Has anyone come up with other uses for song cards outside of the printed instructions? My group plays with mono-sphere decks only, so adding resource tokens of different spheres does nothing at all. When we first started playing, we thought it also gave an additional resource token, but that proved problematic as we were soon able to do too much in a single turn.

Any middle-ground solutions?

So, in essence, you're asking for a card that does nothing in a mono-sphere deck to..do something in a mono-sphere deck? I'd just count your blessings that you've got one fewer card to consider for deckbuilding!

The only use I could think of is the following: suppose you have an attachment that can only be played on a Lore hero, or whichever sphere. You could play the song attachment on the other player's heroes, so then you could play your Lore-only attachment on them as well as you. But honestly, that's a stretch. I would expect most people playing mono to leave out the songs entirely.

You dont need to house-rule them. Songs dont give extra resources, they just let the Hero pay for cards from the matching sphere (they only add a new recource "icon" to the attached hero, not a rescource "token").

We only play mono-sphere decks also. The song cards are good in case if have to discard a card. Also it helps players bacome more unified by being to play lets say a Lore only item like the Firebrand on Aragorn from the Leadrship deck, because he now has a Lore icon from the song...very useful, do not underestimate the Song card!

If you are playing mono sphere decks, you should never include songs. Not every card will be useful for every playstyle

I can see Song of wisdom plus A Burning brand for people like Gimli, Gloin etc who you might want to take damage, but be wary of taking too much- shadow protection seems the obvious choice.

Besides that though, You're taking a square peg, and wondering how best to fit it in a round hole.

Morbid666 said:

Um, you don't need a song in order to do that. I asked about it and many people answered me that you can play any attachment from any sphere on any character regarding their sphere. You just need a hero with from the same sphere as the attachment in order to pay for it. But maybe I misunderstood and that was what you meant

In general, attachments can be played on any hero, regardless of sphere, provided you have the appropriately-sphered resources to pay for it.

A Burning Brand, however, specifically states in its card text, "Attach to a [Lore] hero". You may only attach this attachment to a hero with the Lore icon, meaning it's either printed on them or it's from a Song.

The neutral songs, as others have pointed out, are primarily for multi-sphere deck building.

From some of the spoilers we've gotten of upcoming cards, I think there are non-neutral cards with the Song trait on the way. Making those Lore singers more useful.

You can also use the Song of Kings to help pay for Grimbeorn in Conflict on the Carrock.

mr.thomasschmidt said:

By "Firebrand" I believe Morbid was referring to the card "A Burning Brand", which explicitly states in its card text that you must attach it to a Lore character. In the case of this attachment the Song card would allow a hero to wield it when usually he wouldn't be able to. I'm sure that going forward there will be many more sphere specific attachments, but for now I'd echo the majority and say that the card doesn't belong in a mono-sphere deck and that that's okay - there should be cards that target specific playstyles.

There seems to be some confusion about what these songs actually do. This discussion happened in another thread before, but the text on the card reads that the attached hero gains a (insert sphere here) resource icon. It does not state that the hero becomes a member of the other sphere. This allows for the hero to make a resource match with cards to pay for them, but would not allow for the attachment of sphere specific cards like Burning Brand.

There were people on both sides of the argument, and I am certainly not a game designer with authority to make this call, but it is my opinion this will be addressed and clarified in the next FAQ.

Puzzle said:

Err, this is really a discussion? I thought this was pretty clear. They gain that resource icon, thus "becoming a member" of that sphere. The card doesn't say "Attached hero can spend resources as if they were *insert sphere*" it says "Attached hero gains a *insert sphere* resource icon". Since that icon is what determines the sphere a hero belongs to, why can't cards be played on them as if they were that sphere?

It seems silly to me to even try and limit it to only resource usage.

EDIT: For further clarification, the rulebook states

"9. Resource Icons: Found only on hero cards, these icons indicate the sphere(s) of influence to which resource tokens in this hero’s resource pool belong. They also indicate to which sphere(s) the hero card itself belongs."

The rules themselves say right there that the Resource Icons indicate which sphere(s) the card belongs to. The Songs specifically state that they add a Resource Icon to the hero. Who needs a FAQ?

Svenn is correct. The only means we have of knowing to what sphere a hero belongs is what resource icons they have.

Hmm...now I might start playing with those Lore singers and the Lore song in multi-player games to find the song, attach it to another player's hero and then attach the Burning Brand to them.

In my group we usually try to keep enemies off of the Lore player as much as possible so the Burning Brand was low priority considering that. But using the singers would add some more questing muscle and the Brands could be better used on someone else's defenders. win/win

Svenn said:

I stand corrected. I hadn't looked at the card descriptions in the front of the booklet, just the phases description of paying for resources. Thanks for including this reference. This was probably the reason I was confused. I'll have to play these a little differently now.

Svenn said:

The french version of the rulebook doesn't mention this bolded sentence... Oopsy !

Darrett said:

My suggestion:

Everytime you play Song of Wisdom you have to recite a Bushism.