The Road Ahead: New Set from Thranduil!

[FM]

UHR05
Piercing Phalanx
Possession • Hand Weapon
Strength: +2
Bearer must be an or besieger minion.
While the fellowship is at a plains site, bearer is damage +1.
Each mount borne by a companion assigned to bearer loses its game text.
A R 198

I don't think you need to word it that way, companions can only bear 1 mount and only 1 companion can skirmish a minion (X minions can skirmish a companion, not the other way around). Other than that, they're most fine, though I'd add "besieger" to the ones able to bear the shield, make it a splash card off culture for Orcs as well. Fun times.

[Thranduil]

Made some further changes. Comments welcome! Some tricks for the moment. First, a straightforward pump, the sort of which you would expect in a set all about sites!

UHC09
Battle-lust
Event • Skirmish
Exert your minion to make it strength +2 (or +4 if the fellowship is at a battleground site).
A C 178

Now is one of the mechanics for the set. I can't remember whether we've seen this mechanic before, but here it is anyway! Pursuit is not a loaded or unloaded keyword, and is what might be known as a "callout keyword". MTG uses these fairly often, eg. Metalcraft and Domain. A callout keyword indicates some common theme which could be used in different ways for different effects, but has no rules meaning in itself. For example, Metalcraft just indicates that this ability requires you to control 3 or more artifacts—the effect that you get for doing so could widely differ.

So, Pursuit indicates that the ability is going to care about how many times the fellowship has moved this turn. There are two examples of this below. I'm not convinced that we need callout keywords in LotR, but I am trying this one out, so let me know your thoughts.

UHU08
No Hope of Victory
Event • Response
Spell.
Pursuit – This event's twilight cost is -1 for each time the fellowship has moved this turn.
If a Free Peoples event is played, exert your or minion to cancel its effects.
A U 195

UHR07
Loot of the Westfold
Event • Shadow
Pursuit – Spot your minion to discard up to X conditions from play, where X is the number of times the fellowship has moved this turn. You draw a card for each condition discarded in this way.
A R 192

[ket_the_jet]

Loot of the Westfold
Event • Shadow
Pursuit – Spot your minion to discard a condition from play for each time the fellowship has moved this turn. You draw a card for each condition discarded in this way.
A R 192

You probably intend for this, but you do realize that you can discard Freeps conditions as well as Shadow, right? I didn't know if this was supposed to just be a card-drawing engine.
-wtk

[Thranduil]

It's supposed to be a removal spell with extra upside, so it's designed to mainly discard FP conditions. It could be that this should be more explicit, in which case I will specify "discard a FP condition".

Thran

[FM]

I'd make it UP TO X conditions, so the Shadow player CAN target his OWN conditions if there are no more legal targets but he wants extra cards (say, he has drawn into 2 more Worries and can only discard one? Might work... Also, it can lure the FP player to think, if played on the first regroup, that he ASSUMED they are going to stop, and bait them into walking into yet another Worry and more minions). I like the idea of callout keywords, as they open up design space, like, "when you play X, you may return a card with pursuit from the discard pile to your hand". Sure, it's wide. But it's also narrow. You either get lucky, or build around it, or factor in the mathematics involved, all of which are fine choices for card games.
Loved the "response" love, as well, this game needs more direct interaction, rather than "I play my cards, you watch. You play your cards, I watch. I do this, you watch it happen. You do that, I watch it happen. One of us get screwed and is pissed, blabbing about NPE in the Forums because they can't do squat about me doing my stuff".

[Thranduil]

Thanks for the comments. Changed Loot of the Westfold. And I totally agree with you FM: I have been making a conscious decision to include more interaction in my cards.

Some conditions for now. You'll have to tell me how well lookout seems to work on the second condition Close Pursuit (which incidentally probably needs a new title as it was named before the callout keyword was called "pursuit"). The third of these conditions is another one of my kind of reprints where I riff off an early card. I think you might know which one!

UHC08
Hunted
Condition • Unbound companion
Resistance: -1
Search.
To play, exert your or tracker minion.
Limit 1 per bearer.
While the fellowship is ahead on the adventure path, bearer is strength -2.
A C 184

UHU06
Close Pursuit
Condition • Companion
Search. Lookout – Assignment. (You may play this condition any time you could play an assignment event; if you do, discard it from play).
To play, spot your or tracker minion.
Limit 1 per bearer.
In order for the Free Peoples player to assign bearer to a skirmish, he or she must exert.
When this condition is discarded from play, exert bearer.
A U 183

UHR06
•Venemous Words
Condition • Support Area
At the start of the first regroup phase each turn, you may spot your or minion, 5 companions and 5 of your sites on the adventure path to make the move limit for this turn -1.
A R 201

[Ringbearer]

With all the site manipulation I find Venemous Words a bit on the strong side.

