2 hours ago, Amicus Draconis said:

You're welcome and thanks!

Thr´or's Map came to my mind as well and Map of Rhovanion, but your idea sounds good: It will effectively be +1 Willpower, when you have travelled in the previous round. A cost of 0 might be a bit on the cheap side for a hitpoint and one point of willpower, but on the other hand there probably will not be a location to travel to each round.

Playtesting will help here for sure. And do not forget, this version of HoG could also make Sneak Attack for free, as if this event was not powerful enough already.

You have a point here, the only problem I see, is that dwarf mining is found mostly in tactics and spirit, with the exception of Soldier of Erebor and Ered Nimrais Prospector, so Leadership might not be the best choice for a sphere.

For 0 cost, I'd probably want the boots to not stack with each other. And dale does note that the active location is the least useful place to put it. My feelings are that the Boots were on the edge of viability before, and so this might be enough to push them over, but I think that's a playtesting discussion.

Just a note, HoG won't interact with Sneak Attack, as that ally is not discarded. Returning an ally to hand will not trigger the horn. (it's the reason it doesn't work with Silvans either)

In Leadership, there is also King Under the Mountain, A Very Good Tale, and To Me O My Kinsfolk (which isn't a mining card exactly, but temporarily gets you allies back that got mined away - it's actually really good with things like Soldier of Erebor). But it is a valid note.

41 minutes ago, dalestephenson said:

My take:

I like the change to Dwalin. Making him useful in non-Orc scenarios goes a long way is all he needs to be a useful hero. Between his two attack, no ranged, and the limited supply of enemies to kill, I don't think a limit needs to be placed on his ability.

Ever Onward seems well balanced for a card you play when you unexpectedly quest unsuccessfully -- but why would you play it that way? If it covers all players, the way to use it would be to send no one questing (OK, maybe Spirit Bofur for one resource) and devote everybody to combat. It's true that Ever Onward in its current form is only useful for solo decks, but it's actually quite a powerful card in that format if you essentially skip questing. I see two options to change how it works to be applicable to multiplayer:

1) If you're going to let every deck ignore questing, you need to pay for it. Increase the cost with the number of players.

2) If you want to turn this card into a cover-for-unsuccessful questing, akin to Free to Choose, don't grant a blanket threat increase exemption, make it a cheap response conditional on actually questing -- e.g. reduce the threat taken according to the number of questing characters, so that the no-quester option is foreclosed.

Ancestral Knowledge is vastly more useful when it can be used on staging -- I would restrict the 4-point underground/mountain effect to dwarves, though, for thematic reasons.

Boots from Erebor with readying does crimp on Cram, both from having a second beneficial effect and from being useful on characters. Since it's restricted to dwarves/hobbits that's OK mechanically, but thematically Cram itself is strongly associated with dwarves (including the card artwork), so making Cram obselete for dwarves is a thematic miss. Placing progress on the active location is a nice bonus and ties into "boots", but placing on the active location is also the least useful to place. Discarding for travel effect makes it Thror's Map after the stealth errata. (Though if you used the word "travel" like Strider's Path does, it at least would synergize with the Burglar contract, which would be thematically appropriate....)

The thing about the boots is that aside from Gimli/Gloin (and your reworked Veteran of Nand) there's not a particularly good reason to put it on dwarves. Hobbits are more fragile, but there it's the heroes that are buffed, and Bill is a more efficient way to boost everybody. For any "character" attachment I want to see a reason I'd want to put it on an ally, but dwarves and hobbits have so little in common it's tough to think of a thematic or mechanical boost that would be attractive to both groups. Maybe a mining hook?

For Horn of Gondor, I love the exhaust to scare an enemy -- much more thematic than resource generation. For resource generation I absolutely think adding discard is justified, and since it exhausts it wouldn't be overpowered even if it were still just "leaves play". Making you choose betwen generation and enemy-scaring makes the card more interesting and flexible.

Brok Ironfist's enter play makes him effectively cheaper in a dwarf deck and works with mining (although too few cards actually like to be mined). Neither of those are viable in the core, so poor Brok really needs something that would make him generically useful. 4 cost might do that, though his ability is still pretty useless. Six is a lot of resources to collect, so how about this:

Response: When Brok Ironfist is played from your hand, you play may another ally from your hand at no cost.

Now saving up for Brok is worth it, and you're not gambling that something good is in the next five cards. Since it's played from your hand it can't be abused by Sneak Attack, and it gives you two free allies instead of one if you lose a dwarf hero.

I like the changes to Guard of the Citadel and Wandering Took.

First, thanks so much for the feedback.

Ever Onward - those are excellent points. The biggest worry I have is making it not overlap with the non-Valour action for Doom Hangs Still. On the other hand, I think that most of the valour events will need some love from this project - although we'll have to wait until the end of the current cycle to see what comes out. After all, almost nobody includes Doom Hangs Still for its non-valour effect except in The Black Gate Opens.

On yet another hand, though, I think that you are the only person I've ever seen making the assertion that Ever Onward is actually a good card in solo. I can see the utility, but seldom find myself in situations where it could actually help. Maybe that's just my playing style (which shapes so much of this project, even as I try to stretch my limits and open up a wide variety of new opportunities, I'm still limited by my own preferred plays, etc - another reason why I find feedback so helpful), though. Anyways, to make a long story short, I'm still a little stuck on it.

