Legion, I like that kind of posts a lot. Dissecting each point for an open debate.
Goblin Conspirator
I don't like cards playing from the draw deck. There has to be very good reason for them (such as Gollum or Gandalf), as otherwise you often get to overpowered combinations of uninteresting gameplay (horn). Plus they take time to play in real life. Discard pile fine, and Moria already does a lot there, but not draw deck.
It's more like
Simbelmyne or
AWINL, but much costlier: 2 exertions per card obtained, in a culture of mostly exhausted Orcs. (Can never be like
Erkenbrand's Horn, playing ad nauseam/infinitum.) The idea is to allow situational or specific cards to be played exactly when needed, things like
The Long Dark,
Frenzy,
Such a Little Thing,
Dark Fire,
Bitter Hatred, the right pump vs your opponent... even
Through the Misty Mountains and
Goblin Domain in FOTR block. It multiplies the copies of those cards, so you can splash them instead of having to pack 3x or 4x to get them when are useful. Which creates more diverse decks.
Playing from discard is just not enough, since you'd need to include many copies of such card just to have
one in discard at the right moment. Must include the draw deck to achieve that effect, so I had to make it very expensive (2 Goblin exertions) in order prevent abuses like those committed by
Black Sails of Umbar or the Horn.
Plus it nicked my conspirator title from my two failed Pippin attempts.
Haha, no, it was made for a "Balin's Colony vs Moria" set I've been working on since some 4 or 5 years. But I confess that the nod to Merry and Pippin was an additional reason to select this and not other of those dusty
cards.
•Host of the Upper Hall
I love it! Very expensive, and fierce is unusual (but meaty with an Axe), but that's a cool ability. Maybe it could have been from the bottom of the deck rather than the top, but it's such a cool idea. This wins my vote.
I like it too, but is excessively expensive just to end as
Eowyn LoI's breakfast. That's what
Host of Moria mostly does, die vs
LoI (or Mablung,
Gondor Bow...) and has a much more strategic gametext (even considering the fierce keyword). For that twilight a Troll is better. And that comes from a
Moria Axe fan.
From Morgoth's Lair They Came
Fun. Nice dream card. Pity it doesn't work with Durin's Bane.
But works with
tToKD. And with the FOTR Bridge!
Fissures and Chasms
This is an interesting card. It is sad that it is best with the Shadows site path where Moria is just too weak, but it would still have its place in fellowship. Though it would become useless past site 5. Would be nice to get rid of Aragorn's bow, or to put Greenleaf into Bitter Hatred range, I guess, but eating your conditions to use it hurts.
It was excessively nerfed. For such a cost (discarding a support area
card, most of the times), it'd be much better if was a discard/exertion directed by you, with the FP player deciding only which of those 2 effects will take place. Pity.
I happily voted for Dark Communion last week. It maybe was quite overpriced (I think it could have been a condition), but it had flavour.
As a condition would have been awesome. Or playable from discard pile. But as a 4-card combo, it's literally less likely to happen than
Final Cry, which is one expensive minion + 2 specific cards. But
Final Cry means a huge monster + anti-armor / anti-events + a maiming event that often kills
LoI or
Cirdan by surprise, while in Dark Communion's case we get... -3 twilight cost.
Dark Communion can actually be reduced to a 2-card combo from hand: have a unique minion play itself from outside the hand (like
Plotting Deceiver if you force initiative), AND the cheapened minion must be Sauron. But that still costs you around 12 twilight + the unique minion, just to get Sauron. Not worthy (and again,
Ithil Stone does the same but easily). And as likely to happen as Saruman + Staff in the best case... and I know from experience how frustrating is to be forced to carry the dead weight of
Saruman's Staff until the old guy arrives.
I could only see Helm Hammerhand getting into a Horn deck, so that automatically removed it from contention to me. Also Defender +1 with no spotting requirements doesn't feel right.
Aragorn HoE is def+1. And any
companion would fit into a Horn deck, except that this king of a past age bars Eomer/Eowyn/Theoden from appearing. And by costing 4, cannot be started along with
Gamling DotH, so Helm complicates Horn decks a bit actually.