The Way Into Mordor - Shire (9/30: Well-earned Comfort & Wonderful Folk)

[Gerontius]

Can you put both Merry's pipe and Pippin's pipe on the card Merry and Pippin?

[DáinIronfoot]

Good question...and the answer is yes. As a dual-character, the card Merry & Pippin, Little Shirelings represents two characters: Merry and Pippin. For each of those distinct characters, normal rules still apply, so each can bear one hand weapon, one armor, one pipe, etc., meaning that the actual card Merry & Pippin can bear two hand weapons, two armors, two pipes, etc. That includes cards that play specifically on just one of the characters on the card (like Merry's Pipe or Pippin's Sword, for example.) It's still two characters, they just happen to share the same card in this case. Does that make sense?

You can find a more thorough description of dual-character cards here, though it might need a little updating seeing as that was written...yikes, nearly two and a half years ago.

[DáinIronfoot]

Alright, I think we're ready to move on...though if anyone has any further comments about the pipes and pipeweeds (especially the pipes, since they HAVE been tweaked), then by all means, bring it up and I'll be happy to go back.

Today's possessions are much simpler, after all. Enjoy!

Hobbit Belt
Possession • Belt
Bearer must be a Hobbit.
Response: If bearer is about to be discarded or captured, discard this possession to prevent that.
Frightened, in the dark, and closely pursued, only quick thinking and Hobbit agility allowed Merry to escape capture and almost certain death, leaving Grishnákh with just a strip of leather and cloth for his troubles.

If you're unclear what capturing means here, just refer back to Page 2 of this very thread. If you still have more questions after that, don't hesitate to ask!

In most cases, though, the capturing part won't matter, as this will likely trigger with the discarding. Keep in mind that our unbound Hobbits in this set like to discard themselves for benefits, so this is bascially a one-time "get out of jail free" card when used as part of that strategy. It IS an effective way to keep your opponent for doing nasty discard/capture stuff, sure, but in the context of this set you're likely to trigger this card yourself. At least, that was the idea I had in mind when I designed it...which probably means it would NEVER see use like that.

Hobbit Cloak
Possession • Cloak
Resistance +1
Bearer must be a Hobbit.
While you can spot an card, this possession is twilight cost -2.
Skirmish: Discard a stealth card from hand to cancel a skirmish involving bearer. Any Shadow player may make a minion in that skirmish strength -2 to prevent this.
"Whether because of some special keenness of sight, or because of some other sense, the horse lifted and sprang lightly over them; but its rider did not see them, lying covered in their elven-cloaks...."

I wanted to make this something you could play without Elves, but I went back and forth on whether or not it should spot them, since they would never have HAD their cloaks without passing through Lothlórien. So in the end, I went with the "spot stuff to make this cheaper" text. After all, I think the ability is powerful enough (especially when combined with a little resistance boost) to work at anyway.

Now I know what you might be thinking...why would I use possessions with companions that are going to be discarded and replayed over and over? I'll address that soon, but for now, suffice to say that there's a reason I added "When you play this possession from hand..." on the pipe rewrites.

[lem0nhead]

The belt is good and nice flavour but cancelling skirmishes is really powerful and this is a very easy way to do it. Not sure if its not a bit good.

[DáinIronfoot]

The belt is good and nice flavour but cancelling skirmishes is really powerful and this is a very easy way to do it. Not sure if its not a bit good.

Even at the cost of or having to mesh Hobbits and Elves? And discarding a specific card type from hand? I understand your point, but I don't see how this is any worse than, say, Halfling Leaf.

All the same, how about a built-in buy-out for the Shadow player? Something like, I don't know, making the minion strength -3 instead or something?

[lem0nhead]

Hmm having seen halfing leaf again im inclined to withdraw my comments, however that doesnt make me think that both cards aren't too strong.

[Elf_Lvr]

Hobbit Belt
Possession • Belt
Bearer must be a Hobbit.
Response: If bearer is about to be discarded or captured, discard this possession to prevent that.
Frightened, in the dark, and closely pursued, only quick thinking and Hobbit agility allowed Merry to escape capture and almost certain death, leaving Grishnákh with just a strip of leather and cloth for his troubles.

Needs "instead" instead of "prevent" otherwise, it would stop any cards you have that say "Discard unbound hobbit to do X" because it would be prevented. Do I make sense?

Hobbit Cloak
Possession • Cloak
Resistance +1
Bearer must be a Hobbit.
While you can spot an card, this possession is twilight cost -2.
Skirmish: Discard a stealth card from hand to cancel a skirmish involving bearer.
"Whether because of some special keenness of sight, or because of some other sense, the horse lifted and sprang lightly over them; but its rider did not see them, lying covered in their elven-cloaks...."

Methinks it is too powerful... The thing about halfling leaf is, in addition to its own cost, you have to pay for the other pipeweed you use with it, and some of those pipeweeds serve little purpose once seeing play besides being discarded for effect. On the other hand, with a few of these, you could negate 2-3 skirmishes every turn simply by choking and stockpiling stealth cards - which by themselves will have plenty of uses, I'm sure.

