Opposing Alignments Team Challenge Aachen Germany

This tournament was held at a (very small) gaming convention in Germany. Players could participate in 4-player teams and every player had to bring both a hero and a minion deck. Our "Mannschaft" consisted of the only 4 dutch players willing to go all the way to Aachen to participate: Wim Heemskerk, Simone de Ruyter, Ard van Kessel and me (Jean-Paul Keulen). When we arrived at the convention (UniCon '99), it turned out there were not enough players to have enough 4-player teams, so we made 2-player teams instead; Wim and Simone were Team Apeldoorn (boring name, guys!), Ard and I decided to call ourselves Elladan & Elrohir.

First game:

Jean-Paul (minion) vs. Simone (hero). My minion deck was a pretty boring deck: company #1: two troll lieutenants, who were to get factions & cool items in Dragon Country, two men (Odoacer and Luitprand) playing stuff at Mount Doom and/or Barad- dur. My hazard strategy was men & corruption. Simone played a Return of the King/Gondor deck. So, my men had enough opportunities to attack her with all the borderholds and freeholds down there, and after she ran out of Dark Quarrels, I succeeded in wounding Aragorn. My usual bad luck when rolling body checks made sure didn't get killed, though. Simone managed to play The White Tree, but after that, I started recycling the Knights of the Prince, a hazard creature that really messes with a Gondor deck. It looked like I was going to win, but my last turn was a very dangerous one - one of the lieutenants got killed, the other characters survided the host of Ice-drakes Simone was throwing my way. After counting, I had a few more MP's than Simone, so I won 4-2. Ard had also won his game, so our team was off to a great start.

Second game:

Jean-Paul (hero) vs. Dennis (minion). My hero deck was a deck not unlike Simone's deck; it also featured Aragorn, Return of the King and The White Tree, but it also had Arwen & Choice of Luthien in it. Also, I took Sam Gamgee & Fatty with me, just to be able to play To Fealty Sworn, another great theme card. My hazards were mostly Spawn & Spiders. I also had a few anti-Balrog cards in my main deck (like The Way is Shut), because I suspected most Germans would bring a Balrog deck. I was correct; both minion decks I faced were Balrogs. Dennis turned out to be a really cool player. His deck was nice too, though probably a bit too cheezy for some people. He put a bunch of orc scouts at Dimrill Dale, made a shadow- hold out of it with Hold Rebuilt and Repaired and then started playing War-wolves, Snaga-hai, A Few Recruits, Blasted Fire etcetera there. Meanwhile, two other orcs were going to and fro between Moria and the Under-gates. Dennis also played Great Shadow on his Balrog, so he could play even more characters and recycle some key-cards (at least, he would have, if I hadn't played Lady of the Golden Wood...). The only really nasty things I could do were 1) playing Doubled Vigilance on Dimrill Dale and 2) playing Heedless Revelry. Meanwhile, my Gondor deck did fairly well - Gates of Morning stayed in play during the whole game, so I could use those cool cards like Many Turns & Doublings, The Cock Crows and The Sun Unveiled to rotect my characters. Too bad Return of the King didn't show up. During the game, Dennis complained a lot about things that went wrong, but in the end, it turned out he had 33 MP's, while I only had 30. Close call. I lost 2-4. Luckily, Ard (to his own surprise) had won his game with his minion deck, designed by Wim.

Third game:

Jean-Paul (minion) vs. Olivier (hero). Next, I had to face Oliver Hoffman, Dennis' team mate and yet another very friendly and humorous Middle Earth player. He played an Unexpected Party deck, featuring (of course) lots and lots of dwarves, fat items, Bounty of the Hoard, Radagast, A Short Rest, etc. etc. A good deck. Too bad I'd seen such a lot of these decks at the tournament in Delft a few weeks ago (everybody played dwarves there). But anyway, Olivier drew An Unexpected Party on his first turn, played a bunch of extra dwarves and headed for Dragon Country. My starting hand sucked - no MP cards at all! So I went to Irerock, hoping I'd draw something on the way there. Nope. Nothing. Next turn, Oliver went to another Dragon's Lair and played a lot of items and some more dwarves (using A Chance Meeting). I tried to corrupt Thrain, but with X dwarves being able to tap in support and three copies of A Friend or Three in his deck, there was no way Thrain was going to leave his little friends behind. At the beginning of my turn, I still hadn't drawn any MP resources! So I went to The Lonely Mountain - who knows, maybe I would draw something nice this time. Yes, the High Helm. At least that's something. After that, Oliver started moving Radagast to and fro between Lorien & Rivendell, drawing lots and lots of cards in the process. My attempts to kill the bastard were all in vain. The only card that could really mess up Olivier's strategy (apart from The Balance of Things, which scared the hell out of him too) was the Arkenstone, which was in my play deck from the start. Unfortunately, I couldn't play the darn thing before it was too late. 5-1 win for Olivier.

Fourth game:

Jean-Paul (hero) vs. Patrick (minion). Patrick Kubrat played a very messy Balrog deck, with Great Shadow and (of course) lots and lots of haracters. My Gondor deck did fairly well, until Patrick sent two of his big guys to the Glittering Caves to attack me. Dark Quarrels, phew! Next turn, I went to Edoras. Assassin! Luckily, I could cancel all of the strikes with I Know Much About You and by tapping some characters. Another Assassin! Aragorn had to face one of the attacks this time (I could cancel the other two), leaving him tapped. Beorning Skin- changers! Argh! Company returned to site of origin... The site where Umagaur & Azog were waiting, polishing up their battle axes... And I'd just ran out of Dark Quarrels... I spend the next turn playing every card I could, just to draw a Dark Quarrels, but to no avail. Company vs. Company Combat. Arwen got wounded, but survived. Fatty got wounded, but survived. Phew, again. My company went back to Lorien, to heal, and during the next turns, I was able to play a lot of MP cards without a lot of trouble (12 MP's during one turn!). Meanwhile, Patrick's side of the table had become so messy with hosts of characters and site cards everywhere, I played my hazards quite poorly, so Patrick could pretty much do whatever he wanted to do. Also, because I'd played The White Tree, I'd lost my only item points, so his got doubled. 4-2 win for Patrick.

Team Apeldoorn (Wim & Simone) won the tournament; they got some German boosters, one German promo card each and one map set. The Nameless Things (Olivier & Dennis) got second place, and, much to our suprise, Elladan & Elrohir (Ard and me) got third place! Die Attentater (Patrick & Ingo (?not sure?)) got fourth place, don't remember the rest of the results. After the tournament, some of the Germans took the four of us to an Italian restaurant.

All in all, a very good tournament. Thanks, Michael, for coordinating! Too bad there weren't more participants. Shame on Birk!

Yours sincerely,

Jean-Paul "The Sly Southerner"