V1: Goblin Archer

[Thranduil]

Extending that, could he be a walking Cave Troll's Chain?

[FM]

Not really, he'd punish your strategy, the FP player would simply chose to skip, slaughter all other minions and move. I think he could have Thran's text with the ability to pull a site I suggested, so you can force Brown Lands in Fellowship Block and also force underground sites in other strategies, so you can actually choose to prevent damage (and he'd be useful even in open, btw) AND can be played as a splash minion in strategies that need underground sites. I don't think burdens should be even mentioned on this card, though.

[Thranduil]

Good point. If he was a walking Chain, then he wouldn't support archery strategies.

[TheHobbit13]

what if we toke out the ability for the FP to skip the archery and put as a response " each time this character takes an archery wound you may wound an archer companion". That way it wouldn't hurt your archery.

[ket_the_jet]

I actually rather like the idea of something involving burdens. It might make Lost To the Goblins a little more popular and an ability that is worth of the wouldn't be too tough at all.

I may throw out an idea or two in the next few days, but I just want to see what other people come up with for now. I will say that, as of right now this one is my favorite one. I might even suggest "exert this minion twice" instead of "discard" though.

Goblin Archer
Archer.
Each time the ringbearer takes a wound during archery phase, you may discard a archer to add a burden.

This one, by the way, would definitely need cultural enforcement...maybe, "While you can spot another archer...
-wtk

[macheteman]

i definitely agree with you ket about the burden idea. i've always loved the idea of moria corruption. its one of the clearest places in the films where we see the ring-bearer singled out and worn down. singled out etc.

anyways, i don't agree that that particular card would need any more cultural reinforcement than already in place. first off, its dependent on your opponent placing archery wounds on the RB, and after that, you have to discard a archer for the burden effect. altogether, if you added any MORE hoops to jump through, nobody would play it.

i like the burden tip you guys are taking with this, keep up the good work!

[Tbiesty]

I also agree about involving burdens.  Continuing to tweak this version based on input...

Goblin Archer
Minion • Orc
Strength: 4
Vitality: 3
Site: 4
Archer.
While you can spot another archer,
no player may use archery special abilities.
Response: If a Hobbit takes a wound during the
archery phase, exert this minion twice to add a burden
(or 2 burdens if the fellowship is at an underground site).

[macheteman]

Goblin Archer
Minion • Orc
Strength: 4
Vitality: 3
Site: 4
Archer.
Archery: Spot 3 archers and exert this minion twice to make the minion archery total +1 for each burden you can spot (limit +4),


this is an idea for using burdens to aid the archery strategy. rather than using archery to aid the burden strategy. i think its fairly balanced, it requires playing 3 moria archers, 2 exerts, and is dependent on how well your opponent build their deck.

[ket_the_jet]

So when I think about the character, he is a high-cost minion so he should do something interesting or worthy of that high cost. The spot would probably be taken up by Moria Archery Troop (and maybe a Shotgun Enquea or two) and the rest of the cards would be low cost, so this guy would probably have one of those abilities where, coupled with the cost, you'd splash two in the deck.

The power-level of this can be argued, so just roll with the theme I'm aiming for.

Goblin Archer
Minion • Strength: 4
Vitality: 3
Site: 4
Archer.
Archery: Spot another Archer minion and exert this minion to name a race. Until the regroup phase, that race cannot take wounds during the archery phase. The Free Peoples player can add 2 burdens to prevent this.

It can be avoided with a shot from Greenleaf or Aragorn's Bow, or other pre-skirmish wounding cards. It kind of has the Haradrim Marksman feel which I thought was kind of neat. And he's a guy who is kind of hit or miss in terms of value.

Thoughts?
-wtk

[FM]

He might be too degenerate considering the Two Towers environment, where single-culture decks were finally made possible without much suffering, but your Ring-bearer was STILL Frodo and/or Sam (mid-game), so it gets you too many free wins, I think (I, for one, would play 4 of him as is, free wins are nothing to sneeze at). I don't think this card should adress the corruption thing, I think we would need other cards for that (events and conditions, mainly), and I also took in consideration what have been said about needing TOO MUCH cards to make corruption possible. I don't think every culture has to be able to do everything, and Moria can play beatdown, swarms and archery already, so I'm fine with it NOT being able to play corruption. Then again, the culture DOES have some cards that add burdens, and it would be a waste to simply let those cards go unplayed, so I think that, at most, it should do something WITH burdens (even if counterintuitive to a corruption strategy).

Perhaps it could be a "free win" card with high cost?

Goblin Archer (V)
Minion • Orc
Strength: 4
Vitality: 3
Site: 4
Archer.
Archery: Remove 2-3 burdens and spot another archer to name a race. Until the regroup phase, that race cannot take wounds during the archery phase.

