Derndingle Warrior

The Ent defender

Background

Ents are sentient humanoid trees. The valar, Yavanna, wanted protectors for her trees and they were created to be those protectors. They are often called Tree Shepards as a result.

Derndingle specifically refers to a clearing in Fangorn Forest where the Ents held their Entmoot in the Two Towers. They decided at that Entmoot to attack Isengard and Saruman leading to the Last March of the Ents.

Card Theme

The Ents are demonstrated to be very fierce once roused to anger. See their destruction of Saruman’s forces as Isengard. The damage for bonuses present in many Ent cards is a reasonable mechanical representation of this. Although it is a bit a stretch for it to give anything besides an attack bonus.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Other Ents

Foremost among the Ent cards offering synergy with the Derndingle Warrior’s ability is Booming Ent. It gets +1 attack for each damaged Ent and is only limited by the number of damaged Ents a player controls. Derndingle as a sentinel defender and can use its action while defending to become damaged can easily become damaged boosting Booming Ent’s attack.

Treebeard ally is the great Ent enabler. He gains resources that can pay for or ready Derndingle Warrior. Entmoot similarly accelerates Ents by drawing more of them including any Derndingle Warriors in the top 5 cards. The second ability allows the defense bonus to be activated twice in 1 round since it is only limit 1 per attack. Wellinghall Preserver can heal the damage taken

Healing

Damage Cancelation

Bonus Hit Points

More hit points also help maximize its defensive capability by expanding its capacity to take more damage either from its ability or just combat. The Ent Draught can be played since Derndingle Warrior fulfills the play restriction. Vigilant Guard is an in sphere option. Hauberk of Mail also gives Derndingle an a bonus defense as well as a hit point. Spare Pipe doesn’t do as much for the Derndingle with it’s 1 hit point but the event it fetches might help the overall deck performance.

Ally Readying

There are a couple Ent speicific options as seen earlier with ally Treebeard if he has 2 resources although often it is better to just ready Treebeard himself. Boom and Trumpted also works although there might be better targets for the +3 attack. Narya requires the play to use Gandalf or Cirdan, but offers the most synergy because not only will it ready Derndingle but boost its defense at the same time.

While he can’t have restricted attachments, there is Valiant Determination and Spare Hood and Cloak that can let him both quest and attack. Valiant Determination is the best of these as it will ensure he can do both every turn although probably not worth it for 1 willpower. Leadership Faramir hero is another way to potentially get the most use of him although it will be dependent on engaging an enemy every turn. Leadership introduced ally readying with Every Vigilant and Grim Resolve in the Core set. Ever Vigilant is a good way to ready the Warrior and get multiple defenses. Grim Resolve’s and The Free Peoples’ global readying is more aimed at turning the tide of a game to make a big quest push and then try to hold the line in combat.

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 Derndingle Warrior at 3 rings. It is a very affordable ally at 2 cost. The defense stat of 2 and 3 hit points make it a decent defending ally at that cost. It’s ability helps it rival the defensive staples Winged Guardian and Defender of Rammas. The drawback of it entering play exhausted combined with it needing to take damage for the defense bonus means sometimes it isn’t the best solution. That one turn delay can mean the difference in having to take an undefended attack or not. It can’t siege quest like Defender of Rammas and Winged Guardian since it has to defend for the defense bonus. Still it works well and can splash in many decks with Tactics.

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

External Links

• Tolkien Gateway
• Hall of Beorn
• Ringsdb

Sample Decks