The Paths of the Dead - Mustn't Hurt Preciouss

[Anvar]

Hi one and all,
Sorry for such a long delay in posting new cards. I've started a new job which is taking an awful lot of time. Anyway, here are some Dwarven cards to whet your appetite.

You might remember the following cards from the Elven culture:

•Legolas, Grey Archer
Companion • Elf
Strength: 6
Vitality: 3
Resistance: 7
Archer. Return - add a threat.
Desperation - at the start of the archery phase you may wound a minion.

•Bow of the Galadhrim, Drawn in Anger
Possession • Ranged Weapon
Strength: +1
Legendary - 1
Bearer must be Legolas.
Each time you play an skirmish event in a skirmish involving Legolas, you may scour 4 to exert a minion.


Well, here are the Dwarf versions:

•Gimli, Of the Grey Company
Companion • Dwarf
Strength: 6
Vitality: 3
Resistance: 7
Damage +1. Return -
Desperation - Gimli is strength +4 and damage +1.
" ‘An Elf will go underground and a Dwarf dare not!' "

•Axe of Erebor, Wielded in Rage
Possession • Hand Weapon
Strength: +2
Legendary -
Bearer must be Gimli. He is damage +1.
Each time you play a skirmish event in a skirmish involving Gimli, you may scour a card to make a companion damage +1 until the regroup phase.

[DáinIronfoot]

First off, you've got a few little errors, like doing "Dwarf" instead of "Dwarven" inside the brackets, and capitalizing "strength" when it's not necessary and not bolding damage. (I'll correct stuff I see as I quote.) That all being said, let's get to the nitty-gritty of the actual cards here....

•Gimli, Of the Grey Company
Companion • Dwarf
Strength: 6
Vitality: 3
Resistance: 7
Damage +1. Return - add a threat.
Desperation - Gimli is strength +4 and damage +1.
" ‘An Elf will go underground and a Dwarf dare not!' "

Seems awfully good, but there ARE versions of Gimli that can get about that powerful without too much trouble, so it's probably fine. Might be better at 6 resistance even though I love 7 resistance Gimlis.

•Axe of Erebor, Wielded in Rage
Possession • Hand Weapon
Strength: +2
Legendary -
Bearer must be Gimli. He is damage +1.
Each time you play a skirmish event, you may scour a card to make a companion damage +1.

Nifty, but perhaps limit those events to ones played during Gimli's skirmish. Otherwise that ability becomes just beastly in Dwarf-heavy decks. Dwarves are excellent at card drawing already, so allowing them to scour so easily for a nice benefit AND draw cards seems a bit much.

[Thranduil]

•Gimli, Of the Grey Company
Companion • Dwarf
Strength: 6
Vitality: 3
Resistance: 7
Damage +1. Return - add a threat.
Desperation - Gimli is strength +4 and damage +1.
" ‘An Elf will go underground and a Dwarf dare not!' "

Perhaps Gimli's return should be adding twilight just because if you're having to return your companions, you might not be able to add many threats and Dwarves are better at recursion anyway.

•Axe of Erebor, Wielded in Rage
Possession • Hand Weapon
Strength: +2
Legendary -
Bearer must be Gimli. He is damage +1.
Each time you play a skirmish event in a skirmish involving Gimli, you may scour a card to make a companion damage +1 until the regroup phase.

Yeah, it's solid.

Thranduil

[lem0nhead]

Both look after the others comments, but the axe seems very good.

[FM]

Can you explain the keywords for me? I'm intrigued by their name, they seem to be fun!

[DáinIronfoot]

Can you explain the keywords for me? I'm intrigued by their name, they seem to be fun!

As I understand it....

Legendary represents an additional cost the opponent must pay to discard. So in this case, the Shadow player would have to remove if they were to somehow discard Axe of Erebor, Wielded In Rage.

Return is a cost that can be paid to pull a card back from the discard pile. So if Gimli, Of the Grey Company were in the discard pile (and another copy was not in play, of course), a threat could be added to play him as if from hand.

Desperation text triggers automatically when your draw deck is exhausted. Anvar has many cards that scour (aka discard cards from the top of your draw deck) to help you intentionally discard large chunks of your deck and trigger desperation on cards, then he uses return to pull cards you really need back from the discard pile.

I was skeptical at first--and still am a bit--about the whole thing working, but at least within the framework of this set, I think a player would actually have a decent shot at pulling it off, basically turning their discard pile into their draw deck and allowing them to pull the cards they want from it WHEN they want them. The ONLY problem I see so far is in removing threats, since his cards add a ton of them.

[Anvar]

Legendary cards also go to the dead pile if discarded.

Anvar

[DáinIronfoot]

Ah, right...to tie in with tombs and all.

[Anvar]

Yes indeed. Also, note that Legendary isn't actually my mechanic, and that I 'borrowed' it from Thranduil, who used it in his 2nd age set.

Anvar

[FM]

Pretty cool, all of them! I might even considering borrowing some.

[Anvar]

One more card for the weekend. I think I designed this card, or one much like it, for the never ending DC thread, but here it is with Desperation. This is an example of a card where Desperation is something of a double-edged sword. When Desperation comes, all treasure is locked away:

•Lost Treasure Hoard
Condition • Support Area
Each time you draw a card in the fellowship phase you may spot 2 Dwarves to add a token here.
Desperation - while you can spot a Dwarf, tokens cannot be added, removed or reinforced.
"'I soon understood that his heart was hot with brooding on his wrongs, and the loss of the treasure of his forefathers...'"

[DáinIronfoot]

Maybe it's just me, but I don't understand the point of the card. Yes, having extra tokens around is nice, but the drawback means I would NEVER use this in a deck built around desperation. Was that the point? If so, I would think it would be better saved for another set where desperation is not such an emphasis.

[Anvar]

Well, it has a double use. You could use it in a Desperation deck to counter decks that rely on tokens (eg. Corsairs) or you could use it in a token deck, where this could provide a stream of tokens. Just don't delve too greedily or too deep...

Anvar

[DáinIronfoot]

Alright, I suppose that's fair enough. I MIGHT toss one into a desperation deck if I thought opponent's tokens would be a problem, but obviously you're not going to use this with tokens AND a desperation strategy. Like I said, fair enough.

[Thranduil]

I don't think a desperation token deck makes sense, but that Treasure Horde looks amazing in a standard token deck. That card with NPNS and Heavy Axe, Gloin et cetera looks amazing, and so it's good that it has some nasty drawback which you'll trigger if you're not too careful. I don't think I'd use it in any other deck, though. It might give you a reason for splashing Gloin, but probably not.

Thranduil