1 hour ago, player3351457 said:

Thats a good question. I ran it through Aprils solo league. I would guess 10 rounds is right around the dying point. It struggles early with resources but once you get a few eagle related carda you can get the ball really rolling. Yes, Hirgon and Radagast nonbo with each other but it actually allows multiple avenues of readying Gwahir, which is helpful

10 rounds sounds like a fairly average game. Maybe Gwaihirs biggest weakness is lengthy games (ghost of Framsburg).

I really like the idea of Hirgon with Gwaihir. The discount plus the potential ready for Gwaihir after questing seems really good.

1 hour ago, Felswrath said:

Unless we get them both in pack 6, it also appears that we will not be getting leadership and spirit guarded cards. A leadership guarded enemy card that focuses on defense could have really helped out Dunedain. We also still don't have any more Rohan cards as Caleb said she would. Pack 6 will have to have it.

Where did Caleb mention that we were getting more Rohan cards?

52 minutes ago, MikeGracey said:

Where did Caleb mention that we were getting more Rohan cards?

The last time he was on Cardtalk, which was after Challenge of the Wainriders hit, he said that they are really trying to make Rohan a top tier archetype this cycle and that the new cards that are yet unspoiled will help with that. At the moment, the main thing they need is healing. We got some needed card draw already.

45 minutes ago, Felswrath said:

The last time he was on Cardtalk, which was after Challenge of the Wainriders hit, he said that they are really trying to make Rohan a top tier archetype this cycle and that the new cards that are yet unspoiled will help with that. At the moment, the main thing they need is healing. We got some needed card draw already.

Yeah Horn of the Mark felt big for Rohan. When I listened to that episode, I thought he was referring to the Horn of the Mark specifically, and also the muster of Rohan

5 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

There are a lot of Eagles-leaves-play options, and it's nice to give an incentive to use cards like Meneldor's Flight and Born Aloft

How about pairing it with Bard son of Brand to get back to Born Aloft?

The problem with the Bard/Born Aloft combo is that you have to discard the attachment to return to hand, so you don't get the attachment back. If it instead just discarded attached ally, the combo would work -- indeed, that was my first thought for Playing Gandalf Every Turn, but I had to resort to Elf-friend and Elvenking to make it work.

2 hours ago, MikeGracey said:

Yeah Horn of the Mark felt big for Rohan. When I listened to that episode, I thought he was referring to the Horn of the Mark specifically, and also the muster of Rohan

That episode came out 4 weeks after Challenge of the Wainriders. It's possible, but I feel I'm at least reasonably hopeful that we'll get at least 1 more card. Now he could have been talking about MotK which gave us Hero Gamling as well as a bunch if other Rohan heroes.

I've played a lot of Radagast-Eagles prior to Gwaihir being spoiled, and I've played a lot of Gwaihir-Hero since.

He's definitely a solid hero, and the eagle archetype is potent, though I too was really really hoping for a Tactics Eagle attachment to help out (I would have bet big on a "The Wind-Lord" title).

Elrond/Hirgon + Radagast + Gwaihir are the builds I've tried most. I've only had a problem readying Gwaihir in one game out of about two dozen, but quests that are particularly harsh about discarding your hand and/or your resources have the potential to leave Gwaihir totally out to pasture. Otherwise, I've found he's very easy to ready 2-3 times per turn (ready in Planning Phase by playing an Eagle, Ready after questing through Hirgon/Vilya/Emmissary, then ready during combat as a Winged Guardian or Vassal leaves play. Then sprinkle in Meneldor's Flight / Flight of the Eagles / Born Aloft / Gwaihir's Debt / (Sneak Attack if you want to mess with getting Leadership access) as needed for extra readies.

The basic archetype is good. though the deck does basically build itself for better or worse (e.g. I use the exact same 3x every eagle ally except for a singleton Landroval as has already been posted here). It can really struggle with Threat if it doesn't set up some plays of Gandalf, it can be a bit lacking in questing Willpower, and it has no cancellation/control against Treacheries (unless you go the Elrond+Vilya for Test of Will route). As such, it's got some weaknesses in particular quests, especially 1-Handed.

But it's certainly a viable archetype, and Hero-Gwaihir is nice as a hero. With Gwaihir + Radagast, you basically have two heroes that will almost always quest and still be readied for combat. It's viable. But I don't really find Gwaihir Hero versions to be a lot more powerful than versions with some other Tactics hero (e.g. Legoas/Eowyn/Beorn/Grimbeorn) and Gwaihir ally, since Gwaihir Ally is a great ally that is the only way in sphere to get recursion on eagles that have discarded themselves in the early game. Eagles are still probably much less powerful and less flexible than, say, the Silvan Archetype which is probably it's closest relative, so it'd be nice to see an attachment someday in the vein of something like the Elven-King or O Loien!, especially since so many themes have something (even Harad has Khaliel's Headress).

5 hours ago, MikeGracey said:

Well I dont think his once per phase restriction is a big limit at all. You cant afford to have 3 eagle allies leaving play (and readying Gwaihir 3 times) in one phase or you would run out of allies in a real hurry! \

I can definitely see times where you will want him ready but he's not... And that's gonna hurt. But he is not over costed. His stats added together equal 13 and that dictates his threat cost (aside from a few heros who break that mold). He has a drawback, but he has a benefit too.

And lets not forget that he starts with ranged and sentinel.

It's true that without the limit on readying, you wouldn't be able to repeatedly ready him multiple times or you would run out of allies -- but that just shows why the readying limit is *unneccessary*, and the limit prevents him from using his ablity repeatedly in the rare times where it would be worth the cost.

He has the same readying limit as Boromir, but Boromir's readying is cheaper, can always be done, Boromir readies normally as well, and has a (barely ever used) secondary positive ability. He also has multiple combat attachments that work with his trait and can take restricted attachments.

