If I am running Gwahir Hero and playing Mountain of Fire, and the Gwaihir Objective Ally is revealed from the Encounter Deck, do I have to discard my Gwaihir Hero if the First Player opts to use the When Revealed option that immediately discards the Objective-Ally Gwaihir from play?

2 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

If I am running Gwahir Hero and playing Mountain of Fire, and the Gwaihir Objective Ally is revealed from the Encounter Deck, do I have to discard my Gwaihir Hero if the First Player opts to use the When Revealed option that immediately discards the Objective-Ally Gwaihir from play?

That effect clearly reference the objective-ally itself so I don't see why you would need to discard your hero. I think it's more of a question of "does the objective-ally has any sort of effect since it theoretically cannot enter play due to the uniqueness rule?"

I wonder if in the rules booklet of that Adventure Pack you can find any indication about not being able to play Gwahir Hero in the Saga, much like for The One Ring and Master cards in A Shadow in the East.

35 minutes ago, Alonewolf87 said:

I wonder if in the rules booklet of that Adventure Pack you can find any indication about not being able to play Gwahir Hero in the Saga, much like for The One Ring and Master cards in A Shadow in the East.

I would be willing to bet that when the pack with Gwaihir (The Land of Sorrow) is released the rules insert will say something about it.

I think he means in terms of having to discard Hero Arwen when Objective Ally Arwen comes into play, do you have to discard Hero Gwaihir if you only use the Encounter Gwaihir to pay one resource to discard an enemy and not take him under your control.

The ‰ symbol before a card’s title indicates the card is “unique.” The players as a group may have only one copy of each unique card, by title, in play.

• A player cannot play or put into play a unique card if a copy of that card is already in play.
• If a unique version of a character enters play from the encounter deck and there is already a copy of that character under a player’s control, that player must discard the version he or she controls.

17 minutes ago, NathanH said:

If a unique version of a character enters play from the encounter deck and there is already a copy of that character under a player’s control, that player must discard the version he or she controls.

What is the source of this second stipulation? I don't seem to find anything like this in the FAQ or Rules of the Game (I might be searching wrong)

Online rules reference

52 minutes ago, NathanH said:

The ‰ symbol before a card’s title indicates the card is “unique.” The players as a group may have only one copy of each unique card, by title, in play.

• A player cannot play or put into play a unique card if a copy of that card is already in play.
• If a unique version of a character enters play from the encounter deck and there is already a copy of that character under a player’s control, that player must discard the version he or she controls.

Yes, the second bullet point is exactly what I have in mind.

So, the question is, if Gwaihir objective-ally reveals from the Encounter Deck, and the First Player opts to use the When Revealed option that discards Gwaihir in order to discard an enemy in the Staging Area, has objective-ally Gwaihir "entered play," thus forcing Hero Gwaihir to discard? OR, is there some interpretation of When Revealed timing and Entering Play definitions that would mean that the objective-ally character Gwaihir doesn't enter play, and thus the Hero Gwaihir coudl remain in play?


Bonus Question: Assuming that even the discard effect of Objective-Ally Gwaihir's "When Revealed" effect means Gwaihir enters play and Hero Gwaihir is discarded, could the Hero Gwaihir player trigger ally Landroval's response to put Gwaihir back into play? Or would the timing of that be too wonky? Can the Response effect of Landroval be triggered as Gwaihir is discarded, but then added to the queue to resolve right behind the When Revealed discarding of Objective-Ally Gwaihir, thus meaning that once Landroval's Response attempts to to trigger Objective-Ally Gwaihir is discarded (when revealed effect resolved) such that Hero Gwaihir could now re-enter play? Or would Landroval be unable to immediately trigger because Ally-Objective Gwaihir is still in play when Gwaihir Hero is discarded?

Hmm, I was going to say he isn't in play during his when revealed effect, but I don't think that's true. I think he would force the discard of Gwaihir hero.

The rules are a bit vague around complex timing problems like your bonus question. Ideally I would want the sequence to be i) objective ally enters play ii) Hero gwaihir immediately leaves play iii) response window opens for a character leaving play iv) once this response window closes, objective ally continues resolution. This would stop your trick from working. However, this nice structure has been confirmed not to be true on other occasions, so tbh at this point the answer is "depends what mood the designer is in when you ask".

