Just seems to be like a decision to screw players over and make the gamer even harder than it is.

jhaelen said:

Yes, another stupid ruling from a company that struggles with the English language.

How difficult is it to just issue errata for the card that clears up the wording rather than insisting that their non-standard English usage is right? It's not like it's a particularly difficult piece of rewording...

It amounts to the same thing. Give it a rest. Some of us like the polite tone these forums tend to have.

kecr said:

I believe FFG is a smart company, and that they try to correct their mistakes. However, the way you would correct them may not be the best way for FFG as a company to correct them. I believe all of FFG products are printed in bulk except for the POD products. Because of that, it is not just a simple matter to reprint one or two cards that would have text changes. I would imagine that the text will get added to the Nazgul card when the core set see's a second edition printing.

FFG's method of "fixing" mistakes seems to be to utilize their FAQ until a reprint for a product is done. I suppose it would be considerate for FFG to respond to you queries about getting a replacement card, but the reply would be something along the lines of a replacement doesn't exist, so you can't be sent one. Some people get just as peeved, if not more, by a declined request than they do to no response.

@ MerricB: To be fair: They have listed the ruling regarding "Stand and Fight" in the errata-section of the FAQ.

Rubinon said:

Ah, that's useful. I missed that.

I started playing Magic back in 1994, and I witnessed Wizards struggle for years with the rules, trying to make things as clear as possible. It's hard to understate how much the rules were cleared up by the global incorporation of the stack - the days before that of duelling interrupts (not instants) were terribly difficult to understand. With FFG's games, though I like a lot about them, the Action/Response structure reminds me very much of the old interrupt days in Magic, where rulings were often arcane.

Thus, I have a lot of trouble with the twin rulings for Thalin and Eleanor, which don't really make much sense when taken together - and go to demonstrate that the underlying rules of the LOTR LCG aren't actually there yet. I find it very, very strange that Thalin can actually cancel a card entirely - despite not having any text to that purpose - whilst Eleanor lets through keyword abilities...

Stand and Fight, of course, is just sloppy wording.

What I fear is that LotR will turn into a patchwork of incompatible rulings, because no-one has actually set out how the game works.

MerricB said:

I totally agree. What we have here is a situation where two cards (Thalin & Eleanor) do essentially the same thing (In the right circumstances), they both remove a card from play. With Eleanor the keywords are still resolved but with Thalin they are not. I know the mechanics for removing the cards from play are different, but the net result is the same, the card is discarded from play. Yet the keywords are only resolved in one instance?? it seems to me that this is incongruous. There needs to be a ruling about what happens to card effects when the card leaves play.

silverhand77 said:

There are a couple major differences.

1) Eleanor's effect is a "Response" and Thalin's ability is a constant effect.

2) Eleanor's effect says to cancel the When Revealed specifically and then replace the card. Thalin's ability instantly destroys the card as it enters play.

3) Eleanor's effect is on Treachery cards while Thalin's ability is on creatures.

They are definitely similar in that the end result is a card leaving play, but outside of that there are many reasons why these do not function the same. I would say the first point above is probably the most important one in understanding why they do not work quite the same. Maybe if Thalin's ability was "Response: When Thalin is questing and a creature is revealed from the encounter deck, deal 1 damage to that creature." it would be a different case...

I debate whether Thalin's ability is actually a "constant" effect. It's a very different effect from (say) Armour giving +4 extra health. It's not constantly in effect - it only occurs when you get a particular card draw. That's the problem - the rules don't actually have anything to describe what it actually does.

Actually, constant effects are defined in the rules...

"Constant effects continually affect the game state as long as the card is in play and any other specified conditions are met. These effects have no bold trigger, as they are always active."

Hey guys in my opinion you give to much credit to to FFG designers. Yes they make a good game but the same time make a lot of mistakes.

From the beginning i was quite sceptic and always give some critic. I sow how they change rules from FAQ to FAQ, play and find so many holes in the game mechanic (nightmare variant). So with all of those mistakes of them sorry but i cannot say they are brilliant team do they job good.

Now they just try to fix they mistakes nothing more!!! And scoring system seems like really didn work and they cannot change much without affect whole tournament system. Look like big problem for them. So they test job for last 6 months before game was release was done really bad!!!!

I sow already many good games and ideas was destroy by bad manage. Lotr tcg by Decipher also have this problem. Secon big set:Two towers was awful and many players stop to play game cose of this.

I hope they can fix every thing cose i love the game and enjoy art of the cards.

Svenn said:

I am aware of these differences, but I don't see how Thalin's ability being a constant effect changes anything about what happens to the keywords. The effects occur at the same time, because in order for Thalin's ability to happen, a card has to be revealed from the encounter deck. Once the card is revealed, the keyword triggers and Thalin's ability takes effect in the case of the crows, the creature dies and the keyword resolves.

