Reflections Gold - forgotten for over a YEAR - is now finished. WOOOO!

[menace64]

Three random cards:

*Thranduil, King of Mirkwood
Companion * Elf
Strength-6
Vitality-4
Resistance-6
When played at a forest site, Thranduil's twilight cost is -1.
Maneuver: If Thranduil is at a forest site (or if you can spot 4 Elves), exert him to make a minion lose all damage bonuses until the regroup phase.
"'The Elvenking is my friend, and he has succoured the people of the Lake in their need, though they had no claim but friendship on him…'"
20R11

I wanted his stats to be unique among the Elves, and 3/6/4/6 seemed to feel right for whatever reason. It was difficult to give him an ability that lined up with his power; ultimately I stopped trying and went with something inherently basic and tied to both forests and the size of your Elven force. His big vitality is what makes him useful, most likely.

The Eagles Are Coming!
Event * Maneuver
Spot Gandalf and X Free Peoples cultures to reveal the top X cards of your draw deck. Attach any revealed Free Peoples followers to companions, ignoring their aid costs. Place all other revealed cards beneath your draw deck.
"…down the wind, line after line, in such a host as must have gathered from all the eyries of the North."
20R15

A nifty card with limited viability, but can really change the course of a few skirmishes (or even the game) if it pans out well!

*Balchoth, Terrible and Tall
Minion * Man
Strength-13
Vitality-3
Site Number-4
Damage +1.
Each time Balchoth wins a skirmish, add a threat.
Each time you play a event (except during the shadow phase), you may play a Man from your hand; its twilight cost is -1 for each threat you spot (limit -3).
"…Balchoth, having built many great boats and rafts on the east shores of Anduin, swarmed over the River and swept away the defenders."
20R+28

This here is inspired by the Appendices, specifically the history of Gondor and her wars. Balchoth was actually an entire people that rose up against the Gondorians, but I decided to just pass the name along to this one, big brute of a minion. What he does is scare the pants out of any under-prepared fellowship, and then bring out his friends to play as well.

[macheteman]

thranduil: its funny, the first thing i liked about him was the stats. and then i read about you wanting them to be unique. good work. the only disappointing thing is he doesn't mix with culture very well. even his lore talks about the people of the lake. if you want to keep the damage reduction ability, i'd probably go with this: "Maneuver: If Thranduil is at a forest site (or if you can spot 3 men), exert him to make a minion lose all damage bonuses until the regroup phase. i mean, if you are playing an elven deck the forests come naturally, or if you are playing a gandy men deck, he still can find a home there. just some thoughts.

eagles are coming: hmmm, no twilight cost, no exert, no cost for attaching followers, cards you don't use are cycled to bottom, possible payoffs are huge, this card is one that could potentially be broken, like a horn deck sort of deal. at the VERY least make it discard the other cards. i'm really not too keen on completely dropping the aid costs. its a matter of principle, like galadriel lol, you just can't make it play the elf for free. cost -1000 sure, but you can't make it just say "free". idk, it might work out completely fine, but i could see this being an X-list card.

balchoth: good. i might drop the threat adding text or the damage +1 text, but then again he is cost 8 so i guess hes balanced.

[gk1964]

Thranduil doesn't line up for me against, Glorfindel, Elrond, Gil-Galad or Cirdan. He is a king and I would have thought worthy of packing more punch.

What about 7/4/7 stats with a 4 cost and the following text:

While at a forest site, Thranduil is strength +2.
Fellowship: Exert Thranduil twice to play the next site if it is a forest site.

It keeps a forest flavour and gives you a chance to manipulate the site path a bit in your favour.

gk

[azogsbane]

The Eagles Are Coming is really cool. And I don't agree with macheteman that it is overpowered. It seems to me that a deck would have to have a ton of followers for it to even be worth using. Since it's a one-time event, with a high probability of not doing anything, I think it's quite fair the way it is.

[macheteman]

i never said the eagles are coming was overpowered. i said it might end up being broken. i'm not saying i can think of a way on the spot, but what about using it to drop a bunch of shadow cards beneath your deck for later. if you simply changed the "beneath your draw deck" part with "discard the rest" or something to stop a bunch of unintended manipulation. i think the card is very nearly balanced, its just it has a few mechanics that could be exploited in undesirable ways.

[azogsbane]

Oh, now I see what you mean. You're quite right.

