MELE Rules That Do Not Apply To Fallen Wizards

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kober
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Bandobras Took wrote: Sat Mar 12, 2016 3:12 amRules 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.
Is there a consensus on this?
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Bandobras Took
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There doesn't need to be. This is what the rules say. If you find rules that say something else, feel free to point them out.

I'm going to update the original post with the most relevant passage from "Using MELE with METW" in the Lidless Eye rules.
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kober
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Arguing wasn't my intention, I just needed a confirmation from an authority (i.e. you or Konrad).

Now, "Fallen Wizard Orc Scouts do not count as only half against the hazard limit" could be a good candidate for CoE Erratum... unless the Scouts are fed much better than Lidless-Eye's and are twice as big :)
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Bandobras Took
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FWs have access to Hobbits for half hazard limit, so there isn't a pressing need for such.
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Shapeshifter
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Bandobras Took wrote: Fri Dec 01, 2017 2:17 pm There doesn't need to be. This is what the rules say. If you find rules that say something else, feel free to point them out.
I suggest that this should be discussed and decided upon by the Net Rep Team, though.
What the rules actually say is one thing. Another thing is what is accepted by the community - and from my point of view also by ICE - to be the correct rule for almost 20 years.
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the JabberwocK
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Shapeshifter wrote: Fri Dec 01, 2017 7:42 pm I suggest that this should be discussed and decided upon by the Net Rep Team, though.
What the rules actually say is one thing. Another thing is what is accepted by the community - and from my point of view also by ICE - to be the correct rule for almost 20 years.
Will you please specify which rules exactly in your view have been accepted by the community for many years and detail how they differ from the rules posted above? Thanks
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Shapeshifter
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I may be wrong because there are not that many FW decks out there that play with Bad Company. I have a very strong feeling, however, that nobody (except Bandobras Took :) ) ever thought about the following possibilities:
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.
In my opinion players use normal MELE rules for FW Orc and Troll companies, that is:
There is a limitation of one leader in a company outside a haven.
They do use the presence of other factions as a standard modification.
They may collect trophies.
Orc Scouts do count as only half against the hazard limit.
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the JabberwocK
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Thanks for clarifying!
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Bandobras Took
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I'm not sure that ignoring rules we don't like is the way to go in achieving consistency in the game.

I'd also love to have the original designer's input on the rules and cards, but until we do, I hesitate to say what ICE did or did not want or support. All we have to work with are what the rules and cards say.

The situation is ugly, but it's all we've got to work with.

As an example, I'm 100% certain that if ICE saw how Rolled killed Rings-for-Points decks, they would change its functionality (or make a new card to counter its effects). I'm also 100% certain that if ICE saw how Blind/Ire make it impossible to FW dunk in a tournament setting, they would have changed that.

That certainty hasn't resulted in any changes to card text or rules. In fact, some others are equally certain that ICE wouldn't do anything of the sort.

It's also dangerous for that reason to treat the community as a monolithic entity with only one will. A consensus of opinion achieved by having other people quit in frustration isn't healthy for the game.

Edit: The "That's the way we've always played" argument also falls flat for me because that's the counterargument to pretty much any situation where timing rules mean that things don't actually work (e.g. In The Heart Of His Realm, Rank Upon Rank vs Ready To His Will, etc.)

Edit2: Also, remember that the NetRep does not have authority to change rules. The NetRep team is there to make rulings where something is unclear or where there are no rules to cover a situation, but there is nothing unclear in this instance about what the rules say. If the rules need to be changed, it is up to the CoE to issue errata for such.
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Thorsten the Traveller
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Bandobras wrote:
There doesn't need to be. This is what the rules say.
Can you point to the line that says MEWH rules on Orcs/Trolls are the only rules applying to Orcs/Trolls for FW? (that would be truly weird)
Or point me to the line that says they are not subject to MELE rules?
Or to the line that says if you are a Fallen-wizard player none of the MELE rules can apply?

In other words, the rules don't make Orc/Trolls explicitly subject to MELE rules (or MEBA rules, obviously), but also not explicitly not subject to them. You are inferring they are not, because a FW is a Wizard player.

However, MEWH rules do imply that Orcs/Trolls are minion characters.
MEWH writes:
All of your non-Orc and non-Troll characters are considered to be hero characters.
And MEWH came out after MELE, thus ICE could not have foreseen the extension of your key passage:
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.
Clearly ICE's objective here is to make introduction into playing as a Ringwraith easier, not to exclude Fallen-wizards.
Argueing that Orcs/Trolls are minion characters and as such subject to 'Ringwraith' rules (that do not conflict with MEWH rules) seems valid to me.
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Bandobras Took
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MELE Rules, Using MELE with METW:
passages containing Ringwraith only rules are marked with a line of bullets as a sidebar.
In the absence of the White Hand expansion, did any of these rules apply to Wizards?

No.

Including the following, from the MELE book:
Most faction cards list some "standard modifications" to the influence check based only upon what other factions are already in play for both players.
This is a Ringwraith Only rule. Wizard players do not get Standard Modifications from factions in play when attempting to influence a faction. They use the METW rulebook, which states:
Most faction cards list some "standard modifications" to the influence check based only upon the race of the character that was tapped to make the influence check.
Again, we're ignoring later expansions, including the Balrog Player Turn Summary, which makes this one absolutely clear. Wizards do not use the Standard Modification for factions already in play.

