Seems like some of this contract is ambiguous to me. So I have a few questions:

1) "The attachment must be an artifact or item." Is that attachments with just the artifact trait, the item trait, and the artifact and item trait (40 possible attachment cards). Or is that any attachment with the artifact or item trait, and we don't care if it has any other trait (armor, weapon, ring, staff, master, ent, instrument, pipe, trap) so long as it has artifact or item traits (99 possible attachment cards)?

2) "If that attachment has the guarded X keyword, ignore it." I believe the guarded X keyword is only found on 7 cards (Glamdring, Mithril Shirt, Necklace of Girion, Orcist, Ring of Thror, Sting, The Arkenstone). So for the 14 attachments that we pick that are artifacts or items, they basically all gain the Guarded (location) text to them? We ignore if it says Guarded (enemy) or Guarded (location or enemy)?

3) Does card text still come into play? As an example, if we are able to include Narya, Nenya, and Vilya to our loot deck (Artifact. Ring. traits), do they still have to be played only on their named Heroes? Sting on a Hobbit (Artifact. Item. Weapon. traits)? Etc.

4) "You cannot include attachments in your deck." Can we still start with The One Ring attached to a character since technically it isn't part of the deck? Or would we add The One Ring to the loot deck (Artifact. Ring. Master. traits)? It has a Setup to grab a Master card. Does that mean we can't play the new Inner Strength attachment (Master. trait) with this contract? The Inner Strength attachment card fits the bill of being a Master card that can be selected during Setup. And if The One Ring has to be included in the loot deck, does the Setup part still apply once it is played (Look for Master card)?

4 hours ago, bdavis969 said:

"The attachment must be an artifact or item." Is that attachments with just the artifact trait, the item trait, and the artifact and item trait (40 possible attachment cards). Or is that any attachment with the artifact or item trait, and we don't care if it has any other trait (armor, weapon, ring, staff, master, ent, instrument, pipe, trap) so long as it has artifact or item traits (99 possible attachment cards)?

As long as it has at least one of those two traits you are okay, but it can also have both of those (or have other traits as long as it has at least one of those). So yes to Ent Draught, Raiment of War, Herugrim, Magic Ring and such).

4 hours ago, bdavis969 said:

"If that attachment has the guarded X keyword, ignore it." I believe the guarded X keyword is only found on 7 cards (Glamdring, Mithril Shirt, Necklace of Girion, Orcist, Ring of Thror, Sting, The Arkenstone). So for the 14 attachments that we pick that are artifacts or items, they basically all gain the Guarded (location) text to them? We ignore if it says Guarded (enemy) or Guarded (location or enemy)?

It's basically there to avoid a sort of double guarded situation, but yes it's as if the have Guarded location specifically for the location that's just became active without requiring you to discard cards from the encounter deck.

4 hours ago, bdavis969 said:

Does card text still come into play? As an example, if we are able to include Narya, Nenya, and Vilya to our loot deck (Artifact. Ring. traits), do they still have to be played only on their named Heroes? Sting on a Hobbit (Artifact. Item. Weapon. traits)? Etc.

You are still limited by the card text on which character you can attach the card (so no Ancestral Armor on TaBeregond), but you can bypass other restrictions connected to playing the attachment such as needing a Noldor hero to be able to play Lembas.

4 hours ago, bdavis969 said:

"You cannot include attachments in your deck." Can we still start with The One Ring attached to a character since technically it isn't part of the deck? Or would we add The One Ring to the loot deck (Artifact. Ring. Master. traits)? It has a Setup to grab a Master card. Does that mean we can't play the new Inner Strength attachment (Master. trait) with this contract? The Inner Strength attachment card fits the bill of being a Master card that can be selected during Setup. And if The One Ring has to be included in the loot deck, does the Setup part still apply once it is played (Look for Master card)?

The One Ring is still included in the deck during the creation, even though you fish it out during setup so you cannot include it in the deck if you want to use this contract, but you can put it in the loot deck.

It seems you cannot make use of Inner Strength with this contract.

I think if the One Ring is not in your deck during Setup (cause it's in the Loot deck) you don't apply the Setup part, so you don't play it nor you can go and grab another Master card.

8 hours ago, bdavis969 said:

2) "If that attachment has the guarded X keyword, ignore it." I believe the guarded X keyword is only found on 7 cards (Glamdring, Mithril Shirt, Necklace of Girion, Orcist, Ring of Thror, Sting, The Arkenstone).

Spoiler (highlight with dragging your cursor over it):

There is also new guarded attachment in this AP.