It's still a "free-win" card sometimes, but it comes at a high cost, has to mainly be played into archers (I first though about leaving the exertion cost in lieu of the spotting requirement, so the ability could be used twice at a REALLY STEEP cost, but decided against it so as not to let him become an easy splash minion), will not work if you don't jump through some hoops (at least, not consistently enough to make it annoying and warrant a 4-of inclusion right off the bat), and even if you DON'T want to jump through hoops, you can still play 1-2 for good measure, since he exerts for Threat of the Unknown while forwarding your strategy when NOT being a free-win card or a pain-in-the-#$&*@! card (rather than just exerting for Threat while doing nothing worthwhile), AND he CAN be such a card with minimal work at least once in a given game, which is still good enough for a 2-of with no work involved in making it work, and might be awesome as a 3/4-of with a LITTLE work involved (mainly, Must Do Without Hope and Goblin Spear, which are really not effort at all in FotR and little effort outside of it).

[Thranduil]

I'm not sure a card with such high variance is the best choice for something designed to push any strategy into the playable zone. Yes sometimes it will win you the game (especially if they're running The Ruling Ring and ilk), but other times it will do essentially nothing. I wouldn't want to base my archery deck around a card like that.

If we're going for using corruption in the subtlest way, then the mm's most recent version (archery total +1 for each burden) fits the bill best.

Thran

[FM]

But the idea is not basing your strategy on the card, this is something we have to keep in mind. V cards are not supposed to be all 4-of staples or build-around-me cards, they are designed mainly to keep the game fresh by giving it some new toys to work with, while salvaging a card deemed nearly unplayable or heavily underplayed. Upping the archery count based on burdens in mm's suggestion is nice, but as is, it's too hard to pull off as a single wound tossed in your math messes it up something fierce. It would neew some reworking. I liked the idea to exchange burdens for an ability, though, because it "kind" of adresses decks that abuse burdens for benefits, which they can do freely, as won't do squat with burdens. MM's suggestion also adresses this issue, but depending on what those burdens are doing, a few arrows won't suffice. A free win might. At least, it could send a message to such decks, and all of a sudden, a simple upgrade (from a no-of minion to a 1/2-of minion, for instance) in an otherwise forgotten strategy can reshape a metagame, even if you do not base your whole deck on it. Actually, just the THREAT of it can reshape the meta. It might not do so efficiently or consistently, since most such decks either loop during the Fellowship phase or add burdens in skirmish/regroup, but it can still tackle those that use maneuver rings, for instance, and he's not meant to be a hoser anyway, it's just a bonus.
PS: Also, thinking about it again, the card ends up forcing corruption into the light, since if you can nail a single-culture deck, you end up forcing Frodo to wear the Ring to avoid dying, peppering him with burdens. Nice. It could warrant some Lost to the Goblins, after all.
PPS: This all being said, I also think mm's card is a fine choice, it just needs some revamping, because right now, it still doesn't adress the problems posed to the deck, being hosed by the same cards/strategies/inherent problems.

[FM]

As an aside note, this card seems to be going pretty fast underway, since we have basically narrowed down what it might adress, so unless some crazy new reasoning appears from someone, we are set in a direction to work with, so I'd suggest already starting discussion on the next card, to keep the forum busy and spike interest again (it's been really slow lately). Also, I think that rather than posting cards in the dark, people should at least explain the reasoning behind it (seriously, even if the reasoning is it "being awesome"). I'd also urge people to not forget about the other topics and simply focus on the new one, the Ring topic has been pretty much dead for DAYS, I mean, where are our playtesters? What did they infer? How's that going? Why is no one looking at Gimlis anymore? See, this is the issue I talked about. If it moves slow, people lose interest and stop posting. If it moves fast, people only care for the new topic. Either way, the net result is "Process=DEAD", so I'd suggest we gather playtesters throughout the forum, specially those that can do it consistently (unlike me, for instance ), so we can set deadline's to playtesting. I'd suggest running a gauntlet. Simply get a format, single out the 4-5 most popular strategies, get the best players we can to run each of those gauntlet decks, and let the playtesters go crazy with deckbuilding for the format. Then, check the results. This can be as simple as 2 games against each gauntlet deck for each playtester. Move to the next format. Lather, rinse, repeat. This shows the power level of the card, and if it has merit and some uses (for instance, a free peoples cards does not need to win the game for you by running to 9, it can soemtimes help your shadow side indirectly to set up a kill, and this is still fine if it's not coincidental or accidental - and fun when it is). Also, of course, playtesters should playtest the SAME card, but DIFFERENT decks. THEN, they could test ANOTHER card. Done properly, the whole process could be done in 1-2 weeks.
Last, Thranduil said something that raised an alarm in my head, and I think we should move to non-character cards (actually, if at all possible, specifically to events), so we can work on the concept of cards that simply "add value", people are too concerned in making build-around-me cards (and I count myself among these people).

[macheteman]

maybe my version would better fit what we're going for, and better fit the goblin archer feel if it was more along the lines of this:

Goblin Archer
Minion • Orc
Strength: 4
Vitality: 3
Site: 4
Archer.
While you can spot 3 archers the minion archery total +1 for each burden you can spot (limit +3),

This removes the archery special ability, which no other goblin archer has, and replaces it with a blanket text. this still requires playing 3 archers and not losing them to greenleaf gorn's bow etc...

the limit prevents things from getting too out of hand.

i like the simplicity of burdens to archery as opposed to more complex special abilities. i mean, seriously, look at all the goblin archers, they are all very simple and straightforward. adding a little more complexity and strategy by linking them with burdens is exciting, and could definitely spark some new deck ideas.

as it stands FM, your card is going to be splashed into EVERY archery deck imaginable. just to make sure your opponent doesn't abuse those burdens. you at least need to make it spot ANOTHER moria archer. self spotting makes it too versatile.

thats my thoughts.

