The art, flavor text and mechanics reflects the description J.R.R. Tolkien provided in one of his letters, including “ornamental headstall, carrying a plume, and with the straps studded with jewels and small bells.” The card’s flavor text and mechanics are true to the lore, as Asfaloth was Glorfindel’s horse, who was commanded to bear Frodo across the Bruinen after his wounding at Weathertop.
Card Synergies and Interactions
Mostly pros here, with a few drawbacks due to cards that may be part of the Encounter deck. Asfaloth is pretty cheap to get out – but he is also Unique (only 1 copy of him can be in play). Of course, you have to be playing the Lore sphere (or at least have access to Lore sphere resources), and you must have a Noldur or Silvan hero to attach him to. He’s useful with or without Glorfindel – placing even 1 progress token on a land can be huge, especially in scenarios where you can easily become land-locked. True, the designers have come up with many ways to thwart Asfaloth’s progress — lands that cannot be targeted by card effects, and so on. If I’m playing Lore, I usually consider Asfaloth at some point in the deck design.
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.
A large part of what I enjoy most in playing LOTR:LCG is being able to construct an exciting narrative around the heroes and allies struggling to complete each scenario as I play. Asfaloth helps deliver that in a very satisfying way. We summon Asfaloth to the aid of one of our heroes and command him bear our hero more quickly (and thus more safely!) through the ravaged lands of Middle Earth on our way to complete this leg of the journey To me, this is the most wonderful thing about this card.
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.
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.
Let’s talk lore. Who is this guardsman, and what is the Andrath? The Andrath is a geographical feature in Arnor. Its a long defile between the Barrow-downs and the South Downs through which the North-South Road (or the Greenway) passed. Its south of Bree, and at various points it was controlled by both The Enemy and the Dunedain. It is a great tactical location that could control travel north-south in the region. The other option was to travel through the Barrow-downs, which as Frodo found out was not without great peril. In fact in Unfinished Tales the Black Captain stays at the Andrath setting up a camp rousing the Barrow-Wights from there and sending out patrols. So this Ranger is guarding this ‘pass’ keeping foes from reaching Bree and the Shire by bottle necking them there.
Card Theme
It is a theme home run for his effects. So for two resources (in Leadership!) you can effectively feint a non-unique enemy but also have an ally on the table to quest or defend with. Don’t be like the Hobbits and forget about the Rangers that have long kept the peace possible.
Card Synergies and Interactions
Vardaen’s Combo
Sneak Attack, in sphere feint for Leadership decks that don’t have Tactics. You get double duty, you can stop 1 enemy from attacking, and then block with him for another enemy!
Editor’s Note
Vardaen’s Combo doesn’t work as written. You would need to play Andrath Guardsman from your hand to cancel an attack. Born Aloft would let you reuse him to get an additional attack cancelation. You don’t get to cheaply chump block though. I’ve taken the liberty to create Bandrath Guardsman to enable Vardaen’s Combo.
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.
Card Talk: A LOTR LCG Podcast and Blog 