Battle for Middle Earth 2

Overview

This game is highly entertaining and a recommended watch for any and all players whether old or new, skilled or developing their skills. The Mordor player uses some interesting and slightly irregular strategies, while the Elven player shows skill and mechanical execution of a tried and tested method. Ultimately, it was the ingenuity of the Mordor player, along with perhaps a few micro issues and macro choices that allowed APMN (Mordor) to seize the day. Both players made a low number of micro related mistakes, but there was the odd costly mistake here and there. A good game to learn from.

Disclaimer: Any advice I give can be completely ignored if it's just plain wrong due to patch changes. Also, feel free to tell me where to shove it even if it isn't patch related because you know better.

[Ace]Apmn'(onhost)

Your start was pretty standard, I liked your placement of the orc pits to defend against the clump on your initial slaughter house, along with your interesting build order of trolls from the get go. Your trolls had a tendency to speed ahead of the rest of your army leaving them vulnerable to the enemy. Consider putting them in defence stance to slow down their speed. Furthermore, making use of rock throw and tree's would help defend against Arwen as they have knock back. Finally, aside from some hero micro issues (most of which was excellent) you had a very good game. I liked the use of mumakills, proving very effective against Elven heroes. gg no re Thranduil.

Pro's

• Interesting use of Trolls and Mumakills
• Good macro and micro maintained throughout, few idle units at any one time. Nice save of the builder at the start.

Suggestions

• You didn't select a power point for a very long time into the game, and when you did finally select land you could have used it twice by the time you finally used it. Power point usage is of course situational however.
• Your build order was great, it won you the match. Purely as a suggestion, have you ever considered going for fire arrows instead of trolls. You'd be surprised how quickly they tear through elven pike, leaving the archers vulnerable to your Nazgul.
• Fort armour is pretty much essential when facing elves who have advanced up the power point tree. I feel had you got this, you may not have lost your base.

Unique strategy 4/5

Eol Ecthel (many some much 2) (offhost)

Your start was a standard 1 rax 1 tree, into archer creep. No mistakes were made early on and you maintained a strong presence on the battlefield throughout. It was only down to a very close ending that things turned for the worst. Your overall micro was good throughout the game, with only some minor lapses leading to a costly mistake or two, which you've already mentioned so I won't. Enemy Nazgul and Fellbeast effectively rendered Lancers null, so you made a good choice not going for them. I feel that had you bought a second barracks however, you might have been able to field a larger army to overwhelm the Mordor spam. Being able to get double the troops out has proven extremely useful to me in the past as I moved away from lots of heroes but overwhelmed the enemy spam with number of units instead.

Pro's

• High level of play, your opponent is skilled and provided a tough match in a difficult match up.
• Little mistakes, clear indication by this player in how to micro units.
• Nice use of Eagle, very good choice in this match up

Suggestions

• Possibly consider a second barracks although this is up to you.
• If you want me to micro your heroes for you, just ask. I charge £10 for half an hour. No limit on number of heroes.
• Consider using Mithlond Sentries hidden in trees with archers nearby as bait, to lure enemy Nazgul and Mumakills to their death.

Unique strategy 1.5/5

Verdict:
Fun 8/10
Skill 8.5/10
Unique strategy total 5.5/10
Total score 22/30 or 73.3%

It should be noted that a score of 20 and above denotes a highly watch-able game. Where skill and fun is sometimes lacking, a high uniqueness score can add to the overall total instead, and bring it above 20.