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| Beyo |
![]() Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2006 6:21 pm |
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Joined: 22 Nov 2005
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Location: Poland
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--- description ---
Siege was always very effective method of taking over the castle. Article focused on besiegers mechanics in LOTR TCG.
--- end description ---
Idea of besiegers was first introduced with site control mechanic in tower block.
Usually to perform a siegie you need to control some area and then constantly attack opponent trying to break his defense systems. How to do this in LOTR TCG? There are two cultures what use besieging tactics so let’s take a look:
Isengard
Taking position:
It’s very easy for Uruk-Hai to take control of a site. Two conditions are commonly used: Attack of Helms Deep and Down to the last child. Both are easy to use and with standard equipped Uruks you should have no trouble in control.
Preparing the army
What troops are the best for siege? First we should look at Uruk Besieger , Uruk Trooper and Uruk Veteran. These minions are valuable because their regroup ability - stacking on site. Most preferable weapon is Broad Blade Sword - excellent protection vs nasty elven archers.
But that’s not all - site control can give you realy benefits during the siege:
Attacking
There are many possibilites of making atack in Isengard siege subculture.
First we have Band of Uruk Bowmen increasing archery when site is controlled,and there are also infantry minions boosted with strength when site controlled : Advance Uruk Patrol,Uruk Assault Band, Uruk Vanguard, Uruk Defender etc.
Yes, Battleground sites can be really dangerous for too brave fellowships.
But thats not all. We can use also Isengard archers and combine them with besiegers - if we take off some weak companions then we have chance for swarm ( with low cost of besiegers played from site it is not unusual).
There is no good siege without machines. in BOHD expantion Uruks got superb new equipment to make fight more easy.
Assault ladder , Battering Ram, Siege Engine ( a musthave) and especially Devilry Of Orthanc are token-based condition what helps in skirmish phase in many ways.
The most popular combo was using Devilry with uruk berkserkers and although collecting 8 tokens on machine is hard task, if done properly itbrings devastating effect on fellowships ,wounding your berkserkers as well (to give them more strength).
So lets look at example shadow site:
Attack Of Helms Deep x3
Down to the Last CHild x2
Saruman Ambition x4
Uruk Besieger x4
Uruk Trooper x3
Uruk Veteran x3
Broad Bladed Sword x4
Race across the mark //protect minions
Pillage of Rohan // MUSTHAVE
Uruk Spear x2
Saruman,MoFF x2 // took weapons from discard
Lurtz x1 // because...why not
Uruk Captain //play uruk from discard
Uruk Hai Horde // cheap minion with site controlled
Tower of Orthanc // adding tiwlight
Caradras has not forgiven us //for big fellowships
SAURON
Similar strategy was incorporated by sauron culture for King block environment and it was great addition to typical sauron orcs.
Playing red besiegers is difficult because there are many minions with this keyword and there are many ways of setting good deck based on site control. But there are some common strategies:
1. Using engines like Their Marching Company, Grond and ITHIL STONE ( very expensive card) used for discarding opponent cards or lowering the cost for besieger minion like Troll Of Gorgoroth.
2. Rank and File, Secret Art of Flame, Flames Within - each wound on roaming minion adds token what can be later exchanged for strength. Playing conditions in regrup gives initative and with init each of our sauron minion is str +2.
3. Threat adding - little difficult because minions who add threats are not besiegers and we have to have good balance between two types of these orcs.
Good method is to play Legion of Morgul in regroup so you have 3 threats until next regroup phase. Threat are needed fot stacking and playing minions from a site.
4. Siege Troop - find a way to make it fierce and it can devastate opponent.
It control site in regoup phase or may be good basic minion in "regroup deck" with Peril and Spied from Above.
5. Sauron - Yeaah, the dark lord himself. His high cost make him difficult to play but..in late phase of game it will be sudden surprise to every fellow...try to play him exhausted in regoup thanks to Peril - Sauron is enduring
 and don’t forget his sceptre -> and dead lies among free peoples. 
