So Catastrophic09 just posted about a new competition at Tales from the Cards involving hunting and killing a Mumak enemy. He posted a very interesting strategy that I have somehow never thought of before and I've always dismissed straight shot as I was unaware of this seemingly quite powerful combo.

I just went through the list of enemies in all quests (from lowest armour to highest armour) on lotrlcg.com and found some pretty **** good targets for a straight shot after only 2 armour is reduced from them with a single rivendell blade attack. These include:

Bodyguard of Bolg
Lieutenant of Mordor

Morgul Bodyguard

Hunters from Mordor

Shadow Host Captain (providing it is not midnight)

Uruk Vanguard

Marsh Adder

Ungoliants Spawn (thats right! not unique!)

The issue I can see with this combo however is that by attacking an enemy with 2 defense with a character who has a rivendell blade attached you are nullifying their 2 defense and doing that characters damage straight to their hitpoints. The three characters I put my Rivendell blades on all have 3 attack so any enemy with 3 or less health are killed by just the hero and blade.... any enemies who have 4 or 5 health (most of which are listed above) are simply taking an additional damage or two from straight shot (albeit dying a turn earlier which is very useful) which could be provided easily by a 2 attack ally or second hero helping with the attack..... this does not seem so powerful but could still be very useful to do that last point of damage or two to an enemy ensuring it will not attack you next round and you won't have to save characters to block/attack it the next turn and can use characters for defending or to make attacks on other enemies that round.

Where this combo would really shine is using straight shot when two characters with blades (or one with two blades attached) attack the one enemy giving it -4 defense. This is the main combo that Catastrophic09 actually spoke about. Reducing the Mumak to 0 defense and straight shotting it completely negating its "can only take 3 damage a turn" stipulation. What an awesome combo!

The main issue I see with this however is so long as it is two characters with one blade each (rather than 2 on one character) attacking, the enemy will get -4 defense and take 6 damage to the face (2 hero's with 3 attack each) just from the attack..... most enemies will die from this and again those that don't would only have a point or two of health left anyway AND are probably unique....

This kills even Nazgul, Southron Commanders, Orc Vanguard etc....

I never place two blades on one character as most enemies have 3 defense (so 1 of the 4 armour reduce is wasted) and it is a restricted attachment so I prefer to put a blade of gondolin or dagger of westernesse as the second restricted attachment..

I do fairly often end up with two characters both with a blade, one of whom is Elladan who can also make multiple attacks provided he has the resources however....

Also to consider is that it is obviously also very good in that in can instantly kill many small annoying enemies who have 0 defense to begin with freeing up your characters to block/attack more nasty foes.

What I really want to know is how useful straight shot is in general. Who actually uses the card in their decks to great effect? Do you find yourself using it to great effect or does it just help a little? Anyone got any good stories of using straight shot to discard a Nazgul or especially nasty foe in a situation where they otherwise would have been screwed?

I'm thinking of putting it in my tactics/leadership deck but don't want to go to the effort of figuring out what to take out to put it in only to be removing it in a few days cause it turned out to be fairly useless.

If you'd like take a look at my decks and tell me if you think it would work well or not.

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/104951-two-handed-decks/

As always thanks for reading and any feedback you give.

Cheers

Just realised how useful it is against Hummerhorns and Goblin Sharpshooter!

Can kill either of them in the staging area....

Also smashes Morgul Tracker and stops him putting progress on to the tower as well!

I think its pretty quest dependent how useful its gonna be.... sounds like its going in my sideboard for that deck rather than the deck itself.

Yeah, it is very tempting but seems to fall onto a category that hardly ever works. It would help (and I would not mind that design at all) if every other quest had several 0-defense enemies with other high stats overall -- you know, like a berserk mode, so that one does not have to rely on the Blade and attacking the enemy first.

Don't forget Bard the Bowman. Ain't need any Rivendell Blades.

Yeah, it is very tempting but seems to fall onto a category that hardly ever works. It would help (and I would not mind that design at all) if every other quest had several 0-defense enemies with other high stats overall -- you know, like a berserk mode, so that one does not have to rely on the Blade and attacking the enemy first.

Yeah your right... After much thought I did put it in my deck but only as a sideboard card. I'll run it like this for a while and see how much use it really is!

Don't forget Bard the Bowman. Ain't need any Rivendell Blades.

True but you still need a Weapon to play Straight Shot -- but that goes with 0-defense enemies just as well.

Yeah, it is very tempting but seems to fall onto a category that hardly ever works. It would help (and I would not mind that design at all) if every other quest had several 0-defense enemies with other high stats overall -- you know, like a berserk mode, so that one does not have to rely on the Blade and attacking the enemy first.

Yeah your right... After much thought I did put it in my deck but only as a sideboard card. I'll run it like this for a while and see how much use it really is!

Please report on your success with the card. Such finesse strategies always interest me.

It's just with Bard, you don't need exactly the Rivendell Blade, but any kind of weapon. The downside is that it will work only in multiplayer of with Great Yew Bow.

It's just with Bard, you don't need exactly the Rivendell Blade, but any kind of weapon. The downside is that it will work only in multiplayer of with Great Yew Bow.

Sadly wouldn't work with GYB unless you also had another weapon because you need a ready weapon to exhaust.

Ye. This weapon doesn't need to be on a Bard though.

Ye. This weapon doesn't need to be on a Bard though.

Good point.

I dont know but i dont liike this combo to reach to kill the mumak. Of couse it is very comfortable, you avoid 4 attacks of mumak, and 4 rounds... but, it seems cheat despite it is valid and legal.

