You may see Gondorian Spearman as flawed, but I find he is a great card because he encourages a unique deckbuilding strategy and playstyle where you must use a variety of cards to weaken the enemies before sending them into the spearmen. I have used him to great effect with Thalin, Spear of the Citadel, Ranger Bows, etc. By introducing a much more durable and higher damage spearman you create a card that everyone puts in their deck by default and remove a lot of the existing strategy.

For your card I would suggest some art that better reflects his 2 defense, but yes he is more balanced now. However it does seem odd that the spearman doesn't deal any damage when he is completely healthy.

If you are trying to stick to the Dunland theme my idea would be 1 Def / 4 HP "Response: After resolving an attack in which Dunland Spearman defends, deal 1 damage to the attacking enemy for each damage dealt to Dunland Spearman." This way you could get the damage you desired in your original version but it requires a lot more deckbuilding and card combos to use it consistently.

See, your point with him being an interesting card to build around is as valid as mine about him being worthless if you do not build around him. I do not say that he should deal 5 retaliation damage, all I say is that he, as a defender, he should be able survive at least 1 blow from a mediocre enemy.

Art is off limits, I do not have the luxury of having a fitting art for each of my idea, it's a huge pain in the ass to find something at least remotely fitting. While we at that, art does not always represents the stats. Caldara is drawing a sowrd, yet her attack is 1. Wandering Took is better at sustaining blows than Gondorian Spearman, while Took is wearing regular cloth, and Spearman wears, what it seems, a chainmail.

But my Dunland Tactics theme is that they enjou being damaged, not taking damage.

I might just be happy if he was unique actually. The game already has several allies that are pretty much auto-includes in their sphere - Spirit has Arwen, Lore has Quickbeam, Leadership has sneak-Gandalf. So it is fair to have cards that become auto-includes, but at least give them a name

Also, the idea for the spearman dealing damage when taking damage isn't mine. It's derived directly from your version of Chief Turch.

If you'll watch closely all those Dunland Tactics guys and gals (and events), you'll find that all of them either have some benfit based on having damage on them, or will damage their fellow comrades for the greater good. None of them reacts to receving damage directly. That's control . Outputting damage immediately upon recieving it is chaos .

Chief Turch can damage himself with his ability to damage an enemy. Just because you know beforehand that you are going to only take 1 damage doesn't change what is happening: By taking damage (rather than just having damage), you are getting some bonus. I think it's a great ability don't get me wrong, but if you want to make this distinction about just having damage, then the Chief should reflect the archetype a little more.

Also, I am curious about your reasoning behind his passive ability. Normally when heroes have some built in way to get more than 1 effective resource per round they also have some downside (Grima with doomed, Theoden with +1 threat, Theodred must use his action to quest, etc). It looks like your hero has an upside instead, in that he also gets to "discard" damage (I think the discarding damage is a new term, unless you mean heal. Why does the chief of an archetype that likes being damaged have a healing ability?).

Maybe not from your perspective, but from mine. I know what exactly is going to happen and how it is gonna be. I decide whether to trigger it or not to. It's all under my control. I do not react to taking that damage, I willingly inflict that damage to myself to perform an action. That's a whole world different from responding to an enemy damaging me. Probably not for you, but for me it is. Chief Tuch, as a hero, is supposed not to just represent the archetype, he is supposed to be a glue, which both of his abilities are for.

Tactics Dunland enjoy being damaged, but they have little safe ways to have that damaged placed on them without risking to die if something goes wrong. That's where Chief Turch and his Response comes in.

As for his passive, this is exactly what Tactics Dunland are about - benefiting from having damage. I initially wanted to make him generate 1 addiitonal resource each phase if he had 3 or more damage on him, but then I decided it was too boring. He is berserker, so his discipline is drawing his power from rage, thats why he converts the damage into resources - it fuels his resolve. And "discard" wording is here to prevent heal stoppers from affecting this in any way. Grima can lower the cost of literally anything, anywhere, and he can do this at the flick of his finger. Chief Turch needs a damage, and this damage is most probably going to happen during the middle of the turn. And that's just 1 Tactcs resource on a single hero. Throin Oakenshield and Theodred are not overthreated for their abilites, for example, and their means to gather resources are much safer and reliable.

Right, but the chief can damage himself safely with his own ability when you engage an enemy (not to mention damaging the enemy in the process), which in a 2+ player game will be virtually every round. It would be like dropping the 5-dwarf restriction on Thorin while at the same time allowing him to heal 1 per round, and even then you'd be short a damage on an enemy in comparison to your chief.

...and all that in a perfect world where he never would be threatened with taking any other damage until the resource phase kicks in and converts that one into a resource. You're only looking at the strong sides of the ability, completely neglecting it's downsides.

I am not assuming a perfect world at all. I am quite familiar with the game and its means of getting damage on your characters. But he's got 5 health and 2 defense, and his main stat (what you normally want to use him for) is attacking. Taking one damage on such a hero that will get healed the next turn does not even register on my danger meter, especially because 1) I am getting a damage on an enemy out of the deal and 2) The event cards you designed actually want me to put a damage on the chief anyway.

Even if he takes multiple damage in a turn, that's a good thing because it means you can now use his ability to damage your other allies instead without losing out on his constant stream of resources. Honestly, he doesn't even need to be in a Dunland deck. With his killer statline, direct damage ability, sentinel, resource generation in tactics, and healing ability in tactics, he utterly blows away Mablung in almost every sense. Mablung is already a great hero used in a lot of decks. This should tell you something about how strong this hero is.

I like your idea of generating a resource when he has 3+ damage. This is an actual downside that plays into the archetype.

