Streets of Edoras

[Dictionary]

Can anyone give me some background on the Streets of Edoras site? Towers Villagers have site number 4, so it would seem the only card affected by this site is Aldor, and all he would likely do is chump block a minion. ROTK allies have site Towers 3 but I don't think there was ever an official format that allowed them to use Towers sites right? And Streets is in the same set as most of the Towers Villagers. Did Decipher misjudge something here, or am I missing something obvious?

[Ringbearer]

Cards like Horn of boromir who summon allys dont work there. But I agree, its a wasted site.

[Durin's Heir]

I think it was meant for a FP use, to protect your allies from Dunlending Warrior and Dunlending Ravager. Not a Shadow use to block allies from fighting.

[Dictionary]

I think it was meant for a FP use, to protect your allies from Dunlending Warrior and Dunlending Ravager. Not a Shadow use to block allies from fighting.

Ah, now that is an interesting thought. I've always looked at the text as being negative for FP, but that explanation would make more sense. That fits well thematically too, for that time-frame.

I think you've just solved a conundrum that has puzzled me for a long time. I wish I could give you .

[Phallen Cassidy]

I think it was meant for a FP use, to protect your allies from Dunlending Warrior and Dunlending Ravager. Not a Shadow use to block allies from fighting.

If that's the intent, I still think it's a bum site. The only real way that this would be useful is in a 3+ person multiplayer game for the shadow player playing the site to also have allies. Rohan has no way to play the next site by itself, so the burden will fall on the shadow player. Of all the site 3s in TT for a player to want to go second for, this is bottom of the list.

Further, as someone who thoroughly enjoys tacking War Club on Dunlending Warrior, I would just wait until the next site to play that minion. 90 times out of 100 the free peoples isn't going to be able to push past the 3rd site in the first turn, and 9 of the other times they're not going to choose to.

If it's a card for the Free Peoples player, I'd call it far worse than Meduseld. If it's a card for the shadow player to block allies from skirmishing at their home site (and it would've been a good one), the allies likely had their home moved from 3 (their home) to 4 (when they were vulnerable and forced to fight, during the journey from Edoras to Helm's Deep) later in production and this card was left out.

But perhaps it was neither of these. Based on cards like Ranks Without Number, ally skirmishing was a problem they were looking to build in-game counters to rather than ban cards (The first round of bans, which included Boromir's Horn, was at or around the release of set 5). I think it was to prevent a Horn of Boromir+Rohan Allies deck from getting set up too quickly.

Think about that - a horde of allies with access to all the tools of Rohan and bearing Armor or Heavy Chain, a mount, Sword of Rohan or Rider's Spear, Rohirrim Helm, etc. Because they're not unbound, they have no fear of Grima, and Boromir would allow at least two of them skirmishing every turn and get healed the next with Well Stored. With that in mind, I don't think it's a coincidence that Dunlending Ravager will have 7 str against a ally - enough to tie with an ally with Boromir's Horn, but not enough to overwhelm one that hasn't been buffed.

[ket_the_jet]

The site could be a holdover from the earliest play tests of the Rohan culture. When the culture was initially developed, it was lower-vitality companions (like the Theoden, Son of Thengel) who get stronger based on the number of allies in play. The strategy was mostly abandoned as other cultures could exploit the ally tricks (Horn of Boromir in unregulated play made it a mess) but cards like the aforementioned Theoden with Herugrim still stayed in the Towers set.

In this context, Streets of Edoras might make a little more sense.
-wtk