Hello.

I've been playing LotR LCG with my husband for a couple of months now and we've just started playing the Saga expansions with The Black Riders. After some attempts and mistakes, I think we finaly have mastered most of the first scenario's mechanics. There's only a question we would like to put to your consideration.

The first scenario card reads:

Three is Company (A Shadow of the Past): When a player fails a Hide test, each Nazgûl enemy not engaged with a player engages that player (Trigger Forced effects after resolving this effect).

Lets assume thar I've just revealed a Black Rider to the staging area and that I've failed it's Hide 2 test.

Black Rider: Hide 2. Cannot have non-Morgul attachments. Forced: After engaged player fails a Hide test, Black Rider makes an immediate attack.

We know that the Black Rider is supposed to engage and immediately attack me, because the scenario card clearly states that we must trigger forced effects.

However if we consider what is written in the Black Rider card "Forced: after engaged player fails a Hide test...", we can also assume that the Black Rider is only going to engage me - resolving the scenario effect - and not attack, because I wasn't the engaged player when I resolved the Hide test. We think that for the Black Rider to attack, it must already be engaged with the player that failed the Hide check. Since I wasn't engaged with Black Rider when I resolved the Hide test, the Forced effect doesn't apply.

In order to engage and immediately attack the Forced effect should read someting like this: after Black Rider engages a player that failed a Hide test, it makes an immediate attack.

This is our interpretation, although we know that, apparently, everyone plays: engagement + immediate attack. We would like to know what you, more experienced players, think.

Thanks in advance.

PS: sorry for the long post (and bad grammar)...

I think that the effects were poorly phrased. The " (Trigger Forced effects after resolving this effect) " was intended to clarify matters, the point not being that you trigger the effect at all, but that you trigger it specifically *after* the quest card effect, at which point the Nazgul is engaged with you. But as your post shows, this still doesn't really make things clear for everyone. Your suggested change, incidentally, " after Black Rider engages a player that failed a Hide test, it makes an immediate attack, " wouldn't work because it wouldn't trigger attacks from the Black Riders which were already engaged.

So yeah, the phrasing has definite problems, but we know that it's supposed to trigger the immediate attack after the Black Rider engages because the developers have said so.

Ok, so ... we have to deal with at least two attacks by Black Riders, each round, in case of Hide check failure...

That might be problematic, since we only have the Core Set and The Black Riders expansion to build our decks from...

Thanks a lot, PocketWraith.

On 2/13/2017 at 3:47 PM, _simbelmynë_ said:

Ok, so ... we have to deal with at least two attacks by Black Riders, each round, in case of Hide check failure...

That might be problematic, since we only have the Core Set and The Black Riders expansion to build our decks from...

Thanks a lot, PocketWraith.

My advice for that quest is simple: DO NOT fail hide tests

Yeah and maybe try a 3-Hobbit Lineup + Aragorn/Theodred/Eowyn to beat that quest if you don't have more then Core-Set + Black Riders. I could see this combo go it's way to victory with a lot of help by Sneakattack+Gandalf to deal with some nasty Nazguls.