The Dog Lord 1650The Dog Lord is a great position to play if you have good communication with the Dark Lts and Ice King nations. Because the Eothraim almost always play the same opening move in every game, I countenance moving your initial starting army to 3120 at turn 1. If the Ice King does the same then the combined Ice King, Drk Lt and Dog Lord can eliminate the entire Eothraim starting armies (with some to spare). This means the Long Rider, DrK Lt and Dog Lord can send out waves of troops into Rhur and only have to face the Northmen and Dwarves. The Eothraim military strength is decimated and the DS only have to worry about the attack into the Ithil Pass. The Dog Lord position is great fun but as with most DS positions you are usually on the verge of bankruptcy at the beginning. You need to conquer Eothraim pop centres and create your own to survive. It's tough but achievable. You have one of the best starting armies of the DS team, the trouble is you can't afford it. Get them involved in the fighting right from the start! You can also send part of your Cav force to help out the Dragon Lord in Mirkwood if required. Strategy
& Tactics by Brian Mason
Strategy & Tactics: The Dog LordFrom Brian MasonLets start this with a look at the basic data. Basic Data How does the nation of the Dog Lord compare to other nations? At the start of the game they rank as follows (Allegiance Comparison Tables, Tom Walton, "The Mouth," #3):
The Dog Lord has pretty poor production, especially in the areas necessary for him to be worth his name. Expected production (Population Centre Development, Brian Mason, "The Mouth," #2) which has not been adjusted for climate for the nation of the Dog Lord would be as follows:
Army Strategy The Dog Lord is strong in many areas. However, the strength of the army must not be overestimated, for if the massed Dog Lord armies were to meet the massed Eothraim armies the outcome would not be in doubt: the Dog Lord would lose. The object here, then is to harass and take undefended population centres of Northern Gondor and only meet the Eothraim in pitched battle when additional Dark Servants, specifically the Dark Lieutenants, can arrange to attack together. Most of the strategy of the Dog Lord is contained herein: your objectives should be arranged with a bait-and-switch type mentality. You do not want to encounter the Eothraim, but you do want to acquire more population centres. The plan, then, is move your attacking army in such a way that on your next move you can attack many targets so that your true target is unknown. While your army is very good, and the time will come to use it, but the time is not in the early game. Attempt to meet small armies or undefended town/towers. For the moment, avoiding Easterling population centres is advisable. While conventional wisdom is to avoid the Eothraim camps, ending a turn there and destroying them has multiple good effects: one, it lowers the loyalty of Eothraim major towns which you will eventually need to deal with, two, it improves the morale of your own army so that it becomes a more potent offensive force, and three, scorched earth often puts an adversary into disarray. Use your defensive army at Morannon for two purposes: one, to defend this critically important pass, and two, recruit cavalry here as the conjure mounts allow. Then, your attacking army can come back and pick up replacements as they are needed. Eventually you will shuttle all the mounted forces to the attacking army, for there is no need for your defending militia to be other than heavy infantry. Get it to a nice core of about 2000 HI, and as the materials become available recruit heavy cavalry. Watch the prices of leather. You can conjure mounts, you cannot conjure leather. Buy excessive amounts when it is cheap or arrange for transfers from the players which have better leather production (Witch-King and Long Rider). Dump your command artefacts and combat artefacts in your attacking army where they will do the most good. With the artefacts available, Bulrakur becomes un-challengable to all but the best army commanders, and only Tarondor is usually in the area. Economy While it is tempting (increasing Dog Lord taxes to 70% will get the Dog Lord temporarily "in the black", and the large at start surplus would fund the first half dozen turns), doing so would eventually result in the dissolving of the Dog Lord camps. The first couple of turns can be played for modest gains, but strategic plans must be made with the Dark Lieutenants to attack the Eothraim. It is necessary to get more taxes. This can be done two ways: through creation or conquest. Creation is initially expensive, but if placed in some secure locations can yield great return. Conquest is easiest, but it is likely that anything taken in Rhovanion can be quickly re-taken by Mahrcared and friends. For development, then, you need a quality emissary. Spend the 10000 and then add another for 5000. Develop camps in the plains hexes on your map and once they hit 50 in emissary skill begin improving camps to, eventually, the town level. Character Strategy Apart from the two emissary creations what is to be done? Name a couple of agents. Your chance of getting stealth is to great an opportunity to pass up. If you do get one with stealth, then pass off the agent artefacts and go to work. First, stealing gold from the Gondors, then moving on the the more delicious task of killing characters. For your starting mages, I advocate using Tonn Varthkur as a mage in the combat army. You get someone else who can use a sword and you also get combat spells. Among the other two mages, Dendra Dwar can locate artefacts and Ashburgnul can go get them. Economy While it is tempting (increasing Dog Lord taxes to 70% will get the Dog Lord temporarily "in the black", and the large at start surplus would fund the first half dozen turns), doing so would eventually result in the dissolving of the Dog Lord camps. The first couple of turns can be played for modest gains, but strategic plans must be made with the Dark Lieutenants to attack the Eothraim. It is necessary to get more taxes. This can be done two ways: through creation or conquest. Creation is initially expensive, but if placed in some secure locations can yield great return. Conquest is easiest, but it is likely that anything taken in Rhovanion can be quickly re-taken by Mahrcared and friends. For development, then, you need a quality emissary. Spend the 10000 and then add another for 5000. Develop camps in the plains hexes on your map and once they hit 50 in emissary skill begin improving camps to, eventually, the town level. Discussion of the Above Article From Tom Walton Just a couple of notes. This is a position I dread to play, as much depends on how competent your fellow Dark Servants are. One rotten apple can spoil your whole game.... - as Brian mentioned, your heavy cav can't match the Eothraim in battle. This means that your most obvious strategy is to avoid a pitched battle and hit undefended targets, driving the enemy crazy trying to track you down. However, it often turns out that one or more of your allies isn't very good and either refuses to support his neighbours or just plain bungles the attempt. That means that you'll HAVE to move your cav into battle, if only to keep Mordor intact. Prior to dispersing your forces to the winds, check out your allies to make sure they can hold up their end of the fighting. - a tactic you might want to consider is to split of 1500 or so cav and zip deep into the back country of Northern Gondor. Since Gondor almost always moves his troops east towards Minas Anor, you've a good chance of finding all the little towns in the area entirely undefended. With your best leader and a few artefacts, you can threaten these away, split off your army, and start recruiting more nuisance forces. By the time Gondor finally returns to wreak a little vengeance, you might have more armies around than he can easily deal with. In any case, you'll deprive him of much-needed production early in the game, and you can turn to scorched-earth if it appears that the Free are going to drive you out.
Dog Lord Special Advantages
(Italics - Hidden. Bold - Capital). Initial Forces
Initial Characters
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