Some of those orcs must have duties elsewhere…

Linett tried again tonight to finish Engines of War, but it’s still not very soloable with the crowding of orcs in that camp. This thread, however, was enlightening. I’ll try again after that gets fixed. :-)

Alduine, meanwhile, is still in love with the skirmishes and has in fact gained a level just doing, over and over, the two that are open to her now. They hit a nice balance with the skirmishes: more challenging than most plain quests, but still somewhat bite-sized–doable in fifteen or twenty minutes. Alduine has been concentrating on improving Mr. Protector’s traits, taking all skirmish marks earned and spending them on him. (He still needs a name, but maybe that should come after I spend some of those marks on his cosmetics…he might not always be a man in dwarf disguise. Amusing though that is, I think Alduine needs a little Hobbit helper….) He does get distracted once in a while though; especially in Siege of Gondamon he tends to get stuck just outside the west gate while Alduine runs to meet the enemy at another gate. Anyway, I started out (following advice from a blog post somewhere but I failed to save the link to it…must see if I can track it down!) scaling the skirmishes down a few levels lower than Alduine so as to make sure they weren’t too high level for her soldier till he was a little stronger. And also to figure out what was going on in each skirmish! But I’ve been able to gradually scale it back up to her level (and thus earn more skirmish marks each time) and she’s still handling them well.

How about skirmishy combat scenes now? Time for pretty pictures!

Stand at Amon Sul – Lighting the fires