"The beacons are lit!" (9/2: "A summons long expected, and yet dreadful....")

[DáinIronfoot]

Okay, I think I've taken the Grey Company thing as far as it can go without diving into other areas of The End Of All Things...which I am technically not ready to really start all-out spoiling yet. After all, I'm not yet finished with The Way Into Mordor! But I'm liking these short-term "previews" of the set, and The Grey Company was pretty popular overall, so let's do another miniseries: the Beacons of Gondor.

Yes, Decipher touched on this ancient "distress signal" in their sets with cards like Light The Beacons and Hope Is Kindled, but the beacons really never get their due. For example, how is it that we don't have any of the actual beacons themselves?

Time to remedy that: I've made all seven of them into cards, and a very interesting little set of cards at that. What type of cards, you ask? Read on, and enjoy!

•Beacon of Amon Dîn
Artifact • Beacon
To play, spot 2 Men. Plays to your support area.
When you play this artifact, you may draw a card.
At the start of each regroup phase, you may take a beacon into hand from your draw deck.
"‘The beacons! The beacons are lit!'"

As you'll soon see, the very fact that you can play Amon Dîn without spotting another beacon is significant: it is one of only two (maybe three) beacons for which that is true. And this one more than any other really helps set the rest of the beacons up, as it lets you prepare with whatever beacon you most need next from your draw deck. It would be all but impossible to run a good beacon deck without Amon Dîn.

And with some of the benefits you can reap with beacons, it will make a lot of sense to use some of them in a (or ) deck, if not all of them. They all have pretty potent abilities, but as we'll see later in the week, the REAL bonus is in getting all seven out.

But I digress. Moving on, moving on....

•Beacon of Eilenach
Artifact • Beacon
To play, spot a beacon. Plays to your support area.
Each time the fellowship moves to a forest site, you may spot 3 Men to make the move limit +1 for this turn (limit once per turn).
After Amon Dîn in the east, it lay in the Drúadan Forest.

See what I mean? This is an awfully nice benefit, wouldn't you say? Yet without Amon Dîn, you'll likely never get to use it. With Amon Dîn, however, you can get a relatively easy move limit bonus with just a two-card combo and twilight...and it's one that can be reused, since it works at all forest sites. Not bad, eh?

•Beacon of Nardol
Artifact • Beacon
To play, spot a beacon. Plays to your support area.
When you play this artifact, you may draw a card.
Each time you play a beacon, you may add to draw a card.
It acquired the name Nardol, 'fire-hilltop', because its beacon-fire was so bright it could be seen more than a hundred miles away.

Another nice set-up-other-beacons beacon. This probably makes good sense as your first Amon Dîn pull, as it lets you turn all other beacons played thereafter into a bonus card draw.

[ket_the_jet]

•Beacon of Amon Dîn
Artifact • Beacon
To play, spot 2 Men. Plays to your support area.
When you play this artifact, you may draw a card.
At the start of each regroup phase, you may take a beacon into hand from your draw deck.
"‘The beacons! The beacons are lit!'"

Would this be over powered if it let you take a beacon into hand from your draw deck or discard pile?
-wtk

[ket_the_jet]

•Beacon of Eilenach
Artifact • Beacon
To play, spot a beacon. Plays to your support area.
Each time the fellowship moves to a forest site, you may spot 3 Men to make the move limit +1 for this turn (limit once per turn).
After Amon Dîn in the east, it lay in the Drúadan Forest.

It's kind of easy to spot three men. And it is even easier to move to a forest site. With all of the extra card drawing with these beacons, you could almost triple move twice and win the game in three turns.
-wtk

[Thranduil]

•Beacon of Amon Dîn
Artifact • Beacon
To play, spot 2 Men. Plays to your support area.
When you play this artifact, you may draw a card.
At the start of each regroup phase, you may take a beacon into hand from your draw deck.
"‘The beacons! The beacons are lit!'"

Is this the first beacon (ie. the one next to Minas Tirith)?

•Beacon of Eilenach
Artifact • Beacon
To play, spot a beacon. Plays to your support area.
Each time the fellowship moves to a forest site, you may spot 3 Men to make the move limit +1 for this turn (limit once per turn).
After Amon Dîn in the east, it lay in the Drúadan Forest.

