Virtual Card Discussion and Playtesting

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Ringbearer
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Yup. For keeping the topic clean, I posted the decklist in a separate topic. See King Khamul.
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Leon
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I like most of the virtual cards but I could not see a reason to change Alliance of Free Peoples and Vanishment. Most virtual cards concern cards that are hardly played now or that are outright useless.

Alert the Folk and Bard Bowman allow for some nice tactics around northern rhovanion. You could even consider using Roac the Raven in such a deck.

Has it been considered that the virtual version of They Ride Together and the virtual version of Black Horse do not really work together?
They Ride Together During your organization phase (or immediately after opponent
plays a ring), you may place a Black Rider or Black Horse from
your sideboard with this card. You may play such cards as if
they were in your hand and you may play any number of
Ringwraith followers in a turn. If the only characters in a
company are Ringwraiths and Ringwraith followers, there is no
limit to the size of the company. If all nine Ringwraiths are in a
company together: this card is worth 2 marshalling points and
you may tap the card at the end of the company’s movement/
hazard phase to allow them to immediately move again. You
may start the game with this card in lieu of playing a minor
item. [(2) MP]
Black Horse Playable by a character in a covert company at a
tapped or untapped: border-hold in Rohan,
Southern Rhovanion, Khand, Dorwinion, Horse
Plains, or Harondor; or at opponent’s site if he has
a Noble Steed (discard Noble Steed in that case and
do not tap the site). If a Black Horse moves through
one of the above regions or a shadow-land, your
hand size increases by one until the end of your site
phase. [1 MP]
One more thing. If I ever play a virtual game I'll make a Tower Raided deck.
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Bandobras Took
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Leon wrote: Has it been considered that the virtual version of They Ride Together and the virtual version of Black Horse do not really work together?
You're still allowed to use the normal versions of cards if you wish.

Using Virtual Ride Together would most likely mean using the normal Black Horse.
Jambo
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Bandobras Took wrote:You're still allowed to use the normal versions of cards if you wish.

Using Virtual Ride Together would most likely mean using the normal Black Horse.
This is a really important point. The VCs offer alternatives to existing cards with the same name and unless one explicitly states "unique" or "cannot be duplicated" you are essentially free to use any combination of virtual and existing cards.

Take the Black Horse and the Khamul Unleashed cards as good examples of when both types could be used. Furthermore, you could play normal Vanishments right up until the point you play the virtual Vanishment, which whilst in play is a permanent event and cannot be duplicated.
Leon
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Thank you for the clarification. One question about the Khamul Unleashed V: does a company of Khamul and a follower need 1 fell rider or another card for the follower? I would expect only 1 is needed and then a combo of Khamul Unleashed V and the UEP version of Khamul with a follower like Ren or the Witch King becomes indeed an awesome hunting pair.
Jambo
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Only one version of Fell Rider is required. Ringwraith followers don't receive the bonus to prowess and penalty to DI stated on Fell Rider (bit of a mixed blessing depending on what you're needing them for), but they would receive any prowess bonus or penalty as stated on the character card. So The Witch-king, Hoarmurath, Ren and Akhorahill make useful Fell Rider followers.
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miguel
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Well I finally read through all the VCs and this thread. Nice ideas! :mrgreen: Some thoughts:

Faction battles
At first Alliance of Free Peoples and Grond seemed really broken to me, but I’m quite happy with the changes talked about in this thread. Regardless...
(1) Should not both players have the choice of attacking during their respective end-of-turn phases? Currently only the owner of AoFP/Grond may attack. Or was this intentional?
(2) Four regions movement is quite a lot... The armies are more likely to attack enemy forces nearby than on the other side of Middle-earth. Maybe change the movement max to three regions instead? It still gives many factions a very good ”reach” but would for example keep the hero Southrons from attacking Orcs of Dol Guldur right away...
(3) What if my Wizard wants to influence an opponent’s faction running around Middle-earth? This is different from agents influencing factions as the Wizard would actually need to be at the same site as the faction... which isn’t at any site! Should characters still be able to influence the faction at its ”home site”?
(4) Some cards supporting this strategy could be cool.

Magic duels & Sac of Form
I like the concept, but using (strong) resource cards to get rid of your opponent’s avatar is unbalanced. Avatars are often the most important part of a player’s deck. I’m sorry, but this really is broken. The worst case scenario involves a Fw in late game, when losing the avatar can easily cost him ten or more MPs... I mean, why bother playing for over an hour just to lose like that? To have more avatar vs. avatar interaction, these cards would need to be toned down (a way to cancel the duel etc.), and perhaps some theme-supporting cards introduced. My advise is to save magic duels and Sac for a later VC set, since this set needs to be ready quite soon.

