vigilant palantir (trying a different route)

motk faramir is a really good idea. you can put in up to 4 - (6? ioreth, gallion, envoy, pathfinder, henemarth wyliador) allies 1. round that gives really a boost. average would be 2-3 i think, that makes faramir worth 4-5 willower. sounds good.

@beorn, i would prefer boromir over beorn i think. or if defense is so much needed 1. round, beregond.

yes i think faramir really sells it and you were right i'm really happy with moving Balin, although without Aragorn some threat intensive quests might prove difficult. i will do some testing with this version to see if it does better in action.

I like Beorn. for first round defense he is a beast (pun intended), he will absorb several attacks while beregond will only absorb one (in the case of really big attacks that would leave beorn too damaged to defend again, we use Feint, Frodo Baggins or sacrifice the ally from Galadriel), and while also providing 5 attack on that round and for the rest of the game. I think he complements Vigilant Dúnadan really well.

boromir can defend twice, and with shield (that have to be added) he defend with 4. together with a feint, behind strong walls, miruvor or lembas (what i would implement, not only good for arwen) he can better/longer defend then beorn.

see anduin nightmare. with 4 player 1 troll + 2 breed is commen with 4 player. beorn would be dead, boromir with shield survives more. other where enemys are engaged from the start, boromir is also berrer. arwen gives him his bonus so he has sentinal too and defend with 3, with shield with 5 with ring and inner stregth with 6 + shadowcancelling. imo more save/better than beorn.

i agree that with Gondorian Shield, Boromir is better. but that means if you don't have a Gondorian Shield in your starting 7 you are royally screwed (which is 39% of the time even if you mulligan for it). And also that takes up card space a resource which could be used on something else.

Also, you need to remember we have Frodo Baggins and Galadriel will always play an ally round 1 which will not exhaust to quest so it can be sacrificed to defend. The two biggest attack will be defended that way if necessary, so our hero's job is more to deal with a wide swarm than with tall bosses, job at which Beorn shines.

let's look at your exemple: considering Frodo Baggins and Galadriel's ally blocking two attacks we would be fine anyway.

to create a situation that actually forces us to test the difference, let's add a second troll: both troll get defended by Frodo Baggins and Galadriel, and our hero needs to defend 2 spawns. Beorn defends both and has 4 hit points left. Boromir has 60% chance to have a shield and survive at 5 hit points, and 40% chance to have no shield and survive at 3 hit point.

both are fine.

at 2 trolls and 3 spawns (an extremely rare scenario): our hero needs to defend 3 spawns. Beorn would survive at 1 hit point (or die to a shadow!), boromir without shield survives at 2 hit points, boromir with shield is fine.

so the only cases when Boromir would make a diference would be engaging 5 ennemies that have 4+ and getting a bad shadow on one of the three defended by beorn or engaging 6 or more ennemies that have 4+ . Those enemies would all need to be forced engage or to have less than 28 .

and assuming you play boromir, Gondorian Shield only makes a difference when you engage 6 or more of those ennemies, or when they have even higher . If i decide to replace Beorn with Boromir i'm not even sure i would play Gondorian Shield.

so Boromir is indeed superior in raw defense even though only in the most fringe cases, while it's threat cost and 2 less is always there, but his readying ability might make him a better attacker on the long run, especially since unlike Beorn he is allowed attachments. I'm gonna think about this.

with boromir, you can have the ring and defense 4 (inner strength) with arwen without shield and shadowcanceling save 1. round. this is in nearly every case better than beorn. additional you can use behind strong walls that increase defense to 5 and 1 defense more.

and i would be carefullwith galadriels blocker. 1 you do not want to loss the questimgpower, 2. the ally should not cost to much else you cannotpay the vigilant next round.

remember Galadriel is designed to play two 1 cost allies or one 2 cost ally on round 1 saving a resource, and that ally does not exhaust to quest so it can defend without losing .

i just remembered that Boromir's ability can only be used once per phase, which means Boromir can only defend 2 attacks.

That means for if we need to defend 2 attacks both Boromir and Beorn can defend equally well (the only case where Boromir can defend 2 ennemies while Beorn can't is if Boromir has a defense increase and those 2 ennemies are both 6+ )

If we need the hero to defend 3 attacks Boromir cannot do it unless you have Behind Strong Walls while Beorn can as long as the total attack of those ennemies is not above 12 (4 each)

so for Boromir to be better than Beorn you need either:

-to play Inner Strength which does nothing past round 1 and costs us Power of Command, however the risk of needing Inner Strength (engaging four 6+ ennemies round 1 is very rare) is much lower than the risk of failing to complete Gather Information by not having the 4-4 from Power of Command.