Honestly, what this contract needs (and what I've been waiting for for a long time) is an event (maybe 3 cost) that says: "action: if there is no active location, choose a location in the staging area. Travel to that location." It's a way to avoid location lock that becomes prevalent in 4 player games (without someone carrying northern trackers) and with this, you could in theory plow through your loot deck in a single game. That's the only way I could see something like this accelerating. All the cards we have now have "make the active location" which doesn't count as a travel (up to this point has been a boon because who wants to pay travel costs?)

41 minutes ago, player3351457 said:

Honestly, what this contract needs (and what I've been waiting for for a long time) is an event (maybe 3 cost) that says: "action: if there is no active location, choose a location in the staging area. Travel to that location." It's a way to avoid location lock that becomes prevalent in 4 player games (without someone carrying northern trackers) and with this, you could in theory plow through your loot deck in a single game. That's the only way I could see something like this accelerating. All the cards we have now have "make the active location" which doesn't count as a travel (up to this point has been a boon because who wants to pay travel costs?)

I can think of a few niche instances (Lorien Guide, Evening Star, Tactics Legolas, etc.), but how often does it occur that there are locations in the staging area, no active locations, and the players are not about to travel to a location via the regular rules? I could see this more at a cost of 2 and with the benefit of not having to pay the travel cost, but perhaps I'm missing something.

Particular odd question. Is the card text of a Guarded Card active while it's being guarded? For example, if you had an Elf-stone attached via the contract, would you be able to put an ally into play as soon as you first explored the location? I'm assuming that's not the intent, but I can't find anything to officially indicate either way.

2 hours ago, player3351457 said:

Honestly, what this contract needs (and what I've been waiting for for a long time) is an event (maybe 3 cost) that says: "action: if there is no active location, choose a location in the staging area. Travel to that location." It's a way to avoid location lock that becomes prevalent in 4 player games (without someone carrying northern trackers) and with this, you could in theory plow through your loot deck in a single game. That's the only way I could see something like this accelerating. All the cards we have now have "make the active location" which doesn't count as a travel (up to this point has been a boon because who wants to pay travel costs?)

Although it is a little situational, Strider's Path actually travels to a location at an atypical time, so it could potentially be an accelerant of sorts.

Ghan also travels , although since it is a Travel Action, this too is of limited value for the contract unless you're super-capable of exploring an active location in the Travel phase (possible with staging area progress previously placed + Asfaloth during the Travel phase, among other approaches).

17 hours ago, Alonewolf87 said:

You are still limited by the card text on which character you can attach the card (so no Ancestral Armor on TaBeregond), but you can bypass other restrictions connected to playing the attachment such as needing a Noldor hero to be able to play Lembas.

So you still have to abide by "Attach to a X" with cards like Ancestral Armor, but don't have to abide by "Play only if you control a X" with cards like Lembas and Ent Draught?

I already tried it and it is excellent (Dwarf decks). The main goal of a player is to draw a card and pay for it. This basically does it for small price (+1 quest). Excellent.

7 hours ago, bdavis969 said:

So you still have to abide by "Attach to a X" with cards like Ancestral Armor, but don't have to abide by "Play only if you control a X" with cards like Lembas and Ent Draught?

That's my understanding of it, yes.

On 11/12/2019 at 2:10 AM, bdavis969 said:

So you still have to abide by "Attach to a X" with cards like Ancestral Armor, but don't have to abide by "Play only if you control a X" with cards like Lembas and Ent Draught?

Yes, if you use the ability on the contract to put the attachment directly into play, because you are not playing the card.

If you choose to add the card to your hand then you would need to follow all the usual restrictions when playing it later.

In all cases you need to follow the "Attach to..." text because you are always attaching it to something.

On 11/11/2019 at 8:03 PM, Felswrath said:

I can think of a few niche instances (Lorien Guide, Evening Star, Tactics Legolas, etc.), but how often does it occur that there are locations in the staging area, no active locations, and the players are not about to travel to a location via the regular rules? I could see this more at a cost of 2 and with the benefit of not having to pay the travel cost, but perhaps I'm missing something.

I feel like it happens a lot. Maybe I play a lot of niche ways but I feel like we just cant seem to clear locations fast enough. There's no equivalent to a dunedain deck for locations, i.e. you welcome them and can clear them out, unless it specializes in staging area clearing. Like I said northern trackers and rhovanion outriders are excellent cards, but boy are there few and far between when it comes to travel and clearing in the same round.

