped Adrazar with a Horn of Anor, an untapped Sam and a tapped Fatty Bolger at a tapped
Pelargir.

Current MPs :
Character : 6
Item : 3
Factions : 2
Kills : 1
Total = 12
Mark has Sword of Gondolin, Lesser Ring, Beautiful Gold Ring, Marvels Told, Concealment,
Stealth, Thorough search and Noble Steed in hand, and has 2 companies in play : a tapped
Faramir with Elf-stone and Glamdring controlling a wounded annalena at a tapped Isengard, and
Gandalf with a beautiful gold ring controlling aragorn and with Arwen in his company controlled
by general influence and bearing a star- glass (all tapped) at a tapped Gladden Fields.

Current MPs :
Character : 7
Item : 3
Total = 10

Mark, turn 2

Untap Phase :

Mark untaps all his tapped cards (Faramir, Gandalf, Aragorn, Arwen)

Organisation Phase :

Gandalf taps to use his special game text (tap to test a ring) and so he rolls 2D6. Depending on
this result & the ring tested, the result of testing a ring might vary. The beautiful gold ring's text
mentions : - The One Ring (12+); - a Dwarven Ring (10, 11, 12+); - a Magic Ring (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
7); - a Lesser Ring (any result). So, depending on your roll, you can replace the tested (and
discarded) ring by a special ring item from your hand; e.g. if you roll a twelve, you can replace the
beautiful gold ring by The One Ring, a Dwarven Ring or a Lesser Ring. Gandalf rolls a 6, and
replaces the golden ring with the Lesser Ring from his hand.

The lesser Ring gives +2 Direct Influence, so Gandalf's 12 influence is now enough to control
both Aragorn (9 mind) and Arwen (3 mind).

Faramir has a duty to bring Annalena to safety so she can heal, so they will move to Lorien.
Gandalf & his two followers decide to go to the Bandit Lair in the Brown Lands because they are
in the vicinity anyway, and they could play another Gold Ring there.

Long Event Phase :

The Minion's Stir Kris played during Mark's last movement/hazard phase has been in play for
both players' turns, and is discarded now.

Movement/Hazard Phase :

Faramir and Annalena

Mark reveals Lorien and announces his company is moving using starter movement from Isengard
to its nearest haven, through [B][W][W]. Both players draw their alloted cards (Haldir and Many
turns and Doublings for Kris, Return of the King and Rain-Drake for Mark).
There is a hazard limit of 2, and Kris first plays Tom (1@13, keyable to [W][W]). Faramir taps for 8
vs 13. The 7 he rolls is easily high enough to kill the troll, so Mark puts the troll in his marshalling
point pile. Then Kris plays Bert (1@12, keyable to [W]). Because all characters in the company are
tapped or worse, Kris chooses which character faces the strike and he chooses Annalena.
Wounded characters have -2 prowess and -1 body, so Annalena is 1 vs 12. Annalena rolls a 9
which is a nice effort but not good enough. Kris rolls an 8 on the body check, which normally
wouldn't have been bad, except that Annalena has -1 body because she *was* already wounded
(this -1 body is not cumulative; however many times your character is wounded, it still has only -1
body), and so her body was only 7. Annalena dies.

Hazard limit is hit, so both players draw up to hand size. Kris has 8 cards in hand so doesn't do
anything, Mark discards his Thorough Search.

Gandalf, Aragorn and Arwen

Mark reveals the Bandit Lair, and mentions he is moving from the Anduin Vales (B) to the Brown
Lands (S). Kris may draw 2 cards (Orc-Warband and Great Ship) while Mark draws 1 card (Ents in
Search of the Ent-Wives).

Kris plays Alone and Unadvised on Arwen (who is bearing the Star-Glass). This corruption card
gives 4 corruption points to a non-wizard character in a company with less than 4 characters, but
gives a +1 to each corruption check for every character in the company. So, in this case, Arwen
has 2 effective corruption points. The Alone and Unadvised also forces a character to make a
corruption check at the end of its movement/hazard phase for each region the character moved
through. Mark has a marvel's told in his hand, but decides to keep that in case he needs it for
something worse.

Kris decides to play no further hazards. Arwen has to make two corruption checks and rolls a 5 on
the first one and a 12 on the second one.

Kris discards his great ship to go down to 8. Mark discards his Sword of Gondolin.

Site Phase

Gandalf, Aragorn and Arwen enter the Bandit Lair, facing the automatic attack of men - 3 strikes
with 6. Arwen taps and rolls a 5, so her total of 7 beats the strike's prowess. Aragorn stays
untapped, and rolls a 6. Adding his modified prowess of 3, this again handily defeats the strike.
Gandalf taps and rolls a 4. His 10 (4 + 6 prowess) whacks the man strike.

Aragorn taps to play a Beautiful Gold Ring.

End of Turn Phase

Mark draws a card, Searching Eye. Kris discards his Saruman and draws the Knights of Dol
Amroth.