On Ancestral Knowledge , you make an excellent point. I'm half-considering dropping the added option of exhausting a Lore character, making the card back into a dwarf-only form of location control.

Boots from Erebor - this has been a tricky one. Your idea of a mining trigger is a good one - the Facebook group suggested having it draw you cards after it is discarded off of the top of your deck. I'm...less than enthused about that particular idea - I'd prefer to have events be the mining trigger. That said, something like this might be interesting:

I particularly like getting the boots into play if you mine them - it's something I'd want to preserve if we end up going with a mining theme for them.

Re: Horn of Gondor , I'm really glad you like it - it's probably the one we spent the most time on trying to get right. I think that you're right that it wouldn't be overpowered with allies leaving play, but I wanted to place some limits on it. Honestly, though, it might be worth it just to save the word space on the card. I'm still wishing that there was enough space for it to lose the restricted keyword if the attached hero is Boromir. But I just tested it in Strange Eons, and I don't save enough space to actually get to fit that tagline. Sometimes we just can't have everything we want.

Yeah - we've noticed that Brok isn't really working very well in the Core Set only environment - although there are enough Dwarf allies to make it possible, I think (including the Longbeard Orc-Slayer in-sphere and the Erebor Hammersmith and Miner of the Iron Hills out-of-sphere), and Eowyn makes it possible to get them into the discard pile (and we haven't actually tried making this version of him work - the previous version did not quite work the same way).

I kind of don't want to reduce his cost - that's the obvious thing to do. But also, I've been really influenced by an article by Master of Lore on the theme of Brok Ironfist. Having realized how well it works (intentionally or otherwise), I want to preserve that if possible. To boost his utility in a Core Set environment, could something like this work?

Still only works with Dwarf allies, but you don't have to go through the trouble of getting one into the discard pile. Maybe still more trouble than he's worth in a Core-only environment for only 3 different Dwarf allies (which would make 9 cards in the deck he could work with), but there were a lot of cards that were that way, and they still got played by virtue of having no other options, as the resources from Steward just piled up with nothing to play.

I admit that I ignored Ever Onward when I first encountered it, thinking of it as an expensive emergency get-out-of-jail response instead of what I think it truly is -- a planning action that's deferred until after quest resolution. While Doom Hangs Still may not be popular as a non-valour option, the fact that it's priced at 5 at least tells you how powerful the designers *think* the card is, and I don't think they're wrong. There's *lots* of quests where I find myself in a situation where I either don't want to place progress or just don't need to place progress anymore, yet I have to spend significant amount of my characters questing to keep from taking on threat. This can be a game-winning card in a lot of boss fights, though that's only true in decks where the heroes/allies are versatile enough to be used as either questers or combatants. This varies by trait and sphere, for example it's obviously more useful for Gondor decks than Rohan.

Reducing the cost from 3 to 2 makes a bigger difference in affordability than a 2/1 reduction IMO, 3 is the magic number that takes it out of splash territory. And extending Ever Onward to other players makes it the equivalent of non-valour Doom Stands Still -- and I *guarantee* that'd be a popular card at 2 even without a Valour option!

But since Doom Stands Still does exist, rethinking Ever Onward as the card I think people first perceive it as (the get-out-of-jail-free emergency card) would at least give it a unique function not found elsewhere. But that requires altering cost *and* function dramatically, which really isn't in the spirit of what you're trying to do, I think.

On Boots of Erebor I also like the idea of putting into play when discarded, plus a benefit -- I don't think there's enough of those cards for mining/milling decks. I was thinking about a resource rather than a card because of the riches of Erebor, though that makes it an inferior Hidden Cache for mining. What I'd *really* like thematically is a way to synergize with pipes, but since the Hobbit Pipe is tied only to events, even a modest threat reduction wouldn't trigger it. And of course any explicit reference to pipes in KD would be useless for a long time.

On Brok Ironfist I'm not enthused about tying it to other dwarves specifically. I liked the article too, and if he had arrived in OHUH or OtDS or even KD/Dwarrowdelf I'd be fine to relegating his value to dwarf decks. But in the core I think there are too few dwarves to count on one being around to be with him. I think he should be general purpose, especially with 6 cost -- 6 cost needs to be *cool*. Beorn is, while Brok is the opposite of cool. But if Brok could bring Beorn along with him (best case) -- that'd be dramatically cool. Brok represents a massive investment, he needs to be a game changer and he can't do that with his own stats alone. Perhaps getting an ally from the discard instead of from hand would be better, that'd open up synergies with dwarven mining in the future and fits the rescue theme better.

Another possibility is to exploit the situation where Brok Ironfist actually gets played in current core-only decks, including Brok because of lack of alternatives and playing him only when you have massive Steward of Gondor fueled resources piling up. Allow Brok to be readied for a resource and put no limit on it. Since he only has 1 defense that's not going to be game breaking, but as the card pool expands Brok's value will increase with ally attachments. Or allow resources to be spent to increase one of his statistics until the end of phase, or some other useful sink -- if you've got the resources to waste on Brok Ironfist, why not let him continue to drain your resources for something useful?

