An Outlands-friend.

There is the Sword of Morthond but only for Gondor allies. Still, all the bonuses are for Outlands you control, so this wouldn't work across the table as, for instance, the Rohirrim bonuses do.

Sadly, you can't play Nor am I stranger on someone then play mutual accord to let anyone have the Sword of Morthond. That would be amazing.

Incidentally there are a lot of good gondor allies you can attach the sword to, then sword thain them for heroness, elf-friend them and then you have an outlands/gondor/elf hero, all the best buffs except for dwarf.

Yes, you can do some shenanigans with the Thain and all the trait giving stuff we now have.

I gave up on Outlands long ago -- for being too straightforward to play. The combo of the Sword on Denethor is one thing I was enjoying the most about playing such a deck, because I always found the Denethor ally too underwhelming -- not saying the card is bad, it actually works for me in the Gondor deck quite often, but such an iconic character should get some bonus -- look how interesting the Galdor ally is, for instance; even Ingold seems better than Denethor ally most of the time.

I'm really looking forward to the last pieces of the Noldor/discard strategy that this cycle will bring.

In the next Adventure pack, The Battle of Carn Dûm, "Spirit players gain a Noldor-themed card that plays only from the discard pile."

And in the last Adventure pack of this cycle, The Dread Realm, we get "a spirit Song that recalls the lay of Beren and Lúthien to encourage stronger alliances between the region's Dúnedain and Noldor."

Probably the Song "Tale of Tinúviel" that we got a glimpse of in the preview article for Wastes of Eriador:

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/1/29/the-wastes-of-eriador/


Noldor gets Dúnedain trait?

It could be, but Beren was neither a Numenorean or Dunedain, although the kings of Numenor came from his grandaughter (from the thematic point of view)

I'm really looking forward to the last pieces of the Noldor/discard strategy that this cycle will bring.

In the next Adventure pack, The Battle of Carn Dûm, "Spirit players gain a Noldor-themed card that plays only from the discard pile."

And in the last Adventure pack of this cycle, The Dread Realm, we get "a spirit Song that recalls the lay of Beren and Lúthien to encourage stronger alliances between the region's Dúnedain and Noldor."

Probably the Song "Tale of Tinúviel" that we got a glimpse of in the preview article for Wastes of Eriador:

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/1/29/the-wastes-of-eriador/

Noldor gets Dúnedain trait?

I initially thought, the card that only plays from the discard pile will be the Tale of Tinúviel but of course that is the one recalling Beren and Lúthien.

I find the strategy already very strong after this pack (considering Círdan also), and we still have two more and the next deluxe. Noldor are going out to town.

It could be, but Beren was neither a Numenorean or Dunedain, although the kings of Numenor came from his grandaughter (from the thematic point of view)

Of courage he wasn't, as Númenor is raised from the sea in the Second Age and Beren died before the First Age was over. But the Dúnedain descend from Beren and Lúthien, and that's what this upcoming card is about.

It could be, but Beren was neither a Numenorean or Dunedain, although the kings of Numenor came from his grandaughter (from the thematic point of view)

Of courage he wasn't, as Númenor is raised from the sea in the Second Age and Beren died before the First Age was over. But the Dúnedain descend from Beren and Lúthien, and that's what this upcoming card is about.

Yes, kings of Numenor were descendants of him, thats what I wrote

"Of courage" is an autocorrect I guess

I guess I'm the dissenting voice here. I looked at a lot of it and felt "eh..". I don't think this is even close to best pack ev-ar. Elf-friend is I think being way overrated. I mean sure, theorycrafting we can think of nice ways this would work. But are you really going to include 3 elf friend in your deck so that you can pay 1 for the privilege of playing cards that you have in your deck which you otherwise can't play? It seems like bad deck building to me. Eowyn could already have Snowmane and Herugrim, for practically the same setup as the suggested LoV+Herugrim. No access to Fair and Perilous for the icing on the cake but she can do it without having to have Elf-Friend first, and even saves a resource in the bargain. The very best I can see for this card is if I am already running an elf deck with Silvan Trackers, I can play Elf-Friend on another player's heros to allow them to benefit from free healing. That's pretty nice, and perhaps I can pawn off some of my extra elf-only equipment on my allies if I have extras. So sure, in a deck that is already Silvan maybe, in a non-silvan deck just to get access to combos? Forget it.

Elven Spear is kind of a dud. There are just way better ways to get attack out of tactics than this.

Galadrhim Weaver a huge dissapoint. Can't attack or defend? What is this nonsense? Why not just make this card an event? I can already fetch stuff out of my discard pile with Stand and Fight, or Tome. Why do I want to put a card back in my deck when I *might* draw it again and it *might* be useful.

