Bumping the thread for some newbies who havent seen it based on some recent forum questions

pumpkin said:

Good call. Wish it could be stickied.

Question about Escort from Edoras and Dúnedain Watcher:

1) If I use Escort from Edoras for Gollum's escape test in Dead Marshes, they won't be discarded, right?

2) To use Dúnedain Watcher's action, she has to be in play, right?

Why isn't this thread stickied btw?

leptokurt said:

1. Yes, as it is no committing to a quest.

2. Yes, because "discard from play". In hand is not in play.

I have a question about the hill troll. I was playing a game with a friend yesterday and I think we've played it wrong, but i'm not sure, so can somebody shed some light on this?

The card says the following:

Excess combat damage dealt by the Hill Troll (damage that is dealt beyond the remaining hit points of the character damaged in the attack) must be assigned as an increase to you threat.

If I assing him to gimli who has 2 wounds and who has 2 defence and 5 vitality, does he he get 2 extra wounds until he is almost dead and does the rest of the damage go to threat or does he die and and then you assign the threat?

Thanks

MADG0BLIN said:

Hill Troll attacks for 6, minus 2 for Gimli's defense, leaving 4 dmg to deal (assuming you meant Gimli defends against the HT; undefended attacks don't deduct defense). Since Gimli already has 2 wounds in your example, three dmg is enough to kill him, the fourth dmg instead goes to your threat. If you defend against the Hill Troll with a 0 defense, 1 hitpoint character, your threat goes up 5.

Question about Journey to Rhosgobel:

Say you are at Quest Card 2B with X number of progress tokens on it.

It is the Quest Phase.
The active location is guarding an Athelas.
Your heroes have not collected any other Athelas.
Wilyador has anywhere from 1-5 wounds.
One of your questing heroes has Protector of Lórien.
As you are questing, you have enough cards in your hand to use actions via PoL to make enough progress to clear both the active location (guarding the Athelas) and complete Quest Card 2B.

When you place the progress tokens on the active location to fully explore it (freeing the Athelas card), is there time to make the action with an unexhausted hero to exhaust that hero to claim the Athelas before placing the final remaining progress tokens on Quest Card 2B (triggering the move to Quest Card 3 ~ which no matter what is the end of the game)?

I don't think so. The crucial thing is that you can get Athelas by an action, not by an response, so I can't see a chance. The timing sequence published up to now is the following:

• After revealing all encounter cards, you use the PoL's action in the action window before quest resolution to pump up your willpower. You can't claim Athelas since it's yet guarded.

Then there's the quest resolution. It's red, so you can't play actions in it:

• First, you have "sucessfully quested" and can/must do responses/forced effects which refer to successfully questing. (Not the case in your example.) But no actions allowed.
• Secondly, you place progress tokens on the active location. In your example, you discard the guarding location as it is explored. You still don't have the possibility to do actions.
• Then you place the remaining tokens on the quest. You have to advance to the next quest stage, because of p. 22 ("Players immediately advance to the next stage of a quest as soon as they place a number of progress tokens..."). In your example, the game will be lost at this point.
• Now the questing would count as resolved (possibly triggering responses/forced effects), if the game wasn't finished.
• And only now you have the ability to do actions. (Nate French clarified this in the Escort from Edoras / Born Aloft (and similar combos) question.) But it's already too late...
  

That makes good sense. Thanks HilariousPete.

juicebox said:

You're welcome.

But I have some rules questions on my own, perhaps you or someone else can solve them? IIRC, they aren't answered in the LotR rules or FAQ, but if anyone has experience in CoC or AGoT, I'd also like to accept answers from these games very much, since I think the mechanics are somehow similar...

1) Because of "Shadows of the Past", encounter discard pile order is important now. In HfG quest card 1B, when I have to discard 2 of the 3 cards, may I choose the order of the 2 cards? Or do I have to preserve the original card draw order?
Likewise, when the remaining shadow cards after combat are discarded, what's the proper order here?

2) How long do treachery cards and event cards stay in play - until the last bit of their text is fully resolved, or do the physical cards leave play just after playing them but their ongoing effects (e.g. then "return to hand at the end of the phase" of "Sneak Attack", or the +1 AS and +1 DS of "Blade Mastery") stay effective? The rulebook tells us on page 9 that an event card is played from hand, then its effects are resolved, and then it gets discarded. But does this mean that they are discarded after they are fully resolved, or that they are discarded just after the resolution started?
Initially, I played it the second way (see question 3 about rules p. 14 for the reason), but this would mean that card effects can exist seperately from the physical cards they're printed on, and the more I think about it, the stranger it seems, because "Dunedain Mark" obviously loses its effect on its attached hero after it has been discarded by e.g. "Driven by Shadow", so the card effect should be bound to the existence (in play) of the card... And another point is, why do shadow cards remain on their enemies until the combat phase is finished. And perhaps the text on p. 9 supports the "until fully resolved" version better, too...