-to draw Behind Strong Walls AND not have Feint/The Wizards's Voice AND being engaged by two 5+ AND one ennemy with 5 AND two more with 4

those are very exceptional cases, while engaging 5 ennemies and not drawing Behind Strong Walls would be much more likely

so overall the Boromir version would lose more games on round 1 than the Beorn version.

i've tested the fellowship against nightmare journey along the anduin.

round 1 we had no problem defending and even did some voluntary engagment. Beorn ended up taking 6 damage including 1 from a shadow, and we didn't need to sacrifice an ally.

there was a lot of on the first round (two of the 10 location and a lot of other cards) but we still completed Gather Information on first round thanks to Faramir, who alone contributed 6 .

the hobbit deck struggled to find his pipes, and was late playing gandalf (round 4).

during the whole game we had so much control we were not even close to be in trouble. All decks ended up below 30 threat, we had 2 Warden of Healing with Leather Boots, 3 Halfling Bounder on stand by that we did not need to use, Balin ended up at 11 resource...

however i found some limitations, and have made changes accordingly:

-1 Self Preservation +1 Will of the West in Galadriel's deck: in the late game the hobbit deck runs out of cards, having a third Will of the West that Galadriel can grab with Mirror of Galadriel gives us 1 more loop, giving us 5 more A Test of Will (2 A Test of Will+3 Dwarven Tomb) and 54 in threat reduction (3 Smoke Rings 3 The Galadhrim's Greeting 3 The Shirefolk)

-3 Expert Treasure-hunter +1 Dúnedain Pipe +2 Dúnedain Cache:i found there is no longer a good target for Expert Treasure-hunter, since the decks are all more split on card types. extra copy of Dúnedain Pipe can be shuffled back and having it earlier smoothes out the many extra uniques in that deck. And finally Dúnedain Cache is because one problem i ran into is lacking ranged damage (we only have Gandalf with Shadowfax) to spread the damage more evenly, because while engaging a lot of ennemies is not a problem for defense, the process of killing them was painfully slow, with Galadriel's deck easily killing what it engages thanks to it's swarm of allies, Beorn's deck doing the same with Beorn and the Dúnedain Hunters, while the Faramir and hobbit decks struggled to keep up. giving ranged to Thurindir and Balin (our carriers for Legacy Blade, Orcrist and Durin's Axe) should help.

-1 Heir of Mardil +1 Durin's Axe: Heir of Mardil needs a magic ring to work and uses on of Balin's precious resources. Having just a magic ring or an unexpected courage on Arwen Undómiel works, since with Captain's Wisdom she doesn't need resource that bad. Meanwhile Durin's Axe which can be grabed with The King's Return gives us an additionnal way of getting rid of a location revealed by Palantir.

i have different opinion about boromir/beorn. boromir is not useless after 1. round. if a bad shadow is expected (i would play with inner strength) i take him not the vigilant.. he can be healad and have more options in the rest of the game, and if needed he can attack twice and quest.

and i dont have to count if 1 defense 10 hp or 4 defense 5 hp + shadowcanvelling is better. in my configuration additional actions/healing/feint would be no problem and i will not have a maybe-dead beorn and most times will save a cheap ally. but there is no need to discuss that further, if you like your beorn, take it ;)

playing Inner Strength is a bad idea, you are losing Power of Command which is crucial to completing Gather Information round 1 quite often, just to prepare for a situation that will rarely happen. it's a really bad idea if you do it you will fail Gather Information.

remember we can fetch The Wizards's Voice or Feint with Gather Information if needed, the debate we are having here is about a situation where we are overwhelmed but still want to greed and grab Keep Watch for some reason. sacrificing Power of Command for such an unlikely situation is not worth the effort.

how do you know which ennemy will have a bad shadow? and we have Balin bad shadows need to happen twice in a row to matter.

while defending 2 ennemies the difference only matters if those 2 ennemies are 6+ which is rare given the two biggest ennemies can be dealt with by Frodo Baggins and Galadriel. Sacrificing galadriel's ally is no big deal it's basically a 2-cost Feint with a boost.

having to defend 3 or more ennemies is more likely and in that case Boromir is screwed.

in most cases it doesn't matter which of Boromir or Beorn we use.

Boromir is better against two big ones and Beorn is better against three or more smaller ones.