Pretty sure in any quest that runs objective heros/allies you just don't play the corresponding hero from your collection. Simple. Easy.

Didn't think there would have to be a discussion on a pretty self-explanatory one like this.

45 minutes ago, MikeGracey said:

Didn't think there would have to be a discussion on a pretty self-explanatory one like this.

there's legitimate reason.

Answers to these questions might influence whether you even run a saga campaign with Gwaihir hero and give him boons, for example.

Further, I might be having fun with a deck heavily involving a particular hero or ally, but also might want to play such a quest. When the ally is relatively throwaway like Gwaihir or Gildor, you might be happy for them to just go straight to discard and not get their positive effects.

Having said that, I think an easier solution is just to bend the rules so that allies like that can't enter play, rather than force the hero to leave play. I think the specific rule to discard the player version is to protect the quests that start off with the objective ally. Amusingly, the rules as written don't protect the quests where Na'asiyah shows up midway through, because she shows up from "Out of play" not the encounter deck.

Also if you think this is a silly discussion, I advise you to avoid the legendary "how are cards actually revealed" thread 😀

Theres over 100 heros to play with in this game. If your gonna have a clash cause that hero is an objective ally, then just find another hero. Yes that excludes Gwaihir and Gildor from some campaign quests but so what?

There are plenty of choices.

Edit - just read the rules reference link above, which discredits my original comment. Have deleted the erroneous bits but will leave part of it here as it does answer a similar-but-different question.

I think there is something in the Shadow and Flame rulesheet that states that if a unique encounter card is revealed whilst a card with the same title is in play, the revealed copy of the unique is discarded immediately with no effect.

Granted, this was referring to two unique encounter cards (Flaming Sword and Fiery Whip, or whatever it's called) rather than one encounter card and one player card.

By the way, the Gwaihir situation will also apply to the Gildor boon in A Shadow of the Past .

Bonus bonus question. What if Gwaihir hero is in play and the Gwaihir encounter card is resolved a shadow effect? Does that also knock Hero Gwaihir into the discard pile? Technically another Unique Gwaihir card is entering play...

4 hours ago, MikeGracey said:

Theres over 100 heros to play with in this game. If your gonna have a clash cause that hero is an objective ally, then just find another hero. Yes that excludes Gwaihir and Gildor from some campaign quests but so what?

There are plenty of choices.

This is just a bizarre point of view. I mean I get that your solution is reasonable, but in the context of your first post (basically “I disapprove of this discussion”), your argument is literally “if you think a rule might cause a problem, pick a different hero. We shouldn’t have to have a thread about it.”

no one makes you click on the thread! Let us have our fun

7 hours ago, MikeGracey said:

Pretty sure in any quest that runs objective heros/allies you just don't play the corresponding hero from your collection. Simple. Easy.

Didn't think there would have to be a discussion on a pretty self-explanatory one like this.

Wow, did Gwaihir personally **** in your cheerios this morning? 🤣

There are several reasons to ask this question.

(1) There are literal rules about how this situation resolves, and that rule is not "just don't run these heroes in the following series of quests." But Gwaihir's situation is a little different from the typical in that his card has a "when revealed" option that immediately discards the encounter card... this leaves open a question of whether or not a copy of the Gwaihir character has entered play from the Encounter deck, since this game has very particular understandings of certain game terms (e.g. played vs put into play; revealed vs taken from the top of the encounter deck and added to the staging area; etc), and it's unclear how a card that is discarded when revealed interacts with "entering play."

(2) I'm one of the types of players who searches for "One Deck to Rule Them All Builds" because that's what I enjoy most about deck-building challenges. I find adjusting decks on a quest-by-quest basis to be tedious while often triviliaizing the game's difficulty. So I like to find decks I can throw against entire series of quests without changes, as a measuring stick to how versatile and resilient the deck itself is. Anyone can switch to mono-tactics at Seige of Cair Andros and totally cake-walk the thing. If players simply shouldn't run unique cards that might crop up during a series of questing runs, this would be me "One Deck" players would have to avoid a whole a host of characters (e.g. Grimbeorn, two versions of Arwen, three versions of Faramir, Grima, Amarthuil, Na'Sailyah, Haldan, two version of Gwaihir).