Yes, sum of stats is typically used to calculate threat cost, but the vast majority of sum-of-stat heroes do not have a negative ability. Of the heroes with a negative ability, very few are so harmful as the inability to ready normally. Gwaihir is the only hero in the game where if the cards come out in the wrong order, will be able to do *nothing*. Let's look at the negative ability heroes:

Glorfindel -- +1 threat when exhausting to quest, easily worked around with cheap attachment in same pack. Costed at -7 threat.

Beorn -- immune to card effects and can't have attachments, but also doesn't exhaust to defend and is costed at -4 threat.

Galadriel -- can't attack, defend, or quest. That *would* be a crippling limitation for most heroes, but her stat distribution means she's only a quester, and she comes with a cheap attachment in the same pack that allows her to effectively quest. And she also comes with a passive boost to *all* your allies when entering play plus an exhaustion ability among the most useful in the game (card and threat reduction). Costed at +1 threat, and a bargain at that price.

Erestor -- discards all your cards at end of turn. Positive ability compensates by drawing an extra *3* cards per turn, sum of stats and considered very powerful.

Treebeard -- can't have restricted attachments (true also of Gwaihir). Can self damage to boost willpower/attack up to *5* times per phase. Sum of stats, very powerful.

Na'asiyah -- can't pay for allies. Can use resources to buff attack/defense by 2 per resource. Costed at -1 threat, not widely used.

Quickbeam -- can't have restricted attachments (true also of Gwaihir). Can self-damage to ready (once per phase).

Smeagol -- can't have attachments and you can lose control with Stinker encounter cards. -6 threat cost.

That's it. Only Smeagol and Galadriel have negative abilities that on their face are anywhere near as harmful as Gwiahir's lack of normal readying, and they compensate for it with Gollum's extreme threat discount (1/3 of sum of stats) and Galadriel's two powerful positive abilities and ease of working around the questing restriction.

Gwaihir shares his 13 cost with Treebeard, Saruman and Elrond, and is just one less than the highest threat cost hero, Gandalf. *None* of those heroes have a huge drawback like Gwaihir, and except for Treebeard they have marvelous toys to go with them. (Treebeard does have Wellinghall Preserver). He's not in their league.

It's not like readying is some ultra powerful effect that requires such an extreme disadvantage to compensate. *Lots* of heroes have readying effects and all of them require a less expensive precondition (to board state) than playing an Eagle or taking an Eagle off the table. And every last one of them readies normally.

The one good thing about Gwaihir is that he's rewarded for what Eagle decks want to do anyways -- play Eagles and let them flit out of play for leaves-play effects and/or buffing Misty. But the reverse isn't true -- Gwaihir does practically *nothing* to enable Eagle decks! (The lone exception is fulfilling half of the requirement for Gwaihir's Debt). He also blocks his ally version, which actually *does* have an enters play ability that works well with an Eagles deck.

Yes, he has sentinel and ranged, but as he can't take restricted attachments that's not quite as useful as it would otherwise be -- in Tactics, the only attack or defense boosting attachments he can use without trait-adding is Support of the Eagles and Keeping Count. That's pretty thin gruel for buffing a heroic defender, aside from the fact that a heroic defender *who can't be guaranteed to be able to make even one defense* is a big, big problem.

It's a huge missed opportunity. His ability is restricted for no good reason, his normal readying is removed for no good reason, he has no ability to help Eagles decks (as opposed to them helping him), and now we learn that he doesn't come with some nifty Eagle attachment to make all his defects worthwhile and really make Eagles shine. This isn't to say he's unplayable bad, only that he's overcosted and he's not by any stretch of the imagination an Eagles enabler. Radagast (hero) is going to be an Eagles deck fixture going forward, but I don't think Gwaihir will be.

Well summarized but there is always hope that the final pack contains a crown of the wind-lord attachment that helps him in some other way, preferably with readying and draw/eagle recursion from discard pile.

42 minutes ago, dalestephenson said:

It's true that without the limit on readying, you wouldn't be able to repeatedly ready him multiple times or you would run out of allies -- but that just shows why the readying limit is *unneccessary*, and the limit prevents him from using his ablity repeatedly in the rare times where it would be worth the cost.

He has the same readying limit as Boromir, but Boromir's readying is cheaper, can always be done, Boromir readies normally as well, and has a (barely ever used) secondary positive ability. He also has multiple combat attachments that work with his trait and can take restricted attachments.

Yes, sum of stats is typically used to calculate threat cost, but the vast majority of sum-of-stat heroes do not have a negative ability. Of the heroes with a negative ability, very few are so harmful as the inability to ready normally. Gwaihir is the only hero in the game where if the cards come out in the wrong order, will be able to do *nothing*. Let's look at the negative ability heroes:

Glorfindel -- +1 threat when exhausting to quest, easily worked around with cheap attachment in same pack. Costed at -7 threat.

Beorn -- immune to card effects and can't have attachments, but also doesn't exhaust to defend and is costed at -4 threat.

Galadriel -- can't attack, defend, or quest. That *would* be a crippling limitation for most heroes, but her stat distribution means she's only a quester, and she comes with a cheap attachment in the same pack that allows her to effectively quest. And she also comes with a passive boost to *all* your allies when entering play plus an exhaustion ability among the most useful in the game (card and threat reduction). Costed at +1 threat, and a bargain at that price.

Erestor -- discards all your cards at end of turn. Positive ability compensates by drawing an extra *3* cards per turn, sum of stats and considered very powerful.

Treebeard -- can't have restricted attachments (true also of Gwaihir). Can self damage to boost willpower/attack up to *5* times per phase. Sum of stats, very powerful.

Na'asiyah -- can't pay for allies. Can use resources to buff attack/defense by 2 per resource. Costed at -1 threat, not widely used.

Quickbeam -- can't have restricted attachments (true also of Gwaihir). Can self-damage to ready (once per phase).

Smeagol -- can't have attachments and you can lose control with Stinker encounter cards. -6 threat cost.

That's it. Only Smeagol and Galadriel have negative abilities that on their face are anywhere near as harmful as Gwiahir's lack of normal readying, and they compensate for it with Gollum's extreme threat discount (1/3 of sum of stats) and Galadriel's two powerful positive abilities and ease of working around the questing restriction.

