Category: Readying

Sam Gamgee (Leadership Hero)

Matt Kell (kattattack22)Leave a comment
  • Player Card Categories
    • Willpower Bonus
    • Attack Bonus
    • Defense Bonus
    • Readying
    • Surprise

Don’t be fooled, he’s no simple gardener.

Background

Sam is a gardener at Bag End, where he meets Bilbo Baggins and learns about the greater wonders of the world. Sam becomes Frodo’s companion on his journey to destroy the One Ring, after eavesdropping on Frodo and Gandalf’s conversation about the ring’s true nature. Sam joins the fellowship and insists on bringing his pony, Bill, along. He saves Frodo’s life from the Watcher in the Water. After the Breaking of the Fellowship, Sam is the only member to journey with Frodo and Gollum to Mordor. When Gollum betrayed the Hobbits to Shelob, Sam took up Sting and fought off the giant spider. Then he went on to rescue Frodo from the Tower of Cirith Ungol and return The One ring to Frodo’s care. The two disguised as orc made their way to the slopes of Mount Doom. Sam watched in dismay as Frodo claimed the Ring as his own, and then as Gollum claimed Frodo’s ring finger taking the Ring with it. After the Gollum and the Ring’s destruction in the fires of Mount Doom, the Eagles came and rescued both Sam and Frodo. They were hailed as heroes by the newly crowned King Elessar of Gondor.

Card Theme

Sam despite being a simple gardener that had never left the Shire persevered over great odds in the quest to destroy The Ruling Ring. This demonstrates his strength of will. The readying and combat bonuses fit with Sam finding hidden reservoirs of strength when needed such as his fight with Shelob. The also game represents the Hobbits affinity for stealth with various bonuses for engaging enemies with higher engagement cost than their threat. This can easily be construed as the advantage they get from the element of surprise.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Stat Boosts

Sam’s built-in readying along with the availability of Fast Hitch, and other readying effects like Armored Destrier make stat boosts very effective on him. His ability already can make him a 4/2/2 hero for the entire round. Dunedain Warning and Mark are good in sphere options to boost his combat effectiveness after engaging an enemy with engagement cost higher than a player’s threat.

Hobbits also many trait specific boosts or ones that use the same Hobbit Surprise mechanism. Hobbit Cloak in sphere with Sam is both that can turn Sam into a Beregond level defender. Dagger of Westernesse while not limited to Hobbits does use their surprise for an additional attack bonus. Rosie in particular is a minimum +2 boost to whichever stat Sam needs. Let’s not forget Sam’s beloved Bill who not only gives all Hobbits a hit point but is free with Sam in play.

Then there are a few cards that can boost all the basic stats (except hit points) like Sting, Halfling Determination, and Friend of Friends. These are great the more readying Sam has to each bolstered stat in a single round.

Sam being a Leadership hero means he has access to Steward of Gondor. This also makes Sam eligible for two of the biggest combat boosts, Blood of Numenor and Gondorian Fire. Even activating both each round will net a +1 bonus from Steward’s additional resources. The Red Book of Westmarch can accelerate this further.

Engagement Control

Sam’s ability is a response to engaging an enemy with higher engagement cost. Normally, the only opportunity for this is Optional Engagement during step 5.2. This usually is fine to utilize Sam’s now 2 attack or defense during combat since it lasts until the end of the round. Ideally, a player would engage an enemy during the quest phase to get the additional willpower and still have Sam ready with higher attack and defense for combat. Not to mention it will lower the threat in the staging area. Westfold Outrider‘s has an action that can force an engagement during the quest phase but at the cost of discarding it. Son of Arnor, Mablung, and Lore Faramir ally when put into play can also force an enemy engagement. Sneak Attack, Reinforcements, or Horns! Horns! Horns! are necessary to put them into play during the quest phase.

Secrecy

Hobbits are all fairly low threat heroes making starting at 20 or less threat for Secrecy viable. Sam provides Leadership access for one of the key acceleration cards in Secrecy, Timely Aid. The other, Resourceful, is neutral and can be included with the other Leadership Secrecy cards. Swift and Silent can ready a hero and get itself back if threat is 20 or less. The other two, Rivendell Scout and Dunedain Wanderer mostly are stats for a good value if played for the Secrecy cost.

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 Sam at 3 rings. His 3 willpower combined with his ability tend to make him into a dual questing and defending hero in a Hobbit deck. Granted he needs a little set up to be a good defender. Fortunately Leadership has plenty of defense boosts including the Hobbit Cloak that can get his defense to 4 depending on the enemy’s engagement cost. Outside a Hobbit deck, he is a lower cost questing hero at worst. His ability may not trigger as often but 3 willpower is still good. He only has 3 hit points which is on the lower side for a hero. Still it is better than nearly all the Hobbit heroes.

I think Sam is good, but loses out as a general purpose questing hero to 4 willpower heroes particularly Eowyn. They’re very similar in threat cost and stat line to each other. Spirit Eowyn is 1 more threat cost and has 1 more willpower and easier to activate willpower bonus. Tactics Eowyn is 2 less threat cost with 1 more willpower and a very useful once per game ability. Later quests tend to require 6-7 willpower in the first couple of turns. It is much easier to manage that level with a 4 willpower hero than 3 willpower one. A single 2 willpower ally + 4 willpower hero and a player can quest well. Additionally the condition on his readying ability works well with other low threat heroes. Combined with heroes that have threat 10 or more, it won’t trigger much throughout the game. It makes him less useful in decks with high threat cost heroes or Bond of Friendship other than keeping starting threat from being too high. His 3 willpower means he’s fine outside Hobbits and Secrecy, but he really shines in those decks.

  • Dave – 1
  • Grant – 1
  • Ted – TBR
  • Matt – 3
  • Average = 1.67

External Links

Sample Decks

Tom Cotton for the Win! by Dave Walsh

Dave’s version of a “true hobbit deck.” One where most of the allies are hobbits.

Tom Cotton for the Win!

Main Deck

Hero (3)
Bilbo Baggins (The Hunt for Gollum)
Sam Gamgee (The Black Riders)
Tom Cotton (The Mountain of Fire)

Ally (23)
2x Bill the Pony (The Black Riders)
3x Bywater Shirriff (The Fate of Wilderland)
3x Cautious Halfling (Wrath and Ruin)
1x Farmer Maggot (The Black Riders)
3x Gaffer Gamgee (Mount Gundabad)
3x Gandalf (Core Set)
2x Pippin (A Shadow in the East)
3x Rosie Cotton (The Mountain of Fire)
3x Warden of Healing (The Long Dark)

Attachment (18)
2x Dagger of Westernesse (The Black Riders)
3x Fast Hitch (The Dead Marshes)
3x Forest Snare (Core Set)
3x Friend of Friends (The Mountain of Fire)
2x Hobbit Cloak (The Black Riders)
1x Protector of Lórien (Core Set)
1x Ring Mail (The Long Dark)
1x Song of Hope (The Black Serpent)
2x Steward of Gondor (Core Set)

Event (12)
3x Daeron’s Runes (Foundations of Stone)
3x Drinking Song (Mount Gundabad)
3x Sneak Attack (Core Set)
3x The Shirefolk (Mount Gundabad)

3 Heroes, 53 Cards
Cards up to Wrath and Ruin

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

The Secret Life of Eagles by Stoved86

This deck focuses on 3 important aspects: Eagles, Hobbits, and Secrecy.

Tom Cotton for the Win!

Main Deck

Hero (3)
Bilbo Baggins (The Hunt for Gollum)
Sam Gamgee (The Black Riders)
Tom Cotton (The Mountain of Fire)

Ally (23)
2x Bill the Pony (The Black Riders)
3x Bywater Shirriff (The Fate of Wilderland)
3x Cautious Halfling (Wrath and Ruin)
1x Farmer Maggot (The Black Riders)
3x Gaffer Gamgee (Mount Gundabad)
3x Gandalf (Core Set)
2x Pippin (A Shadow in the East)
3x Rosie Cotton (The Mountain of Fire)
3x Warden of Healing (The Long Dark)

Attachment (18)
2x Dagger of Westernesse (The Black Riders)
3x Fast Hitch (The Dead Marshes)
3x Forest Snare (Core Set)
3x Friend of Friends (The Mountain of Fire)
2x Hobbit Cloak (The Black Riders)
1x Protector of Lórien (Core Set)
1x Ring Mail (The Long Dark)
1x Song of Hope (The Black Serpent)
2x Steward of Gondor (Core Set)

Event (12)
3x Daeron’s Runes (Foundations of Stone)
3x Drinking Song (Mount Gundabad)
3x Sneak Attack (Core Set)
3x The Shirefolk (Mount Gundabad)

3 Heroes, 53 Cards
Cards up to Wrath and Ruin

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Boromir (Tactics Hero)

Matt Kell (kattattack22)Leave a comment

Pre-Errata

The top tier 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

The pre-errata Boromir hero card reflected his combat capabilities from the book very well. He slew many of the orcs that had Merry and Pippin surrounded when they had been out searching for Frodo at the breaking of the Fellowship. Then at least 20 more before another host overpowered him to take the Hobbits. The pre-errata version could ready as much as the player had threat available to attack every enemy and if that wasn’t enough then discard him to finish off the enemies.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Stat Boosts

Boromir’s built-in readying means that every stat boost can be utilized more. His strong attack and decent defense put him disposed to combat. Fortunately, the Tactics sphere has most of the weapon and armor attachments that can maximize his combat potential. In particular, Gondorian Shield a defensive staple boosts his defense to 4 putting him on par with the Beregond that has the highest printed defense. Raiment of War and Captain of Gondor work well to boost both his attack and defense. Blade of Gondolin grants a conditional attack boost, but more importantly it turns his combat ability into a way to help quest by placing progress for each enemy defeated. While not in sphere, Valiant Sword and Shining Shield synergize with the drawback of his ability since they each provide a +2 bonus once at a player’s threat is 40 or higher.

Support of the Eagles + Eagle allies is an older more expensive way to boost Boromir’s combat ability. It still can be quite effective. Eagles of the Misty Mountains with a few facedown attachments maximizes the boost, but even Vassal of the Windlord‘s 3 attack or Winged Guardian‘s 4 defense are huge for Boromir.

The zenith of his combat ability is achieved not with weapons or armor attachments, but two tied his Numenorian ancestry often referred to simply as “Blood and Fire”. Blood of Numenor and Gondorian Fire will boost defense or attack, respectively, by the amount of resources on the hero at the cost of 1. A few turns building up with Steward of Gondor and gaining 3+ to either stat is easily achievable.