Move limit is a nice way to think about beacons (you see the beacons are lit, so you try and move as fast as you can) but the forest requirement seems out of place... I think I have an interesting (and possibly bad!) idea which I'll put at the end of my reviews.

•Beacon of Nardol
Artifact • Beacon
To play, spot a beacon. Plays to your support area.
When you play this artifact, you may draw a card.
Each time you play a beacon, you may add to draw a card.
It acquired the name Nardol, 'fire-hilltop', because its beacon-fire was so bright it could be seen more than a hundred miles away.

I don't think you need to add . Otherwise it's okay. My problem is there is no unity between these beacons - in order to make them into a real cycle, they need to all be functionally the same.

Okay, now for my (possibly bad - I am indeed very tired) idea. What if you played beacons on sites? You would literally be creating a line of beacons on the adventure path. You could only play a beacon on site 2 after you've played one on site 1, and they would get bonuses for stacking up, up until site 7 (and they would presumably get discarded if someone controls that site?). So I guess I'm thinking about something like:

•Beacon of Halifirien
Artifact • Beacon • Site
To play, spot a beacon at a site with lower site number. If a Shadow player controls this site, discard this artifact.
When you play this artifact, remove for each beacon you can spot and make the move limit +1.

•Beacon of Nardol
Artifact • Beacon • Site
To play, spot a beacon at a site with lower site number. If a Shadow player controls this site, discard this artifact.
When you play this artifact, draw a card for each beacon you can spot.

•Beacon of Amon Dîn
Artifact • Beacon • Site
To play, spot 2 Men. If a Shadow player controls this site, discard this artifact.
At the start of the regroup phase, you may play a beacon from your draw deck.

I dunno, a bit crazy, perhaps too much thought for each beacon to have something unique and not overpowered (I suppose not all of them need any text at all), but it's just a thought.

Thranduil

[lem0nhead]

I was going to remove this but im guessing Dain will want to see it first to block the user.

He has some very interesting thoughts on your cards DI

[DáinIronfoot]

Okay, that was...odd. Post removed, obviously.

Been an INSANE week, both at work and at home. I wanted to post more beacons yesterday (I was going to do two then and two on Friday), but since I'm a day (and almost two days) late, here are three more. You'll see why I saved the last one later....

Anyway, I am open to Thran's idea, but I want to finish posting the beacons as they currently are first and then see if that idea still seems better. That last beacon will be the real kicker, but until we get there, enjoy these. Hopefully they're more "unified" than the last trio, too...you'll see that Eilenach is really kind of the oddball among all these.

Anyway, enjoy!

•Beacon of Erelas
Artifact • Beacon
To play, spot a beacon. Plays to your support area.
When you play this artifact, you may spot 3 other beacons to reconcile your hand.
Fellowship: Play a beacon to reveal the top X cards of your draw deck, where X is the number of beacons you can spot. Play each beacon revealed. Reshuffle your draw deck.
Its beacon hill lay among the White Mountains as they came down into the plains of Anórien, the fief of Gondor that lay on Rohan's borders.

The ultimate cycling beacon, allowing deck reshuffling, potential mass beacon playing, and best of all, rare pre-regroup reconciling. Is it all too much? Should this perhaps require spotting more beacons to play in the first place?

•Beacon of Min-Rimmon
Artifact • Beacon
To play, spot a beacon or spot a Man and a Man. Plays to your support area.
When you play this artifact, you may play Beacon of Calenhad from your draw deck.
Each time you play a beacon, you may make a or companion strength +2 until the regroup phase.
Min-Rimmon was one of the oldest beacons, set in place even before the foundation of Rohan.

The only beacon other than Amon Dîn you can play without any other beacons around. It doesn't have nearly the set-up potential Amon Dîn does, but it does let you pull one other beacon alongside it, so even without a full-out beacon strategy, this makes for a decent toss-in for / fellowships.