Why is this relevant? Ents of Fangorn.

A wizard player does not receive a +X to the influence check if the Hobbits faction is in play, and did not even before the Balrog rules came out. This is because the rule about factions already in play is specific to RWs.

With this in mind, let's go to White Hand.
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.
One of the biggest MELE rules that concerns wizards is the following:
Do not 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.
This is the line that explicitly says that a FW is not subject to MELE rules that are Ringwraith Only.

Anything bulleted in the MELE rulebook does not apply to FWs any more than to Wizards, because the MELE rules that concern Wizards also apply to Fallen Wizards.

So you are incorrect here. The rules fully, clearly, and explicitly say that FWs are not subject to anything bulleted in the MELE rulebook. This includes their Orc and Troll characters. The question is not whether they are minion or not. The question is whether the player is RW or FW.

Fortunately, the White Hand insert has rules for dealing with FW Orcs & Trolls, almost as though they are to be treated differently than RW Orcs and Trolls.

This is made clear by:
Corruption checks for an Orc or Troll character are handled as if he were a minion character.
(This heavily implies that they aren't actually minion characters as such, incidentally). If Orcs/Trolls were by default using MELE rules, this one would be unnecessary. It is necessary, because they aren't. The "character taps" result is a RW-only rule, and special dispensation is given to Orcs/Trolls to use that rule when played by a FW.
And MEWH came out after MELE, thus ICE could not have foreseen the extension of your key passage:
How then do you explain this passage from Dark Minions?
The concept of minions used in a non-agent fashion will be introduced in Middle-earth: The Lidless Eye (a stand-alone expansion due out in the Spring of 1997). In The Lidless Eye, minions will be used like characters, but each minion will be under the influence of one of Sauron's Dark Lieutenants.
According to your logic, since Lidless Eye came out after Dark Minions, ICE couldn't have possibly known that minion agents could be used in a non-minion fashion.

ICE set down the rules for Wizard/RW interaction in MELE, and when they were designing the White Hand, clearly stated that FWs use the METW rules and the MELE rules that apply to wizards as well as the exceptions outlined in the White Hand insert itself. In other words, ICE fully endorsed the Wizard/RW rules interaction that they had already established in the MELE rules. It's not as though they had no access to the MELE rulebook when designing the White Hand expansion. So there's a great deal of basis for saying that FWs don't use the RW-only passages of MELE.

What there's no basis for and what everybody's been inferring is that Ringwraith Only passages in the MELE rulebook somehow apply to Fallen Wizards because . . .

Why, exactly?
Last edited by Bandobras Took on Tue Dec 05, 2017 11:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Konrad Klar
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Most faction cards list some "standard modifications" to the influence check based only upon what other factions are already in play for both players.
Is it a rule at all?
For me the statement sounds like a statistical fact. Maybe valid only inside MELE (I did not count which faction cards are in majority - that that list modifications based only upon what other factions are in play, or others).
Which cards are in majority, and which in minority does not oblique a players to anything.
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Bandobras Took wrote: Sat Dec 02, 2017 3:52 pm I'm not sure that ignoring rules we don't like is the way to go in achieving consistency in the game.

I'd also love to have the original designer's input on the rules and cards, but until we do, I hesitate to say what ICE did or did not want or support. All we have to work with are what the rules and cards say.

The situation is ugly, but it's all we've got to work with.
That is true, I agree.
Bandobras Took wrote: Sat Dec 02, 2017 3:52 pmIt's also dangerous for that reason to treat the community as a monolithic entity with only one will. A consensus of opinion achieved by having other people quit in frustration isn't healthy for the game.
That is also true. I just wanted to point out that there are some probably "false" rules already established in our game, even in tournament play, even at Worlds. To change those "false" rules could sometimes have a deep impact on the game. Maybe some people will quit in frustration. There are different paths we could choose, but none will be the one everybody wants to walk.
Bandobras Took wrote: Sat Dec 02, 2017 3:52 pmAs an example, I'm 100% certain that if ICE saw how Rolled killed Rings-for-Points decks, they would change its functionality (or make a new card to counter its effects).
Use Enduring Tales.
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Bandobras Took
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Shapeshifter wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2017 12:29 pm
Bandobras Took wrote: Sat Dec 02, 2017 3:52 pmAs an example, I'm 100% certain that if ICE saw how Rolled killed Rings-for-Points decks, they would change its functionality (or make a new card to counter its effects).
Use Enduring Tales.
Case in point. :)
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Bandobras Took
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Konrad Klar wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2017 11:34 am
Most faction cards list some "standard modifications" to the influence check based only upon what other factions are already in play for both players.
Is it a rule at all?
For me the statement sounds like a statistical fact. Maybe valid only inside MELE (I did not count which faction cards are in majority - that that list modifications based only upon what other factions are in play, or others).
Which cards are in majority, and which in minority does not oblique a players to anything.
Yes. The rules on influencing tell you to add any applicable standard modifications. The MELE rules tell you which are applicable for RW players (the section is bulleted), and the METW rules tell you which are applicable for Wizard players. Again, the Balrog Summary makes this explicitly clear:
Roll the dice, add the character's unused direct influence, and standard modification for the character's race (heroes) or other factions in play (minions), and any other modifications from other cards.
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