And I just thought of another thing. The way the card is worded it sounds like you attach the followers without first playing them. The question arises, do you pay the twilight cost of the followers? I'm sure it was assumed that you would first have to play them, and that you would pay the cost, but it would be more clear if it said "Play any revealed Free Peoples followers and attach them to companions, ignoring their aid costs." (Actually, I've never played with any of the sets that use followers, so forgive me if I'm just misunderstanding how followers are used.)

But then also the question arises, what if there is no eligible bearer for one of the followers? So perhaps it should say "Play any revealed Free Peoples followers. Until the regroup phase, the aid cost of each Free Peoples follower is

• ."

[macheteman]

[0]

[macheteman]

ok, why isn't that changing to the zero twilight symbol?

[ket_the_jet]

The zero is made with parentheses. It's the only one like that.

Example:

Cheers.
-wtk

[macheteman]

that is odd.

[macheteman]

are we gonna see any more of these?

[menace64]

Haha yeah while I was updating my Star Wars project tonight I remembered this set and felt quite foolish for forgetting about it!

*The Service of Stonewrights
Condition * Support Area
When you play this condition, you may exert a Dwarf to add 3 tokens here.
Fellowship or Regroup: Spot a Dwarf and remove a token here to reinforce another Free Peoples token.
Regroup: Exert a Dwarf to take a fortification into hand from your discard pile. Discard this condition.
"…its streets were paved with white marble; and the Folk of the Mountain laboured in it…"
20R+5

This is one of those cards that's been floating around various sets of mine for a few years now. It's an awesome title, and it's designed to open up some cross-cultural love.

Child of the Vanyar
Condition
Bearer must be an Elf. Limit 1 per character.
While bearer is not exhausted, he or she is resistance +1.
Each time bearer wins a skirmish, you may take an event into hand from your discard pile.
"But Arwen looked in his eyes and said: ‘Do not wonder! For the children of Elrond have the life of the Eldar.'"
20R9

Simple, simple.

*Éomer, Bearer of Grim Necessity
Companion * Man
Strength-7
Vitality-3
Ringed Resistance-4
While you cannot spot a companion of higher strength, Éomer is resistance +2 .
While Éomer is the Ring-bearer, at the start of each skirmish involving him, exert him X times and add 2 burdens, where X is the number of cards in the dead pile.   
After Frodo was captured by the Uruks and accidentally slain during the Riders' ambush, the marshal of Rohan was forced to make a perilous decision.
20R+39

I might be the only person around that's not against giving a Ring-bearer...
Story issues aside, this Eomer is all about being the strongest dude around, and anyone vying for that power will damage Eomer's ability to stay uncorrupted. Considering Rohan's lack of burden removal or prevention, I figure this is a fairly-balanced card, but I'll leave that up to you to decide.

[Stormcrow]

I'm glad your continuing this set. Love Service of the Stonewrights. I'm not a big fan of Eomer ringbearer though.

[Haszor]

That eomer is a bit underpowered.  with a max of 8 resistance (assuming Ring of Rings and highest strength) he really can't be assigned to a skirmish without easily draining what little resistance he does have (yes I know the RB isn't usually supposed to be assigned).  Also as a companion with the highest strength he'd be very prone to 12R118 this guy and anything else like this, or 8R57 these guys to drain his resistance.  He just seems like he has to many ways to beat him that its not even a good card.  Love the other 2 though 

[macheteman]

The Service of Stonewrights: love the flavor. personally i feel like it needs to exert a dwarf to add the tokens. i mean, you can just drop this guy, reinforce tokens, burn it with the fortification text, then play another, or if you have some regroup condition recursion, replay the same one. like i said, i like the flavor. maybe a twilight cost would be good. i mean, as it stands you have 3 tokens for free (it is unique) but it has text that lets you burn it. idk, something just isn't quite right.

Child of the Vanyar: again, like the flavor, it seems balanced, i'd just hate to run against this in a telapathy deck. drop sauron on top of your discard pile... forearmed! forearmed! forearmed forearmed! ooo, what if you had to add a threat to take the card into hand? that might be cool...

Éomer, Bearer of Grim Necessity: yeah, i haven't been a fan of the ARB's but i actually think this guy is balanced. he has a healthy drawback, you might need to pack some burden removal, but in return you get a beast of a ring-bearer. i think he's fine.

nice trio.

-mm