Northern Warg

By CixrTyx, in Rules questions & answers

Question about Northern Warg and would like an answer that references the rules or FAQ.

Northern-Warg.jpg

The shadow effect on Northern Warg says:

Quote

After this attack, attacking enemy engages the next player, then makes an immediate attack (deal a new shadow card for that attack).

If they are engaged with Johnny and Johnny is the first player and Johnny blocks a Northern Warg and the shadow card is Northern Warg, Johnny finishes resolving the attack and it passes to Jane and Jane resolves the immediate attack. Then goes back to Johnny to finish the rest of his attacks and then Jane moves on to normal attacks for this turn will Northern Warg get an attack during the Jane's normal attack step?

So basically what I'm asking is with the passing of the warg and immediate attack would the net result be the three attacks (one for normal attack on first player then immediate attack on second player and then normal attack on second player for that round?) The FAQ isn't clear and the rules do say all engaged enemies make an attack.

Also The Wastes of Eriador does not scale well with more than two players. I think my group(3 players) has played this close to 40-50 times and still no victory in sight; I think out of all of those games we have only been able to get to stage 2 twice and stage 3 once. I can't imagine what this scenario would be like in a 4 player game.

Edited by CixrTyx

Well, it all depends on who is the first player in this case.

Let's say Jane is the first player, so she resolves any attacks from enemies engaged with her first. Then Johnny defends his enemies' attacks, one of which gets Northern Warg as a shadow card. Northern Warg finishes his attack against Johnny, moves, and attacks Jane. The enemies engaged with Jane have already attacked, so the enemy that moved does not attack a third time.

But if Johnny is the first player in this scenario, the enemy with Northern Warg as a shadow card would attack Johnny, move, and then attack Jane. Then all enemies engaged with Jane would attack her (including our restless friend).

And yes, Wastes is a tough nut to crack in multiplayer.

Once the wolf changes engagement and moves over to Jane, it will stay there (it will not move back to Johnny). The reason for this is simply from the core set rules. There is no mechanic for an enemy to change engagement, once it is engaged with a player. A card effect can do this (like the shadow effect we're talking about now), but the effect does not say the wolf will return to the first player after it completes the attack against Jane, so it'll just stay with Jane.

As for making another attack against Jane during her normal attack resolution: it will not . This is in the FAQ on page 15:

"Q: When an enemy that has already made an attack engages a new player during the combat phase, does it make another attack?
A: Not unless it is directed to by card effect."

As for difficulty, 40 to 50 games must be an exaggeration! Maybe you're doing a 1st round forfeit and you all reset a lot. Then the number of games you've played could be really high. But without that, a game at 3 players is likely to take an hour, sometimes 2 hours, even if you lose sometimes, so that's...many hours. It is definitely a very hard quest though, and I agree it's much harder with higher player counts. Unfortunately many quests suffer from poor scaling like this. There are a very few quests that are easier with higher player counts, but in general they get harder if you have 3 or 4 players, in my opinion. Pure solo is a different beast altogether, and can bring its own set of challenges (especially with deckbuilding requirements, since 1 deck has to do everything)

5 hours ago, GrandSpleen said:

Once the wolf changes engagement and moves over to Jane, it will stay there (it will not move back to Johnny). The reason for this is simply from the core set rules. There is no mechanic for an enemy to change engagement, once it is engaged with a player. A card effect can do this (like the shadow effect we're talking about now), but the effect does not say the wolf will return to the first player after it completes the attack against Jane, so it'll just stay with Jane. 

As for making another attack against Jane during her normal attack resolution: it will not . This is in the FAQ on page 15:

"Q: When an enemy that has already made an attack engages a new player during the combat phase, does it make another attack? 
A: Not unless it is directed to by card effect." 

As for difficulty, 40 to 50 games must be an exaggeration! Maybe you're doing a 1st round forfeit and you all reset a lot. Then the number of games you've played could be really high. But without that, a game at 3 players is likely to take an hour, sometimes 2 hours, even if you lose sometimes, so that's...many hours. It is definitely a very hard quest though, and I agree it's much harder with higher player counts. Unfortunately many quests suffer from poor scaling like this. There are a very few quests that are easier with higher player counts, but in general they get harder if you have 3 or 4 players, in my opinion. Pure solo is a different beast altogether, and can bring its own set of challenges (especially with deckbuilding requirements, since 1 deck has to do everything) 

Sorry we track games and time so it was actually 28 times and still not doing well.

I would like to see what others players says on the number of attack

I would still think it is 3 if the original player ( the one engages with the enemy getting the shadow effect) is in turn Before the next player. As I understand it the faq does not rule it out. I mean, enemy attack player 1 and is dealt a shadow card instructing to engage the next player AND make an immediate attack. This overcome the rule clarification listed in the faq. Once all attacks against player 1 are done the phase pass to the next player in turn order. if the enemy who was passed by the shadow effect is now engaged with a player who have still to resolve enemy attack phase in principle should make a attack. I don't see the faq preventing this as it seems specifically related to attacks make at the moment and in consequence of an enemy being passed by a shadow effect ( so no attack trigger by the new engagement itself useless specifically defined by the shadow effect). I cannot see how this can't prevent what would be a "standard" attack made by an engaged enemy during enemy attack phase. So I would still say 3 attack IF the player getting the shadow effect players before the next player in turn order.

Obviously I could be wrong and I would not bet any significant amount of money on my own understanding...

Interested in community thoughts!

6 hours ago, Halberto said:

if the enemy who was passed by the shadow effect is now engaged with a player who have still to resolve enemy attack phase in principle should make a attack.

True. He would not resolve a third attack however, if that player had already resolved attacks from the enemies engaged with him.

9 minutes ago, Wandalf the Gizzard said:

True. He would not resolve a third attack however, if that player had already resolved attacks from the enemies engaged with him.

Happy to know I died for a goood reason all that times back when I played this quest for the first times...

7 hours ago, Halberto said:

I would like to see what others players says on the number of attack

I would still think it is 3 if the original player ( the one engages with the enemy getting the shadow effect) is in turn Before the next player. As I understand it the faq does not rule it out.

Sorry I wrote too much in my reply, above. I did quote the FAQ with the info you're looking for. The enemy would not attack a third time. The situation is directly addressed by the FAQ, it's in the quote in my post, above.

Quote

Unfortunately many quests suffer from poor scaling like this. There are a very few quests that are easier with higher player counts, but in general they get harder if you have 3 or 4 players, in my opinion. Pure solo is a different beast altogether, and can bring its own set of challenges (especially with deckbuilding requirements, since 1 deck has to do everything) 

I disagree. I almost never loose a game with 3 players or more. And I often be disappointed by an interesting challenge at 2 who become too easy at 3.

I think our different could come from the decks we use. If you think about your synergies when you play one deck for balancing the different aspect of the game but take pair random decks when playing at 2 or 3 players it won't work as well. Same thing if you have to split good cards among decks instead of playing them in all of the decks (almost each deck need his own test of will). And some strategies are especially powerful with high player count (like doomed cards Legacy of numenor and deep knowledge). As I often build deck for the whole table I may ensure that it contain synergies but when you meet people and everyone grab a deck he or she want to test it is impossible to do.

There is, still, some scenario who are more difficult with high player count. Druadan Forest is most easy on solo and became nightmare at 4 (but nightmare version change that and make it an moderate scenario for everyone), and found Attack on Dol Guldur and Battle of Carn Dum are more easy at 2

Edited by Rouxxor