War of the Ring
Darryl played as the Free Peoples and Phil as Shadow.
Phil focused on Saruman early on and managed to take hold of Helm’s Deep. He also set aside 3 or more dice each turn for the Hunt but consistently failed to reveal the fellowship. Whenever he did successfully Hunt he seemed to find Smeagol or deal corruption. This left him very few dice left and so it took a long time for the Easterlings and Sauron to join the fight. Meanwhile the Fellowship travelled a very long way and did not stop at Lorien to rest and heal. Legolas raised the North and the Elves posing a credible threat to Angmar which forced Saruman to send some troops North.
Strider led a fight back in Rohan and briefly threatened to recapture Helms Deep. Eventually the Witch King arrived and took command of the Siege of Minas Tirith. He lost a siege tower and was nearly destroyed himself. He could only manage to reduce the defenders to their last man, a trebuchet and two leaders. This meant Phil had to move the Southrons to War and bring them up to support the Witch King, using up more precious dice.
At this time the Fellowship led by Merry finally was revealed to be in Morannon! However they were heavily corrupted by their lengthy journey, especially because of a harrowing trip through Moria which led to the loss of several companions including Smeagol. Too late now to heal they pressed on regardless despite being heavily corrupted. Sauron sneakily put back in all the beige tiles rather than just the eye tiles, a fateful error perhaps. Minas Tirith fell and the Witch King moved rapidly towards Dol Amroth. Saruman’s forces headed towards the Shire and the Easterlings towards Dale, though not in great numbers. Under pressure the Free Peoples pushed on towards Mount Doom and a round of draw, reject, draw, reject and repeat took place with Lady Galadriel using Elven Rings to Discard eye tiles and multiple Play on the Table Event Cards coming into play. Eventually however the Corruption points were just too high with so many dice rolled as Eyes ending up in the Hunt.
So a Victory for Shadow due to Fellowship Corruption (but with an asterix due to adding too many tiles back into the draw pool).
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