Thalin's ability does not destroy the card, it kills the creature in the case of crows. I still have found any evidence to suggest that a card effect ceases to exist just because the card leaves play. Eleanor's effect is not restricted just to treachery cards, there are also creatures with when revealed effects on them,

Although it is not clearly stated in the rules. I think it's fairly clear given the new ruling on Eleanor that in LOTR the effect is in fact independant from the source, which would mean that Thalin's ability even if it killed a creature when revealed from the encounter deck, has no bearing on keywords such as doomed and surge. Meaning that they still trigger and resolve.

silverhand77 said:

Against which Eleanor can do absolutely NOTHING about with her ability:

"Exhaust Eleanor to cancel the "when revealed" effects of a treachery card just revealed by the encounter deck." (emphasis added)

Enemies (and Locations) with When Revealed bypass her ability.

As for card effects remaining even if the card is removed, say Witch-King is in the staging area during the quest phase. You Sneak Attack Gandalf and kill him, are you still keeping -1 WP to all characters? I'm guessing not.

Dam said:

I see what you mean about the treachery cards. touche.

The Witch King's ability is a constant effect which requires the Witch King to be in the staging area to activate. Once you kill the Witch King it is removed from the staging area thus, its ability ceases to be in effect. However a triggered ability such as a keyword only requires the card to be revealed to trigger and resolve. All I'm saying is that I can't find a ruling that says it is cancelled if the card bearing it is discarded, and if the ruling on Eleanor is anything to go off, it would seem that keyword effects once triggered are independant of their source. My apologies I should have worded my last post better.

What I see is that veteran Magic players here assume that it should work like a stack. Fair enough, it seems to have worked well for Magic. But there it does not seem to be a stack. As far as I understand, it looks it works more like a queue of events and keywords (if we can make another computing analogy), which can then be interrupted by the resolution of various effects. According to the rules, we resolve "When revealed" first, then Doomed and Surge.

Thus, Thalin constant effect applies immediately after the card is revealed, thus may interrupt an enemy with only 1HP.

Eleanor does not, because she only cancels the "When revealed" part. So the card is revealed -> skip When revealed -> Doomed and Surge.

I agree we could benefit greatly from a very precise, rigorous, definition of the sequence of events, especially where each effect/keyword takes place (e.g. if in sequence). But even so, they do not need to be a stack.

Nate did so in the latest CoC FAQ, but I guess that with LotR it might take more time because they need to test it?

zeb said:

The most recent FAQ for CoC included a detailed sequence of events. I wouldn't be surprised if something similar wouls be in the works for LotR.

People who used stack before can't stop thinking about it and tend to see stack in every game, this is a known condition (which I also suffer sometimes)

I'm not saying there should be a stack. I'm just saying there should be some sort of detailed sequence to how events trigger and resolve. I do play magic, but I only started playing this year so I'm definitely not a veteran, actually I'm not even very good at it I'm just a casual player and I tend to prefer the multiplayer formats of it.

I dont know guys. I dont have any problem with a rule since the explain how forced response and action work. for me is everything clear.

I never have a doubt about Eleanor and other cases which discuss here on the forum. Sometimes some people just think to much maybe???

Anyway cheers

I have reveived a reply from Nate French regarding Thalin and whether surge resolves when Eastern Crows is revealed. I know that not everyone puts much stock in these but I thought I'd share the reply with all of you nonetheless, by the way , I was wrong

"The surge will not resolve if the card is killed by Thalin's ability. Key word in Thalin is "as it is revealed,: which specifies that his effect resolves during the process of revealing the cards, vs When Revealed and Surge effects which resolve when the card is fully revealed.

Nate French
Senior Game Designer
Fantasy Flight Games"

silverhand77 said:

Thanks.

Still, I could understand one may dislike the "as it is revealed" vs "fully" revealed, where "fully" is never clearly defined by the rules. It seems strange because - a priori - a card is either revealed or not. What would be a real clarification would be to give a precise sequence of event resolution. It seems clear that they are resolved as a queue, which can be interrupted if a card is killed (Thalin and 1HP cards), or where some steps are simply skipped (Eleanor's ability). For instance, we could have: constant effects (when conditions are met)->actions->responses->forced effects (when conditions are met)->when revealed->doomed->guarded->surge. Now the authors would need to check that such a sequence is compatible with all the cards (at this stage, there are not that many, so it is feasible), but that would make everyone happy. But maybe I am too anal there? Because honestly, I have not encountered any problem so far, once Thalin and Eleanor's abilities have been clarified.