•Beacon of Calenhad
Artifact • Beacon
To play, spot a beacon. Plays to your support area.
When you play this artifact, add 2 threats. If you cannot, add instead.
Each time the fellowship moves from a mountain site, you may remove a threat.
Some miles to the east of the Firien Wood, there was a wide, shallow recess in the foothills of the White Mountains. Overlooking this region were two of the Beacon-hills of Gondor, Min-Rimmon to the east and Calenhad to the west.

And here's what you get along with Min-Rimmon. The initial threat or twilight adding makes this seem like a bit of a waste, until you notice you can use it to remove threats as well. The catch? It requires a site type that you don't see much with (or , for that matter): mountains. But that's kind of the point, trying to encourage some unusual sites be used with these cultures, much like Eilenach was trying to do with forests. Eilenach is in the middle of a forest, while Calenhad is one of the higher-in-the-mountains beacons, so to me, at least, it made some sense. Maybe that's JUST me.

[menace64]

The inherent problem with creating seven artifacts as the core of a multi-cultural fellowship is space, and after that it's a problem of balance. I kind of rushed through reading the cards (it's 5 in the morning!) but unless you have an easy-access, non-beacon card to pull the first beacon, you're forced to reconcile into one that you can play, and *then* you have to start playing all of them before you really get anything going. To answer this, you'd need to run x3 or x4 copies of at least one beacon, and then x1 of each other. That's a pricey investment, especially when you'd still need the basic tools to survive - strength pumps, RB protection, possessions.

And why would you need those "basic" tools? Simply because there's no balanced way to make those seven artifacts somehow provide everything you need. Artifacts by their nature are almost impossible to get rid of, so designing core gameplay elements into them is a surefire way to beat down an opponent.

Also... it's boring! Artifacts are meant to be shiny, exotic, and rare. Throwing down seven of them that may as well be the exact same thing (after all... they're all just big bonfires) takes most of the fun out of playing them in the first place, especially when most opponents wouldn't be able to discern one from the other.

/rant (if it came off that way)

I've seen several iterations of beacon cards over the years, and they all come back to those problems. The only balanced, effective way of bringing beacons into the game is to inject the broad spectrum of card types, making one or two of them events (Amon Din and Halifirien work well here since they're on the ends), one or two into artifacts (Nardol and Min-Rimmon for their complex design and age, respectively), and then maybe one of two of the remaining three into sites. I'd say Calenhad would be a possession, since it's little more than a mound of logs and having one possession would give Shadow players another way of breaking the chain.

All in all, that's just my long-standing opinion on the matter. If you think making them all into artifacts is more enjoyable for you, then go for it. It's your dream card set, not mine. The object is to have fun.

Oh, and if you do Free Peoples beacons as artifacts, it would only be fair to give Shadow players equal treatment: Beacon of Morgul Vale and Beacon of the Dark Tower would be very fun to see, especially if the power of those two were able to match the power of your seven!

[Ulmo]

I don't see how you can play the beacons on sites because once the fellowship has moved you lose the beacon's ability and then they're useless.
And the idea is to stretch the Rohan and Gondor sets to use those other sites, not to just give them the geographic keyword.
And who says you need all 7 beacons in one deck - I can think of a couple of decks I have now that could benefit from one or two these.

[Thranduil]

I don't see how you can play the beacons on sites because once the fellowship has moved you lose the beacon's ability and then they're useless.

No, something stacked on a site always retains its text unless otherwise specified (assuming the card you stacked is active - ie. it belongs to you in your turn and you or a fellow Shadow player in an opponent's turn).

And who says you need all 7 beacons in one deck - I can think of a couple of decks I have now that could benefit from one or two these.

This is a good point. I think the challenge with these beacons is to make a unified 7 which work very well together if you want, but at least some that are splashable and can work by themselves.

I do agree with m64 about the beacon's issues and why they become such a challenge, and it's up to you to try and answer it (obviously - they're your cards). This is probably the main reason that my brief execution of beaconage was flawed, because it was too card-intensive and too restrictive. To be honest, it could be that these beacons would be better represented as 1-3 card(S) encompassing the flavour of calling for aid - unfortunately a flavour already covered by the Red Arrow.

Thranduil

[DáinIronfoot]

Okay, I figured this type of issue would come up, and thanks for such a well-thought-out way of putting it, Menace.

