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- Core and Revised Core Set
The most basic of allies.
Background
Guarding the citadel and the White Tree was the highest honor and duty to the guards in Minas Tirith. They couldn’t leave their posts for any reason except if commanded by their lord. They could wear Elendil’s livery of the White Tree with a silver crown and stars on a field of black. They also wore mithril helms with wings of sea birds. The flavor text comes from The Council of Elrond. It is near the closing of Elrond’s recounting of The One Ring’s history and the aftermath of the Last Alliance.
Card Theme
The theme here is all in the name and traits since there are no mechanisms other than its stats.
Card Synergies and Interactions
Gondor Global Stat Boosts
The Core Set alongside this ally introduced the first Gondor global stat boost with For Gondor!. It worked to give each a character + 1 attack. It also gave Gondor characters +1 defense. The enemies in the core set often had 2 attack and the defense could save the Guard assuming there was no shadow effect. Faramir doesn’t just provide his bonus willpower to Gondor characters, but he is Gondor traited. Simliarly, Sword that was Broken thematically should be Gondor related as the sword of High King Elendil although the boost is given to all characters.
Then the Against the Shadow cycle introduced more Gondor centric cards. Leadership Boromir hero gave all Gondor allies +1 attack as long as he had a resource in his resource pool. Then much later in the cycle, Visionary Leadership could give all Gondor allies an extra willpower.
The Outlands, representing the southern fiefs of Gondor, provide global boosts to other Outlands characters. Sword of Morthond allows a Gondor ally to gain the benefit of these global bonuses as well.
Gondor Swarm
The global boosts available to Gondor are better the more allies they can get into play. Fortunately, the trait has many cheap allies like Guard of the Citadel. Some even help find or put additional allies into play like Soldier of Gondor and Herald of Anorien. Soldier of Dol Amroth can make Tactics Gondor allies cheaper. Pelargir Ship Captain, Envoy of Pelargri, and Errand Rider can help smooth resources for more allies in addition to being more cheap allies. Squire of the Citadel has one of the cheapest printed costs and Citadel Custodian can become free with enough Gondor allies in play.
Ally Attachments
Gondor doesn’t get any specific bonuses for attachments on allies like Dale. Guard of the Citadel does have a very useful trait to get ally attachments, Warrior. There are several that can increase the Guard’s combat ability with bonus attack, defense, and hit points. Bonus willpower is hard to come by with only Wild Stallion as an option.
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 Guard of the Citadel at 7 rings. I view the Guard as the Grizzly Bears of LOTR LCG. For those that haven’t played Magic the Gathering, Grizzly Bears is the epitome of a vanilla creature. It costs 2 for 2 attack and 2 defense/hit points. Nothing really bad about it other than it lacks any abilities. Great for a beginner deck. Guard of the Citadel fills the same role. It is a low complexity ally that is cheap and good enough. Later on as people build out their card pools, there’s usually not much reason to pull out Guard of the Citadel as there are many other 2 cost Gondor allies with the same or better stats and an ability.
- Dave –
- Grant –
- Ted –
- Matt – 7
External Links
Sample Decks
The Armies of Gondor by Gizlivadi
Mono Leadership Gondor Swarm
Main Deck
Hero (3)
Aragorn (Core Set)
Boromir (Heirs of Númenor)
Denethor (Flight of the Stormcaller)
Ally (27)
3x Envoy of Pelargir (Heirs of Númenor)
3x Errand-rider (Heirs of Númenor)
2x Faramir (Core Set)
2x Galadriel (The Road Darkens)
3x Gandalf (Core Set)
2x Guard of the Citadel (Core Set)
3x Herald of Anórien (Trouble in Tharbad)
1x Ingold (The Wastes of Eriador)
3x Squire of the Citadel (The Blood of Gondor)
3x Veteran of Osgiliath (Escape from Mount Gram)
2x White Tower Watchman (The Drúadan Forest)
Attachment (16)
2x Celebrían’s Stone (Core Set)
2x Heir of Mardil (Celebrimbor’s Secret)
3x Rod of the Steward (Flight of the Stormcaller)
3x Steward of Gondor (Core Set)
2x Sword that was Broken (The Watcher in the Water)
1x Tome of Atanatar (The Blood of Gondor)
3x Visionary Leadership (The Morgul Vale)
Event (8)
3x A Very Good Tale (Over Hill and Under Hill)
2x Sneak Attack (Core Set)
3x Strength of Arms (The Drúadan Forest)
3 Heroes, 51 Cards
Cards up to Flight of the Stormcaller
Decklist built and published on RingsDB.
Card Talk: A LOTR LCG Podcast and Blog 