Category: Equipping

• Card Talk Season 4 Episode 35
  • Audio episode
• Cycle
  • Shadows of Mirkwood
• Set
  • Return to Mirkwood  
• Player Card Categories 
  • Attack Bonus
  • Defense Bonus
  • Equipping
  • Leaves Play

The capstone card of the Eagles cards released in the first cycle of the game. While 4 resources can be a big investment in LOTR LCG, this is one is very much worth it.

Background

The Eagles of the Misty Mountains were descendants of the Great Eagles, servants of Manwe in the First and Second Ages. They came to the aid of Gandalf, Bilbo, and Thorin’s Company when trapped in trees after escaping from dungeons dim and caverns deep pursued by goblins and wargs. They also aided the men, elves, dwarves in the Battle of Five Armies turning the tide along with the arrival of Beorn. In the Lord of the Rings, their involvement is more off-screen as Gandalf later relates to Frodo his rescue from Orthanc by Gwaihir . Then again, Galadriel sends Gwaihir to retrieve Gandalf from the top of Celebdil after his battle with the Balrog. They join the Battle of the Morannon as Aragorn leads the armies of the West against Sauron as a distraction for Frodo. Most notably Gwaihir, Meneldor, and Landroval fly to Mount Doom after The One Ring’s destruction to save Frodo and Sam.

Card Theme

This card is incredibly thematic. You can easily imagine a Vassel of the Winglord swooping down from sky to attack an orc and then flying back up to rejoin the convocation. This card represents that as those Eagle allies with discard effects getting attached to it making the whole convocation stronger.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Other Eagle Allies

Put Ally into Play & Resource Acceleration

The Eagles allies that discard themselves tend to be the cheaper ones that can get into play early. Eagles of the Misty Mountains at 4 cost are difficult to play early in the game before discarding any other Eagle allies. Having any effects that can put allies into play or accelerate your resources to play them helps the Eagles build up more attachments quickly.

Top among put into play effects is Vilya which for the cost of exhausting Elrond can put the top card of a deck into play. The classic ally mustering card, A Very Good Tale could be difficult to get an Eagles of the Misty Mountains with only the cheaper Eagle allies. A little trick is to an ally put into play via Gwaihir’s Debt, Sneak Attack, or Horns! Horns! Horns! Meneldor, Descendent of Thorondor, or Gandalf core set ally are good ones to use for triggering their enter and leave play effects along with higher costs.

For decks with a lot of questing power, Elf-Stone and the side quest Send for Aid are good options for getting the Eagles of the Misty Mountains in play. Hirgon is another popular resource acceleration choice. He can reduce the cost by 1 when the player quests successfully. He has additional combat synergy since the ability has the option to add 1 attack and defense when played with his ability at the cost of 1 threat.

Low threat Tactics heroes like Merry, Éowyn, Na’asiyah, and Tom Cotton or Messenger of the King and Grey Wanderer contracts can also allow for 2 great options in Secrecy. Resourceful can provide amazing value over the course of a game providing an extra resource for the Secrecy cost discounted cost of 1. Timely Aid will search the top 5 cards for an ally to put into play also for the low, low 1 cost. It’s not necessarily a reliable means for getting Eagles of the Misty Mountains into play without some player deck manipulation like Imladris Stargazer’s rearranging the top 5 cards or swapping the top card with Wizard Pipe. One advantage for Timely Aid is that there are a few other expensive Eagle allies that it can help with. Also it could put one other ally that will help play Eagles.

The much maligned Radagast ally offers creature specific resource acceleration. His cost of 5 is more prohibitive then Resourceful played out of Secrecy. If put into play with Timely Aid, Elf-Stone, A Very Good Tale, etc. then it still provides a good value. Additionally, you an make use of his staff to lower the cost of the Eagles to 2. Wizard Pipe can also be put on him to set up Eagles for a second Timely Aid. Of course, you can always run his hero version which provides access to Word of Command to find the staff or Eagles to help get them out sooner than later.

Ally Readying

Ally readying effects let you get more use out of their solid base stats or hopefully their built up attack and defense. Radagast’s Staff offers this effect along with the cost discount to play the Eagles. Also in hero specific attachments, Narya can ready them and boost their combat stats further. Ever Vigilant is the base ally readying event from the core set. Spare Hood and Cloak is cheap option for a single ready if there is another ally that isn’t needed or used often. Long Lake Trader could always move Spare Hood and Cloak back to an available character. Leadership Faramir hero‘s ability to ready an ally on engagement isn’t as useful as the others since it means the readying will only help to use Eagles to quest or defend an immediate attack prior to step 5. Their 2 willpower is still good for questing and there are some scenarios where enemies can attack when revealed. It is just not as flexible as the others.

Support of the Eagles

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Before Gondorian Fire and Blood of Numenor, there was Support of the Eagles. This is the other way to take advantage of an Eagles of the Misty Mountains with several attachments. It synergized incredibly well with pre-errata Tactics Boromir because he could ready multiple times during combat. In modern decks, it has found a new preferred target, Gwaihir hero. Gwaihir readies as any Eagle leaves play that can be attached to Eagles of the Misty Mountains allowing Gwaihir to take advantage of that stat boost immediately.

Grappling Hook

This card can let you leverage the Eagles attack stat for questing outside of a Battle quest. It could easily provide a mid to late game questing push to get through at particularly bad stage or rush to the end. The Haradrim cycle has a couple quests where it can be important to push through a stage quickly. Race for Harad in particular is one where having the option to convert strong attack into a questing boost at the end before the orcs catch up can be very valuable.

Quest Specific

The Eagles of the Misty Mountains can be very helpful in quests with the Battle and Siege keywords. Quests with those keywords have characters quest with their attack and defense stats. These are featured in all three of the Heirs of Numenor quests. They’re also good to use in Battle of the Five Armies aside from thematic reasons as Battle and Siege show up in that quest as well.

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 3 rings. The Eagles have stats comparable to a 9-10 threat hero and they can get better if you are running other allies with the eagle trait. I’ve found their 2 willpower to be very useful in willpower poor mono-Tactics. It also just very fun to get them into play early and start building up them up into a massive attacker or defender. The main drawback is the high cost especially as you want to play them as early as possible to avoid wasting a discarded or destroyed eagle ally. The high cost, however, is well justified considering what they bring to the table. There are also more 4 costs allies in Tactics that are better, Legolas, or just as good as the Eagles. While I don’t consider them a staple Tactics ally anymore, they’re still a really good value for the cost and only get better the more eagles in the deck.

• Dave – 5
• Grant – 4
• Ted – 3
• Matt – 3
• Average – 3.75

External Links

• Tolkien Gateway
• Hall of Beorn
• Ringsdb

Sample Decks