A Repetition In The Competition!

2025 attendance rebounded to 31 entrants. The change to a Class C event helped bring in a few new curious players to join our festivities. As always, many thanks to our players (and their game copies!) who came together for our event. A special shout out to Chris Kizer on this point who set-up a game more than once only for us not to need it that round.

Round Details

Mulligan Round: 18 players competed in the Mulligan Round prior to our main event. The Shadow Armies (SA) marginally defeated the Free People (FP) with 5 victories compared to 4. This round included the lone FP military victory this year by Joe Leone.

Round 1: 13 players kicked off the main event. Several players signed up for learning games including a few who attended the demo held just prior. This time ignoring teaching game results, The FP dominated the results with 5 victories compared to a single SA victory.

Notable games: Athelas healing 3 points of corruption with Gollum as the guide didn’t save SA Daniel Collinson from a corruption victory by SA Marty Sample. Despite a disastrous invasion of Rohan by SA Steve Worrell, they at least managed to add 3 red hunt tiles to the hunt bag. Unfortunately, the single blue tile added by FP Michael Pustilnik was instead drawn en route to a ring dunk. FP John Pack barely held on to Helm’s Deep against SA Alex Bock, buying the needed time for a ring dunk victory. FP Albert Bangma was saved by Mithril Coat & Sting on the last step of Mount against SA Conrad Eisen.

Round 2: 13 winners and 1 eliminator returned to kick off the Single Elimination Rounds. This round closely split wins between the SA (3) and FP (4).

FP Jeromey Martin and SA Bronwyn Woods randomly faced off in what seems to be an annual early contest of these two champions. It was a true race by both sides lasting only 5 turns, with the Fellowship only found a single time en route to Mordor and not revealed at all. If the ring hadn’t been dunked so quickly the SA would have likely achieved a military victory despite A Power Too Great defending Lorien for much of the game.

FP Albert Bangma wasn’t fazed by Strider’s death as a random casualty on turn 4. SA Marty Sample briefly slowed the Fellowship when Shelob’s tile added 5 corruption, yet the ring was still successfully dunked. SA Chris Trimmer poured plenty of resources into hunting the Fellowship of FP Jacob Hebner, but it was all for naught with a multitude of unsuccessful hunt rolls. Even killing Aragon the same turn, he was promoted did not stop a successful ring dunk. The game between SA Sean McCulloch and FP Michael Pustilnik featured several statistical improbabilities with their dice rolls. Examples include 6 of 6 rolled SA dice on turn 4 being character dice (1/46656 odds they say), 5 FP hits on a turn 6 battle to kill the Witch King with his army without the assistance of any combat cards, turn 8 the Ents scoring 5 hits on 6 dice to kill Saruman, and on the final turn 11 the SA rolling 6 musters and 1 Palantir. Needless to say, the FP won the game with rolls like that

SA Alex Bock rode to a military victory against FP Joe Leone after an epic 5 turn battle of Minas Tirth resulted in the eventual death of Aragon, Boromir, and Gandalf the White in a valiant defense. FP Chris Kizer had a rocky start when FP Eric Stein’s early hunt roll success claimed Gandalf and then Strider as a random casualty. Despite this, the Fellowship reached Mordor at only 3 corruption with 2 hobbits still members. After easy movement to the 4th step, both players traded corruption and healing leaving the Fellowship with 6 corruption for their final step. Out came Shelob’s tile with an accompanying roll of 6 to end the FP’s hope. Finally, FP Joseph Kelleher used Fear! Fire! Foes! to push the North to war and threaten a potential military victory at 4 VP before SA Kevin Wojtaszczyk liberated Minas Morgal just in time. The SA was then able to pivot to their own military victory with Denethor’s Folly enabling a successful conquest of Minas Tirth.

Round 3: We started the round with our laurelists determined as 6 winners gave us 3 games this round. When the dust settled the SA claimed 2 victories to 1 for the FP.

FP Michael Pustilnik used Aragon to stomp SA Eric Stein’s siege of Dol Amroth, buying more time for the Fellowship to reach the apex of Mount Doom. It then came down to a 50/50 hunt tile draw with the result pushing the Fellowship to 12 corruption. FP Jacob Hebner used all four of his allotted Dwarven Rings on Turn 2 when his initial dice roll was all musters. When he continued to lack enough Fellowship movement in future turns, SA Jeromey Martin used this time to militarily dominate the northern lands including The Shire. Minas Tirth and Rohan slept in peaceful ignorance. Losing Strider on Turn 3 as a random casualty wasn’t the end for FP Albert Bangma. SA Kevin Wojtaszczyk had a slow start with no muster dice and Fellowship dunked the ring before the SA could properly mobilize as needed.

Round 4: As in 2024, 3 winners and an eliminator set the stage for the Final games scoring the FP and SA a victory each. This time our esteemed eliminator failed in their duty and set the stage for a true, Final Championship game.

SA Bronwyn Woods served as eliminator against FP Eric Stein. At the end of Turn 6, Rohan held off the SA just enough to stall the SA military at 9 VP. The Fellowship being only on step 2 and revealed meant they needed at least 3 out of 5 dice to allow movement. When they got the rolls, Bronwyn was able to add 2 more red tiles to the Hunt pool, but alas they were not pulled allowing the Fellowship to dunk the ring on Turn 7.

In this round’s other game, SA Jeromey Martin used Wormtongue to prevent the activation of Rohan for FP Albert Bangma. Albert instead bolstered Minas Tirth, forcing the SA to look elsewhere for military VPs. While the Witch King oversaw the conquest of the DEW territories among others, the FP made good progress towards Mount Doom despite a forced separation of 3 companions from the Breaking of the Fellowship. Had the last SA die not conquered Pelargir on turn 8, the Fellowship would have dunked the ring next turn with only 7 corruption thus far.

Round 5: FP Eric Stein was off to a great start when both Aragon and Gandalf the White were in action in Turns 1 and 2, respectively. SA Jeromey Martin rolled lots of hunting eyes slowing down his military progress but killing Companions on a regular basis. Despite having a low amount of corruption for much of its travels, the Fellowship ultimately succumbed to corruption when Isilder's Bane pulled a final tile pushing them past their limit. The SA was still far away from military victory and so in hindsight, a slower Fellowship push was likely a better strategic option.

Congratulations to Jeromey on becoming the fifth repeating champion. I look forward to next year’s competition.