Broken links / Never-made.

[menace64]

Decipher games have a reputation for ending without certain you'd-assume-mandatory cards ever being made. An easy example in LotR is Guthwine, which for whatever reason never made an appearance as a card. You could also make an argument that Decipher "forgot" to actually write a card (or even a cycle of cards) enabling a player to, you know, actually destroy the Ring, which to me still feels like a glaring oversight even after so many years.

What else got missed? We should cardcraft some solutions!

[Durin's Heir]

The Voice of Saruman comes to my mind, and a version of him as a cast-off Istar. Those would have been much better in Reflections than, say, Merry and Pippin's almost-useless Daggers (also, in a set with a very disproportionate FP to Shadow cards ratio). Durin's Axe was missing also in the Reflections Second-Age batch of cards; though not mandatory, it had far more importance and protagonism than Aiglos during the late Third Age.

ranged weapons, Warg and Mumak minions, Mordor catapults (and their cephalic ammunition), some trick to convert Boromir a corrupted companion into a minion, Wizard staff-stealing, Corsair (and Southron) site control... the Beacons of Gondor, for Peter Jackson's sake!


I can start with Saruman the Pauper:

•Saruman, Fangless Snake
Minion • Wizard
Strength: 8  Vitality: 3  Site Number: 2
While you can spot another minion, Saruman cannot take wounds.
Men are strength +2 for each site you control.
Regroup: Discard Saruman (or 2 other minions) to take control of a site.
"'You may be right,' said Gandalf; 'but this snake had still one tooth left, I think. He had the poison of his voice...'"


Makes Isen Men viable by making them jump on the site-control bandwagon. And helps the culture to take sites, which is much harder in Movie Block than in Towers. And fights (kinda), without having to use his Staff.



Well, here's another one. The one for Evil Boromir:

•Mischief At Work
Condition
Strength +1  Resistance -2
To play, remove a burden. Plays on a companion (except the Ring-bearer).
Maneuver: If bearer has 0 resistance, make him or her your minion until the regroup phase. Discard bearer if killed. Discard this card at the regroup phase.
"'Why not be free of your doubt and fear?'"


And Evil Denethor too. It runs in the family.

[menace64]

The Voice of Saruman comes to my mind.

•The Voice of Saruman
Condition • Support Area
Resistance -2
Spell. To play, spot Saruman.
At the start of the maneuver phase, you may exert Saruman to transfer this condition to an unbound companion.
Bearer's special abilities may not be used.
Regroup: Return Saruman to your hand to transfer this condition to your support area.

I just threw-out all of the things I could think of that might apply to a proper Voice card. Personally I like how it only works on one companion at a time, but enables Saruman to become slippery via the Regroup effect.

Durin's Axe was missing also in the Reflections Second-Age batch of cards; though not mandatory, it had far more importance and protagonism than Aiglos during the late Third Age.

•Durin's Axe
Artifact • Hand Weapon
Strength +3
Vitality -1
To play, spot a unique Dwarf in your dead pile. Plays to your support area.
While you can spot a Dwarf and an Orc, each Dwarf and each Orc is strength +1.
Response: If an unbound Dwarf is about to lose a skirmish, discard your hand to transfer Durin's Axe to that companion.

I tried to emphasize its status as 'lost', but able to be recovered once the situation has proven dire enough. I'm not sure if triggering when the Dwarf is about to lose the skirmish gives the Axe enough time to be beneficial so that might need to be reworded.

ranged weapons,

Not sure what you're referring to. I suppose the only ranged weapon of Isengard I can conjure that I haven't seen as a card is:

Isengard Bow
Possession • Ranged Weapon
Bearer must be an Orc.
Skirmish: Heal bearer to make an unbound companion strength -1 until the start of the regroup phase (-2 if that companion is an Ent).

It kind of doesn't make a lot of sense, but I was trying to bolster Orcs while giving them a slight boost against burny-burny Ents.