The errata limiting Boromir’s readying to once per phase made willpower boosts on Boromir more worthwhile. Tactics doesn’t have many ways to boost willpower although Tactics Theoden hero and The Red Arrow give a couple options. Grappling Hook is generally going to be the better option for Boromir to contribute to the quest since even without any boosts, it turns his 3 attack into 3 willpower. Leadership offers more options with Celebrian’s Stone, Dunedain Quest, and Visionary Leadership. Spirit has The Favor of the Lady, Windfola, and Silver Circlet although the later two requires Boromir to gain the Spirit icon first.

The One Ring and the Master trait attachments provide a quick way to boost Boromir’s stats because each gives +1 to a stat and a player gets to fetch Master trait card during setup and there. Strength and Courage’s response doesn’t work that well with his readying since it only affects 1 attack. Inner Strength’s is likely the most useful to Boromir since it puts his defense on par with the likes of Erkenbrand and Grimbeorn plus can cancel a shadow. Power of Command provides a willpower boost but the response will depend on the number of unique characters in the deck. There are a couple downsides to playing these with Boromir, and that is the reduced elimination level and they also increase threat. It can easily become too much threat too quickly.

Forth, The Three Hunters Contract

This contract really enables a “voltron” Boromir build to maximize his readying. It requires each hero have 2 restricted attachments in order to flip to side B. Once on side B, each hero gets +1 willpower for each restricted attachment. The Most restricted attachments are weapons and armor that Boromir wants already to improve his attack and defense. The even contract increases the restricted attachment limit from 2 to 3. This can get Boromir up to 3 or 4 willpower pretty easily while also improving his combat effectiveness. It will also provide repeatable healing which is handy since Boromir isn’t the best defender without some set up.

Threat Reduction

Threat reduction is key to using Boromir’s readying as much as possible in game. Tactics only has 1 option in sphere with Secret Vigil that is conditional on the enemy it can be played on. The good news is Boromir won’t have trouble destroying the enemy to trigger the threat reduction. There are two solid neutral cards for threat reduction, Core Set Gandalf and Favor of the Valar. Lore Aragorn hero offers the largest potential threat reduction. A Boromir player could get all the way to 49 and reset back to their starting threat. Spirit offers the staple Galadhrim’s Greeting. More notably Spirit has heroes that can reduce threat every turn. Beregond and Fastred can do so by defending. Merry just needs an enemy revealed during staging. There is one more that is a twofer in a Boromir deck.

Galadriel Hero

Galadriel can exhaust every round to reduce a player’s threat by 1. That is essentially a free ready on Boromir. Additionally she can boost Bormir’s willpower with her ring Nenya and some readying of her own.

Hero Revival

Normally losing a hero can set a player way back in a game. Boromir’s second ability is used rarely because of the lost resources of being down a hero. When used it usually is because the player would likely lose Boromir anyway or as a game finishing move in a scenario that requires all enemies to be defeated. The game does have Landroval, Fortune or Fate, and Houses of Healing that can bring Boromir back after using his second ability. They are all very expensive at 5 resources making it very difficult to build around using his direct damage multiple times in a game.

Quest Specific

The best quests to use Tactics Boromir in are quests with enemy swarms or start off with a lot of enemies in play. Seventh Level, Over the Misty Mountains Grim, and Fate of the Wilderland can easily see swarms of enemies coming out. Massing at Osgiliath starts off with 3 enemies in play per player. Boromir being able to defend and attack or attack twice right away can really help even the odds against those 3 enemies.

Scenarios to watch out for using him in are those with enemies that prevent readying or feature lots of Doomed or other effects that raise threat. The Haradrim cycle in particular has scorpion and spider enemies that can prevent a character from readying until the end of the round. Threat focused scenarios like Return to Mirkwood and Murder at the Prancing Pony are going to be tough for Boromir to use his readying. The Steward’s Fear, The Crossing of Poros, and The King’s Quest can possibly have a significant amount of raise threat effects. The Steward’s Fear depends on the plot revealed in Stage 3. The Crossing of Poros has a quest stage and encounter set that has a lot of threat but that might only be seen instead of a direct damage focused one. The King’s Quest it is at the player’s discretion to raise threat or add another location to the staging area. Temple of Doom and Fortress of Nurn can also feature lots of threat depending on the cards revealed from the Power of Mordor deck.

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 2 rings. The built-in readying and solid attack, defense, and hit points make him good at combat immediately. A couple boosts and he’s great. Blood of Numenor and Gondorion Fire with some resource acceleration and he’s amazing at combat. It’s also not that difficult to give him decent willpower so questing and using him in combat is worthwhile. Even post-errata it is still great considering there are some scenarios that have enemies that attack when a player engages them or make immediate attacks when revealed. Boromir can ready and help to defend them all. It is conceivable to use him in every phase of the game thanks to cards like Captain’s Wisdom and Quick Strike.

I mentioned Forth, The Three Hunters contract works really well with Boromir but really a few of them can work well with him. Fellowship gives all nine unique characters in play +1 to every stat which Boromir’s readying can make great use of. Grey Wanderer let’s the player start at 11 threat providing lots of threat to use with Boromir’s ability. The contract even gives him another way to ready. Then on top of that Strider gives him a willpower boost and not exhausting to quest. Grey Wanderer Boromir then can ready at least twice during combat and doesn’t need to exhaust to quest. Plus, doesn’t need a resource match to play Blood of Numenor if it is the first card played. Not to mention he will start in Secrecy for Resourceful to fuel Blood and Fire. Council of the Wise offers repeatable threat reduction for just playing events. As mentioned before, Boromir already starts off with solid combat stats and doesn’t need much to get going and would fit right into an event heavy deck.

I’ve noticed in this game that veterans (myself included) will avoid certain powerful cards in the card pool. I do this to experiment with different deck builds and enjoy the variety of deck types out of there. Others likely have similar reasoning or may just want to preserve the challenge in the game. It could be they are disappointed he can’t endlessly ready anymore. No matter the reasoning, Boromir is still a very effective hero albeit straightforward one. I would rate him at 1 ring pre-errata since he could just effectively handle combat on his own. Post-errata he needs more to do everything in combat, but still can do a lot for the players even just readying once per phase.

  • Dave – 4 (originally 5)
  • Grant – 5
  • Ted – 4
  • Brandon – 1
  • Matt – 2
  • Average – 3.2

External Links

Sample Decks

Screw You Fate of the Wilderland by kattattack22

As the title says, I built this to handle Fate of the Wilderland. The plan is basically Eomer and Boromir quest primarily to avoid gaining too much threat. Boromir readies before combat. Grimbeorn defends and uses his response to hopefully kill the attacker. Boromir is back up defender or can hopefully finish off the enemy.

Main Deck

Hero (3)
Boromir (The Dead Marshes)
Éomer (The Mountain of Fire)
Grimbeorn the Old (The Withered Heath)

Contract (0)
1x Forth, The Three Hunters! (The City of Ulfast)

Attachment (44)
3x Armored Destrier (Temple of the Deceived)
3x Dagger of Westernesse (The Black Riders)
3x Firefoot (The Dunland Trap)
3x Golden Belt (Challenge of the Wainriders)
3x Gondorian Shield (The Steward’s Fear)
2x Hauberk of Mail (The Wilds of Rhovanion)
3x Raiment of War (The Thing in the Depths)
3x Rohan Warhorse (The Voice of Isengard)
3x Round Shield (Mount Gundabad)
3x Secret Vigil (The Lost Realm)
3x Shining Shield (The Fortress of Nurn)
3x Spear of the Mark (The Morgul Vale)
3x Valiant Sword (Under the Ash Mountains)
3x War Axe (The City of Ulfast)
3x Warrior Sword (The Ghost of Framsburg)

Event (6)
3x Foe-hammer (Over Hill and Under Hill)
3x Open the Armory (The Dungeons of Cirith Gurat)

3 Heroes, 50 Cards
Cards up to The Fortress of Nurn

Sideboard

Event (3)
3x Sterner than Steel (The Flame of the West)

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Optimus Prime… SUPER MODE! by BeestThouNotInHaste

Gondor is strong, but the might of Gondor wanes, and even under the leadership of the great Optimus Prime (Boromir), his meager 2 and 3 are not enough to stand up to the forces of evil. Fortunately for his troops, Boromir has a secret weapon he can use to face the darkness: he can invoke the power of the Matrix Of Combination (Support of the Eagles) to combine with his trailer (Eagles of the Misty Mountains) to enter into…

Optimus Prime… Super Mode!

Main Deck

Hero (3)
Boromir (The Dead Marshes)
Galadriel (Celebrimbor’s Secret)
Mablung (The Nîn-in-Eilph)

Ally (23)
3x Descendant of Thorondor (The Hills of Emyn Muil)
3x Eagles of the Misty Mountains (Return to Mirkwood)
3x Galadriel’s Handmaiden (Celebrimbor’s Secret)
2x Gandalf (Core Set)
2x Gwaihir (Trouble in Tharbad)
3x Vassal of the Windlord (The Dead Marshes)
2x Westfold Horse-breeder (The Voice of Isengard)
2x Westfold Outrider (The Voice of Isengard)
3x Winged Guardian (The Hunt for Gollum)

Attachment (18)
3x Ancient Mathom (A Journey to Rhosgobel)
2x Born Aloft (Conflict at the Carrock)
2x Mirror of Galadriel (Celebrimbor’s Secret)
3x Nenya (Celebrimbor’s Secret)
2x Power in the Earth (Core Set)
2x Rohan Warhorse (The Voice of Isengard)
3x Support of the Eagles (Return to Mirkwood)
1x Unexpected Courage (Core Set)

Event (9)
2x A Test of Will (Core Set)
2x Feint (Core Set)
3x The Eagles Are Coming! (The Hunt for Gollum)
2x The Galadhrim’s Greeting (Core Set)

3 Heroes, 50 Cards
Cards up to Celebrimbor’s Secret

Sideboard

Event (2)
2x Power of Orthanc (The Voice of Isengard)

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

The Very Wise Captain by Seastan

Play Song of Travel on Boromor. Then use Captain’s Wisdom, Steward of Gondor, and Leadership Denethor to give Boromir 8 resources turn 1 for Blood and Fire.