(3) I am the type of player that typically likes to play quests blind the first time I experience them. I don't scout through the quest cards or the encounter deck to get a sense of what to expect. There could be cases where such players are playing a quest blind and are as surprised as anyone else that an objective-ally version of one of their hero/ally cards in play pops up into play. I, for instance, had no idea that Gildor was in the Black Riders Saga Quests until I sat down to play them, or that Grimbeorn was in Conflict at the Carrock until he popped up in my first play through of that one. Knowing how to resolve these situations is important, because players won't always be in a position to play active defense avoidng them.

(4) Even knowing a character might discard if their Encounter Version appears (e.g. Grimbeorn the Old in Conflict at the Carrock), a One-Deck mentality player might still decide to run a favorite character through a series of quests where they might appear on an objective card. There are ways to try and avoid the encounter card, or actions a player may take in response if it does show up (e.g. let the objective ally leave play and then Forture or Fate / Houses of Healing / Stand and Fight the hero/ally back into play, have Sneak/Lothiriel+PrinceImrahil ready to replace a lost hero in that quest, etc.).

5 hours ago, RogueSeventeen said:

Bonus bonus question. What if Gwaihir hero is in play and the Gwaihir encounter card is resolved a shadow effect? Does that also knock Hero Gwaihir into the discard pile? Technically another Unique Gwaihir card is entering play...

I think it was clarified that only the "Shadow: " portion of a card is taken into account when resolving shadow effects, so I would say no to that.

14 hours ago, Alonewolf87 said:

I think it was clarified that only the "Shadow: " portion of a card is taken into account when resolving shadow effects, so I would say no to that.

But the card still has a Title , right? Even though you ignore the non-shadow portion at the bottom of a card...

Even if the shadow card is in play with the title Gwaihir, the players don't have it so it doesn't trigger the "The players as a group may have only one copy of each unique card, by title, in play" condition, and it isn't a character nor does it enter play from the encounter deck, so it doesn't trigger the "If a unique version of a character enters play from the encounter deck" condition.

18 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Wow, did Gwaihir personally **** in your cheerios this morning? 🤣

There are several reasons to ask this question.

(1) There are literal rules about how this situation resolves, and that rule is not "just don't run these heroes in the following series of quests." But Gwaihir's situation is a little different from the typical in that his card has a "when revealed" option that immediately discards the encounter card... this leaves open a question of whether or not a copy of the Gwaihir character has entered play from the Encounter deck, since this game has very particular understandings of certain game terms (e.g. played vs put into play; revealed vs taken from the top of the encounter deck and added to the staging area; etc), and it's unclear how a card that is discarded when revealed interacts with "entering play."

(2) I'm one of the types of players who searches for "One Deck to Rule Them All Builds" because that's what I enjoy most about deck-building challenges. I find adjusting decks on a quest-by-quest basis to be tedious while often triviliaizing the game's difficulty. So I like to find decks I can throw against entire series of quests without changes, as a measuring stick to how versatile and resilient the deck itself is. Anyone can switch to mono-tactics at Seige of Cair Andros and totally cake-walk the thing. If players simply shouldn't run unique cards that might crop up during a series of questing runs, this would be me "One Deck" players would have to avoid a whole a host of characters (e.g. Grimbeorn, two versions of Arwen, three versions of Faramir, Grima, Amarthuil, Na'Sailyah, Haldan, two version of Gwaihir).

(3) I am the type of player that typically likes to play quests blind the first time I experience them. I don't scout through the quest cards or the encounter deck to get a sense of what to expect. There could be cases where such players are playing a quest blind and are as surprised as anyone else that an objective-ally version of one of their hero/ally cards in play pops up into play. I, for instance, had no idea that Gildor was in the Black Riders Saga Quests until I sat down to play them, or that Grimbeorn was in Conflict at the Carrock until he popped up in my first play through of that one. Knowing how to resolve these situations is important, because players won't always be in a position to play active defense avoidng them.

