Fellowship of the Ring

A very thematic Saga only card that has a pretty big drawback and some opportunity cost.

Background

Title of the first book in trilogy. Also name given to the company charged with destroying The One Ring.

Card Theme

The mechanism here is very thematic as the company is very strong when they are together. The willpower bonus highlights their determination as they traveled from Rivendell through Moira and Lothlorien to Argonath. The Fellowship was broken when Boromir tried to take the Ring forcing Frodo to leave the Fellowship, and shortly after Boromir is killed protecting Merry and Pippin from the Uruk-hai. This card reflects that by forcing it be discarded if a character is destroyed.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Willpower Based Abilities

There are certain cards that provide a bonus based on a character’s willpower stat. Prime among them is Rosie Cotton. Her ability provides great flexibility and can help in both questing and combat with a Fast Hitch to ready her. Note this assumes you play her with Messenger of the King or Sword-thain to benefit from Fellowship of the Ring’s bonus. Spirit Aragorn while his ability seems lackluster gets much better the more willpower he has. Especially if he has any sort of action advantage to quest and lower a location’s threat like the from the readying staple Unexpected Courage. He even has a couple thematic options. Strider in a Grey Wanderer deck or 2 hero deck lets him quest without exhausting. Thorongil can also give him the ability to ready by spending a resource from his Leadership version.

Rohan heroes also have a couple attachments that can take advantage of the willpower boost besides more than just questing. Herugrim applies that willpower to attack and Golden Shield applies it to defense. There is also one very notable attachment that can basically double the willpower bonus for a character, Nenya. Fellowship of the Ring will boost Galadriel hero’s willpower. Then exhausting Nenya to add her boosted willpower to another character that also has boosted willpower results in getting the bonus twice. It can be even tripled if Galadriel’s willpower is added to Rosie who then adds her boosted willpower to a Hobbit hero.

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 this card at 8 rings. It is limited to only the LOTR Saga scenarios by virtue of being a Fellowship sphere. It can’t even be used in all of them since Fellowship Aragorn doesn’t have the Ring-bearer trait. The very limited number of scenarios it can be used in makes it just not up for consideration in most decks despite its effect is fairly powerful. A global willpower boost is great. This in most decks will add 3 or 4 willpower which is really good for the 2 cost. Normally 2 willpower for 2 cost is nice and efficient as seen in many Spirit allies and Celebrian’s Stone. This is balanced with a significant drawback, it is discarded if a character is destroyed. There are already a number of encounter effects that can force an attachment to be discarded and this drawback only makes it harder to keep in play.

• Dave – 6.5
• Grant – TBR
• Ted – TBR
• Matt – 8
• Average 7.25

External Links

• Tolkien Gateway
• Hall of Beorn
• Ringsdb

Sample Decks