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Brandon and Andrew get down to business in our exciting first official episode! They cover the following and more:
- Trivia + first give-away!
- Initial impressions
- Favorite sphere?
- Difficulty?
- Construction quality?
- Our Experiences
- Cards of the week (initial impressions):
- Card discussion:
- Bilbo Baggins
- Sign off
- Contact us
- cardboardoftherings@gmail.com
- cotrpodcast on twitter
- cardboardoftherings.wordpress.com
Cardboard of the Rings 
I think you are short changing Denethor. He has a low threat of 8 and he is the only Hero with a defense of 3. Pretty much every enemy in the game has an attack of 3 or less so he can defend against practically anything without taking damage. Lore decks have plenty of healing the only shadow effect he needs to worry about is Dispair. Throw Dark Knowledge on him and he is practically invincible. If it turns out you don’t need to defend then you can exhaust him to find out what is going to harm you next turn. For a threat cost of 8 I think he is solid, though I do wish he had one more health.
His defense is a redeeming quality and we did rag on the card harder than we needed to. Maybe it comes from the fact that his ability isn’t that exciting. If you are going to play a split-sphere deck with 2 Lore heroes, who are you going to keep? I’d say Glorfindel and Beravor, which leaves Denethor on the bottom of the heap, for me anyways. I’d like to hear your thoughts.
Be careful with Glorfindel.
One thing that I found was that a hero with multiple “good” scores like G-del has only limited uses, since they can only do one thing a turn. Obviously heroes like Aragorn are incredible as they have a built in mechanic to do things (aided by leadership having the best resource gathering- even without Steward of Gondor).
Consider this- if you are playing multisphere and have only one or two Lore heroes, using Glorfindels ability is fine in a pinch but is far from effecient (note I have had Gimli saved by G-dels healing power before, so I respect it), you are much more likely to heal other more effective ways. He is a respectible quester to be sure, but then you “waste” that attack as there are no doubt better heroes for unexpected courage (Gloin, Dunhere, Legolas, Gimli, Beravor are better imo). Denethor is single minded. He is a defender. If you dont need to defend this round cause your meataxe partner takes all the glory, you can have a look to see if a Hill Troll or the Balrog is coming up next and needs to disappear.
I’m currently trying to make a Lore/Tactics deck and I’m trying different hero combinations. When I figure out who is going to make the cut I’ll tell you.
Fair enough – I agree we ragged on the card harshly. Good defense, and cost level, but in terms of ability, not great unless combo-ing it with the card that allows the peek for exhaustion. That did work well. Need a lot of allies to have him work well, IMO.
We used him in a player 1 = tactics, player 2 = Lore team and we failed miserably. It’s the damn troll. Unless tactics optionally engages he comes at Lore immediately and will lay waste to one hero right away, or raise the threat by a few if you manage to chump block with an ally. That implies spending resources for an ally that’s going to die immediately, too.
I think the way to play it is, as you say, with Dark Knowledge, – if you are to use him as a defender, primarily, then – for sure! The Dark Knowledge -1 will point has no bearing, really at that point.
I’ll give him another shot over Beravor next time I use Lore in a combo, if we have a chance and we’ll try to include a re-review of him in the next podcast.
Thanks.
Good first episode! It was highly entertaining to listen to during breakfast this morning. I’m really looking forward to future episodes, keep up the good work! You’re off to a great start.
Without having had much of a chance to actually play the game yet, but relevant to this episode, some cards (from memory) that have really “caught my eye” are:
– Leadership: Steward of Gondor, Celebrian’s Stone, Faramir, Sneak Attack
– Tactics: Blade of Gondolin
– Spirit: Unexpected Courage, Northern Tracker, Lorien’s Guide, Favor of the Lady
– Lore: Forest Snare, Self Preservation, Gleowine, Erebor Hammersmith
Also, I’m looking forward to Bilbo coming out. Replacing Beravor with Bilbo in one of my custom decks will allow me to retain a hero-fueled card-draw mechanic, but means that my “questing” deck should have a lower starting threat than my “tanking” deck, which will be ideal for getting early-game enemies engaged where I can handle them best.
Just a correction about Elanor- sometimes its better to take the hit with the treachery card. I know some of them are brutal (Caught in a web sucks) but if she taps you get the next card on the deck as well.
In a two player game covering all spheres (2 multisphere decks) I found that dealing with whatever treachery came out was often preferable to another enemy…
Replying to my own comment- classy huh?
After listening to your podcast, were you guys drawing another card to replace the one that Elanor cancelled? It just seems the way you were talking that you weren’t, and she certainly isn’t as powerful as you are making out imho.
I see that someone else beat me to the defense of Denethor, but I’d defend his power as well. You used as an example seeing a Hill Troll, tossing it, and then just drawing another Hill Troll. You seemed to think that made his power useless. Quite the opposite. I now know I WON’T be getting that second Hill Troll next turn… which would have likely been devastating.
Also, you’re too quick to decide how best to use the card that reduces threat. It is NOT simply a matter of math. That’s a secondary concern. It’s often more important to see if you can drop the threat to dodge an enemy. If I’m playing two-player on the second adventure and we’re both at 31, I’m dropping us both 2, NOT dropping one of us 6. Or if we’ve just crossed 35, I’d rather drop both of us.
Also, dont forget that “out of the box” Lore has the highest threat with all three heroes. In a multiplayer game, it is worth dropping the threat of a “squishy” player by 6 and leaving a tactics/leadership player who has a stack of “chump blockers” to take on the lions share of the enemies, while leaving the lore and spirit spheres to do what they do best- subversion!
Wicked theme song man. Wicked.
ps… this week you “did Bilbo” ? (48:08) What does that mean?
Hey Sea Beeee, glad you like the theme song, but FYI, the guy that wrote it and performed it has some serious issues!!
: )
I really enjoyed the first couple of podcasts, thanks for doing this and looking forward to the next one.
Great job guys, audio quality was decent and lots to talk about at this point. Too bad its going to be such a long wait for the first expansion to come out, so don’t feel too terribly obligated to keep to the bi-weekly schedule if you run dry on topics.
I particularly like the meowing cats towards the end of the episode.
Any thoughts on card storage for the long-term? Sort by sphere or by set?
Hahaha, that is one cat! I don’t think we will run dry of topics, but we are looking forward to the first expansion! Thanks for the coverage on your blog, even if you called us geeks!!! 🙂