Coruhaer

Campaign. Cost: 0. 0   1   1   2  

Dúnedain. Ranger.

Response: After Coruhaer defends an attack, spend 1 resource to deal 2 damage to the attacking enemy.

A dread fell on them, even as they passed between the lines of ancient stones.
—The Lord of the Rings
Lin Hsiang

Angmar Awakened Campaign Expansion #178. Neutral.

Coruhaer
Reviews

A questing ability is useful even on a character with only 1 . An attacking ability is useful even on a character with only 1 . But a repeatable defending ability is useless on a character with only 1 . And that's what I find odd about Coruhaer. His ability triggers after he defends an attack, i.e. only after the whole attack is resolved, which means he has to survive the attack in order for you to use his ability. But he has only 1 and 2 , so he's not likely to survive an attack from anything that you'd want to use his ability on. You'd have to put in extra work (like Stand Together) to make it do anything - and at that point, why bother playing Coruhaer in the first place? Plus, he's offered right next to Berelind and other strong boons that you don't need to put in any extra work to get the benefit of. I actually started a discussion thread on BoardGameGeek about this card, and the consensus generally fits with my opinion.

Did FFG mean to say "after Coruhaer is declared as a defender", like Gondorian Spearman? That would have made a lot more sense given the two cards' similar stats. I might even play it like that despite what the card says, just so that I can try to get some use out of this otherwise-useless-looking card. Or maybe they were just being really cautious with what they could do with a 0-cost ally. It makes me wonder what happened in playtesting that Coruhaer ended up as useless as he is.

Update: I sent in an email to the FFG rules questions form asking about Coruhaer, and their answer was "if you want to use his ability, you should find ways of boosting his defense." This seems totally backwards to me because Coruhaer is a boon ally and is therefore a reward for doing something well in the story, and the last thing I want from my reward is to have to put in extra effort to make it not fail at doing what it's supposed to do. — waltercardcollector 19