Warg and Mumak minions

I've tackled mumaks-as-minions before. It still burns me up that we never saw them as anything more than mounts. I've been playing a lot of Magic Arena and one of my favorite cards is Lumbering Battlement precisely because it feels like how Mumaks should've worked:

Mumak of the Haradrim
Minion • Mumak
Strength: 9
Vitality: 5
Site Number: 9
Damage +3. To play, spot 2 Southrons.
This minion is twilight cost -1 for each Southron in play that you stack here when you play it.
This minion is strength +2 for each Southron stacked on it.

Always roaming and too slow to be Fierce, this Mumak benefits from the size of the Southron force you put aboard it.

Mordor catapults (and their cephalic ammunition)

I never would've realized that we were totally denied such a card! Argh!!

Gorgoroth Catapult
Possession • Ranged Weapon
Engine. To play, exert a Orc.
Archery: Exert your besieger and remove any number of characters in the dead pile from the game to make the Shadow archery total +1 for each character removed; end the archery phase.

The engines should've been ranged weapon possessions. For real.

•Saruman, Fangless Snake
Minion • Wizard
Strength: 8  Vitality: 3  Site Number: 2
While you can spot another minion, Saruman cannot take wounds.
Men are strength +2 for each site you control.
Regroup: Discard Saruman (or 2 other minions) to take control of a site.
"'You may be right,' said Gandalf; 'but this snake had still one tooth left, I think. He had the poison of his voice...'"

I would've used this Saruman in an instant. Definitely not fangless!

•Mischief At Work
Condition
Strength +1  Resistance -2
To play, remove a burden. Plays on a companion (except the Ring-bearer).
Maneuver: If bearer has 0 resistance, make him or her your minion until the regroup phase. Discard bearer if killed. Discard this card at the regroup phase.
"'Why not be free of your doubt and fear?'"

We definitely didn't get enough support for 0-resistance companions. This card feels very old-school while also incorporating the resistance mechanic. I'd like to try an alternate wording though:

"To play, remove a burden. Plays on a companion (except the Ring-bearer).
At the end of the maneuver phase, if bearer has 0 resistance, he or she becomes a minion.
Discard this condition at the start of the regroup phase."

Ongoing broken links:

Wizard staff-stealing, Corsair (and Southron) site control... the Beacons of Gondor, for Peter Jackson's sake!

[Phallen Cassidy]

Not convinced this is the best way to go about it:

•The Way of Pain
Condition
Plays to your support area.
Shadow: Exert Saruman or spot 4 burdens to transfer a possession borne by Gandalf to another eligible bearer.
Regroup: If Saruman bears a card, exert him to wound Gandalf (twice?).

For the beacons, caprylz had an interesting take here: http://lotrtcgwiki.com/forums/index.php/topic,11533.0.html

Gorgoroth Catapult
Possession • Ranged Weapon
Engine. To play, exert a Orc.
Archery: Exert your besieger and remove any number of characters in the dead pile from the game to make the Shadow archery total +1 for each character removed; end the archery phase.

In my opinion, that's a boon to the Free Peoples by allowing them to replay dead companions or circumvent the Rule of 9. What about something along these lines?
"Archery: Exert your besieger Orc twice to make the Shadow archery total +1 for each character in the dead pile."

Not impossible to do twice in one turn, but not easy. Besides, how many characters are going to be in the dead pile? Ending the archery phase feels appropriate for the fear & terror of having heads thrown at you, but I don't know the implications. Would you even count up archery totals? I dunno, it still doesn't feel right. Maybe something along the lines of Howdah:

"At the start of the Archery phase, you may discard a besieger to make the Shadow archery total +1 for each character in the dead pile. No player may use archery special abilities."

While I'm happy with the cost mechanically, discarding a besieger doesn't feel very thematic. Probably a bad trade with 1 character dead, but 2 would be tempting for just about every minion and 3+ is a no-brainer. Is it too good when combined with other archery? Maybe a flat +X while you can spot Y characters in the dead pile?