Gwaihir shares his 13 cost with Treebeard, Saruman and Elrond, and is just one less than the highest threat cost hero, Gandalf. *None* of those heroes have a huge drawback like Gwaihir, and except for Treebeard they have marvelous toys to go with them. (Treebeard does have Wellinghall Preserver). He's not in their league.

It's not like readying is some ultra powerful effect that requires such an extreme disadvantage to compensate. *Lots* of heroes have readying effects and all of them require a less expensive precondition (to board state) than playing an Eagle or taking an Eagle off the table. And every last one of them readies normally.

The one good thing about Gwaihir is that he's rewarded for what Eagle decks want to do anyways -- play Eagles and let them flit out of play for leaves-play effects and/or buffing Misty. But the reverse isn't true -- Gwaihir does practically *nothing* to enable Eagle decks! (The lone exception is fulfilling half of the requirement for Gwaihir's Debt). He also blocks his ally version, which actually *does* have an enters play ability that works well with an Eagles deck.

Yes, he has sentinel and ranged, but as he can't take restricted attachments that's not quite as useful as it would otherwise be -- in Tactics, the only attack or defense boosting attachments he can use without trait-adding is Support of the Eagles and Keeping Count. That's pretty thin gruel for buffing a heroic defender, aside from the fact that a heroic defender *who can't be guaranteed to be able to make even one defense* is a big, big problem.

It's a huge missed opportunity. His ability is restricted for no good reason, his normal readying is removed for no good reason, he has no ability to help Eagles decks (as opposed to them helping him), and now we learn that he doesn't come with some nifty Eagle attachment to make all his defects worthwhile and really make Eagles shine. This isn't to say he's unplayable bad, only that he's overcosted and he's not by any stretch of the imagination an Eagles enabler. Radagast (hero) is going to be an Eagles deck fixture going forward, but I don't think Gwaihir will be.

One thing worth mentioning though is the attachment Support of the Eagles. Every Gwaihir hero deck will be stuffed with eagle allies and so that card is a amazing fit for him. While Gwaihir can't have restricted attachments and thus can't have weopons, he doesn't need them. One (or 2) support of the eagles and Gwaihir will be a beast. With ranged and sentinel he will be able to use Support of the Eagles to the fullest. So even though I wish he had come with a wind lord attachment, he kinda had a perfect attachment all along.

EBerling did a nice write-up earlier in the thread about the hero Gwaihir and how he performed in his deck. Im very glad to hear that he is viable and can't wait to eventually try him myself. His ranged/sentinel definitely looks good in multiplayer.

One last thing is that the other 13 threat heros, other than Elrond, do have a significant drawback. Treebeard needs large amounts of healing (in general I get the vibe from the community that he is not a popular hero). Saruman interferes with your threat reduction which can be significant if your playing a lot of doomed.

5 minutes ago, MikeGracey said:

One thing worth mentioning though is the attachment Support of the Eagles. Every Gwaihir hero deck will be stuffed with eagle allies and so that card is a amazing fit for him. While Gwaihir can't have restricted attachments and thus can't have weopons, he doesn't need them. One (or 2) support of the eagles and Gwaihir will be a beast. With ranged and sentinel he will be able to use Support of the Eagles to the fullest. So even though I wish he had come with a wind lord attachment, he kinda had a perfect attachment all along.

EBerling did a nice write-up earlier in the thread about the hero Gwaihir and how he performed in his deck. Im very glad to hear that he is viable and can't wait to eventually try him myself. His ranged/sentinel definitely looks good in multiplayer.

One last thing is that the other 13 threat heros, other than Elrond, do have a significant drawback. Treebeard needs large amounts of healing (in general I get the vibe from the community that he is not a popular hero). Saruman interferes with your threat reduction which can be significant if your playing a lot of doomed.

*Anybody* is a beast if you put 1-2 Support of the Eagles on them in an Eagles deck. It's true that Gwaihir's ranged/sentinel will (in multiplayer) allow him to use his Supports most widely -- if he's ready, which relies on cooperation from his deck and altering your board state.

For thirteen threat, I don't want "viable", I want "awesome". Gwaihir isn't, and he could have been and IMO should have been.

Treebeard does need healing to repeatedly exercise his boost, but he's Lore and the best non-unique Ent allies (Welliinghall Preserver) can automatically restore health on him -- it's a lot easier to provide healing in Lore than provide extra readying in Tactics. Plus he only needs to use self-damaging when required -- it's not every hero capable of questing for six or attacking for seven on turn one no matter what is in your opening hand. Treebeard has a *huge* problem in an Ent deck, though, and it's that he blocks his absolutely amazing ally version. Treebeard ally is an *important* Ent deck enabler. Suppose Gwaihir blocked Misty, how would you feel about him?

Saruman's threat reduction nerf does count as a significant disadvantage, but his pack comes with a Staff that can flat-out eliminate low Doomed values, and he has no limit on his readying. Gwaihir's not in his class. If Gwaihir had come with some attachment that mitigated his disadvantage and synergized with Eagles play, I'd feel *much* better about his hero card. But he didn't. Maybe it'll come out next pack, but my hopes for that are approximately zero.

1 hour ago, dalestephenson said:

*Anybody* is a beast if you put 1-2 Support of the Eagles on them in an Eagles deck.

What I mean by this is that Support of the Eagles is an easy and perfect inclusion in every single deck that features Gwaihir as a hero. Since his deck will always be chalk full of eagle allies it will always fit. Any other hero that wants to use that attachment is gonna need to include a bunch of eagle allies, thus eliminating valuable space for other cards.

I do not really see a problem with Gwaihir. Other heroes need a way to get ranged and sentinel through Arwen, Dúnedain Cache/Signal, Rivendell Bow, Elven Mail, Armour of Erebor or Shadowfax. Gwaihir needs an Unexpected Courage and still can ready often enough with his response. Of course that means, in a solo game, where his keywords hardly do anything, he is less useful and I would have liked an attachment for him to fix his downside.