I think you're right to stick to 6 cost. Reduce Brok to a fair price and he might get played, but he's still boring with a rarely used ability and will be squeezed out by cheaper, more interesting dwarves despite his good stats. Make him spectacular.

For Horn of Gondor, if you can't lose the restricted for Boromir, why not remove the restricted entirely? In practice Restricted means that this attachment will be relegated to a questing hero, and that's actively anti-thematic.

20 hours ago, Onidsen said:

For 0 cost, I'd probably want the boots to not stack with each other. And dale does note that the active location is the least useful place to put it. My feelings are that the Boots were on the edge of viability before, and so this might be enough to push them over, but I think that's a playtesting discussion.

Just a note, HoG won't interact with Sneak Attack, as that ally is not discarded. Returning an ally to hand will not trigger the horn. (it's the reason it doesn't work with Silvans either)

In Leadership, there is also King Under the Mountain, A Very Good Tale, and To Me O My Kinsfolk (which isn't a mining card exactly, but temporarily gets you allies back that got mined away - it's actually really good with things like Soldier of Erebor). But it is a valid note.

A progress token on the active location is similar to the Map of Rhovanion, which costs one resource and does nothing else on itself. Together with Brand it is also a point of willpower and it works every round.

You are right, Sneak Attack does not discard allies, I somehow mixed this up.

True, ally Erestor might also get some allies into the discard pile, though he is no dwarf.

@Onidsen There are actually 4 different non-unique dwarf allies in the core set.

I am with @dalestephenson regarding restricted on the Horn of Gondor. Most restricted items give stats and mounts allow readying, only the two instruments (Horn of Gondor and Silver Harp) do neither. Resource generation does not need a restricted slot and the harp is essentially a Noldor Pipe, and no pipe is restricted either.

The extra text for Boromir would work, I do not understand your trouble with it. And what would be the connection between the boots and mining?

On 1/6/2020 at 3:09 PM, Wandalf the Gizzard said:

I agree to some degree, but that was accounted for, the same allies would be too strong with Dain.

For me, nowadays the whole Dain discussion matters no more. In the old times, a Dain dwarf swarm deck was the most powerful deck you could possibly make. Now? Nah! It would not even make it in the top 5, possibly not even in the top 10.

To mention a few decks that are more powerful than Dain: bouncing Silvans, Noldor discard, Vilya, some hobbits, Outlands, Dale and Caldara, and I am not accounting for new decks that are now appearing thanks to the contracts and the last cicle player cards, which are totally op.

I think that nerfing Dain nowadays is totally unnecessary, but if one would like to do it, then you have to boost Dwarf allies, otherwise you just cripple the archetype far to much.

P.S: One could take a look to the horn of the mark as for how the horn of Gondor should haven been from the very beginning.

14 minutes ago, Yepesnopes said:

I think that nerfing Dain nowadays is totally unnecessary, but if one would like to do it, then you have to boost Dwarf allies, otherwise you just cripple the archetype far to much.

Which is exactly what we are doing. Dain needs nerfing not just because he's op, but because you can't build a powerful Dwarf deck without him. And to do that, we are making other dwarfs worth playing without dain's boost.

15 minutes ago, Yepesnopes said:

P.S: One could take a look to the horn of the mark as for how the horn of Gondor should haven been from the very beginning.

You must have missed our Horn of Gondor change.

On 1/8/2020 at 9:20 AM, Amicus Draconis said:

@Onidsen There are actually 4 different non-unique dwarf allies in the core set.

I am with @dalestephenson regarding restricted on the Horn of Gondor. Most restricted items give stats and mounts allow readying, only the two instruments (Horn of Gondor and Silver Harp) do neither. Resource generation does not need a restricted slot and the harp is essentially a Noldor Pipe, and no pipe is restricted either.

The extra text for Boromir would work, I do not understand your trouble with it. And what would be the connection between the boots and mining?

Noted about the Dwarves - thanks. I always forget about the Veteran Axehand.

I'm onboard with removing the restricted keyword altogether. That card image looks like a *lot* of text, which is something I worry about. The line about Boromir pushes the text another font size smaller - removing it gives a much more manageable reading load. Removing the restricted keyword feels like a better solution altogether.

Honestly, the more I'm thinking about it, the more I want to help mining in other places (The End Comes, anybody?), and the more I am wanting to give Boots of Erebor an ability like this:

It's thematic (boots in a travel action, that's beautiful), and it's useful.

Which is, of course, exactly what the errata did to Thror's Map, except for 0-cost, which is an appropriate cost for the ability.

That, of course, leaves us with Thror's Map. We had been going to nerf it (less drastically, but make it so it didn't completely invalidate every travel effect in the game forever with no downside or cost). After the official errata, we decided that we were still going to change it, but now to make it better. But we are considering taking sideways steps like this:

Another alternative is to leave Thror's Map closer to the way it was (maybe dropping the cost to 0, or adding the willpower boost if it's a Dwarf, or perhaps changing the cost from Discard to spend-a-resource or even exhaust-attached-hero), and move in a direction like this for Boots from Erebor:

Thror's Map is incredibly powerful for 1 resource, giving +1 willpower until you need it, then being able to discard a location in any action window, all for 1 cost. It should at least be a Travel action for balance reasons. But honestly, I don't like the stealth errata and I don't like having a unique artifact be disposable. I like the idea of a travel-for-free attachment, but i'd prefer it be a location attachment rather than a character attachment to buff the woodmen. (As a location attachment, I don't think it would need to be a Travel action anymore.)

