Leadership Aragorn

A powerful versatile hero just like he is in the books.

Background

Aragorn, son of Arathorn, AKA Strider is the direct descendent of the kings of Gondor and Arnor. He was the chieftain of the northern remnants of Arnor, the Dunedain. Elrond fostered him at Rivendell after his father was killed by orcs. After he turned 21 and learned of his heirtage, Aragorn travel far and wide in Middle Earth assisting both Rohan and Gondor against Sauron.

He is first introduced in The Lord of the Rings at The Prancing Pony. He soon become the Hobbits guide to Rivendell after Gandalf’s letter to Frodo identifies him as a friend. He joins the Fellowship at Rivendell offering to his life to help Frodo destroy The One Ring. After the breaking of the Fellowship, he tracks the Uruk-Hai to Rohan. There he aided in the defense of Rohan against Saruman. Then braving the Paths of the Dead enlist the dead oath breakers, he defeated the corsairs at Pelargir to brings the reinforcements that turned the tide at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. He leads to the forces of Gondor and Rohan to The Black Gate to distract Sauron that Frodo can destroy The Ring of Power. After The Ring’s destruction, he becomes King of Gondor and marries Arwen Undomiel.

Card Theme

Aragorn is a highly skilled individual with decades of experience navigating the wilds of Middle Earth and countering Sauron’s forces. Questing in this game is often intended to represent the characters traversing Middle Earth. Aragorn being able to contribute to those travels while being ready to fight if needed is very thematic to those same skills and experience as a Ranger.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Resource Acceleration

Any card that can add resources to Aragorn enables using his ability consistently. The Core Set gave players two in sphere options to combo with Aragorn, Steward of Gondor and Theodred. The Aragorn and Theodread combo Card Talk highlighted previously in our Core Set Combo series. Later cycles introduced many other options particularly among Leadership events. Arwen hero and Zigil Miner are chief among the out of sphere options as they are also repeatable like Theodred and Steward. Additional resources on Aragorn are also a great idea if you’re using any of his toys as well.

Aragorn’s Toys

These cards are all attachments that can give other characters an ability or bonus, but they give Aragorn an additional bonus. Typically the additional bonus is another resource icon. Celebrian’s Stone was the first of these coming in the Core Set making Aragorn’s willpower equal to that of the best questing heroes. This makes his built-in action advantage from questing more valuable. It is easier to forgo 2 willpower to use his 3 attack or 2 defense in combat than 4 willpower. The added Spirit icon is also helpful for playing the only toy that isn’t in sphere, Ring of Barahir.

The Ring of Barahir is generally considered the least interesting since it only adds hit points that scales with the number of artifacts. The full card pool has many Artifacts now with the Guarded attachments like Stone of Elostirion and Orcrist. Aragorn doesn’t benefit much from having may hit points like Gloin and Gimli that have damage taken based abilities.

Sword That Was Broken gives any hero the Leadership icon but on Aragorn it is one of the best global willpower boosts available. It can be especially helpful in Dunedain decks since the Dunedain characters tend to have low willpower.

Rivendell Bow doesn’t give a resource icon. It is worth noting because it specifically mentions it can be attached to Aragorn besides just Noldor and Silvans.

Thorongil

Defense Boosts

Grey Wanderer

Quest Specific

Aragorn’s built-in readying can be used to benefit besides just combat. Many quests have encounter car effects that exhaust a character either as a when revealed or shadow effect. This goes all the way back even to the core set. Caught in a Web is the most notorious example since it makes you pay 2 resources to ready the attached hero during the refresh phase. You can play around this condition attachment by making sure to only quest with Aragorn and readying him after. You can do the same in Darrowdelf to avoid the negative effects of Watchful Eyes.

Aside from the encounter deck trying impede your ability to quest, attack, or defend, there are many other times the quest will require you exhaust a hero. Sometimes it is simply to claim an unguarded objective. Many other times it is required for a test to represent the heroes attempting to do something outside the normal questing. Shadow of Mirkwood introduced this idea with Escape tests in The Dead Marshes and Return to Mirkwood. These tests have to commit character’s willpower to exceed escape value on the encounter cards. The Lord of the Rings Saga had similar Hide tests in A Shadow of the Past. A variation that was based solely on number of characters exhausted rather than willpower used in the Dream-Chaser cycle and Mount Doom scenario for Sailing and Fortitude test, respectively.

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 Leadership Aragorn at 3 rings. That is only because I think he’s the 3rd best version of Aragorn. I think the Lore and Tactics versions offer more to players than this one. If playing another version of Aragorn, this one is top of the list to add its sphere and abilities it via Thorongil.

That said, he offers built-in action advantage for a very reasonable cost of one resource. In the sphere that is best known for resource acceleration. On top of that most of his “toys” are in Leadership. It’s possible to get him every sphere in the game via his own attachments plus some great bonuses and a strong ability. Undeniably a powerful and useful hero.

• Dave – 2
• Grant – 2
• Ted – TBR
• Matt – 3
• Average 2.33

External Links

• Tolkien Gateway
• Hall of Beorn
• Ringsdb

Sample Decks