6 hours ago, MikeGracey said:

What I mean by this is that Support of the Eagles is an easy and perfect inclusion in every single deck that features Gwaihir as a hero.

I'd actually contend by noting that I find Support of the Eagles to be neither easy nor perfect to include. I don't run it in any of my versions of Gwaihir decks. I think it's a lack-luster card, tbh, since at 3 Tactics cost, it's very pricey.

1. Resource Limitation
If you go the TacticsHero + Radagast + Gwaihir route, it means you're saving resources from one round to the next to be able to afford 3 Tactics resources, and if you go the Elrond+Radagast+Gwaihir route you're saving for three turns to be able to play it (and this assumes you aren't using that one Tactics resource to Gwaihir's Debt or pay to retain the services of any Emissaries/Guardians/Wilyador). I tend to not have much in the way of spare resources -- you're typically paying to play the same eagle allies multiple times (usually Meneldor or maybe even Descendant), and you need to be playing at least one new Eagle every planning phase (perhaps to ready Gwaihir and so that Radagast can quest without exhausting). And Meneldor, Eagle Flock, Descendant of Thorondor, and Landroval are already expensive cards that take at least a turn of resources to play (though the Staff helps a lot here). Hirgon can also help a little bit with his economy boost, but then you're still wanting to spend resources in planning to play an Eagle to ready Gwaihir and enable Radagast AND spending at least one resource after questing to take advantage of Hirgon's ability to save a resource and ready Gwaihr. Very rarely do I find my Gwaihir decks sitting around with extra resources, and even when I do I'm typically thinking about just using those resources on more eagles or Gandalf (who hopefully first came out via Gwaihir's Debt).

2. Deck Space Limitation
I know most of you are probably just thinking "duh, just Vilya drop it, then money is meaningless." It's true that Vilya-Elrond routes have an easier time with economy, and Elrond is a natural mechanical and thematic pairing with Eagles and Gwaihir. But Vilya-variants have a much harder time with deck space since they really want to be a lean 50 cards for combo-building consistently and you need to devote a lot of deck space to other things that aren't support of the Eagles: Finding a spare card sleeve or three for Support of the Eagles is, again, tough and even if you can find the space you still may be better served not using Vilya or your 1-per-turn Tactics resources on Support of the Eagles. It's also worth nothing that if you Vilya an Eagle, it doesn't enable Radagast to quest without exhausting, so there is still some motivation to be actually spending resources in Planning to play the cheaper Eagles.

A concrete example: if you do 1x Landroval, 3x all the other Eagles, 3x Daerun's Runes, 3x Vilya, 3x Pipe, 3x Staff, 3x Eagles are Coming!, 3x Flight of the Eagles, 3x Gandalf, 3x Gwaihir's Debt, and 3x A Test of Will that's already 49 cards , and I have a hard time thining about how to run Elrdond + Gwaihir without something like this as a foundation. Odds are most players probably want some combo-smoothing too (eg Word of Command, Gather Info, Heed the Dream, Master of the Forge), some Gandalf Recursion (Born Aloft), some more Debt/Vilya/Draw setup (Gildor), a few other key Vilya Targets (Firyal, Legolas, Steward of Gondor, etc) and possibly even some healing, 'cuz Elrond (Warden). This is not much space for Support of the Eagles to make a case for a sleeve....

3. It's Overkill ("win more")
It can enable some really powerful Gwaihir-ing, sure, but it strikes me as a win-more card. You don't have much need for a giant-stats defensive Gwaihir when part of what an Eagle deck is happy and sometimes eager to do is to sacrifice it's cheap birds on chump blocking. And as it's doing that, it's building up a big flock under the Eagles of the Misty Mountains, who will pretty quickly be able to start putting up blocks at 5+ defense themselves (it's not uncommon to have a 8-10 Defense flock--Wilyador and Eagle Emissary can really power up the flock). At this point, why bother setting up a defensive SotE Gwaihir? Sure, he can use the Flock's stat to boost his own even higher ("It's OVER 9,000!!!!!!!"), but are you really going to need a that big of a block in most quests? Sentinel is nice, but the Winged Guardians and Wilyador and even Landroval can be used to pick up defensive slack for other players, too. Alternatively, I have yet to find my Gwaihir decks wanting for offensive output. Usually, barring the enemy-heaviest quests, I find I'm sitting there each combat phase with unused attack power because everything is already dead. There are moments when attack output is insufficient, but they are so rare I'd think a Black Arrow would do the trick as a silver bullet against Big Boss, and unlike SotE it's free and gives an immediate +5 attack boost, which would take at least three Eagles under the flock to replicate via SotE.


So, yea, I think Support of the Eagles is one of the most 'meh' cards in the game...and I'd say an Eagles deck is probably made strictly worse by including it, for the three reasons above... and I've played Eagles as my predominant archetype since getting into the game around Fate of the Wilderlands' release (I've always loved Radagast since the Middle-Earth CCG).


There is one caveat to all of this, though. In a Fellowship of 2-4 players, you can set up a situation where a Tactics player is playing Supports of the Eagles on Gwaihir (ideally three of them) and then at some key point in the quest throws down Hour of Wrath on Gwaihir so that he can Sentinel block everything and Ranged attack everything. Bar absolutely none, Gwaihir is the best candidate for Hour of Wrath in the entire game, and fueled by a pair of Support of the Eagles "Hour of Wrath" might as well be a "Wrath of God" from MtG (pending a quest with gnarly shadow effects that can totally ruin Gwaihir's best laid plans, since he has absolutely no access to Shadow-Cancellation outside of Response Events). But, this can let Gwaihir basically block and then wipe the board himself. But in my experience there are very, very few quests where that level of "beast mode... activated" is needed (pun intended), and even then all the setup the Tactics deck has invested into it (at least 10-13 tactics resources) could have likely been spent in other ways that also could deal with the enemy surge. And even in this scenario... Support of the Eagles is still not being run in the Gwaihir/Eagles deck itself.





tl;dr : Support of the Eagles is, in my opinion, a bad card. Maybe not as bad as To the Eyrie (poor Eagles), but close. That is not to say Gwaihir or Eagles are bad: Gwaihir is a good hero, at least in my (limited) experience. An Eagle-Attachment would have been very welcomed and likely would not break Gwaihir/Eagles in any way (I think they're well behind other archetypes still, and likely not even the best archetype focused on entering/exiting allies), but such an attachment is not needed for Eagle viability (I've run Eagles/Gwaihir and cleared the entirety of Mirkwood, Dwarrowdelf, Against the Shadow, and most of the LotR Saga in a 3-Player Fellowship, where Gwaihir + Valiant Warrior + Intimidation is extra deadly).

