my griefs about the non-solo friendly cards aside (see main forum) does anyone else think ror is a cracking pack for some epic cards?

i mean i posted that in from the wild was great- not so much now i compare it to lure to moria- which i see will be a must play for all dwarf decks and hail of stones, now that is an epicly good card.......ive been waiting for a do x to deal direct damage card- and here it is!

Yeah, I think all the cards in RtR are somewhere between decent and fantastic (at least in multiplayer games). The End Comes is probably the runt of the litter, but it's a 0-cost neutral event, and it might have some application I haven't thought of yet.

I mean, just run down the list: both Tactics cards are excellent, Lure of Moria is nuts for a Dwarf deck, Dunedain Wanderer is really solid with the secrecy discount (or as Zigil Miner fodder), Bombur negates threat from 99% of the locations in Khazad-Dum (and, presumably, the next several APs), Out of the Wild can permanently eliminate an Attercop-esque foe, the Rider can offer repeatable shadow card control, and Song of Earendil makes one player NOT GAIN THREAT!!! (okay, not quite, but pretty darn close). Just rock solid options for all spheres.

Honestly, I think the Song will be the one card that really has the most impact. Think about it opposite a secrecy deck: keeping the other player's threat below 20 is accomplished by playing one card. Someone else mentioned how well the Song works with Dwalin: he kills an orc to negate a turn's worth of threat gain for both players.

Not really joining in the lovefest myself. Lure of Moria is going into my Dwarf deck, no question (although what to take out, oh the pain). Rivendell blade is, well, kinda crappy, Hail of Stones, don't really tend to have an overflow of characters to take out enemies in this manner, Rider is so-so, Song might see use, Bombur won't even make it into my Dwarf deck, he's that crappy, Out of the Wild will go into decks and Neutral won't, especially with KD treacheries + shadow effects, I'm happier seeing them in the discard than in the deck again. 5-cost Leadership ally, I don't know.

Yeah, it's mostly just conjecture at this point, but I think a lot of the cards look really good on paper. I think you're giving Bombur short shrift. Let me ask you this: would you pay 3 Lore resources for an ally with 3-5 Willpower? I definitely would. In any scenario with a substantial number of Underground locations, that's basically Bombur. I realize that's a bit of an oversimplification, but he allows you to essentially ignore one such location (Zigil Mineshaft, Darkened Hallway, Fouled Well, etc.). You can just let a Mineshaft sit there for the rest of the game and cancel its threat every turn. That's huge. Anyway, food for thought, particularly since the rest of this cycle will probably feature a ton of Underground sites.

As for the rest, we'll have to see how they function in actual games. I do think the Song will become essential opposite secrecy decks. But you may be right about some of the other cards; I just used Hail of Stones to great effect, but that's likely due to the design of my eagle deck (i.e. churn out characters like the world is coming to an end). Wouldn't be the first time I've been totally wrong about card utility.

Totally agree with Dam, the player cards seem pretty mediocre. I'm not a fan of the secrecy cards at all, but I can see the Ranger is pretty good if you can consistently pull it off.
The song is alright in coop games with one secrecy deck and another regular deck, but that's a rather limited application.
The Rider is actually pretty good. Re-usable shadow cancellation and stats that aren't too terrible on their own, combined with a very useful trait, makes this card decent.
Lure of Moria is obviously very strong in a dedicated dwarf deck, and likely the best card in the pack.
Bombur is terrible. If you don't have an Underground location, he's worse than a character with a willpower of 1. Only usable in certain scenarios, and not even that good in the ones he's made for.
Out of the Wild isn't even good in a Secrecy deck (though it may be borderline playable there). In another deck, it's crap.
Rivendell Blade is usually worse than Dwarrowdelf Axe, and there aren't that many cards you can play it on (yet). It's rather good on Elladan and Legolas (in coop games), but not THAT great.
Hail of Stones isn't great, either. You'll need a lot of allys and an enemy with a high defense value (preferrably with a high engagement check) out to make any use of it. Too many "if"s for my liking, not reliable enough.
I really can't see a deck that would use The End Comes. It could be used for the Dead Marshes quest as a desperation measure if Gollum escapes, but even that doesn't look too good.

All in all, the player cards aren't terrible in my mind, but they aren't that amazing either. Some good and some bad stuff, and some cards with very specific needs.

thanks for the replies, i am interested about other players opinions on the end comes- i think it a really limited cards (yeah i guess every card cant be the bee knees) but when i read it i had to re-read it thinking id missed its point

Then again, not really feeling the Redhorn player cards either. Granted, I haven't gotten around to deck-tweaking yet (2 more plays of FfM tomorrow, then tweaks), but other than Bofur and maybe TimelyAid, not sure any of them will get into my decks. Keeping Count is giving me a headache just thinking about how it works.

Dam said:

agreed on the keeping count- good car though

Dam im interested on your play times that many a time ive seen you refer to- they seem so alien to me (being a 1 game sorta guy), do you never get the urge to break off and just do a lotr spree of somthing?

Dam said:

I may not share your take on the RtR cards, but we're in agreement here: in The Redhorn Gate, there's Bofur and Timely Aid, and then there's everything else. Unseen Strike is okay (pretty good with Dunhere), but that's about it.

richsabre said:

Nah. Now that I have 5 decks, it comes to 10 plays when pairing up the decks once with (heh, almost wrote "against" ) each other. After those 10 plays, I feel like I've seen what the quest has to offer and have basically very, very little to no interest in playing it again. Only one I've played beyond the standard rotation is Passage, mostly when I first made the decks, played it 1-deck through it, then tested them paired up again.

I just reached triple-digits in my LotR plays. I'm just a very structured gamer in that sense. Even other games, like Talisman for example, I keep track of which characters have been in the current rotation and set them aside so that each character gets the same number of plays. Same goes for decks in LCGs and CCGs, there might be favourites, but all get equal time. And this rotation system is also used in any game that it can be applied to, Dungeonquest for example has 6 characters, to 2 char per game, that's a 3 play rotation, Arkham Horror I was in the middle of my Innsmouth GOO rotation (8 different GOOs), so eight games in a sequence (usually play per day for eight days in a row).

thanks- that was a fascinating insight into the mind of dam

richsabre said:

One possibility I thought of: at the end of Redhorn Gate I've had a few times where I've got a very low encounter deck when all the Snowstorm cards are shuffled back in. That sucks. The End Comes would be great to dillute the encounter deck if you know you have some killer cards left.