Maybe you being a powergamer and me being a average Joe difference kicks in, but I find myself a lot in situations when I have to defend with a hero, especially during my early turns. And there are plenty of shadows that boost attack and generate additional attacks, so recalling my situation I would think twice before triggering his self damage if I'm going to defend with him (as an attack boosting shadow effect would cause his death), just as an example.

Mablung is Gondor. He has access to a cheap and reliable way to boost his defense up to 4 (not to mention stuff like Behind the Strong Walls, Gondorian Discipline and etc.), while still generating resources for engagements, and without taking risks. Also, he generates dat resource instantly (meaning you can spend it on an event).

That idea is boring and has no gameplay in it

Why do you consider your original idea boring? This version is more powerful, but I don't see why it's more interesting - in fact you can't even decide to trigger it or not because it's passive. It's also a little sphere breaking - remove a damage (lore) to gain a resource (leadership). Normally when you want to do something out of sphere, it is related to something inside your sphere (like Secret Vigil or Foe-hammer).

I do like your original idea. Here is a gameplay example: you engage an enemy and the chief has 2 damage. You plan to defend with the chief. Do you use his ability to take a damage? If you do you will put yourself in danger of losing the hero from a bad shadow card. But if you don't you will miss out on extra resource next turn, which you really want. It's a tough, risk/reward decision that this game is all about. In the current version you simply decide not to take the damage because you will be healing and getting a resource next turn anyway, no decision involved.

You could call me a powergamer, but I like to play this game all sorts of ways, and I certainly understand defending with heroes and the dangers involved.

Because at first you're going to try to get that damage on yourself ASAP, and then you'll just going to spend the rest of the game with that damage on yourself staying away from harm.

You're looking at it from the different angle than I am. For me, drawing power from being damaged is both very Tactics and very Dunland at once.

Your example works only if dat enemy has 2 or less attack (and gets no shadow effect attack boost), otherwise it will put Chief into the 3+ damage zone that will generate a resource next turn

Your example works only if dat enemy has 2 or less attack (and gets no shadow effect attack boost), otherwise it will put Chief into the 3+ damage zone that will generate a resource next turn

Sounds like just another situation where you get to make a decision! Maybe you have 0 or 1 damage and it's a weak attacker so you decide to take it undefended to get yourself to 3, or maybe its a strong attacker and you decide to take a risk and defend with the chief instead of a chump. For cautious players, they can always make a deckbuilding decision to include cards like citadel plate. Lots of decisions! More so than an automatic heal and +1 resource/turn.

As for the heal-for-resource ability making sense in tactics, I guess we just disagree on that .

I'd like to see what a Dunlending attachment would look like.

Not heal for a resource. The need to be damaged to generate a resource.

...and to introduce a couple of heroes.

Maribeth: I just thing that trap just got too much efficient with Damrod+Maribeth. I like that her effect trigger when she kills something inside a trap. Thats cool. I just dont like what it does in combination with Damrod. I would prefer some re-imagining about what it does when she kills.

Chieft Turch: He can atk, defend, generate resources, heal, deal ping damage and even has sentinel. He has too much stuff on him. He need some trimming.

Generic Dunland weapon would look something like that:

Savage Hatchet (T) [Cost: 1]

Item. Weapon.

Attach to a Dunland or Warrior hero. Restricted.

Attached hero gets +1 Attack. (+2 Attack instead if attached hero is damaged.)

I really like the green cards. The synergy with traps is great, although I think the new raid is a bit too busy. I like the concept, just needs to be more economic in its communication. I love the Maribeth, though I agree with Damrod she would be straight bonkers. Still, pretty cool.

As for the red, not quite as solid. I agree with Seastan on the op nature of Dunlap spearman. I also think the chief is too busy. I like if he has either one of the abilities but not both. I think maybe he can have ability that removes damage from any dunland character to generate resources or to damage enemies, but one ability would just be better IMO.

Dunland Trap is as busy as your everyday regular trap, blame the mandatory "play unattached blah blah blah attach to the first enemy entering blah blah blah" text for all traps. There is no way I see how it can take up less space, unless I rework the core trap mechanic itself. (Or dumb down the card by removing threat cost interactions.)

Chief Turch is very offended by all that chit-chat around him and is heavily reconsidering his loyalty to the heroes after all of this!

Chief Turch is very offended by all that chit-chat around him and is heavily reconsidering his loyalty to the heroes after all of this!

Hahaha, I laugh out loud to this =D

I image the face of the designers of this game when they hear the podcast or read the reviews of the cards they made. There is a lot of good and cool cards, but also a lot of sh*tty binder cards (I´m looking at you spirit Pippin, Gandalf Search, Lore Glorfindel, etc).

Even Steward of Gondor is a card that I don´t like, or sneak attack Gandalf.

John, you've made quite a few custom cards. If you were able to choose 1 card that would become an actual card in the game, which would it be?

Well, this is a very tough question... It's like asking the father to pick one of his children to have a good life... I'll need some time.

You know, the answer will probably dissapoint you, but when I started thinking about that question, first thing that came to my mind is that it should be a hero, because heroes are core elements of any deck, and their impact on the game is most meaningful (that way I will see him being played as often as I can). What happened then is I realized that my desires lie not with something astonishing I have come up with, but with a character I would thematicly love to see in the game as a hero...

So, here we go:

Not because I consider this as an apex of my "game-desinging" capacity (quite opposite, I consider this one among my weaker card designs), but because I would love to see a hero Saruman and something tells me FFG is never going to release one.

I absolutely despise your take on Saruman here, sorry, (I much prefer my own to be honest), but I agree 1000% that I would love to see a Saruman (and Radagast) heroes.

Mind sharing your version?

P.S.: "absolutely despise" is a very strong statement. I know its on it's weaker side, but that horrible? I would've never imagined...