MELE Rules That Do Not Apply To Fallen Wizards

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Bandobras Took
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Note: After some discussion, more rules were revealed than I had originally thought; I'm listing them at the beginning, here, while keeping the original post below so that the discussion will still make sense.

Rules that do not apply to Fallen Wizards:
Fallen Wizards have no limitation on how many leaders may be in a company outside a haven.
Fallen Wizards only use standard modifications for influencing factions based on the race of the influencer. They never use the presence of other factions as a standard modification, even when influencing minion factions.
Fallen Wizard characters do not collect trophies.
Fallen Wizard Orc Scouts do not count as only half against the hazard limit.

Edit: Thanks to the Balrog summary, Orc Scouts are once again only half a hazard limit and FW Orcs/Trolls may collect trophies. The Balrog Summary has these as universal rules rather than RW-specific.

This is because of the following from "Using MELE with METW" from the Lidless Rules:
Unless stated otherwise, the Wizard player uses the METW rules and the Ringwraith player uses the MELE rules. Most elements of METW and MELE are identical -- both of these series are part of the Middle-earth Collectible Card Game (MECCG). Should a discrepancy arise between an aspect of the MELE rules and the METW rules, the MELE rules take precedence as they were written with refinements in language and organization. Do not to (sic) confuse an element of MELE that is particular to playing a Ringwraith with a Wizard's perspective on things -- passages containing Ringwraith only rules are marked with a line of bullets as a sidebar.
All of the above rules are "Ringwraith only," not universal, as they have bullets by them in the rulebook.

Original Post
Relevant points:
MEWH Rules wrote:
  • When you play a Fallen-wizard, assume that your Fallen-wizard is a METW "Wizard". All of the normal METW rules apply except for the specific exceptions outlined in these rules. The ME:LE rules that concern Wizards also apply to Fallen-wizards.
  • ORCS & TROLLS - Because most Fallen-wizard characters will not be Orcs and Trolls, specific rules concerning Orc and Troll characters are collected in one section at the end of these rules.
  • A company with any Orc or Troll characters is an overt company. In addition, a company with any of the following allies is an overt company: Great Bats, Great Lord of Goblin-gate, Last Child of Ungoliant, Regiment of Black Crows, Two-headed Troll. Any other company is a hero company.
  • Orcs that are "Half-orcs" are special - if a Half-orc is in a company with only Half-orcs and Men, the company is not overt (i.e. the Half-orcs appear to be ugly men to the casual observer). Half-orcs cannot take trophies. However, for all other purposes a Half-orc is considered an Orc.
  • You may not play Orc and Troll characters until you have played the appropriate card (e.g. Bad Company).
  • Unless at a Wizardhaven, and Orc or Troll cannot be in the same company as an Elf, Dwarf, Dúnadan, or Hobbit.
  • A Fallen-wizard overt company may attack any company controlled by another player and vise versa.
  • A Fallen-wizard's overt companies must use hero sites for Shadow-holds, Dark-holds, and minion Darkhavens. They must use minion sites for Border-holds, Free-holds, and hero Havens.
  • Overt companies are not minion companies for the purposes of the detainment attack guidelines in the ME:LE rules (p. 31). Overt companies are minion companies for hazards that can only attack/effect minion companies (i.e. Sons of Kings).
  • Corruption checks for an Orc or Troll character are handled as if he were a minion character. That is, if the roll for a corruption check for an Orc or Troll character is equal to his corruption point total or one less, he is tapped instead of being discarded. He is not considered to fail the corruption check in this case.
    You may not play a hero resource permanent-event on a company with an Orc or Troll in it.
  • A hero resource may not target an Orc or Troll character (e.g. Orc and Troll characters may not use Block, Escape, etc.).
  • A hero resource that requires a character with a specific skill may not use an Orc or Troll character to fulfill that requirement (e.g. Concealment, Many Turns and Doublings, etc.).
  • An Orc or Troll character may not tap to initiate an effect from a hero resource (e.g. Praise to Elbereth, Great Ship, etc.).
  • An Orc or Troll character may be the bearer of a hero item, but all bonuses and special abilities are ignored (all restrictions to movement and playability still apply).
This had honestly never occurred to me, but take a look at the first quoted rule from the White Hand insert.

Fallen Wizards do not use the MELE rules at all unless the rule is specifically talking about Wizards.

The rule prohibiting more than one leader in a company is a MELE rule.

Fallen Wizards have their own special rules for Orcs & Trolls. The leader limitation is not among them, even though the company composition limitation (no Orcs/Trolls with Elf/Dwarf/Dunedain/Hobbit) is.

This means that Fallen Wizards can have as many leaders as they want in a company. Otherwise, the rule would have been repeated in the Orc & Troll rules, just as the company composition rule was.