When it does matter because the 2 biggest ennemies are already dealt with (3 biggest if we have Feint or if Galadriel played two allies), so we are far more likely to be troubled by too many attacks than too big ones. five or more ennemies of varying is more likely than exactly four 6 ennemies, especially given our highest threat is 29 during first engagment check.

if you want to include some more safety don't use Behind Strong Walls, instead use Cram, Miruvor or Lembas on Círdan the Shipwright or Balin whome you will target with Arwen Undómiel before hand, you get your extra block without wasting resource or wasting Power of Command, i don't think that's even necessary but maybe it's a good idea, and those also do something useful later in the game.

i do agree Boromir is better later in the game. The question is wether we are willing to take the risk of needing to grab The Wizards's Voice or Feint more often and losing Keep Watch in order to get the benefits of Boromir's late game. I don't know, but i'm certainly not giving up Power of Command for such a small difference.

boromir can quest as well, o.k. its +1 and not +3-4 from power of command. but u have the chance

• to play both
• shield in startinghand and grab power than (you are not restricted for inner strength, better to have more options)
• you can go full power of command, and use arwen twice (therefore only a miruvor, cram, lembas, courage or cloak is needed, that should be possible 1. round)

all in all, you are more flexible. if the setup reveals 2 trolls instead of 1 you can act one way, if no enemy that engage 1. round comes in the staging, you can act the other way. specially when u know 3 of the 4/5 cards that come. with beorn, there is no flexibility. hope that its enough, with boromir you can decide what to to.

with no extrareadying and more than 2 enemys, beorn could be better. but i like miruvor, cram, lembas and behind strong wall, these are good cards. and then, in 9/10 cases boromir seems better to me.

@galadriel and 2 allies, the galadrieldeck will only get 1 enemy (low thread), so 2. ally does not help to defend.

but to close it up, i think we have made our points and they are understood. that fellowship is a rocksolid one. would be interesting to see it against card dum. (i would put the steward on balin, think its needed ;) )

i'm sorry but i just don't understand what you are trying to do with The One Ring at this point. Power of Command can only work in the Faramir deck, which needs Faramir as well as and for Galion and Ioreth, i just don't see how you can use Power of Command effectively on Boromir.

Power of Command is usually closer to +4-6 , which is the difference between clearing the active location and clearing Gather Information

how do you use arwen twice on the first round? that would require both Palantir and Magic Ring in the starting hand of the Arwen Undómiel deck, which will almost never happen, and then you can't play Inner Strength or Power of Command anyway.

you are right about galadriel, her allies will only defend one ennemy max.

i get what you are trying to get to, giving us more flexibility to deal with a specific scenario. But that scenario is very unlikely to require any work at all because a: most of the time Beorn can handle it and b: grabbing The Wizards's Voice with Gather Information will deal with the extra ennemies if needed.

being overwhelmed to the point where all of that is still not enough will happen once every 50 or more games and then Boromir is not 100 % guaranteed to make a difference.

sacrificing deck space, resource or Power of Command for such an unlikely event is not worth it.

i will try carn dum, and yes in that quest Steward of Gondor goes on Balin

i think you could play Boromir instead of Beorn and be fine. i think it's less optimal but it's ok, and Boromir is a much better carrier for our blades so you lose a little something and gain a little something, why not. you would want a few Cram and Miruvor as well just to be safe, the fellowship draws a lot so they wouldn't poison the deck.

but don't play Inner Strength. It makes a small difference in rare situations while Power of Command makes a big difference almost all of the time.

i see no harm in having both ring-attachemets, that should not be so hard to realize.

power of comand gives at least +4 thats enough for the cruicial parts. and it should not be so hard swap some attachemets/allies between the 2 decks. i would overall put some other allies in (as described before at least rhovanion outreider and galadriels maiden). then faramir can be used twice, i think i dont need a optimal power of command. +4 at the start is very good and then perhaps sometimes, but with more readying, that i will have, faramir can use his ability twice a round in cruicial situations. that should be enough.

how does Power of Command give +4 in the boromir deck? those allies would need to be played first round and be unique to make a difference, not many of them in you have Galion Wilyador and that's it.

the Faramir deck works really well, and you are trying to tear it appart and lose a LOT of which is crucial on first round, just so that you can give Boromir +1 which you are only going to use on the first round and will only need in rare cases where you could just use The Wizards's Voice instead

but i do agree including some Cram and like for 2 Faramir triggers is a good idea, and those can also be used on an Arwen Undómiel boosted Círdan the Shipwright or Balin for defense if necessary, you get the same benefits without needing to involve Boromir (and in fact Boromir defending multiple attacks would accumulate damage while Círdan the Shipwright and Balin would only defend one, with a fresh 4 hit points so the extra readying is better used on them)

or if you want to trade some for an extra defense you could just, you know, no quest with Balin.

