Card and Rules Once Again

[Bandobras Took]

To further explain:

A character (even a Hobbit) may be brought into play with direct influence at any Free-hold, Border-hold, or Ruins & Lairs.

A character may be brought into play under general or direct influence at any Shadow-hold, Ruins & Lairs, or Border-hold. This does not count against the one character per turn limit.

You may bring these followers into play during separate organization phases.

You may bring this follower into play during your organization phase.

You may bring Aragorn II into play with Strider's company, removing Strider from the game and automatically transferring all cards on Strider to Aragorn II.

Each Black Horse in your Ringwraith's company allows you to play one Ringwraith follower who requires no direct influence to control.

If one assumes that some random comment in a player's guide constitutes an ICE Ruling:

The Witch-King's ability is in addition to the one character/turn limit.

Khamul's ability is in addition to the one character/turn limit.

Black Horse allows the play of the RW follower at any time and in addition to the one character/turn limit and at any site.

Strider allows the play of Aragorn II at any time and in addition to the one character/turn limit.

However, this is obviously not what the CoE feels to be the correct interpretation, because they have ruled that the Witch-King, Khamul, and Black Horse must all follow normal character play rules.

Therefore:

Aragorn II can only be brought into play during the organization phase. This is not in addition to the one character/turn limit.

The only effects of Chance Meeting/We Have Come to Kill are nullifying the home site rule (Hobbits in the case of Chance Meeting) and the one character/turn rule (in the case of We Have Come to Kill).

Most of these cards use the exact same wording. Black Horse is a (slight) exception. The aforementioned principles for making the rulings have clearly not applied to half of these cards. Which half, somebody's got to decide.

[Jambo]

One thing you need in any game whether it be MeCCG or Monopoly is consistency in rulings, and I believe this area of how and when characters can be brought in play through cards or via the normal rules, is clearly lacking.

There is actually an open NetRep discussion on one of these, which is currently lying dormant about half-way down the NetRep page. It relates to Khamul, the WK and the Black Horse. The thing is, barring Akhorahill, active RWs are bollox and so diverting one's precious spare time to deal with aspects of the game which will never feature in a tournament setting is kind of pointless.

[gurthang]

yes, i did not read the whole thread. so i have a shorten up question on "strider":

may "aragorn II" be brought into play any time AND at any site with "strider"?

[Bandobras Took]

According to current inconsistent and illogical rulings, I believe the answer is "yes."

[gurthang]

it was a bummer to see it happen. i didnt like it.

[Olorin]

I'm not familiar with all the card texts, nor am I well versed in the minutia of rulings files, and "illogical and inconsistent" paradigms, blah blah blah.

But, in the issue of Strider --> Aragorn, doesn't the face value, no frills common sense approach carry any weight? You're not even playing a new character, you're just revealing that the Ranger in your party is indeed the great Aragorn. It doesn't fit the profile of the "one character per turn" discussion.

Call me crazy, but I should think that making it more complicated than that is a joyless, fun-sucking mutilation of the whole issue... or is joyless fun-sucking actually the goal for some people who debate minutia online...

[Bandobras Took]

I'm also in favor of simplicity; the problem is that though most of these cards have the exact same wording, only half of them currently work the same way. That's what makes things complicated.