The Grey Company (8/2: "I bid you stand, Men/Dwarves/Elves of the West!")

[sickofpalantirs]

Quite frankly, I'd prefer the familiar stats on anduril
I think Aragorn would be kewler like boromor, PaNM and ditch the last ability or move it to Anduril and cut andurils ability.
Roheryn is fine.

[lem0nhead]

•Halbarad, Leader of the Grey Company
Companion • Man
Strength: 6
Vitality: 3
Signet: Aragorn
Ranger. Hunter 2.
The twilight cost of each other ranger in your starting fellowship is -1 (to a minimum of 1).
Each time you play an event during a skirmish involving a ranger, you may add a threat to heal that ranger.
"‘I have thirty with me. That is all of our kindred that could be gathered in haste....We rode as swiftly as we might when your summons came.'"

I like him, hes coooooool.

•Banner of the King
Possession • Hand Weapon
Strength +1
Resistance +1
Bearer must be a unique Man. Bearer gains the Aragorn signet.
Each time bearer wins a skirmish, you may choose one: heal or exert a character; or remove a threat.
Maneuver: Discard this possession to liberate a site.
"There flowered a White Tree, and that was for Gondor; but Seven Stars were about it, and a high crown above it, the signs of Elendil that no lord had borne for years beyond count. And the stars flamed in the sunlight, for they were wrought of gems by Arwen daughter of Elrond; and the crown was bright in the morning, for it was wrought of mithril and gold."

Sweetness. Seems to have too much for me though, i might chop the strength or resistance. Otherwise peachy.

Not quite the same interest generated in Halbarad as there was for the Sons of Elrond, but with three reviews now in, I think we can safely move on. I'd be much obliged to anyone else who wants to take a look at him and the banner (especially with their recent tweaking)...multiple would be in store.

Sorry man, im doing my best!

But perhaps today's trio of cards will generate a little more interest again. Without further adieu, here we go!

•Aragorn, Of the Grey Company
Companion • Man
Strength: 8
Vitality: 4
Signet: Aragorn
Ranger. Hunter 1. To play, spot a ranger.
When you play Aragorn, you may play an artifact or possession on him from your draw deck or discard pile.
Each time the fellowship moves, you may add a threat and spot a ranger or hunter companion to take a skirmish event of that companion's culture into hand from your draw deck.
"‘In that hour I looked on Aragorn and thought how great and terrible a Lord he might have become in the strength of his will....'"

Booo an aragorn you cant start! Hes sound. Better have lots of threat removal.

•Andúril, Deadly As Of Old
Artifact • Hand Weapon
Strength +3
Resistance +1
Bearer must be Aragorn. He is damage +1.
Each time Aragorn is about to be overwhelmed, you may add a threat to wound him instead.
"Then he drew Andúril and held it up glittering in the sun. ‘You shall not be sheathed again until the last battle is fought,' he said."

Wow power??? The never dying aragorn? Seems a tad good. Also again with the better have some threat removal...

•Roheryn
Possession • Mount
Strength +1
Resistance +1
Bearer must be a ranger.
Roheryn may not be discarded by Shadow cards.
If bearer is Aragorn, each time he wins a skirmish, you may exert him to remove a threat.
"Their horses were strong and of proud bearing, but rough-haired; and one stood there without a rider...Roheryn was his name."

Ahhh i see we get some threat removal, not enough though as an exertion to do is costly. Cant you say add 3 instead?

[DáinIronfoot]

Alright, I tweaked Andúril DaoO a bit. I've left Aragorn himself alone for now since, as lem0n rightly points out, this is the only Aragorn ever with a spotting requirement, which makes it much more difficult to even get him into play. Having to spot another ranger makes his movement ability difficult to abuse with, say, hunters or hunters (while the latter has rangers, yes, there are very few). Yes, you can still mesh him with non-rangers without TOO much trouble, but the very fact you have to plan around his spotting requirement and thin out non-ranger decks with cards that otherwise wouldn't be there keeps him in check, methinks. With rangers, yes, he can be quite powerful...which is kind of the point. But even then, a one-time-per-move ability that grabs a single event doesn't seem too much to me when combined with his again-one-time-only possession/artifact grab. I did have Boromir, Proud and Noble Man in mind when I did this, but since he's much less restrictive (and cheaper) to play, I figured this was still balanced.

If ya'll disagree, then please review and say so! I never mind more reviews. I'd like to have more than two before moving on (probably to Legolas and Gimli), so....

[DáinIronfoot]

Awww...no more reviews? Not even on my birthday? *sniffle*

[lem0nhead]

Ive reviewed sorry man!! But many happy returns!!!! For hes a jolly good dwarf!!!

