On 5/20/2020 at 1:15 PM, dalestephenson said:

Eomer -- since characters don't generally leave play before Eomer commits to the quest, there's no synergy here, but adding LeEomer's ability to TaEomer might be worth 3 once the Galadriel/Herugrim combo is set up.

Well actually I was thinking that if another deck on the table is playing Silvan or Eagles the two Eomer might combo sometimes (also a Gandalf Sneak attacked in the planning phase could work too).

On 5/21/2020 at 4:54 PM, Halberto said:

With a minimal residual hope it's all just a fake and that dude is not really Sp Aragorn...

I'm hoping it's more than a minimal residual chance of it being fake. With all the extra time they've had I can't believe the game is going on hiatus with that Aragorn for both game text and art as the last hero.

'Frodo Baggins:

Well, if he was one of the enemy, he would look fairer and...well, feel fouler, if you see what I mean.

Aragorn:

(laughing) While I look foul and feel fair, is that it?'

Only we're not laughing!

All that is gold does not glitter.

And 'Travelgorn' certainly has no glitter. 🤣

I think this pack is totally fine, the disappointment people feel probably is mostly because this could potentially be the final AP ever which is a lot to live up to and the first thing we see is that Aragorn..

Which is a totally welcome and serviceable Aragorn- It just doesn't "wow" at all and has tragically poor art. I think if this was released in a different AP or had epic art in this one, people wouldn't be so down on it. I am hoping that a promo or quality alter pops up on the market at some point for sure.

The contract seems pretty interesting/Strong, albeit with obvious drawbacks but also a lot of possibilities. Not only does your board state start off stronger but you are getting more mana(admittedly not color matching mana) so you can churn out a lot of board presence easily, either small and cheap allys or using cards like a good harvest to boost out bigger guys. Also anything that benefits from multiple things that share types etc. is great here, not to mention valor action decks.

Haleth seems awesome- as good as the master of the forge is, I think I might like a beefier version of him with some relevant types/stats- Also a very intriguing choice for messenger of kings

Westfold Lancer isn't that good in general, but with Theodens discount, and more importantly Lothriel cheating him in, he is quite strong IMO

Misty mountain Journeyman is really solid for relevant decks

Thorongil has a lot of possibilities that I haven't considered once you factor in messenger of kings, but immediately loreagorn and Eowyn stand out as powerful targets. I think one of the more interesting ways of playing this will be to have multiple heroes that could benefit from it, thus having it be a toolbox of sorts, for example if you draw it on the cusp of threating out, get loreagorn to save you, if you get it early on, put it on Arwen, if you are fighting a tough enemy put it on Eowyn, etc.- I'd bet there are far more interesting uses but those blunt ones come to mind.

Not sure I like tireless thoroughbred but there are a lot of warrior characters in the game. This is probably the dud of the set for me, but perhaps I am undervaluing how nice it will be to have in four player games where those keywords value is higher.

Shining shield isn't flashy, but I like it. Dunedain Warning is an incredible card, and while this is obviously more narrow, it has the upside of having the ability to be twice as potent. Its niche, but not bad by any means.

Knowledge of the enemy is a bit weird since you can only use it during the planning phase, but it has an insane ceiling and could be quite interesting in Dunedain decks and the like.

Woodman lore is not something I expected, but I dig it. It will often be 1 mana to untapped your board, more or less, and its even more appealing with Haleth being added to the game. Perhaps I am overvaluing it from how powerful other mass-readying cards can be

A desperate path is insanely powerful, but obviously a double edged sword. It really comes down to how devastating the encounters treacheries are. For example it would be totally not viable vs. battle of Carin dum, but in some cases keeping a board combat ready and getting a boost to quest will far outweigh the average treachery. I like that, by design, its an "oh crap" button, which might sometimes be worth pressing even vs. harsh encounter decks if you're on a turn you'll lose anyways.