12 hours ago, MikeGracey said:

What I mean by this is that Support of the Eagles is an easy and perfect inclusion in every single deck that features Gwaihir as a hero. Since his deck will always be chalk full of eagle allies it will always fit. Any other hero that wants to use that attachment is gonna need to include a bunch of eagle allies, thus eliminating valuable space for other cards.

I love Support of the Eagles in my Eagles deck. Outside of an Eagles deck, it is little used, for obvious reasons. If running it you are also committing to at least 3x Guardian and 3x Vassal, and you likely want 2-3 Misty as well -- and by that point, you might as well make it an Eagles deck.

But EBerling makes good points -- it's an expensive card for often resource-starved Eagles decks. It takes up deck space that could be used for other things -- especially with Gwaihir hero, who *needs* otherwise marginal cards like Meneldor's flight and Born Aloft to help him ready. Especially on attack it is often "win more". It also annoyingly doesn't have the Eagles trait, so it can't be pulled with The Eagles Are Coming.

But still, I love it so, because while three tactics resources is expensive, with just Guardian and Vassal alone it gives you the choice of +3 attack and +4 defense, and it does that *without* taking a Restricted slot and without a once per hero limitation. That's *especially* useful for defending heroes, as it can set up boss-level defense on virtually any combat hero, while having the flexibility to give you massive attack. And it grows with Misty as the game goes on. I love this card....

And hero Gwaihir loves this card too, because it's the only tactics card in the entire cardpool that can reliably boost his attack or defense *at all*. As ranged/sentinel he can take advantage of both attack and defense support with. Gwaihir will love to have this card. But what I'm not convinced of is that this card loves to be *on Gwaihir*, because he may not be readying! If I'm spending three resources to make sure I have a defender who can stop a dragon or balrog cold every single turn, I want a defender I can guarantee won't be sitting there exhausted at turn start with no Eagles left in hand to play. Eagles decks are at least double tactics, if I'm solo (where Gwaihir's ranged/sentinel is worthless) I'll be putting it on another combat hero if there is one, and if I'm a multiplayer combat deck I'll put it on a different sentinel hero if there is one, no matter who it is. Because any other sentinel hero is not at the mercy of his deck to ready *at all*, and they typically can take a lot of *other* useful attachments besides just this one.

This is my main objection to Gwaihir as released -- yes, he loves to be in an Eagles deck; in fact he's flat out worthless outside of an Eagles deck. Spirit Pippin is more useful outside a hobbit deck than Gwaihir is outside an Eagles deck. But I don't see that an Eagles deck loves to have Gwaihir be one of the three heroes, except for Gwaihir's Debt an Eagles deck doesn't benefit from having *him*. If he'd done something to ramp up his Eagle allies, rather than being utterly reliant on them to keep him doing anything at all, he'd be a more interesting and more useful hero.

7 hours ago, EBerling said:

I'd actually contend by noting that I find Support of the Eagles to be neither easy nor perfect to include. I don't run it in any of my versions of Gwaihir decks. I think it's a lack-luster card, tbh, since at 3 Tactics cost, it's very pricey.

1. Resource Limitation
If you go the TacticsHero + Radagast + Gwaihir route, it means you're saving resources from one round to the next to be able to afford 3 Tactics resources, and if you go the Elrond+Radagast+Gwaihir route you're saving for three turns to be able to play it (and this assumes you aren't using that one Tactics resource to Gwaihir's Debt or pay to retain the services of any Emissaries/Guardians/Wilyador). I tend to not have much in the way of spare resources -- you're typically paying to play the same eagle allies multiple times (usually Meneldor or maybe even Descendant), and you need to be playing at least one new Eagle every planning phase (perhaps to ready Gwaihir and so that Radagast can quest without exhausting). And Meneldor, Eagle Flock, Descendant of Thorondor, and Landroval are already expensive cards that take at least a turn of resources to play (though the Staff helps a lot here). Hirgon can also help a little bit with his economy boost, but then you're still wanting to spend resources in planning to play an Eagle to ready Gwaihir and enable Radagast AND spending at least one resource after questing to take advantage of Hirgon's ability to save a resource and ready Gwaihr. Very rarely do I find my Gwaihir decks sitting around with extra resources, and even when I do I'm typically thinking about just using those resources on more eagles or Gandalf (who hopefully first came out via Gwaihir's Debt).

2. Deck Space Limitation
I know most of you are probably just thinking "duh, just Vilya drop it, then money is meaningless." It's true that Vilya-Elrond routes have an easier time with economy, and Elrond is a natural mechanical and thematic pairing with Eagles and Gwaihir. But Vilya-variants have a much harder time with deck space since they really want to be a lean 50 cards for combo-building consistently and you need to devote a lot of deck space to other things that aren't support of the Eagles: Finding a spare card sleeve or three for Support of the Eagles is, again, tough and even if you can find the space you still may be better served not using Vilya or your 1-per-turn Tactics resources on Support of the Eagles. It's also worth nothing that if you Vilya an Eagle, it doesn't enable Radagast to quest without exhausting, so there is still some motivation to be actually spending resources in Planning to play the cheaper Eagles.