I think I'd return Thror's Map to its original purpose as repeatable travel nerfing, but impose a cost like "exhaust Thror's Map and attached hero". That would require decision making and make the card more interesting. I think the +1 willpower for Dwarfs is good, and prevents it from being a pure sideboard.

Back to Boots of Erebor. The travel action is in line with what I want, but I still prefer that function to be on a location attachment. Though since you're reworking existing cards, it's not like you can create a new location attachment!

The response version is incredibly powerful in some quests (and should at least be changed to non-unique). I've often said that placing progress on active locations is the least useful place to put it, and in general that's true -- placing it during questing only reduces the amount of progress needed to clear, and placing it after traveling just reduces the amount needed to clear it next time -- unless you can place enough progress to clear it, in which case it's very valuable for locations with obnoxious when-active effects. Outright discarding the active location would make this incredible for those sort of quests, it'd also easily allow multiple travels with other travel cards.

16 hours ago, Onidsen said:

Noted about the Dwarves - thanks. I always forget about the Veteran Axehand.

I'm onboard with removing the restricted keyword altogether. That card image looks like a *lot* of text, which is something I worry about. The line about Boromir pushes the text another font size smaller - removing it gives a much more manageable reading load. Removing the restricted keyword feels like a better solution altogether.

Honestly, the more I'm thinking about it, the more I want to help mining in other places (The End Comes, anybody?), and the more I am wanting to give Boots of Erebor an ability like this:

It's thematic (boots in a travel action, that's beautiful), and it's useful.

Which is, of course, exactly what the errata did to Thror's Map, except for 0-cost, which is an appropriate cost for the ability.

That, of course, leaves us with Thror's Map. We had been going to nerf it (less drastically, but make it so it didn't completely invalidate every travel effect in the game forever with no downside or cost). After the official errata, we decided that we were still going to change it, but now to make it better. But we are considering taking sideways steps like this:

Another alternative is to leave Thror's Map closer to the way it was (maybe dropping the cost to 0, or adding the willpower boost if it's a Dwarf, or perhaps changing the cost from Discard to spend-a-resource or even exhaust-attached-hero), and move in a direction like this for Boots from Erebor:

The End Comes and mining would fit somehow: Durin's Bane awoke as the dwarves dug too greedily. However TEC references the death of Balin and not Durin and the encounter deck cannot be mined.

I do not like giving the Boots of Erebor the Travel Action from Thrór's Map, as that would restrict the travel action to hobbit and dwarf decks. Allowing it to discard an non-unique active location after travelling is a nice idea, but still restricted to the short people. How about attaching them to anyone and give the hitpoint boost only to dwarves and hobbits, the other races are too big to wear the boots comfortably?

I also like Dale's idea of exhausting attached hero and Thr´ór's Map instead of discarding it.

Allowing character attachment and a bonus for dwarves only would make it another great card for Dale decks. I don't think it would be overpowered at +1 hp for all, +2 for dwarf/hobbits, since it's limit 1 per character and hp is the least useful stat.

Thank you again for all the feedback.

Here are the current versions of the Brok Ironfist, Boots from Erebor and Ever Onward. I think I've got them much closer to right, now. Thanks @dalestephenson for the ideas, especially with Brok. I was skeptical, but it doesn't feel too thematically weird to have him bringing in non-Dwarves, and it makes him a powerful choice, even in a Core Set environment.

And now, for something new: Cards from Redhorn Gate and Road to Rivendell!

Dunedain Wanderer was a lackluster card to begin with, even in a secrecy deck. For 2 cost, you got some decent stats, but nothing flashy. We've changed that. The extra hit point makes the sentinel keyword go further. However, the big draw is now that he is an option to break the stranglehold that Lore has on healing. It's not a very cost-effective healing effect, and if you have lore, you still go with the lore options. But it opens up healing for decks that don't have lore, and feels appropriately thematic.

This was another really difficult card to use well. It seems to be designed for 2-hero decks, but even there it was hit or miss and you seldom actually played it. Not to mention that 2-hero decks just weren't worth playing with the Dwarrowdelf card pool. We've tightened up the explicit interaction with 2-hero decks, and made the card reliable. Now its a deck accelerant, helping you find and pay for the cards you need to overcome the disadvantage of less than 3 heroes.

Timely Aid is an exceptionally powerful card in a secrecy deck, and totally useless outside of one. That was a common theme among the dwarrowdelf secrecy cards, and it was a problem even for the secrecy decks, because an unwelcome threat raise could effectively turn off all the cards in your hand. We just dropped the cost (and the secrecy value) by 1 so that you could still play it after you are out of secrecy. And it might even be worth running in a non-secrecy deck - 3 cost to get an ally isn't bad, especially when you can look in the top 5 of your deck for it. Even if you don't find a 4 or 5 cost ally, you are still probably running ahead just by being able to fish it out of your deck.

