After a rewatch of DoS, I think I forget the duel between Smaug and Bilbo with the One Ring. So I propose:
3x • Dragon's Malice : Cost . [No culture] Condition • Support area. While Bilbo wears the One Ring, he takes no more than 1 wound during each skirmish phase. Each time Smaug wins a skirmish, the Free Peoples player must choose to either exert Bilbo twice or add a doubt.
I like it, will give a stronger representation. Seems well balanced as Bilbo will be taking exertions or wounds, plus the needed doubt cost of wearing the Ring. The benefit for the FP player will give him/her less reasons to remove it if the Shadow player plays it from the start, which is a side benefit to consider.
Ok, we will let the Pack I as it is .
Nice! I like each card as it is. Now Pack I needs only 2 Shadow cards, the distribution of copies per card, and the pictures.
Do you have any idea of what Shadow card can be added? You said those cards should counter the most powerful FP cards of the Pack. The mechanisms of those FP cards are drawing, returning cards to deck or hand, healing, choking and fighting. The natural counterparts are respectively discarding from hand, discarding from deck, exerting, twilight generation and fighting.
Also, those Shadow cards must have a strong flavour in respect of the conspiration and the journey of The Quest of Erebor. Spies, enemies on the track, weather conditions, their struggle to get before Durin's Day ends.... and even Smaug himself.
I got only this by the moment, a Smaug non-culture card:
•
The Last Lights of Durin's Day [No Culture]
Condition • Support Area
At sites 1 to 7, this condition may not be discarded and at the end of each turn during which the fellowship did not move more than once, add a doubt.
Shadow: Remove a doubt to add
and make the Free Peoples player discard a card from hand.
"'It is our one chance to find the hidden door.'"The Company must move quickly, if they stay too long the Quest will be in
peril; having stopping power will give you more than just a movement advantage. This card turns doubts into twilight for minions and into discarded cards from the Company's plans, to depict the Company being pressed to move with bold haste instead of clever stealth. A limit might be added to the twilight addition if it's too powerful with many doubts being removed at the same site, like "Remove a doubt to add
(limit ) and make..." .
It's better to use those doubts before site 7, or this card might be discarded (adding a limit will force the use of doubts in each site). The discard protection is there due to it works better from the start of the game, must remain on the board to be effective, and being unique makes it too vulnerable to FP condition control.
The Prancing Pony and A Chance Meeting can get Ancestral Knowledge, but will be useless before reaching Erebor.
Nazguls
A good protection for the condition could be:
3x Dol Guldur Blade :
Cost (1). Possession • Hand Weapon.
Strength +2. Bearer must be a minion. When you play this possession, add .
Maneuver: Discard an Orc from hand to play a card from your draw deck or discard pile.
I like that change. Besides protecting your condition, you can play it sooner and even arm another Nazgul. I like the twilight addition too (it's the cost of Goblin Footman, that's smart).
Now,
Dol Guldur Blade requires 3 things to work: 1.
a Nazgul in play to bear it, 2. it
must be played from hand or you must play
Goblin Footman from any location, and 3. you must have one or more
Orcs in hand to use the skill. It's very powerful, but will be useless if you don't have a Nazgul first or if you deplete too fast the Orcs in your hand/draw deck.
To solve the first issue you have He Is Summoning His Servants, but to solve the second there is nothing. Therefore, might be good to add a skill to another
card to return Orcs to draw deck or hand. Moreover, if you use your idea of
Dol Guldur Blade playing any
card, using that skill too much will easily leave you with very few Orcs at the late game.
The Witch King and Toldea have 3 free lines to add a skill (preserving their lore text), even Attea has 3 lines (but then his lore text will suffer). I'm thinking in skills like "Regroup: Exert a Nazgul to place an Orc from your discard pile on top of your draw deck" (3 lines) or "Regroup: Exert a Nazgul to take an Orc from your discard pile into hand" (2 lines). Both limit your cycling potential, so overusing any of them will be very counterproductive.
All the problems about the twilight cost of the Nazguls will be refined after a first test. We will first test all the new mechanics of this Shadow. Btw you can bring in play any Nazgul from your draw deck with the Dol Guldur Blade (really powerful at site 2 with TrollShaw Forest).
That's alright. My point about a twilight reduction text is that in the Hobbit Draft Game most minions are cheaper for their power (even Smaug) and most have a much lower site number than in LOTR TCG. Nazguls here must have a strong counterbalance to that site number rise.
You are right, the Nazguls are now vulnerable to Kili, but direct wounds is a way to counter them. Moreover, all the problems with Bifur will probably not happened if there is a Nazgul countering followers in play.
An ability which allows to heal a Nazgul seems too dangerous with their powerful powers. A specific Nazgul who prevents wounds is neither really attractive.
So, the Shadow player has to choose between using the ability of the Nazgul and exhaust it (vulnerable to wounds) or not use it. That's why the abilities of Nertea and Lemenya must be really powerful. We can exchange Nazguls' abilities between them.
You are right, exerting your Nazguls makes them vulnerable to easy killing and that's a good cost
.
Some Nazguls can be countered by direct pre-skirmish wounding (Kili, Burning Fir Cones); those are Cantea, Nertea and Lemenya. Cantea and Nertea can even be countered by skirmish wounding, directed (Dawn Take You All, Bilbo's Pony) or not (losing a skirmish), if the condition removal happens at skirmish or regroup (Bifur,
Sting, An Accorn). But Enquea, Nelya and Otsea can't be countered at all because they act at the start of maneuver, you don't have a moment to wound them first. So their power must be balanced with that privilege of being unblockable, having also a high vitality.
Yes, an ability to heal them can be very dangerous, unless the cost is respectively very high. I agree that isn't attractive to have such skill on a specific Nazgul, but perhaps will be right on He Is Summoning His Servants, something like "Skirmish: Remove
to heal a Nazgul" (1 card line), like
Not Easily Destroyed. Or at regroup instead. I don't believe it's necessary but having such option can be useful to prevent double moves, and I think it will add to the flavour of playing with undead, unkillable Kings and Sorcerers.
I don't know for Otsea (it would be a too complicated text for players), maybe a way to take in hand an Orc from your discard pile? Or test will tell us if it's good with the current ability?
Playtesting is always a good approach
. The point about Otsea is he acts after Shadow (like all Nazguls here), and
cards are playable only at Shadow phase. So returning an Orc from discard pile can be a good option to get directly something useful to use that turn
.
Now, such a skill will be too powerful for a repeatable Response action (with Otsea's vitality), feeding the skills of
Dol Guldur Blade, the Witch King, Attea and Toldea. So I'd change it to an "each time" skill: "
Each time the Free Peoples player transfers a follower,
you may exert Ulaire Otsea to
take an Orc from your discard pile into your hand."