The Witch-king

[kober]

THE WITCH‐KING ‐ Warrior/Sage/Diplomat Ringwraith (F)
[DI: 3; P/B: 9/12; Home Site: Any site in Imlad Morgul]
Unique. Manifestation of The Witch‐king of Angmar. Can use spirit‐magic and shadow‐magic. +3 direct influence in Heralded Lord mode. +1 prowess in Fell Rider mode. As your Ringwraith, up to two Ringwraith followers in his company may be controlled with no influence. You may bring these followers into play during separate organization phases.

A couple of questions:
1) Are said RW followers playable in addition to the regular one-per-turn character, or instead?
2) Fell Rider is played on The Witch-King at Minas Morgul - the Ringwraith has 12 prowess and 0 DI. He then moves to Barad-dur (the only character in his company) where Creature of an Older World is played on him, and thus the Fell Rider is discarded. Following that, does The Witch-king have 12 prowess and 3 DI?

[Konrad Klar]

1. In addition.
2. Yes.

[SuperNovice]

Unless there is a subsequent ruling (always a possibility), the Ringwraith follower allowed by the Witch King's and Khamul's abilities is your character for the turn.

Rulings Reference:
CoE RULINGS DIGEST #105
13-03-2006 Author: Chad Martin
QUERY 2

Question on the follower recruitment abilities of Khamûl the Ringwraith and The Witch-king: http://www.meccg.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1086

The texts referring to Ringwraith followers on Khamûl the Ringwraith and The Witch-king do not allow you to bring in a Ringwraith follower and another character during the same organization phase.

[Konrad Klar]

Both answers, my and Chad Martin's, have been given without any justification.

Justification of my answer:

BRINGING CHARACTERS INTO PLAY and RINGWRAITH FOLLOWERS are separate chapters of Lidless Eye manual. RINGWRAITH FOLLOWERS lists conditions of playing a Ringwraith follower. None of them is stipulation that player is needed to not to play/discard one character otherwise allowed to play/discard in organization phase.

P.S. Before I give answer I was searching for existing ruling concerning the question but not sufficiently thoroughly. Thanks SuperNovice.

EDIT: "separate paragraphs" -> "separate chapters"

[Bandobras Took]

To lend support to Konrad's argument -- every ability to play RW Followers in MELE set (Witch-King, Khamul, They Ride Together) specifies that the follower is to be played in the organization phase. There would be no need to do this if RW follower play followed the rules for bringing a character into play. Also, the Witch-King specifies that the followers may be brought into play during separate organization phases -- there would be no need for such a specification if RW followers counted as character play during the organization phase.

That being said, this may be another example of poor organization/wording on ICE's part. As everything about their initial design of active RWs was meant to make it difficult and inconvenient to pull off, I would be surprised if the intention were to make RW follower play simple and powerful.

[Konrad Klar]

To lend support to Konrad's argument -- every ability to play RW Followers in MELE set (Witch-King, Khamul, They Ride Together) specifies that the follower is to be played in the organization phase

Except Black Horse.

[Bandobras Took]

Black Horse is not MELE. It's from Against the Shadow, and Against the Shadow was where they took stock of how active RWs weren't and tried to rectify the situation. In MELE they were very much still in "Let's make sure that active RWs aren't too powerful" mode.

[SuperNovice]

To lend support to Konrad's argument -- every ability to play RW Followers in MELE set (Witch-King, Khamul, They Ride Together) specifies that the follower is to be played in the organization phase. There would be no need to do this if RW follower play followed the rules for bringing a character into play. Also, the Witch-King specifies that the followers may be brought into play during separate organization phases -- there would be no need for such a specification if RW followers counted as character play during the organization phase.

I'm not sure what is being debated here. We have a ruling/clarification from ICE on this topic. Is the argument that the ICE ruling is wrong?

[Konrad Klar]

Is the argument that the ICE ruling is wrong?

Yes. Already expressed.