I like Spirit Frodo, he just helped me tremendously in beating Shadow and Flame for the first time progression style together with Song of Earendil.

I have been a little bit AWOL for the past week - sorry about that.

On 8/3/2019 at 10:56 AM, player3351457 said:

So I've been giving it a lot of thought and I'd like to play test it, but I'm liking my suggestion about Bilbo more and more. Unless I am missing some awesome trick, Spippin and Fatty are straight up terrible heroes. Lore Bilbo is slightly better, and spirit frodo can work in certain scenarios and certain decks.

With this change in Bilbo, I'd be interested in running a two hand game, possibly with a dunedain set, that is run with bilbo, fatty and pippin because it brings massive built in card draw. With double spirit, you are effectively paying for the threat reduction so that you can consistently keep drawing by raising threat. It's not stellar by any means, but a card drawing engine like this might clear a 50 card deck faster than erestor. Plus you would keep the cards. The key would be to keep your threat under control.

Theres something to be said about changing one hero to make three workable.

Hmm...there's some interesting ideas in there - I definitely agree that Spirit Pippin and Fatty Bolger could use a boost. Changing Bilbo to key off of raising threat from player card effects might do that. But that said, we finally ended up deciding that the best course of action was just to give Bilbo the 6 threat that his stats justified. We are probably going to need to take a look at Pippin and Fatty later on in this series anyways, regardless of what we do with Bilbo. And I think that it might be a good idea to take a look at the Spirit-hobbits in general.

Also, here's a version of Born Aloft. What do you all think?

Interesting. Has some silvan-thranduil flavor to it since 90% you would trigger during planning phase to get that cost reduction. You wouldn't normally play this way as I would anticipate it has eagles triggering at different times in the round. This expands its usage while suggesting its use early in the round.

Alright everyone, it's time for the Ancient Mathoms project to move on to Journey to Rhosgobel. Almost every card in this pack gets a look - some of them minor alterations, some of them major reworkings of the whole card.

(In case you're curious, the card we felt needed absolutely no help at all was Ancient Mathom, so we're pretty sure we didn't miss any this time! )

As always, let us know if you think we went too far, missed an overpowered reaction, or went in entirely the wrong direction with the card.

I think these are all really great updates. Love the Silvan Secrecy idea especially. At first I thought the boost to Radagast was a bit much, but it's really not if you put it next to say Treebeard.

I like the changes to Imrahil, Dúnedain Quest, Parting Gifts, Escord of Edoras, Landroval and To the Eyrie.

Born Aloft needs an "e" in its title, but it can be seriously abused with Sneak Attacking expensive allies. Thus i prefer the second version.

I would like some sort of readying effect on Haldir given his stat line. Maybe something like "Response: After a Silvan ally leaves play, ready Haldir of Lórien." I am not sure, how impactful his location control ability is. I would have to try Secrecy with Silvans, but in my opinion they are already cheap enough. After all they were one of the reason Horn of Gondor got nerfed.

Mirlonde (even though she is not really up to discussion for now) gives Rossiel a jump start, which is a good thing.

The problem I have with Infighting is not its cost, but the amount of damage it moves around. It is rare to have an enemy with a decent enough hit point pool to not die in order to kill another enemy. I would rather move any amount of damage of any enemy to a non-unique enemy to concentrate spread damage from Thalin and other effects on to one target.

As I hardly see the need to heal creatures especially with resources, I prefer the second version of Radagast. I would also like him to be able to pay for the Winged Guardian's forced effect.

Love Mirlonde. I would use her in decks that had a terrible encounter card, scooping until I got it into the victory display. Also a good start for keen as lances and might give you chance to get rossiel jacked from the start of the game.

Here's a question - since recent feedback has gotten me wondering if we've been a little too enthusiastic about our buffs. Does Imrahil, Landroval, or Infighting really need a buff?

I'd ask the same question about Haldir, but I've already followed that logic to its end, to wit:

Haldir is fine and doesn't need any help, and I'm going to give him something anyways that helps him work with a Silvan deck (either the existing deck or a newly opened archetype). For the theme.

I'd avoid 0-cost "draw a card" cards where possible.

Imrahil: Prince IMrahil is fine without a fix, but the minor enhancements (Warrior and phase instead of round) don't break him.

D. Quest: the price change makes this card what it isn't now -- playable. It's a tremendous bargain since attachments are generally less fragile than allies and would likely elevate the card to staple status. But that's better than being a coaster.

NathanH's point about 0-cost draw cards is well taken, by inclusion the deck size can effectively shrink even if the card effect itself is worthless. With that said, We Are Not Idle has been out for ages and the vast, vast majority of users have dwarves -- so the potential problem is really more of a theoretical problem than a practical problem. But it brings up a larger point -- 0 cost events are currently *not* very popular in general, because their effect is weak (has to be, since free) but it still takes takes up space in the deck. So you have two choices if making them usable:

1) Making them *truly* free via cantrip. This can reduce effective deck size, though.

2) Strengthen the effect to make them worth playing at zero.

But actually, there may be a third choice -- make the card draw conditional rather than unconditional, so the card is only a cantrip if used to do something. So for We Are Not Idle, it could be "if you exhausted at least one character [what errata?] draw a card. And for this card, it could be "if you transferred at least one resource, draw a card". Now you can't play it just to replace it.

Another possibility is to strengthen via rewording, so instead of saying "any other hero's resource pool" it says "any other heroes' resource pools", so that Parting Gifts can share the loot *widely*. Or has Parting Gifts been ruled to allow that already with the current wording?

You could also produce a narrow buff by substituting character for hero, so that it can be used to buff up Treebeard and Radagast.

Escort for Edoras: I like this change, though it probably makes it the best 2-cost Rohan ally.

