I got some ideas about that Gandalf, and another Gandalf that begun to worry me a bit. And about the role of the Flash-flames...
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Gandalf, Friend of Thorin: Agree, drawing cards is much more fun! But to use TMOMK as
Delving, I'd prefer to exert Gandalf or "a companion" instead of adding doubts, which are much harder to remove.
It's important to make the mechanism easy to pay once per turn, so it can provide good set up in the early sites (when its more needed). The prevention skill already limits a lot the drawing, by forcing you to keep 2 followers.
I believe the discard prevention shouldn't even force you to keep followers, to give total drawing freedom (the Rule of 4 is enough a limit). A way to do is to change the spotting of "2 Dwarf followers" to spotting, let's say, "5 Dwarves (except allies)" to include companions. Without followers, "5 Dwarves" + Bilbo + Gandy means 7 comps = no follower support + Marauder risk zone (plus other things which need 6 comps: Erebor, Dale,
Bolg, Azog's Mace & Wicked Spider). The safe number begins with 2 Dwarf followers + 3 Dwarf comps. Perhaps "5 Dwarves" is too high (killing or discarding only 1 might wreak havoc, or even not drawing them soon enough during those 4 first sites), 4 might be better but not less I think.
Another reason to not rely on followers to keep Gandalf is the extreme power given to a well-timed (or abused) Yazneg (Fimbul can help in such task). Experienced players will see that weakness easily, and exploit it from the start. So my version'd be like this:
•Gandalf, Friend of Thorin
Companion • Wizard
Strength 7 Vitality 4
Wise.The twilight cost of Thorin is -2.
While you can spot
4 Dwarves (except allies), Gandalf cannot be discarded.
Fellowship: Discard a Dwarf follower and
exert a companion to draw 3 cards.
"Well, that's decided. It will be very good for you..."-
Gandalf, The Grey: I've been thinking about the ease of access to 3x of each Main Deck event in GEMP, and begun to fear this Gandalf will be overused there. With so many events he'll be by far the mightiest of all Gandalfs: his cost-free
Powerful Guide skill outweighs by far the "discard at Mirkwood" problem (which will be easily countered by many ways, like playing
Narya with his skill, using a favourable site 4 or 5, or packing many copies of
AWINL or
Radagast). The high doubt toll of his active skill will be countered by 3x He Gives Me Courage (which also trigger the wounding!), and by playing
Glamdring soon.
Players will even try a choke trio of Bilbo-Thorin-Gandalf focusing his set up skill mainly on artifacts (with on-demand support of key companions, like Balin to recycle needed events or Dwalin before moving to site 9), and packing 3x of each important event to gain a brutal control over conditions, swarms, beatdown and corruption (and countering grind by playing expendable Dwarves each turn), with the nice side effect of wounding a minion costlessly per each
event.
So I'd add a cost to the wounding skill, something simple like "exert Gandalf" should do the trick (or perhaps "exert a Wizard" to give the
packs more spell power,
especially the Wizard pack which requires Gandalf to exert A LOT).
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Flash-flames: Time ago we discussed about the problematic mechanism that wounds X times a minion, giving chances of killing Smaug with a simple gunpowder bomb. You said "the idea of this cards is also to counter Sauron." I still disagree, so made another card which should accomplish well the countering of Sauron's skill (amongst others whose main effect work at assignment, skirmish or regroup), and also fits well the flavor of the Balin pack:
The War of the Dwarves and Orcs
Event • Assignment
Wound X
characters to exert a minion X times. That minion's owner may exert a
character and if he or she does so, you may exert a minion; repeat this until a player does not exert a character.
"...at the memory of which the Orcs still shudder and the Dwarves weep."An improved version of
Death They Cried (this one lets you target a minion X times before the process may be stopped by a player). So lets you to counter Sauron or any bad guy, but being past maneuver/archery you won't kill it easily, being skirmish wounding the only way to do so (Iron Forged Weapon, Gandalf the Grey or Orcrist); still, the combo is very expensive if aims a minion with vitality 4 or 5, which should provide balance.
The cost might be different, perhaps "discard X
cards (except companions)" like
Du Bekâr. But the idea is to show a large attrition effort from the
forces, directed first against a single bad guy (
"...as they hunted for Azog in every den under mountain").
Tell me what you think about.