3) So if the answer to 2) would be "they stay in play until the last bit of their text is resolved", there are some other questions:

Is such a game effect "re-evaluated"? E.g. with "Treacherous Fog" in a game with 3 players: 1st encounter card is a location, 2nd is Treacherous Fog, 3rd is another location: do both locations get the +1? And when do players have to discard 1 card (if their threat is >= 35): at the end of the quest phase, or at the moment the Treacherous Fog is revealed?
And how does the sentence "encounter cards are revealed one at a time, with any when revealed effects being resolved before the next card is revealed" (rules p. 14) fit into the scheme, because the When Revealed effect of Treacherous Fog can only be fully resolved at the end of quest phase, so after all other encounter cards are drawn, and this would mean a deadlock, if the rules are to be taken literally... Or is the meaning of this rules sentence that the resolution of the When Revealed effect is only started before the next encounter card is drawn? Though this would favour my initial answer to question 2) again... Argh, now I'm argumenting in circles Can you help?

4) Does anyone know of a rules answer from FFG wether an eliminated player can be brought back in the game via "Fortune or Fate"? (This thread here makes a good point that it is not possible, but I don't know if there has been a ruling from FFG meanwhile.)

5) Since Landroval's response is worded "after a hero card is destroyed", does the hero count as destroyed/eliminated for a short time? (I suppose yes.) If yes, this would mean two things: First, the hero loses all his attachments and tokens (except the 1 dmg token which is put on him because of Landroval's text) and sencond, if question 4) has been answered "no bringing back of players" Landroval can't be used to resurrect the last hero of a player, since the player is already considered eliminated in the meantime because all his heroes have been out of play for a short time. Correct?

Greetings,

Pete

HilariousPete said:

1) Never heard of that card, is it from return to Mirkwood?

2) + 3) I usually resolve their effect and discard them right afterwards. However, I keep cards like "Treacherous Fog" until the end of the quest phase to reminde me to add the additional threat. TF only affects those locations that are already in the staging area when the card is played, as it is a "when revealed" effect. And that's also why it affects every player exactly in the moment the card is revealed.

Regarding the shadow cards, I think the only card that is affected by the rule that the cards have to stay in play until the combat phase is over is the "Wolf Rider". That way you can attack him before he gets placed at the top of the encounter deck. At least i cannot think of any other card where i would maka difference (which is why I discard them immediatly, depsite the rules).

4) + 5) I never thought about that, but I guess this is how I'd play it - player eliminated = point of no return.

Me again.

This time a question about response cards. When I travel to the Old Forest Road it says:

Response: After you travel to Old Forest Road, the first player may choose and ready 1 character he controls.

But in my hand I also have Strength of Will which says:

Response: After you travel to a location, exhaust a * character to place 2 progress tokens on that location.

Can I use both abilities or can't I play Strenght of Will?

MADG0BLIN said:

According to the rules, the First Player has the right to choose the order.

HilariousPete said:

i would also like to know this answer

I have to think that all discarded cards are being discarded "at the same time", so then the First Player would choose the order of discard.

HilariousPete said:

1- I just answered this one above; I think First Player chooses.

(For my remaining answers, I'm borrowing a bit from my AGoT knowledge - I know they're not the same, but I imagine the answers and the justifications for them will be similar.)

2 - Treachery and Event cards are discarded as soon as they're played. Usually they create effects that are lasting ("until the end of the round", for example), but that lasting effect doesn't require that the card be in play. I think the comparison to Dunedain Mark, an attachment, is not the best comparison. Attachments are active as long as they are attached. Events are active for as long as they say they are. There's no need for them to remain in play for their effects to occur. Also, the rules as written don't support events staying in play for a long period of time.

3 - This is largely a moot point, but no, game effects are NOT re-evaluated. In your example: Card 1 - location. Card 2 - Treacherous Fog. At this point, Card 1 gets +1 threat. Anyone with >35 threat discards. At this point, Treacherous Fog is fully resolved. Card 3 - location. This card does NOT get +1 threat.

4 - I believe that Fortune and Fate cannot bring back an eliminated player.

5 - I do believe that Landroval CAN prevent a player from being eliminated - you have to view Responses as part of the resolution of any player action or game action. By the time that action has fully resolved (responses and all), the player still has a hero in the game. (I could be wrong about this one, but I do think that you have to allow for Responses to occur before checking to see if a player is eliminated.)

@leptokurt, richsabre and radiskull: thx for your answers and interest!

leptokurt said:

@leptokurt:

To 1): Yes, "Shadows of the Past" is from RtM.

