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Such a High Cost: Seems good. There is a couple of ways to keep the 2 doubts per condition, limiting those doubts to only 2, no matter how many conditions you have or replay. 1st is to add a condition, like "If you cannot spot Thorin
(and no doubt was added this phase), add 2 doubts". The problem it brings, is that now the maneuver skill uses 4 card lines, and the lore text will suffer from it
.
The other solution is to add a text to "skip your maneuver actions":
"
Maneuver: Wound a
ally. If you can
not spot Thorin, add 2 doubts.
Skip your
maneuver actions. Discard this condition."
The room is so small that I couldn't even add connection words like "and" (and was forced to split the word "cannot" into "can not"). But this should do it!
The condition is expensive, discarding it means losing the potential -1 str to Dwarves. This would preserve the proper original power, while preventing too much doubts and keeping the lore text unharmed.
-
Stone Giants: -
Not At Home: If now its cost is
or
, it might be non-unique. Or might have another small skill, something like this: "Each time the fellowship moves, add
for each exhausted companion you spot." Or both.
- Alfrid: The Esgaroth Pack doesn't work in the same way as the Mirkwood Pack. All cards are focused on Bard.
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Alfrid: I know all cards are focused on Bard, that's a good thing. But the difference in power is too big. The Mirkwood pack provides 4 fighting allies, which are strong by themselves, rely mainly on The Evil Becomes Stronger to fight so can't fight all the time (but Thranduil and Elf Army can use other resources), and don't have any weapon.
The Esgaroth pack provides only 2 fighting allies, which are weak and can get some strength with weapons (though those are borne better by Dwarf companions). They rely on themselves (not on events) to fight, and can heal. But with their low strength and vitality (and no pumps), they can die easily (Esgaroth Volunteers dies to any dmg+1, str 6 or 8 minion). Bard can kill minions at regroup, or 1 at archery with the Black Arrow. Iron-forged weapon can finish exhausted minions.
Mirkwood fighters:
-
Thranduil. Str 9, Vit 4. Relies on Thorin and
events. Can survive Smaug once (unless
Anger says hello!) or fight him twice, protecting your Dwarf companions from death at 8
.
-
Legolas. Str 6, Vit 3. Relies on The Evil Becomes Stronger; = Str 8.
-
Tauriel. Str 6, Vit 3. Ditto.
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Elf Army. Str 7, Vit 4. Relies on The Evil Becomes Stronger ( = Str 9, Vit 4) or spotting more minions than companions (and exerting = Str 7, Vit 3).
Esgaroth fighters:
-
Bard. Str 6, Vit 3. Relies on exerting Baïn. Can be healed by The Master, and/or Baïn. Can wield 2 weapons for Str 9.
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Esgaroth Volunteers: Str 6, Vit 3. Relies on exerting itself ( = Vit 2!) and spotting Bard. Can be healed by Baïn. Can wield 1 weapon for Str 8. Given the low vitality, any str 8 dmg+1 minion kills them.
That all. The difference is really huge! The Elves are OK, but Men should be stronger. Alfrid can replay weapons to wound minions, that's alright. But he's the only card that can be still changed, and the pack needs either another fighter like Percy, or something to make non-fighters join the battlefield, and make those skirmishing allies stronger. The latter is what my last proposal does (Alfrid would be a pump + summon event, but sitting in your support area instead of your hand
).
Alfrid might even do both things:
•Alfrid, Lickspittle [Dale]
Ally • Home 6 • Man
Strength 4 Vitality 3
To play, exert a companion or a [Dale] Man.
Maneuver: Play a [Dale] card from your discard pile, or make a [Dale] Man strength +2 and participate in skirmishes until the regroup phase. Discard Alfrid.
He still plays [Dale] things but only from discard (useful to get back wounding weapons), or can instead summon a [Dale] Man in play to the fight (a Str 7 Master will have good surviving skills). The "(except Bard)" part, and the cost were trimmed to get the card into 5 lines, and preserve the current lore text unaltered.
Do you want a bit more power? Alfrid might both play a [Dale] card, AND then summon another [Dale] Man to fight. "Play a [Dale] card from your discard pile.
Then, make a [Dale] Man strength +2 and participate in skirmishes...". That would flatten the score considerably: 4 strong Mirkwood fighters, vs 3 moderately strong Esgaroth fighters (who can heal).
-
Sauron cards: I like 2 of these 3 changes. The
Ring of Thrór will be more strategical at assignment (you can force bad exert-to-assign decisions by bluffing!). Danger Wrapped in Shadows looks better with less strength addition; anyway
I'd change its limit from +2 to +3 per skirmish.
But Sauron shouldn't be strength 10. Radagast defeated the Witch King with ease (whose strength is +4) but feared to face The Necromancer. Elrond/Saruman will be str 11 with Former
Herald! Gandalf +
Glamdring is str 9, he would need only 1x Take Up Arms, or Beorn/Bombur (or 2 small followers) to defeat him. But Elrond and Saruman got frightened when Sauron appeared, and Gandalf got almost killed by him...
I agree that str 15 is too strong for only "
twilight + another card" combo. For such strength, his twilight cost should be around 7 or 9. But then his standalone skills (Orcs are fierce, exert-to-assign) will have little impact with so little twilight left. How can we reconcile both points? The
Ring of Thrór makes Sauron fight, and the rest has little impact.
If you change the Ring of Thrór's cost to or , you'd get a non-fighter cheap version, and an upgraded fighting expensive version. If twilight is moderate, you will decide if making Sauron fight, or play many Orcs/Nazgul to assign at will. If twilight is abundant, BOTH!
-
Nenya: Great for a new Rivendell pack
! I prefer
Nenya wounding at regroup, due to 2 things:
1) The new maneuver skill is Decipher's
Vilya, but more powerful as it costs a bit less.
2) The wounding skill can represent what she did to that poor
Orkish Veteran who was trying to kill Gandy! She uses then
Nenya only, later she picks the Phial. And the Veteran was doing what Jail does... so it has a really strong flavor.
I never liked
Vilya's skill returning my conditions. Fairly overpowered. And one of the most annoying things in the LOTR TCG (you said long time ago, we must avoid NPE cards and combos). We can formulate the regroup skill in a different way:
"
Regroup: Exert Galadriel twice and spot X Wise characters to wound X minions, or wound a minion (except Smaug) X times." Only once per turn (4 vitality doesn't allow more). That's all.
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The Arkenstone: I will answer this point later, I must leave now. But the graphical versions of both cards look very good!