Fate of the Ithil-stone
I’m afraid this is still too strong even with >16 roll, mainly because you can play it quite early in the game. Possibilities to balance it more (I’m not suggesting to use all of them, but maybe some):
(1) Give only -2 to handsize for Sauron/LE player. This combined with the HL addition is still very strong.
(2) Perhaps a corruption check for the character is in order, regardless of the success of the initial roll. It’s powerful stuff he is meddling with...
(3) Make the card unique.
(4) Make the initial roll even harder.

Alert the Folk
When you start with this card, may the 2nd starting item be any non-unique hoard (major) item, or does it still need to be a minor item as well? I’d go with the latter, but I’m just not 100% sure from the wording.

Morannon
May you use Pledge of Conduct to pass the cc?
Jambo
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Thanks for the feedback miguel! As you'll have noticed from reading this thread I shared many of your thoughts over some of the cards you commented on.

The newer versions of Grond and Alliance of Free Peoples are much improved, but I also agree that a region allowance of 3 might be better. I guess only playtesting will confirm this hunch. IIRC Joe mentioned that factions could still be influenced at their home sites. I don't know the answer to your number (1).

Fate of the Ithil Stone was extremely easy under the first version and it's marginally more difficult with the recent version, requiring a roll of a 6 with a 9-mind character able to use a Palantir he bears. I still share your thoughts on this, but what I would say is with corruption and Bane still very prevalent versus hero, playing a Palantir deck versus minion is extremely hazardous! Having said that I do like the idea of -2 handsize better than -3 and this would tie in quite nicely with the values of the Ithil-Stone card. On top of your ideas, another idea is to have this card placed with a character in play? Hence killing this character removes the effect.

Magic duel cards. Yes I share you skepticism on these. I've not used them yet, but I've already mentioned that against FWs a dedicated duel deck could be game-breaking. Maybe if cards placed with the avatar (stage cards, items, etc) weren't removed from play this would prevent this from being as big an issue? I guess we need feedback from people who've used them.

Alert the Folk - my guess is the second item still has to be a minor item.

Regarding Morannon, I'd also like to know the answer. Because it says "if check passes" I imagine you'd have to successfully "pass" the check with The One Ring and Pledge of Conduct wouldn't work. Like a Ring dunk.
Last edited by Jambo on Fri Mar 16, 2007 9:44 am, edited 2 times in total.
teratzul
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Location: Barcelona, Spain

miguel wrote: Magic duels & Sac of Form
I like the concept, but using (strong) resource cards to get rid of your opponent’s avatar is unbalanced. Avatars are often the most important part of a player’s deck. I’m sorry, but this really is broken. The worst case scenario involves a Fw in late game, when losing the avatar can easily cost him ten or more MPs... I mean, why bother playing for over an hour just to lose like that? To have more avatar vs. avatar interaction, these cards would need to be toned down (a way to cancel the duel etc.), and perhaps some theme-supporting cards introduced. My advise is to save magic duels and Sac for a later VC set, since this set needs to be ready quite soon.
May be to help keep the feeling of the theme, an additional bonus could be given to the FWs roll(At least only when defending). What I mean is that, probably a FW is much a stronger wizard than a non-fallen one (he is using the dark arts combined appart from the ones he originally had) and than a RW ( He still keeps most of his old repertoire of spells and now he can also use the "dark side"). Well I basically repeated the same, but as an RPG Player, that's the quick choice I would make.

Although I believe in what I just said, I also believe that future VC expansions could help this matter further. I.E A Stage Resource that gives the FW a bonus that will make someone think it twice before challenging him.

Just a thought.
... Zerthimon said that there cannot be two skies, with the wake of his words, came war
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Nerdmeetsyou
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I hate the idear of this card which allows factions to battle...

THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN INCLUDED IN THE RULES FROM THE BEGINNING

or never be made!

(because if it would be possible the game had been a little bit different to support this... especialy because it would make factions too important...)

And I think letting this out of the game is the best...
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Bandobras Took
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Out of curiosity:

Do Fallen Wizards use Vanishment to initiate Magic Duels with other FWs or is Shameful Deeds used for that purpose? (Or both).
I hate the idear of this card which allows factions to battle...

THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN INCLUDED IN THE RULES FROM THE BEGINNING

or never be made!

(because if it would be possible the game had been a little bit different to support this... especialy because it would make factions too important...)

And I think letting this out of the game is the best...
I seem to recall that Warhosts never saw the light of day . . . I kept waiting for it, but that may just have been a rumored expansion.

As long as I've been playing the game (i.e. from the day it was first published) the thing I found everybody waiting for was to see factions do something more than sit on their butts and wait for muster disperses.

We're able to kill Smaug and put Thorin or Dain on the Throne, we're able to reforge Narsil and return Aragorn to Minas Tirith . . . but we can't even reenact Helm's Deep? (Now, THAT would be fun . . . Riders of Rohan vs. Half-Orc factions. :))

While it has not been in the rules from the beginning, the framework is there -- indeed, the use to which Virtual Grond/Alliance put the Region Cards is the only reasonable one I've ever seen, since I had memorized the region movements after about a week of playing.

While the details may need work, the basic idea -- armies moving against each other across regions and fighting -- is not only sound, but thematic and something that has been missing in a game designed to give the feel of Tolkien's world.
Frodo
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Location: NYC, NY

It's really exciting to see so many comments and critiques being posted about these cards. I can't wait until they are fully available on gccg with images; then we should really see the responses rolling in.

Let me try to answer a few questions Jambo didn't:
Do Fallen Wizards use Vanishment to initiate Magic Duels with other FWs or is Shameful Deeds used for that purpose? (Or both).
I'm waiting for Mark to rule on this, but I believe that the phrase "Wizard only" now means "Only Wizards, not fallen-wizards." At any rate, that's the intention.

Alert the Folk (V):
This must be a minor item.

Morannon (V):
The intention is that Pledge of Conduct cannot be used, otherwise thematically the scenario would be awkward. I'm waiting to understand from Mark why exactly the Cracks of Doom check can't be "pledged", in order to ascertain whether Morannon must be worded differently.

Alliance (V):
It was intentional that only the owner of the card could attack, but it doesn't have to be this way. The question was asked whether these moving factions can be influenced away at their new sites, or home sites. Since influence rules state "To influence a faction, you must be at the site where the faction is playable" [Balrog] this is still the rule we are following. This can be thematic or unthematic, depending on your point of view. It's unthematic because the faction has moved, so shouldn't you be able to go where it is (difficult in theory, since it's now at a REGION and not a site)? But it's thematic because what's happening at home will always influence a faction--for example, if Gandalf influenced the Woses or Riders at their home site, you can say that their King has effectively "called them back" from wherever they where (or that Gandalf's message got to them in some way).

I'm open to the comments on Fate, wizard dueling, Alliance region allowance and just about anything else. Miguel, those were some really intriguing suggestions we'll have to keep in mind as we tinker with these cards... thank you.

Frodo
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miguel
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Frodo wrote:
Do Fallen Wizards use Vanishment to initiate Magic Duels with other FWs or is Shameful Deeds used for that purpose? (Or both).
I'm waiting for Mark to rule on this, but I believe that the phrase "Wizard only" now means "Only Wizards, not fallen-wizards." At any rate, that's the intention.
Why not just word it "Hero Wizard only"?
Frodo wrote:Morannon (V):
The intention is that Pledge of Conduct cannot be used, otherwise thematically the scenario would be awkward. I'm waiting to understand from Mark why exactly the Cracks of Doom check can't be "pledged", in order to ascertain whether Morannon must be worded differently.
I think the idea behind Cracks vs. Pledge is that the ring won't be destroyed (which basically was the condition to win). With Morannon it's a bit more tricky, but I think the key is to decide whether the character is still considered as a 1-character company when the cc happens (then Pledge would be useless).
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Nerdmeetsyou
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What is the thematical theme behind Maronnon???
what is intended with it??



And let me ask something else...
isn't ent drought a little bit overpowered?
and i even think it's not even very flavourful....
Leon
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So far the only thing I would use ent-drought V for is allowing Celeborn to control Galadriel with an elfstone. That is indeed strong, but not overpowered. As I also said in the discussion you started about Palm to Palm, extra mind is quite annoying with the limited amount of GI you have in this game. A suggestion could be to make ent-drought just +1 mind, DI and prowess without a possibility to raise it further, cause I do not really see the use of that.
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