Good day traveler's of Middle-earth! This is Gwaihir, Lord of the Winds, with yet another video play-through for your viewing pleasure. Today's video continues the saga expansion in the Road Darkens with the second scenario, Journey in the Dark. For now on, I will post all future updates to this thread. Please subscribe to my blog if you enjoy these play-throughs and would like to see more when they come out.

As always, Farewell wherever you fare, 'till your eyries receive you at the journey's end!

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I think Descendant would have killed off the Balrog at the end. He loses ALL keywords, including immunity to player card effects. (I think.)

What says the forum?

Correct, immune to player card effects is a keyword. Once you sacrifice a hero, Feint, direct damage and even attachments are fair game.

Unfortunately, "immune to player card effects" is simply described as "text" in rules inserts, and not as a "keyword." And the Balrog in Journey in the Dark has even more elaborate text, making his shadow cards immune as well. I have heard someone say there is an official ruling confirming this, but I haven't seen it myself.

Why do they do this to us? If he only has one keyword, why does The Great Bridge say he loses all keywords?

The only keyword I can see on the actual card is "Indestructible". Hence, I think they avoided writing "immune" as a keyword so that you still have to kill him the old-fashioned way, with talons and claws during the combat phase.

The Great Bridge is simply worded how most things are in the plural, to cover all bases.

Keywords are things like: archery, doomed, ranged, peril, ambush, sentinel, restricted, surge, etc. They are in fact, a single keyword. Therefore, when it says, "The Balrog and shadow cards dealt to The Balrog are immune to player card effects" it is not a keyword, but simply the card's text.

Hmmm, this is interesting. The more that I think about it, I believe that you are correct, Gwaihir and that "Indestructible" is the only keyword on The Balrog. Out of curiosity I went back and checked the rulebook:

beginning of a card’s rules text.

Nothing about this definition would preclude text like "Immune to player card effects" or "No attachments" from being considered keywords. The rulebook says nothing about a keyword having to be a single word. In fact, Victory X is listed as an example of a keyword, so they clearly can't be limited to a single word. It would be nice to have a definitive explanation for what a keyword is, or at least a definitive list of keywords. In my search engine, I have chosen to classify most words and sentences (basically anything that ends in a ".") at the top of a card (above the main text) as keywords. The distinction has never really mattered before, but The Balrog makes it matter from a rules standpoint. I still think that you are correct, but this is a bit ambiguous. For example, if "no attachments" or "immune to player card effects" are not a keywords, then why are they listed right next to keywords on so many cards?

This is interesting indeed, Mr. Beorn. You are right in saying that the rules say nothing about limiting keywords to a single word. It just seems to imply that in my opinion. We should get an official ruling on what are keywords from Caleb and crew.

Also, I really appreciate your blog and search engine. I use Hall of Beorn all the time. Thanks so much for putting the time and energy into providing such a great resource for us! Gwaihir sends his gale of blessings to you and all skin-changers and woodsmen.

I think the phrase 'loses all keywords' in plural was deliberate to allow future design space (think Caleb says this in an interview or question somewhere) i.e. the designers didn't want to limit the space. However, I don't have a link, or the time to hunt it down...

As I understand it, a keyword has to be described as such in a rulebook or insert, and Immune to player card effects is never described in this way. I would *love* the opportunity to use some interest player card effects (not necessarily Feint) on the Balrog, as otherwise it's all about brute strength in your attack column to kill it. No subtlety.

As I understand it, a keyword has to be described as such in a rulebook or insert, and Immune to player card effects is never described in this way.

This. Other keywords are described as "keywords" when introduced in a rules insert.

This is interesting indeed, Mr. Beorn. You are right in saying that the rules say nothing about limiting keywords to a single word. It just seems to imply that in my opinion. We should get an official ruling on what are keywords from Caleb and crew.

There's an official ruling quoted in this thread: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1251736/balrog-keywords-and-great-bridge

Summary: the only keyword on the Balrog is "indestructible".

As I understand it, a keyword has to be described as such in a rulebook or insert, and Immune to player card effects is never described in this way.

This. Other keywords are described as "keywords" when introduced in a rules insert.