[Ulmo]

Where do you get the time Mr. Dwarf??  Never really looked in these threads before, so forgive me for being a bit dense - perhaps I'll get better as I get into it more and read past threads.

Anduril:

•Andúril, Deadly As Of Old
Artifact • Hand Weapon
Strength +3
Resistance +1
Bearer must be Aragorn. He is damage +1.
Each time Aragorn is about to be overwhelmed in a skirmish, you may add a threat to make him strength +4 until the end of that skirmish.
"Then he drew Andúril and held it up glittering in the sun. ‘You shall not be sheathed again until the last battle is fought,' he said."

I like that it's +3 on strength, never did like Anduril being +2, it's the Reforged Blade for pity's sake.
Do you have Skirmish actions?  If so, could this be a skirmish action rather that 'until the end of that skirmish?'  It can only be used if Aragorn is about to be overwhelmed anyway so the mechanics are the same, just saves a bit of text.
Is the strength +4 a bit too strong for the cost one threat?  He is strength 11 already.  If he's about to be overwhelmed, shouldn't the cost be more or the effect a bit less?
Sorry if this doesn't add anything constructive.

[Beregond25]

Yeah I think maybe strength +3 instead of +4 cuz that is just a bit much
Most minions wont overwhelm him anyway at 11 strength and even sauron cant at 14 without some pumps.

[Thranduil]

Yeah, I agree with Beregond25. Otherwise it's still very powerful with the resistance, and damage bonus as well - I would lose one of them. I like the Aragorn, though.

Thranduil

[DáinIronfoot]

Thran! I was waiting on you, buddy. Where you been?

Okay, thanks to all, and especially to new reviewers Beregond and Ulmo. Hope you'll stick around! Have some , fellas.

I tweaked Andúril DaoO so that the ability is now not reliant on being overwhelmed, but simply losing. I toned it down so that it only adds +3 strength instead of +4, and it requires exerting in addition to the threat add, so there's really little reason to use it unless Aragorn is facing a minion that would do particularly nasty things by winning and/or has a damage bonus AND has only 1 or 2 more strength than Aragorn. Otherwise, it's probably better to just let Gorn lose, since he's now taking a wound (and still losing, so there's TWO wounds) AND adding a threat. Still keeps it from being out of whack, in my opinion. I also kept the somewhat controversial +3 strength (rather than the traditional +2), as I think it actually helps keep it balanced with the response action and I, and at least Ulmo, think it's pretty cool.

Now that I have more than enough reviews, let's move on with a rare weekend update. I've been itching to post these two for a while. Enjoy!

•Legolas, En Tel' Mithrim
Companion • Elf
Strength: 6
Vitality: 3
Signet: Aragorn
Archer. Hunter 1.
Each time a threat is added by a Free Peoples card, if you cannot spot 4 threats, you may spot a ranger or another hunter companion and add a threat (or exert Legolas) to make the fellowship archery total +1 until the regroup phase.
"‘...I felt not the horror, and I feared not the shadows of Men, powerless and frail as I deemed them.'"

His subtitle is Elvish for "Of the Grey Company", which was an already-taken subtitle. If you don't like it, I'd be happy to change it.

Now, for his actual text. Hunter, I imagine, will not go over well with at least one reviewer ( ), but I'm trying to keep the Three Hunters as, you know, three actual hunters from The Two Towers on. I expect, though, that it's his ability that may cause more strife....

I was trying to think of a way to tie the Grey Company and Wraiths together. Tying just one of those groups in with Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli would be easy enough, but doing that AND making the ranger/hunter Grey Company companions AND the very different Wraiths (with no rangers or hunters in sight) was no small task, especially since I didn't want to just tie it all around rangers and inadvertantly make ALL rangers work remarkably well with ALL Wraiths. So I decided, as you can probably tell by some of the Grey Company cards I've already spoiled (and my not-so-subtle hints ), that I would try and tie all this into one neat little package by using threats.

But even that was not incredibly easy. I didn't want to turn into a massive threat-manipulating culture, for instance, because they already do so much that to give them big-time threat removal as well would just be too much. Besides, threats are already removed without too much trouble by Wraiths. Wait, they also add lots of threats...hold on here....

As I continued to think about it, it clicked: I could make the very act of adding threats a trigger for certain Grey Company companions and cards. Now, when Wraiths add threats, you can do fun stuff, much like all the cards Decipher made that have effects triggered when you lose initiative. As you can see here, Legolas (above) and Gimli (below) are a couple of those triggered cards.