Keeping Count is an intriguing card, but it is limited by the fact that you have to find your second copy for it to even do anything at all. We've made it so that playing 1 copy fishes out the second copy from your deck, which makes it much easier to play, while increasing the cost by 1 to compensate. The wording was also tightened up to make room for the extra response, but I *think* that we have managed to keep the same effect, just described in much fewer words. The attack boost was also limited to +5, mostly out of consideration for Thalin, who now quests with his attack, not his willpower.

For the Rider of the Mark, we cleaned up his wording a little bit, but also made it so that any player could trigger the action to move him around. This eliminates the need to have Spirit on both sides of the table. In addition, we moved his point of defense into his attack to make it a little more useful to move him around - if you haven't quested with him, he can provide a decent boost to your partner's attack.

Renewed Friendship is *almost* good as it is. We have increased the magnitude of the effects - playtesting will see if that was enough.

The Ravenhill Scout is laughably bad (I mean, I want to like him. I want to so bad. But he's just not good at all). So we made him a quester (which was thematically appropriate), and made his ability into a response that triggers when he commits to the quest. He might even be a little too good now.

Bombur was, if anything, even worse than the Ravenhill Scout, unless the quest had high-threat underground locations. We have boosted his stats - he is now a credible defender, and can be given Burning Brand to make him even better. But he can also reduce the threat of a location in staging by 2, which is the equivalent of 2 willpower. That's not bad, and he can do it after staging, which is even more valuable.

Needful to Know was tricky. We removed the threat cost to look at the top card, but it still feels a little lackluster. Any thoughts or feedback here would be appreciated.

Finally, The End Comes. Probably the worst card in the game. Full stop. There was no way to redeem this card while sticking close to its original design. So, we decided to go for broke and attempt to make it spectacular. We tied it thematically to mining, and gave it a really powerful effect - a resource to every hero in play, and 2 cards to every player. But then, just like the dwarves of old delved too greedily and too deep, and disturbed things the wished they hadn't, so can your mining deck. Each player ends up with an enemy as the result of their recklessness. Thematic, powerful, but with a rather large drawback to go along with it.

As always, let us know what you think! We're excited to move forward with this project.

I like the changes to the new cards, the only major issues I have are with Boot from Erebor and Ever Onward. As I said before, I cannot see a connection between mining and the boots, I would have preferred a travel effect. And Ever Onward seems too cheap: Just commit no one to the quest and pay a resource to have everyone ready for combat. This is way better than even the new version of We Do Not Sleep with a low player count.

The changes to Dúnedain Wanderer, Keeping Count, Timely Aid and Renewed Friendship are welcome.

Why is the card search of Keeping Count restricted to playing from hand? If you put it into play via Vilya, Thr´´ór's Ring, Well-equipped or similar effects, it will not go off. Maybe you need to add "if able" after "discard a resource from this card". And while the FAQ states to always shuffle the deck after searching unless specified otherwise, I prefer this text to appear on the card itself.

The Ravenhill Scout is now similar to the Mirkwood Explorer with the difference, that he generates no progress, but also does not need an extra exhaustion to move the tokens. This could make him quite useful.

For Rider of the Mark I would rather change the spirit resource to a neutral one and let the player controlling him pay, as before.

Bombur needed the stat boost, now he is an always useful dwarf and not only in special cases.

For Needful to Know you could add some card draw. That way the card replaces itself and thematically knowledge of the enemy can give you better options to deal with them .

The End Comes: What happens, if there are no more enemies in the encounter deck? Normally with such effects the discard pile gets shuffled into the encounter deck beforehand. And what about a quest like Lake-town, where there are not enemies in the encounter deck?

My takes:

Brok Ironfist 's final form I like, as you might expect. I notice the "hand or discard pile" has been reduced to discard pile, but I think that's OK. Brok's still worth six and still cool.

Boots of Erebor I'm still not entirely happy with. I think we need more cards being mined, but the effect is still weak and the connection with location that appeals to us all isn't there. I still would like it to be +1 hp for character and +2 hp for Hobbit/Dwarves, I don't think it's that overpowered and it makes it at least usable outside dwarf/hobbit decks. (OK, there's a size-of-foot issue, but though dwarves are short I'm not sure their feet are small.)

How about this -- when discarded from the deck it gets put into play and puts two progress on a location? The future travel-related space doesn't leave a lot of room for travel effects, espcially random one, but progress can always be useful.

I like Ever Onward scaling, but I think the cost should be 1 plus the number of players. 2 is not too much for solo, and the difficulty of assembling resources justifies the mild ramp from there.

Looking at the new cards now with Dunedain Wanderer , reducing the secrecy/regular differential is a fine idea, and the point that inflated non-secrecy is most painful to secrecy decks is a good one. I love the passive healing as an enhancement, that makes him interesting and useful for a Dunedain deck at full price.

Taking Initiative with your changes is a fine card in a two-hero deck, which needs help. The one objection from a progression standpoint is that even with this card, two-hero decks still aren't likely to be useful until Strider comes out. (IIRC, you still "control" the captured hero in Dol Goldur.) But at least the changes make it useful when Strider does come, instead of having to wait for Grey Wanderer.

