So, this cycle we got 4 "class-related" attachments.

We got this for Nobles:

An extremely decent attachment, if you'll ask me, especially due to the fact that it can be triggered by simply moving a resource to attached hero, not to mention a lot of Leadship heroes have a built-in resource generator.

Then, we got this one for Rangers:

Pretty good attachment in my opinion too. If you have nobody engaged with you, you can almost always send a guy with that attachment questing and name "enemy" to be prepared.

Then, we got this one for Warriors:

Not as good as two previous ones (almost nothing beats action advantage of heroes), but is decent for 1 cost, and as a Tactics guy you'll probably be constnantly engaging people, keeping that +1/+1 up, and if you got action advantage to go with that (like actual Captain of Gondor whos name I won't be mentioning here, lol) - even better!

...and then, we got this abomination:

What is this? No, seriously, what is this? It's an unique 1 cost attachment to a specific hero trait (there are currently only 2 eligible targets in the game, one of which is not even in Spirit) that requires that hero to quest (needs an expended action to work) to probably place 1 progress on a location that might come out, without even giving that hero a choice if he wants to or not! (flooded ford from nightmare anduin)

I don't know about you, but I crown this card both worst attachment and worst player card of the cycle.

This could have been so much better if it had a response to attached hero committing to the quest and placing 1 progress anywhere you want...

What's your thoughts on overall class attachments of the Ring-maker?

3 out of 4 are good cards

The "best" one for me is Captain of Gondor as there is always the possibility to optionally engage an enemie, if there is one. +1/+1 for 1 ressource is great, even more if you can ready the hero to make use of both stats (*cough* Boromir *cough*)

Heir of Mardil and Wingfoot are close in terms of powerlevel. Most of the time you want all your extra ressources during the planning, but that is when few heros are exhausted, so it's not that easy to get the best out of the Card, but it's obviously strong when you can use stewert at any time to ready a hero and don't need the ressources anymore during planning.

Wingfoot is a cheap safety net. As Constantine said: Just guess enemie (if you don't know the top encounter card) and if one appears your hero is ready to fight him, if none shows up you don't need a ready hero anyway. Of course this is wrong if you are already engaged, but the use of a 1-cost permanent readying attachment has to be limited.

Only sad thing is, that Wingfoot only works on rangers. There are quite a few, but in my games there are a lot more noble or warrior heroes. Adding to this, Wingffot would we good on many heroes, while Captain of Gondor most of the time would go on a warrior anyway.

And then there is Warden of Arnor. Just the sound of the title is badass and gives the impression that it's an important job. And then the effect and restriction is just meh. 1 progress is close to nothing and i would rather use a willpower boost instead. Rarely a location only has 1 quest point. Yes it's a permanent effect, but in 1 and 2 Player games rounds without locations happen quite often, wasting the effect, even though I remember many ring-maker quests as Location heavy. In my opinion it should place 1 progress on every added location. In it's current form I agree with it being the worst Card of the ring-maker cycle.

Imo all 4 work better the more Players (and encountercards) there are. If you have more Players, most of the time there is more ressource adding/shifting to procing mardil is easier, more Encounter cards mean a higher chance to get wingfoot going or bring out at least 1 Location for warden of arnor (if you are brave enough to put it in your deck ) or having an enemie to engage.

Wingfoot on Elrohir with Protector of Lorien works very nicely.

I basically agree. I am not a huge fan of Captain of Gondor because I just think there are better attachments. Personally I tend to use one uber blocker and a group of attackers. Rarely do I need +1,+1. I would prefer to either boost attack or defense, but boosting both is a waste.

Warden of Arnor is pretty much garbage. You can just tell immediately how bad it is. I have no idea why they only had it work on the first location. The thing about locations (that anyone who plays the game knows) is that they get far more difficult with additional players. In solo, enemies are easily the hardest part and locations are often pretty tame. In solo, even mono spirit can get by without Northern Tracker. In a 4 player game Norther Tracker is an absolute must have unless you just want to lose. So they made Warden of Arnor only good in solo or maybe two handed? It makes no sense. The card gets worse as more players are added. They could have reversed the limitation and said "add a progress to every location AFTER the first" and instantly made it a great card for multiplayer. I tried using it with Idrean, but even with other effects that add progress it wasn't consistent enough to be worth it. It is literally the worst location control card in the game (yes, worse than the Dale scout, which is actually useful in 4 player games in combination with Northern tracker or even Silvan scout.) I understand they were trying to prevent it from being OP, but they went seriously overboard.

Wing foot is infuriating to me. Because yes, you would think you could just guess "enemy" and have it work out. But the number of times it doesn't is astonishing. Whenever enemies are pulled from the encounter deck, or show up as a result of a quest stage or are "discarded" and then put into play, or whatever. And then you don't get your hero that you need to fight. Warden of Arnor may not be great, but at least you can see it's not great on the surface. Wingfoot just sort of loses games for you.

I have had stuff like that happen with Wingfoot, but once you play around that you make it work, depending on the quest. It is still pretty good. Also, if you have something like ranger bow you can actually get multiple uses out of the ready effect in the same staging if multiple enemies are revealed.

So funny story, one time someone mentioned Warden of Arnor and I got really confused until I remembered it is actually the name of a card as well as my blog.

That said,

I don't know about you, but I crown this card both worst attachment and worst player card of the cycle .

Message from Elrond might like a word. Cases could also be made for the extremely conditional Fall of Gil-Galad, Greyflood Wanderer given that Northern Tracker exists, and I don't know about you guys but as much as I'd like to I've never yet found a good use for Defender of the West. Oh, and Follow Me.

Warden of Arnor is very limited, but if I'm building a dedicated location control deck with Idraen I'll probably put in one or two copies, because every progress helps when you also have Asfaloth and Northern Trackers in the mix.

On the other hand though, I still really wish it was full-on Thalin for locations like I originally misread it as.

Follow me is an incredible card when playing the Saga expansions multiplayer. Our group found more often than not that it can be nice for Frodo to remain with the right deck.

Message from Elrond can be a game killer with a right setup. It also requires a specific setup (you can't just add it to the deck like, say, Daeron's Runes, and expect it to be effective), which might make it look like a bad card, but once you utilize it well - it's not.

Fall of Gil-Galad is very arguable card, but at least it gives you something you can sense - a huge threat reduction.

Freyflood Wanderer still has decent stat box for his cost and a Dunedain trait.

Defender of the West... I don't know, try to use it on hobbit Gandalf and see what happens.

Follow me is extremely good in quest with first-player tied stuff.

Don't let mndela see the Warden of Arnor hate, he loves that card.

Its use is very focused to certain scenarios and only works in certain decks, but I have seen it used effectively. I can't say that about certain other cards in the cycle.

I have had stuff like that happen with Wingfoot, but once you play around that you make it work, depending on the quest. It is still pretty good. Also, if you have something like ranger bow you can actually get multiple uses out of the ready effect in the same staging if multiple enemies are revealed.

How? Ranger bow is an action, so unless you get an immediate attack from the first enemy, you will not have an action window to exhaust with Ranger Bow before the next enemy shows up.

Correct. I forgot that the enemy's "when revealed" effect must also provide an action window, as when an enemy makes an immediate attack.

DELETED since someone beat me to it.