RWs and the Balrog use cards to enable multiple leaders.
Fallen Wizards do not need any such card, because they do not use the MELE rules, unless such are about Wizards (which is why they went through the trouble of telling you which parts of the MELE rulebook do apply).

Side Notes:
1) This isn't necessarily an overpowered thing, as FWs only have access to middling leaders, rather than the big ones.
2) FWs have to use Bad Company or multiple Thralls to gain multiple leaders, anyway.
3) This would also explain why FWs were not given a card to allow multi-leader companies, which always struck me as an oversight.

Design away!
Last edited by Bandobras Took on Mon Aug 26, 2019 1:18 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Konrad Klar
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MEWH wrote:When you play a Fallen-wizard, assume that your Fallen-wizard is a METW "Wizard". All of the normal METW rules apply except for the specific exceptions outlined in these rules. The ME:LE rules that concern Wizards also apply to Fallen-wizards.
I understand it in that way that MEWH inherits all rules that refer to term Wizard from METW and inherits such rules from MELE too.
I do not read it as: MEWH (as whole) uses METW rules + the MELE rules that concern Wizards + specific exceptions introduced in MEWH.

I.e. I read " All of the normal METW rules apply except for the specific exceptions outlined in these rules." in context constrained by "When you play a Fallen-wizard, assume that your Fallen-wizard is a METW "Wizard".
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Bandobras Took
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Even if you read "All the normal METW rules apply," restrictions on a multi-leader company is not a normal METW rule. It is specific to MELE.
MELE Rules, Using This Rulebook wrote:The rules for MELE are very similar to the rules for Middle-earth: The Wizards. Passages with major rules differences are marked with a line of bullets as a sidebar (just as this paragraph is marked). Experienced players of METW can examine these passages and proceed with playing.
Thus, the rules aren't actually one unified set. Ringwraiths use MELE rules to play the game. Wizards use METW rules. To unify the two, you use the "Using MELE with METW" section of the rules.

(Side note: This is why a Wizard or FW player attempting to influence the Ents of Fangorn uses the race of the influencer (Hobbits) rather than the determining whether another faction is in play (Hobbits). The rules are explicitly different on this point, and the sidebar is bulleted. This could also mean that FWs don't receive the standard modifications listed when attempting to influence a minion faction, incidentally.)

The limitations on company composition also have the bulleted sidebar. They are specific to MELE, and differ from METW. Fallen Wizards do not inherit them. Instead, they have their own rules for company composition. This is why the rules concerning what makes a company overt are restated, as well as the elf/dwarf etc. vs orc/troll company rules.
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Bandobras Took
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In fact, go to "Using MELE with METW" and it is clearly spelled out:
Unless stated otherwise, the Wizard player uses the METW rules and the Ringwraith player uses the MELE rules. Most elements of METW and MELE are identical -- both of these series are part of the Middle-earth Collectible Card Game (MECCG). Should a discrepancy arise between an aspect of the MELE rules and the METW rules, the MELE rules take precedence as they were written with refinements in language and organization. Do not to (sic) confuse an element of MELE that is particular to playing a Ringwraith with a Wizard's perspective on things -- passages containing Ringwraith only rules are marked with a line of bullets as a sidebar.
Only one leader per company is a Ringwraith specific rule, as it is bulleted. (Compare with the rule on where agents may be brought into play as characters, which is not bulleted and therefore applies.)
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Bandobras Took
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Other notes:

FWs Orc Scouts are not half characters for the purpose of calculating the hazard limit.
FWs Orcs and Trolls may not take trophies.

Detainment attacks against Hero/FW characters would wound them if it weren't for the CRF. :)
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Konrad Klar
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Digging it deeper:

[quote="Lidless Eye, Starter Rules, Combat,"Detainment" Attacks"]Certain attacks detain targets rather than wound them. When a strike from a detainment attack is successful, an untapped target is tapped instead of being wounded. This represents the target being stopped and questioned. The following types of attacks are detainment attacks:

Card text will sometimes state that an attack is a detainment attack.
Any Nazgûl attack against a minion company is a detainment attack.
Any attack keyed to Dark-domain, Shadow-hold, or Dark-hold is a detainment attack.
Any Orc, Troll, Undead, or Man attack keyed to Shadow-land is a detainment attack.[/quote]

I do not have a printed copy of MELE rulebook so I do not know whether it is bulleted. But...

Only "Any Nazgûl attack" is specified as detainment attack against a minion company.

Any attack keyed to Dark-domain, Shadow-hold, or Dark-hold is a detainment attack,
Any Orc, Troll, Undead, or Man attack keyed to Shadow-land is a detainment attack,
Card text will sometimes state that an attack is a detainment attack.

are all detainment regardless of who is facing them.