Timely Aid benefits from the reduced differential, I like it.

For Keeping Count , I think Amicus is right, however it is put into play it should fetch the other copy -- and it shouldn't fail if the other copy isn't currently in the deck instead of hand or discard. Your limit of two in play will stop the effect from repeating.

For Riders of the Mark I also agree with Amicus, just require a resource instead of a spirit resource to transfer control.

I like Renewed Friendship , it's Gandalf-lite minus the direct damage -- but that's frequently the best part of Gandalf. The short-edge of the benefit is really the "ready a hero" part, since the opportunity for this card is in the planning phase, it's rare that a hero *isn't* ready. How about something actually useful to a hero? Removing damage or adding resources (it's still their planning phase) would be more compelling. Maybe the third option should be returning the resources spent on the attachment played cross-table?

I like the changes to Ravenhill Scout , now he is actually worthy of being in a Dale deck with Rhovanion Outriders. I don't think the effect is too powerful, since it can only redistribute what's already there and it can't be triggered after staging. But now it's at least useful.

Bombur is not as useful, since his effective 2-wp is reliant on the presence of a location, unlike the Scout's flat two. Being able to do it after staging is a plus, but even with the much needed stat buf he's not that handy in combat -- 2/3 defenders won't last long even with ABB. I think one more thematic enhancement might help Bombur, though its usefulness will have to weight for the Hobbit cards -- make ally Bombur worth two dwarf characters, like the hero version does.

Needful to Know is worth 0, with a scry and possible threat reduction. But at full price it's not at all compelling even with the threat raise removed. Maybe this should be 1-cost with Secrecy 1? Threat reduction is more useful to a secrecy deck at 21 threat than at 20.

And then there's The End Comes . I like the idea of a powerful, dangerous mining effect, very thematic. And removing the dwarf-leaves-play mechanic makes the card accessible to the handful of quests where you actually want the original effect. But that's still the problem with the card -- so few quests benefit from the action that it's still a useless card in hand most of the time, even if it's got a great mining effect. Even Hidden Cache in hand would be better.

With limited space and the necessity for it to keep doing the very-rarely-done-thing that only it can do, how to enhance it? My thought is for it to say "Shuffle all but one encounter card back into the deck" -- that's not quite as good as putting a nasty card in the victory display, but it at least means you can make sure *something* doesn't show up for a long time. A more powerful alternative would be "Shuffle any number of cards from the encounter discard back into the deck", though in that case you would also want to add the card to the victory display to prevent it from being recurred.

By the way, what is the use of the original The End Comes anyway? Is there a specific mission in which that card shines?

1 minute ago, Flrbb said:

By the way, what is the use of the original The End Comes anyway? Is there a specific mission in which that card shines?

It can do some work in some of the Angmar awakens quests, getting cursed dead out of the discard pile so they don't come back to the staging area, but that's about all I can think of

1 minute ago, Onidsen said:

It can do some work in some of the Angmar awakens quests, getting cursed dead out of the discard pile so they don't come back to the staging area, but that's about all I can think of

If I remember correctly, The End Comes was released way before Angmar Awakens. There has to be another use... :)

Just now, Flrbb said:

If I remember correctly, The End Comes was released way before Angmar Awakens. There has to be another use...

I think maybe shuffling discarded objectives back into the encounter deck? Gollum, or athelas, or the ones in Dol Guldur?

Or maybe extending the time for We Must Away Ere Break of Day? These are not *good* uses, but it's something?

I think it's worth having on the first Hobbit quest, because what makes that quest tough is getting the treasures. Shadow of the Past is the better card for Athelas.

2 hours ago, Flrbb said:

By the way, what is the use of the original The End Comes anyway? Is there a specific mission in which that card shines?

It can be useful, if you dump bad encounter cards at the bottom of the deck with Denethor, so you can shuffle to decrease the chance of revealing them. Or if you scry ahead and see a lot of unwanted cards, like even more locations when faced with location lock, more enemies, when you there are already a lot in play, or a terrible treachery and you lack the resource for Test of Will.

On 2/10/2020 at 8:19 AM, Amicus Draconis said:

I like the changes to the new cards, the only major issues I have are with Boot from Erebor and Ever Onward. As I said before, I cannot see a connection between mining and the boots, I would have preferred a travel effect. And Ever Onward seems too cheap: Just commit no one to the quest and pay a resource to have everyone ready for combat. This is way better than even the new version of We Do Not Sleep with a low player count.

The changes to Dúnedain Wanderer, Keeping Count, Timely Aid and Renewed Friendship are welcome.

Why is the card search of Keeping Count restricted to playing from hand? If you put it into play via Vilya, Thr´´ór's Ring, Well-equipped or similar effects, it will not go off. Maybe you need to add "if able" after "discard a resource from this card". And while the FAQ states to always shuffle the deck after searching unless specified otherwise, I prefer this text to appear on the card itself.

The Ravenhill Scout is now similar to the Mirkwood Explorer with the difference, that he generates no progress, but also does not need an extra exhaustion to move the tokens. This could make him quite useful.

For Rider of the Mark I would rather change the spirit resource to a neutral one and let the player controlling him pay, as before.

