I'm sorry for this absence. And much sorrier for the current situation in your country, my good fellow...
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Savage Warg: Alright.
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Underground Lake: Perhaps there'll be enough room for "discard pile" if you change "
The One Ring" for "
a Ring", and "(limit
once per player)" for "(limit
1 per player)".
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His Wrath Was Redoubled: You say that your version will be played at a double move from 8 to 9,
but that depends a lot on Smaug. If Bard can't kill him, Smaug will follow your trail to site 9 (which is a really hard double move). If Narzug did a good previous job, Smaug will have total freedom to discard his own fellow minions to ditch your important FP defenses like
Sting, Dori or Orcrist (which is a
much harder double move). Even if Bard is totally healthy, Smaug can often sacrifice himself to discard Dori or
Sting... All in all, in the same scenario where Barrels would discard those minions that fuel Smaug's discarding, this
event will often be trying belatedly to discard minions that were already discarded by Smaug,
in which case it'll be totally useless. All that I try to do with my version is to provide a new utility at site 9.
You're right, my version is hard to read for inexperienced players. And it's better to discard
followers (the idea of
cards was only to reduce card lines). Correcting those 2 points, my version would look like this:
"
Spell.If the fellowship moves
during the regroup phase (or if a skirmish ends at a battleground), discard Beorn
(or 2 followers) to discard up to 2 minions not assigned to skirmish (except Smaug)."
The only gameplay difference with your version is that can be played at a skirmish at site 9 (or at a forced battleground), where as said before it'll only discard immediately before fierce-skirmishes. Besides that, it uses 6 lines (1 for "spell", and 5 for the rest), which requires to either remove "
spell" or reduce the lore text. Or to keep the "
spell" keyword, but using the rest of that 1st line with game text (like
Wizard Storm)...
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Pity: Lore of
Imladris can heal some wounds, yes. But if the new card supplies some healing for Bilbo, you'll be able to use better 3 of the 5 original cards (Contract, Negociator and Old Thrush). If that card recovers things from discard, you'll be using more and better 4 of the original 5 cards (Negociator, Old Thrush, Accorn and Barrels). So the key is then to heal
Bilbo ONLY (Lore of
Imladris will help the Dwarves). And to recycle
cards.
Yes, Phial
Star-glass is really mighty. I fear too mighty for this limited card pool. I agree that Smaug is supplementary mostly, but if the Shadow didn't do much harm before site 8 he can kill or weaken companions, just before the final strike. And
Star-glass can stop Smaug's skirmish potential only, leaving his vitality untouched for his regroup skill to start discarding your things:
Sting, Old Thrush, Burglar's Contract, Dori... Again, I believe discard is the main weakness of this pack, and An Invisible Ring does nothing to counter it, and might even be deepening it that way (however, Barrels can reduce Smaug's fuel)...
Orkish Aggressor can put pressure on Bilbo, but Bilbo should be clearing doubts well with the Accorn.