Thanks for the clarification. This makes sense, but is also ludicrously impractical. When playing Journey in the Dark, I am not going to go back to every other rules sheet for every expansion printed to date to confirm what is and is not a keyword. Since I have never sacrificed a hero to the Balrog in any of my play-throughs (I just take the burdens), I suppose it doesn't really matter for me. Still, I want Hall of Beorn Card Search to be accurate about what is and is not a keyword, and I rather dread going back through all of the rules sheets to compile a list...

As far as I can tell, all the "single word" game texts are keywords, following the literal interpretation of a "key word" -- not plural "words." If you look at it that way, phrases like "immune to player card effects" naturally separate themselves from the keyword crowd.

Beorn, i do not yet own all AP's, so I could easily make a .doc list with all keywords if you'd like that?

AP also stands for(this time) DE, Saga and PoD

As far as I can tell, all the "single word" game texts are keywords

Is "Doomed 2" a single word?

@gamdalfDK, thanks for the offer. I believe that I will tackle this algorithmically and just define keywords as follows:

1. Any single word that appears at the top of a card is a keyword (eg. Ranged)

2. Any single word followed by a number is also a keyword (eg. Doomed 2)

I'm still not sure about phrases like "No Attachments.". Intuitively, it seems like a keyword, but the ruling on the Balrog casts this into doubt.

I'm still not sure about phrases like "No Attachments.". Intuitively, it seems like a keyword, but the ruling on the Balrog casts this into doubt.

I think a keyword is opaque, whereas "game text" is meant to be interpreted literally. There is no possible way to interpret "Doomed" using standard game vocabulary, you just have to know what it means. "No attachments," on the other hand, is a phrase you can easily parse.

I really want to agree with you on this, except that "No attachments" and "Cannot have attachments" work very differently. Not only is this a sin against language, but it is a cardinal example of what I would call opaque. The fact that I had to lookup "No attachments" in the rules sheet after Nightmare A Journey to Rhosgobel came out is precisely *why* I consider these two phrases keywords. I suspect that I am not alone in this particular case.

To clarify: "No attachments" is actually shorthand for "The players cannot play attachments on this card" whereas "Cannot have attachments" is an absolute. To me, these are, by definition keywords as they are short-hand for a more involved effect that no player could reasonably be expected to know upon first glance. I certainly did not understand the difference until I went back and re-read the rules. I may be a bear, but I'm not *that* dumb...

That's a new one on me, I would have assumed "no attachments" and "cannot have attachments" meant the same thing. So "no attachments" means that a card can have attachments originating from the encounter deck, but can't have attachments played on it by players? How about getting attached in the staging area, like Ranger Spikes? (which is legal to do to that troll in We Must Away, despite his "players cannot play attachments" text). Anyway, I see your point and agree that this is opaque text.

I guess we just have to rely on whether or not a certain phrase is defined as a "keyword" in the rules themselves.

Hmmmmm well all the enemies that have "Cannot have attachments" or "No attachments can be attached to X" I'm pretty sure are 100% attachment immune but all the ones that say "Attachments cannot be played on x" or "players cannot play attachments on x" can be affected by ranger spikes as you are not playing an attachment on them, it is attaching to them when they enter the staging area. The only cases of this however are the trolls from We Must Away and Great Cave Troll from Khazad Dum.

These two Nazgul bosses have the same wording but I believe were errated to read "cannot have attachments"

If not for the errata Ranger Spikes would affect them also. It thematically makes no sense for a Nazgul atop a Fell Beast to be in any way deterred by ranger spikes so fair enough that they were errated. It would also shut these two bosses down entirely and make them far easier.

Also like the nightmare trolls in conflict at the carrock there are also encounter cards that read "cannot have player attachments" so that they can still have encounter attachments. It seems like this defines what type of attachment they can have and no attachments/cannot have attachments seems to me to be exactly the same. No attachments of any kind can be put on the enemy. It is annoying that they change the way things are phrased sometimes in this game.... can make things rather confusing.