Landroval: I like giving him ranged, although other expensive eagles don't even get sentinel. I think it's odd that they don't given that the cheapest eagles do. Eagles are highly mobile.

To the Eyrie: I like this change a lot, it becomes a worthy 2-cost event and an extreme way to heal damaged allies in Tactics. Rules question -- if your defender of Rammas gets a "defender takes one damage" shadow, and you use this event to put him back in play, does he still count as the defender when he returned or is it an undefended attack? He definitely went out of play, but he's no longer out of play when the attack resolves...

Borne Aloft: I like the intent of the changes, since the big problem with Born Aloft is having to pay for the ally again after taking it out of play. With the exception of temporary allies and now (thanks to a rules revision) rescuing Vassals/Guardians, that's an expensive zero-cost event. But turning Born Aloft into a planning-phase cost reducer also seems a bit odd to me, instead of rescuing during the combat phase or something. Here's my idea -- when used, have it generate cost/2 resources to a hero of your choice. Then it can subsidy the repay, but also gives the flexibility for some urgent other need paid for by taking back an expensive ally.

if you keep it as "Born Aloft" you could change the artwork to a baby Eagle falling through the sky. (Are Eagles born when the egg is laid, or when they hatch?)

Haldir: location control is always useful, but as an unlimited response it would be super-powerful in a Silvan Deck. If you're going that way, I'd put a limit on it. But the idea of Silvan secrecy intrigues me, I think it's a good fit for Silvans sneakily flitting in and out of play.

The issue I see is that while the Mirlonde above works well with Rossiel and the Silvan discount makes her more useful to Silvan decks, she doesn't actually enable Silvan secrecy. Mirlonde is at 8, Rossiel is 8, everyone else is at 9 or above, and that means the floor is 22 for the all-Silvan deck. You could fix this by having Mirlonde give -1 threat to Lore *and* -1 threat to Silvan as separate effects, that would make Mirlonde an enabler for secrecy decks, and allow Mirlonde/Rossiel to make an all-Silvan secrecy deck with anyone but Celeborn.

Infighting's current issue is the lack of enemies with significant damage to move from. If there's significant damage, it's worth one -- if there's not, it's not worth the deck space, and your version weakens the effect by specifying non-unique. Amicus' suggestion to gather from all enemies is a good one, though again the non-unique qualifier takes out a use case where the card currently *is* useful, dinging a non-immune boss. How about a compromise where you can move from up to three enemies, but it doesn't have to be unique? That prevents mass-Thalin from taking out a boss instantly, but keeps it useful in the current case.

Radagast's healing is so generally useless that the first version is more useful despite being a one-time effect. But the healing is so thematic, on the rare occasion when you have a creature to heal, and it gives Radagast something to do with his resources. How about keeping the healing and adding another resource sink, like spending 2 to ready a creature like Treebeard does.

Alternately, since there's a bunch of creatures with leave play, give him a response to a creature leaving play that lets him pay full cost to put that creature back in play immediately.

It'd be nice if Radagast had an ability that synergized with Wizard Pipe, but having a creature that synergizes with it (Messanger Raven) is close enough.

I am really surprised you decided not to change Horn of Gondor. I have read that you find the card has its use in decks that use chump blocking, and I agree. Yet, in my humble opinion, Horn of Gondor is a terribly made card. It totally fails to catch its theme according to the lore.

If I would go for a modification of the card, I would do something like:

For the Horn of Gondor, I'd propose:

"Item  . Artifact. 

Restricted.

Attach to a hero or Boromir. Response: whenever the attached character is dealt damage, reduce your threat by one for each point of damage dealt."

This will give threat reduction to the tactics sphere, which is unusual at the moment the horn appeared (in the core set, basically), but that's something that eventually has happened. My point for the design is that it creates a splendid and thematic synergy with tactics Boromir (hero): the more damage he receives, the more he blows his horn and is able to trigger his extra actions for free (with or without errata).

Thematically, blowing the horn could imply catching Sauron's attention (thus increasing your threat instead of reducing it), but actually Boromir is distracting the orcs to prevent Frodo from being captured, so it works in the sense you're reducing Sauron's attention to the true point of the quest and buying time.

I know this subverts completely the original design, but I hope you like it nevertheless!

I'm seriously considering dropping Imrahil from the list - I don't think that he needs the help. Landroval is another card that probably doesn't need it - but I'm probably going to keep his changes just because it's been annoying that his original version can't save TaBoromir from using his discard ability. With the errata to Caldara, this makes all the heroes with discard effects a limit once per game, which means that I'm perfectly fine with letting Landroval work with them too. The final card that probably is fine without needing a touch is Haldir, but I'm going to hit Haldir just because he deserves some synergy with other Silvans. And I personally have come to prefer the secrecy one (but more on that below).

On 8/8/2019 at 8:32 AM, dalestephenson said:

NathanH's point about 0-cost draw cards is well taken, by inclusion the deck size can effectively shrink even if the card effect itself is worthless. With that said, We Are Not Idle has been out for ages and the vast, vast majority of users have dwarves -- so the potential problem is really more of a theoretical problem than a practical problem. But it brings up a larger point -- 0 cost events are currently *not* very popular in general, because their effect is weak (has to be, since free) but it still takes takes up space in the deck. So you have two choices if making them usable:

1) Making them *truly* free via cantrip. This can reduce effective deck size, though.

2) Strengthen the effect to make them worth playing at zero.

But actually, there may be a third choice -- make the card draw conditional rather than unconditional, so the card is only a cantrip if used to do something. So for We Are Not Idle, it could be "if you exhausted at least one character [what errata?] draw a card. And for this card, it could be "if you transferred at least one resource, draw a card". Now you can't play it just to replace it.

