[OT] Lord of the Rings TCG

Hey, he did talk to us soon!

Today's topic is all things Elf! I brought down one of the design guys to
go
over the spoiler with me. We were searching for some Elf cards to give you
today. The first card I point out gets and instant reaction from him of "No
man, that card is too strong, don't spoil that yet." So I'll make sure to
give you that one

Then we were looking at some of the companions to spoil (by the way, there
are a total of 12 Elf companions in this set! There were a total of only
8
Elf companions total in the first three sets combined!). There are some
really cool ones, but we decided to give you a weapon instead. It's
something that is familiar, but also changed from what you have seen in the
past, and it ties in to the first card with some strategy.

Here are today's spoilers:

Lembas
1 Twilight Cost
Elf Culture
Possession

To play, spot 3 Elves. Bearer must be a companion.
Regroup: Discard this possession to reconcile your hand.

"Sam thought that it tasted far better, somehow, than it had for a good
while..."


Loaded your deck with pump cards? Need to replenish? Eat some bread! This
card will be awesome if you use it with cards like Gwemegil and Elven
Sword... Wait, I haven't given you Elven Sword yet... Here you go:

Elven Sword
1 Twilight Cost
Elf Culture
Possession, Hand Weapon
+1 Strength

Bearer must be an Elf.
Skirmish: Exert bearer or discard 2 cards from hand to make a minion
skirmishing bearer strength -1.

Fine blades forged by Elven smiths are centuries-old heirlooms.



Many of you have used Gwemegil in the past to cycle through your deck, here
is a second non-unique option to help that. In addition, this card will help
you make the most out of Lembas and move multiple times in a turn. Dump your
hand to boost your Elves, then re-stock with Lembas.

We should be visiting the wonderful world of Gondor tomorrow. See you then.

 

News from Kyle:
"As I said yesterday, we are going to visit the wonderful world of Gondor
today. Before I get into that, let me make you aware that there will be a
total of four spoilers given away on Radio Free Decipher today! As well as
Tom Lischke talking a little of the development of The Two Towers. There
are
some good nuggets of insider info in there.

Back to Gondor...

There has already been one new Gondor card revealed, Faramir, on of Denethor
(by the way, you can still send away for the preview version of this card!),
so I decided to spoil cards that work with Faramir today.

Other Gondor themes have to do with making minion roaming at higher sites
than what their site numbers are, and punishing roaming minions! There will
also probably be deck designs around what we are calling the 'Ring-bound
Ranger Decks'. There are some fun site things as well, like your fellowship
gets a special bonus at a certain site, or you can use the card for other
functions (ok, that wasn't a good explanation, but you'll see soon enough).

Here we go with the spoilers:

Boromir, My Brother
0 Twilight Cost
Gondor Culture
Condition
+1 Vitality
4 R 111

Bearer must be Faramir.
Skirmish: Discard a (Gondor) card from hand to make a Ring-bound Man
strength +1.

"'Where is thy horn? Whither goest thou? O Boromir! But he was gone.'"


Playing into the Ring-bound Ranger theme, not only does this card beef up
Faramir with the +1 Vitality making him harder to kill, but it can also
boost his (and his companions) strength by discarding cards from hand.
Really, anything that gives +1 Vitality is cool, costing 0 is even better!


Faramir's Bow
1 Twilight Cost
Gondor Culture
Possession, Ranged Weapon
4 R 118

Bearer must be Faramir.
He is an archer.
Skirmish: If Faramir is Skirmishing a Man or a roaming minion, exert Faramir
to wound that minion.

"'Were I as hasty as you, I might have slain you long ago.'"


Now we see one of the other themes... roaming minions. This is a cool weapon
as it is sort of a cross between a bow and The Blade of Gondor (Boromir's
sword). Combined with the cards that make minions roaming longer, this
should be quite a powerful weapon. With the Dunland culture and Raider
culture (and even Bill Ferny) being Man, you shouldn't have a hard time
using this weapon even without the minions being roaming.


Next week we'll dip into what the heck Ambush means, and also a look at what
won't be in The Two Towers set. Talk to you on Monday!"



When I get a chance, I might collate the spoiler list we have so far. I will see if I can check out the spoilers from RFD.

EDIT:

?Dwarf Condition (1)
Here Is Good Rock
Tale. Plays to your support area.
Skirmish: Stack a FP card from hand here
to make a Dwarf Damage +1.


Dunland Culture (0)
The War Club
Possesion - Hand Weapon
+2 Str
Bearer must be a [Dunland] Man. Each time
bearer wins a skirmish you may discard 2 FP possesions.


Rohan Culture (1)
Weapon Store
Condition.
Plays to your support area.
Fellowship: Exert a Rohan Man to play a hand weapon
from your discard pile.


Isengard Culture
Uruk Vanguard (10)
Minion - Uruk-Hai
Str:17
Vit:4
Site:5
Damage +1 (Or Damage +2 if at a Battleground.)
To play, spot an Uruk-Hai. At a Battleground, this
minion is Fierce.

 

OK, here we go. I have simply cut and paste, but I will put in order or cultures. Please let me know of any errors.

DWARF CULTURE

?Dwarf Condition (1)
Here Is Good Rock
Tale. Plays to your support area.
Skirmish: Stack a FP card from hand here
to make a Dwarf Damage +1.

DUNLAND CULTURE
The War Club
Possesion - Hand Weapon
+2 Str
Bearer must be a [Dunland] Man. Each time
bearer wins a skirmish you may discard 2 FP possesions.


Hillman Tribe
3 Twilight Cost
Dunland Culture
Minion, Man
9 Strength
1 Vitality
3 Site Number

Each time this minion wins a skirmish, you may spot another (Dunland) minion
to take control of a site.