Current hands :
Kris has Rangers of Ithilien, Knights of Dol Amroth, Treebeard, Haldir, Dodge, Dark Quarrels,
Many Turns and Doublings, Orc-Warband.
Mark has Marvels Told, Noble Steed, Concealment, Stealth, Return of the King, Rain-Drake,
Searching Eye, Ents in Search of the Ent-Wives.

Kris, Turn 3

Untap Phase

All Kris' characters untap.

Organisation Phase

Saruman will go alone to Wellinghall (in order to play Treebeard). The Wounded Glorfindel will go
alone to Lorien. Adrazar, Sam and Fatty decided to take a trip to Dol Amroth to chat with the
Knights.

Long-Event Phase

No long-events in play or in hand, so nothing happens.

Movement/Hazard Phase

Saruman

Kris reveals Wellinghall and announces he will move Saruman through the Gap of Isen (B) and
Fangorn (W). Both players draw their 1 card (Doors of Night for Kris, Power Built By Waiting for
Mark).

Mark plays Ents In Search of the Ent-Wives. This creature can be keyed to double-Wilderness ([W]
[W]), Border-land ([B]) or Free-Domain ([F]), and also to Shadow-Land ([S]) if Doors of Night is not
in play. Saruman is moving through the Gap of Isen, so the attack is playable.

This attack is 1 strike with 14 prowess, but Saruman needs not despair yet - this attack is
detainment against hero companies. What does detainment mean? Instead of wounding a
character after a failed strike, detainment attacks only tap a character - but defeating a
detainment attack also doesn't grant marshalling points or kill the creature.

Saruman decides to stay untapped against the Ent (because the worst that can happen is that he
would get tapped anyway), and rolls an 8. 8 plus his modified prowess of 3 is only 11, so he taps
while talking to the Ent.

Now Mark plays a second hazard - and in case you wonder why he can still play another hazard,
whereas hazard limit was defined as "number of characters in the company", the hazard limit is
always minimum 2. Mark uses this second hazard slot to play his Power Built By Waiting.
Kris has 9 cards in hand and discards the Many Turns and Doublings, Mark draws a card and
draws Bergil.

Glorfindel

Glorfindel moves to Lorien and uses starter movement to do this. Both players draw 2 cards
because Isengard says so (remember, when moving to a haven, you draw cards equal to the
numbers on the site you came from, not equal to the Haven's cards drawn statistic). Kris draws an
Orc-Lieutenant and a Smoke Rings, Mark draws Tidings of Bold Spies and Forlong.

Mark has no hazards to play and discards his Tidings of Bold Spies and his Bergil, Kris plays his
smoke rings to shuffle a Stealth from his discard pile into his deck and then discards his Dodge.

Sam & Co

They move to Dol Amroth through [F][F], and Kris draws a concealment while Mark draws the
Corsairs of Umbar.

Mark plays the Corsair of Umbar, which can be keyed to Belfalas. Kris has 2 ways to cancel this
man hazard (Dark quarrels which can cancel a man attack amongst others, and concealment
which can cancel any kind of attack). Because he has an untapped scout, he chooses to play the
concealment and taps Fatty. Mark responds by playing Searching Eye, which cancels one card
requiring Scout skill, such as Concealment. Kris
then plays Dark Quarrels, cancelling the Corsairs once more. Mark discards the Corsairs and has
reached his hazard limit (as the Searching Eye hzard short-event counts against the Hazard Limit).

Drawing back to hand-size, Kris draws the Orc-guard while Mark draws the Tower Guard of Minas
Tirith.

Site Phase

Sam, Fatty and Adrazar enter Dol Amroth and Adrazar taps to influence the Knights of Dol
Amroth. He rolls an 7, and adds his Direct Influence (1 + 1 vs factions + 2 vs factions) and the
bonus from the Faction (+1 if Dunedain). 12 is higher than 8, so Kris puts the Knights of Dol
Amroth in his marshalling point pile.

Saruman is tapped and Glorfindel is wounded, so they do nothing during their own site phases.

End Phase

Kris draws the Scroll of Isildur.

Current Situation

Kris has in play a Wounded Glorfindel with Hauberk of Bright Mail and a Sapling of the White
Tree at Lorien, a tapped Saruman at Wellinghall and a tapped Adrazar, tapped Fatty and
untapped Sam at Dol Amroth. He also has the Knights of Dol Amroth and the Men of Lebennin in
his marshalling point pile in addition to the Cave-Worm Glorfindel killed.
Kris' hand : Treebeard, Rangers of Ithilien, Haldir, Scroll of Isildur, Orc-Warband, Doors of Night,
Orc-Lieutenant, Orc-Guard

Mark has a wounded Faramir with Glamdring and Elf-stone at Lorien and Gandalf with a lesser
Ring controlling Aragorn with a beautiful gold ring and Arwen with the Starglass and Alone and
Unadvised at the Brown Lands.

Mark's Hand : Marvels Told, Noble Steed, Concealment, Stealth, Return of the King, Rain-Drake,
Tower-guard of Minas Tirith and Forlong.