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DáinIronfoot
Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 1:34 am
Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 4594 Location: Beltsville, MD, USA
Boy, I’ve just been spoiling ALL my new decks lately, haven’t I? Razz

I’ve been determined for some time now to make a deck centered around Aragorn, Well-Traveled Guide work. Initially, of course, I played around with Aragorn and Frodo, with...limited success. I then toyed with Aragorn and Boromir, again with less than encouraging results.

For a time, I abandoned the idea and have worked on fine-tuning other decks that I HAVE had success with. So the other day I’m tweaking a ranger deck of mine, and looking at the text of one of my favorite cards in that deck. Then suddenly it hits me...I could really use this card with Aragorn WTG and a Faramir RB! So I start from that basis and build from there, and come up with perhaps my most promising WTG deck yet. I can’t wait to test it and see how it holds up. Very Happy

That card, by the way, is Invigorated. It’s a nifty 1-cost condition that heals a Gondor Man during a skirmish, or two Gondor Men just for spotting a roaming minion. And Faramir, Bearer of Quality, of course, is known for his skirmish ability that wounds him to make a minion skirmishing any Gondor Man roaming.

So put the two together, and you can wound Faramir during skirmish to make a minion roaming, then heal both him and Aragorn by discarding Invigorated. Nifty, eh?

But it can get even BETTER. Check out this deck:

Free Peoples (41 cards):

Faramir, Bearer of Quality (w/ The One Ring, The Ring of Rings)
Aragorn, Well-Traveled Guide (starting)

Artifacts/Possessions (15 cards):

Anduril, Sword That Was Broken x2
Faramir’s Sword x2
Knife of the Galadhrim x2
Faramir’s Bow x2
Flaming Brand
Ranger’s Cloak x2
Coat of Mail x2
Ring of Barahir
Scroll of Isildur

Conditions (17 cards):

The Saga of Elendil x2
Boromir, My Brother
Invigorated x4
Hearts Raised x3
The Faithful Stone x2
Tireless x2
Gondor Bowmen x2
No Stranger To The Shadows

Events (8 cards):

Swordarm of the White Tower x3
War and Valor x3
Curse Them x2


Lots going on with this deck. First, let’s highlight the main strategy: making minions roaming. Faramir can do this himself with his skirmish text, though an even better way to get a roaming minion (and thus trigger the full benefits of Invigorated) is his sword; at a battleground or forest site, any minion skirmishing Faramir with his sword is roaming automatically. So since, between his sword and his natural ability, we’re going to have lots of roaming minions, let’s make full use of them! War and Valor gives a strength +3 damage +1 boost when skirmishing a roaming minion, and Curse Them allows you to exert Faramir (a fully-qualified Ring-bound Man) to cancel a skirmish involving a roaming minion. Cool, eh? His bow also comes into play. It’s mainly in here to make him an archer, but if he’s skirmishing a roaming minion (likely), you can exert him to wound that minion!

Of course, all of this means we’ll be assigning Faramir to skirmishes, which is normally a bad thing, right? Not so much here. With three copies of Hearts Raised, you should be able to add 2 threats with Faramir’s start-of-skirmish drawback and remove them without too much trouble in the regroup phase. If you HAVE to start adding burdens, you can do so every now and then without TOO much worry, as between RoR and your artifacts, Faramir will have 11 resistance to work with.

But as with most Aragorn WTG decks, it is not your RB that is the focus. Aragorn doesn’t get his normal tanking here, as we intend to use his "can take no more than 1 wound in each skirmish" to the fullest. It’s okay if he loses skirmishes, as with Anduril, a cloak, and a Saga of Elendil, he has 7 vitality AND Invigorated should be healing him frequently enough. But he can win skirmishes when you need him to thanks to War and Valor, Tireless (which should pretty easily give at least a +3 boost without clogging your hand), or his specialty event, Swordarm of the White Tower, which is an automatic +4 for him thanks to his perma-defender bonus. Knife of the Galadhrim lets him do some direct wounding too, and NStoS lets him move down the sitepath for free.

The rest is pretty self-explanatory. The Faithful Stone is more expensive than I would care for in a deck that needs good choking, but it’s hard to ignore its usefulness here...especially since it triggers extra healing via the Ring of Barahir. Gondor Bowmen is almost a must for rather obvious reasons. The Coats of Mail keep your guys from being overwhelmed (since no amount of healing can save them from THAT), and the Flaming Brand is a free little boost to whoever you feel needs it most...and a BIG boost against Wraith minions that slip through the Faithful Stone cracks. Boromir, My Brother is chiefly here to give Faramir another vitality to work with, but its text can provide that extra 1 or 2 strength you might need in a close skirmish, and cycle a little at the same time.

Which brings me to the size of the deck. At 41 cards, yes, it is BIG. But between the discarding for B,MB and your Hearts Raised, I figured a big deck made sense. Also, with only a handful of events, you shouldn’t have to worry too much about hand clogging.