Another possibility is to strengthen via rewording, so instead of saying "any other hero's resource pool" it says "any other heroes' resource pools", so that Parting Gifts can share the loot *widely*. Or has Parting Gifts been ruled to allow that already with the current wording?

You could also produce a narrow buff by substituting character for hero, so that it can be used to buff up Treebeard and Radagast.

That's a good point - making the card draw conditional prevents wholesale deck-thinning but also makes the card powerful enough to be included if the original effect is useful (On that note, my experience using the new and updated Strength of Will has been excellent, though Stand Together has been less impressive, possibly due to the fact that there just aren't as many good defenders in the card pool where our progression series is at yet, along with the fact that it's hard to stay under the engagement costs of enemies). And Parting Gifts is useful, just overshadowed by Good Harvest and Errand-rider. So, something like this, perhaps:

On 8/8/2019 at 8:32 AM, dalestephenson said:

To the Eyrie: I like this change a lot, it becomes a worthy 2-cost event and an extreme way to heal damaged allies in Tactics. Rules question -- if your defender of Rammas gets a "defender takes one damage" shadow, and you use this event to put him back in play, does he still count as the defender when he returned or is it an undefended attack? He definitely went out of play, but he's no longer out of play when the attack resolves.

I would say that if he's returned to play, he's no longer the same character that you exhausted to defend - the game doesn't recognize continuity like that, as far as I can tell. The response is similar to Landroval - if your hero was killed by a "deal damage to the defending character" shadow card, I think that the attack is still undefended, even if you use Landroval to bring the hero back.

On 8/8/2019 at 8:32 AM, dalestephenson said:

Borne Aloft: I like the intent of the changes, since the big problem with Born Aloft is having to pay for the ally again after taking it out of play. With the exception of temporary allies and now (thanks to a rules revision) rescuing Vassals/Guardians, that's an expensive zero-cost event. But turning Born Aloft into a planning-phase cost reducer also seems a bit odd to me, instead of rescuing during the combat phase or something. Here's my idea -- when used, have it generate cost/2 resources to a hero of your choice. Then it can subsidy the repay, but also gives the flexibility for some urgent other need paid for by taking back an expensive ally.

if you keep it as "Born Aloft" you could change the artwork to a baby Eagle falling through the sky. (Are Eagles born when the egg is laid, or when they hatch?)

It's probably thematically weird as a planning phase cost reducer - although that's why I added the "or event" phrase in the updated (second) version. It also works in the Quest phase with Hirgon, or in the Combat Phase with Thranduil. Or if there's an event you want to use in the combat phase, it's a decent cost reducer for then.

But the directly adding resources makes it more flexible, and I like that - but I do worry that it would conflict with the space of Elf Guide. (On the other hand, having different spheres might be enough to differentiate them).

On 8/8/2019 at 8:32 AM, dalestephenson said:

Haldir: location control is always useful, but as an unlimited response it would be super-powerful in a Silvan Deck. If you're going that way, I'd put a limit on it. But the idea of Silvan secrecy intrigues me, I think it's a good fit for Silvans sneakily flitting in and out of play.

The issue I see is that while the Mirlonde above works well with Rossiel and the Silvan discount makes her more useful to Silvan decks, she doesn't actually enable Silvan secrecy. Mirlonde is at 8, Rossiel is 8, everyone else is at 9 or above, and that means the floor is 22 for the all-Silvan deck. You could fix this by having Mirlonde give -1 threat to Lore *and* -1 threat to Silvan as separate effects, that would make Mirlonde an enabler for secrecy decks, and allow Mirlonde/Rossiel to make an all-Silvan secrecy deck with anyone but Celeborn.

I really like the secrecy idea as well, and opening up a new way to play Silvans could be very interesting (I originally wanted Thranduil to open up an entirely new Silvan archetype - but I have become quite satisfied with him the way he is). I prefer the Secrecy Haldir for that reason, but your argument is quite compelling. I'd worry about an ability that would allow Mirlonde to reduce starting threat by 6, though (Mirlonde, Rossiel, Haldir or Argalad, for a starting threat of 16 - equal to a Hobbit deck with Folco).

But the overall thrust of your point is well-taken. It would be good to be able to get a Silvan secrecy deck going (and one that doesn't use Spirit Glorfindel as a crutch). Perhaps dropping Mirlonde's defense and lowering her threat to 6 might be enough. Then, she's undercosted by 1 and also drops threat even further. This also gets you an all-Silvan deck starting at 20 (with Thranduil, even!), although it does lock you into using Rossiel. I don't want to pigeonhole Mirlonde too much.

On 8/8/2019 at 8:32 AM, dalestephenson said:

Infighting's current issue is the lack of enemies with significant damage to move from. If there's significant damage, it's worth one -- if there's not, it's not worth the deck space, and your version weakens the effect by specifying non-unique. Amicus' suggestion to gather from all enemies is a good one, though again the non-unique qualifier takes out a use case where the card currently *is* useful, dinging a non-immune boss. How about a compromise where you can move from up to three enemies, but it doesn't have to be unique? That prevents mass-Thalin from taking out a boss instantly, but keeps it useful in the current case.

That's an interesting idea - Grant and I have been throwing out alternate ideas and haven't really found one we really like. This one is a pretty good one.

Just today, though, I came up with this idea. The biggest problem with it is that it breaks almost every rule we have created for this series. Can't resist sharing the idea, although I have to admit that I think I like your idea better for the purposes of this project.

