This is what happened
Round one, I faced Ewout Deurwaarder. His hazards didn’t give me much trouble (orcs, I believe?). He brought masses of dwarves into play, to have lots of cannon fodder, as he called them. He went to the Blue-Mountains and Forochel; hard to miss with a deck packed with drakes. He made Balin a very important ‘ringed’ dwarf, but unfortunately had not seen ‘Rolled down to the Sea’ before. A 6-0.
Round two, another Ewoud (Tan), and another company moving to Forochel. To bad, none of his tough guys ever returned. He created a strong second group around his wizard at the Grey Havens. By wounding Dain and making Gloin speaking foolishly he kept me faction-less and doubled his five faction-MP’s. My Pallando made his own exit: a Wizard’s Ring, two people tapping in support and two eyes facing me. A close finish: 24-22, a 4-2 win for me.
Round three, Steven Rutten. A really buff company appeared: among others Beorn, Strider and Celeborn, who soon aquired Wormsbane. These guys were eager to slay a worm or two, and so they did, hardly needing the Old Thrush flying up from the sideboard in aid. The snow did cause him some problems though, so he wanted a good finishing turn. This is how it went. Bairanax flew up, but aimlessly around missing all of Steven’s (all of a sudden three) companies by an inch. Alatar took the forest River in a stride, positioning Celeborn to recruit some Elves; to no avail. Strider did better and recruited some Dunédain in the South. Beorn had his mind set on an Ent (to stop me from getting six points out of Tom Bombadil). Want an Assassin instead..? What Assassin? Three elevens in a row and Beorn blazes on untapped! Victory was out of his reach, but Steven very effectively avoided 0-6 and 1-5.
Round four, there was Ard (van Kessel), coming on strong in practically every tournament the last six months and facing me after three solid 6-0’s. Strider, Elrohir, Fatty and Sam stepped forward on his behalf; that didn’t look to exceptional. He started well, easily searching for two sword at the Barrow-downs. Then he tried to get to Goblin-gate, while a summoned Fire-drake lay ready and waiting. A Were-worm made two passes in aid of his fellow worm and both swords were gone. All but Elrohir remained wounded ever since. Radagast made his entry, but to late to save the day. All this going so well I got reckless and went for some extra fun on my last two turns (I somehow thought a 4-2 was all I needed). Elladan tried to thrust through the Redoubled Forces of Cirith Ungol. He clearly wasn’t Beorn. The temptation of etting the only faction in play was large to. Gloin lost his head (twice?). Dain started polishing his sword (Orcrist) as Powers were Balanced. His friend Elladan came to aid him, but, well, you know how elves and dwarves get along: 7-4 MP’s left, enough for a 5-1 and to win the tournament.