M
You’re welcome. I’m not sure how much you can read into our strategies because we were playing our first game on this map (albeit we had played previous versions) and making up the strategy on the hoof, making errors along the way.
I think you’ve just about got the price right on dragons and eagles. It’s handy for Angmar to get an extra dragon but soon needs to prioritise bodies. The High Elves definitely want to spam Eagles and do start to try to do so but the cost slows them down. If the fight had remained in the balance a little longer then I think we’d have seen progressively more eagles around. Is there a possible mechanism to make each new eagle cost 1 more than the last?
As you saw, my opponent did try an Oliphant landing and to be fair was mostly thwarted by dice else it might have been a good diversion.
Saruman does seem to be quite forced to capture and hold Tharbad in this map version and the previous one. It’s not a problem but does seem quite critical and therefore a limitation on strategic freedom.
As you say, we made little use of one hit flyers. They are handy for picking off lone spearmen, say, but there are so many anti-air units around that it makes the opportunities relatively rare.
I agree that it was difficult to make significant use of Rohan Riders, although sometimes they were handy. I don’t think the points balance is wrong, it’s just hard to mimic the books given it isn’t that realistic that a nation surrounded by woods and mountains could be quite so cavalry focussed. It would be interesting though to see what 1 extra movement point might do, and/or adding Blitz ability.
The siege mechanics were interesting. The one query I had was whether flanking should prioritise artillery targets, else any army with a few archers can keep its siege engines pretty safe. At a critical mass, the artillery becomes a juggernaut as it can knock down wall after wall in a succession of towns without loss.