(Please ignore the artwork on the new encounter card - I haven't found art for it yet. And needing to get permission for new art would be enough to make other options more attractive)

On 8/8/2019 at 8:32 AM, dalestephenson said:

Radagast's healing is so generally useless that the first version is more useful despite being a one-time effect. But the healing is so thematic, on the rare occasion when you have a creature to heal, and it gives Radagast something to do with his resources. How about keeping the healing and adding another resource sink, like spending 2 to ready a creature like Treebeard does.

Alternately, since there's a bunch of creatures with leave play, give him a response to a creature leaving play that lets him pay full cost to put that creature back in play immediately.

It'd be nice if Radagast had an ability that synergized with Wizard Pipe, but having a creature that synergizes with it (Messanger Raven) is close enough.

Our original intent was to add the card draw in addition to the healing. The problem was that it ended up with waaay too much text for a single card. There's not really enough room to keep the healing and add another effect, as much as I would like to.

Both of your ideas are excellent and thematic. The problem, I suppose, is that each of the 4 possible ideas for Radagast (healing, the creature search upon entering play, the readying a creature, or the return a creature from the discard pile) are all thematic and pretty good. Now we have to pick one. But better to have a surfeit of good ideas than none at all

1 hour ago, Onidsen said:

I really like the secrecy idea as well, and opening up a new way to play Silvans could be very interesting (I originally wanted Thranduil to open up an entirely new Silvan archetype - but I have become quite satisfied with him the way he is). I prefer the Secrecy Haldir for that reason, but your argument is quite compelling. I'd worry about an ability that would allow Mirlonde to reduce starting threat by 6, though (Mirlonde, Rossiel, Haldir or Argalad, for a starting threat of 16 - equal to a Hobbit deck with Folco).

Mirlonde/Rossiel/Haldir or Argalad would be 19 starting threat, if I am doing my math correctly. So barely under the secrecy limit, and unfortunately only Mirlonde/Argalad/Haldir can make an all-Silvan secrecy deck without Rossiel. I don't think reducing starting threat by a maximum of 6 is too much, considering that's the only ability she has; Folco's max -3 and TaEowyn's effective -3 both come with useful abilities. It's a comparable threat reduction at the max to SpGlorfindel (-7) and Gollum (-6), but there's very few lineups that would give her the full discount, and in any case SpGlorfindel has better stats and better toys, while Gollum's 2 in *any* deck open possibilites that she can't. At a -2 minimum discount, Mirlonde isn't going to displace similar-threat Hobbits who are a little squisher, but have abilities and toys more useful for secrecy decks.

2 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

Mirlonde/Rossiel/Haldir or Argalad would be 19 starting threat, if I am doing my math correctly. So barely under the secrecy limit, and unfortunately only Mirlonde/Argalad/Haldir can make an all-Silvan secrecy deck without Rossiel. I don't think reducing starting threat by a maximum of 6 is too much, considering that's the only ability she has; Folco's max -3 and TaEowyn's effective -3 both come with useful abilities. It's a comparable threat reduction at the max to SpGlorfindel (-7) and Gollum (-6), but there's very few lineups that would give her the full discount, and in any case SpGlorfindel has better stats and better toys, while Gollum's 2 in *any* deck open possibilites that she can't. At a -2 minimum discount, Mirlonde isn't going to displace similar-threat Hobbits who are a little squisher, but have abilities and toys more useful for secrecy decks.

That's fair - I did my math wrong, counting the -6 threat from the already lowered cost with Mirlonde. The comparison with Glorfindel would be the big one, but the lower stats make her significantly less useful. (Smeagol is different enough, and has enough downsides that the comparison isn't simple).

Finally, I can get back to the rest of the comments here.

@Amicus Draconis , the lack of an 'E' in the title is, so far as I can tell, native to the card as printed (At least according to Hall of Beorn). Reproducing that error might be annoying, but I would rather not leave a situation where pedants can argue that they can include 6 copies of the card because it's not the exact same title between the original and the Ancient Mathom'ed version.

@Yepesnopes @Freeman , our current objective is to change cards as little as possible. That said, at the end of the cycle, we are going to look back and see how the cards actually felt in playtests. If our current revisions aren't good enough, or if some of the cards we thought were fine actually need help, we'll reconsider them at that point. I really don't think that Horn of Gondor needs it, though. The card is sufficient as it currently stands, and making significant changes to the way it works would invalidate whole swathes of decks that use it. For a second time. I aim to steer well clear of that quagmire.

Currently, actually, the cards on my list for needing an extra touch are Wandering Took (still probably going to be cut from most of my decks as soon as I have better ally options) and the Blade of Gondolin (needs to actually boost attack instead of just the conditional boost).

If I were to rebuild the Horn of Gondor, I would do something as follows:

Item. Artifact.

Attach to a hero. Restricted.

Response : After a character leaves play, exhaust Horn of Gondor to add one resource to the attached hero's resource pool.

Action: Exhaust Horn of Gondor and raise your threat by 1 to give an enemy engaged with you -1 Attack until the end of the round.

Then rebuild it as you think it has to be, it is a better option!

1) Even if it is a useful card, HoG as per raw is as un thematic as it can get. It is like if they release a Hobbit with stats 3 3 3 5. It will be a useful card, but unthematic.

2) This version you propose now is much amore adecuate (to the theme of the HoG).

3) Changing cards is not going to invalidate decks that use it. This is a personal project (of you and some colleagues?), I bet no matter what you do, not many people outside your circle will use the cards. So, I would encourage you to change cards along lines you mainly like.

@dalestephenson an updated Mirlonde that addresses the Silvan Secrecy problem.

And while I'm at it, and have the time, I might as well post previews of the rest of the Shadows of Mirkwood cards for comment. 3 more packs, 16 more cards, one marathon of a post.

First off, a few cards that we've made only very minor changes to, either to align better with earlier changes we made, or to deal with long-standing annoyances about the card.