Maybe 2 cost is more economical, but even if it's a timing issue, paying the travel cost might not be so bad. For example:

--Round 0 when you aren't given a setup active location

--the travel cost is a threat hit and you are sitting at 48. You use loreargorn in the refresh phase and can now travel to the location and take the threat hit.

--you have to engage an enemy as a travel cost. Doing so after shadows are dealt in the combat phase helps avoid attacks, and can even give you a leg up on killing an enemy without having to defend against it first

To be able to control the timing of traveling to a location, combined with the ability to clear out a location and travel to another immediately after, is definitely worth the cost for me.

4 hours ago, player3351457 said:

Maybe 2 cost is more economical, but even if it's a timing issue, paying the travel cost might not be so bad. For example:

--Round 0 when you aren't given a setup active location

--the travel cost is a threat hit and you are sitting at 48. You use loreargorn in the refresh phase and can now travel to the location and take the threat hit.

--you have to engage an enemy as a travel cost. Doing so after shadows are dealt in the combat phase helps avoid attacks, and can even give you a leg up on killing an enemy without having to defend against it first

To be able to control the timing of traveling to a location, combined with the ability to clear out a location and travel to another immediately after, is definitely worth the cost for me.

Thror's Map, Explorer's Almanac, The Hidden Way, Strider's path. Between them they should suit your needs in almost every scenario - there aren't many occasions when you would want to travel more than once per turn as there are limited ways to clear active locations outside the quest phase. Better to just clear locations while they are in the staging area. If they are immune to player card effects then nothing else will work either.

What is this new contract you guys are talking about?

5 hours ago, John Constantine said:

What is this new contract you guys are talking about?

Spoiler for wrath and ruin:

http://hallofbeorn.com/LotR/Details/The-Burglar's-Turn-WaR?Lang=EN

This one doesn't sound very interesting to me. Don't have any attachement in your deck can be very restrictive in some decks, you can get only 1 attachment per turn at best (and in solo play, it would often be 1 per 2 turns), and you have to put 14 different attachments, so the one you will get is very random. It seems it's a lot of restrictions for just a "you don't have to pay this attachment you get".

It can be good only in deck that don't have attachments (or a very few which are not needed for the deck to work). In this case, you can have some bonus attachments for free, but all the decks I play always have a lot of attachments, or at least a few ones which I really need.

32 minutes ago, Miceldars said:

It seems it's a lot of restrictions for just a "you don't have to pay this attachment you get".

It's also a way to kinda cheat into play the Guarded attachments without having the eat the threat increase (well it costs you 1 more Willpower to clear the location but it's quite cheap) and only through locations instead of enemies, which can be kinda easier to handle.

And don't underestimate the fact that you don't have to worry about the resource match with this method, besides the obvious "I don't have to spend resources"). For example you can get access to all the nice Tactics weapons even when you don't have a Tactics hero.

plus contract are kind of card focus on change how you play the game creating a totally different feeling, play style and deck building approach. It's why they are so enjoyable. Not just a power creep card but a deck building and playstyle change.

This new contract seems more multiplayer oriented then fellowships for example but alter the way you build your deck. No attachment means a deep focus on allies (so spread stats) and events.

Plus you still can play nice cards out of sphere and cost with minimum drawback. Clearly not meant to be played primarily in decks centered around some key attachment.

I think I like it quite a lot in term of concept in the same way I liked the 3 hunters. Niche but different, which is what I personally want at this stage of the game.

I cannot see an archetype of a deck which could benefit from this contract. Can you guys help me here?

Furthermore I do see two drawbacks:

As each attachment results in +1 cards like Ancient Mathom do gain a (small) disadvantage.

What happens when a location with one of your attachments is brought back to the staging area and then gets explored there? For my understanding you card is then lost!

4 hours ago, Flrbb said:

What happens when a location with one of your attachments is brought back to the staging area and then gets explored there? For my understanding you card is then lost!

I think you would still claim the cards to immediately put into play, just as you would with any guarded player guard attached to a location -- you claim guarded player cards when the location is explored, whether or not it's the active location.

The first portion of the contract treats cards attached from the Loot Deck as guarded by the location they are attached to, which doesn't hinge on that location being either active or in the staging area. Which seems to make the second portion of the the contract ("when the active location is explored...") pretty redundant, though, if it's not offering anything new over the first portion which treats the loot card just like any other guarded (location) card.

This contract sounds as something very fun to play with, but not very "competitive" as to say? Like, it drips with theme, but it severely lacks consistency, especially due to not allowing dupes in the loot deck, if I'm understanding correctly.