[FM]

Yes, that title needs a revamp. I liked the idea of combo'ing assignment actions, like picking off a weaker companion with Saruman, Servant of the Eye, since they didn't have enough vitality, but I also think it desperately needs a cap, like (limit 1 per bearer) or something, otherwise, you roll over a lot of strategies too easily (not to mention it might get ugly with auto-wounding them and some form of discard pile recursion (if such a thing is possible).

[Thranduil]

UHC01
Isengard Marksmen
Minion • Uruk-hai
Strength: 9
Vitaltiy: 3
Site: 5
Besieger.
While the fellowship is at a battleground site, this minion is an archer.
While the fellowship is ahead on the adventure path, this minion is damage +1.
A C 190

UHC03
Isengard Watchman
Minion • Uruk-hai
Strength: 7
Vitality: 2
Site: 5
Damage +1. Tracker. Lookout – Shadow. (You may play this card any time you could play a Shadow event; if you do, discard it from play).
When this minion is killed or discarded from play (except during the regroup phase), you may draw 2 cards.
A C 191

UHR01
•Lurtz, Master Tracker
Minion • Uruk-hai
Strength: 13
Vitality: 3
Site: 5
Damage +1. Tracker.
When you play Lurtz and each time you play another tracker card, you may reveal a card at random from the Free Peoples player's adventure deck. If it has Shadow number 2 or more, you may exert a companion.
A R 193

UHR03
•Lieutenant of Cirith Ungol
Minion • Uruk-hai
Strength: 10
Vitality: 3
Site: 6
Damage +1. Traitor. Lookout – Skirmish. (You may play this minion any time you could play a skirmish event; if you do, discard it from play).
When you play Lieutenant of Cirith Ungol, you may heal X wounds from minions, where X is the number of mountain or battleground sites on the adventure path.
A R 194

[FM]

I don't know, I kinda associate the first one's title with Uruk Vanguard, and it just don't measure up. 'd change the title and save it for a stronger minion. Liked the other ones, though.

[Thranduil]

Good point about the vanguard. I had not remembered that card title (I hardly even remember my own card titles!). I will work on something else.

[gk1964]

You could leave him as is and add toil1. Give some tie in with the Lieutenant of Cirith Ungol.

The other option would be to make him gain fierce rather than damage +1.

[Thranduil]

I'm not going to use toil in this set, but he could indeed be fierce instead. I will consider the best title/mechanics link for that card a bit more...

But that was the last of the culture, so now we'll move into something else. While we're on a similar subject, we may as well have . You'll notice that some of the cards mention as well. That's not particularly because there are a good number of cards in the set (though there were a fair number in the previous block) but because it made flavour sense. In fact, there are 2. And here they are.

ISC01
•Saruman, Master of Orthanc
Minion • Wizard
Strength: 8
Vitality: 4
Site: 4
Traitor.
Saruman may not take archery wounds or be assigned to skirmishes.
Shadow: Replace the fellowship's current site with a site from your adventure deck with Shadow number 1 or less; that site cannot be replaced until the regroup phase. (Limit once per phase).
A C 93

Traitor is a tribal keyword (similar to tracker, besieger etc.) which I introduced in the last block. Occasionally it will matter. This Saruman is part of my goal to get cooler characters more often at lower rarities so that they show up more in packs, and specifically in draft (which my sets are designed to hopefully be able to do).

ISR+1
•Library of Orthanc, Ancient Repository
Artifact • Support Area
Monument. (This card's game text is always active while it's in play).
To play, spot Saruman (or exert 2 of your minions).
You may hold a maximum of 10 cards in your hand when you reconcile.
A R+ 92

This is one of my favourite versions of the monument mechanic, and in fact was probably its inspiration. With monument, I was trying to capture the flavour and mechanics of a site on a non-site card. Sites are always active, so I thought why couldn't other cards do that? In general, they will make a change to you as a player or to the whole board state.

This is also the first R+ I've posted. As in many other card games, I have decided to put R+ rarities into a normal set. They would obviously be rarer than R in packs.

Thran

[FM]

Would a Shadow card from an opponent be able to discard it? It seems like it would, but I'm curious.

[Thranduil]

Would a Shadow card from an opponent be able to discard it? It seems like it would, but I'm curious.

Yes, I believe so. Active shadow players would be able to interact with monuments.