An Assault on the Black Gate / A Trek to Mount Doom

In the Battle of the Black Gate, the remaining armies of men staged a suicidal assault designed to draw the enemy down on them and let their hobbit friends slip by unnoticed, destroying the source of the enemy's power.

This fellowship is not meant as a perfect reproduction of the events of the book, (no Frodo Baggins and no Sam Gamgee, for starters), but rather as a thematic reinterpretation. On one side of the table, you have a Hobbit deck with virtually no allies. It is designed to avoid engaging so much as a single enemy, and instead to quest for a moderate amount and remove or counter the most troublesome effects at the encounter deck's disposal.

Every enemy they have to avoid risks drawing Sauron's eye. There is no one left to aid them in combat. Even a single stumble can spell discovery and, inevitably, ruin.

On the other side of the table, you have the combined armies of men-- Rangers, Rohan, and men of Gondor, led by Aragorn himself. They do not quest. They do not counter. They do not travel or manage locations. They have but a single purpose-- to hold every single revealed enemy at bay for as long as possible until the Hobbits have succeeded in their quest.

There are no reinforcements on the horizon. There is no retreating. There is no regrouping. There is no victory. There is only staving off destruction for as long as possible.

Can humanity buy enough time? Can the hobbits keep their profile low enough and muster enough willpower, or will they be discovered and overrun? The fate of Middle Earth hangs in the balance.