A desperate Alliance with Isengard 1.0

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• 1.0

Has there been a ruling on using Aragorn's ability with Saruman? Aragorn's ability says "reduce" so I'm inclined to believe Saruman's restriction on reducing threat would apply?

Yes, of course, it applies. That's why the deck uses Desperate Alliance to give control of Saruman to another player, allowing you to use Aragorn in that phase. Well, this is just what's explained in the deck description -_-''''

Nice deck, kudos.

Just a small wrinkle, while Saruman has been Desperate Alliance-ed away you cannot use Horns! Horns! Horns! to put into play Gandal, since you do not have a Leadership hero (nor Saruman's ability to play Doomed card of all spheres)

Completely right @Alonewolf87. I just thought tht while I was Writing. It is obvious that you won't be able to use Saruman to play Horns! Horns! Horns! if you just gabe it to another player... My mistake!

why 2x Arwen Undómiel in this deck if you have here as a starting hero? ok ik see why you put 1 copy in the deck because i believe that the contract says the ally needs to be in the deck, but what's then the purpose of the second copy?

also a question. I was thinking of making a doomed deck with Desperate Alliance for other players to but keep my threat at 40+ for a valor deck. I assume that the card Pillars of the Kings works with Saruman since saruman's ability talks about " reduce your threat" and pillars says "set your threat to 40".

So Saruman is the Hero I have been waiting for the longest, and I am loving building different decks with him. My current deck is the three Istari, and threat is obviously the biggest issue (starts at 38!) I've been using Fall of Gil Galad on him and then resurecting him, but this is an elegant solution that is a wonderful way of sidestepping his threat cap. I'm stealing that and adding it to my deck! Cheers!

So many possibilities. I just love this game now all i need is time. I have to proxy this...for sideboard how about Heirs of Earendil to avoid location lock . it not domed but...it should be

@serre it won't work, I just asked in FFG rules questions page, and Caleb confirmed me that "any effect that lowers the number in your threat dial, counts as reducing your threat". About the 2 copies of Arwen, they are just because of the "tempo" of the contract, which you should trigger AFTER you draw your starting hand. Therefore, I just added two copies to low the possibilities of have both Arwen's in starting hand.

@wehehe ok thx for clarifying this.

setup starts before you draw your starting hand. ity not needed to take 2 arwen, you can activate the messenger before you draw cards.

@doomguardNope, Caleb clarified that Setup abilities take effect at the Step #7 of the game setup (after the scenario Setup effects), which is after drawing the initial hand and doing the mulligan. It clearly pointed out the risk of missing out your Messenger of Kings target and to plan accordingly.

can you quote that? or give the link?

@doomguardI copied the answer from his mail here community.fantasyflightgames.com

thx. thats really bad... and not at all implicited by the rules where the setup begins long before the 1. hand... bad gamedesign...

@doomguardwell the fact that the Setup of the scenario came after drawing the first hand is how the game always worked. It was stuff like Thurindir and Gandalf's Delay which muddied the waters

(MotK) Súlien is also one of the best allies imo to use. starting threat would be 32 but you'll have threat control of locations right from the start with his ability.

@Alonewolf87 really it's a bit strange how this work, becasuse hero setup abilities trigger in the step 2 of the setup, when you just put them into play.

The different timing for contracts is just to avoid cheating with The Grey Wanderer, because if you setup the contract just with the heroes (in the step 2), before the encounter deck is set, you could put into play a protected attachment (such as Necklace of Girion) without needing to protect it. Resolving this problem, you create some other ones, like this one with Messenger of the King, forcing you to play more than one copy of your "hero-ally".

With Súlien I'D depend on drawing a unique Noldor Ally to be able to play Elrond's counsel, also, you loose the possibility of using Tale of Tinúviel right from the start. Definitely a bad idea for this deck. i'd use Súlien in a build with 2 spirit heroes, as being able to assign to quest, and then ready her with Unexpected Courage and activate her ability would be interesting (even use her ability two times, as it is not restricted to once per round)

@wehehe

Actually even if the Setup of Contracts was at the same time of the heroes Setup it would not be a problem for The Grey Wanderer because at Step 2 of the Setup there is already an encounter deck (Step 1 is shuffling players and encounter decks) so no Guarded for free in any case. Probably the idea was to differentiate between Hero Setup and Contract Setup, but it's true that's it's creating a bit of chaos. Anyway I asked Caleb a few follow up questions about that so let's see what he will

@alone, thats why i said its bad design, because,the "set up" in the rules is a very long time with abaout 7 steps and "encounter set up" is one of the last of them.

if "encounter set up" was meant, then it has to be written on the contracts, either u are freely to choose when during "set up" you can trigger a "set up"-task.