A concrete example: if you do 1x Landroval, 3x all the other Eagles, 3x Daerun's Runes, 3x Vilya, 3x Pipe, 3x Staff, 3x Eagles are Coming!, 3x Flight of the Eagles, 3x Gandalf, 3x Gwaihir's Debt, and 3x A Test of Will that's already 49 cards , and I have a hard time thining about how to run Elrdond + Gwaihir without something like this as a foundation. Odds are most players probably want some combo-smoothing too (eg Word of Command, Gather Info, Heed the Dream, Master of the Forge), some Gandalf Recursion (Born Aloft), some more Debt/Vilya/Draw setup (Gildor), a few other key Vilya Targets (Firyal, Legolas, Steward of Gondor, etc) and possibly even some healing, 'cuz Elrond (Warden). This is not much space for Support of the Eagles to make a case for a sleeve....

3. It's Overkill ("win more")
It can enable some really powerful Gwaihir-ing, sure, but it strikes me as a win-more card. You don't have much need for a giant-stats defensive Gwaihir when part of what an Eagle deck is happy and sometimes eager to do is to sacrifice it's cheap birds on chump blocking. And as it's doing that, it's building up a big flock under the Eagles of the Misty Mountains, who will pretty quickly be able to start putting up blocks at 5+ defense themselves (it's not uncommon to have a 8-10 Defense flock--Wilyador and Eagle Emissary can really power up the flock). At this point, why bother setting up a defensive SotE Gwaihir? Sure, he can use the Flock's stat to boost his own even higher ("It's OVER 9,000!!!!!!!"), but are you really going to need a that big of a block in most quests? Sentinel is nice, but the Winged Guardians and Wilyador and even Landroval can be used to pick up defensive slack for other players, too. Alternatively, I have yet to find my Gwaihir decks wanting for offensive output. Usually, barring the enemy-heaviest quests, I find I'm sitting there each combat phase with unused attack power because everything is already dead. There are moments when attack output is insufficient, but they are so rare I'd think a Black Arrow would do the trick as a silver bullet against Big Boss, and unlike SotE it's free and gives an immediate +5 attack boost, which would take at least three Eagles under the flock to replicate via SotE.


So, yea, I think Support of the Eagles is one of the most 'meh' cards in the game...and I'd say an Eagles deck is probably made strictly worse by including it, for the three reasons above... and I've played Eagles as my predominant archetype since getting into the game around Fate of the Wilderlands' release (I've always loved Radagast since the Middle-Earth CCG).


There is one caveat to all of this, though. In a Fellowship of 2-4 players, you can set up a situation where a Tactics player is playing Supports of the Eagles on Gwaihir (ideally three of them) and then at some key point in the quest throws down Hour of Wrath on Gwaihir so that he can Sentinel block everything and Ranged attack everything. Bar absolutely none, Gwaihir is the best candidate for Hour of Wrath in the entire game, and fueled by a pair of Support of the Eagles "Hour of Wrath" might as well be a "Wrath of God" from MtG (pending a quest with gnarly shadow effects that can totally ruin Gwaihir's best laid plans, since he has absolutely no access to Shadow-Cancellation outside of Response Events). But, this can let Gwaihir basically block and then wipe the board himself. But in my experience there are very, very few quests where that level of "beast mode... activated" is needed (pun intended), and even then all the setup the Tactics deck has invested into it (at least 10-13 tactics resources) could have likely been spent in other ways that also could deal with the enemy surge. And even in this scenario... Support of the Eagles is still not being run in the Gwaihir/Eagles deck itself.





tl;dr : Support of the Eagles is, in my opinion, a bad card. Maybe not as bad as To the Eyrie (poor Eagles), but close. That is not to say Gwaihir or Eagles are bad: Gwaihir is a good hero, at least in my (limited) experience. An Eagle-Attachment would have been very welcomed and likely would not break Gwaihir/Eagles in any way (I think they're well behind other archetypes still, and likely not even the best archetype focused on entering/exiting allies), but such an attachment is not needed for Eagle viability (I've run Eagles/Gwaihir and cleared the entirety of Mirkwood, Dwarrowdelf, Against the Shadow, and most of the LotR Saga in a 3-Player Fellowship, where Gwaihir + Valiant Warrior + Intimidation is extra deadly).

Interesting points, SotE is definitely an expensive card. I was surprised to hear that you don't like it though. Its very powerful and worth the 3 cost since it usually is boosting stats by at least 3. I also have a more limited cardpool than you EBerling (assuming you own most/all the game?) so slotted in SotE will be easier for me.

12 hours ago, Amicus Draconis said:

I do not really see a problem with Gwaihir. Other heroes need a way to get ranged and sentinel through Arwen, Dúnedain Cache/Signal, Rivendell Bow, Elven Mail, Armour of Erebor or Shadowfax. Gwaihir needs an Unexpected Courage and still can ready often enough with his response. Of course that means, in a solo game, where his keywords hardly do anything, he is less useful and I would have liked an attachment for him to fix his downside.

The situation is not symetrical. Being without ranged/sentinel is not comparable to being a ready short in impact; if you lack ranged or sentinel in a combat deck you're still able to fight the enemies you are engaged with -- which as a combat deck is likely to be all of the most dangerous enemies anyway. But if you're not ready, you can't do *anything*. Gwaihir has a non-removable Caught in the Web on him that can't be overcome with resources, that's not remotely the same impact as lacking ranged/sentinel.

Plus, lots of heroes start with ranged *or* sentinel and don't especially need the other trait. There are also a lot of attachments that can do it, all of which except the Cache/Signal can confer other benefits as well. Meanwhile, there are only two attachments into the entire pool that can go on Gwaihir to repeatedly ready him -- Unexpected Courage (out of sphere, 1-per-core-set), and Magic Ring (1 per deck). Those cards also happen to be extraordinarily useful on *other* heroes who have exhausting abilities, or can get to higher combat values via restricted attachments and/or abilities. As much as Gwaihir needs Unexpected Courage, I don't think it needs him.

Being less useful in solo play is also a big strike against a hero, as Dori and TaBrand can tell you.

