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josiah_of_rohan

Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 11:18 pm

Joined: 13 Aug 2005 Posts: 723 Location: Indianapolis,Indiana

--- description ---
Overview of LOTR TCG’s many different Shadow minion strategies.
--- end description ---

Of all the different minion strategies which one is the strongest?
This is the biggest question asked by new comers and more experienced players alike. Now for a start, there are actually only five used minion strategies; burdens, archery, wounding, biggie, and swarms. Now, each of these strategies is broken down into different cultures, minions, and slightly varied ways to execute the purpose. Ok I know someone is looking at this right now thinking “I still don’t know what minion deck is the strongest…” Well I think that the question that everyone needs to ask themselves is actually “What kinda minions match my personality?” And that is what I want answer. So i’m going to go and look at the main minion decks to try to find what deck is good for you or that one guy down the street that cant build decks worth sh….aving cream.

For a burden type strategy there are a few different decks that one can choose from, Easterlings, Orcs, and Nazgul. The Easterlings add burdens and then remove those to give themselves effects that can help to kill companions. This can be a fun way to annoy your opponent but I don’t think it does much more.
Orcs add burdens by winning skirmishes, or by simply surviving to the regroup phase. They are good at corrupting the ringbearer, which if you ask me is the point of a burden deck. Finally we have the Nazgul, which can add burdens with a fierce ferocity formerly unfound… but seriously…I think that Nazgul are the best of the minion cultures at adding burdens.
I think the person that uses this strategy should be thoughtful, and somewhat passive. It takes allot of strategy to build and play a burden deck because you usually need to place several key cards that are used in conjunction with each other to create problems for an opponent

The next minion strategy is archery, now the easiest way to do archery is to just grab all the archer minions you can find and put them all in a deck and hope that they do some good, the more reliable forms of archery are the single culture archery decks. Moria’s archery deck can be an annoyance but not much more. Southrons are much the same as Moria orcs I think they are both archery decks that never got enough added to them to do anything good. Then you have the uruk archery deck which can be effective if used correctly but isn’t usually looked at as much of a good deck. Finally there is the Men archery deck which seems to pack quite a punch. As I have observed, the Men archery deck has the greatest ability to throw sharp dangerous things at a fellowship. So overall I would suggest the Evil Men archery for anyone wanting to shoot rather than just win skirmishes.
This is a deck more commonly used by people that like to see a fellowship fall apart one companion at a time, also a person using archery usually isn’t the kind of person that likes to really think allot about how they are going to get set up. Archery decks are good for people who want fast results.

Now we move onto the less used wounding deck, the only cultures that really do a lot of direct wounding are Southrons and Sauron Orcs, either of which can and usually will decimate an opponent’s fellowship.
Wounding decks are kind of a mix between archery and burden decks, because you can get immediate results but it takes the same kind of strategic abilities as a burden deck takes.
It’s more of a deck used by people wanting to make a deck that takes more thought to use.

One of the most common newbie decks is the biggie deck. Basically you only have to throw a bunch of large minions in a deck and hope you have enough tokens to play them. But there are more strategic ways of playing a biggie deck, an example would be the moria biggie deck which uses Moria Axes to make minions very large while using as little twighlight tokens as possible. Another form of the more advanced biggie decks is an Orc Troll deck, for this a person would use goblin hordes to bring as many trolls as possible into there hand, then they play the trolls keyward and exert him to add enough to play those trolls.
A biggie deck is better suited for a brute force kinda guy (or gal), the people who like to win (or hate to loose).

Finally we come to my favorite minion culture, Swarms. There are two basic ways to build a swarm deck, the smart way, and the not so smart way. The smart way is by actually trying to build a deck that can play minions over and over again until you pull more minions out then companions, then poor ol’ Frodo bites it. The less intelligent way to build a swarm deck is to just toss small minions in a deck and not play anything until site four, then dump everything you have, hopefully putting out enough to get Frodo (or whatever other ringbearer you may be facing). The smart swarm cultures would be Moria and Corsairs, there are some others that can kind of swarm a fellowship but… I don’t think the really work that well.
A deck like this would be used by that little guy back in grade school that you beat up everyday for his Milk money… actually I just think this is a deck just about anybody could and would play just because its fun

I guess that really it doesn’t matter what deck you use just as long as you enjoy playing it (that’s what really counts)

I hope that this has helped all you new comers and you old people… I mean…those of you that….are wiser then everyone else… Wink

~Josiah

my trade ist is here http://trade.mahasamatman.com/Rings/list_show.pl?user=keltnerj

The First

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 7:18 pm

Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 195 Location: Anderlecht, Belgium

Hi,

maybe you could do a series of articles about this.

Write 1 article for each strategy.

Burdening for instance;

there are many ways to add burdens; Orcs add burdens when winning skirmishes, Nazgul add burdens with Enquea (by wounding/exerting him pre-skirmish phase) and Easterlings add them during assignment. You can like one and hate the other strategy.

Make a few articles with a summary about the main idea, then each type explained and maybe a decklist.

The First

aka Athelas, the healing herb

Cleston

Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2005 3:11 pm

Joined: 10 Aug 2005 Posts: 110 Location: Brasil

hey dude, you mention absolutely no Gollum shadow... they are worth for both corruption and wounding, so perhaps you should consider having a look at this culture.

i won't complain about the shelob, eater of light beatdown deck, since it is actually never seen... yet... Twisted Evil

- "If I die, your deck will crumble!"
Gandalf (any of them)

SnowBalrog

Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2005 11:19 pm

Joined: 26 Sep 2005 Posts: 63 Location: St. Louis, Missouri

I think its a nice little article! I can't believe you didn't mention Gollum for the wounding section... but all in all insightful.

Marcus: Our Snow Balrog would be a lot more impressive if it didn't keep melting.
Jason: Maybe if we used a little less lighter fluid...?

hblika

Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 12:36 pm

Joined: 20 Jul 2005 Posts: 287 Location: Norway

How can you not mention the lurker swarm or the morc swarm??? It's only 2 of the most popular and effective shadows EVER.

And when talking about Easterlings, how about mentioning the Easterling Captain/Army deck, instead of the really sucky RotK Easterlings?

And just to clarify, a burdening deck doesn't have to have corruption in mind (see Easterling Captain point above), but a corruption shadow on the other hand...

And how can you say Southron archery as just an annoyance? Southron threat archery is a very efective shadowside, especially now that threats reappears in Hunters.

And as others have mentioned in previous posts, Gollum is sadly overlooked as well.

I'm sorry to be harsh, but you don't seem to be too aware of the great shadow sides, both present and past.

I'm not stupid. I'm just unlucky when I'm thinking.

ingold55

Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2005 8:04 pm

Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 1199 Location: Out on the front line

i really liked it! Very Happy

very enlightening. Very Happy

ingold

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