2) and 3): I don't think this has to do something with the trigger type (since the trigger only tells me when a card effect has to be / can be initiated, but doesn't tell me if the card effect is a lasting effect or not). But after your and radiskull's AGoT-inspired answers, I suppose FFG wants event+treachery cards also to be discarded just after they're played, and only their effects staying active. This would favour no re-evaluating of the card effect, because re-evaluating a card which is already out of play seems a bit strange to me, so I think your answer "the 2nd location doesn't get +1 WS" is still valid

4) You and radiskull agree, so no problem here ;-)

5) You don't agree with radiskull, but if I got his line of argueing right (see my response below), I think I want to agree with him.

radiskull said:

Yes, that's exaclty what I'm looking for.

radiskull said:

1) The "discarded at same time" argument sounds good. Transforms the ordering problem to a timing problem. Of course the wording of LotR FAQ rule 1.02 will have to be altered to also include non-conflicting simultaneous effect timing for this. But I guess this is just a matter of time until FFG does this, since there will come up more of these questions where 2 things happen at the same time and they're not really conflicting, but will have different results... Take e.g. MADG0BLIN's question.

2) Ok, good to know the AGoT way of dealing with this. So card effects can exist without their originial card being in play... I'll stick with my initial way then.

5) I just downloaded the AGoT FAQ. I'm refering to the timing structure on p. 15 on the lower left. So your point is that Landroval's response can be triggered and resolved in step number 5, and the check wether a player is eliminated only appears after the complete handling of the current action (step number 6), yes?

That would again mean that the rescued hero loses his attachments and resource tokens (I think this would happen in step 3 as part of the action resolution), correct?

Wow, I just discovered the flow charts of the timing structure on p. 18, really nice :-)

radiskull said:

That makes of course sense, technically. As this is my first LCG and you're the more seasoned player, I guess you're probably right (although I feel that a response makes no sense when the player is already eliminated. I also read Landroval's text so that he intervenes after the hero has already been defeated and the player has been eliminated from the game).

Guess you have t be a lawyer to interprete the nuances of timing in this game.

HilariousPete said:

Those timing charts are EXACTLY what this game desperately needs to be taken seriously as an LCG, in my opinion. You are thinking through this the same way as I am - Landroval would trigger in step 5, and step 6 the dead hero would leave the table, ending the game for the unfortunate player. (If we want to take the AGoT timing thing further, here's how Landroval's ability would be worded in that game: "Response: If a hero card would be destroyed, return Landroval to his owner's hand to instead discard all resource tokens, attachments, and damage tokens from that hero. Put one damage token on that hero. (Limit once per game.)" I also think that Landroval would be worded as a "save" effect, but that's neither here nor there.)

So far, the only major rules difference I've seen between this game and AGoT are regarding attachments. (In AGoT, A Burning Brand would be discarded if the attached character lost the Lore icon, and playing an attachment on an opponents character does not grant them control of it.) I'm inclined to think that when it comes to timing, AGoT is a good guide for us.

leptokurt said:

That makes sense, but you have to remember that Responses are able to be triggered before an action has completely resolved (otherwise Eleanor's ability is pointless, for example).

And yes, I did go to law school...how did you know?

I have few simple questions:

If shadow card have effect to discard 1 attachment from defending character/player and he has only Caught in Web, should it be discarded? If it is not only 1 attachment? According from FAQ 1.06 it shouldn't. But if card effect says to discard all attachments?

radiskull said:

Nate has made an official ruling according to this thread on BGG:

Hello,

Good question!

Once a player is eliminated, his discard pile can no longer interact
with the game. I'll make sure to add this to the next FAQ update.

Nate French
Senior Game Designer
Fantasy Flight Games
[email protected]

radiskull said:

Last time I contacted Nate for timing issues (see this thread), he said he would provide a better timing sequence or chart in the next FAQ.

LEGA said:

There's a big difference between "discard 1 attachment you control" and "discard 1 attachment". If it's the former, you can't discard Caught in a Web (as you pointed out, 1.06 says you don't control it). If it's the latter, you certainly can, since it's still an attachment.

The crucial part is not whether Caught in a Web is the only attachment on someone, but whether the shadow card makes the distinction between discarding attachments you control, or discarding any attachment.

radiskull said:

I like your version much better than the real card ;-) First, it's "if a hero would be destroyed" and not "after", which was the word that started me to think that Landroval can't be used to save the last hero. And second, it specifies on losing attachments and tokens.

Perhaps around/after Christmas I'll have some time to look at the timing structure of AGoT more detailed. As you said, I guess before a timing structure for LotR is published, this will serve as a fine replacement.

But while skimming through AGoT FAQ, I found another difference to LotR, next to the attachment requirements you mentioned: targets. A target requires the word "choose" to really be a target in AGoT ( FAQ p. 12). The usage of targets on LotR's "Dry Watercourse" seems different, when considering the wording of "Gollum's Bite"...

zeb said:

Thanks for the link!

Greetings,

Pete