All in all its a good and exciting pack, but naturally I too would prefer seeing more, which I hope we get when the LOTR amazon series airs and they have the sense to ride the hype wave. We shall see

On 5/25/2020 at 7:05 PM, asgardianphil said:

'Frodo Baggins:

Well, if he was one of the enemy, he would look fairer and...well, feel fouler, if you see what I mean.

Aragorn:

(laughing) While I look foul and feel fair, is that it?'

Only we're not laughing!

All that is gold does not glitter.

And 'Travelgorn' certainly has no glitter. 🤣

Impossible to express the truth with better words

New Aragorn might be strong with Grey Pilgrim contract. Pick thematic Strider and you can effectively quest for 8+1 progress turn 1, and still have actions ready to defend. But what’s sad to me is that we don’t have Aragorn ally, so when we travel to Prancing Pony we can’t play him, although it looks like that is the intention. Maybe we can create and playtest are own Aragorn ally as a community?

And green Aragorn isn’t that strong as starting hero, because he works best with Thorongil- you don’t need him from the beginning

I'm excited to run Aragorn with Unexpected Courage to do some super-questing. Mildly underwhelming pack, but not bad. It's been a good run.

Spirit Aragorn is not one of the most obvious heroes to use like Saruman and Lotheriel, but with the right build, he could be a phenomenal hero! He wants Silver Circlet, Unexpected Courage, Thorongil could be good. In a Grey Wanderer deck, Strider is great too. I could see Silver Lamp being really good too.

9 hours ago, koriakin97 said:

And green Aragorn isn’t that strong as starting hero, because he works best with Thorongil- you don’t need him from the beginning

Very true, but there are some reasons to want Lore Aragorn as a starting hero. For instance, you might want a quick Sentinel with Burning Brand, in which case Loragorn is the best contender. He's also good if you want to exploit back-to-back Pillars of Kings: play Pillars, draw 4 cards, use Aragorn to go back to starting threat, play Pillars again for another 4 cards. Hard to argue with a +6 card swing early in the game. He can also be great as a Gray Wanderer (or paired with Smeagol and MotK-Ioreth/Gleowine/etc) if you want to exploit a bunch of Doomed early in the game (e.g. Deep Knowledge, Seeing-Stone, etc.), but then want to go return back to starting Threat for exploiting Secrecy cards.

How does it work if you have Thorongil, use lore Aragorn’s reset, get Thorongil discarded somehow, then reattach it and get lore Aragorn’s ability back? Would this leaving play and coming back reset the counter? It’s not even coming from lore Aragorn himself, it’s just card text granted from Thorongil... so I’m wondering if that would circumvent the usual restrictions.

Wouldnt really be overpowered, as you wouldn’t be able to set that up yourself, short of killing Aragorn and using another card to bring him back. Unless the encounter deck does it for you, there isn’t a voluntary way to discard Thorongil.

53 minutes ago, GrandSpleen said:

How does it work if you have Thorongil, use lore Aragorn’s reset, get Thorongil discarded somehow, then reattach it and get lore Aragorn’s ability back? Would this leaving play and coming back reset the counter? It’s not even coming from lore Aragorn himself, it’s just card text granted from Thorongil... so I’m wondering if that would circumvent the usual restrictions.

Wouldnt really be overpowered, as you wouldn’t be able to set that up yourself, short of killing Aragorn and using another card to bring him back. Unless the encounter deck does it for you, there isn’t a voluntary way to discard Thorongil.

I am not 100% sure but I feel like being able to trigger loragorns ability twice on 1 player wont be allowed. Thorongil definitely makes for some interesting playstyles but it does complicate things too.

2 hours ago, GrandSpleen said:

How does it work if you have Thorongil, use lore Aragorn’s reset, get Thorongil discarded somehow, then reattach it and get lore Aragorn’s ability back? Would this leaving play and coming back reset the counter? It’s not even coming from lore Aragorn himself, it’s just card text granted from Thorongil... so I’m wondering if that would circumvent the usual restrictions.

Wouldnt really be overpowered, as you wouldn’t be able to set that up yourself, short of killing Aragorn and using another card to bring him back. Unless the encounter deck does it for you, there isn’t a voluntary way to discard Thorongil.

