Re Plotting Ruin:

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Frodo
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"Playable if you have Bad Company in play and at least three orcs or trolls, one of whom is a leader."
But Bandobras, this would force you to go to the minion site versions. Is this what you want?

Frodo
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Maybe, as Marcos says, we just leave this one. FW companies are typically a lot lighter on the prowess than minion site burning companies, so perhaps it would be ok.

I'd like to think there's a way we could promote the overt company and minion sites. Perhaps full mps if played at a minion site, and 2 MPs if hero? This doesn't change Burning, but it would lower Smoke. Anyone else got a good idea?
Frodo
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That's not a bad idea, Jambo.

It still seems slightly strange to me that you can remain covert as an FW and burn down hero sites. I know that minions can remain covert by doing so, but the difference is still large--you can CVCC minions regardless of covert/overt status, for one thing.

I have one last suggestion which is kind of neat from a story perspective:

Plotting Ruin
Playable if you have at least 7 SP. Your Burning Rick Cot and Tree and Smoke on the Wind are worth full points. If you have at least one Burning Rick Cot and Tree or Smoke on the Wind in play, all of your companies are considered overt.
This means that a player could still play his Rick/Smoke on a hero site as before, but if Plotting Ruin is already in play, the opponent is now alerted to his evil nature, and sees him as overt. The careful FW player could also burn down sites and not play Plotting Ruin until the last turn or so, which would mean he could potentially keep burning sites all game while keeping his overt status (just like the original PRuin (V), but at the cost of hand cramp and not developing any needed stage points. To the hero opponent, this would then represent such nefarious activities happening "covertly", without the opponent recognizing that he is overtly evil.

Thoughts? This version at least seems a lot less weird to me, themewise--the FW player who wants points for his activities must reveal himself at some point--but does not take away from an existing deck types.

--Frodo
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Bingo!
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Thorsten the Traveller
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Personally I don't really like the burning of hero sites. I like your version Frodo though I wish it would not be a matter of choice for the player to reveal himself like that, its not too difficult to play this card in last turn.

Maybe can make it:
2 MP. Payable (even during site phase) if you have 4 SP or more and a Smoke or Burning in play. Place any Smoke or Burning you play hereafter with this card, it is worth full MP's. All your companies are considered overt companies. Cannot be duplicated.

This way you are lured into using this card early, and you even get an extra MP (if you played Rick) for doing your sneaky covert operation. But news travels fast in Middle Earth.

Also, remember that there are FW covert companies that want to be overt, for purposes of attacking opponent, this way they don't have to get the Crows.
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Bandobras Took
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Frodo wrote:
"Playable if you have Bad Company in play and at least three orcs or trolls, one of whom is a leader."
But Bandobras, this would force you to go to the minion site versions. Is this what you want?

Frodo
Why? If you have bad company and three orcs/trolls, none of them has to come with your FW and a few followers. It just makes it more likely that you'll be visiting minion sites.
marcos
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Frodo wrote:That's not a bad idea, Jambo.

It still seems slightly strange to me that you can remain covert as an FW and burn down hero sites. I know that minions can remain covert by doing so, but the difference is still large--you can CVCC minions regardless of covert/overt status, for one thing.

I have one last suggestion which is kind of neat from a story perspective:

Plotting Ruin
Playable if you have at least 7 SP. Your Burning Rick Cot and Tree and Smoke on the Wind are worth full points. If you have at least one Burning Rick Cot and Tree or Smoke on the Wind in play, all of your companies are considered overt.
This means that a player could still play his Rick/Smoke on a hero site as before, but if Plotting Ruin is already in play, the opponent is now alerted to his evil nature, and sees him as overt. The careful FW player could also burn down sites and not play Plotting Ruin until the last turn or so, which would mean he could potentially keep burning sites all game while keeping his overt status (just like the original PRuin (V), but at the cost of hand cramp and not developing any needed stage points. To the hero opponent, this would then represent such nefarious activities happening "covertly", without the opponent recognizing that he is overtly evil.

Thoughts? This version at least seems a lot less weird to me, themewise--the FW player who wants points for his activities must reveal himself at some point--but does not take away from an existing deck types.

