Recently I went to a convention where I hosted two games of LOTR MESBG.
Turns out I only hosted 1, because for the second there wasn't any gamers available. BOO.

This is likely due to the general low turnout of the con; it was a small local affair only in it's second year.

But I was quite pleased with my LOTR tables if I do say so myself, and my Osgiliath terrain survived the trip very well. Unfortunately there is no detailed AARs since I was running the game and not taking a lot of notes.

Some pics to share:

First up was the "defense of Osgiliath" scenario from the Gondor at War book.






Later in the weekend I tried to host the next scenario from the book, Retaking of Osgiliath, but had to content myself with just setting up the terrain and taking some pics.






For a few more pics of games and general thoughts about the convention, you can see the blog:

https://tllw.blogspot.com/2019/07/intergalatic-convention-aar-and.html

Overall I had a good time at the con and it made me want to host more LOTR at future cons.

Thanks for looking.

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More LOTR content on my blog: https://tllw.blogspot.com/

Sad no one seemed to want to have a second game with you. The terrain is A+, I'd want to play a game on that board. Maybe it's just me, but if we were to have a tabletop con, I'd want to try out as many new games as possible. Have some fun without the initial investment. At the risk of sounding heretical, have you considered playing some Frostgrave on that board? You could use most of your LoTR minis.

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"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'nice doggie' until you can find a rock." -Will Rogers

Shame you didn't get any players for your second game. I always wondered how to do a simplified LOTR for those who don't know the game at a convention. Maybe a Battle Companies version instead?

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"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

Thanks for the responses. The two players in the first game enjoyed it well and learned the rules easily. I was more saying that I took a little longer than I wanted to explain the basics at the beginning that I would like. The game played smoothly with the complete rookies and soon they were calling their own heroic actions and such.

One player from the first game did return for the second but since we had no one else and we were tired we just packed it in. Turned out to be a blessing as I say in the blog as instead I went and had a last meal with my father.

Those are great suggestions for other rules and worth thinking about if the trend continues but I really don’t have much interest in frostgrave or battle companies.

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More LOTR content on my blog: https://tllw.blogspot.com/

Thanks for posting this. Good on you for going out to host a demo. The game could use a little more circulation outside the GW arena.

Whenever I do demos I always strip the game down to cut out a lot of the more involved stuff. No heroic actions, magic, monsters, barrier fighting and so forth. Sometimes no might or fate at all. Glad to hear you had more success while keeping those things in.

My condolences on the passing of your father though.

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"Draw your sword with a heavy heart, but swing it with a heavy hand"

Thanks Wan. I appreciate the sentiment.

We played the game with all the bells and whistles and it worked fine. Players picked it up. I didn’t use special strikes though bc I don’t think they add anything to the game.
So I guess not everything after all.

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More LOTR content on my blog: https://tllw.blogspot.com/