+4 is the minimum with 3 heroes and power of command (it gives +1 for boromir = +2, +1 arwen +1 balin). and in my version would some of the cheap unique allies got the boromirdeck (gallion, merry, wyliador). if it goes right, and depending on setup, i can choose to trigger power of command or keep it for defending. faramir is a action so, depending on need i can use him 0-2.

read Power of Command . It never gives +2 to the wearer. you can't play Merry first round, or even second round since you are using a resource for Power of Command. the only allies you can play first round that benefit from Power of Command are Galion and Wilyador, that's 6 in a deck of 50 so you get on average 0.8 of them in starting hand. the faramir deck also has Ioreth and Henamarth Riversong which with Faramir and Power of Command means on average +2 just by not moving Power of Command. imagine Gather Information requiring 6 progress instead of 4 EVERY GAME.

why are you fixating so much on giving Boromir The One Ring? it costs so much to the Faramir deck that can use Power of Command better, only to give Boromir a +1 he will almost never need! Beorn or Boromir without Inner Strength both can handle defense in 90% of scenarios AND we have The Wizards's Voice as a safety measure, commiting more to first round defense is just wasteful overkill.

again i'm sorry for insinsting so much but i just can't agree with you on that specific point. Your idea of cutting Aragorn for Faramir was genius, your idea of replacing Beorn with Boromir is interesting and i can defenitely see that version working, your idea to use Cram and such for flexibility on more Faramir activation or an extra defense is good, but that one point about Inner Strength i fully disagree with.

do u troll me?

"After attached hero commits to the quest, exhaust The One Ring and raise your threat by 1 to give each other unique character you control +1 until the end of the phase."

if boromir is there instead of beorn and has power of command, it is +2 for him alone ...... the 2 other heroes quest also each +1 so its +4 (each unique character not only allies) instead of beorn (who did not quest) + the 2 heroes ... what do u not understand?

your version: faramir is not questing because his ability gives more, right? so ring goes to thurindir or cirdan, right? (you need 1 ally-ringbonus to compensate my questing (3 heroes) without an ally, because a hero (unique) less is questing at the group that has the ring, only cirdan and thurindir) so the average difference in questing 1. round is about +/- 1 IF i would use power with boromir. that is totally o.k. in my counting. faramirs ability can choose that group whatever has more questing characters (only if the cirdandeck gets 2 allys more out its worth it)

@overkill, i think not. there are quests where each player has a enemy engaged with him from the start, then additional enemys in the staging. with 4 player get 6 attacks 1. round possible.

imaging having both attachements, i can round by round decide, to take the bonus to questing or for defense, and (surprise) i can also put in the tactic-attachement from the ring and have more flexibility.

furthermore, power does not have to come from the deck that use it, so (theoretically) it can come from the faramirdeck, and then merry would be playable 2. round. OR with the use miruvor 1. round.

so i try a last time, if that is not understandable, i cannot help ;) : using boromir and altering the both deck and modifying some allies in the 2 others gives much more flexiblility without loosing to much (in the long run only +1 because of 1 unique less yes only 1 unique, because faramir does not quest and its only the 2 green uniques.....) depending of what enemys are there (high attack or more average attacks) more actions can be devided between boromir or arwen, inner strength is as good as an action from arwen. and you dont have to use the ability from inner strength, the +1 is itself a really good thing. then you use power of command and have nearly the same questpower with power of command at cirdan or thurindir (more if no unique ally is drawn equal with 1 and less with more than 1 as the balindeck)

if that is to complicated... use your version, in most cases it does not make a big difference, but i like more flexibility.

i'm not trolling you.

on Power of Command: my bad. i missunderstood. you are right playing Power of Command in the Boromir deck instead of the Faramir deck means +1 because Faramir doesn't quest. The Faramir deck having access to Ioreth and Henamarth Riversong would contribute +2 on average, and since Boromir has 1 naturally which Beorn doesn't the end result is the same on , even better we have more consistency since we are less dependant on drawing Ioreth and Henamarth Riversong.

the next factor to take into consideration is that we will now want the Boromir deck to be ally intensive instead of the Faramir deck since that deck would now be the primary target for Faramir, but that can be managed: we can transfer Dunedain Pathfinder, Elven Jeweler and Envoy of Pelargir. we lose Ioreth, Henamarth Riversong and also i'd rather not transfer Halfast Gamgee and Merry because Balin needs his resource, but we gain access to Dúnedain Hunter. Boromir questing would compensate for the first round and after that the fellowship tends to be overkill on questing (if not a courage on Faramir can fix it) so that is acceptable.

plus the Arwen Undómiel deck draws a lot from Palantir so having all of the cheap allies there would work well.

