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Episode 15
– Welcome
– Reveal the winner of the 1st ever Grima contest!
– Hero Redesign Contest
– News
– Previews for K-D
– Content
– Top 5 Lore Cards
– Dead Marshes player experiences pt II
– Return to Mirkwood player cards review
– Sign off
- Contact us
- cardboardoftherings@gmail.com
- www.facebook.com/cardboardoftherings
- @cotrpodcast on twitter
- cardboardoftherings.wordpress.com
- cardboardoftherings on cardgamedb.com
- GirderZombie on MTGO
- Play a game on VASSAL
- Mitch’s Amazon Reviews http://tinyurl.com/Lightdarker
Cardboard of the Rings 
Hi guys,
I contacted you via Email after last episode, but haven’t heard back from you since. What’s up?
Sorry bud, I see it, it got lost in the shuffle. I was medicated for my ankle, and that is the excuse I am sticking with!
No worries mate, I just wanted to point it out via a different channel, not bitching about it.
And I hope your ankle gets well soon. Wish you guys all the best and keep up the good work!
Okay, okay, time for me to set the record straight. I was the person caught extolling the virtues of the Rivendell Minstrel. But, lest Brian further besmirch my reputation (and judgment), I must point out that my comment was nothing more than a failed pun. I did not say the Minstrel was more attractive than the Watcher; I described the Minstrel as “fetching,” because she *fetches* a Song card from the deck when she enters play. Obviously, she can’t hold a candle to Leadership’s foxy femme fatale (we’ll let Mitch have the Eagles of the Misty Mountains). I demand a retraction!
On to the RtM player cards:
-Dain is solid, although I think he really needs Unexpected Courage. His statistical allotment makes him the best defender in the game, but exhausting him to defend will eliminate his global attack bonus. So, in order to get the most out of his ability, you’ll have to neglect Dain’s greatest strength. Still good, but I don’t like that he seems to work against himself in this regard.
-Astonishing Speed and West Road Traveller are both very good cards in a Rohan deck (many of which exist already–check BGG or cardgamedb). Since Rohan decks usually try to minimize threat, they often wind up with plenty of enemies in the staging area. Astonishing Speed trivializes any amount of threat during questing. West Road Traveller is 2 willpower for 2 resources; only Escort from Edoras has a similar cost/willpower ratio.
-The Leadership cards are both pretty mediocre. Dawn Take You All has great art, and might be pretty good with several players, but the blind discard really limits its utility. Dunedain Signal could be helpful with a defender like Dain or Denethor, but I don’t think it’s useful enough to warrant slots in a deck.
-Mirkwood Runner is decent and should be very good once more Elf-centric cards are released. As you noted, the ability to ignore an enemy’s defense will be very handy with cards that boost attack strength. Rumour from the Earth, on the other hand, compares unfavorably to Henamarth Riversong (who, incidentally, was the biggest snub in your Lore Top 5). Rumor requires you to pay its cost every turn, while Henamarth is a one-time investment that can also quest and fight. Even if a card kills him off, a second copy only costs a single Lore resource. Neither is a bad card, but Henamarth is much better in most scenarios (Journey to Rhosgobel might be the exception).
-The Eagle cards are both awesome. Not much else to say here.
-Shadow of the Past is huge. By itself, it practically solves the problem of Gollum turning up as a shadow or escape card. Add to that its ability to retrieve Athelas, Grimbeorn, etc., and you have an event that will eliminate the most frustrating aspects of many scenarios. With this card in the pool, I don’t think Gollum needs any errata.
All in all, another fine show (character assassination notwithstanding ;p). RtM definitely has some awesome player cards, and I’ll be interested to see how you guys enjoy the scenario. Keep it up!
John, as a dedicated butt-kisser and dodger of all that is blameworthy, please let me offer this explanation:
Brandon made me do it. 🙂
I liked your post, but I must disagree on your evaluation of Shadow of the Past being a great catchall for those situations. Certainly it helps, but I think we need to see something on there that allows us to get past the “top card” problem. For situations like athelas and Grimbeorn… it’s fine the way it is. But when Gollum goes in there with no other way to retrieve him, it extends the game to unnecessary lengths.
On the other hand, the side of me that loves the narrative qualites of the game is a big fan of Gollum getting lost in the encounter deck and the players potentially never finding him.
Ah, The Flaming Brand. I should have known!