That leaves the "often enough". Often enough for what? It's likely in the early stages of an Eagles game that you'll be playing an Eagle every turn, meaning that Gwaihir is very likely to be ready, as any other hero would be *without* relying on your draw to provide the allies you want to play anyway. And as the game progresses you'll get some extra readies *for free* from Eagles leaving play naturally, instead of having to pay for an extra ready like Boromir or Elladan would. It really is a nifty ability, and if Gwaihir readied normally the free action advantage would make him reasonably attractive (though I'd prefer he do something that benefits Eagles rather than the other ways around). But when the allies run dry and he's resorting to Born Aloft and Meneldor's Flight to ready *at all*, you're not talking about free readying anymore and you aren't enjoying action advantage.

(His free readying would also be more useful if it weren't limited to once per phase, I have no clue why the designers thought that was necessary given the cost and timing of his triggering events.)

Looking at the timings for Gwaihir's "free" readies, without going out of sphere...

Planning and playing Eagles is the obvious one, this will substitute for the "normal" readying every other hero gets. Should fine as long as you have Eagles to play and resources to play them with. Will allow him to quest for two, or stay ready for combat.

If Eagle of the North happens to come out of the encounter deck, this could ready a questing Gwaihir; tactics lack scrying so this would be fortitously good luck.

If Eagle Emissary is used to quest and not paid for, it leaves play after questing. This allows Gwaihir to ready after questing.

If Hirgon is also in the deck and you quested successfully, he can play an Eagle at a discount and allow Gwaihir to ready after questing -- this requires two Eagles in hand for action advantage, one to ready him during planning and one to play with Hirgon's ability. If Hirgon is used for the only Eagles play, Gwaihir gets his "normal" ready here, and only if you quested successfully.

If Winged Guardian is used to defend and not paid for; it leaves play after defending. This allows Gwaihir to ready in the combat phase *after a defense has already happened*

If Landroval leaves play to rescue a destroyed hero it will give Gwaihir a free ready -- this is most likely in the combat phase after a defense, and isn't something you hope to see at all.

If Vassal of the Windlord is used to attack it leaves play. This allows Gwaihir to ready in the combat phase *after an attack has already happened*.

If Wilyador is not paid for at the end of a round it leaves play, substituting for the "normal" refresh ready for the following turn.

Born Aloft and Meneldor's Flight can be played/used in any action window to ready Gwaihir. The most likely point to use them depends on the ally:

Eagle Emissary -- after questing to avoid discard

Meneldor -- to place two progress, most likely quest or travel phase

Descendent of Thorondor -- to place two damage in staging, most likely in quest or encounter phase

Winged Guardian -- after defending to avoid discard

Vassal of the Windlord -- after attacking to defend discard

Gwaihir's Debt, which Gwaihir enables the Eagle half at game start, can be used in any action window, but the best use of this card is to play core Gandalf with Radagast hero (setting up with pipe), which won't ready Gwaihir.

Readying in the planning phase or end of round never provides action advantage, only substitutes for the readying he didn't get. It's only the later triggers that provide any actual action advantage. Emissary/Meneldor/Thorondor allows Gwaihir to quest and be used in combat, as a two-willpower quester this is useful, but not dramatic. Guardian allows him to ready after the Guardian makes a defense, setting up a natural quest/attack combo but requiring multiple defenses needed to set up a a defense/attack combo or a defense/defense combo. Vassal allows him to ready after the Vassal makes an attack, requiring an additional attack target for the action advantage to be any use at all.

The once per phase restriction nearly confines him to two exhaustions in the combat phase without further help. TaMerry can ready him if they attack together and destroy an enemy, as could TaBrand if in a different deck destroying an Eagles-engaged enemy, but that only enables attacking against another target (although it *will* keep him ready for next turn if you don't have an Eagle to play in planning). Rohan Warhorse is restricted and can't go on him, Swift and Strong requires a weapon and also won't work. Hold Your Ground will ready him for 1 cost in any action window. The Outmatched trap on an enemy will ready a defending Gwaihir. I think that exhausts the options inside tactics. As noted above, Hour of Wrath (4 cost) will let him attack/defend without exhausting, assuming he's already been readied by something. I don't see any other Tactics options to let him attack/defend without exhausting.

Outside tactics you have repeatable readying from UC and Magic Ring. There are also some non-tactics heroes who could ready Gwaihir at other times than post-attack. Frodo can ready another hero questing with him; which if he's in another deck could be used part of the time. LeGimli can ready another hero when defending. SpLegolas can ready another hero when questing. Those aren't free readies, but they are repeatable.

So what you’re saying is that there are more ways to ready Gwaihir than any other hero in the game

Not really. If you count every variation of "Eagle enters play" and "Eagle leaves play" as being a different way to ready, then you should also count every Doomed card as a different way to ready Saruman -- and with Grima being able to give Doomed to practically every card in the pool, that's *by far* the most in the game.

If you compare Gwaihir to TaBoromir you get ways to ready:

Gwaihir for free when Eagles enter play or leaves play (once per phase for both combined).

Boromir for free at end of round, plus once per phase for raising threat.

Aside from event/attachments/heroes that work on both, you also have:

---Attachments--

Heir of Mardil for Boromir (requires resource gain)

Rohan Warhorse for Boromir (restricted, requires destroying enemy)

Steed of the Mark for Boromir (requires resource when questing)

Ring of Power for Boromir (requires restricted One Ring)

---Events--

Hold Your Ground for Gwaihir

Desparate Defense for Gwaihir (requires defense with no damage)

Swift and Strong for Boromir (requires destroying an enemy)

Behind Strong Walls for Boromir

While Unexpected Courage is only once in a core set, that is no reason to only include one copy in your or your ally's deck. And with Support of the Eagles and some eagle allies you can easily reach 7 attack and defense, allowing you to drop the unusable restricted attachments out of your deck. At the time when you will have run out of eagles, Born Aloft, Flight of the Eagles and Meneldor's Flight, you very likely will have found at least a single copy of UC.