I am personally opposed to the idea of having beacons appear as different types of cards. That's an idea I've seen proposed (and done) before, and I just don't like the flavor. I much prefer they all be of the same type of card, so to me, that meant all events or all something more permanent, like conditions...or in this case, artifacts. I don't have a really rational argument for it, I just like it that way. And while we're going with irrational, I like the lasting card idea more than events, too. (I plan on having some events that spot beacons for effect, though.)

So, with that in mind, I knew it would be a major challenge to get all of them (or even just the majority of them) in play. As you pointed out, it's incredibly combo intensive. I tried to solve this by letting you play them relatively rapidly once you get one or two out; Amon Dîn comes first and pulls others, Min-Rimmon gives you two beacons at once, some of the others draw or reveal cards and let you cycle down to more beacons or at least make a potentially larger-than-normal deck seem smaller.

I also tried to spread around useful abilities on the beacons so you wouldn't HAVE to have certain other cards in your deck. Looking over them now, though, I can see I haven't done a great job of that. Really no RB protection and little in the way of pumps. Hmmm. I'll go back and plug some of those holes, so look for some tweaking of the first six beacons soon, but in the meantime, know that there will be some beacon-related cards that fill some of those gaps. I have at least one pump that gets better with beacons around, and some burden removal, and some discard pile retrieving to get back those cards or others after you use them. I'll get to those sometime this week, so perhaps take a look again after that (and after I tweak some of the beacons) and then re-judge. I'm open to changes, certainly, like perhaps changing these to play-on-site cards after all. (And I really like the idea of Shadow beacons. I confess I hadn't thought of that, but I will certainly do that. ) But I would recommend you give me a chance to clean it up, post some more stuff, and then judge the overall body of work when it's completed. If, after that, it still doesn't work, I'll be wide open to suggestions.

Anyway, to help us get there, let's do our last beacon and a companion that definitely helps the overall strategy. Enjoy!

•Beacon of Halifirien
Artifact • Beacon
To play, spot 3 beacons and a Man. Plays to your support area.
At the start of each maneuver and regroup phase, you may take a or card into hand from your draw deck, then reshuffle your draw deck.
Each time the fellowship moves, add , then remove for each beacon you can spot.
"‘Gondor calls for aid!'"

Hopefully, this makes playing all seven beacons worth it. Yes, it takes some work to get there, but once you do, you can pick and choose the cards you need from your deck...and twice per turn, at that! Now perhaps people will say this whole beacon strategy is overpowered....

Beacon-warden
Companion • Man
Strength: 6
Vitality: 3
Resistance: 7
Knight.
When you play this companion (except in your starting fellowship), you may play a beacon from your draw deck.
"...the Lord of the City had beacons built on the tops of outlying hills along both borders of the great range, and maintained posts at these points...."

Yet another way to snag the beacons you need. I thought about even removing the "except in your starting fellowship" clause, but I figured that might be too much.

Any chance in opinion yet? I'll keep trying next time.

[ket_the_jet]

What if it was just "Fellowship: Exert Beacon-Warden to play a Beacon from your draw deck or discard pile.

Or, like Base of Mindolluin, Fellowship: Add a threat to play a Beacon from your draw deck or discard pile.

If I am playing a deck with several beacons, I want them soon because they seem to be important. So Aragorn, Driven By Need coupled with a Beacon-Warden or two can help out. Make it (limit once per turn) and make Beacon-Warden unique if you are concerned with grabbing too many beacons by playing four of them.

Or maybe make a Rohirrim Beacon-Warden too.
•Light-Watcher of Rohan
Strength 5, Vitality 3, Resistance 6
Light-Watcher of Rohan is strength +1 for each Artifact you can spot (limit +3).
Regroup: Discard two Beacons to wound two minions (or wound one minion twice).

[DáinIronfoot]

What if it was just "Fellowship: Exert Beacon-Warden to play a Beacon from your draw deck or discard pile.

Or, like Base of Mindolluin, Fellowship: Add a threat to play a Beacon from your draw deck or discard pile.

I like the second idea better than the first, since a couple beacons already tie in with threats, but I'll wait to see what other reviewers say before I make any changes (IF anyone else reviews...slow week here, it seems).

