I just recently got the Battles of the Third Age Expansion, and see three big boosts for the Fellowship. I'd like to hear other opinions on the new parts.

Free Peoples

Big Help
1) Galadriel: FP can now hold Lorien possibly. Get an extra die faster. Hugely helps the Ringbearer if draw a couple of Eyes early.

2) Smeagol: Helps the Ringbearer a lot, reducing corruption by 2-3, plus an extra 0 hunt tile, and the down side is minimal (honestly, a redrawn tile isn't all that bad at all).

3) Siege Engine mechanic: should cost the Shadow an extra 2 dice or 3-5 troops per stronghold, for each muster FP die spent. That's a good return.

Questionable Help
4) Treebeard and Ents: here, with only 3 Ent attack cards, and a game usually lasting 7-9 turns, you'll only draw 10-12 Character cards (go Gandalf!), so hopefully draw 2. As long as the Shadow leaves 1 troop in Fords of Isen, then the first Ent attack card is spent killing him (one Ent in Fanghorn, one Ent to attack Fords). Then the Shadow moves a new troop to Fords and the second attack card is spent killing the troop, and putting an Ent in Fords. So unless the Shadow uses Saruman's Voice a number of times, the Ents don't really help. Other strategies for the Ents?

Shadow Player

Big Help - don't see any here, but then, they didn't need any help.

Medium Help
1) Balrog: an early 9th die without making everyone active, plus an extra 2 attack value and a bonus tile if you're lucky. Pretty bad downside of moving 3 nations down a notch.

2) Dunlendings: useful for blocking the Ents and for "sacrifice" battle cards, plus can recruit in forward positions. No downside.

No Help
3) Black Ships: not really sure where they were going with these, but don't see them being very useful at all. It's just as easy to march up the coast; either way they see you coming (if you've got a force parked in Umbar). I'd rather have the old Corsairs card!

4) New Witch King: since there's only one reroll of the hunt, having extra rerolls of only 1-2 dice isn't helpful. I will usually have a Nazgul or army in the Fellowship spot anyway. The original card cycling is still much better, even if it brings the activation of nations as a cost.

So what's your take on 1-4 for each above?

My Summary
I still think going North to the "DEW" line is still the best choice for the Shadow, along with scooping either Helm's deep and Minas Tirith, or just attacking Gondor full on.
I still think pushing the Fellowship is the best choice (which has gotten loads easier). I also think "wasted" dice for the Free Peoples are less of a factor, as muster dice early and late can get Galadriel and siege engines.
I think it'll be very hard to slow the Fellowship anymore, so the question is how fast can the Shadow get to a military victory?
I would definitely say what the Expansion does is it requires both players to very carefully plan their choice of actions, especially the order. No FP muster dice left? Now's the time for the Shadow to assault that stronghold. 0-1 Character cards in hand and no Palantirs? Now's the time to use Saruman and press Rohan.

Thanks,
Darth Hansen

I have played many base games and several expansion games. My thoughts:

1. Agree with all big help items for free people.

2. I consider Ents to be big help also. Getting them in quickly basically negates Voice of Saruman from then on. The Shadow player is very reluctant to bring in more Ents. The way I read the rules, with two of the Ent cards during the course of the game you could also still attack Isengard with 10 rolls even if Saruman employed your strategy of keeping one guy in Fords of Isen. The muster of the Ent Factions puts Treebeard in Fangorn and this is the Ent that must stay in Fangorn. The first Ent card would kill the one guy in the Fords and place an Ent in the Fords. The second Ent card could use both Ents to then attack Isengard even if a Shadow Army was back in Fords of Isen. The other very helpful thing is that the Ents can now help the defences of Lorien or Helm's Deep. With Galadriel's importance at getting rid of Eye Tiles and her extra die if Gandalf the White is not in, we have found Lorien to be a big target. The Ents can make it even more difficult to take.

3. Agree with help as noted for Shadow, except maybe Balrog.

4. I may consider Balrog big help. You do always get an extra hunt tile if the fellowship goes through Moria. Keeping the extra die if the Witch King dies later in the game could also be very important. I have played two games in which the Witch King died in sieges. Both times were due to Grond and absolutely awful rolling by the Shadow and hard to believe good rolls by the free people. The Witch Kings army was so weakened that in each case the Free Peoples army was able to charge out as their next action and destroy the rest of the Witch King army in one round of battle before he could retreat. Loss of the extra die was probably the worst part. It has made our group very reluctant to use Grond. With the Balrog, you can risk the Wich King a little more because if the Witch King dies, you do still get to keep the extra die.

5. Black Ships. I agree that they are almost useless as they are. We have house rules in effect for them. Each ship can move three instead of two regions and when you initially muster them you get three ships instead of two. This doesn't get them to Dol Amroth any faster (still two moves since it is four regions away), but could make them more of a threat to Grey Havens.

6. New Witch King. I agree, not as good as old Witch King. We use two house rules from Veldrin's web site www.warofthering.eu . With these two additions, it makes it more of a toss up.

a. Their Power is Terror. If the Witch-King, Chief of the Ringwraiths is in the same region as the fellowship add one to the Hunt level (up to a maximum of five).

b. The Black Captain. When the fellowship enters the Mordor Track immediately replace the Chief of the Ringwraiths with the Black Captain.

This is my first time ever publishing to any forum online. I am interested in any feedback anyone else may have. I was a huge Avalon Hill fan growing up and still love board games. War of the Ring has rapidly become one of my all time favorite games.