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Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 1202
Location: Austin, TX, USA
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Review of Gondor cards from the new LOTR TCG: Bloodlines set. Focuses on the new companions and how to use them.
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This is one of my old feature articles, which is being added to the forum database to help us keep our strategy section more organized. This article is NOT eligible for the contest, but feel free to rate and review it!
Gondor men boast some of the most famous family trees in Middle-earth, including the 3000-year-old royal bloodline from Elendil and Isildur all the way down to Aragorn. It comes as no surprise that Gondor is one of the cultures that benefits most from the LOTR TCG: Bloodlines expansion set.
I started reading the new Gondor cards from the top of the list down, and was immediately rewarded with Aragorn, Isildur’s Heir. The new Aragorn’s title, picture, and lore all fit perfectly into the "Bloodlines" theme, evoking the part of the story where Aragorn reveals himself as King of Gondor. Isildur’s Heir and his two foil versions will make excellent additions to any collector’s binder. He promises to be popular among players as well; his gametext combines a good defender +1 ability with an even better strength bonus.
That strength bonus just begged for a little research, so here is a list of all the Gondor cards that can have tokens on them:
* Ithilien Trap
* Garrison of Osgiliath
* Noble Leaders
* Houses of Healing
* Heirs of Gondor
* Storied Homestead
With all six of these cards in play, and at least one token on each, Isildur’s Heir would have a natural strength of 14! That’s admittedly a little far-fetched; but you could easily expect to have three of these cards in play. One proven Gondor decktype already uses Noble Leaders and Garrison of Osgiliath, and will surely add Heirs of Gondor to its arsenal as well. Usually the "Noble Leaders" deck includes Strider in its starting fellowship, but an 11-strength Isildur’s Heir (with an excellent anti-swarm ability to boot) is a pretty good reason to make new start-of-game arrangements.
On a side note, it seems strange that there’s no limit on Aragorn’s strength bonus. Decipher is usually careful not to design cards that might limit their creative options in later expansion sets. (For example, Gil-galad’s spear Aiglos is limited to +6 strength, even though there are currently only five Elven artifacts, so that Decipher will be free to add more artifacts later without making Aiglos too powerful.) I wouldn’t be surprised to see an errata limiting Aragorn’s strength bonus so that Decipher is free to design new Gondor token cards in the future.
Knights will get a nice boost from Bloodlines thanks to Elendil, High-king of Gondor. Elendil’s maneuver ability isn’t very useful, but the constant resistance +1 to all Gondor companions (including the Ring-bearer!) is great, and his five vitality will be welcome in exertion-heavy Knight decks.
The new versions of Boromir and Isildur are also quite good. Isildur, Heir of Elendil’s self-destructive gametext might seem like a big risk, but he’s almost no risk at all if played carefully. Rather than including Isildur in your starting fellowship, leave him in your deck as a backup companion; you’ll always have the option of not playing him against corruption- or resistance-based Shadows. Boromir, Doomed Heir has a boosted base strength plus a potentially powerful skirmish ability, making the new Boromir a stronger fighter than any previous version. But since both new characters will have to compete with their Ring-bearer personas, it is hard to say how much play they’ll see.
Two of the most interesting Gondor cards are the "Legacy" conditions. Steward’s Legacy provides benefits each time Denethor, Boromir, or Faramir exerts, although personally I think those benefits seem too minor for the card to see much play. King’s Legacy is a much better card, triggering more useful abilities each time Elendil, Isildur, or Aragorn wins a skirmish. I actually find the second line ("Each time Isildur wins a skirmish, heal a man") the most interesting. Since the new Isildur is a knight, he can easily use a Gondor Bow to win skirmishes, then use King’s Legacy to heal the exertion. Knight players will probably be reluctant to give up Isildur, Bearer of Heirlooms as the Ring-bearer, but King’s Legacy in combination with the new Elendil and Isildur might prove effective enough to create a viable alternate version of the Knight deck. |
| Last edited by Cobra on Sun Feb 05, 2006 4:50 pm; edited 6 times in totalhttp://cobracards.com -- Web's best deals on Trading Card Games. |
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