I suppose Shadow of the Past doesn’t “solve” the Gollum problem. If he escapes, you’re right that the game can drag on and on. What Shadow ensures, though, is that you won’t have to hunt through the entire deck only to lose Gollum to the discard pile and have to repeat the process anew. You’ll still have to sift through encounter cards, but you shouldn’t need to do it more than once.
Thematically, I agree that the occasional hopelessness of hunting down Gollum makes quite a bit of sense. The Bilbo in me says that, if you let Gollum escape, you should have a hard time catching him again. Maybe not the most enjoyable scenario from a gameplay standpoint, but certainly flavorful.
On top of that, we’ve certainly seen our fair share of situations where losing Gollum from the staging area could have just caused an end game situation. So it does at least give players a fighting chance. Or a good opportunity to rage quit.
ripped off.. why did you only post such a small selection of cards? I know at least 4 people that entered the comp who’s cards are not even in the gallery.. A lot of people put a lot of work in it. It isn’t like facebook has a problem with you uploading photos, you can even do a mass upload and upload entire directories pf photos with a single button click. I think the least you can do is post all the entires on your page instead of just a few.
Some people submitted their cards in eon format or as a pdf. I just posted the jpegs. We will get to them all, no one should feel ripped off. Enjoy the ones that are there for now, more will come!
looks like all 4 of those people will not be entering next time.
Read above, be patient, tell all 4 of those people to enter next time.
Hey guys. I really enjoyed your podcast. As stated in the beginning it was long but very enjoyable. I liked looking at all the custom Grima cards on Facebook and sad at myself that I could not work out my idea in time. Maybe I will try at the new custom card challenge. So I will state it here.
Name: Grima’s Counsel
Type: Treachery
When Revealed: Each player must discard all cards they own but do not control. If a player cannot do this, then raise that player’s threat by 6.
Shadow: Resolve the “When Revealed” effect of Grima’s Counsel (cannot be cancelled).
Flavor Text: Why do you lay these troubles on an already troubled mind? – Grima Wormtongue, The Two Towers
Anyway, back to my comments about the show. It was interesting to hear your Top 5 of Lore. In my meta, we do mostly 3 player games. Radagast’s Cunning and Secret Paths come in handy especially when we get a bad start up. I am not saying they should be Top 5 though. Just they are good cards, ones in the middle.
As for the new cards, I have been trying to build an Eagle deck for the longest time and now I can with those new Eagle cards. I have played a few games with it and was able to get Eagles of the Misty Mountains up to a 6 Attack and 6 Defense by the end of a game. I can’t wait to make them even more powerful.
The new Leadership cards are ok. I think Dawn Take You All can be good at certain points but is not a must have. The last Dunedain attachment is what I expected. Happy that it is cost 1 and can be useful at times. Side note, my friends have used the pay a resource to pass the attachment a few times. Most notably was during Conflict of the Carrock where we passed Dunedain Cache between Imrahill and Gimli so that we could slay all 4 Trolls in 1 round.
I like the new Spirit ally. A solid quester who can manipulate the locations. It is great when you have The Brown Lands and East Bight in the staging area for a round. You can switch the 2 and get rid of The Brown Lands. The new event is ok. I think it can be useful and especially good if you have only 1 player who is or who can quest such as Stage 3 in Massing.
The Lore cards are fun. The new ally made me add Blade Mastery back into my deck. So that I can boost the Runner to take down some enemies. The event is cool. I like that you can choose whether or not to get it back depending on your resources. The neutral event can be useful at times. I think it will be good to have a copy or 2 during games between all the players.
With your thoughts on the previews, past cards, and Khazad-Dum fast approaching, I have a challenge for you guys. Once the box comes out, we will get 3 new quests with the idea of Dwarves being sent to find out what happened in Moria. With that in mind, I challenge all of you guys to play all 3 quests in 2 player games with Dwarf decks. The decks can only have Dwarf heroes and must include at least 1 copy each Dwarf and Dwarf related card. The rest of the decks can have whatever other cards you want. So if you want to include Eagles or Rohan subthemes go right ahead. As long you follow the other 2 rules.
1. All Dwarf Heroes.
2. At least 1 copy of every Dwarf ally and Dwarf related cards in the decks.
Good luck
I can’t wait to hear your next episode. Especially if you have any card opinions that changed from the beginning to end of the Shadow of Mirkwood cycle.
Hi James, thanks for the comments and thanks for listening! Your Grima idea is unique and deadly but I think it would actually be a BENEFIT because then I have a reason for hogging all of my attachments! Great card, make sure you enter in the future!