Galdor is pretty good. Expensive, but pretty good.
Horn's cry; Goes in a Valor deck. I can't justify the cost unless you are using it's valor action, and even then, only if there are several enemies engaged.

Reinforcements: Sure it's good but I'll probably never play it. It's good for mono-leadership or pseudo-mono-leadership (with gandalf or Song or Sword that was Broken). Otherwise you can't play it. Goes in one type of deck. Good, but not versatile enough.

Send for Aid: Best card in the pack. Probably will buy for this.

Silver Harp: Great for discard shenans. A pretty good include most of the time. It's pretty good with Steed of Imladris. I might be putting Silver harp and Steed of Imladris in my rohan deck.

The Door is Closed: Like reinforcements; if you're running that kind of deck... then oh man is this card nutso. But not versatile.



So all in all, one great card, 2 good cards, the rest are either situational or kind of unimpressive, IMO.

With regards to elf-friend. It's cheap, it's neutral, can be fetched by a myriad of cards easily. Noldor and Silvan have some of the best attachments in the game that you can now attach to non-elf heroes. Picture bard with bow of the galadrim, rivendale bow and blade in multiplayer. 6 attack with -4 defense. Attachment combos were easy to pull off before, that isn't changing because of elf-friend, it just allows for new ones.

Elven Spear is kind of a dud. There are just way better ways to get attack out of tactics than this.

Fuels the Noldor strategy, cheap card, combos off of harp and Galdor effectively saying; Gain +1 attack and draw a card every turn. Still going to be plenty useful.

Galadrhim Weaver a huge dissapoint. Can't attack or defend? What is this nonsense? Why not just make this card an event? I can already fetch stuff out of my discard pile with Stand and Fight, or Tome. Why do I want to put a card back in my deck when I *might* draw it again and it *might* be useful.

Not the first time we've had a card like this, Erebor record keeper was the same. Though this is basically an event that gives you one extra will power and an extra archery target in a pinch and is an ally. So can key of things like shadows or travel that require exhaustion and A very good tale. Much better than a tome that's for sure.

Also if you are playing with say Cirdan or Erestor you will be drawing that card again, likely sooner than you think.

Reinforcements: Sure it's good but I'll probably never play it. It's good for mono-leadership or pseudo-mono-leadership (with gandalf or Song or Sword that was Broken). Otherwise you can't play it. Goes in one type of deck. Good, but not versatile enough.

I feel you are forgetting "A good harvest" to basically put this card in any deck. 3x sneak attack, 3x this card with just one gandalf can have you recycle his response 7 times.

Galadrhim Weaver is solid. Not just in the Noldor discard decks, but remember this is a 1-cost Silvan ally that you can use for things like Tree People and Feigned Voices (and doesn't get discarded easily like the Silvan Refugee).

Plus she fits into the someday-might-exist-and-would-probably-be-terrible craftsmen deck!

Best pack yet in the cycle, imo.

Very solid hero that bings a whole new deck building meta.

Elf friend is so good.

And: dat harp! Gimme!

An Outlands-friend.

There is the Sword of Morthond but only for Gondor allies. Still, all the bonuses are for Outlands you control, so this wouldn't work across the table as, for instance, the Rohirrim bonuses do.

Sadly, you can't play Nor am I stranger on someone then play mutual accord to let anyone have the Sword of Morthond. That would be amazing.

Incidentally there are a lot of good gondor allies you can attach the sword to, then sword thain them for heroness, elf-friend them and then you have an outlands/gondor/elf hero, all the best buffs except for dwarf.

Um, yes you can. That's an entirely legal play if you want to do it.

That second idea of yours wouldn't entirely work though - Sword of Morthond specifies 'ally', so if you Sword-Thain them they lose the Outlands trait. You could have an Outlands/Gondor/Noldor/Silvan ally though.

An Outlands-friend.

There is the Sword of Morthond but only for Gondor allies. Still, all the bonuses are for Outlands you control, so this wouldn't work across the table as, for instance, the Rohirrim bonuses do.

Sadly, you can't play Nor am I stranger on someone then play mutual accord to let anyone have the Sword of Morthond. That would be amazing.

Incidentally there are a lot of good gondor allies you can attach the sword to, then sword thain them for heroness, elf-friend them and then you have an outlands/gondor/elf hero, all the best buffs except for dwarf.

Um, yes you can. That's an entirely legal play if you want to do it.

That second idea of yours wouldn't entirely work though - Sword of Morthond specifies 'ally', so if you Sword-Thain them they lose the Outlands trait. You could have an Outlands/Gondor/Noldor/Silvan ally though.

No it's not, there is no action phase during the planning phase.

Edit: Though you could in multiplayer I guess, since there is player actions after each players phase. So if you really want to set up multiple decks just to do that then sure. One deck has to have mutual accord, the next deck to go in turn order has the sword.

