{"id":9076,"date":"2021-10-05T18:10:51","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T17:10:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/houseofgaming.co.uk\/?p=9076"},"modified":"2021-10-05T18:12:00","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T17:12:00","slug":"long-time-no-see-bit-of-lotr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/houseofgaming.co.uk\/index.php\/2021\/10\/05\/long-time-no-see-bit-of-lotr\/","title":{"rendered":"Long time no see – bit of LOTR"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been a quiet few months for the HOG bunch.\u00a0 The guys have been busy working, moving house, having babies and the rest of what adults get up to \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n

I’ve been out of the loop working on my other passion, Humanity Ascendant<\/a> – our Laser Tag LARP that ran in September and went extremely well.<\/p>\n

Most gaming has been of the board gaming variety, including a lot of online Twilight Imperium.<\/p>\n

I also recently started another run of Lord of the Rings – Journeys in Middle Earth<\/a> with 2 of my daughters.\u00a0 We’ve completed the 2 campaigns in the main game box and recently FINALLY I got hold of a copy of the very hard to find Moria expansion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Back to Middle Earth then…<\/h3>\n

So I’ve read a few reviews on the expansion and it said that there was a lot more to do, and choices were much more important.\u00a0 You now get a branching campaign, and added things such as corruption.<\/p>\n

We’re only 3 sessions in (2 exploration maps and a battle map) but so far it has been a lot of fun.\u00a0 The first adventure we completed on the last possible turn!<\/p>\n

So some mild spoilers ahead…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So we start off on in Mirkwood taking out spiders.\u00a0 Apparently they are up to something, and are carrying a glowing package wrapped in web.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We have Gandalf, Gimli and Eleanor as our characters.\u00a0 To start with we just start exploring…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As we open up the map we rescue an Elf, find a horse, uncover various treasures all whild fighting spiders and other bad guys.\u00a0 Eventually we discover their plot and thwart it…. barely!\u00a0 Not gonna spoil it\u00a0 though…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Choices Choices<\/h3>\n

At this point we are given 3 choices of our route forward… treaty with the Elves, pursue the Spiders or explore Moria for Relics.\u00a0 Guess what we did?\u00a0 Yes, of course we did – Gimli and Gandalf outvoted the more cautious Elf…<\/p>\n

On to Moria!<\/h3>\n

So we first need to find our way into Moria.\u00a0 A largish but relatively straightforward route to the mountains is explored.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s all going well until we find the gate and try to unlock it.<\/p>\n

Ambush!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s a tough fight but once Gimli arrives we are able to mop up and unlock Moria.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I didn’t take a picture of the whole mapped area for Moria, but overall this is a HUGE map and a lot of fun.<\/p>\n

Ereanor, loot monster that she is, finds the relic room and goes looting.\u00a0 She instead finds a massive Worm!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We rush to her aid, and manage to fend it off.\u00a0 Once dead, it reveals a tunnel to the lower levels.\u00a0 And the Relic.\u00a0 So we move on to a battle map…<\/p>\n

Smoke and Flames<\/h3>\n

At this point you’re probably thinking “they dug too deep!”.\u00a0 And you would be right!\u00a0 The Balrog, disturbed by our not-so-gentle traversing of it’s realm, bounds forward in anger.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s on.\u00a0 The thing is terrifying, hits like a truck, and dislikes Gandalf….<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Somehow Gandalf survives and once again we fell a mighty foe… Until it jumps to it’s feet again.\u00a0 All we’ve done is annoy it!<\/p>\n

We figure our only chance is to collapse the columns in the room.\u00a0 As the room starts to collapse we find a tunnel leading out.\u00a0 As the room collapses we slip into a long hallway.\u00a0 As we start to run from the collapsing halls behind us, we are pursued by ghosts that can go through the walls we are having to duck around!\u00a0 Once again it’s really really tough, but eventually we take out2 of the 4 ghosts and escape the halls.<\/p>\n

We live for another day!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Thoughts so far<\/p>\n

The expansion does not disappoint so far.\u00a0 Having a load of fun with it.\u00a0 Eleanor already has 3 corruption points, Gandalf is a lot of fun to play as a meddling so-and-so and the extra choices and more often award of title cards etc. all adds a lot to putting you more in control.\u00a0 Choosing your next adventure is a great thing too.<\/p>\n

Looking forward to getting further into this, will report then \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been a quiet few months for the HOG bunch.\u00a0 The guys have been busy working, moving house, having babies and the rest of what adults get up to \ud83d\ude41 I’ve been out of the loop working on my other passion, Humanity Ascendant – our Laser Tag LARP that ran in September and went extremely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-board-game"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/houseofgaming.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/houseofgaming.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/houseofgaming.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/houseofgaming.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/houseofgaming.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/houseofgaming.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/houseofgaming.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/houseofgaming.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/houseofgaming.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}