Category: Noble

Pre-Errata

• Card Talk Season 1 Episode 4
  • Video episode
  • Audio episode
• Guest Host Brandon (Couples February)
  • Video episode
  • Audio episode
• Cycle
  • Shadows of Mirkwood
• Set
  • The Dead Marshes
• Player Card Categories
  • Defense Bonus
  • Readying

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

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.

Threat Reduction

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 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

• Tolkien Gateway
• Hall of Beorn
• Ringsdb

Sample Decks