[Thranduil]

But the idea is not basing your strategy on the card, this is something we have to keep in mind. V cards are not supposed to be all 4-of staples or build-around-me cards, they are designed mainly to keep the game fresh by giving it some new toys to work with, while salvaging a card deemed nearly unplayable or heavily underplayed. Upping the archery count based on burdens in mm's suggestion is nice, but as is, it's too hard to pull off as a single wound tossed in your math messes it up something fierce. It would neew some reworking. I liked the idea to exchange burdens for an ability, though, because it "kind" of adresses decks that abuse burdens for benefits, which they can do freely, as won't do squat with burdens. MM's suggestion also adresses this issue, but depending on what those burdens are doing, a few arrows won't suffice. A free win might. At least, it could send a message to such decks, and all of a sudden, a simple upgrade (from a no-of minion to a 1/2-of minion, for instance) in an otherwise forgotten strategy can reshape a metagame, even if you do not base your whole deck on it. Actually, just the THREAT of it can reshape the meta. It might not do so efficiently or consistently, since most such decks either loop during the Fellowship phase or add burdens in skirmish/regroup, but it can still tackle those that use maneuver rings, for instance, and he's not meant to be a hoser anyway, it's just a bonus.

You're right, but on the other hand the easiest and most obvious way to produce a new viable strategy is to make a build-around-me card. There are, of course, arguments both ways, and it would depend on what strategy we are trying to promote and how much tech there is for it already. I would argue that there is hardly any tech for either corruption or archery, so it seems to me that a build-around would be a sensible choice here. (Gimli doesn't have to do this, by the way, because tales actually already have a fair bit of tech which is why a lot of the options for Gimli we were looking for were facilitators rather than bombs).

PPS: This all being said, I also think mm's card is a fine choice, it just needs some revamping, because right now, it still doesn't adress the problems posed to the deck, being hosed by the same cards/strategies/inherent problems.

Also agreed. The card needs to protect the strategy, specifically by helping them against direct wounding.

As an aside note, this card seems to be going pretty fast underway, since we have basically narrowed down what it might adress, so unless some crazy new reasoning appears from someone, we are set in a direction to work with, so I'd suggest already starting discussion on the next card, to keep the forum busy and spike interest again (it's been really slow lately). Also, I think that rather than posting cards in the dark, people should at least explain the reasoning behind it (seriously, even if the reasoning is it "being awesome"). I'd also urge people to not forget about the other topics and simply focus on the new one, the Ring topic has been pretty much dead for DAYS, I mean, where are our playtesters? What did they infer? How's that going? Why is no one looking at Gimlis anymore? See, this is the issue I talked about. If it moves slow, people lose interest and stop posting. If it moves fast, people only care for the new topic. Either way, the net result is "Process=DEAD", so I'd suggest we gather playtesters throughout the forum, specially those that can do it consistently (unlike me, for instance ), so we can set deadline's to playtesting. I'd suggest running a gauntlet. Simply get a format, single out the 4-5 most popular strategies, get the best players we can to run each of those gauntlet decks, and let the playtesters go crazy with deckbuilding for the format. Then, check the results. This can be as simple as 2 games against each gauntlet deck for each playtester. Move to the next format. Lather, rinse, repeat. This shows the power level of the card, and if it has merit and some uses (for instance, a free peoples cards does not need to win the game for you by running to 9, it can soemtimes help your shadow side indirectly to set up a kill, and this is still fine if it's not coincidental or accidental - and fun when it is). Also, of course, playtesters should playtest the SAME card, but DIFFERENT decks. THEN, they could test ANOTHER card. Done properly, the whole process could be done in 1-2 weeks.

You make some good points. Obviously the playtesting needs doing. We can design as many cards as we like in as short or as long a time-frame as we like, but at the end of the day all of that means absolutely nothing unless they are playtested. I also agree with your method of playtesting. So I suppose our goal now is to work out how to promote playtesting so that it actually happens.

That said, I do think that while your concerns about too fast or too slow are right on the mark, I think 1-2 weeks is rushing it, and I would prefer to see some more on this card before we move on. I do, however, think we should set some deadlines for playtesting and design submission.

Last, Thranduil said something that raised an alarm in my head, and I think we should move to non-character cards (actually, if at all possible, specifically to events), so we can work on the concept of cards that simply "add value", people are too concerned in making build-around-me cards (and I count myself among these people).

I'm agreeing again! We should, after this, look at some non-character cards, though I think starting with characters was a great way to warm up because they are often the easiest and most interesting cards to design.

I have not been able to put a lot of thought into the designs for these cards recently, as I'm sure you can see by the generally low quality of my submissions so far, but I shall try to in the next few days and come back with some more thoughts.

Thran