--Frodo
sounds nice, but again, then you need to use minion sites wich are too though for the limited characters that FWs haves... I think that the way to go is to make this card a bit more hard to be played... Any way that makes a character use minion sites leads to a situation in wich playing minion to burn sites is far more better. I think we want here to create new game styles, not duplicate an already created (minion) strategy in a FW deck...
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Thorsten the Traveller
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hmm, you might not have 7 or 8 prowess guys, but you have a greater stock of support resources, and you can have a lot of guys that can tap for the auto-attack at your disposal. Play Squire on Dasakun if you feel you must. The minion borders are peanuts anyway.
And why should entering and burning hero free-holds be an exiting new strategy? It's the same, just you have to find some way to tap the site that's not a faction: any dog will do at border, get some keys, play palantir or book, bill lobelia fax or ent, whatever. Or get them tapped with your hazards. Burning Bag End is just way too easy like this. Now, if you take 2 hobbits with you for tapping against the auto, guiding you in and showing you the best place to light your torch: that's an exiting thought, because that's pure evil !
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Frodo
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It seems to me, too, that this strategy would still encourage hero characters over minion ones (or at least covert chars over orcs/trolls) because, as Thorsten said, you can tap to cancel the auto-attacks.

Thorsten, your revision is what I first had in mind, and makes stronger thematic sense. I'm just wondering if it too violently interrupts the resource construction of whatever decks people already made to pull this card off; that is, if people saw something more novel and still balanced in being able to burn sites without all your companies being turned into overt comps. So mine was a concession to that. At least the opponent will have a minimum of one turn to attack you (if he didn't call the council).

We need more voices weighing in on this. Can a hero deck pull of Smokes/Ricks even if all his companies are forced to turn overt without making for a very weak deck otherwise?

Frodo
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Thorsten the Traveller
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Well, actually I'd think a minion site burning offers more points, and I'd be worried if the whole thing as a full strat. with hero sites is viable, because you can get 10 mp's max from Rick/Smoke, and hero site version then gets about 6 mp's in ally/item (Gandalf maybe bit more), but you'd design your deck in such fashion that getting 3 or more factions for the big stage might be a problem. There might be ways around, but it's not a money machine. Using minion sites can at least make you play more valuable items/rings (hence also the worry I have about making The White Hand about burning and items).

How about not making the comp. overt but yes forcing them to use minion sites, maybe awarding any 'sneaky' burning with extra points, making it a bit of mission?

Plotting Ruin, 1 sp. (1mp+)
If you have a Burning Rick, Cot and Tree or Smoke on the Wind in play, your companies must use minion sites for border-holds, free-holds and hero-havens. Place any subsequent Burning Rick, Cot and Tree and Smoke on the Wind with this card in stead of in your marshalling point pile. Place any site you entered by tapping a character with that site as home site with this card in stead of discarding it. If you have a burning Rick Cot and Tree or Smoke on the Wind in play, this card is worth 1 mp plus 1 mp for each card under it. Cannot be duplicated by a given player.

You can play this as starting, hence only 1 sp which is little but leaves room for other things. It only has effect after you played a first Rick/Smoke, so you can still enter a difficult site once for free. Then you get extra points for entering minion sites if you tap some guy. Orcs/Trolls can still take Wormtongue or some man agent to burn borders/Edoras: man talks to the bouncer while orcs sneak in! It is worth a little less for other Smokes played by overt companies, but this is a more covert mission card then, i.e. plotting the ruin by sending out agents all over the map. All in all it can only cost you 2 mps max. for Smoke, but yield alot more mp's for entering the right sites.

Difficulty of course is to construct the deck in a fashion to really use this card. If it's too complicated on resource portion, can skip the first requirement of Rick/Smoke, because tapping hero sites involves other kind of resources than tapping minion sites. On the other hand, I think using minion sites with covert company from turn 1 is too good.

Saruman can also profit greatly by having a minion Bree from turn two or so without being overt or playing a hazard on himself! All the plotting starts at Bree!
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Jambo
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I still like the idea of Frodo's version and like Marcos I don't necessarily want to make it an overt only mission. Covert guys sneaking into Border-holds and Free-holds to burn them down has a certain appeal. Plus they can still do this anyway, it's just never worth more than 1 MP.

One downside when using this with covert companies is the fact that Plotting Ruin will become a last turn card. If you're the one calling the council then that does at least mean your opponent has one last turn to launch an attack on one of your companies. Unless of course you're at a Haven (e.g. Mischief in a Mean Way).

Maybe there's a way to encourage covert companies to play this card earlier or to encourage overt companies more? Some sort of trade off perhaps. For example, "all your characters at border-holds and free-holds receive a +1 prowess." Kind of like symbolising the fervent fury as they're being willed on to torch and burn.