@gamdalfDK, thanks for the offer. I believe that I will tackle this algorithmically and just define keywords as follows:

1. Any single word that appears at the top of a card is a keyword (eg. Ranged)

2. Any single word followed by a number is also a keyword (eg. Doomed 2)

I'm still not sure about phrases like "No Attachments.". Intuitively, it seems like a keyword, but the ruling on the Balrog casts this into doubt.

3. Any single word followed by an X is a keyword (Doomed X)

I really want to agree with you on this, except that "No attachments" and "Cannot have attachments" work very differently. Not only is this a sin against language, but it is a cardinal example of what I would call opaque. The fact that I had to lookup "No attachments" in the rules sheet after Nightmare A Journey to Rhosgobel came out is precisely *why* I consider these two phrases keywords. I suspect that I am not alone in this particular case.

To clarify: "No attachments" is actually shorthand for "The players cannot play attachments on this card" whereas "Cannot have attachments" is an absolute. To me, these are, by definition keywords as they are short-hand for a more involved effect that no player could reasonably be expected to know upon first glance. I certainly did not understand the difference until I went back and re-read the rules. I may be a bear, but I'm not *that* dumb...

I would have assumed that if it needed to be explained in the rulebook in it's own section, then it would be considered a keyword. But if you look carefully, the explanations for keywords refer to them as keywords, whereas other explanations just mention it as "text".

E.g. Doomed keyword explanation (with emphasis):

If an encounter card with the doomed keyword is revealed...

and "Immune to Player Card Effects" from Conflict at the Carrock:

The Carrock, a location card in the encounter deck, has the text "Immune to player card effects." This text means...

@gamdalfDK, thanks for the offer. I believe that I will tackle this algorithmically and just define keywords as follows:

1. Any single word that appears at the top of a card is a keyword (eg. Ranged)

2. Any single word followed by a number is also a keyword (eg. Doomed 2)

I'm still not sure about phrases like "No Attachments.". Intuitively, it seems like a keyword, but the ruling on the Balrog casts this into doubt.

3. Any single word followed by an X is a keyword (Doomed X)

I really want to agree with you on this, except that "No attachments" and "Cannot have attachments" work very differently. Not only is this a sin against language, but it is a cardinal example of what I would call opaque. The fact that I had to lookup "No attachments" in the rules sheet after Nightmare A Journey to Rhosgobel came out is precisely *why* I consider these two phrases keywords. I suspect that I am not alone in this particular case.

To clarify: "No attachments" is actually shorthand for "The players cannot play attachments on this card" whereas "Cannot have attachments" is an absolute. To me, these are, by definition keywords as they are short-hand for a more involved effect that no player could reasonably be expected to know upon first glance. I certainly did not understand the difference until I went back and re-read the rules. I may be a bear, but I'm not *that* dumb...

I would have assumed that if it needed to be explained in the rulebook in it's own section, then it would be considered a keyword. But if you look carefully, the explanations for keywords refer to them as keywords, whereas other explanations just mention it as "text".

E.g. Doomed keyword explanation (with emphasis):

If an encounter card with the doomed keyword is revealed...

and "Immune to Player Card Effects" from Conflict at the Carrock:

The Carrock, a location card in the encounter deck, has the text "Immune to player card effects." This text means...

You are exactly correct, sir. This gets to the heart of my point, which is that at this point in the game, when I see an effect like "X loses all keywords", the only way for me to actually know what a keyword is (as opposed to just text) is to go back through every single rules sheet printed to date and look for the "with the X keyword" magic phrase. Not very practical to say the least.

You are exactly correct, sir. This gets to the heart of my point, which is that at this point in the game, when I see an effect like "X loses all keywords", the only way for me to actually know what a keyword is (as opposed to just text) is to go back through every single rules sheet printed to date and look for the "with the X keyword" magic phrase. Not very practical to say the least.

To be fair, though, you only have to look it up when it's relevant. And that's exactly *one* card at present! It could be a bigger issue if we ever have a player card that interacts with "keywords," but that day is not here.

You're thinking like someone who manages a card search engine, and we love ya for it... but perhaps a search function that filters cards by keyword is not necessary? If I ever want to know which encounter cards have "Doomed" I can just put that into the text search box.