Main Deck

Hero (3)
Boromir (The Dead Marshes)
Denethor (Flight of the Stormcaller)
Erestor (The Treachery of Rhudaur)

Ally (10)
2x Anfalas Herdsman (The Steward’s Fear)
2x Arwen Undómiel (The Watcher in the Water)
3x Envoy of Pelargir (Heirs of Númenor)
3x Ethir Swordsman (The Steward’s Fear)

Attachment (16)
2x Blood of Númenor (Heirs of Númenor)
3x Gondorian Fire (Assault on Osgiliath)
3x Gondorian Shield (The Steward’s Fear)
2x Silver Harp (The Treachery of Rhudaur)
3x Song of Travel (The Hills of Emyn Muil)
3x Steward of Gondor (Core Set)

Event (24)
3x A Test of Will (Core Set)
3x Captain’s Wisdom (The Thing in the Depths)
3x Daeron’s Runes (Foundations of Stone)
3x Elrond’s Counsel (The Watcher in the Water)
3x Gaining Strength (The Steward’s Fear)
3x The Galadhrim’s Greeting (Core Set)
3x Wealth of Gondor (Heirs of Númenor)
3x Will of the West (Core Set)

3 Heroes, 50 Cards
Cards up to The Thing in the Depths

Sideboard

Ally (3)
3x Galadriel’s Handmaiden (Celebrimbor’s Secret)

Attachment (6)
3x Dúnedain Cache (The Dead Marshes)
3x Favor of the Valar (The Battle of Carn Dûm)

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Boromir (Ally)

Matt Kell (kattattack22)Leave a comment
  • Player Card Categories
    • Defense Bonus
    • Readying
    • Surprise
    • Messenger of the King

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

Boromir’s defense bonus works more consistently the lower the initial threat cost of your heroes. Thematically, Hobbit heroes comprise a large portion of the heroes with with 7 threat cost or less. Although there are many other options like Spirit Glorfindel, Mirlonde, Smeagol, and Tactics Eowyn that also have a threat cost of 7 or less. If expanded to 8 many more options become available like both versions of Denethor although 3 heroes at 8 threat get close to 25 engagement cost which is one of the more common enemy engagement costs. Messenger of the King further expands the roster to unique allies with useful abilities but not many stats like Ioreth and Gleowine. Another option to start with low threat to increase the consistency of the defense bonus is to use only 1 hero with The Grey Wanderer contract.

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.

Sword of Morthond can indirectly increase any of Boromir’s stats. It really just depends on how many of the Outlands allies are included along with Boromir.

Hirgon and Tactics Imrahil

Boromir’s 4 cost is expensive especially in a sphere with few resource acceleration options. Hirgon offers a way to discount Boromir with the added bonus of boosting his combat stats. The built-in readying of Boromir can really leverage the boost. Tactics Imrahil also can possibly find and put Boromir into play for a turn. Normally shuffling the ally back into the deck is a full on downside. There is a bit of benefit to it for Boromir ally since all damage is removed. A player could potentially get 2 or 3 readies in Boromir and then basically fully heal him by putting him back into the deck.

Messenger of the King

Messenger of the King opens up many more attachment options and offers a slightly lower threat cost at 9 compared to 11 of the regular hero version. Top among of them in power is Gondorian Fire and Blood of Numenor. They each have a player spend a resource for bonus attack or defense equal the resources on the hero. This was a mainstay of pre-errata Tactics Boromir hero that had no limit on his readying. Specifically for this version, Citadel Plates for many more hit points along with Well Preserved and The One Ring for full healing each turn can really turn him into a defending and readying machine.

Damage Cancelation

Damage cancelation is a bit of nonbo or combo that doesn’t work. As mentioned earlier, abilities like hero Treebeard that say take damage for an effect, damage is considered the cost. If the character doesn’t take the damage, then the cost isn’t payed and the effect doesn’t happen. This doesn’t mean they can’t help if Boromir would take more than 1 damage, but players have to be careful to not cancel all the damage.

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

Sample Decks

The Return of the King by AJ_800

Messenger of the King Boromir ally deck leveraging Vigilant Guard + Treebeard hero to ready Boromir several times a turn.

Main Deck

Hero (3)
(MotK) Boromir (Messenger of the King Allies)
Glorfindel (Foundations of Stone)
Treebeard (The Treason of Saruman)

Contract (0)
1x Messenger of the King (The Land of Sorrow)

Ally (15)
2x Boromir (The Road Darkens)
3x Envoy of Pelargir (Heirs of Númenor)
3x Firyal (The Mûmakil)
3x Gandalf (Core Set)
1x Ioreth (A Storm on Cobas Haven)
3x Wellinghall Preserver (Across the Ettenmoors)

Attachment (20)
2x Asfaloth (Foundations of Stone)
3x Elf-stone (The Black Riders)
3x Ent Draught (The Treason of Saruman)
3x Gondorian Shield (The Steward’s Fear)
3x Light of Valinor (Foundations of Stone)
1x Strength and Courage (The City of Ulfast)
1x The One Ring (A Shadow in the East)
3x Vigilant Guard (A Storm on Cobas Haven)
1x Well Preserved (Under the Ash Mountains)

Event (15)
3x A Test of Will (Core Set)
3x Daeron’s Runes (Foundations of Stone)
3x Drinking Song (Mount Gundabad)
3x Dwarven Tomb (Core Set)
3x Elrond’s Counsel (The Watcher in the Water)

3 Heroes, 50 Cards
Cards up to The Land of Sorrow

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Main Deck

Hero (3)
(MotK) Boromir (Messenger of the King Allies)
Glorfindel (Foundations of Stone)
Treebeard (The Treason of Saruman)

Contract (0)
1x Messenger of the King (The Land of Sorrow)

Ally (15)
2x Boromir (The Road Darkens)
3x Envoy of Pelargir (Heirs of Númenor)
3x Firyal (The Mûmakil)
3x Gandalf (Core Set)
1x Ioreth (A Storm on Cobas Haven)
3x Wellinghall Preserver (Across the Ettenmoors)

Attachment (20)
2x Asfaloth (Foundations of Stone)
3x Elf-stone (The Black Riders)
3x Ent Draught (The Treason of Saruman)
3x Gondorian Shield (The Steward’s Fear)
3x Light of Valinor (Foundations of Stone)
1x Strength and Courage (The City of Ulfast)
1x The One Ring (A Shadow in the East)
3x Vigilant Guard (A Storm on Cobas Haven)
1x Well Preserved (Under the Ash Mountains)

Event (15)
3x A Test of Will (Core Set)
3x Daeron’s Runes (Foundations of Stone)
3x Drinking Song (Mount Gundabad)
3x Dwarven Tomb (Core Set)
3x Elrond’s Counsel (The Watcher in the Water)

3 Heroes, 50 Cards
Cards up to The Land of Sorrow

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Imrahil, Prince of Dol Amoth by carlosm88

Tactics Imrahil deck featuring the Outlands allies, Sword of Morthond, and Boromir ally.

Main Deck

Hero (3)
Denethor (Flight of the Stormcaller)
Hirluin the Fair (The Steward’s Fear)
Prince Imrahil (The City of Corsairs)

Ally (25)
3x Anfalas Herdsman (The Steward’s Fear)
2x Boromir (The Road Darkens)
3x Envoy of Pelargir (Heirs of Númenor)
3x Errand-rider (Heirs of Númenor)
3x Ethir Swordsman (The Steward’s Fear)
1x Forlong (The Drúadan Forest)
3x Hunter of Lamedon (Heirs of Númenor)
3x Knights of the Swan (The Steward’s Fear)
1x Legolas (The Treason of Saruman)
3x Warrior of Lossarnach (The Steward’s Fear)

Attachment (13)
2x Gondorian Shield (The Steward’s Fear)
2x Heir of Mardil (Celebrimbor’s Secret)
3x Prince of Dol Amroth (The City of Corsairs)
2x Rod of the Steward (Flight of the Stormcaller)
3x Steward of Gondor (Core Set)
1x Sword of Morthond (Assault on Osgiliath)

Event (11)
3x Man the Walls (The Ghost of Framsburg)
1x Men of the West (Assault on Osgiliath)
3x Valiant Sacrifice (Core Set)
3x We Are Not Idle (Shadow and Flame)
1x Wealth of Gondor (Heirs of Númenor)

Player Side Quest (1)
1x Gather Information (The Lost Realm)

3 Heroes, 50 Cards
Cards up to The Ghost of Framsburg

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Flame of Anor

Matt Kell (kattattack22)Leave a comment
  • Card Talk Season 5 Episode 51
    • Video episode
    • Audio episode
  • Cycle
    • Lord of the Rings Saga 
  • Set
    • The Road Darkens
  • Player Card Categories
    • Attack Bonus
    • Discarded from Deck
    • Readying

Highest attack boost from an event card, perfect for slaying Balrogs.

Background

Gandalf mentions the flame of Anor during his fight with Durin’s Bane.

I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor.

J. R. R. Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings The Fellowship of the Ring, Ch. 5, The Bridge of Khazad-dum

There are a couple theories as to what Gandalf is referring to here. He could be revealing he is the weilder of Narya with a flame red gem. The other is based Anor’s meaning in Sindarin which is Sun. Then it could be that he is wielding the light and fire of the sun.

Card Theme

The link between mechanism and theme on this one is going to rely a bit on the game LOTR is based one, Magic the Gathering. In Magic, a player’s deck is flavored as a library of spells their planeswalker knows. The cards in the players deck can similarly be considered knowledge as card draw effects are primarily in the Lore sphere. Flame of Anor represents Gandalf unleashing his knowledge of magic to attack.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Deck Manipulation

The magnitude of the attack boost is determined by the cost of the deck’s top card. There are a few ways to try and improve the bonus. Wizard Pipe can take any card in the player’s hand and put it on top. Imladris Stargazer can choose from any of the top 5 cards. Gandalf’s Search is much maligned for how costly it is for its effect, but it can rearrange any of the X top cards the player pays to see.

High Cost Cards

There are only 2 cards in the entire card pool that can maximize the attack boost, Brok Ironfist and Beorn. After the Core Set, there weren’t any other 6 cost cards designed. Brok generally isn’t worth the 6 cost and generally better to use with Flame of Anor. Beorn is a little more of a decision between using for the attack boost or playing. Beorn after all can attack for 8 with his ability. Although, 6 Tactics resources for 1 attack at 8 while Anor can do the same for 1 resource is more cost efficient.

There are over 30 more options at 5 cost that can also work. Many of them are powerful options for a large variety of decks. Examples include global readying from Grim Resolve and The Free Peoples, the variety of options offered by Keen as Lances, or hero revival from Houses of Healing. Additionally, many strong unique allies are also at 5 cost like the 3 Harad allies, Glorfindel, Gildor, both versions of Gandalf, and Radagast. The Over Hill and Under Hill Gandalf and Radagast allies not only can benefit from Flame of Anor’s effect, but it can discard additional copies that are no longer needed.