Or maybe make a Rohirrim Beacon-Warden too.
•Light-Watcher of Rohan
Strength 5, Vitality 3, Resistance 6
Light-Watcher of Rohan is strength +1 for each Artifact you can spot (limit +3).
Regroup: Discard two Beacons to wound two minions (or wound one minion twice).

You're one step ahead of me, my friend.

[DáinIronfoot]

Haven't had to do this for a LONG time, but uh...bump?

[menace64]

•Beacon of Halifirien
Artifact • Beacon
To play, spot 6 beacons and a Man. Plays to your support area.
When you play this artifact, choose a Shadow player. That player may add up to 3 threats. For each threat added in this way, you may draw a card.
At the beginning of each maneuver and regroup phase, you may take a or card into hand from your draw deck. If that card is a card, reshuffle your draw deck.
"‘Gondor calls for aid!'"

It's horrible. Go home.

Juuuuuust kidding, of course. No, this is a powerhouse of a beacon for sure, but you already know that. My opinion is that this is the beacon any serious deck-builder would just skip over. Way too card-intensive and time-consuming even for the benefits that come with it. Surely the other 6, much easier to play, beacons would satisfy the needs of the FP player. This one would be the rare card that new players are attracted to but quickly discover is just unplayable.

Beacon-warden
Companion • Man
Strength: 6
Vitality: 3
Resistance: 7
When you play this companion (except in your starting fellowship), you may play a beacon from your draw deck or discard pile.
"‘For I saw the beacons last night and the errand-riders....'"

Why did I read the title as "Beacon-eater" when I first saw it?

Very good decision preventing this guy from pulling a beacon in a starting fellowship situation. We don't need "starting effects" in LotR. Honestly I'd cut the discard pile portion of the text. And then I'd make him a knight.

Keep going. Like you said, I can't give an informed opinion without seeing everything.

[DáinIronfoot]

Again, should be in bed, but since I'm up anyway....

•Beacon of Halifirien
Artifact • Beacon
To play, spot 6 beacons and a Man. Plays to your support area.
When you play this artifact, choose a Shadow player. That player may add up to 3 threats. For each threat added in this way, you may draw a card.
At the beginning of each maneuver and regroup phase, you may take a or card into hand from your draw deck. If that card is a card, reshuffle your draw deck.
"‘Gondor calls for aid!'"

It's horrible. Go home.

Waaaaaaaah!

Juuuuuust kidding, of course. No, this is a powerhouse of a beacon for sure, but you already know that. My opinion is that this is the beacon any serious deck-builder would just skip over. Way too card-intensive and time-consuming even for the benefits that come with it. Surely the other 6, much easier to play, beacons would satisfy the needs of the FP player. This one would be the rare card that new players are attracted to but quickly discover is just unplayable.

Yes, I know it's rough. I had thought about making it spot only like 4 beacons, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Playtesting would likely prove what you're saying, so I hope to think of some way to make this more viable. But even still...as written now, if you really focused your deck on getting this out and using the related events and support cards I keep teasing...MAYBE it could still work. I'll have to reconsider this myself once I crank out everything else. I still think I can make it work, but it may take some more tinkering to get there.

] Beacon-warden
Companion • Man
Strength: 6
Vitality: 3
Resistance: 7
When you play this companion (except in your starting fellowship), you may play a beacon from your draw deck or discard pile.
"‘For I saw the beacons last night and the errand-riders....'"

Why did I read the title as "Beacon-eater" when I first saw it?

Obviously, you need to eat something, my friend.

Very good decision preventing this guy from pulling a beacon in a starting fellowship situation. We don't need "starting effects" in LotR. Honestly I'd cut the discard pile portion of the text. And then I'd make him a knight.

Yes, I had thought allowing you to essentially start with a beacon or two was over the top. Things are bad enough with the Dammed Gate-stream / Something Slimy combo.

Can do on the tweaks. Good ideas.

Keep going. Like you said, I can't give an informed opinion without seeing everything.

Thanks for seeing it out. I hope to have more cards up tomorrow, but it might not happen until the weekend. We shall see.