In Legolas' case, he does about what you'd expect: add to the archery total. But there's a catch...two catches, actually. First, you have to spot another ranger or hunter to do so. This makes it more difficult to splash this in with, say, or or , which have easy threat-adding cards, and forces you to mix Legolas in with a fellowship more along the lines of what I intended: a -heavy one. The second catch is that, much like the Driven By Need-Rohirrim Squire-Sworn To Service trio, you can only use this ability so many times (a maximum of three, in this case) before you have to remove some threats. I think that, plus the fact that any threats added after the archery phase don't help, keep this in check. Agreed?

•Gimli, Of the Grey Company
Companion • Dwarf
Strength: 6
Vitality: 3
Signet: Aragorn
Damage +1. Hunter 1.
Each time a threat is added by a Free Peoples card, if you cannot spot 4 threats, you may spot a ranger or another hunter companion to make Gimli strength +1 until the regroup phase.
"‘You might as well accept it: we're going with you, laddie.'"

Similar story here. I thought about not adding the threat limit restriction here, since all it's doing it pumping Gimli, but I opted to leave it for consistency. He's not as powerful as Legolas, certainly, but his trigger is good all the way up until the end of his skirmish, so it's more likely to take effect.

And, like Aragorn, they get threat-adding weapons to work with:

•Bow of the Galadhrim, Accurate Weapon
Possession • Ranged Weapon
Strength +1
Bearer must be Legolas.
Response: If a minion takes a wound during the archery phase or during a skirmish involving Legolas, exert Legolas to wound that minion again (limit once per phase). Any Shadow player may remove a threat to prevent this.
"‘Legolas, fire a warning shot past the bosun's ear.'"

•Axe of Erebor, Long-reaching Weapon
Possession • Hand Weapon
Strength +2
Bearer must be a Dwarf. Bearer is damage +1.
If bearer is Gimli, each time he wins a skirmish, you may add a threat to discard a minion in that skirmish. Any Shadow player may remove 2 threats to prevent this.
"‘That's it. Right. We warned you. Prepare to be boarded.'"

Both of these are designed to work especially well with the Legolas and Gimli posted above; Accurate Weapon turns the extra archery created by Legolas into even MORE wounds, and Long-reaching Weapon turns Gimli's won skirmishes (which should be easier thanks to his pumping) into auto-killed minions. There IS a buy-out for the Shadow player, but it involves removing threats, which obviously helps you in most cases anyway.

So, are these too strong? Do you like the overall idea? I hope so, because like I said before, I put a lot of time and thought into how to work all this! But don't let that keep you from speaking up if you need to.

[Not a Zombie]

•Elladan, Clad In Grey
Companion • Elf
Strength: 7
Vitality: 3
Signet: Elrond
Ranger. While you can spot a ranger, Elladan's twilight cost is -1 (or -2 if that ranger is Elrohir).
At the start of each skirmish involving a ranger, you may exert Elladan or Elrohir to make each minion in that skirmish strength -1 for each skirmish event in your discard pile (limit -4). Then remove 2 skirmish events (or 1 skirmish event) in your discard pile from the game.
"‘Less sombre is their gear than the others', and they are fair and gallant as Elven-lords; and that is not to be wondered at in the sons of Elrond of Rivendell.'"



•Elrohir, Grey Rider
Companion • Elf
Strength: 7
Vitality: 3
Signet: Elrond
Ranger. While you can spot a ranger, Elrohir's twilight cost is -1 (or -2 if that ranger is Elladan).
While you can spot Aragorn, Elrohir and Elladan gain the Aragorn signet.
Each time you play an event during a skirmish involving a ranger or hunter companion, you may heal Elrohir or Elladan.
"‘...the brethren Elladan and Elrohir have ridden with us, desiring to go to the war.'"

I don't know if you intended this, but you could start both of these plus aragorn, strider and Faramir, COG. Drop farimir first for , gorn for free, drop either of the other two for (spot ranger, farimir reduction), and drop the last one for free (spot elf, farimir reduction).

Sorry this is a little outdated, but I just noticed it  

[Ulmo]

•Legolas, En Tel' Mithrim
Companion • Elf
Strength: 6
Vitality: 3
Signet: Aragorn
Archer. Hunter 1.
Each time a threat is added by a Free Peoples card, if you cannot spot 4 threats, you may spot a ranger or another hunter companion to make the fellowship archery total +1 until the regroup phase.
"‘...I felt not the horror, and I feared not the shadows of Men, powerless and frail as I deemed them.'"