Dwarf Mining Bonus

There are a couple cards that give additional effects if discarded from a player’s deck. Ered Luin Miner is a great 2 for 1 since it will set Flame of Anor’s attack bonus to 3 and put the ally into play. Hidden Cache is a bit of a nonbo since it won’t give an attack bonus, but 2 resources can be great.

Quest Specific

Flame of Anor is great to include for Journey in the Dark and not just thematically. The Balrog’s 9 defense is difficult to overcome. It’s immunity to player card effects prevents any defense reduction effects like Rivendell Blade. Using Flame of Anor to boost Gandalf’s or Saruman’s attack with a 6 cost card can get any other attacking heroes or allies to damage it. It also can work well in the the original Balrog Fight scenario, Shadow and Flame. Basically any boss fight scenario is where Flame of Anor can get the most mileage. The list below has more possibilities:

  • Watcher in the Water
  • The Morgul Vale
  • The Three Trials
  • The Antlered Crown
  • Deadman’s Dike
  • Battle of Carn Dum
  • A Storm on Cobas Haven
  • The King’s Quest
  • Mount Gundabad

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 Flame of Anor at 7 rings. The main reason is the limited number of characters it works with. It has to target an Istari character of which there are 3 of in the game each with a hero and ally version. Gandalf’s 2 versions make that 7 possible targets, but 2 of the ally versions are only in play for a single round. Getting Flame of Anor to work with Core Set Gandalf of Saruman ally would take some luck or lots of card draw. Over Hill and Under Hill Gandalf ally or Radagast ally at least can stick around although Radagast ally’s attack is low at 1. The other inconsistency in the card is the reliance on the cost of the card being discarded from the deck. There are at least cards to set it up and make it more consistent. Wizard Pipe among them in particular works well with both Gandalf and Radagast heroes. Still it can be much to build around for a single event. A powerful event especially when a large attack boost is really needed. It just won’t make it into very many decks and be somewhat situational.

  • Dave – 6
  • Grant – TBR
  • Ted – 3
  • Matt – 7
  • Average – 5.33

External Links

Sample Decks

Desert Pilgrims by kattattack22

The original idea was to have Northern Trackers and Thror’s Key to negate the Forced effects on locations in Desert Crossing. They still can, but it’s not going to single-handedly win the scenario for you.

Main Deck

Hero (3)
(MotK) Firyal (Messenger of the King Allies)
Arwen Undómiel (The Dread Realm)
Gandalf (The Road Darkens)

Contract (0)
1x Messenger of the King (The Land of Sorrow)

Ally (10)
1x Bilbo Baggins (The Road Darkens)
1x Firyal (The Mûmakil)
1x Glorfindel (Flight of the Stormcaller)
1x Ioreth (A Storm on Cobas Haven)
3x Northern Tracker (Core Set)
3x Warden of Healing (The Long Dark)

Attachment (15)
3x Expert Treasure-hunter (On the Doorstep)
2x Gandalf’s Staff (The Road Darkens)
2x Lembas (Trouble in Tharbad)
1x Shadowfax (The Treason of Saruman)
3x Silver Circlet (Wrath and Ruin)
2x Thrór’s Key (On the Doorstep)
2x Wizard Pipe (The Road Darkens)

Event (26)
3x A Test of Will (Core Set)
3x Daeron’s Runes (Foundations of Stone)
3x Deep Knowledge (The Voice of Isengard)
3x Drinking Song (Mount Gundabad)
2x Dwarven Tomb (Core Set)
3x Elrond’s Counsel (The Watcher in the Water)
3x Elven-light (The Dread Realm)
2x Flame of Anor (The Road Darkens)
3x Hidden Cache (The Morgul Vale)
1x Will of the West (Core Set)

3 Heroes, 51 Cards
Cards up to The Land of Sorrow

Sideboard

Ally (12)
3x Ered Luin Miner (Temple of the Deceived)
1x Glorfindel (Flight of the Stormcaller)
2x Ioreth (A Storm on Cobas Haven)
3x Mirkwood Explorer (The Thing in the Depths)
3x Rhovanion Outrider (Temple of the Deceived)

Attachment (11)
2x Ancestral Armor (Roam Across Rhovanion)
1x Asfaloth (Foundations of Stone)
2x Protector of Lórien (Core Set)
3x Self Preservation (Core Set)
3x Unexpected Courage (Core Set)

Event (4)
1x Dwarven Tomb (Core Set)
3x Reforged (The Fate of Wilderland)

Player Side Quest (2)
2x Rally the West (The Black Serpent)

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Tame & Flame: a Radagast + Gandalf Deck by Imrahil13

The original idea was to have Northern Trackers and Thror’s Key to negate the Forced effects on locations in Desert Crossing. They still can, but it’s not going to single-handedly win the scenario for you.

Main Deck

Hero (3)
(MotK) Halfast Gamgee (Messenger of the King Allies)
Gandalf (The Road Darkens)
Radagast (The Fate of Wilderland)

Contract (0)
1x Messenger of the King (The Land of Sorrow)

Ally (23)
3x Beorn (Core Set)
3x Beorning Skin-changer (The Withered Heath)
3x Eagles of the Misty Mountains (Return to Mirkwood)
3x Giant Bear (Fire in the Night)
1x Gwaihir (Trouble in Tharbad)
1x Halfast Gamgee (The Crossings of Poros)
1x Ioreth (A Storm on Cobas Haven)
1x Landroval (A Journey to Rhosgobel)
2x Loyal Hound (The Fate of Wilderland)
2x Meneldor (Roam Across Rhovanion)
3x Messenger Raven (The Fate of Wilderland)

Attachment (15)
1x A Burning Brand (Conflict at the Carrock)
2x Expert Treasure-hunter (On the Doorstep)
1x Favor of the Valar (The Battle of Carn Dûm)
1x Gandalf’s Staff (The Road Darkens)
1x Gondorian Shield (The Steward’s Fear)
1x Narya (The Grey Havens)
2x Radagast’s Staff (The Fate of Wilderland)
1x Song of Battle (The Dead Marshes)
3x Steward of Gondor (Core Set)
2x Wizard Pipe (The Road Darkens)

Event (13)
3x Daeron’s Runes (Foundations of Stone)
3x Drinking Song (Mount Gundabad)
3x Flame of Anor (The Road Darkens)
3x Sneak Attack (Core Set)
1x Word of Command (The Long Dark)

3 Heroes, 51 Cards
Cards up to The Land of Sorrow

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Descendants of Kings

Matt Kell (kattattack22)Leave a comment
  • Card Talk Season 5 Episode 48
    • Video episode
    • Audio episode

Mass Dunedain readying for sticky situations.

Background

This card refers to the people of Gondor’s sister kingdom, Arnor. Arnor was the northern one of the two Numenorian kingdoms. It was the official seat of their High King. After Isildur’s death it split into three smaller kingdoms, Cardolan, Arthedain, and Rhudar. The people of these successor kingdoms dwindled after wars with Angmar and a plague until only scattered settlements and wandering bands remained. Still the blood of Numenor was not diluted like Gondor and the northern Dunedain retained the longer lifespans and some of the physical and mental gifts bestowed on their ancestors.

Card Theme

The card refers to how the Dunedain retained some of the gifts bestowed on their ancestors, the Edain. The Edain were men of the First Age that fought with the elves against the original dark lord, Morgoth. The gods of Middle Earth blessed the Edain with greater physical and mental abilities than others in the race of men. Additionally, they intermarried some with the elves. This only added to their genetic advantages. The greater physical stature and knowledge of the Edain and later the Numenorians (Second Age descendants) made them seem as kings to other men in Middle Earth. While these attributed waned among the Dunedain in the Third Age, they still demonstrated greater physical and mental abilities than most men of the time along with a twice as long lifespan. It is fitting a theme to put on a card that has the Dunedain accomplishing more through action advantage.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Dunedain Characters

The Dunedain characters in the game are great targets for readying. Many of them have multiple 2 or better stats. This goes back even to the Core Set with Northern Tracker that has a great location control ability when questing to place a progress on each location in the staging area along with a decent 2 attack and 2 defense. It often can lead to a tough decision on using Northern Tracker to quest or save for combat. Some of the allies even has stats that scale with the number of enemies engaged which also scales the readying effect. It can make for a huge turn to ready several Dunedain that could have stats at 3 or more due to having a few enemies engaged.

A few of the heroes and unique allies also have very useful abilities that require them to be exhausted. Beravor can draw a player 2 cards. Sulien can reduce the threat of locations in the staging area. Spirit Aragorn can reduced the threat of a single location and possibly place a progress on the location.

Traps

Traps work great to increase the effect of every Dunedain engaged enemy bonuses because it offsets the downside of keeping an enemy engaged. Forest Snare in particular works really well because the enemy remains engaged but no longer attacks. Entangling Nets and Outmatched create a similar more safely engaged enemy that can be defended without sacrificing an action. Shadow effects are still a concern unless the player has a defender with some shadow cancelation like A Burning Brand.

Gloin hero

Gloin can be an interesting way to increase the effect. Song of Wisdom or Narvi’s Belt or a Warden of Healing make it that Gloin can heal all damage done to him quite easily. Some hit point bonuses from attachments like Citadel Plate, and he can take undefended attacks even from boss level enemies. Provided shadow effects don’t discard attachments, it can be quite easy to keep several enemies engaged without much trouble. Generally once Gloin is set up, the Dunedain are only needed to quest and attack. Action advantage might not be needed as much. Especially from an event that will ready them only one time.

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 Descendants of Kings at 8 rings. It is a card I’m sure I’ve included a couple copies at least once. At the time of writing this, I couldn’t tell you if I’ve every played it in a game. I’ve been in situations where it would be helpful with a Dunedain focused deck. It is easy to end up with a bunch of enemies engaged and needing to defend all the attacks and leaving no one left to attack back. Sometimes that is fine and other times, it would be great to ready at least an attacker or two to bring the number of enemies back to a manageable level. It is one of those cards that has to show up at the right time or a player holds onto it for that just in case situation. Now, it is possible to splash this card into a deck that isn’t Dunedain focused, but I don’t see much point to it. Ever Vigilant with a similar cost can ready any ally and not need an enemy engaged. It can also ready heroes but Dunedain have many readying attachments they qualify for roughly the same resource cost. It is just a very situational card. I hope someday to use it to ready many Dunedain heroes and/or allies and turn the tide of battle with it.

  • Dave –
  • Grant –
  • Ted –
  • Matt – 8
  • Average –

External Links

Sample Decks

Dúnedain: for solo plays (Revised Core + Angmar Awakened) by warlock000

A Dunedain theme deck using only the Revised Core Set and Angmar Awakened cycle cards. Check out the deck description on ringsdb for many great piloting tips.

