More Virtual Cards (Cruel Caradhras, take II)

[Thranduil]

So I said there were going to be loads of conditions. A good number of them play on companions mainly to mess around with the Free People's assignments.

Bred for Battle (V)
Condition
Str: +1
Vit: +1
To play, exert an minion (or Saruman).
Bearer must be an Uruk-hai.
Limit 1 per bearer.
"‘You are the Uruk-hai of Isengard!… You do not know pain, you do not know fear.'"
1 V 121

That one was a bit of an exception. Fun though.

Alive and Unspoiled (V)
Condition
Search. To play, spot an minion.
Bearer must be a companion (except the Ring-bearer). Bearer gains the ability "Fellowship: Exert bearer to discard this condition."
Assignment: Assign an Uruk-hai to skirmish this companion. Those characters may not take wounds or be overwhelmed until the regroup phase.
"'Bring them to me… Kill the others…'"
1 V 120

This one is mainly to tie up big or important companions fighting minions they can't possibly kill!

Traitor's Voice (V)
Condition
Res: -3
Spell. To play, exert an minion (or Saruman).
Bearer must be a companion (except the Ring-bearer).
Limit 1 per bearer.
Assignment: If bearer is exhausted, discard this condition to assign him or her to skirmish your minion.
"'In all our long wars with the Dark Tower treason has ever been our greatest foe.'"
1 V 142

There isn't going to be an awful lot revolving around resistance in the culture, but we will see a few more conditions that reduce resistance and one in particular that can manipulate it for evil consequences... But, this card would probably not be unhelpful in an resistance deck either.

Thranduil

[Elf_Lvr]

Bred for Battle seems kind of counter-productive. I mean, since they can ALWAYS cancel it, it really does you no good... and it even clogs your hand each time they put it back. I don't see any situation where I wouldn't stop it - returning the condition to your hand doesn't hurt me if it A) clogs you and B) can just be canceled again the next time you use it.

The other two look fine, though.

[Anvar]

Traitor's Voice (V) should be limit 1 per bearer. I can see it being of great use in Isengard archery decks, as well as possibly Isengard men. Good card.

I also very much like Alive and Unspoiled - really good text for the title (much better than the original, IMO).

However, I don't get the text on Bred for Battle. Why would the FP player not prevent it? I would either remove the assignment action completely, or remove the stat bonuses and have a bonus for each time you play it (add a threat perhaps?). That way the FP player might choose not to bounce the condition, since playing it again would be a bad thing.

Hope that helps.

[DáinIronfoot]

Bred for Battle (V)
Condition
Str: +1
Vit: +1
To play, exert an minion (or Saruman).
Bearer must be an Uruk-hai.
Limit 1 per bearer.
"‘You are the Uruk-hai of Isengard!… You do not know pain, you do not know fear.'"
1 V 121

Hmmm. Seems a bit too good for a free card. I think this would a good candidate to leave to only Uruks.

Alive and Unspoiled (V)
Condition
To play, spot an minion.
Bearer must be a companion (except the Ring-bearer).
Assignment: Assign an Uruk-hai to skirmish this companion. Those characters may not take wounds or be overwhelmed until the regroup phase.
Regroup: Exert this companion twice to discard this condition. Only the Free Peoples player may use this ability.
"'Bring them to me… Kill the others…'"
1 V 120

I'd make the regroup ability a fellowship one instead, and limit it to one exertion. Then you can drop the part about the FP only being able to use it.

Traitor's Voice (V)
Condition
Res: -3
To play, exert an minion (or Saruman).
Bearer must be a companion (except the Ring-bearer).
Limit 1 per bearer.
Assignment: If bearer is exhausted, discard this condition to assign him or her to skirmish your minion.
"'In all our long wars with the Dark Tower treason has ever been our greatest foe.'"
1 V 142

I'd make it a spell, just for fun. I'd also limit the assignment part to assigning to minions.

[Thranduil]

Changed the above cards according to excellent suggestions. Let's move onto 3 more evil conditions before we throw a little twist on it in the next post! :hey:

Greed (V)
Condition
Res: -1
To play, spot an minion.
Bearer must be a companion (except the Ring-bearer). Limit 1 per bearer.
Each time bearer is assigned to a skirmish, the Free Peoples player must choose either to exert bearer, or exert 2 other companions and discard this condition.
"'It is a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing.'"
1 V 125

Too Much Attention (V)
Condition
Search. To play, spot an or minion.
Bearer must be a companion (except the Ring-bearer). Limit 1 per bearer.
Each time bearer uses a special ability, the Free Peoples player must choose to exert him or her or add .
"'A little more caution from you - that is not a trinket you carry.'"
2 V 45

Abandoning Reason For Madness (V)
Condition
Res: -2
To play, exert an minion (or spot Saruman).
Bearer must be a companion (except the Ring-bearer). Limit 1 per bearer.
Each time bearer wins a skirmish, the Free Peoples player must place 3 cards from their hand beneath their draw deck or heal each minion.
At the end of a turn in which bearer wins a skirmish, discard this condition.
"'And why not, Gandalf?… Why not? The Ruling Ring? If we could command that, then the power would pass to us.'"
3 V 49

[Anvar]

I'm loving the new twists on the old titles. The only card I'm struggling with is Abandoning Reason for Madness. What does the text have to do with the title?

[DáinIronfoot]

Changed the above cards according to excellent suggestions.

My only additional comment is that with the one action on Alive and Unspoiled (V) being a fellowship one now, you can drop the entire line "only the Free Peoples player may use this ability". I think.

Greed (V)
Condition
Res: -1
To play, spot an minion.
Bearer must be a companion (except the Ring-bearer). Limit 1 per bearer.
Each time bearer is assigned to a skirmish, the Free Peoples player must choose either to exert bearer, or exert 2 other companions and discard this condition.
"'It is a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing.'"
1 V 125

Iiiiiinteresting.

