Boromir (Ally)

The Hobbit protector version

Background

Eldest son of Gondor’s Steward and a commander in their army. Driven by a dream he had to go to Rivendell where he joined the Fellowship of the Ring. He fell to the temptation of the Ring and tried to take it from Frodo causing the breaking of the Fellowship. Shortly afterwards, the Uruk-Hai attacked Merry and Pippin as they searched for Frodo and lead to Boromir’s demise as he defended them. As he lay dying, he confessed his attempt to take the Ring to Aragorn.

Card Theme

This version of Boromir gets a defense bonus when the player is engaged with a higher engagement cost enemy than their threat. He is the only non-Hobbit character to have an ability the engaged with higher engagement cost enemy. All other characters with this kind of triggered ability are Hobbit characters. This clearly is intended to be Boromir as he defended Merry and Pippin from the Uruk-hai. Adding to this association is that he readies every time that he is damaged. This could easily happen as he defends from attacks, but also from characters with Archery that deal direct damage. The archery damage can be even more fitting as he had a few black arrows in him from the Uruk-hai’s bows.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Low Threat Heroes and Threat Reduction

An addendum to starting with low threat, is keeping threat low. Spirit Merry covers both considering he only has 6 threat cost and his ability can reduce the player’s threat each time an enemy is revealed. In sphere with Boromir, there is really only Secret Vigil. In the Hobbit deck that his ability works best with, there are several options like Elvenses, The Shirefolk, and the other staples like The Galadhrim’s Greeting Woodmen’s Clearing.

Healing

Healing allows a player to really maximize Boromir’s second ability. Each time he takes damage, he can ready. If a player heals him after taking that damage, he’s free to keep taking damage and readying. There’s no limit on the ability unlike the errata’d Tactics hero version.

Repeatable effects like Warden of Healing, Ioreth, and Self Preservation work very well since they can be used after Boromir is damaged by enemy or other effect. Additionally they can be boosted by Elrond Hero. Other one-time healing effects like Healing Herbs and Lore of Imladris are better if Boromir already has taken significant damage and even better if he has additional hit points from ally attachments.

Ally Attachments

There are a few ally attachments that can really boost his defensive and readying capability. Hauberk of Mail and Round Shield can increase his defense. Ent Draught, Vigilant Guard, Wild Stallion, and Raiment of War provide more hit points to let him take more damage and keep readying. Wild Stallion and Raiment of War adding attack as well make his readying even better when he is ready to attack back. Card Talk contributor Quetzal wrote a great review of Boromir on Ringsdb years ago pointing out a great interaction with Vigilant Guard. He noted you can use Vigilant Guard’s damage redirection ability to damage Boromir and ready him even more often. Quetzal suggested using this with hero Beorn because he can defend without exhausting but has low defense. Ringsdb user AJ_800 took it a step further using hero Treebeard’s ability to deal damage to Boromir up to 5 times per phase. Note, Treebeard won’t get the bonus willpower or attack since the he doesn’t pay the price of taking the damage himself.

Hirgon and Tactics Imrahil

Messenger of the King

Damage Cancelation

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 Boromir at 3 rings. I’ll admit prior to my review, my opinion of this card was pretty middling. When I play Hobbits, I tend to make a super defender with Hobbit Cloak and other defensive attachments or just chump block. The only deck I’ve played the card in was Seastan’s Tactics Imrahil deck called Bouncy Bear. It primarily focused on using Spare and Cloak to maximize actions with the beefy allies in the deck. I realized as I prepared for this review by looking at various decklists and reading other reviews that there were many more combos with this card than I thought. I’m especially intrigued by the possibilities with Vigilant Guard readying Boromir. The cycles since The Road Darkens came out have really opened up more decks that this version can be useful in besides just Hobbit decks.

He still faces some tough competition for attention at 4 cost in Tactics between the excellent Legolas ally and fun to build around Vigilant Dunadan. The original Tactics Boromir that is still a very good hero despite his readying limited to once per phase by the errata. Leadership Boromir also sees a fair bit of play despite being a bit niche for Gondor Swarm decks. It is a card that likely has been long overshadowed by the hero versions that came out earlier in the game.

• Dave – 5
• Grant – TBR
• Ted – 4
• Matt – 3
• Average – 4

External Links

• Tolkien Gateway
• Hall of Beorn
• Ringsdb

Sample Decks