by Martin

It was my first time going to the LURE and if I'm correct informed I was the first Swede there since I beat Mattias (Schata) with a few hours.
Thanks to Timo Lutter and his friend (I'm sorry remember names are not my best skill). I had no problems with the transport from Frankfurt to Bacharach. We had an enjoyable travel talking and playing a Korean(?) cardgame. We was spared a walk up to the castle thanks to Heiner who gav us lift in his car. In the castle it was nice to see all "old" ME-friends again and all new too of course.

I arrivied just in time to one of my favourites; Minion sealed. I got decent cards, not so many useful rares and weak characters, save Lieu. Angmar. But MP's happend to be playable in a quite limited area and I had from all categories. I also had ok support card. Even better with the hazards 3 sellswords, river and some other good cards.. This promised for a good outcome.
First match was agaiinst Patrick Laxander and for some reason (perhaps cuz it was my only good character) I started the draft with Lieu Angmar... And it was pleasent to see Patricks face then. He also had got Angmar but saved the rare ch. til later in the draft (turned out to be too late) I think this had some impact on the game that was quite even but I won 4-2, a good start. Don't remember the other games really but I won them and the tournament, nice start! :-)

After that it was time for drinking game. Not so good cards this time didn't got an ally but otherwise it was ok. Sometime during the drinking game did Mattias arrive and we had a short greeting. We had not met in person before. The games was fun, dont remember (beer, tired, both?) something special from them. result 2 wins and tied with Patrick in the last match, and ended up on second place after him.

After that I realized that I hadn't checked in or given it a thought how that worked... stupid but I was there to play so sleep arrengments had felt secondary until then. So instead of getting our little room for 2 persons we slept in a room for 8 persons. The Hungarians happend to have two spare beds in their room. Very nice of them to let us sleep there, thanks again guys.

Saturday time for gen.op. decided after the breakfast to use my hero home-squat deck and not one of the minion decks since I intended to play in the minion-only tourney later.
Not much worked of the resources, bright thing was that the hazard portion was quite effective orc/men, goblin-face hazard against hero/FW. Best remember the game against Heiners BalWolf deck. The game then I got the cards in quite good order and faction influencing worked ok. Anyway he got far ahead when his troll/orc group collecting a great wolfpack at Isengard. I couldn't realy touch him; the dwrves there traveling somewhere in the bottom of my deck and Saruman was not "at home"... Things took an interesting change when he marched he band of uglies to attack my lone squatters in Gondor. Tidings/UiM +the finally appearing Maias turned his great wolfpack to pieces leaving only the warg-king alive, badly wounded and pitiful whimping and the great band of uglies was reduced to the 2 or 3? criplings. So infor last round I was only 4 points behind and had Gloin sitting at his home and the Blue mnt. Dwarves and a No strangers on my hand. And he played and succed with heedless on Gloin! So no tie.. and no good tourney result.

After dinner it was time for revenge in the minion only tourney. Mattias borrowed the big trolls threatening dragons up north deck I had intended to use. Instead I dusted of the my descending Balrog/great army deck, I really like this one. Some participators questioned if Balrog was allowed in minion only, but of course he was. And the deck didn't failed me. Think I got Balrog out first round in all 3 games and he was fully descended at latest in round 3. Meanwhile Umagaur and Bolg ran around collected the great army and some trolls on the way. Doeth voiced away nasty stuff and (of course) collected stinker. After his descending stuff the Balrog rushed to get his axe. 3 sweet 6-0s fully restored the reduced selfconfidence :-)

Time for some well needed sleep, no chance I could have stayed up all night as some people did.

I had a good night's sleep. After breakfast it was time for cool-play. I had looked forward to this tourney as it sound very funny. I played a women-power deck dedicated to my girlfriend. To keep things more thematic with the deck I had only female hazards as well; agents, daelomin ahunt, spider of Morlat, TW ambushers, Giant spiders (I'm sure they are female!?) and spiced with some female cunning aka corruption.
The main plan for the deck was to have the Nordic ;-) girls (start) running around in eriador in 2 companies collecting rings, goldberry and the factions where. The idea with rings was to support influence checks with minor rings and also having magic rings in SB if thing should get wrong with requirements for the main-goal. Most important was to keep Eowyn alive the first few crucial rounds until she could run to Rivendell and hide.
The girls from the south (not starting characters) popped up in their homesites and influenced their factions and helped with MT since most of them are sages.
It worked very well and I acomplished the main goal each game and got more cool-play points than my oponents. No time to stay and enjoy the sweet taste of victory. Immediatley after a quick point count I made a hasty farewell and rushed to my taxi to catch the train to Frankfurt airport.

So summoning up; the LURE was a great experience. Thanks to Wolfgang and anyone else involved in organizing this. I had a very good time, it was nice to see the known faces again and also to meet new people. The backdraft was that I had so little time not at the playing table. Own choice of course but it had been nice to spend more time talking and to hang around. Must get an better travel plan next time thar will give more time in the beginning and the end of the event.

Martin