In terms of Tribal decks, which would be able to play with this? Outlands wants resource generation and might mulligan for Steward of Gondor, but if you ran Elrond/Hirluin you'd have two heroes who could pay for any Outlander, and you could stock the stash with ally attachments, Sword of Morthond, even Vilya just for fun. Rohan has its cost enabler in hero form, so would work well with the contract, I think. Ent decks don't have an enabling attachment. Non-Radagast Eagle decks also lack an enabling attachment, though going without Support of the Eagles would be tough. Beornings aren't much of an archtype, but their cost reducer is in ally form.

Most of the other tribes have key attachments -- Gondor, Dwarves, Silvans, Noldor, Harad, Dunedain, and especially Dale. Woodmen benefit from the attachment, but would have to go without their own location attchments.

In terms of non-tribal decks, Caldara decks are ally-heavy and could play with this contract, Victory Display (with or without Rossiel) has events for their key cards.

In two-deck (or more) fellowships, a lot of archtypes could exploit this contract by having their key attachments played by a partner deck -- then the contract deck could devote all its space to ally/events, and rely on the other deck to find the copy of O Lorien (for example) that it wants.

12 hours ago, John Constantine said:

This contract sounds as something very fun to play with, but not very "competitive" as to say? Like, it drips with theme, but it severely lacks consistency, especially due to not allowing dupes in the loot deck, if I'm understanding correctly.

Over the last few months I was toying with the idea of making a deck with Ta Bilbo, Thorin, and Gandalf where the entire idea of the deck was all the attachments from the The Wilds of Rhovanion/Ered Mithrin (Sting, Thror's Ring, The Arkenstone, Glamdring, Orcrist, etc). So this contract adds a thematic element that I was missing.

It seems with some recent cards and specifically this contract, FFG might be drawing some ideas from the old Middle Earth Collectible Card Game (MECCG) that came out in the late 90s (1995 - 1999). What we know as attachments in this game were items in MECCG (Minor Items, Major Items, Greater Items, Ring Items, and Special Items). You had to travel to sites (locations) like Carn Dum, Mount Gundabad, Moria, Minas Morgul, etc to play items like Sting (Minor Item), Glamdring (Major Item), Durin's Axe (Major Item), and Orcrist (Greater Item). Traveling to the site meant facing Automatic-attacks (like Orcs - 2 strikes with 8 prowess), but then you could play any item that was playable at that site.

On 11/14/2019 at 10:46 AM, Halberto said:

plus contract are kind of card focus on change how you play the game creating a totally different feeling, play style and deck building approach. It's why they are so enjoyable. Not just a power creep card but a deck building and playstyle change.

This card has a lot of potential for someone like myself to create a custom scenario that merges the play mechanics of LOTR LCG and MECCG into an "Expert Treasure Hunter" themed deck and scenario. I am super excited about this card.

My thoughts on this fascinating contract.

The restrictions are all on side A. So presumably if you manage to get an item to the active location and then in play only to have it then discarded by attachment hate and then the player recycles it back into the draw deck by a test of will or by another card effect then it doesn't break the game. The attachment can now be legally in your deck. The side A deck restriction no longer applies as it's now on side B.

I think the pros are..

quicker access to the attachments

No need to search and pull them from the deck.

Cheat in attachments for free.

Ignores into play cost conditions

No resource matching needed as it's put into play at no cost.

Safe from being discarded from the draw deck by discarding cards.. ie dwarves and encounter cards.

More deck space for events and allies

No need to put in 3 of the same card to improve pulling chances.

Cons

Random pull

No duplicates

Still has deployment restrictions

Might not be travelling.

Might not be the active location when explored

Attachment hate encounter cards

Don't pull the card you need first.

No way to manipulate the loot stack.

Limited only to items and artifacts so no mounts for example.

Exactly 14 attachments; no more; no less

I do have a few questions though:

1. If the loot item is one of the new guarded x items/artifacts and the active location gets explored. Does putting the card into play bypass the way those cards normally work?

(I.e. you put it into the staging area and then do the guarded x keyword properly. )

Or does it mean put it into play on the intended character.

2. If The one Ring is included in the loot Deck during set up as per side A of the contract, then flip the contract and then would you pull it out under it's own set up action and put it straight into play? Just thinking that all set up actions are done during set up in any order and are like forced effects.

Yes, you bypass the guarded keyword entirely with this contract. It goes onto the intended character.

Not sure how the One Ring card interacts with the Burglar’s Turn.