Or, for example, something like this:
Plotting Ruin wrote:Playable if you have at least 7 stage points. Your Burning Rick, Cot, and Tree and Smoke on the Wind are worth full marshalling points. If you have at least one Burning Rick, Cot, and Tree in play, your companies must use minion sites for Border-holds and Free-holds. If you have at least one Smoke on the Wind in play, your companies are considered overt. Place any subsequent Burning Rick, Cot, and Tree and Smoke on the Wind with this card. If there are no cards placed with this card, this card gives -3 marshalling points.
Last edited by Jambo on Tue May 27, 2008 10:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
Jambo
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Or for more encouragement, particularly with the Free-holds:
Plotting Ruin wrote:Playable if you have at least 7 stage points. Your Burning Rick, Cot, and Tree and Smoke on the Wind are worth +1 marshalling point. If you have at least one Burning Rick, Cot, and Tree in play, your companies must use minion sites for Border-holds and Free-holds. If you have at least one Smoke on the Wind in play, your companies are considered overt. Place any subsequent Burning Rick, Cot, and Tree and Smoke on the Wind with this card: Smoke on the Wind is worth +1 marshalling point. If there are no cards placed with this card, this card gives -2 marshalling points.
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Thorsten the Traveller
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Well yours is a tricky version, it's not luring people into playing it early, it's punishing them if they don't. Then I'd rather they start the game with it and it gains some effect after the first Rick/Smoke played. Playing these burning cards is risky business, if your tough guy gets tapped you're nowhere, so you can't depend on burning late in the game.

My version gets 2 mp's for each garantueed (so you can miss 2 mp max) with added bonus for sneakin in, whether you're hero or overt. I suppose we can't avoid the fact that people burn hero sites, but we can make the difference big enough to make it unappealing, by awarding only full points for minion sites burned for example. In essence the sneaky burn has some thematic appeal, but I think it's just too 'easy'.

the + prowess idea is nice. Maybe it can help non overt comps. a bit, though most auto attacks are detainment already against those.

on the restriction side, we can also lure people into using minion sites by saying: return any ally in company playable at the site to your hand, it may not be played at site by you. In analogy with the faction idea, I suppose hero allies wouldn't like you burning their home either. Since most resources that tap hero free/borders will be allies, that is a bummer, so you are lured into playing items, thus using minion sites. :wink:
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marcos
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Thorsten the Traveller wrote:on the restriction side, we can also lure people into using minion sites by saying: return any ally in company playable at the site to your hand, it may not be played at site by you. In analogy with the faction idea, I suppose hero allies wouldn't like you burning their home either. Since most resources that tap hero free/borders will be allies, that is a bummer, so you are lured into playing items, thus using minion sites. :wink:
i don't think that is a bummer, imo, that is the twisted part of the card...
Frodo
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Well, Black Numenoreans (V) (gives +2 prowess at a site; this card was designed to help with resources like Smoke!) can help covert companies at just about all Gondor freeholds and borderholds except in Rohan, so I don't think coverts necessarily need the help.

I think we've come up with some excellent possibilities. Let me post the options here for looking:

FRODO VERSION 1
Playable if you have at least 7 SP. Your Burning Rick Cot and Tree and Smoke on the Wind are worth full points. If you have at least one Burning Rick Cot and Tree or Smoke on the Wind in play, all of your companies are considered overt.
JAMBO VERSION 2
Plotting Ruin wrote:
Playable if you have at least 7 stage points. Your Burning Rick, Cot, and Tree and Smoke on the Wind are worth full marshalling points. If you have at least one Burning Rick, Cot, and Tree in play, your companies must use minion sites for Border-holds and Free-holds. If you have at least one Smoke on the Wind in play, your companies are considered overt. Place any subsequent Burning Rick, Cot, and Tree and Smoke on the Wind with this card. If there are no cards placed with this card, this card gives -3 marshalling points.
JAMBO VERSION 3
Plotting Ruin wrote:
Playable if you have at least 7 stage points. Your Burning Rick, Cot, and Tree and Smoke on the Wind are worth +1 marshalling point. If you have at least one Burning Rick, Cot, and Tree in play, your companies must use minion sites for Border-holds and Free-holds. If you have at least one Smoke on the Wind in play, your companies are considered overt. Place any subsequent Burning Rick, Cot, and Tree and Smoke on the Wind with this card: Smoke on the Wind is worth +1 marshalling point. If there are no cards placed with this card, this card gives -2 marshalling points.
THORSTEN VERSION 4
2 MP. Payable (even during site phase) if you have 4 SP or more and a Smoke or Burning in play. Place any Smoke or Burning you play hereafter with this card, it is worth full MP's. All your companies are considered overt companies. Cannot be duplicated.
THORSTEN VERSION 5
Plotting Ruin, 1 sp. (1mp+)
If you have a Burning Rick, Cot and Tree or Smoke on the Wind in play, your companies must use minion sites for border-holds, free-holds and hero-havens. Place any subsequent Burning Rick, Cot and Tree and Smoke on the Wind with this card in stead of in your marshalling point pile. Place any site you entered by tapping a character with that site as home site with this card in stead of discarding it. If you have a burning Rick Cot and Tree or Smoke on the Wind in play, this card is worth 1 mp plus 1 mp for each card under it. Cannot be duplicated by a given player.
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