The first is Brand - a highly underrated hero, in my opinion. We just gave him the Warrior trait, and that was mostly because we had restricted Blade Mastery to the Warrior trait.

The second is Support of the Eagles - we added the Eagle trait so that it can be drawn with The Eagles Are Coming. Watching and listening to old commentary about the game during this cycle, I have heard a number of complaints that this card couldn't be drawn. While we were in the cycle, then, we decided to address that.

The third is Meneldor's Flight - as a 0-cost event, we just made it cantrip; our default approach to bad 0-cost events. Recent rules changes gave it a new lease on life, and the card draw is still conditional upon pulling an eagle back to your hand.

Song of mocking is a bit niche, but we brought it in line with the Song of Earendil - with which it shares a number of thematic parallels.

The fifth and sixth cards are just cost reductions. The Dunedain Cache suffered from Early Game Ranged Overcosted Syndrome (every ranged effect in the early game was overcosted - the designers overestimated just how valuable it was). And the Dunedain Watcher suffered from Early Game Overcosted Leadership Ally syndrome - she's a fine card, just a little too expensive to consistently use a discard effect.

So, with that out of the way, there are 10 cards left that we made more in-depth changes to.

We'll take them in sphere order:

Dain Ironfoot was on our nerf list, for sure. Whenever anyone asks about overpowered cards, he pretty well tops the list of them. Our nerf is not heavily intrusive - it just forces you to choose between using the willpower boost or the attack boost each round. Readying can get around that, of course, but Unexpected Courage is limit one per hero, now, so you'll have to get creative.

Keen-eyed Took is another one I'm just not satisfied with. We played with the idea of having him scry the encounter deck instead of the player's decks, and that might not be an awful idea, because I'm not sure if I like this one

Dawn Take you All is a card that I keep forgetting exists. Leadership has had a lot of shadow mitigation for a long time, it's just been too expensive (Watcher) or not generally useful enough. The big problem with this card is that it requires each player to be engaged with an enemy to be useful. Allowing each player to discard a shadow card from any enemy removes that roadblock. Now you can ensure a shadow-free or mostly shadow-free round of combat for just 2 resources. Doesn't scale down well to solo play, but not every card needs to.

Rear Guard is a card I've wanted to like for a long time. In a 4-player game, I feel like it might be able to pull its weight, but the style of deck for which it was designed doesn't fit very well with the current meta, honestly. We don't like our allies to leave play, these days - instead we want to keep them around and boost them up with attachments. Not a problem, it just makes cards like this harder to play. To help it out, we expanded the targets of the WP boost to all unique characters. Ditch a Snowbourne Scout or Squire of the Citadel for +4-6 wp or more? Definitely worthwhile.

Descendent of Thorondor finally got a day in the sun again with the rise of Hirgon decks, and even later with Radagast. But he's still ridiculously expensive for his effect. Reducing his cost was a move towards seeing him in other dedicated Tactics decks, but we also broadened the list of targets he can damage to any enemy in play. This lets you kill off enemies engaged with players, which is a huge improvement.

The Riddermark's Finest received a subtle but important change. We removed the requirement to exhaust it to trigger its ability, so you can actually use those stats now. 2 progress still isn't perhaps the best trade-off for discarding an ally, but I've used even the current ally to decent effect. This version lets me quest with it as well.

Ride to Ruin received probably the biggest boost out of this set. This new version has its origins in the thematic disappointment of the original card. Taking the epic moment of the charge of the Rohirrim onto the Pelennor Fields and reducing it to 3 progress on a location is a little bit of a letdown. We allowed you to choose either 3 progress on the location or 3 damage on an enemy. It's a very powerful card now, but hopefully balanced by the fact that you have to discard an ally to make it work. So it's not really 1 cost for 3 damage, it's 1 cost and losing an ally for 3 damage.

We Do Not Sleep is a classic example of a 5-cost event that is never worth the resources you'd spend on it. We wanted to broaden the use case a little, but we also recognized that it needed a cost reduction. Instead of actually changing the cost, we ended up reducing the cost by 1 for each Rohan hero you control. We also restricted the effect to heroes, but we also made it affect all heroes in play. So, for 2 resources, you get a turn in which you can use the heroes for questing and combat without using up any other readying effects they might have had.

Mirkwood Runner is a card I'm excited for. Along with ally Haldir and Mirlonde, this card hopefully constitutes a new archetype for Silvans: secrecy/victory display. The Runner needed a boost - 2 attack ignoring defense is not great on its own, and being in the Lore sphere, it's hard to boost the attack. You can do a convoluted combo with Rivendell Bow followed by Bow of the Galadhrim, but that's hard to set up. So we gave it a situation where it can get extra attack, if you build for it.

Our last card is Rumour from the Earth. I'm not totally satisfied with this card either - it's a repeatable scrying effect, which means that it competes with Henamarth Riversong. Our current appraoch is to dig deeper into the deck with our scrying, but I'm not 100% sure about how I feel about that.

We'd appreciate any comments on these cards, and on whether or not we missed a card in our earlier playthroughs.

Here's an alternate version of KET:

I think I like this one better - it gives Leadership access to a little bit of encounter deck scrying, which pairs well with the Longbeard Elder from the next cycle.

2 hours ago, Onidsen said:

Here's an alternate version of KET:

I think I like this one better - it gives Leadership access to a little bit of encounter deck scrying, which pairs well with the Longbeard Elder from the next cycle.

I'm not sure this card does what you think it does. "Reveal" has a very specific meaning in this game - something you want to avoid, usually 😝 .

17 minutes ago, Seastan said:

I'm not sure this card does what you think it does. "Reveal" has a very specific meaning in this game - something you want to avoid, usually 😝 .