•Gimli, Of the Grey Company
Companion • Dwarf
Strength: 6
Vitality: 3
Signet: Aragorn
Damage +1. Hunter 1.
Each time a threat is added by a Free Peoples card, if you cannot spot 4 threats, you may spot a ranger or another hunter companion to make Gimli strength +1 until the regroup phase.
"‘You might as well accept it: we're going with you, laddie.'"

•Bow of the Galadhrim, Accurate Weapon
Possession • Ranged Weapon
Strength +1
Bearer must be Legolas.
Response: If Legolas is not exhausted and a minion takes a wound during the archery phase or during a skirmish involving Legolas, add a threat to wound that minion again (limit once per phase). Any Shadow player may remove 2 threats to prevent this.
"‘Legolas, fire a warning shot past the bosun's ear.'"

•Axe of Erebor, Long-reaching Weapon
Possession • Hand Weapon
Strength +2
Bearer must be a Dwarf. Bearer is damage +1.
If bearer is Gimli, each time he wins a skirmish, you may add a threat to discard a minion in that skirmish. Any Shadow player may remove 2 threats to prevent this.
"‘That's it. Right. We warned you. Prepare to be boarded.'"

I like the idea, adding threats up to a point, though adding one threat does help out 2 companions at once.
Legolas: Might be a bit strong as any threat added in 3 phases add to the archery total, but the spotting requirements probably cancel that out.
Gimli: Like him, like his lore too.
Accurate Weapon: Well thought out.  If Legolas is not exhausted he can add 2 threats to wound twice but shadow can prevent.
Long-reaching Weapon: Again, shadow prevention (with a high cost) balances it out.

Have sent you PM.

[macheteman]

so, if i have thorongil with his bow, and this legolas out, i can easily add three threats for 6 archery wounds. that is not balanced. especially with the easy threat removal in gondor/elven hunters.

it would probably be fantastic if the ability went like this:
Each time a threat is added by a Free Peoples card, if you cannot spot 4 threats, you may spot a ranger or another hunter companion and add a threat (or exert legolas) to make the fellowship archery total +1 until the regroup phase.

the others are cool concepts, i like it. with gimli's damage bonuses, he might not need to use his ability much, but its nice to have. it might be more beneficial to make it wound a minion that another ranger or hunter companion is skirmishing. but that is more along the lines of skilled defender.

[Thranduil]

Thran! I was waiting on you, buddy. Where you been?

Sorry, been on holiday and such things. Not sure I'll be online for the next 2 weeks either...

•Legolas, En Tel' Mithrim
Companion • Elf
Strength: 6
Vitality: 3
Signet: Aragorn
Archer. Hunter 1.
Each time a threat is added by a Free Peoples card, if you cannot spot 4 threats, you may spot a ranger or another hunter companion to make the fellowship archery total +1 until the regroup phase.
"‘...I felt not the horror, and I feared not the shadows of Men, powerless and frail as I deemed them.'"

•Gimli, Of the Grey Company
Companion • Dwarf
Strength: 6
Vitality: 3
Signet: Aragorn
Damage +1. Hunter 1.
Each time a threat is added by a Free Peoples card, if you cannot spot 4 threats, you may spot a ranger or another hunter companion to make Gimli strength +1 until the regroup phase.
"‘You might as well accept it: we're going with you, laddie.'"

I'm not sure about these two. They're probably balanced (even with the hunter bonus! ) but they seem inelegant to me. Given that most of the Grey Company is , it seems appropriate to me that these guys should bring into the Grey Company the and ways respectively of doing threats. Now I'm not sure about your other DCs, but Dwarves get stronger for threats, prevent wounds with them, and draw cards, while Elves heal and wound with threats, and more importantly can remove them. So I might make a duo of special abilities that add threats to do something (or do something to remove threats) and that work together.

Thranduil

[lem0nhead]

•Legolas, En Tel' Mithrim
Companion • Elf
Strength: 6
Vitality: 3
Signet: Aragorn
Archer. Hunter 1.
Each time a threat is added by a Free Peoples card, if you cannot spot 4 threats, you may spot a ranger or another hunter companion to make the fellowship archery total +1 until the regroup phase.
"‘...I felt not the horror, and I feared not the shadows of Men, powerless and frail as I deemed them.'"

Removing threats is an easy mechanic, it wouldnt take too long before this could get insanely abusive!

•Gimli, Of the Grey Company
Companion • Dwarf
Strength: 6
Vitality: 3
Signet: Aragorn
Damage +1. Hunter 1.
Each time a threat is added by a Free Peoples card, if you cannot spot 4 threats, you may spot a ranger or another hunter companion to make Gimli strength +1 until the regroup phase.
"‘You might as well accept it: we're going with you, laddie.'"