And in adittion, you need... 3 cards! One combo with 3 cards... sure you will? Sometimes you dont get only the card you want even with 3 copies in deck.... you wonder 3 cards, lol. While mumak is killing you slowly... you are waiting each round for a new card you want, saying: '****! i want the blade, not another copy of stewards!!'....lol

Well if you play with some lore (or a coplayer has some lore) that would be a good time to start digging for that combo.

Well if you play with some lore (or a coplayer has some lore) that would be a good time to start digging for that combo.

Or Tactics Bofur. Or.... there are plenty of ways to get consistent card draw, so if you're dependent on a 3-card combo, I suggest you add a decent amount of it in.

But of course, there is still no guarantee.

The OP seems to be a perfect assessment of Straight Shot. In some quests I definitely put it in my deck just because there are enemies with 0 defense it's amazing to kill them for free essentially. But then to use Straight Shot along with Rivendell Blades its so true that you don't even need straight shot most of the time because the enemy is dead or so close to dead you can kill him the next round. Sometimes however it is worth it to kill them right then. So for me, Rivendell blades are in most of my Tactics decks already and I'll add Straight shot if I know the quest has 0 defense enemies or if I think there will be a time I'll need it.

One of the biggest downfalls for Straight Shot for me is that many Tactics cards trigger off of killing an enemy so you obviously don't get that with this card so it will probably continue to be a more quest specific card.

@psychorocka: I've used, or tried to use straight shot. The combo with rivendell blade is fine, IF it pops up, AND you get a worthy target for it. That said, it doesn't happen often enough to justify it's spot in a deck IMO.

The only place where this cards shines is WitW. Plenty tentacles with 0 defense to shoot; no need for a combo.

Other then that, I haven't really put it to very good use.

@psychorocka: I've used, or tried to use straight shot. The combo with rivendell blade is fine, IF it pops up, AND you get a worthy target for it. That said, it doesn't happen often enough to justify it's spot in a deck IMO.

The only place where this cards shines is WitW. Plenty tentacles with 0 defense to shoot; no need for a combo.

Other then that, I haven't really put it to very good use.

I think the Core set and Shadows of Mirkwood quests have enough characters with 2 or less defense that it might be worth it... though they often also have low hit points.

Yeah, it is very tempting but seems to fall onto a category that hardly ever works. It would help (and I would not mind that design at all) if every other quest had several 0-defense enemies with other high stats overall -- you know, like a berserk mode, so that one does not have to rely on the Blade and attacking the enemy first.

Yeah your right... After much thought I did put it in my deck but only as a sideboard card. I'll run it like this for a while and see how much use it really is!

Please report on your success with the card. Such finesse strategies always interest me.

Just played Morgul Vale and added it from my sideboard for the game. Drew one copy in my starting hand and drew another shortly afterwards. Used the first to finish off a Lieutenant of Mordor after attacking it with Elladan equipped with rivendell blade doing 3 damage to its 5 hitpoints. This prevented a 5 attack enemy attacking me a second time next turn and extra exhausts to defend/kill it. I used the second one to instantly discard a Morgul Tracker which came out from the Reveal 1 card per player effect of stage 3 before questing eliminating its 4 threat, having to defend/attack against it and it putting tokens on to the tower.

Awesome result in my first quest using straight shot. Best results I could hope for really. Have only ever beat Morgul Vale once before this attempt and this was a much better victory with a better score.

Of all the quests released so far however this quest jumped out as one that Straight shot would be most useful against so it doesn't really prove too much.. I will let you know further results I have using it =)

Very interesting. Straight shot is something I usually totally overlook.

Sounds a bit complicated to me. And is it really worth it to discard an enemy after he attacked you? Usually, with Rivendell Blade you're able to knock almost every enemy out of the park with a single attack anyway.

I also don't see how this combo is supposed to work with Mumak, unless you have two Rivendell Blades in play. How likely is that?

Sounds a bit complicated to me. And is it really worth it to discard an enemy after he attacked you? Usually, with Rivendell Blade you're able to knock almost every enemy out of the park with a single attack anyway.

I also don't see how this combo is supposed to work with Mumak, unless you have two Rivendell Blades in play. How likely is that?

Sometimes it's worth it if you don't want to deal with them another round or need to kill all enemies to win but yes it's definitely best used to simply dispatch enemies who already have 0 defense.

It could be quite likely if you want it to be and use cards to fetch attachments such as Bofur, Master of the Forge or just use classic heavy card draw. Or just start with Bard and you only need one Rivendell Blade. And of course, the Mumak being rare, by the time he does come out, if he even does you could by then have two blades in play but yes you are then building a deck specifically to get this combo rolling more often.

Used it again to great effect in Nightmare Journey down the Anduin to kill 2 goblin snipers in the staging area, very useful considering one was on the last stage which allowed me to finish the game that round.

Thread Necromancer's Reach!

I think Marksman of Lorien can be used in conjunction to deal with 3-4 armor enemies, you cant exhaust her fo the effect tho, so still need a weapon

What if you had Player 1 controlling Tactigorn and Player 2 controlling Bard, and then you got Elf-friend and the Rivendell Blade on Bard? Then you could use Straight Shot on non-unique enemies with up to 5 defense, provided they're engaged with Player 1 (easy enough to arrange).

i think that the problems with the combo weren't the lack of ways of reducing def to 0 but rather the number of cards that capitalise on it

a playgroup could include 3 copies in every deck (and include tactics and some weapon attachments) to play them more often

one player could use Hama to help recycle the event, but i still don't think it's a full strategy

that said, i think it's a viable component to an overall strategy, just not consistent as the main strategy.