Thank you! This was a rush job at the last minute, and I just copied wording from the original version. I'll fix that error at my earliest opportunity.

Less cards for the griefer deck!

My take:

Mirlonde -- the -3 threat for only Silvans opens up Silvan secrecy nicely without requiring Rossiel. I like it.

TaBrand -- like Warrior on him, though it'd be nice if Dale had a powerful ranged weapon. I don't know how badly he's underrated in multiplayer, I liked him a lot paired with a Three Rings deck. But his ability really is useless in solo. While card text is a problem, I wish he had the ability to choose some benefit to his own side (obviously not readying himself) instead of readying another party's character -- that way it would still benefit partner decks that can't use post-attack exhaustions and also provide a solo use case in conjunction with the thematic Great Yew Bow.

Support of the Eagles -- yes, it's annoying when the eagle search card doesn't pick up this card, though it is extremely powerful.

I like Meneldor's Flight -- even now that it's useful for Vassal/Guardian rescue, it's still weak, and I like the cantrip-if-you-do-something approach for weak 0-costers.

Adding the card draw to Song of Mocking makes it cheap insurance while replacing itself, but it still is niche. I think this would be more useful if it was a response to take another character's damage (exhausting the attachment) rather than an action to plan for a heroes' damage in advance.

Dunedain Cache deserves the 1 cost and the Signal trait.

Dunedain Watcher at 2 is useful outside game-ending-shadow quests, and not underpriced.

LeDain's nerf doesn't just force you to choose between WP boost and attack boost -- it forces you to choose between WP boost, attack boost and defense, where the current LeDain only forces a choice between defense and attack boost. I'd hate this as an official nerf, but there's no question he's still powerful even with the exhaustion and limits.

Keen-Eyed Took I like the second version better (with the "reveal" changed to look, of course). And it does help out Longbeard Elder. At the same time, discards from the deck have a mining synergy, except that the cost (returning a 2-cost ally to hand) is disproportionate to the benefit involved (in the printed card, nothing but discarding). The first version doesn't improve the discarding, just makes the enters play stronger to give recycling intensive. So I thought -- what if he mines? Each player discards the top card to return to hand, choose a player to get resources equal to the discarded card. It has to be a 3+ cost to make a profit over the original KET, but the enter plays helps you not discard blind. Just an idea, and since he's not a dwarf it's not thematic.

If I were working from his name and not his current stats/ability, I'd make Keen-Eyed Took a 2-cost, 2-attack hobbit who is parallel to Curious Brandybuck -- a response to enter play free under any player's control when you engage an enemy, but a forced effect to bottom of deck when an engaged enemy of the controlling player is destroyed.

Dawn Take You All -- agreed that this wording is better, but it's still not a compelling card even in multiplayer. Consider that it's competing with Dunedain Watcher -- in four player, with four enemies, you can ensure a shadow free round (outside a few special cases), but you're doing it blind. Of those four discarded shadows, probably two had shadow effects and they might be manageable ones. For the same cost, you can put Dunedain Watcher in play and get the benefit of her stats until a shadow comes along that *really* needs cancelling. And that's four player -- at 2-player the Watcher is vastly better and at 1 the Watcher is ridiculously better. I don't think this card is forgotten just because it's obscure, I think it's forgoteen because it's way too expensive for what it does. How to make it a useful card without making it Hasty Stroke?

One possibility is to remove the "facedown". Out of all the zillions of shadow card affectors, only Jubyar, this and Eldahir want you to lose your Silver Lamp. I think that's annoying. But that by itself does nothing except make it more useful in a rare combo. In the general case you're playing twice as much to discard facedown card(s).

Another possibility is to drop the blind -- for 2 cost, you get to turn every facedown shadow face-up, *then* discard exactly one shadow. Then each other player may pay one resource to discard a shadow. I think the reveal fits with "Dawn Take You All" thematically.

Rear Guard is better, and sacrificing an ally could get a huge boost in 3-4 player. I think I'd pay 2 for the effect (not in solo) if it returned to hand instead of getting discarded.

I like the improved Thorondor, even with Radagast the cost and limitation on damage is hard to take in the current model.

Riddermark's Finest -- good change. Having to exhaust seriously impairs the current card's value.

Ride to Ruin -- the damage ramps up the power, but mostly because 3 damage is more powerful than 3 progress. I think the median progress needed for a location in most cycles is four, and I don't think that would be overpowered.

We Do Not Sleep -- I love the cost reduction for the effect, but the redefinition to heroes saddens me a bit -- the "we" is seriously constricted and undramatic -- costing a good reason to play Mutual Accord, sniff sniff. The big problem with the event isn't just the cost, it's that most Rohirrim aren't actually good at both questing and fighting, heroes included.

I'd keep the thematic discount, but keep the restriction to Rohan characters -- but also give +1 wp/+1 attack to all unique Rohan characters until end of the round. Now they're worth double duty and the Mutual Accord combo becomes epic.

Mirkwood Runner -- agreed it's hard to ramp and none of the new ally attachments helps much. The best elf attachment is worthless because he already ignores defense. What he really needs to shine is the warrior trait, so he doesn't need two attachments for a measily 1-attack increase. (Other combos besides the two bows -- I am Not a Stranger + Speak of the Mark; In Service of the Steward + Sword of Morthond + Knights of the Swan. And have a companion deck dump more Knights of Swan that you grab with Stand and Fight until he takes trolls down with impunity. Totally worth ten turns of setup.)

Another idea to ramp him up is allowing the Runners to combine *with each other*, so they ignore defense if only Mirkwooed Runners are attacking -- multiples then become more dangerous.