Dúnedain: for solo plays (Revised Core + Angmar Awakened)

Main Deck

Hero (3)
Amarthiúl (The Battle of Carn Dûm)
Beravor (Core Set)
Halbarad (The Lost Realm)

Ally (27)
3x Dúnedain Hunter (The Lost Realm)
2x Faramir (Core Set)
3x Fornost Bowman (The Dread Realm)
3x Gandalf (Core Set)
3x Guardian of Arnor (The Battle of Carn Dûm)
1x Henamarth Riversong (Core Set)
2x Honour Guard (The Wastes of Eriador)
3x Ranger of Cardolan (The Wastes of Eriador)
3x Sarn Ford Sentry (The Lost Realm)
3x Snowbourn Scout (Core Set)
1x Son of Arnor (Core Set)

Attachment (15)
2x Athelas (The Lost Realm)
2x Celebrían’s Stone (Core Set)
3x Forest Snare (Core Set)
3x Heir of Valandil (The Lost Realm)
1x Protector of Lórien (Core Set)
2x Steward of Gondor (Core Set)
2x The Long Defeat (The Battle of Carn Dûm)

Event (8)
3x Descendants of Kings (Escape from Mount Gram)
2x Expert Trackers (The Lost Realm)
2x Feint (Core Set)
1x For Gondor! (Core Set)

3 Heroes, 50 Cards
Cards up to The Dread Realm

Sideboard

Ally (2)
1x Gléowine (Core Set)
1x Son of Arnor (Core Set)

Attachment (2)
1x Protector of Lórien (Core Set)
1x Steward of Gondor (Core Set)

Event (9)
1x Expert Trackers (The Lost Realm)
1x Feint (Core Set)
1x For Gondor! (Core Set)
3x Radagast’s Cunning (Core Set)
3x Secret Paths (Core Set)

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Quickbeam (Ally)

Matt Kell (kattattack22)Leave a comment

An Ent for all decks.

  • Player Card Categories 
    • Enters Play
    • Messenger of the King
    • Readying

Background

Merry and Pippin stayed with Quickbeam while the other Ents discussed going to war against Saruman at the Entmoot. He decided early to attack Saruman as he was a hasty Ent and his trees suffered much at the axes of the Uruk-hai.

Card Theme

The game has a great mechanism to represent how the Ents are not hasty in the game. They enter play exhausted.

They all have good stats, often hero level stats representing how powerful these ancient tree herders are. Entering play exhausted keeps a player from utilizing their stats right away without another card effect to ready them. This results in a tempo hit. Tempo is a game concept I originally learned in Magic the Gathering. Basically it describes the pace a player is on to victory. If you are quickly playing cards that each get you closer to winning then your tempo is fast. Another player can disrupt this tempo by getting rid of or canceling those cards. Ents can help contribute to that pace of the game, but players have to delay getting that benefit for a turn since they’re not immediately available. The encounter deck then might be a card ahead in tempo since the player forgoes using a card to deal with the new treachery, location, or enemy revealed that turn. Then it becomes a question of, if the power of the Ents overtake the encounter deck’s tempo advantage,

Card Synergies and Interactions

Ent Tribal

There are many other Ent cards that synergize quite well with Quickbeam as many have effects that work with damaged Ents. Booming Ent and Leaflock each count how many damaged Ents are in play to gain attack and willpower boosts, respectively. A player then that damages Quickbeam to ready him right away can also be boosting other Ent allies. Boom and Trumpted is a little more difficult to realize the benefit using Quickbeam’s ability, but not impossible. It just will require effects that put an ally into play outside of the planning phase like Sneak Attack or Reinforcements. Then of course there are facilitating cards like Entmoot and Treebeard ally. Entmoot is fantastic tribal card draw since it is not look at the top 5 and choose one but get all the Ent cards. Even if it doesn’t offset Ted’s top drawback for all cards, it most likely will significantly thin a player’s deck to increase the change of drawing it later. Treebeard ally acts like a 4th hero in Ent centric decks since his resources can be used to play Ent allies. Lastly, Wellinghall Preserver’s healing offsets the cost of Quickbeam’s ability since it can heal him during the Refresh phase.

Ally Action Advantage / Readying

Quickbeam has a good willpower of 2 to quest and an strong attack of 3 for an ally. It can be difficult to decide which to utilize especially if his 2 willpower is always needed to quest then a player is forgoing the use of his best stat. There are fortunately many ways to ready him. As seen earlier, there are a couple Ent speicific options with ally Treebeard if he has 2 resources although often it is better to just ready Treebeard himself. Boom and Trumpted can be an incredible play especially since it will boost his attack to 6. It will be difficult to manage outside quests with Archery considering Quickbeam’s weakest stat is defense.

While he can’t have restricted attachments, there is Valiant Determination, Spare Hood and Cloak, and Cram 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. 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 introducted ally readying with Every Vigilant and Grim Resolve in the Core set. Ever Vigliant is a reasonably efficient to get 3 attack on an enemy. Grim Resolve with the global readying is more aimed at turning the tide of a game to make a big quest push and then try to clear the board in combat. The Free Peoples offers a bit more synergy considering Quickbeam is such a strong efficient character that can easily fit into a deck with variety of traits. Even better it will boost his willpower to 3 for that big quest push.

Fellowship

Quickbeam already has hero level stats with his 2 willpower and 3 attack. He works especially well with this contract considering he’s only 2 cost. This is very helpful considering it requires 9 unique characters in play. The faster a player can get those 6 unique allies out to pass the threshold, the sooner all those characters gets +1 willpower, attack, and defense. Quick beam then gets 3 willpower and 4 attack. This is great since he can’t have restricted attachments and can’t get many of the other stat boosting attachments for allies.

Messenger of the King

Messenger of the King Quickbeam is a terrible nonbo. Quickbeam is amazing because he has the stats of a 4 cost ally or regular hero for the low, low cost of 2 Lore resources. Messenger of the King makes you pay the full cost of his stats with 9 threat and he’s enters play either exhausted or with a damage unlike other 9 threat cost heroes. A player is better off choosing a different unique ally with a a good ability, or a low threat hero with a decent stat or two. Lore has enough card draw that Quickbeam is easy to dig out the player’s deck.

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 Quickbeam at 1 ring. His cost to stats ratio is insane. Then his ability to ready once he comes into play completely offsets the Ent drawback of entering play exhausted to compensate for the higher stats. He has to take a damage, but that’s not a big deal and can even be a synergy. That can help immediately boost a Booming Ent. Otherwise, it only takes one Wellinghall Preserver to offset that cost. Even if he isn’t healed, he still has a 2 respectable hit points. There are a few quests that have effects that scale by damaged characters, but there so few and far between that it is negligible. The only arguments I have against him being a 1 is that he’s not neutral and he’s a terrible Messenger of the King hero. Otherwise, any deck I’m building with Lore that isn’t a trait centric deck or using Forth, the Three Hunters is going to have a minimum of one copy of Quickbeam. Most likely 2 to increase the changes of seeing him and minimize having a dead draw since he’s unique.

  • Dave – 3
  • Grant – TBR
  • Ted – 2
  • Matt – 1
  • Average – 2

External Links

Sample Decks

Super Hasty Ents by Master of Lore

Master of Lore created an Ent deck designed to avoid the tempo hit using Grima to play Treebeard turn 1. Faramir can ready Ents while engaging enemies or Treebeard’s resources will ready them if there are no enemies in play.

Main Deck

Hero (3)
Faramir (The Land of Shadow)
Gandalf (The Road Darkens)
Gríma (The Voice of Isengard)

Ally (19)
1x Beechbone (The Battle of Carn Dûm)
3x Booming Ent (The Antlered Crown)
3x Derndingle Warrior (Escape from Mount Gram)
2x Quickbeam (The Treason of Saruman)
1x Skinbark (The Land of Shadow)
3x Treebeard (The Antlered Crown)
3x Wandering Ent (Celebrimbor’s Secret)
3x Wellinghall Preserver (Across the Ettenmoors)

Attachment (20)
2x Ent Draught (The Treason of Saruman)
3x Favor of the Valar (The Battle of Carn Dûm)
3x Gandalf’s Staff (The Road Darkens)
3x Keys of Orthanc (The Voice of Isengard)
3x Narya (The Grey Havens)
3x Steward of Gondor (Core Set)
3x Wizard Pipe (The Road Darkens)

Event (11)
3x A Good Harvest (The Steward’s Fear)
3x Daeron’s Runes (Foundations of Stone)
3x Entmoot (The Treason of Saruman)
2x The Galadhrim’s Greeting (Core Set)

3 Heroes, 50 Cards
Cards up to The Grey Havens

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Leadership Aragorn

Matt Kell (kattattack22)Leave a comment

A powerful versatile hero just like he is in the books.

Background

Aragorn, son of Arathorn, AKA Strider is the direct descendent of the kings of Gondor and Arnor. He was the chieftain of the northern remnants of Arnor, the Dunedain. Elrond fostered him at Rivendell after his father was killed by orcs. After he turned 21 and learned of his heirtage, Aragorn travel far and wide in Middle Earth assisting both Rohan and Gondor against Sauron.

He is first introduced in The Lord of the Rings at The Prancing Pony. He soon become the Hobbits guide to Rivendell after Gandalf’s letter to Frodo identifies him as a friend. He joins the Fellowship at Rivendell offering to his life to help Frodo destroy The One Ring. After the breaking of the Fellowship, he tracks the Uruk-Hai to Rohan. There he aided in the defense of Rohan against Saruman. Then braving the Paths of the Dead enlist the dead oath breakers, he defeated the corsairs at Pelargir to brings the reinforcements that turned the tide at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. He leads to the forces of Gondor and Rohan to The Black Gate to distract Sauron that Frodo can destroy The Ring of Power. After The Ring’s destruction, he becomes King of Gondor and marries Arwen Undomiel.

Card Theme

Aragorn is a highly skilled individual with decades of experience navigating the wilds of Middle Earth and countering Sauron’s forces. Questing in this game is often intended to represent the characters traversing Middle Earth. Aragorn being able to contribute to those travels while being ready to fight if needed is very thematic to those same skills and experience as a Ranger.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Resource Acceleration

Any card that can add resources to Aragorn enables using his ability consistently. The Core Set gave players two in sphere options to combo with Aragorn, Steward of Gondor and Theodred. The Aragorn and Theodread combo Card Talk highlighted previously in our Core Set Combo series. Later cycles introduced many other options particularly among Leadership events. Arwen hero and Zigil Miner are chief among the out of sphere options as they are also repeatable like Theodred and Steward. Additional resources on Aragorn are also a great idea if you’re using any of his toys as well.

