So far my group have got as far as Those Who Tarry No Longer and I was interested in hearing how the adventures have gone with other groups. Obviously this is going to be jammed full of spoilers so please don't read if you're going to be playing these adventures. They're truly fantastic adventures and you will really spoil them for yourself.

My PCs are: -

Jarl, a Barding Slayer.
Cobb, a Hobbit Treasure Hunter
Miriel, an Elven Warden

I've often thought that Those Who Tarry No Longer is a tough adventure for the players because it's almost a Kobiyashi Maru test, a no-win situation. I was extremely pleased to see how my group rose to the challenge.

The first example is the unwinnable battle against the orcs in the first section of the adventure. This truly is an overwhelming fight. Learning from their previous experience in the Battle of the Ringfort, the players reasoned that killing the main captains of the group would be enough to intimidate the rest. As the captain came forward to threaten the group they shot him dead (aim, Piercing Blow, failed Protection roll, dead). They continued to try and focus on the bigger Uruks assuming they were the captains. When this plan failed, the Elf set light to an arrow and fired into the nearby trees above the orcs to dismay them and spread smoke across the battlefield. I also tied this in with the arrival of the eagles, "We saw flame and smoke and came to investigate".

When in the battle in Haycombe, the group felt that the Alderman was possibly the source of the trouble and so the extremely athletic Elf climbed up on to the ale house roof and leapt from building to building attempting to get at the Alderman. A couple of exceptionally good shots from her hit him and then she set fire to the wagon before she was taken down by the Easterlings. The other two fought valiantly in the alehouse and after they killed 4 undead and 3 Easterlings, the remaining Easterlings left and set fire to the building. At this point the Barding put on armour from a fallen Easterlings and left the building with the Hobbit as a prisoner. Given that the Easterlings had already been taking prisoners from the alehouse and there was the confusion of smoke and fire I felt this was a reasonable ruse and let him succeed with a roll. He kept in disguise as part of the group for the journey South.

When the Easterlings handed over to the Orcs I let him kill a lone orc and continue the disguise. I admit this was a bit of a push but he spent Hope for this and heck Frodo and Sam manage to disguise themselves right in the middle of Mordor so it felt appropriate to the stories.

During the scenes in the dungeon, the Elf was chosen to fight the troll and in true Luke Skywalker fashion, manoeuvred the troll beneath the portcullis and then released the mechanism (using the rules for dropping the massive block in the final adventure). Again this felt suitably heroic and appropriate.

So in the end the group succeeded very well and I felt that their initiative really helped enhance the game. This adventure could quite easily feel like one unwinnable scene after another but my group simply refused to ever admit defeat and continually came up with one great idea after another.

I just wanted to get some feedback from other LMs here. I'd like to hear how the various adventures played out for them and what unusual ideas their players had.

One interesting happened to us during the Kinstrife. When the Elf climbed up into a tree and looked at the bandit camp he got his second bout of madness. His old hatred against evil and shadow suddenly urged him to charge and he jumped down and start running into the camp in a furious wild charge. He raged into the camp and demanded by shouting that their leader show himself to face him. The bandit leader and the elf duelled to the background music of "A Knife in the Dark"

He got taken as a captive at the end of the duel and came to himself a few hours later as bound in one of the tents while the remaning members of the fellowship were trying to figure out what to do about the elf and the poor wanted fellow.