But the idea of ramping him up with victory display? I like the idea of ramping up *somebody's* attack with VD cards, but I've got to say that his ability coupled with 4 attack strikes me as *very* powerful. Whether it's too powerful is quest dependent; I almost want +1 attack with a shared trait or +2 attack with a shared name, but that probably wouldn't fit on the card.

Rumour from the Earth -- yes, the repeatable aspect of it does compete with Hennamarth -- and lose, because paying 1 lore resource once is much better than paying one every turn. I'm not sure the non-repeatable but still not very compelling version is going to see much traction either. With the name deep scrying seems appropriate, but how to distinguish (especially at zero cost) between it and Risk Some Light and Interrogation?

Perhaps it could be more like some other top-card queries (Ravens of the Mountains and Needful to Know) and trigger something off the top card's threat? Card draw hasn't been done yet.

Or maybe key off something else. Keep it zero cost, but require exhaustion of a scout to examine the top X cards of the encounter deck, where X is the threat of the active location. You may choose one card to put at the bottom of the deck, then put the rest back in any order. Simple, useful, thematic.

Did you consider doing anything to Shadow of the Past? I'd like it more if it gave a choice of putting the top discard on top of the encounter deck, or shuffling any card in the discard back into the deck.

Thank you to everyone who has provided feedback! It is useful, and important for making this project as well-balanced as possible.

On 8/16/2019 at 8:44 PM, dalestephenson said:

Adding the card draw to Song of Mocking makes it cheap insurance while replacing itself, but it still is niche. I think this would be more useful if it was a response to take another character's damage (exhausting the attachment) rather than an action to plan for a heroes' damage in advance.

I like this idea a lot - I've been wanting to do something more with Song of Mocking, but was worried about squeezing the space of Vigilant Guard. I think that the hit point boost on the Guard helps, though.

On 8/16/2019 at 8:44 PM, dalestephenson said:

LeDain's nerf doesn't just force you to choose between WP boost and attack boost -- it forces you to choose between WP boost, attack boost and defense, where the current LeDain only forces a choice between defense and attack boost. I'd hate this as an official nerf, but there's no question he's still powerful even with the exhaustion and limits.

You are absolutely right on both counts - you have to choose between three things (though readying helps), and he is still very powerful. I put together a test Dwarf deck to play Nightmare Raid on the Grey Havens using him, and was able to beat it. (No guarantees about being able to replicate that - that quest is ridiculous in solo, and I think I got a little lucky).

On 8/16/2019 at 8:44 PM, dalestephenson said:

Keen-Eyed Took I like the second version better (with the "reveal" changed to look, of course). And it does help out Longbeard Elder. At the same time, discards from the deck have a mining synergy, except that the cost (returning a 2-cost ally to hand) is disproportionate to the benefit involved (in the printed card, nothing but discarding). The first version doesn't improve the discarding, just makes the enters play stronger to give recycling intensive. So I thought -- what if he mines? Each player discards the top card to return to hand, choose a player to get resources equal to the discarded card. It has to be a 3+ cost to make a profit over the original KET, but the enter plays helps you not discard blind. Just an idea, and since he's not a dwarf it's not thematic.

If I were working from his name and not his current stats/ability, I'd make Keen-Eyed Took a 2-cost, 2-attack hobbit who is parallel to Curious Brandybuck -- a response to enter play free under any player's control when you engage an enemy, but a forced effect to bottom of deck when an engaged enemy of the controlling player is destroyed.

Hmm...that would be interesting. I'd honestly rather give KET 1 WP and 1 attack instead of 2 attack, because an ally you could play for free to get 4 attack with Tom Cotton would be rather overpowered, I think. I like the parallel between that and the curious brandybuck, though. I'm torn between the encounter scrying version and having that parallel (though oddly enough, the Facebook group prefers the one that just adds a card to a player's hand). I'll have to think more on this one.

On 8/16/2019 at 8:44 PM, dalestephenson said:

Dawn Take You All -- agreed that this wording is better, but it's still not a compelling card even in multiplayer. Consider that it's competing with Dunedain Watcher -- in four player, with four enemies, you can ensure a shadow free round (outside a few special cases), but you're doing it blind. Of those four discarded shadows, probably two had shadow effects and they might be manageable ones. For the same cost, you can put Dunedain Watcher in play and get the benefit of her stats until a shadow comes along that *really* needs cancelling. And that's four player -- at 2-player the Watcher is vastly better and at 1 the Watcher is ridiculously better. I don't think this card is forgotten just because it's obscure, I think it's forgoteen because it's way too expensive for what it does. How to make it a useful card without making it Hasty Stroke?

One possibility is to remove the "facedown". Out of all the zillions of shadow card affectors, only Jubyar, this and Eldahir want you to lose your Silver Lamp. I think that's annoying. But that by itself does nothing except make it more useful in a rare combo. In the general case you're playing twice as much to discard facedown card(s).

Another possibility is to drop the blind -- for 2 cost, you get to turn every facedown shadow face-up, *then* discard exactly one shadow. Then each other player may pay one resource to discard a shadow. I think the reveal fits with "Dawn Take You All" thematically.

Perfectly fair observation, and I really like the second idea you offered. Although I don't think I'd make other players pay resources to discard shadows - turning cards faceup and then having each player choose and discard one would not be overpowered, I think. Not for an event. Still not great in solo, but it suddenly becomes much more worth it even in 2 player.

On 8/16/2019 at 8:44 PM, dalestephenson said:

Ride to Ruin -- the damage ramps up the power, but mostly because 3 damage is more powerful than 3 progress. I think the median progress needed for a location in most cycles is four, and I don't think that would be overpowered.