The eagles deck is totally real now. Hopefully we get more as time goes on, I doubt we will see any in Moria.
Dwarf challenge accepted, although I’m not really feeling dwarves as you know from the cast!
As to the Grima card, I know it can make players be selfish but then you have to raise your threat. I like that it is worse as a Shadow because it cannot be cancelled and I feel that Grima was always working in the background. Or trying to at least.
I know that Eagles are very real. I feel that Rohan is too. My friend has a Spirit/Leadership deck with a Rohan theme. Having Eowyn, Imrahill, and Eleanor as his heroes, he gets tons of questing power and is able to fly through stages. Especially because he can have Imrahill stand almost every round. It is definitely a deck for multiplayer though.
I am glad you like and accept my challenge. I know you have no love for the Dwarves but I think the box may change your mind.
Have you ever tried this. We always play with 4 of us and we each use a mono-sphere deck with all the cards currently available. Iam telling you, we have a blast. If you get the chance you should try it this way, makes the game completley different.
I’d love to try that but we usually only play 2 player. I guess we could both double fist!
Hey guys. Just finished listening to the show. Thanks for the honorable mentions. To answer some of Andrews questions regards my Lore/Spirit deck. In my draw deck I use Haldir, Gildor, Silvan Tracker and Gandalf to kill enemies. Gandalf can use his enter play ability as well as swing for 4. Haldir and Gildor swing for 2 each. Silvan Trackers swing for 1 each. Beravor can swing for 2 if needed as well. I have even used Frodo and Denethor to add 1 each. Put it all together and I can do up to 12 direct damage (Gandalf + Sneak Atttack) per turn and 15 attack strength. I have never really had a problem killing enemies.
With Frodo doing most the questing and defending, if needed, the others are free to do what I want ie attack, manipulate the encounter deck or draw cards. Generally I keep my threat threshold low (starting threat 25) so I can selectively engage what I want (Attacop, Attacop aside).
Also in your bottom five Lore cards you talked about Gandalfs Search and how you can return the cards to the top of your deck in any order. Mitch said it could be useful when Khazad-dum comes out with Zigil Miner to rig the card reveal for resources. Even with this I think that the card is a dud. It costs too much and your limited to putting back only the cards you reveal. This makes it shakey at best. If you pay two or three resources and reveal only 1 or 2 resource cost cards then you have a net gain of at best nothing. I wouldn’t play it. It rightly belongs in the bottom 5 lore cards.
Gildor’s ability is far better in combination with Zigil Miner for setting up the card reveal as it allows you to put a card back on top of the draw deck from your hand. Hmmm that extra Gildor goes back on the deck = 5 resources … he just paid for himself.
Gildor
“Action: Exhaust Gildor Inglorion to look at the top 3 cards of your deck. Switch one of those cards with a card from your hand. Then return the cards to the top of your deck in any order.”
Zigil Miner
“Action: Exhaust Zigil Miner and name a number to discard the top 2 cards of your deck. If at least one of those cards has a cost equal to the named number, choose a hero you control. That hero adds resources to his resource pool equal to the named number.”
I completely agree – Gildor is a far, far better combo with the miner (which I’ve thought that ever since the Zigil Miner was spoiled). Gandalf’s Search is a VERY steep investment, and while it MAY work out extremely well, its a considerable gamble and really just far messier than I would like to bother with. It takes way too much setup, and I really have no desire to build an entire deck around that specific idea. With Gildor, it is neat, clean, and controlled, and really, can just be added into any Lore/Spirit deck for great effect.
Brandon, ‘ere we go!:
Grima Bitch Slap
Event, Neutral, Cost: 1
Exhaust and discard an ally you control. Reduce your threat by the cost of the discarded ally.
Reduce your threat by additional 2 points if you manage to successfully mimic Grima’s feeble muppet cry when he was bitch slapped by Saruman.
“Free? He will never be free!”
Once again awesome show guys! Keep up the good work!
Red Dragon sucked? Boy, I whole-heartily disagree. Great show guys.
Dain Ironfoot sounds pretty sweet, but I I think Gloin is still my top dwarf pick. 10+ resources every turn is too much fun to give up.
wow, you really were really embarrassing pack of immature boys back in the days… couldn’t go even half an episode in these early years without some really embarrasing “joke” or comment about women and your desperate need of attention and immature views on sex really shines through… I like your later content, when talking about lord of the rings, but yikes these early episodes are just one long journey of you ridiculing yourself 🙂