Aragorn’s Toys

These cards are all attachments that can give other characters an ability or bonus, but they give Aragorn an additional bonus. Typically the additional bonus is another resource icon. Celebrian’s Stone was the first of these coming in the Core Set making Aragorn’s willpower equal to that of the best questing heroes. This makes his built-in action advantage from questing more valuable. It is easier to forgo 2 willpower to use his 3 attack or 2 defense in combat than 4 willpower. The added Spirit icon is also helpful for playing the only toy that isn’t in sphere, Ring of Barahir.

The Ring of Barahir is generally considered the least interesting since it only adds hit points that scales with the number of artifacts. The full card pool has many Artifacts now with the Guarded attachments like Stone of Elostirion and Orcrist. Aragorn doesn’t benefit much from having may hit points like Gloin and Gimli that have damage taken based abilities.

Sword That Was Broken gives any hero the Leadership icon but on Aragorn it is one of the best global willpower boosts available. It can be especially helpful in Dunedain decks since the Dunedain characters tend to have low willpower.

Roheryn is a powerful attachment since it allows Aragorn to attack before the enemy gets a chance to. If Aragorn has enough attack power to kill the enemy, then it effectively cancels the attack. It combos well with Gondorian Fire that can give Aragorn bonus attack for each resource in his resource pool. The One Ring with Strength and Courage can also provide a huge attack boost considering Aragorn’s printed 3 attack power. Firefoot‘s ability to place excess damage on another enemy can kill another engaged enemy before it can attack as well.

Rivendell Bow doesn’t give a resource icon. It is worth noting because it specifically mentions it can be attached to Aragorn besides just Noldor and Silvans.

Thorongil

Thorongil allows any Aragorn to gain the resource icon and abilities of the other versions of Aragorn. This can be used tactically to bring in threat control, additional combat, power, or location control as needed. The Leadership and Spirt versions in particular pair well. The Leadership version’s readying let’s a player double up on questing. Aragorn can contribute his willpower once to quest and again to reduce staging are threat.

Defense Boosts

Aragorn has the Sentinel trait to be able to defend for other players in multiplayer and a large pool of hit points at 5. His printed defense of 2 is not enough to be a dedicated defender in many quests, but Leadership has a few of the best defensive attachments in sphere. Aragorn between his toys and Thorongil has many additional ways to gain resource icons not available to most other heroes. He can turn into a defensive wall with the ability to cancel shadows if built up with Dunedain Warnings, Ancestral Armor, Armored Destrier, and/or Burning Brand. Blood of Numenor is also a strong option since resource acceleration is a good idea to use his readying ability.

Grey Wanderer

Aragorn’s built-in readying and attachments that can give him all 4 sphere icons makes him a great Grey Wanderer hero. His ability let’s him quest without using the contract’s setup ability to get Strider even if it is a very thematic choice. Resourceful can provide resource acceleration cheaply to fuel his readying. Timely Aid and A Very Good Tale are both in sphere to help muster allies and make up for not having 3 heroes worth of stats. A Gondorian Fire and Blood of Numenor build benefits greatly from the contract’s readying and resource acceleration. Lastly, he can use Roheryn more reliably because the low starting threat of a single hero keeps most enemies from automatically engaging.

Quest Specific

Aragorn’s built-in readying can be used to benefit besides just combat. Many quests have encounter car effects that exhaust a character either as a when revealed or shadow effect. This goes all the way back even to the core set. Caught in a Web is the most notorious example since it makes you pay 2 resources to ready the attached hero during the refresh phase. You can play around this condition attachment by making sure to only quest with Aragorn and readying him after. You can do the same in Darrowdelf to avoid the negative effects of Watchful Eyes.

Aside from the encounter deck trying impede your ability to quest, attack, or defend, there are many other times the quest will require you exhaust a hero. Sometimes it is simply to claim an unguarded objective. Many other times it is required for a test to represent the heroes attempting to do something outside the normal questing. Shadow of Mirkwood introduced this idea with Escape tests in The Dead Marshes and Return to Mirkwood. These tests have to commit character’s willpower to exceed escape value on the encounter cards. The Lord of the Rings Saga had similar Hide tests in A Shadow of the Past. A variation that was based solely on number of characters exhausted rather than willpower used in the Dream-Chaser cycle and Mount Doom scenario for Sailing and Fortitude test, respectively.

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 Leadership Aragorn at 3 rings. That is only because I think he’s the 3rd best version of Aragorn. I think the Lore and Tactics versions offer more to players than this one. If playing another version of Aragorn, this one is top of the list to add its sphere and abilities it via Thorongil.

That said, he offers built-in action advantage for a very reasonable cost of one resource. In the sphere that is best known for resource acceleration. On top of that most of his “toys” are in Leadership. It’s possible to get him every sphere in the game via his own attachments plus some great bonuses and a strong ability. Undeniably a powerful and useful hero.

  • Dave – 2
  • Grant – 2
  • Ted – TBR
  • Matt – 3
  • Average 2.33

Sample Decks

Codus’ Roheryn’s Fire

A deck focused on using Gondorian Fire and Roheryn to kill enemies as soon as they’re optionally engaged. Arwen and Erestor provide resource acceleration and card draw to help get the combo going quickly.

Main Deck

Hero (3)
Aragorn (Core Set)
Arwen Undómiel (The Dread Realm)
Erestor (The Treachery of Rhudaur)

Ally (20)
3x Envoy of Pelargir (Heirs of Númenor)
3x Errand-rider (Heirs of Númenor)
3x Ethir Swordsman (The Steward’s Fear)
3x Galadhrim Weaver (The Treachery of Rhudaur)
3x Galadriel’s Handmaiden (Celebrimbor’s Secret)
1x Mablung (The Land of Shadow)
1x Quickbeam (The Treason of Saruman)
3x Warden of Healing (The Long Dark)

Attachment (16)
3x Gondorian Fire (Assault on Osgiliath)
3x Roheryn (The Flame of the West)
2x Song of Battle (The Dead Marshes)
2x Steed of Imladris (Across the Ettenmoors)
3x Steward of Gondor (Core Set)
3x Sword of Númenor (The Dread Realm)

Event (14)
3x Daeron’s Runes (Foundations of Stone)
3x Elrond’s Counsel (The Watcher in the Water)
3x Elven-light (The Dread Realm)
2x Gaining Strength (The Steward’s Fear)
3x Heed the Dream (Flight of the Stormcaller)

3 Heroes, 50 Cards
Cards up to The Flame of the West

Sideboard

Event (3)
3x Tale of Tinúviel (The Dread Realm)

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Unexpected Courage

Matt Kell (kattattack22)Leave a comment
  • Player Card Categories
    • Readying

The quintessential readying card.

Background

This card takes inspiration from Bilbo luring the spiders in Mirkwood away from the captured members of Thorin’s Company based on the flavor text. Bilbo started off afraid.

Suddenly he saw, too, that there were spiders huge and horrible sitting in the branches above him, and ring or no ring he trembled with fear lest they should discover him.

The Hobbit, Chapter 8: Flies and Spiders

He soon finds the courage to antagonize the spiders and get them to chase him.

Bilbo saw that the moment had come when he must do something. He could not get up at the brutes and he had nothing to shoot with; but looking about he saw that in this place there were many stones lying in what appeared to be a now dry little watercourse. Bilbo was a pretty fair shot with a stone, and it did not take him long to find a nice smooth egg-shaped one that fitted his hand cosily

The Hobbit, Chapter 8: Flies and Spiders

After getting their attention, he taunts and teases the spiders to lure them away. Then he is able to circle back to free the Dwarves. The art encompasses the Dwarves battling the spiders after Bilbo rescues them. It is from here on out that Bilbo takes a more active role in the story and no longer is just the gentle Hobbit of the Shire.

Card Theme

It is fitting then that the card allows for extra uses of hero. It fits really well for representing the extra reservoir of courage they didn’t know they had.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Strong Stat Heroes

The most obvious synergy is with heroes with multiple strong stats. Unexpected Courage let’s them use those stats in multiple phases of the game as appropriate. Gwaihir in particular benefits additionally from having another way to ready besides playing an Eagle ally.

Heroes with Exhaust Abilities

Some heroes like Beravor, Denethor, and Eleanor from the Core set have an ability that requires you exhaust them to use. Most like Beravor are limited to once per phase or round. Still Unexpected Courage on let’s you their stats for questing, attacking, or defending as well as their ability. There are also a few where an attachment can give a hero an exhaust ability like the Palantir or the Elven rings.

Vengeance of Mordor increased the number of heroes this is good for with the Messenger of the King contract.

Leadership Faramir ally is an excellent example where having easier access to readying helps since his ability is not limited. Messenger of the King limits the readying of the ally turned hero to once per phase, but still triggering an additional willpower per questing character twice can be a huge boost. Especially as repeatable ally readying typically requires multiple cards to pull off.

Ted is fond of saying with powerful cards like Unexpected Courage, the downside is you have to draw it. Card draw and search effects can help you find it sooner. In Spirit, Ancient Mathom, Elven-light, and Cirdan for card draw. Imladris Stargazer and Long Lake Fisher offer some in sphere card search options. Lore offers even more of both with Daeron’s Runes, Deep Knowledge, Master of the Forge, Heed the Dream, and more. There are even a couple neutral cards that can help like core set Gandalf, Gather Information, and Steward of Orthanc.

A round about way available Spirit is to utilize the Dwarf mining effects. Zigil Miner, Spirit Dain, Erebor Guard can fill your discard pile with several cards a round. This combined with attachment recursion very prevalent in Spirit functions like card draw/search. Dwarven Tomb, Reforged, Erebor Hammersmith, and Second Breakfast can get Unexpected Courage into your hard or play from the discard pile.

Quest Specific

Many quests have encounter car effects that exhaust a character either as a when revealed or shadow effect. This goes all the way back even to the core set. Caught in a Web is the most notorious example since it makes you pay 2 resources to ready the attached hero during the refresh phase. Unexpected Courage let’s you play around this condition attachment by giving you a way to ready. Similarly in Darrowdelf you can use Unexpected Courage to avoid the negative effects of Watchful Eyes.

Aside from the encounter deck trying impede your ability to quest, attack, or defend, there are many other times the quest will require you exhaust a hero. Sometimes it is simply to claim an unguarded objective. Many other times it is required for a test to represent the heroes attempting to do something outside the normal questing. Shadow of Mirkwood introduced this idea with Escape tests in The Dead Marshes and Return to Mirkwood. These tests have to commit character’s willpower to exceed escape value on the encounter cards. Unexpected Courage on a high willpower hero like Eowyn can help tremendously to pass these tests. The Lord of the Rings Saga had similar Hide tests in A Shadow of the Past. A variation that was based solely on number of characters exhausted rather than willpower used in the Dream-Chaser cycle and Mount Doom scenario for Sailing and Fortitude test, respectively.