This is definitely true, although I really like having the symmetric number of damage or progress, and 4 damage would definitely be too much. I'm not particularly concerned about making both effects equally powerful - both will be useful at some points in a game, and you might choose the less powerful effect because it is most useful *right now.*

On 8/16/2019 at 8:44 PM, dalestephenson said:

We Do Not Sleep -- I love the cost reduction for the effect, but the redefinition to heroes saddens me a bit -- the "we" is seriously constricted and undramatic -- costing a good reason to play Mutual Accord, sniff sniff. The big problem with the event isn't just the cost, it's that most Rohirrim aren't actually good at both questing and fighting, heroes included.

I'd keep the thematic discount, but keep the restriction to Rohan characters -- but also give +1 wp/+1 attack to all unique Rohan characters until end of the round. Now they're worth double duty and the Mutual Accord combo becomes epic.

That's a good point which I didn't think about - I'm excited to get to some of those Heirs of Numenor cards. The willpower boost might be too much (especially with Astonishing Speed), but an attack boost might definitely be in order - Rohan doesn't have a good general boost like that (although Charge of the Rohirrim works for heroes).

On 8/16/2019 at 8:44 PM, dalestephenson said:

Mirkwood Runner -- agreed it's hard to ramp and none of the new ally attachments helps much. The best elf attachment is worthless because he already ignores defense. What he really needs to shine is the warrior trait, so he doesn't need two attachments for a measily 1-attack increase. (Other combos besides the two bows -- I am Not a Stranger + Speak of the Mark; In Service of the Steward + Sword of Morthond + Knights of the Swan. And have a companion deck dump more Knights of Swan that you grab with Stand and Fight until he takes trolls down with impunity. Totally worth ten turns of setup.)

Another idea to ramp him up is allowing the Runners to combine *with each other*, so they ignore defense if only Mirkwooed Runners are attacking -- multiples then become more dangerous.

But the idea of ramping him up with victory display? I like the idea of ramping up *somebody's* attack with VD cards, but I've got to say that his ability coupled with 4 attack strikes me as *very* powerful. Whether it's too powerful is quest dependent; I almost want +1 attack with a shared trait or +2 attack with a shared name, but that probably wouldn't fit on the card.

For reference, here's what the Mirkwood Runner would look like with your proposed text:

It's quite full, as you intuited (possibly too full?).

Now, as to power. The problem with Mirkwood Runner is that it is so difficult to boost his attack. You can get 1 attack on the round it enters play from Celeborn, and there are some janky attachment combos you've mentioned already (and probably some you haven't). But none of them are consistent, and without consistency, it's a 2-attack attacker who has anti-incentives with other attackers.

4 attack, ignoring defense, is very powerful - enough to one-shot a large fraction of the enemies in the game (interestingly enough, it is the same fraction of enemies which can be eliminated by Gandalf's direct damage effect - from personal experience, that fraction grows to be not nearly enough somewhere around Heirs of Numenor).

On the other hand, it requires a bit of setup - either a lucky draw with our new version of Mirlonde, or with Out of the Wild or Scout Ahead. Or it requires being able to defeat an enemy with the right trait and then playing None Return. (Or, in extremis, defeating an enemy with victory points, though that isn't reliable). I think that it will fall to playtesting to determine whether or not it's too much. (If you're interested, I can provide our working OCTGN files via PM).

On 8/16/2019 at 8:44 PM, dalestephenson said:

Rumour from the Earth -- yes, the repeatable aspect of it does compete with Hennamarth -- and lose, because paying 1 lore resource once is much better than paying one every turn. I'm not sure the non-repeatable but still not very compelling version is going to see much traction either. With the name deep scrying seems appropriate, but how to distinguish (especially at zero cost) between it and Risk Some Light and Interrogation?

Perhaps it could be more like some other top-card queries (Ravens of the Mountains and Needful to Know) and trigger something off the top card's threat? Card draw hasn't been done yet.

Or maybe key off something else. Keep it zero cost, but require exhaustion of a scout to examine the top X cards of the encounter deck, where X is the threat of the active location. You may choose one card to put at the bottom of the deck, then put the rest back in any order. Simple, useful, thematic.

I like that last one - Exhaust a scout or ranger character to look at the top X cards, where X is the (printed) threat of the active location. Of course, that can get a little crazy in Nightmare, with locations like Gladden Marshlands. Or even in quests like Into the Pit, with its 7-threat starting location.

On the other hand, there are only 14 non-unique locations with more than 4 threat in the non-nightmare game (I don't worry about unique locations, by their nature they aren't consistent.) But even 4 threat means rearranging the top 4 cards of the encounter deck - that's very powerful. It might be worth making it 1 cost for that effect.

On 8/16/2019 at 8:44 PM, dalestephenson said:

Did you consider doing anything to Shadow of the Past? I'd like it more if it gave a choice of putting the top discard on top of the encounter deck, or shuffling any card in the discard back into the deck.

We talked about it, but our consensus was that it probably didn't need a boost - 2 cost to ensure that your next encounter card is a softball is almost like a cheaper Gildor's Counsel, and useful in solo as well. On the other hand, choosing any card in the encounter discard instead of just the top probably wouldn't be *too* powerful, I'm just not sure that the card as it currently exists needs it.

Shadows of the Past for me is a sideboard card for quests where you absolutely have to have something that otherwise might get buried, like Athelas in Journey to Rhosgobel. It's not that 2 resources to set up an easy reveal (especially in solo) isn't a valuable effect, but having something you need discarded as a shadow is so annoying and the card solves that.

What it doesn't solve -- and nothing but the ridiculous The End Comes does -- is when a key card gets discarded but not as a shadow and then you have to work through the entire deck again to get it. Ghost of Framsburg was in the solo league, and it badly needs that effect. Perhaps the shuffle-in option should require at least X cards in the current deck (X = number of players) so it can avoid a guaranteed reveal of an arbitrary card.