Bombur needed the stat boost, now he is an always useful dwarf and not only in special cases.

For Needful to Know you could add some card draw. That way the card replaces itself and thematically knowledge of the enemy can give you better options to deal with them .

The End Comes: What happens, if there are no more enemies in the encounter deck? Normally with such effects the discard pile gets shuffled into the encounter deck beforehand. And what about a quest like Lake-town, where there are not enemies in the encounter deck?

On 2/10/2020 at 10:02 AM, dalestephenson said:

My takes:

Brok Ironfist 's final form I like, as you might expect. I notice the "hand or discard pile" has been reduced to discard pile, but I think that's OK. Brok's still worth six and still cool.

Boots of Erebor I'm still not entirely happy with. I think we need more cards being mined, but the effect is still weak and the connection with location that appeals to us all isn't there. I still would like it to be +1 hp for character and +2 hp for Hobbit/Dwarves, I don't think it's that overpowered and it makes it at least usable outside dwarf/hobbit decks. (OK, there's a size-of-foot issue, but though dwarves are short I'm not sure their feet are small.)

How about this -- when discarded from the deck it gets put into play and puts two progress on a location? The future travel-related space doesn't leave a lot of room for travel effects, espcially random one, but progress can always be useful.

I like Ever Onward scaling, but I think the cost should be 1 plus the number of players. 2 is not too much for solo, and the difficulty of assembling resources justifies the mild ramp from there.

Looking at the new cards now with Dunedain Wanderer , reducing the secrecy/regular differential is a fine idea, and the point that inflated non-secrecy is most painful to secrecy decks is a good one. I love the passive healing as an enhancement, that makes him interesting and useful for a Dunedain deck at full price.

Taking Initiative with your changes is a fine card in a two-hero deck, which needs help. The one objection from a progression standpoint is that even with this card, two-hero decks still aren't likely to be useful until Strider comes out. (IIRC, you still "control" the captured hero in Dol Goldur.) But at least the changes make it useful when Strider does come, instead of having to wait for Grey Wanderer.

Timely Aid benefits from the reduced differential, I like it.

For Keeping Count , I think Amicus is right, however it is put into play it should fetch the other copy -- and it shouldn't fail if the other copy isn't currently in the deck instead of hand or discard. Your limit of two in play will stop the effect from repeating.

For Riders of the Mark I also agree with Amicus, just require a resource instead of a spirit resource to transfer control.

I like Renewed Friendship , it's Gandalf-lite minus the direct damage -- but that's frequently the best part of Gandalf. The short-edge of the benefit is really the "ready a hero" part, since the opportunity for this card is in the planning phase, it's rare that a hero *isn't* ready. How about something actually useful to a hero? Removing damage or adding resources (it's still their planning phase) would be more compelling. Maybe the third option should be returning the resources spent on the attachment played cross-table?

I like the changes to Ravenhill Scout , now he is actually worthy of being in a Dale deck with Rhovanion Outriders. I don't think the effect is too powerful, since it can only redistribute what's already there and it can't be triggered after staging. But now it's at least useful.

Bombur is not as useful, since his effective 2-wp is reliant on the presence of a location, unlike the Scout's flat two. Being able to do it after staging is a plus, but even with the much needed stat buf he's not that handy in combat -- 2/3 defenders won't last long even with ABB. I think one more thematic enhancement might help Bombur, though its usefulness will have to weight for the Hobbit cards -- make ally Bombur worth two dwarf characters, like the hero version does.

Needful to Know is worth 0, with a scry and possible threat reduction. But at full price it's not at all compelling even with the threat raise removed. Maybe this should be 1-cost with Secrecy 1? Threat reduction is more useful to a secrecy deck at 21 threat than at 20.

And then there's The End Comes . I like the idea of a powerful, dangerous mining effect, very thematic. And removing the dwarf-leaves-play mechanic makes the card accessible to the handful of quests where you actually want the original effect. But that's still the problem with the card -- so few quests benefit from the action that it's still a useless card in hand most of the time, even if it's got a great mining effect. Even Hidden Cache in hand would be better.

With limited space and the necessity for it to keep doing the very-rarely-done-thing that only it can do, how to enhance it? My thought is for it to say "Shuffle all but one encounter card back into the deck" -- that's not quite as good as putting a nasty card in the victory display, but it at least means you can make sure *something* doesn't show up for a long time. A more powerful alternative would be "Shuffle any number of cards from the encounter discard back into the deck", though in that case you would also want to add the card to the victory display to prevent it from being recurred.

It's always interesting to watch the variety of the responses in different places. In the Facebook group, everyone is absolutely certain that the new Dunedain Wanderer is overpowered, and there are questions like "why did you even give him an ability at all, why not just reduce the cost?" To which my answer is, of course: even at reduced cost, he's not fun to play. There's no interesting choices there.

But here, you are all quite appreciative of the ability, and don't see it as OP. It's a fascinating contrast.

The Facebook group did suggest a change that I liked - tying the healing ability to being engaged with an enemy (and perhaps a limit once per round on the healing, to avoid ally-readying shenanigans like Spare Hood and Cloak + Boromir). "While you are engaged with an enemy, Dunedain Wanderer gains..." Secrecy decks seldom like to remain engaged with an enemy over multiple turns, but he's still useful there just as a body with good stats. I'd like to get the thoughts of the group here.