If the chapter is bulleted, then Wizard player has problem: WTF is that detaiment attack of Elf-Lord Revealed in Wrath?
If it is not bulleted then his companies will face Olog-Hai's attack as detaiment.
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Bandobras Took
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The CRF states that strikes from a detainment attack tap a character rather than wound them.

All the detainment rules in MELE are bulleted.

My guess would be that this is why the CRF goes out of its way to say what such strikes do. :)

I looked over the MELE Rulebook; these are the only points I've noticed that affect FWs.
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the JabberwocK
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On Thursday, April 13, 2017, user Thorsten the Traveller wrote:
Thorsten the Traveller wrote:MEBA rules trump MELE rules, right? (not saying that's always good).

reading the booklet, p.17 (defeating an attack), it says:
If an Orc or Troll character faces a strike from an attack from an opponent's card that was defeated, you may place the creature's card under his control as a trophy.
MEBA also trumps MEWH, but there's nothing particular to trump here. There's no mentioning about whether this applies only to hero or minion players, so we can assume it also applies to Trolls in play by a Wizard player, I suppose.

Konrad writes:
I do not have a printed copy of MELE rulebook
say what!? :shock:
Hardcopies should ultimately be the basis of any rules considerations, I'm not sure we can alway trust the online information from the dutch council site.
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the JabberwocK
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On Thursday, April 13, 2017, user Konrad Klar wrote:
Konrad Klar wrote:
Thorsten the Traveller wrote:say what!? :shock:
Hardcopies should ultimately be the basis of any rules considerations, I'm not sure we can alway trust the online information from the dutch council site.
I do not rely on the dutch council site here.
I have the HTML document that looks like exact copy of MELE printed rulebook (except of lack of division on pages, and lack of colorful insert).
But truth is that I'm currently unable to verify a fidelity of the document. I count that others will point me a discrepancies in citations, if there will be any.
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the JabberwocK
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On Friday, April 14, 2017, user Thorsten the Traveller wrote:
Thorsten the Traveller wrote:You don't even own the small booklet that comes with a MELE starter?
If you come to Polish nationals, we'll have Pawel get you a hardcopy of MELE rules. Better yet, come to Worlds! :wink:
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the JabberwocK
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On Friday, April 14, 2017, user Bandobras Took wrote:
Bandobras Took wrote:
Thorsten the Traveller wrote:MEBA rules trump MELE rules, right? (not saying that's always good).
That depends on whether the coin lands on "The rules summary is just guidelines" or "The rules summary overrides more complete rules" if the NetRep ever gets around to tossing it, which is the standard approach, so far as I know, when dealing with the MEBA rules summary.

When it lands on one side, we get the idea that followers and allies can't be influenced from an avatar and that on-guards can be revealed at tapped sites, while the other side is why we still need a mode card to move a Ringwraith and can still have One Ring Victories.

See also http://www.councilofelrond.org/forum/vi ... =16&t=1942

Edit: And Konrad's point about the site of a non-moving company is a whole other can of worms. :)
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the JabberwocK
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On Tuesday, Arpil 18, 2017, user Shapeshifter wrote:
Shapeshifter wrote:If I am not mistaken it is not only that Fallen Wizards have their own special rules for Orcs & Trolls but also that those special rules apply to Fallen Wizards only!

That being said let's talk about half-orcs.

If I get it right nothing stops a minion player from playing half-orcs as characters but they won't benefit or suffer from the following FW-specific rule:
MEWH wrote:Orcs that are “Half-orcs” are special — if a Half-orc is in a company with only Half-orcs and Men, the company is not overt (i.e., the Half-orcs appear to be ugly men to the casual observer). Half-orcs cannot take trophies. However, for all other purposes a Half-orc is considered an Orc.
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the JabberwocK
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On Tuesday, April 18, 2017, user Bandobras Took wrote:
Bandobras Took wrote:
CRF, Companies wrote:A hero company is Wizard player's company, or a Fallen-wizard's company that has no Orcs or Trolls. A minion company is a Ringwraith player's company, or a Balrog player's company. An overt company is a company with Orcs and/or Trolls in it. Note that some allies can make a company overt, but Half-orcs do not.
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the JabberwocK
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On Tuesday, April 18, 2017, user Shapeshifter wrote:
Shapeshifter wrote:Ok, that clarifies things. Thanks! :)
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the JabberwocK
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On Wednesday, April 19, 2017, user Thorsten the Traveller wrote:
Thorsten the Traveller wrote:
That depends on whether the coin lands on "The rules summary is just guidelines"
In this case there's nothing controversial in the 'interpretation' offered in the summary, whether they are actual rules or guidelines. Not sure it has to be black or white, one might adopt a stance of "rules by default, guidelines if controversial."
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