Dúnedain Message

Basically an extra copy of a side quest.

Background

The flavor text comes from The Council of Elrond chapter in The Fellowship of the Ring. More specifically when Gandalf is telling of how he came to suspect and eventually know Bilbo’s magic ring was The One Ring. He was relating when he first started to wonder, he notice many spies around the Shire. He then asked the Dunedain for help and they increased their watch over The Shire.

Card Theme

Many cards that draw additional cards or search for a particular card are associated with knowledge. Particularly in the form of the spoken or written word. Dunedain keeping watch over The Shire and the surrounding areas would have considerable knowledge of it and the happenings there. A message from them would contain intelligence especially considering the added context of Gandalf asking them to watch The Shire for him from the flavor text.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Side Quests

Side Quest Bonus

Weather Hills Watchman

Quest Specific

Running player side quests is very scenario dependent. Some scenarios purposely get harder the longer players take to complete them.

• The Ringmaker cycle with the Time mechanism is the prime example. Every few turns, an encounter card will trigger a nasty effect the player(s) will have to deal with or survive.
• Journey in the Dark from the LOTR Saga players gives players only so many turns before the Balrog arrives.
• The first stage in the Over the Misty Mountains Grim, has very strong and tough Giant enemies and bouncing boulders that are are hero killers. It is best in that quest to hurry to the second stage.
• Flight of the Stormcaller and Race Across Harad, the players are chasing the enemies and being chased, respectively. Delays in questing means letting the enemies escape or catch up and it is game over.
• Deadman’s Dike and Under the Ash Mountains the scenario is trying to mine the player(s) deck(s). Each turn whittles away a little more at the deck. If deck(s) run out, it is game over.

On the flip side, there are quests where it is helpful to not advance too quickly or even stay on a particular stage for awhile.

• Journey Along the Anduin in the Core Set, staying on stage 1 even after defeating the Hill Troll is a good idea. Stage 2 forces the players to reveal an additional encounter card so questing through it quickly to avoid location lock or having too many enemies is ideal. Then the last stage could introduce up to 4 enemies in true solo for a player to fight. Both of these stages are much easier with a large board of allies.
• Conflict at the Carrock and We Must Away ‘Ere Break of Day it helps to stall on Stage 1. Once the player(s) have a strong board state, then advance to Stage 2 to take on the strong trolls that ambush them.
• There are quests with no quest points like The Steward’s Fear or The Morgul Vale because advancing the quest is dependent some other trigger. In those scenarios a player might as well quest against a side quest and get a benefit beside not just raising their threat.

These are by no means exhaustive lists. The Vision of the Palantir’s scenario analyses, however, indicate at the start of each if a quest is good to use side quests in or not.

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 Dunedain Message at 8 rings. There is some utility to the card considering that the side quests from the Angmar Awakened cycle are limited to one copy per deck. The card can act like an additional copy of a side quest to increase the chances of finding it. Unfortunately, it is in Leadership which doesn’t have many side quest centric cards. Lore has more of the side quest bonus cards including Thurindir that can search for a side quest at set up anyway. On top of that, Lore has more card search cards like Word of Command and Heed the Dream that can find side quests or whatever card a player needs. Dunedain Message just is a very limited use case card that is easily overshadowed by better alternatives.

• Dave – 9
• Grant – TBR
• Ted – 8
• Matt – 8

External Links

• Hall of Beorn
• Ringsdb

Sample Decks