my bad, i wasn't seeing your point. Power of Command on Boromir is doable.

on overkill: The Wizards's Voice is perfect for those quests. The stakes of preparing extra defense are not risking losing a hero, they are having the option to grap Keep Watch.

on the master card: You need to play Power of Command in the deck that has The One Ring otherwise you cannot grab it from your deck during setup.

since Boromir will only be needed to defend on the first round and we have shadow cancellation (and we don't intend to use Inner Strength's action anyway), i think The Ring of Power is better than Inner Strength: the main weakness of Boromir compared to Beorn is his need for extra readying, which The Ring of Power provides while also giving him the +1 needed on the turn that matters, and also it saves us a resource and it is useful later in the game when Boromir turns into an attacker.

i think choosing not to grab Power of Command would be extremely rare, but if we see defense on the first round will be critical and we know completing Gather Information on the first round will not be hard, we can grab The Ring of Power.

You are right, i'm sorry. changing the lists again will be a bit tricky but a bit more flexibility and the fact that Boromir turns into a much better attacker than Beorn is worth it considering the cost on early willpower is the same, we only lose out in the mid and late game where it doesn't matter. However i think The Ring of Power is better than Inner Strength in our specific case, and i think putting Merry and Halfast Gamgee in Balin's deck is not worth it since Merry's ability is overkill and they only lose 1 by not being in that deck which past first round is not a big deal, while those 2 extra resource on Balin might be.

The One Ring being restricted is annoying, maybe i'll include a Golden Belt to compensate so that Boromir can hold two swords.

glad we cleared that misunderstanding ;) (i am german and my english is not allways the best)

and yes if we draw a wizards voice, then of course you need no inner strength in the 1. round. if not, depends i would say. all in all i see inner strength in this combination more as an additional shield and in most cases draw power of command is better (except battle and siege quests perhaps). ring of power would be another option, and depending on the fokus of the 1. round the better one compared to inner strength (gives a defend more AND shield)

so in this case you are right, except perhaps on siegequests, inner strength should not be the one free ring-card. but to the fact, that we want to explore gather information 1. round, power should be the card of choice, exept perhaps there are 6(+) medium-heavy attacks, no wizards voice and no feint in startinghands and then for surviving ring of power is better (btw. how to make links here ? or is it only possible for patreons?)

@merry and halfast, could be better to include errand-rider. cheap, and can put ressources where they are neded or quest improved by faramir or be a chump and take 1 arrow and survive

i'm french, so i understand english can be tough

to put a link to a card type # and then start typing the name of the card/part of the name then select from the list (to write Power of Command type # then type power and you will see Power of Command in the list). to put symbols like type $ followed by what symbol you want for exemple type $ followed by leadership to make a symbol. also ** before and after text makes it bold and * before and after makes it italic

as long as you complete gather information during questing you can choose The Wizards's Voice as the card you are looking for and have it for the combat phase, so when i say the stakes are getting Keep Watch i mean that if we have enough defense the Boromir deck can grab Keep Watch with Gather Information to help the Vigilant Dúnadan next round, if not the Boromir deck grabs The Wizards's Voice.

you are right Errand-rider is a good choice, since the Arwen Undómiel deck will be so low on costs we will have a hero with too much resource, errand rider can quest and then pay back Balin on the next round. The list of 1-cost allies that become relevant with Faramir is long, we will need to select the best ones.

i'm working on version 3 which will include the Boromir change, when i'm satisfied i will publish it, and mention you since this fellowship is co-created at this point ^^

french, perhaps we see on a lure sometimes. thx for the typing-advice

o.k. with picking wizards voice, i have no point left for inner strength ;)

just realised Minas Tirith Lampwright is awesome in this fellowship since we run Palantir. And on second thought Errand-rider cannot be played first without resource generation if we play Power of Command, so i'll probably skip it for the deck space since it's only +1

Westfold Horse-breeder, Envoy of Pelargir Vassal of the Windlord Knights of the Swan , perhaps 1 Silvan Refugee and your mentioned lampwright comes to my mind.

errant rider perhaps in the faramirdeck

i'm working on it, the thing is there are a lot of non-ally cards that only fit in the Boromir deck, so there is a limit to the number of allies we can include there.

as for your suggestions: Westfold Horse-breeder's response dies nothing, Envoy of Pelargir is solid, Vassal of the Windlord probably not needed Dúnedain Hunter and Boromir fill that role already, Knights of the Swan is interesting, Silvan Refugee too. Errand-rider without the faramir effect i do not like, it does little especially if you balance your resources well

i'll post version 3 tommorow, it will make it easier to discuss specifics

i've posted version 3 using Boromir

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