While Loragorn's card leaves play, the actual Aragorn wouldn't, so if he gets the text restored that says "once per game", it's still just once a game. It's no different than if he lost the once per game text to a text-blanking treachery and subsequently got it back -- it doesn't reset a per game counter.

I'm also reasonably confident that if the original Loragorn were killed and brought back, it wouldn't reset his once per game counter -- if it worked that way, Caldara's once-per-game errata would be pointless.

If you use Helm of Secrecy on a hero who has Thorongil attached--- I presume the new hero entering play, and you'd just trigger the Thorongil response freshly? (if there are even targets for it in your collection)

That seems a little more iffy. Likely intended behavior is to use the "eligible attachment" so that it can only be applied to new heroes who can fetch their own Thorongil version...

But it'd be way more cool if you can just move Thorongil, since after all the second hero version is attached to Thorongil and *not* the hero itself directly. I would expect that if Keeping Count were moved, it would retain its resources, why not the same for Thorongil? After all, there's no eligibility requirement for Thorongil to be attached to a hero, and the card is clear that the attached hero card is not removed unless Thorongil itself leaves play, which it wouldn't. Mixing the two effects together opens a ton of possibilities (which for seven cost, it really should!)

Better yet, when attaching it to the new hero, you can trigger the response again! You can be double Thorongil.

"But no man living am I! You look upon a woman -- and a dwarf!"

Have the encounter cards been spoiled anywhere?

They are spoiled (at least the texts) in my play-through of the quest.

On 5/28/2020 at 5:15 PM, dalestephenson said:

Better yet, when attaching it to the new hero, you can trigger the response again! You can be double Thorongil.

That's what i figured could happen to get at least 3 of the 4 aragorns in. Start with blue, play thorongil to get green, play helm of secrecy to swap blue with red and then trigger thorongil again. Voila!

You have green, red and purple Aragorn with blue in your box. I guess blue aragorn is good for something.

9 hours ago, player3351457 said:

That's what i figured could happen to get at least 3 of the 4 aragorns in. Start with blue, play thorongil to get green, play helm of secrecy to swap blue with red and then trigger thorongil again. Voila!

Does that work? The actual text of Helm of Secrecy reads:

Quote

Swap those heroes, moving all eligible attachments and damage tokens to the hero from your collection.

Does moving an attachment count as attaching it?

5 minutes ago, Kjeld said:

Does that work? The actual text of Helm of Secrecy reads:

Does moving an attachment count as attaching it?

So this is the first time this language occurs, as nothing else can trigger upon attachment besides dunedain remedy. However, I would say that if it was moved from one character to another, it goes from unattached to attached. Using some intermediate value theorem logic, I would have to assume that's an attachment process. For normal attachments, theres a "play" move, a "put into play" move, and then "attach" move as separate and distinct moves.

I do not think so. In dale deck when moving attachments using Long Lake Trader ability you do not draw card triggering brand ability.

7 hours ago, Halberto said:

I do not think so. In dale deck when moving attachments using Long Lake Trader ability you do not draw card triggering brand ability.

But the text on Brand is when you "play" an attachment. The restriction on thorongil does not suggest that you have to play it in order to trigger it's ability. If it did, you could not trigger it with vilya or thrors ring. The language is after it is attached, not after it is played.

Like i said, this is new language but i would assume with it coming with aragorn's pack i would assume that the intention would be to be able to combine as many aragorns as possible.

its some nit picking you guys do

I apologise if this has been asked before, but do we know if this cycle was developed after the desicion to end the game? If not, maybe this was supposed to be a generic dúnadan, and then they thought "the game will end, and we need a spirit Aragorn, let's change this guy's name".

From my memory, Caleb said in a Cardtalk episode that they were planning on doing a Rhun cycle when they were told that it would be the final cycle. So it is entirely possible that some things were already planned, but it seems unlikely to me that this ability was on another Dunadan and just stitched onto Aragorn. It just seems to generic of an ability. But who knows?