There are 5 non-unique, non-encounter eagle allies which you can play 3 times each. 3 eagles are unique (Gwaihir excluded), so you can only have one in play at a time, but especially Wilyador can be used to ready Gwaihir at the end of the round. 4 of these eagles have a forced discard, 3 of which can be prevented through paying a resource. That means you can ready Gwaihir at least 5*3+3*1=18 times in different planning phases (counting the uniques only once), at least 11 times in combat phases (3 times each for Vassal, Guardian, Descendant, once for Landroval and Meneldor), 3 times in quest phases for the Emissary and at least once for Wilyador at the end of a round. With careful planning this can ready Gwaihir for 33 rounds, which is more than enough time to find UC or threat out. And even if you use his stats twice in the combat phase, this will be enough for 16 rounds, which is still longer than most games I have played. And while the Eagles of the North are not reliable, they can save you a response from Hirgon for another round and add another eagle which can leave play. Interestingly the combined resource cost of all cards is 48, which also take 16 rounds to collect, provided you do not use Radagast, Mablung or Hirgon for extra resources or cost reduction.

The Vassal does not need an extra target to ready Gwaihir, just let them attack in conjunction and Gwaihir is ready for the next round, which saves you an eagle in the next planning phase. Swift and Strong does work, if you use Elf-friend and Rivendell Bow. Heir of Mardil, Steed of the Mark and all the events can work on both Gwaihir and Boromir, if you grant them the right traits or keywords. Grima has a limit once per round, which is less frequent than Gwaihir's once per phase restriction.

But in the end it just comes down to whether you are willing or able to put a single copy of Unexpected Courage on him before you run out of eagles, which should not be too hard, at least in a multiplayer game.

3 hours ago, MikeGracey said:

Its very powerful and worth the 3 cost since it usually is boosting stats by at least 3. I also have a more limited cardpool than you EBerling (assuming you own most/all the game?) so slotted in SotE will be easier for me.

Fair point -- I do now own a complete collection. Though, even before I had completed, I was generally pretty comfortable to proxy a missing card here and there as I tinkered with builds and tried to decide on my purchasing priority for grabbing sets. So I tend to view deck-building from the assumption of complete card pool, which is certainly not how most players approach the game, and can then often be a blind spot in my own analysis.

While +3 Stats for a 3 Cost is good, by the game's usual metric of attachment costs, my experience has suggested to me that Eagles don't need the stats, really. They tend to have plenty of bodies on the table to handle their combat needs, and they want to chump block more than any other archetype anyways (because it powers the flock, readies Gwaihir, and in the case of sacrificing Meneldor/Descendant can deal with the Staging area, too). After they do this a few times, they've got a big beefy flock to handle most defensive needs (especially since you can use Radagast's Staff to have a 5+/5+ flock defend and/or attack twice a round). Even if the Eagles had a 5-Cost +12/+12 attachment for Gwaihir, I'm not sure I'd run it other than as a maybe "cool factor," because, as absurdly a good deal as it would be, I'd think in about 9 quests out of 10 it'd be a surplus of stats you don't need most rounds.

Now, I suppose one caveat is that although I've played a lot of Eagles, I've only managed to play the first three Cycles and about half of the LotR Saga campaign so far. Maybe in many of the later quests there's more cause for big concentrated SotE Stats that justifies inclusion despite the cost/space issue of running the card, of course. I can really only speak to my impressions of it based on my own experiences to this point.

17 minutes ago, EBerling said:

Fair point -- I do now own a complete collection. Though, even before I had completed, I was generally pretty comfortable to proxy a missing card here and there as I tinkered with builds and tried to decide on my purchasing priority for grabbing sets. So I tend to view deck-building from the assumption of complete card pool, which is certainly not how most players approach the game, and can then often be a blind spot in my own analysis.

While +3 Stats for a 3 Cost is good, by the game's usual metric of attachment costs, my experience has suggested to me that Eagles don't need the stats, really. They tend to have plenty of bodies on the table to handle their combat needs, and they want to chump block more than any other archetype anyways (because it powers the flock, readies Gwaihir, and in the case of sacrificing Meneldor/Descendant can deal with the Staging area, too). After they do this a few times, they've got a big beefy flock to handle most defensive needs (especially since you can use Radagast's Staff to have a 5+/5+ flock defend and/or attack twice a round). Even if the Eagles had a 5-Cost +12/+12 attachment for Gwaihir, I'm not sure I'd run it other than as a maybe "cool factor," because, as absurdly a good deal as it would be, I'd think in about 9 quests out of 10 it'd be a surplus of stats you don't need most rounds.

Now, I suppose one caveat is that although I've played a lot of Eagles, I've only managed to play the first three Cycles and about half of the LotR Saga campaign so far. Maybe in many of the later quests there's more cause for big concentrated SotE Stats that justifies inclusion despite the cost/space issue of running the card, of course. I can really only speak to my impressions of it based on my own experiences to this point.

I definitely like SotE for the defensive boost mostly, because 3 def with 4 htps just isnt enough in modern quests for a hero to last long. EotMM can defend for more but Gwaihir has sentinel.... Which makes me wonder. Do you play mostly as a solo player or multiplayer?

Here are my thoughts:

1. Gwahir is a better Multiplayer hero Then true solo, which is unfortunate but we have other heroes like that.

2. His negative wasn’t needed, it’s pretty harsh again for and honestly would have better balanced him out. Especially for true solo, if there are multiple eagle decks flying around in multiplayer he will be readying lots but more than likely in solo he will require more effort to run smoothly (kind of like Saruman).

3. Support of the Eagles is amazing, I used it on Boromir when I only had the first cycle and sagas and that’s what let us get through the sagas combat-wise. There may be better card slots these days in an Eagles deck but it definitely has its place especially when you can get it for free or in multiplayer.

4. We haven’t seen the final pack yet so maybe there is something to help his negative like many of the other heroes with negatives have. We can hope.

5. Lastly, Gwahir makes a decent Grey Wanderer with his epic stats and the contract’s built in readying. Also he pairs great with the heroes that ready another character like Frodo/Legolas.