Too Much Attention (V)
Condition
Search. To play, spot an or minion.
Bearer must be a companion (except the Ring-bearer). Limit 1 per bearer.
Each time bearer uses a special ability, the Free Peoples player must choose to exert him or her or add .
"'A little more caution from you - that is not a trinket you carry.'"
2 V 45

Like the inclusion of . It's a tad harsh, though...perhaps discard it if bearer is exhausted at the start of regroup or something? I dunno...might be okay as is.

Abandoning Reason For Madness (V)
Condition
Res: -2
To play, exert an minion (or spot Saruman).
Bearer must be a companion (except the Ring-bearer). Limit 1 per bearer.
Each time bearer wins a skirmish, the Free Peoples player must place 3 cards from their hand beneath their draw deck or heal each minion.
"'And why not, Gandalf?… Why not? The Ruling Ring? If we could command that, then the power would pass to us.'"
3 V 49

Too good, methinks. Might be better even if it were simply limited to winning skirmishes involving minions specifically, but I'd REALLY like it if there was some way for the FP player to pay some cost and discard it at some point, or perhaps if it required spotting a certain number of other cards to stay in play or something.

[Thranduil]

I'm loving the new twists on the old titles. The only card I'm struggling with is Abandoning Reason for Madness. What does the text have to do with the title?

I suppose it turns an ordinary action into something quite nasty which the Shadow can take advantage of...

I added something onto that card as well.

My only additional comment is that with the one action on Alive and Unspoiled (V) being a fellowship one now, you can drop the entire line "only the Free Peoples player may use this ability". I think.

I wasn't sure (because it's a Shadow card) so I figured I might as well leave it crystal clear.

Thranduil

[menace64]

I've got nothing of importance to say on this last batch of cards, but I think I can solve this dilemma:

Alive and Unspoiled (V)
Condition
Search. To play, spot an minion.
Bearer must be a companion (except the Ring-bearer).
Assignment: Assign an Uruk-hai to skirmish this companion. Those characters may not take wounds or be overwhelmed until the regroup phase.
Fellowship: Exert this companion to discard this condition. Only the Free Peoples player may use this ability.
"'Bring them to me… Kill the others…'"
1 V 120

It should be worded as such:

Search. To play, spot an minion. Bearer must be a companion (except the Ring-bearer). Bearer gains this ability:
"Fellowship: Exert this companion to discard this condition."
Assignment: Assign an Uruk-hai to skirmish this companion. Those characters may not take wounds or be overwhelmed until the regroup phase.

It could be debated that the fellowship action should go *after* the assignment action, but I think it's cleaner to keep all 'bearer' clauses together.

[Thranduil]

Very true, menace. Thanks

Thranduil

[Elf_Lvr]

Gee, I don't know why I haven't reviewed these, I know I looked at them before.

I think Too Much Attention warrants Resistance -1. It would make it a lot better, and would actually make a resistance deck seem like a good idea.

[Thranduil]

A bit of introduction to what's going on in the next card. I was racking my brains for an alternative approach to weather cards. Decipher's was very practical and appropriate (if not particularly good ) having cards that play on sites and cause trouble for the fellowship slowing them down. On a similar train of thought, I came across the idea of having weather minions that actually fought and tired out the fellowship to represent exactly the same thing.

So the next problem came about how to implement this. The obvious solution would be to follow the example of A Shadow Rises and the Deceived Wizards of having conditions that turned into minions, which seemed to fit nicely in an already established theme leading to a potential Weather/Wizard deck. This sort of thing you'll see in a later post; this post is just getting the controversial stuff out of the way first! :hey:

I needed a focal point for the strategy as well, for obviously while the weather assault seen in the Fellowship movie was instigated by Saruman he wasn't actually there and so he made a bad central minion (that and the fact that he can't fight!). The logical place to go therefore was the Pass of Caradhras, and therefore the logical title was "Cruel Caradhras". Unfortunately, I wanted it to be unique so there could be a super-weather minion "Cruel Caradhras" but obviously the original is an event and so can't be unique. So, having played Magic the Gathering quite recently and having great fun creating Goblins out of nothingness, I thought that the MTG route was probably a good one. I believe that someone has already made LOTR DCs using this idea (perhaps EL?), but in MTG you often put "creature tokens" into play which act exactly as creatures act and have stats and all that.

Now, after all that preamble, let's look at the card!

Cruel Caradhras (V)
Condition • Support Area
Weather.
To play, spot Saruman.
Shadow: Remove to put an unique weather minion token entitled "Caradhras" into play. Caradhras is strength +4 and vitality +1 for each copy of Cruel Caradhras in your support area.
"'Yonder stands Barazinbar, the Redhorn, Cruel Caradhras...'"
1 V 124

2 points to mention:

1) Spotting Saruman should be easy with Keeper of Isengard (V) returning himself to your hand and Saruman's Reach (V) allowing you to spot him without him being in play. Also remember that the aforementioned Saruman recurs conditions, which in this deck can by extension also mean minions!
2) As the card itself is non-unique, I felt I couldn't ignore the benefit for having more than one even though the minion you create is in fact unique.

So, let's hear your opinions then!

Thranduil

[menace64]

Very original idea, but I'm just not super-comfortable putting [thing] tokens into the game. We've already got twilight and culture tokens; I don't think a new type is needed.

What if you just put the clause "This card is unique" after the weather keyword?

[sickofpalantirs]

I kinda understand...so you would have tokens running around acting like minions?

[Thranduil]

I kinda understand...so you would have tokens running around acting like minions?

Currently only 1 token. And they're not just 'acting like minions', they are minions.

Thranduil