Beravor

A versatile hero with a incredibly useful ability. Power creep has marginalized her a little, but can still be used to great effect.

Background

Beravor is a character created by Fantasy Flight Games. She made her first appearance in Middle Earth Quest. Then FFG reused the character for LOTR LCG. Clearly she is intended to be one of Rangers of the North with the Dunedain and Ranger traits. The Rangers of the North are the descended from the people of Gondor’s sister kingdom, Arnor. Arnor split into three smaller kingdoms, Cardolan, Arthedain, and Rhudar. The people of these successor kingdoms dwindled after wars with Angmar and a plague until only scattered settlements and wandering bands remained.

There are not many Dunedain in the LOTR books besides Aragorn. Halbarad is the only other named one that in The Passing of the Grey Company arrives with 30 of his kinsmen to support Aragorn. No further details of these 30 are given and there is no one to say that Beravor was not one of them.

Card Theme

Card Synergies and Interactions

Readying

Cards that can ready Beravor are great to allow a player to make use her ability and stats. Her 2/2/2 stats are also advantageous when taking multiple actions. She is equally good at questing, attacking, and defending. A general rule is a 2 cost ally with a 2 stat is considered pretty efficient. Paying 2 resources for Beravor to take an additional action is similar to paying for an efficient ally with more flexibility.

In the core set, there are a few options for readying Beravor. None unfortunately are in the Lore sphere. Unexpected in Spirit, however, is the staple hero readying card. For 2 resources, Beravor can be readied once per round which is amazing value. Many other ready a hero effects are either an event and therefore not repeatable, or come with additional restrictions and/or conditions. Leadership is the only other sphere to offer a couple readying options. Common Cause while cheap in resource cost, requires that you exhaust another hero. This generally is prohibitive to using it. Either a hero will already be exhausted or will have just as good if not better stats to use. The best use case will be a ready defending hero with no enemies to defend who then can ready Beravor. Grim Resolve is the other Leadership card which readies all characters. Usually a mass ready like this will be used to make significant questing push exhausting everyone. Then played to ready everyone for combat. It can really turn a game around, but not one to include just to use Beravor’s ability and stats.

Fortunately as the game has progressed there are a few more great readying cards added or this Dunedain Ranger.

Leather Boots and Wingfoot are in the same sphere as Beravor and cheaper than Unexpected Courage. Both are a little more limited since the ready will trigger after committing characters to the quest for both of them. Basically they’ll allow a player to use her to quest or draw cards before questing. Then maybe ready for combat or any travel effects that require exhausting a hero. Steed of the North is similar although it triggers on engagement. This is more controllable considering all the additional ways Dunedain have to force engagement like Son of Arnor, Dunedain Hunter, and Tactics Aragorn hero. Descendants of Kings much like the other readying events isn’t great for Beravor since it is not repeatable. Still Beravor is a good target among other Dunedain characters in a dedicated Dunedain deck.

Discard effects

There are several cards that give players a bonus when a card is discarded from their hand. Beravor’s card draw can help fuel these abilities. Protector of Lórien and Eowyn both could boost willpower at the cost of a discarded card and defense as well for Protector. Later cards expanded to other effects like Spirit Legolas’s readying and healing with Song of Healing. The Noldor characters in particular expanded the use of discard effects as many of their effects required discarding cards.

Dale

Beravor is often included as third hero in a Dale deck. This is because the Dale engine of playing attachments on allies is prone to stalling. Brand, Son of Bain will let players draw a card for the first attachment played on a Dale ally. Players can hit a string of allies with no attachments or attachments with no allies. More card draw helps alleviate this issue and find whichever the player currently needs.

Quest Specific

Beravor is not a good choice for many of the quests in the Ringmaker cycle. There are several card effects that trigger from the players drawing cards. there are also effects that get worse the more cards a player has in their hand.

Ring Rating

Card Talk uses the highly scientific yet arbitrary scale of 1 ring for the card to rule them all to 10 to be cast back into the fiery chasm from whence it came.

I rate Beravor at 3 rings. Repeatable card draw is powerful. Most decks need some card draw and resource acceleration to stay ahead of the encounter deck. Drawing 2 cards each turn increases a player’s options tremendously. The only downsides to Beravor are her lower stats for a hero and that the ability requires exhausting her. The second downside can be offset with readying cards. The stats aren’t bad necessarily. They were fine in the core set when 1 or 2 attack enemies were more prevalent. Power creep has marginalized her 2 defense. It still can help with the weaker surging enemies, but most quests, it will be a huge risk to defend with her. Two attack also became less useful as enemies gained more defense and hit points. The 2 willpower is fine for secondary quester since a good start usually require 6 willpower available on turn 1. It can be difficult to squeeze in a utility hero like Beravor when a quest starts off strong. It usually is a better idea to have a designated quester, attacker, and defender heroes that have the appropriate high stat.

• Dave – 6
• Grant – 4
• Ted – 3
• Matt – 3
• Average – 4

External Links

• Tolkien Gateway
• Hall of Beorn
• Ringsdb
• Master of Lore
• The One Wiki to Rule Them All

Sample Decks