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 Unexpected Courage at 1. It is the kind of basic yet amazing card that needed to be in the core set to keep it relevant through the entire life of the game. Heroes tend to have better stats than allies and getting 2 or better willpower, attack, or defense typically is going to cost the same or more than Unexpected Courage’s 2 resources. That’s not even considering heroes that have abilities that are activated by exhausting them. Scenarios that feature encounter card effects that exhaust heroes or have test in them gives it even more utility. Forth, The Three Hunters and Grey Wanderer contracts only made action advantage even more valuable.

  • Dave – 1
  • Grant – TBR
  • Ted – 1
  • Matt – 1
  • Average – 1

Sample Decks

Bilbo Super Quester

Basic idea was to use Galadriel’s, Theoden’s, and the contract’s willpower boosting to turn Bilbo into super quester especially with his ability on top.

Main Deck

Hero (3)
Bilbo Baggins (Mount Gundabad)
Galadriel (Celebrimbor’s Secret)
Théoden (The Morgul Vale)

Contract (0)
1x Forth, The Three Hunters! (The City of Ulfast)

Attachment (44)
3x Expert Treasure-hunter (On the Doorstep)
3x Golden Belt (Challenge of the Wainriders)
3x Golden Shield (The Flame of the West)
3x Gondorian Shield (The Steward’s Fear)
3x Herugrim (The Treason of Saruman)
2x Hobbit Pony (The Wastes of Eriador)
1x Magic Ring (The Crossings of Poros)
3x Mirror of Galadriel (Celebrimbor’s Secret)
3x Nenya (Celebrimbor’s Secret)
1x Ring Mail (The Long Dark)
3x Round Shield (Mount Gundabad)
3x Silver Circlet (Wrath and Ruin)
2x Silver Harp (The Treachery of Rhudaur)
2x Snowmane (The Land of Shadow)
3x Song of Travel (The Hills of Emyn Muil)
3x Unexpected Courage (Core Set)
3x War Axe (The City of Ulfast)

Event (6)
3x A Test of Will (Core Set)
3x Open the Armory (The Dungeons of Cirith Gurat)

3 Heroes, 50 Cards
Cards up to Challenge of the Wainriders

Sideboard

Attachment (9)
3x Fast Hitch (The Dead Marshes)
3x Song of Wisdom (Conflict at the Carrock)
3x Warrior Sword (The Ghost of Framsburg)

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Fast Hitch

QuetzalLeave a comment

A card so nice, they reviewed it twice (at least).

TL;DR It’s a Hobbit staple.

Background

Hobbit stats are rubbish: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever, about that. If you’re of the persuasion the first statement would read better with the word “stats” omitted, then you are probably off to find a better use of your time. Unless you’re getting into extended fan-created content (ALEP: The Last Alliance Contract) from here on, the following discussion is clearly in the context of Hobbitish application.

Card Theme

The source material for Fast Hitch comes from Sam and Frodo’s journey through the Emyn Muil. Our beloved podcast hosts appreciated this context the first time around, but a veil of forgetfulness had passed over all of them by the second time they discussed this card. Please reference The Two Towers: Chapter 1. The Taming of Smeagol to delight yourself with the fullest quotation.

After the elven rope gifted to Sam by Galadriel comes loose:

Sam did not laugh. “I may not be much good at climbing, Mr. Frodo,” he said in injured tones, “but I do know something about rope and about knots. It’s in the family, as you might say. Why, my grand-dad, and my uncle Andy after him, him that was the Gaffer’s eldest brother he had a rope-walk over by Tighfield many a year. And I put as fast a hitch over the stump as any one could have done, in the Shire or out of it.”

Even though an internet search today for fast hitches will result predominately in towing hitches, the demographic most interested in them is unsurprising: Farmers (and tangentially modern farming certainly relies on fast tow hitches to quickly attach and unattach equipment from tractors). The ability to quickly secure loads, equipment, or produce is key to agrarian values and skills that just such a Gamgee Hobbit family would have prided themselves on and found essential to efficiently cultivating lands.

Hopefully, it is obvious why knotting knowledge and the ability to quickly fasten loads would thematically represent action advantage for Hobbits. In the source material, the fact the elven rope loosens itself and returns to its owner is a sore point for Sam, but it also allows them to continue their quest sooner, without having to leave the rope behind.

Of note, in knot tying theory, a hitch is a knot used to fasten a rope to another object. Clearly an accurate use in this circumstance. Another thematic win is achieved by designing this card for the Lore sphere; from the core rules, “the sphere of Lore emphasizes the potential of a hero’s mind. Intellect, wisdom, experience, and specialized knowledge are all under the domain of this sphere.” A small quibble is it would have been nice if there was a Gamgee hero with the printed Lore icon; a MotK Gaffer is the closest we come.

Synergies and Interatcions

In the greater context, Fast Hitch compares most directly with the core staple Unexpected Courage; attachments that provide a repeatable readying effect. Note that Fast Hitch can be used on any character, not just heroes.

It’s easy to ask, “name a Hobbit that’s not a good target for Fast Hitch?” Clearly they all are, but one must consider the opportunity cost that exists. Because of this, there are clearly better targets for the readying. Also, should multiple Fast Hitches be stacked on a single character, or should they be spread around.

There exist two main strategies for building for Fast Hitch: you are planning to sufficiently boost a Hobbit’s stats to make the extra actions pay off or you are planning to use actions that require a character to exhaust. But let it be stated, Rosie Cotton merges these two strategies in powerful ways.

Stat Boosting

  • Characters that have above average or stat boosting abilities: Sam Gamgee (Leadership), Tom Cotton, Tactics Merry
  • Attachments for boosting Hobbits: Hobbit Cloak, Staff of Lebethron, Sting, Ring Mail, Friend of Friends, etc as well as plenty of others (i.e. play an off-theme Steward of Gondor, then Gondorian Shield becomes quite effective)
  • Events for boosting: Halfling Determination (best for combat as you might get multiple uses out of the boost).

Ability Triggers

Characters with abilities you may want multiple uses of:

  • Firstly, MotK Rossie Cotton: if her power isn’t self-evident, more in the next section.
  • Tactics Merry: top attack potential for Hobbits, with an attacking buddy they can really mow down the enemies. Top thematic points for pairing with a partner deck triggering Tactic Eowyn’s ability. You will have to figure out some potential ranged damage though (partner attack w/printed range, Dunedain Cache, etc.)
  • Spirit Merry: even though Hobbit Pony may do it better, questing-readying-triggering is quite effective.
  • Other more niche cases include Spirit Pippin and Tactics Bilbo Baggins

Peak Power

If your ambition is to feature Fast Hitch in the most powerful ways, building around MotK Rosie Cotton is your objective. Making Rosie a hero (yes, Sword-thane is similarly viable, but requires considerably more resources to set up), opens her up to all willpower boosting effects that target heroes (consider Fireside Song, Red Book of Westmarch, Celebrian’s Stone, Necklace of Girion, Stone of Elostirion, Strider, Courage Awakened, Hobbit Pipe + Smoke Rings, etc.). Having multiple hitches on Rosie will allow her to quest, then ready and exhaust to boost another questing Hobbit, while finally readying and exhaust to boost a combat hobbit. Not to mention all the decision points of whether you want to trigger her ability; you might want to limit your progress, while a big enemy reveal might have you prioritizing combat. It is still incredibly strong even if you can’t get her willpower boosted.

Defending enemy attacks is always a vital part of this game. As such, our defense capable Hobbits can greatly benefit from Fast Hitch: Sam Gamgee, Tom Cotton, and Spirit Frodo.

Even though Hobbit decks tend to be tri-sphere, you still must have access to Lore. There are only 3 printed heroes that are Lore Hobbits. While A Good Harvest, Song of Wisdom, or intentional discarding an attachment and playing it with Reforged can work, they are probably a bit too big of a momentum hit unless you’re utilizing those cards in other ways to facilitate your deck. Also note, the Bond of Friendship contract plays nicely with a couple of Fast Hitches. Additionally, Fast Hitch is a nice inclusion for many of the saga quests, since the extra hero is often a Hobbit and may have some nifty utility in the quest.

Rating, Conclusion

Even though their stats are rubbish, a pleasant side effect is that giving Hobbits action advantage through Fast Hitch doesn’t feel overpowered. Many decisions underlie skillful play of this card that is thematically appropriate for the hiding in the shadows, tricksey Hobbit archetype.

You knew it before you read all this, Fast Hitch is a near auto-include in any Hobbit deck. There are many shenanigans yet to be uncovered if you’ve extended your LCG experience with the ALEP fan content; the Last Alliance contract opens up the Hobbit trait to any other trait archetype.

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.

Dave: w/Hobbits 1, w/out Hobbits 10: overall 5

Grant: 3

My rating: 4 — I agree with Dave’s logic to split the difference between it’s usefulness with or without Hobbits; but as the card pool grows beyond the official FFG releases, there are more ways to use Fast Hitch than a strictly pure Hobbit deck.

Radagast and Radagast’s Staff

Matt Kell (kattattack22)Leave a comment

The hero and attachment the Eagles deck needed.

Background

Radagast is one of the wizards sent from Valinor to be an emissary of Manwë and the Valar to the peoples of Middle Earth. It is said that that he was a greatly interested in plants and animals although his knowledge of them was second to Gandalf. He lived for a time in Rhosgobel, a small settlement between the Carrock and the Old Forest Road of Mirkwood. As a result, he and Beorn knew of each other as Beorn considered him not bad for a wizard in The Hobbit. He was also a noted friend of the great eagles. He was also used as a pawn by Saruman to bring Gandalf to Orthanc, Whereupon Saruman imprisoned Gandalf preventing from returning to The Shire to inform Frodo what he learned of The One Ring.

Card Theme

Radagast’s interest and friendship with the various beasts of Middle Earth are represented heavily in his abilities and those of his staff. His resource smoothing and the staff’s resource acceleration for creatures reflect bringing those friends to his aid. Whether having them act as spies, carrying messages, or sending Gwaihir to rescue Gandalf from Orthanc. This also ties into his ability to quest without exhausting when a creature is played. As mentioned in the earlier examples, Radagast is able to cover a lot of ground with the help of his bird and beast allies.

The last ability to return a creature enemy to the staging area I don’t think has a thematic link to the books. It seems more to be inspired by The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug movie directed by Peter Jackson. In the movie, shadowy forms of giant spiders can be seen while Radagast is trying to heal a sick hedgehog. It is only after he draws out the magical sickness the spiders apparently retreat.