[Thranduil]

Alright, I think we're ready to move on...though if anyone has any further comments about the pipes and pipeweeds (especially the pipes, since they HAVE been tweaked), then by all means, bring it up and I'll be happy to go back.

Just a quick word, though I like all that's changed, and a lot of my review was made moot because I didn't know about previous cards you'd made, but never mind. I think it's misleading to have Merry's and Pippin's pipes fetch different things when you play them. The titles automatically suggest a cycle, and the wording of the ability is the same, and so I automatically expected the 2nd pipe to fetch pipeweed, and it didn't. When you have a card that people expect to be one thing when actually it's something else, this is, I think, a call to change the card to what people would expect - players don't like to be surprised!

Hobbit Belt
Possession • Belt
Bearer must be a Hobbit.
Response: If bearer is about to be discarded or captured, discard this possession to prevent that.
Frightened, in the dark, and closely pursued, only quick thinking and Hobbit agility allowed Merry to escape capture and almost certain death, leaving Grishnákh with just a strip of leather and cloth for his troubles.

Okay cool. Might want a "from play" to be inserted in there for clarity, but otherwise fine.

Hobbit Cloak
Possession • Cloak
Resistance +1
Bearer must be a Hobbit.
While you can spot an card, this possession is twilight cost -2.
Skirmish: Discard a stealth card from hand to cancel a skirmish involving bearer.
"Whether because of some special keenness of sight, or because of some other sense, the horse lifted and sprang lightly over them; but its rider did not see them, lying covered in their elven-cloaks...."

Why would you discard stealth cards to cancel skirmishes when (I'm assuming) a lot of them are going to cancel skirmishes anyway?

Thranduil

[lem0nhead]

Why would you discard stealth cards to cancel skirmishes when (I'm assuming) a lot of them are going to cancel skirmishes anyway?

Thranduil

To save twilight?

[FM]

Hobbit Cloak is insanely overpowered. Really.

[DáinIronfoot]

Okay, I added an easy out for the Shadow player on the cloak. Better?

[Thranduil]

Okay, I added an easy out for the Shadow player on the cloak. Better?

Clever mechanic, but I'm unconvinced by the flavour. I don't know what other cards you have going, but could the cloak reduce the cost of stealth events or allow for recursion/fetching of stealth events etc. instead?

Thranduil

[DáinIronfoot]

Recursion might be a possibility, but Sam's Cloak from this same set already reduces the cost of stealth events....

What if I make the minion a little weaker instead, like strength -2? That makes a little more sense, at least.

[FM]

It does. Surely, it never happened this way, but should the hobbits decide to strike from under the cloak, they WOULD get that first minion flat-footed - of course, they'd be killed shortly after by the other 10,000, but anyway... TO me, at least, it makes some sense. And playing with POSSIBILITIES is nothing wrong, see ARBs.

[DáinIronfoot]

Alrighty. As always, if anyone has more comments on the last batch, then feel free to post them. But for now, I want to move on. I haven't had a streak of posting cards every day this long for quite some time, so I'm loathe to break it now. Onward and upward with some stealth and discarding fun. Enjoy!

Now For It!
Event • Skirmish
Stealth.
If the fellowship is at a battleground or forest site, spot 2 unbound Hobbits to cancel a skirmish involving a Hobbit. At any other site, discard an unbound Hobbit.
"They crawled. The turf was deep and yielding, and that helped them....They gave the watch-fire a wide berth, and wormed their way forward bit by bit...."

Yes, the two main versions of Merry and Pippin in this set hearken back to the old Towers block and can auto-discard for benefits, but what's the harm in creating some alternate ways to discard them? The second part of this is no different from Warmed Up a Bit; I almost just did a reprint, but I wanted to spice it up a little instead. Now For It! is the result.

Squatted and Listened
Event • Regroup
Stealth.
If the fellowship is at a battleground site or you can spot 3 hunters, you may add 2 threats to play this event during a skirmish involving an unbound Hobbit.
Discard an unbound Hobbit to discard a minion.
"The hobbits remained flat on the ground, as Grishnákh had left them."

This is ALSO rather similar to an existing card: Diversion. But there are some key differences...this card lets you potentially discard a Hobbit involved in a skirmish (like WUaB does) rather than being limited to non-skirmishing Hobbits (which Diversion is). I also wanted to potentially tie in the Hobbits with a typical hunter deck, so I added a little hunter love here (while keeping Diversion's battleground flair, which makes perfect sense here as well). So...how is the card? Balanced?

Here We Find Tokens
Condition • Support Area
Each time a Hobbit is played from your discard pile, you may add (or spot 2 hunters) to play a possession or artifact on that Hobbit from your discard pile.
"‘They were borne by the hobbits....I will take these things, hoping against hope, to give them back.'"

I teased about a way to get back possessions borne by discarded Hobbits, and now I deliver. I worried that the each time might be too harsh, so I added a second (and otherwise free) option of having some hunters around. This makes sense flavor-wise (since the Three Hunters actually retrieved the Hobbits' gear), but maybe not gameplay-wise. I dunno...you tell me!