Sting, Bill the Pony and twilight.

[Ulmo]

Oh venerable rule gurus, hear my plea...

The basic question is when does the twilight from the site get added? Is adding site twilight the last part of the fellowship phase?

In our game today, cccorniv was playing a fellowship choke deck - very effective it was too. When moving to site 5, he had 2 companions with httwc, sting and bill the pony and a gondor card to reduce site number by 1.  So he added 2 for the companions, removed 2 because of httwc, then added 4 for site 5 (6 for site - 2 in site reduction). But Bill gets discarded when at an underground site, so should the reduction only have been 1? I don't think so, neither does ccc but we thought it worthwhile to ask.

Also, with Sting, when exerting to remove twilight, that also happens before the fellowship moves because it's a fellowship action, right?

[CCCORNIV]

 My reasoning is that Bill the Pony's twilight reduction was to move from site for to site 5 so the -1 reduction was still allowable from site 4 (not underground) to site 5.  I discarded Bill the Pony during my fellowship phase at site 5.  I guess the question is when are you AT a site?

[Elessar's Socks]

Movement summary shamelessly swiped from the CRD:

• A Shadow player places the next site card, if needed.
• Perform "When you move from..." actions.
• Perform "When the fellowship moves..." actions.
• Move your player marker to the next site.
• Perform "When you move to..." actions.
• Add twilight tokens equal to the new site's Shadow number.
• Add 3 twilight tokens if the new site is in region 2; or 6 if it is in region 3.
• Add 1 twilight token for each companion.

Let's see... you have 2 companions with HttWC, Bill the Pony, and No Stranger to the Shadows. If you move to a non-underground site with a Shadow number of 6:

Perform "When the fellowship moves..." actions - remove with HttWC.
Add twilight tokens equal to the new site's Shadow number - add (-2 from Bill and NSttS).
Add 1 twilight token for each companion - add for 2 companions.

But if you move to an underground site, Bill is discarded before adding tokens for the site's Shadow number:

Perform "When the fellowship moves..." actions - remove with HttWC.
Bill the Pony is discarded.
Add twilight tokens equal to the new site's Shadow number - add (-1 from NSttS).
Add 1 twilight token for each companion - add for 2 companions.

And Sting removes twilight before the fellowship moves.

[Ulmo]

Ah, so we have been playing it wrong.

And I could have played the Balrog   

Thanks Elessar   

[CCCORNIV]

Well once again we've been playing wrong.  We always add the tokens for the companions before the tokens for the site. No wonder my choke deck worked so well today.   At least we'll be able to play it properly when Ulmo tries his choke deck.  I'll probably tear my choke deck apart, the purpose was to avoid the Balrog, but if all the tokens are added after all the actions then what is the point?  HttWC and Sting can remove tokens for cards played during the fellowship phase, but I never will really be able to reduce the twilight pool to limit my opponent to not play the Balrog.  I guess Gimli Dwarf of the Mountain-Race will do it if he and Frodo are the only companions.  Thanks for reading the rules to us Socks, we obviously didn't!   

[CCCORNIV]

Ah, so we have been playing it wrong.

For years we have been playing wrong. 

I had something for mister Balrog.   OWMWF coupled with a hobbit party guest and VMotW would have limited Aragorn to only two wounds.  Still if we would have played properly you would have probably won the game Ulmo. I get an asterisk by my victory today. 

[Elessar's Socks]

You WHAT? You were going to send the Hobbit Party Guest out to face the Balrog?? Oh, the imagery...

[MR. Lurtzy]

Well, you need a way to get rid of worthless scum...

[DáinIronfoot]

You WHAT? You were going to send the Hobbit Party Guest out to face the Balrog?? Oh, the imagery...

"Heya Balgy, wanna ale?" *hic*

* The Balrog of Morgoth reduces the inebriated Hobbit to ash

[CCCORNIV]

The inebriated Hobbit wouldn't have felt a thing.  Although his party would have ended on a huge downer.

[FM]

Now, c'mon, that's not true! Every cool party needs fireworks, now he gets to actually BE the fireworks!

[CCCORNIV]

That's true.    I had 4 OWMWF, 3x Bounder and 3x Hobbit Party Guest in my deck as well as TSoE and 4 Might of Numenor.  I was trying to make it a Frodo/Aragorn choke deck where they could heal, didn't have to fight the Balrog and Hobbit allies could die sites 7-9.  It's all about destroying The One Ring, if a few druken hobbits have to die along the way so be it.  :hey:

[Kralik]

That is very interesting about Bill the Pony, ES. Thanks for clearing that up.

If you want to avoid Durin's Bane I think you'd have to either use Deft in Their Movements (x2 perhaps) or We Must Go Warily (click for erratum).

[CCCORNIV]

Thanks for the tip, We Must Go Warily seems like the way to go.

[Ulmo]

Without the erratum.  I like the text on the card better.   

We can't even play by the rules, so the erratum goes out the window.