(4) Even knowing a character might discard if their Encounter Version appears (e.g. Grimbeorn the Old in Conflict at the Carrock), a One-Deck mentality player might still decide to run a favorite character through a series of quests where they might appear on an objective card. There are ways to try and avoid the encounter card, or actions a player may take in response if it does show up (e.g. let the objective ally leave play and then Forture or Fate / Houses of Healing / Stand and Fight the hero/ally back into play, have Sneak/Lothiriel+PrinceImrahil ready to replace a lost hero in that quest, etc.).

Not much for a little criticism eh?

1. Whatever the 'literal' rules are exactly, I can't quote word for word but I know what the rule is. Which is what I said.

2. I definitely don't prefer playing 'one deck to rule them all" as there is an extensive cardpool and i would hate to pay that money to run only a few cards. But I understand thats my preference; you can play whatever you prefer.

3. When playing a quest blind and running into a unique clash, I would just play on. Since you had no way of knowing, I would not invalidate that attempt. Just remember for next time to avoid the clash.

4. This is not really a legit strategy. You cannot run a version of a character if they are present in that quest already. No hero recursion can change that. You simply have to play a different hero.

20 hours ago, GrandSpleen said:

This is just a bizarre point of view. I mean I get that your solution is reasonable, but in the context of your first post (basically “I disapprove of this discussion”), your argument is literally “if you think a rule might cause a problem, pick a different hero. We shouldn’t have to have a thread about it.”

no one makes you click on the thread! Let us have our fun

It is a question that has been answered in multiple places (for example, the new hero smeagol has rules that say he can't be used in the shadows of Mirkwood cycle due to... You guessed it. Uniqueness clashes).

Unless your a new player, you know this... Nothing bizarre about it.

To be fair, Smeagol escorting Gollum through Mirkwood is much more of a thematic mismatch than discarding Gwaihir hero because a Gwaihir-related encounter card was used to discard an enemy in staging. I mean, shouldn't that effect be *more* likely to happen thematically if Gwaihir is your actual hero?

(Of course, given Smeagol's split personality, Smeagol escorting Gollum through Mirkwood is actually pretty darn thematic, come to think of it....)

Taking a step back, it's important to recognize that the uniqueness identifier serves two purposes in the game, one thematic (can't have the same character in play twice) and one balance related -- Steward of Gondor needs to be unique not because only one character should thematically be able to enjoy the patronage of the Steward of Gondor, but because being able to have any number of SoG in play would be mechanically unbalancing. Mixing objective and player-chosen allies of the same name creates *no* mechanical or balance issues, it's purely a thematic constraint, and I'm not inclined to bust anyone's chops for using "Barwen" or "Bamarthiul" to work around a thematic constraint. It's perfectly legal in this game to send Balin to investigate the fate of his colony in Moria, or send Eowyn on a journey to defeat Smaug.

I also think that closing off play space really is a loss. Grimbeorn hero can't be used in Conflict at the Carrock, despite Grimbeorn hero being the second-likeliest hero to go to the Carrock in the first place. Dunedain decks are by far the most thematic for playing Angmar cycle, and Amarthiul is one of the very best Dunedain heroes -- but he can't be used because of the objective ally, even though the story really isn't about him at all. Faramir is the *ideal* thematic hero for all the events in HoN/AtS up until Blood of Gondor, and if you merely pretend that Boromir was captured instead of Faramir he would be the ideal thematic rescuer for the last two quests. And for years, people have wondered why the Eagles didn't just fly the ring into Mordor, so closing off the one Eagle hero from the complete campaign saga really is a thematic loss (not to mention barring the hero from the *one battle* he actually was at!)

There's no wrong way to play this game.

I’d simply play it as a different Gwaihir. Perhaps it is a common name amongst eagles. So I’d keep it in play.

I guess I have always been a theme player, and a stickler for the rules... It just seems wrong to play them in quests where they are already present. But it is a game and if that is what you want to do then its really up to you.

The thing is, I recently placed black gate/Mt Doom and thoroughly enjoyed the Gwaihir objective that I earned and took to Mt. Doom. It was such a thematic win when he came off the encounter deck and discarded and orc. I don't want to see Gwaihir as a starting hero in my deck in those quests. I want him to come out of the encounter deck and surprise me while doing something amazing, as he was intended to do.