•Ecthelhador, Chief Guard
Companion • Elf
Strength: 7
Vitality: 3
Resistance: 7
To play, spot a Elf.
Each time Ecthelhador wins a skirmish, you may exert him to capture an exhausted minion in that skirmish.
Fellowship or Regroup: Exert Ecthelhador to draw a card for each captured minion in your support area (limit 3). Limit once per turn.
“‘He wasn’t a bad fellow, and quite decent to the prisoners.’”

•Great Goblin, Truly Tremendous One
Minion • Orc
Strength: 9
Vitality: 3
Site: 4
Fierce. Lurker.
To play, spot a Orc.
Each time a Orc wins a skirmish, you may exert Great Goblin twice to capture a character in that skirmish.
“‘Murderers and elf-friends!...Take them away to dark holes full of snakes, and never let them see the light again!’”

•Cablas, Entangler
Minion • Spider
Strength: 6
Vitality: 6
Site: 7
Enduring. Damage +1.
While Cablas has no more than 3 vitality, he is fierce.
Each time Cablas wins a fierce skirmish, you may heal him twice to capture a character in that skirmish.
“‘It was a sharp struggle, but worth it. What nasty thick skins they have to be sure, but I’ll wager there is good juice inside.’”

Anyway, over time, people convinced me that capturing a character permanently, with no hope of rescue save for you using some type of rescue card to get them back, was simply too powerful. So I tried to come up with ways to limit the time a captured character remained captured, none of which I really liked.

But, I think I may finally have a solution. I’m tackling this from several angles now. I want to limit the amount of time a captured character remains captured, but not so much that rescuing cards become useless. I also want to limit the number of characters you can capture at a time, especially for Shadow players. It’s just mean to think about several members of your fellowship being captured at once.

So, here is what I propose:

1.) Captured companions/allies remain captured ONLY while there are minions in play. As soon as the last minion is killed or discarded, all captured companions/allies are automatically rescued...which makes a lot of sense if you think about it.
Captured minions remain captured indefinately, but with a key qualifier: each time the fellowship moves, they must add twilight tokens equal to the total printed cost of all minions they have captured. Any minion NOT paid for in this way is automatically rescued...though in this case, the Shadow player chooses one of the following: they can pay that minion’s cost again and play it, or they can discard it.

Rescuing cards still work as before: rescued companions/allies are automatically returned to the fellowship, and rescued minions return to play, free to harass the fellowship again.

2.) I am creating two new loaded keywords: prison and upkeep.

Prison will always appear as "Prison – X", where X is the number of captured characters that can be stacked on that prison. Prisons will (probably) always appear as support area conditions, so rather than just moving captured characters to your support area, they now have to have an eligible prison to be stacked on. If there is no such place to put them, then you cannot capture any more characters. Also, since prisons are conditions, they can be discarded like any other condition; when this happens, all captured characters stacked there are rescued as if you had just played a rescuing card.

Upkeep – [text] will always appear on prisons. These are costs that must be paid at the start of each regroup phase to keep that prison in play. If the cost is not paid, the prison is discarded, and again, all captured characters there are rescued.

A couple examples:

Dungeon of the King
Condition • Support Area
Prison – 2. Upkeep – Exert an Elf.
To stack a captured minion here, spot 2 Elves (or a Elf).
“‘Take him away and keep him safe, until he feels inclined to tell the truth, even if he waits a hundred years.’”

Tangled Webs
Condition • Support Area
Prison – 2. Upkeep – heal a Spider.
To stack a captured character here, heal a Spider (or spot 2 Spiders).
“...a dozen bundles hanging in a row from a high branch. Bilbo was horrified, now that he noticed them for the first time dangling in the shadows, to see a dwarvish foot sticking out of the bottoms of some of the bundles, or here and there the tip of a nose, or a bit of beard or of a hood.”

Note that these ALSO have a cost that must be paid each time you stack a captured character on that prison. If you can’t do what is required, then you can’t stack a captured character on that prison...and if you don’t have any prisons that you CAN pay the proper costs for, you can’t capture anyone.

I know this is all rather complicated, and it’s far more complex then even I wanted it to be, but I think it’s necessary to make capturing work. I don’t want to abandon the concept, since it’s already a huge part of Lasting Alliances and will be a smaller (but imporant) part of a couple more of my sets, but I want it to be fair and balanced at the same time.

So, can this work? Any further suggestions? Is it just TOO complicated now?

Especially for Shadow players, it’s now going to be tough enough to keep captured companions without paying the prisons’ upkeep because you have to remove twilight every time you move, and even at best you’ll have to give them back at the end of the turn anyway. And that’s the real issue, whether it’s tough to keep companions captured, as it’s the most powerful use of this mechanic. What really clinches the balance in my mind is that they return when no minions are in play, so if you kill all the minions, you get your companions back. That on top of cards which rescue people seems more than enough for me.

Though I have to say, I’m not sure I ever thought capturing was that overpowered in the first place.

I’m more worried about lem0n. I almost made the poor boy’s head blow a few times, I think.

I’ve done more than my fair share of that too. I think it’s a bit of a Rite of Passage round here!

Thranduil

Doesn’t need 2 limits. Limit 3 means that 3 is the maximum, no matter how many times you use the ability in a turn.

This is true.

Given that he can only do it once and that ’Each time’ implies a repeated trigger, I think it should be a response action to be a bit cleaner.

This however is not. This is the correct phrasing and works like a response as he can do in whatever victory skirmish he chooses. Other D cards are phrased like this. There may be vitality adders for example that could exploit responses.

’Vitality 3 or less’ I think is clearer.

True.

I really don’t like the prison thing - seems just an extra unnecessary level of complexity and a horrible combo you have to fulfil in order for your strategy to work. It’s a good method of balancing, but it makes me not want to make any decks out of this mechanic - just not viable.

I agree almost entirely.

I think it would be more than balanced enough with the checks you mentioned above.

Yes and no. If i capture a gorgoroth troop or something i aint paying 6 just to keep him the support area its insane! Unless i get an amazing reward equal to the cost to offset this. The benefit needs to be proportional to the pool adding.

The release of comps from no minions is fine.

Thranduil