This is less abusive, and bothers me less. Ok.

•Bow of the Galadhrim, Accurate Weapon
Possession • Ranged Weapon
Strength +1
Bearer must be Legolas.
Response: If Legolas is not exhausted and a minion takes a wound during the archery phase or during a skirmish involving Legolas, add a threat to wound that minion again (limit once per phase). Any Shadow player may remove 2 threats to prevent this.
"‘Legolas, fire a warning shot past the bosun's ear.'"

Wow; wordy! Id change the prevention to 1 threat remove.

•Axe of Erebor, Long-reaching Weapon
Possession • Hand Weapon
Strength +2
Bearer must be a Dwarf. Bearer is damage +1.
If bearer is Gimli, each time he wins a skirmish, you may add a threat to discard a minion in that skirmish. Any Shadow player may remove 2 threats to prevent this.
"‘That's it. Right. We warned you. Prepare to be boarded.'"

Yeah this one is ok. Powerful but ok. Dont think id change this to 1 threat prevent.

[DáinIronfoot]

Thanks for the reviews, all. If you haven't already heard, it appears my days of posting at work are over. The blockers finally clamped all the way down. I can view the forums, but can't access any topics within, meaning no posting either. Blarg.

So I'm now limited to evenings...which, in truth, is what I figured would happen at NSA all along. So oh well.

That won't stop me! I still have my evenings and weekends! Onward and upward, right?

Sweet_Stuff, I don't think your starting fellowship would work. Faramir CoG only reduces the cost of other Men, not rangers. So he has no way to reduce the cost of the Sons of Elrond. Strider, yes, but not Elladan or Elrohir.

As for Legolas and Gimli, I tweaked Legolas and his bow. Tried to think of a better way of doing Lego, and finally just settled on mm's simple fix. Since that now racks up threats more quickly, I changed the Bow to exerting Legolas instead of adding MORE threats, which actually probably works better anyway. And it saves on text.

Hoping you like those changes (but if you don't, certainly let me know!), as I'm going to shift gears a bit and move on.

So far I've covered only the true Grey Company. But as I've hinted at throughout this topic, I designed the Grey Company to also (hopefully) work well with a long-neglected race. Big D gave us an awesome taste of these companions back in King block...but then, strangely, never mentioned them again.

Time to fix that...as we bring back Wraiths!

•Angbor, The Fearless
Companion • Man
Strength: 6
Vitality: 4
Resistance: 7
Knight. While you can spot Aragorn or a Wraith, Angbor is twilight cost -1 and gains the Aragorn signet.
Response: If a companion wins a skirmish, exert Angbor twice to remove a threat.
"‘Angbor of Lamedon came up with all the horsemen that he could muster. Now that the fear of the Dead was removed they came to aid us and to look on the Heir of Isildur....'"

...well, in a second. Little detour to the detour first.

Angbor is a minor thread in the literary tapestry of The Return of the King, but he plays a key role: he's the only Gondorian leader in the southern parts of the kingdom that doesn't flee from the oncoming army of the Dead. Aragorn rewards his bravery by putting him in command of an army of Gondorians he has march to Gondor while Aragorn leads the Grey Company and the Dead upriver in the formerly corsair ships. I figured this made little Angbor a curious snub from the King block, and one that deserved to appear now that the Dead are back. He helps them out directly by removing threats, something unheard of with companions. I tried to balance this a bit by making him expensive without Aragorn or some Wraiths around, and by limiting Angbor's ability to once-per-turn unless you have some in-skirmish healing. Does he work?

Okay, NOW we'll get into Wraiths.

•Grey Host
Companion • Wraith
Strength: 9
Vitality: 6
Signet: Aragorn
Damage +1. Enduring. To play, spot 2 Wraiths (or Aragorn) and add a threat.
Grey Host's twilight cost is -2 for each ranger and Wraith you can spot.
Each time Grey Host kills a minion in a skirmish, you may remove a threat.
"‘...the Dead ride behind. They have been summoned.'"

Figured I'd start with the Wraith (or Wraiths in this case, I suppose) most closely tied to the Grey Company. Yes, he's a great splash in a Wraith-heavy fellowship, but as long as Aragorn's around, you can start this guy pretty cheaply without any other Wraiths around at all! Grey Company = rangers = this companion for a reasonable cost. And perhaps best of all, when he kills minions (likely with his high strength and built-in damage bonus), you get to remove threats, which is great with other Wraiths OR with the Grey Company. Nifty!