That, plus the fact that I have it paired with site-controlling Forestguls to ensure Faramir’s Sword has forests to spot, and my Forestguls usually cycle like a dream anyway. Cool I’d rather keep the specifics a secret, though, as it’s a slightly unusual Forestgul formula that I’ve perfected over time and don’t want to spoil. Rolling Eyes

I WILL say that what sites don’t help with forests and my Nazzies instead help heal or remove burdens. Imladris is a real blessing if you can play it at the right time. Very Happy Six out of the nine sites cost 1 or less...five of them cost 0. This might choke the Nazzies a little bit (though with good use of Dark Approach and Moving This Way, it shouldn’t hurt you much at all), but the help it offers your choking fellowship is more than worth it, I think.


So what do you think? Any WTG/BoQ players out there have any further tips?
Best regards, Dáin, Vice Aftokrator of the Chosen Ones

Check out Lasting Alliances, The Road Ahead, and Ages of Middle-earth, three of my five dream card sets that make up Wars of the Ring. Oh, and I have a trade list now!

Also, if you're into DCs or RPGs (or even if you're not!), check out Realms of Middle-earth, the sequel to CG's "DC Adventure", Realms of the North!
NBarden
Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 11:38 am
Joined: 28 Dec 2006 Posts: 5468 Location: I don't know...
WTG/Faramir doesn’t work. Trust me.

Neither does Gimli and WTG. The threat adding maxes him immediately, leading to instant corruption, especially since Gondor can’t remove burdens.

I personally say scrap the deck and try something else.

If not, you definitely need some Defend it and Hope or No Travellers In This Land, absolutely need 4x Gondor Bowmen and plenty of threat removal, like, lots of Hardy Garrison. Also, Soldier’s Cache + The Faithful Stone is the way to go. Thumbs Up Drop Anduril, Sword that was Broken for Anduril, King’s Blade (if you don’t plan to add any threats with Faramir’s Text) and maybe add in I Will Go. I know, they’re expensive, but with Coat of Mail and built-in Armor, defender +2 is awesome.

You can’t let Faramir fight. That’s just not an option.

However, I would pack some Extraordinary Resilience.
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Anonymous Prodigy
Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 11:53 am
Joined: 10 Jan 2006 Posts: 4197 Location: United States
DáinIronfoot wrote:
Six out of the nine sites cost 1 or less...five of them cost 0.

No more than 3 sites in an adventure deck can have the same site number.
I had to put something here.
NBarden
Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 11:59 am
Joined: 28 Dec 2006 Posts: 5468 Location: I don't know...
Good point. Run three with 0, three with 1, and then with No Strangers, you have 6 0 sites. Bwahaha.

The others should be 2.
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NappyKorn
Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 1:00 pm
Joined: 15 Jul 2007 Posts: 552 Location: USA
Anonymous Prodigy wrote:
DáinIronfoot wrote:
Six out of the nine sites cost 1 or less...five of them cost 0.

No more than 3 sites in an adventure deck can have the same site number.


That is wierd coming from you considering you played me once using 4 or more sites that had shadow number of 3, and you swore it was legal Shocked . Glad to see you finally came to the light my friend Very Happy
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macheteman
Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 6:37 pm
Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 1200 Location: The Jungle
this may sound really dumb, but faramir isn’t a "prince" he be a steward.
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legoles3333
Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 8:47 pm
Joined: 28 Nov 2006 Posts: 861 Location: In a place that is beyond your imagination
macheteman wrote:
this may sound really dumb, but faramir isn’t a "prince" he be a steward.


its not that dumb Very Happy

seriously though dain, you could put in a bilbo ally and 4x sting, elven long knife... although that would be short lived relief, hearts raised is a great card, you could also lose both tireless, and add another hearts raised and another No Stranger to the shadows or you could add in a horn of Boromir, The Great horn for a little extra resistance.
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Elessar's Socks
Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 11:28 pm
Joined: 29 Jul 2007 Posts: 349 Location:
Prince in this case is more like an honorary title. For example Faramir was titled the Prince of Ithilien, and Imrahil was titled the Prince of Dol Amroth (both places are a part of Gondor). But unless I’m mistaken, neither was titled Prince of Gondor, which would be wholly inappropriate.

---

I’ve been really tempted to fit in A Ranger’s Versatility (errata and all) into a WTG deck, with the idea that an exhausted minion can be finished off by Aragorn’s point of archery. From that point the deck naturally shifts to wounding, site path manipulation, and choke. Here’s what it might look like:

Faramir, Bearer of Quality w/ The One Ring, The Ring of Rings
Aragorn, Well-traveled Guide

Free Peoples (30):

2 Aragorn’s Bow
1 Faramir’s Bow
1 Flaming Brand
1 Footman’s Armor
1 Ranger’s Sword

4 Gondor Bowmen
1 Hardy Garrison
1 No Stranger to the Shadows
2 Spirit of the White Tree

4 A Ranger’s Versatility
4 Pathfinder
4 Swordarm of the White Tower
4 Well-traveled

Everything costs 0 or 1 twilight, except Hardy Garrison which is just a shame to leave out (but can be pitched anyway if it’s too dangerous). I might be giving the deck too much credit, but it might even be safe to double at times if you can knock out a couple of minions before the skirmish phase with ARV/Bow or a stack of Gondor Bowmen.

Edit - Tested that while making silly doubles, but it definitely needs more work. Basically there’s not enough Aragorn-ness to go around handling Well-traveled and ARV and Bow and lost skirmishes, so it might need a page from Dain’s book with Invigorated. Smile Well, back to the drawing board...

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