Card Synergies and Interactions

Creature Allies

The obvious one here to take advantage of Radagast’s Staff cost reduction and readying, the hero’s ability to smooth resources, and get him to quest without exhausting. The creatures allies available in the game can give a deck a suite of card draw as well as potential answers to enemies, locations, and direct damage. Eagles are the primary contingent of creature allies in the game. Vassal of the Windlord, Winged Guardian, and Wilyador are cheap efficient attacking and defending allies. Their discard effects feed The Eagles of the Misty Mountains to create mid to late game combat behemoths.

Additionally, Descendent of Thorondor‘s direct damage when entering and leaving play can take out enemies in the staging area making combat easier as well as providing pseudo-questing by removing some staging area threat. Meneldor has a similar enters and leaves play ability except for placing progress on locations. Using as many Eagle allies as possible makes The Eagles Are Coming! into a more reliable way to draw multiple cards.

The non-Eagle allies provide the other utility effects to round out a creature deck. Messenger Raven can generate card draw by successfully naming the player card type on top the player deck. Wizard Pipe can reliably set this up. That it returns the raven to hand allows Radagast to reliably quest without exhausting for 1 resource per turn. Riddermark’s Finest can be discarded for location progress for another location control option. Loyal Hound’s damage cancellation and can stop direct damage effects helps make defending with Radagast safer. The insurance in defending is helpful considering the only Lore defensive bonus he can have is Protector of Lorien.

Return Ally to Hand Effects

Meneldor’s Flight, Born Aloft, Flight of the Eagles, and Gwaihir’s Debt much like the core set Sneak Attack let you get extra triggers on the Eagles enter and leave play effects. Particularly useful for Descendent of Thorondor, Meneldor, and even ally Gwaihir if you want to get an Eagle ally back. Normally playing those 3 allies multiple times would be difficult considering their 3, 4, and 5 cost. Radaghast’s Staff makes it much more reasonable to get an extra play or two out of them. Returning creature alies to hand also make sure you have one to play each turn to trigger Radagast’s action advantage.

Defense Bonus

Radagast’s 3 defense stat puts him into the top tier of Lore hero defenders with core set Denethor, Treebeard, and Elrond. He’s in sphere for one of the best shadow control cards in the game, A Burning Brand. If Radaghast is the primary defender, being able to cancel a shadow effect every turn is always going to be good. Unfortunately, the only in-sphere defensive boost he can have is Protector of Lorien. Lore has enough card draw to provide the means to reliably boost his defense higher with it.

Tactics, however, has some additional defense boosting options, and if playing Eagles then a player is likely to include a Tactics hero as well. Gondorian Shield and Round Shield can are nice cheap options to put Radagast in the 4+ defense that is often necessary in many quests.

Word of Command

Word of Command let’s you search your deck for any card to add to your hand, but the requirement of exhausting an Istari carries a heavy opportunity cost. Gandalf and Saruman heroes and allies versions have great stats that players typically want to use. The ally versions tend to not stay in play more than a round. Radagast ally doesn’t have those drawbacks but is very expensive at 5 cost. This means you’re not going to get use its effect early in the game when it would be the most useful. Radagast’s ability to quest without exhausting after playing a creature makes Word of Command easier to play in the early game. Especially in true solo where after questing there may not even be any enemies for combat.

Quest Specific

One ability of Radagast’s Staff haven’t mentioned much yet is that it can return a creature enemy to the staging area. It’s easy to overlook since many earlier player cards triggered off the Orc and Goblin traits. There are a lot of creature enemies in the game. The core set alone has King Spider, Wargs, Hummerhorns, Ungoliant’s Spawn, Marsh Adder, Forest Spider, Black Forest Bats, and Eastern Crows.

This ability can be a game saver if Attercop, Attercop is revealed in Return to Mirkwood. Attercop’s 8 attack is difficult for many decks to deal handle, but the 2 threat is easier to quest over. Wastes of Eriador has exclusively Warg enemies that are also have the Creature trait. The Day / Night mechanism in that quest can make it easy to get overwhelmed with too many enemies and having a way to send one back to the staging during Night could be very useful. The Múmakil has exclusively creature enemies some with very nasty abilities. The staff can do some great work in it by sending back a Territoral Ape when the active location has 4 threat or help to avoid gaining a Strangling Python as an attachment or having Giant Centipede blank a hero’s textbox

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 Radagast hero at 4 rings. Built in action advantage, good defense stat in Lore so can have A Burning Brand. The hero with his Staff basically makes the creature ally deck work. Downside is he is a little higher threat at 11. Even that isn’t too difficult to get into a deck especially with the Lore Hobbit heroes or Mirlonde. This all makes him a very solid hero, but you need at least some creature allies to leverage the hero’s abilities. Outside a deck without creature allies, Radagast still can be a decent Lore defender.

Radagast’s Staff I rate at 3 rings. The cost reduction makes it Steward of Gondor for creature allies. This makes it one of the best trait based resource accelerators. Amazing value for the more expensive Eagle allies and Giant Bear. It also can ready those strong allies like Eagles of the Misty Mountains. Without creatures allies, the staff seems to take a bigger hit in utility than the hero. The only ability that can be used then is the return creature enemy to the staging area. This ability is more useful than it seems at first glance. The game is rife with spiders, bats, wolves, crows, scorpions and other creature enemies it can return to the staging area.

Overall, I like the Staff better than the hero. The staff with its cost reduction and readying of creature allies is fantastic in an Eagles deck. You don’t even need the hero to use it. You can use it with Radagast ally which doesn’t completely offset his high cost, certainly makes it more playable.

The on the other hand, I have trouble with using as a primary defender. Part of it is the lack of traits to give him some of the stronger defensive attachments like Ancestral Armor or Armored Destrier. Another part is I wish he had a Tactics icon to be in sphere with many of them and could get Support of the Eagles. It is thematic that he is Lore and there are songs, but it would have been easier if he had just been a Tactics hero. I also think his overall Istari package of staff and creature allies isn’t as widely useful or interesting as the Gandalf and Saruman heroes. It is nice that he is lower threat than either of the other 2, but really if I’m playing this hero it’s to facilitate playing expensive Eagle allies. Everything after that is a nice bonus to take advantage of.

Hero

  • Dave – 5
  • Grant – 5
  • Ted – 2
  • Matt – 4
  • Average – 4

Staff

  • Dave – 5
  • Grant – 5
  • Ted – 2
  • Matt – 3
  • Average 3.75

External Links

Sample Decks

The Eagles Are Coming! by radAGHAST 

This deck aims to swarm the board with Eagles utilizing the discount from Radagast’s Staff and Hirgon’s ability after questing succesfully.

Main Deck

Hero (3)
Éowyn (The Flame of the West)
Hirgon (Beneath the Sands)
Radagast (The Fate of Wilderland)

Ally (31)
3x Descendant of Thorondor (The Hills of Emyn Muil)
3x Eagle of the North (Roam Across Rhovanion)
3x Eagles of the Misty Mountains (Return to Mirkwood)
3x Gandalf (Core Set)
2x Gwaihir (Trouble in Tharbad)
2x Landroval (A Journey to Rhosgobel)
3x Loyal Hound (The Fate of Wilderland)
3x Meneldor (Roam Across Rhovanion)
3x Vassal of the Windlord (The Dead Marshes)
3x Warden of Healing (The Long Dark)
3x Winged Guardian (The Hunt for Gollum)

Attachment (6)
2x A Burning Brand (Conflict at the Carrock)
1x Magic Ring (The Crossings of Poros)
3x Radagast’s Staff (The Fate of Wilderland)

Event (16)
3x Daeron’s Runes (Foundations of Stone)
3x Flight of the Eagles (Roam Across Rhovanion)
3x Gwaihir’s Debt (The Fate of Wilderland)
1x Justice Shall Be Done (A Storm on Cobas Haven)
3x The Eagles Are Coming! (The Hunt for Gollum)
3x Word of Command (The Long Dark)

3 Heroes, 53 Cards
Cards up to The Fate of Wilderland

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.

Mono-Lore of the Eagles by The Purple Wizard

An Eagle centric Vilya deck that adds in some of the best questing and support allies from Lore and Spirit. It also utilizes Protector of Lorien to make Radagast into a serious defender with the extra cards drawn by Erestor.

Main Deck

Hero (3)
Elrond (Shadow and Flame)
Erestor (The Treachery of Rhudaur)
Radagast (The Fate of Wilderland)

Ally (34)
1x Arwen Undómiel (The Watcher in the Water)
3x Descendant of Thorondor (The Hills of Emyn Muil)
3x Eagles of the Misty Mountains (Return to Mirkwood)
1x Ered Nimrais Prospector (The Morgul Vale)
2x Firyal (The Mûmakil)
3x Gandalf (Core Set)
1x Ghân-buri-Ghân (The Flame of the West)
2x Glorfindel (Flight of the Stormcaller)
1x Gwaihir (Trouble in Tharbad)
1x Landroval (A Journey to Rhosgobel)
3x Loyal Hound (The Fate of Wilderland)
1x Mablung (The Land of Shadow)
3x Meneldor (Roam Across Rhovanion)
3x Vassal of the Windlord (The Dead Marshes)
3x Warden of Healing (The Long Dark)
3x Winged Guardian (The Hunt for Gollum)

Attachment (15)
2x A Burning Brand (Conflict at the Carrock)
1x Favor of the Valar (The Battle of Carn Dûm)
2x Protector of Lórien (Core Set)
3x Radagast’s Staff (The Fate of Wilderland)
1x Unexpected Courage (Core Set)
3x Vilya (Shadow and Flame)
3x Wizard Pipe (The Road Darkens)

Event (5)
3x The Evening Star (The Grey Havens)
1x The Galadhrim’s Greeting (Core Set)
1x Will of the West (Core Set)

3 Heroes, 54 Cards
Cards up to The Fate of Wilderland

Sideboard

Ally (15)
2x Ered Nimrais Prospector (The Morgul Vale)
2x Ghân-buri-Ghân (The Flame of the West)
1x Gwaihir (Trouble in Tharbad)
3x Imladris Stargazer (Foundations of Stone)
1x Jubayr (The Mûmakil)
1x Landroval (A Journey to Rhosgobel)
3x Northern Tracker (Core Set)
1x Quickbeam (The Treason of Saruman)
1x Robin Smallburrow (The Drowned Ruins)

Event (4)
2x The Galadhrim’s Greeting (Core Set)
2x Will of the West (Core Set)

Decklist built and published on RingsDB.