The sword says attach to an ally, so the sword doesn't get unattached when they become a hero. Though I'm not too sure about the second line.

The whole planning phase is an action phase. (It's in green.)

Hmm, guess I should read errata more. Was going off the phases in the back of the book which has an action phase after each player has played things. So in solo there was no window for actions. Guess it made some strategies easier than I thought.

A stupid cold stopped me of seeing these cards yesterday, but now that I see them I'll say I share the general feelings towards this pack. Really cool and interesting cards, particularly the ones dealing with Elves. The Harp and Galdor look really really powerful. One card I'm still rather ambivalent towards is Reinforcements. Sure, double Sneak Attack is powerful, but mono-Leadership builds, particularly Gondor, rely more on large numbers of weenies rather than powerful allies, so putting into play 2 allies only to then return them to hand is not really interesting. With Gandalf it works great of course, like Sneak Attack, but I'd much rather play Sneak Attack with Gandalf and actually paying the normal cost of a weenie, rather than paying extra resources to put a Guard of the Citadel or Envoy of Pelargir into play for one turn. Send for Aid, on the other hand, seems really good, especially to fetch Faramir or other big allies.

Hmm, guess I should read errata more. Was going off the phases in the back of the book which has an action phase after each player has played things. So in solo there was no window for actions. Guess it made some strategies easier than I thought.

I'm trying to see where the breakdown was so I could maybe help... not sure though. Are you thinking that you can only use Actions during your own turn? Those green boxes in the back of the book (which you refer to) mean that *any player* can take Actions, you don't have to wait for your own turn. There isn't errata for this, the back of the book hasn't changed since release.

Players do have to go in turn-order when playing attachments and allies, but you can use an Action on something already in play, or from an Event card, even if it's not your turn.

In solo you could play Nor Am I A Stranger (playing attachment), then play Mutual Accord (an Event with an Action on it), then play Sword of Morthrond (another attachment). No problem.

In multiplayer on your turn you could play Nor Am I A Stranger (attachment), then anyone could play Mutual Accord (doesn't matter whose turn it is), then you could play Sword of Morthrond on the newly "Gondored" ally.

The book has 'player actions' right after the section of 'first player plays ally and attachment cards' which I realise now is rather redundant. That is where I'm getting the confusion. It's fine though I can see where I could play the cards now, I was just putting a really self imposed restriction on planning phases during my solo games because of our groups reading of the book. It's cool though, thanks for pointing it out.

Back to cool things about this set:

Going to swap to the encounter cards. I like how the side quests have basis in the some of the main parts of the game, resources, combat and locations. Makes taking on this quest highly replayable from choosing to do different sidequests dependent on the deck you bring.

Since Sword of Morthond says "Attached ally gains the Outlands trait", it will stop working (although will not be discarded) if you attach Sword Thain to the ally.

The best candidate for Sword of Morthond, in my opinion, is:

A stupid cold stopped me of seeing these cards yesterday, but now that I see them I'll say I share the general feelings towards this pack. Really cool and interesting cards, particularly the ones dealing with Elves. The Harp and Galdor look really really powerful. One card I'm still rather ambivalent towards is Reinforcements. Sure, double Sneak Attack is powerful, but mono-Leadership builds, particularly Gondor, rely more on large numbers of weenies rather than powerful allies, so putting into play 2 allies only to then return them to hand is not really interesting. With Gandalf it works great of course, like Sneak Attack, but I'd much rather play Sneak Attack with Gandalf and actually paying the normal cost of a weenie, rather than paying extra resources to put a Guard of the Citadel or Envoy of Pelargir into play for one turn. Send for Aid, on the other hand, seems really good, especially to fetch Faramir or other big allies.

Did you miss that Reinforcements says "The players, as a group"? The powerful allies don't need to be in your hand, they can be in anyone's hand. And they can enter play under any player's control as well.

Also, since I guess we're talking about this, best target for Sword of Morthond is White Tower Watchman.

You're right Pocketwraith, I forgot to mention I play mostly solo and make most of my comments with that in mind. With that said, this looks like a good card for multiplayer.

Really? All these combo ideas being thrown around and no one says anything about Silver Harp with Eowyn? Definitely like Galadriel's Mirror + Silver Harp, but Eowyn could easily use it to get even stronger for free. Add it into the Herugrim combos as well if you want.

Imagine a team of Silver Harpers permaharping all the discardements back to your hand

Really? All these combo ideas being thrown around and no one says anything about Silver Harp with Eowyn? Definitely like Galadriel's Mirror + Silver Harp, but Eowyn could easily use it to get even stronger for free. Add it into the Herugrim combos as well if you want.

It's not a bad combo with Eowyn, but now you're talking about a 2 cost attachment to effectively give her a permanent +1 willpower. I feel like I've seen that before...