I really like the proposed modifications to The End Comes and Boots from Erebor. I think that puts them to their final version. Unfortunately, we already recorded the video for them, so I guess they'll get an Ancient Mathoms errata

Keeping Count has been altered to have the original wording back, just with the card search response added in. Apparently, the new wording caused many rules problems, and it turned out that I hadn't saved as much space as I had thought. The card search was the important bit, and your point about making it an enters play ability is well taken. Here's the updated version:

Agreed on the ultimate usefulness of Taking Initiative being delayed until Strider comes out (and going through the roof with the Grey Wanderer), but since the designers seemed to be trying to encourage 2-hero decks unsuccessfully in this cycle, I thought moving a little in that direction might not be a bad thing for the cycle. At least it gives those early experimental secrecy decks another tool.

For Renewed Friendship, I like the idea of adding resources generally; however, the readying provides some really interesting deckbuilding opportunities. There are a few heroes who can exhaust for effects in the planning phase (Lore Denethor, Beravor, Galadriel - 2 of them from the core set), and the new Guarded cards (and especially the Burglar's Turn contract) mean that you can play this card in the quest phase after you clear a location, or during combat after you kill an enemy. Both are tricky enough options that I'd be sad to see them go.

That would be an interesting addition to Bombur. Of course, it would mean that we'd have to add something new to the hero. But I suspect that there will be little surprise that we were already planning on doing that

The cost reduction on Needful to Know is an excellent idea. I don't think that extra card draw is necessary for it, although we will keep it in mind as a buff if it is still too weak.

The Rider of the Mark suggestion is interesting. The spirit resource was kept off of the original card, of course, but we expanded it to let any player trigger the action to add a little bit of symmetry (and maybe some foreshadowing) of the similar kinds of cards released in the Dreamchaser cycle, specifically Ceorl. It also parallels our update to the Horseback Archer, from the Core Set:

We are/were trying to develop a sort of sub-theme about Rohan allies that jump around the table to do things.

Finally, the End Comes. Unfortunately, I don't think I have room on the card to have it shuffle the discard pile back into the encounter deck. I suppose that with judicious scrying and carefully waiting until the encounter deck runs out, you could get the benefit without the drawback, and I'm not sure how I feel about it.

It is also not especially useful in hand. I'm thinking of giving hero Bombur an ability that can help deal with that - something like "Action: Draw a card, then shuffle 1 card from your hand into your deck. Limit once per round." Having an effect like that in the card pool would mitigate the extremely niche use case of the in-hand ability.

Anyways, again, I appreciate the feedback!

There's no question that passive healing is a very powerful ability -- I love Wellinghall Preserver for just that reason, and it is limited to healing Ents. Healing *anybody* is even better and limiting it to once per round, when engaged with an enemy, is a fine idea that both ties in with the Dunedain theme and limits the application somewhat.

But certainly cost reduction to 4 isn't enough, because 4 is too much for a 1/2/2/3 vanilla ally even if it has ranged and sentinel. 1 leadership, 2 attack is low for 4-cost and without warrior trait isn't easily buffed. And 2/3 doesn't allow many defenses. He has to have *some* cool ability to make him worthwhile. Dunedain healing is thematic, and also desparately needed in an archtype that is powered by engaged enemies. Besides, look at the art -- he's clearly operating on that poor sick deer.

For the End Comes, I think the current ability is insufficient, as it's too narrow. It needs to be at least marginally useful in hand for a generic quest, or even in a mining deck it's a tough sell. But with space a problem on the card, adding additional text to shuffling the encounter back in means cutting text out of the very thematic discard effect.

And thinking about it further, although I really like the idea of a powerful, dangerous, unpredictable mining effect, I'm not sure I'd want such an effect in a mining deck *in practice*. I think the reward can be worth the enemy, I've used Dunedain Hunter a lot and 3 resources and 2 cards is generally better than a free Hunter. But with the Hunter I only play him when I think I can handle it. If I'm a mining deck and I absolutely cannot afford another enemy, I may be forced to stop mining. As cool and thematic as random dangerous mining effects are, I think it might hamper the card in practice, especially with a near-worthless main ability.

How about instead of getting the player in trouble, it helps a player in trouble, and tie back loosely to the "dead dwarf" theme. Something like "Response: when discarded from top of deck, draw one card per engaged enemy and a hero gains one resource per ally in the discard pile (max 3 resources)." Now if you've got enemies or dead (well, more likely mined) allies the card helps you out, but does nothing when mined if there is clear sailing.

Going back to the main effect, how about giving a choice between shuffling the encounter discard back into the discard *or* shuffling a single card from your discard back into your deck. That would be both generically useful and welcome for mining decks in particular.

The End Comes as written is a Response, so it's not compulsory if you don't think you can handle the enemies.

Good point. But the more likely it is that you won't execute the response, the more likely it is to be worthless in your mining deck.

@Onidsen If I import these into OCTGN will it overwrite the old cards or just add the new Ancient Mathom versions giving me the option to include either version in a deck?