6. Olog-Hai of Mordor with stacked besiegers.
There are some besiegers who can stack on site we control ,without Their Marching Companies. Six stacked minions and Olog Hai comes for free, then it win skirmish and we play besiegers from site with damage +1 and fierce
7. Seldom used but extremely effective is to use Southrons. Use besiegers for site control and play Southron Archer x3 or x4 if you have a chance. I know it’s hard to do but...20 archery for total cost of 12 may finish a game.
We can even make corrupt deck ( i dont’ remember name of the minion but it add burden for each site controlled ,when played from site) or "big wounding" deck ( Gothmog )
How to fight with siege?
FP site are of course not defenseless vs such attack. The most valuable culture is Gondor. It does not have condition removal cards except Athelas however it’s balanced by Defent it and Hope,Sentinels of Numenor,New Errand and many other cards. Gondorian people can fight Saruman menace quite effective with their weapons. They have rangers who benefits of making minion roaming and finish these minions with additional damage.
Gondor is also home of fortifications - rangers will use it to slow down minions in their march increasing their site number , but ....there are no fortifications without knights.
Knights are one of the best way to fight with besiegers. With Forth Level + Citadel of The Stars+ Sixth Level they kill every minion and there is no prevention for that!!!
Knight are able to create large and cheap fellowships thanks to Denethor,Steward of The City and with Strong and Old it is easier to play number of stone walls without a cost.
Gondorian people are also known of their archery skills - less accurate in bow than Elves but deadly enough with The Greatest Stronghold and Gondor Bowman.
Key strategy vs besiegers are archery fire and fortifications. Others are less effective however brave Rohan riders on their mounts may force Uruk to escape from battlefield.
Summary:
Let me say that straight..playing besiegers is not easy especially in sauron culture. There are plenty combination of creating deck so I won’t put here an example, everyone should develop some own strategy.
Besiegers have all the tactics you may wish to play: corrupting, skirmish-winning, site control, archery , swarming, and even eclectic mix of red and black UrukHais seems to work in tournaments.
That’s why besiegers remain my favourite subculture to this day and I recommend it to every advanced player.[/b] |
| Last edited by Beyo on Sun Feb 19, 2006 12:16 pm; edited 6 times in totalTime in the universe may be eternal..our patience is not |
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| ingold55 |
![]() Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2006 6:49 pm |
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Joined: 10 Oct 2005
Posts: 1199
Location: Out on the front line
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good article.  |
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| AdultLink |
![]() Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 1:39 pm |
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Joined: 15 Dec 2005
Posts: 253
Location: Hyrule
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| A pretty good article. I never thought about the possibility of playing Legions of Morgul during the regroup phase.. tricky. A bit of touchup could help, grammar bits and so forth. Also you omitted my favorite Uruk machine: Scaling Ladder! A bit more strategic depth would have impressed me more, but nevertheless good work! |
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| Cobra |
![]() Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 3:25 pm |
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Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 1202
Location: Austin, TX, USA
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Nice job overall, could use a few edits for readability (grammar, correct card names).
How are you playing a condition (Legions of Morgul) during the regroup phase? |
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| exarrkun |
![]() Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 12:47 pm |
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Joined: 25 Jan 2006
Posts: 93
Location: Belgium
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| Beyo |
![]() Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 8:22 pm |
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Joined: 22 Nov 2005
Posts: 60
Location: Poland
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About Ithil stone..yes I know its artifact. I wrote that, because it is often used with engines so my mistake but regardless of that this artifact is very powerful thing.
I add 7) to General strategies and add some info how to fight with besiegers using Gondor culture. |
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| exarrkun |
![]() Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 8:19 am |
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Joined: 25 Jan 2006
Posts: 93
Location: Belgium
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good extention!!!
also very good vs mordor:
foes of mordor |
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| Beyo |
![]() Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 12:15 pm |
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Joined: 22 Nov 2005
Posts: 60
Location: Poland
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Quote: also very good vs mordor:
foes of mordor
yeah..but the main weakness of cards like this is they take place in deck..in tournament you never know who do you play with.
But sometimes it hurts if you kill only orc on table and there is no Orc Bowmen archery |
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