"'They will not quail at the sun... the wild man of the hills.'"

No Retreat
0 Twilight Cost
Dunland Culture
Condition

Plays on a site you control.
Regroup: Spot 2 (Dunland) Men and discard this condition to make the Free
Peoples player choose to move again this turn (if the move limit allows).

Hordes from Dunland laid waste to villages as their numbers grew.


ELF CULTURE

Lembas
1 Twilight Cost
Elf Culture
Possession

To play, spot 3 Elves. Bearer must be a companion.
Regroup: Discard this possession to reconcile your hand.

"Sam thought that it tasted far better, somehow, than it had for a good
while..."


Elven Sword
1 Twilight Cost
Elf Culture
Possession, Hand Weapon
+1 Strength

Bearer must be an Elf.
Skirmish: Exert bearer or discard 2 cards from hand to make a minion
skirmishing bearer strength -1.

Fine blades forged by Elven smiths are centuries-old heirlooms. [/color]

GANDALF CULTURE

Well Met Indeed
5 Twilight Cost
Gandalf Culture
Event

Fellowship: Spot an Elf, a [Gondor] Man, and a Dwarf to play Gandalf from
your dead pile.

"'And what may you be doing in these parts? An Elf, a Man, and a Dwarf, all
clad in Elvish fashion.'"

GONDOR CULTURE

Boromir, My Brother
0 Twilight Cost
Gondor Culture
Condition
+1 Vitality
4 R 111

Bearer must be Faramir.
Skirmish: Discard a (Gondor) card from hand to make a Ring-bound Man
strength +1.

"'Where is thy horn? Whither goest thou? O Boromir! But he was gone.'"

Faramir, Son of Denethor
(3) Comopanion. Man
St: 7 V: 3 Frodo signet
Ringbound. Ranger
An oppoent skirmishing Faramir may not play skirmish events or use skirmish special abilities.

Faramir's Bow
1 Twilight Cost
Gondor Culture
Possession, Ranged Weapon
4 R 118

Bearer must be Faramir.
He is an archer.
Skirmish: If Faramir is Skirmishing a Man or a roaming minion, exert Faramir
to wound that minion.

"'Were I as hasty as you, I might have slain you long ago.'"


ISENGARD CULTURE
Uruk Vanguard (10)
Minion - Uruk-Hai
Str:17
Vit:4
Site:5
Damage +1 (Or Damage +2 if at a Battleground.)
To play, spot an Uruk-Hai. At a Battleground, this
minion is Fierce.

RAIDER CULTURE

<5> *Easterling Captain [Raider]
Minion - Man
S{11} V(3) HS[4]
Eastering, Fierce
Skirmish: Spot 2 burdens and remove (2) to make an Easterling strength +2.
Skirmish: Spot 4 burdens and remove (2) to make an Easterling strength +3
Skirmish: Spot 6 burdens and remove (2) to make an Easterling strength

ROHAN CULTURE
Weapon Store
Condition.
Plays to your support area.
Fellowship: Exert a Rohan Man to play a hand weapon
from your discard pile.

Eowyn, Lady of Rohan
(2) Companion. Man
st: 6, Vit: 3, Theoden Signet
Valiant
Response: If an unbound companion is about to take a wound, exert Eowyn and add 1 to prevent that wound

SHIRE CULTURE
Pippin, Just a Nuisance
1 Twilight
Shire Culture
Companion, Hobbit
Strength - 3
Vitality - 4
Gandalf Signet
(card numbers and rarity have not yet been assigned)

Skirmish: If Pippin is not assigned to a skirmish, discard him to remove
an
Uruk-hai from a skirmish involving an unbound companion.

"'What good have I been?... a passenger, a piece of luggage.'"

 

Thanks for lsiting all teh spoilers in one place, BPJ! So far we've seen 14 of the 365 TTT cards. Only 350 to go! We've also gotten a taste of every culture that'll be in the set except Sauron. Hopefully Decipher realizes that too and next week we'll find out what the forces of the Eye are up to this time.

So what is everyone looking forward to in the next set, and what decks will you want to build once you get your new cards? I'm excited about the new cultures, especially Dunland and the Easterling segment of the Raiders. Dunland's focus on site control sounds like it'll offer a very new playing experience, and the Easterlings sound like just the thing to get corruption to be a viable deck archetype. I can't wait to try an Easterling/Nazgul corruption deck. It makes sense too, since Ulaire Attea used to be the king of the Easterlings. Another good thing about the new minion cultures is that they're all Men, so maybe it'll be safer to play Orcs. With like 75% of the FotR minions being Orcs and all the counters available that target them, no wonder Uruks are so dominant these days.

In the Free Peoples arena, I'm looking forward to some new power for the Shire, as well as an even more powerful Gandalf culture (reflecting his new status as Gandalf the White), and an influx of Gondor Men thanks to Faramir's Rangers of Ithilien. The Shire, I'm thinking, has to get something good to make them stronger in TTT since they won't have any Shire townspeople to support them in Towers-only play. Maybe this is where the Ents will come into play? Gandalf will get something good going on, since he's more powerful in TTT. Maybe he'll get some new spells that play a more direct role on offense as opposed to support? Hopefully it will be something to make up for the weakening of Trust Me from the clarification on limit. For Gondor I'm hoping that there will be some more new companions besides Faramir. They don't have to be Rangers (although that would be nice), but more Gondor Men would be great, especially if they made 2-cost ones so you could start with more than one. I like what we've heard about them making minions roaming at higher sites than they normally are, but D will have to be careful about this since that's basically what the pre-errata We Must Go Warily did. Maybe have it take effect in the maneuver phase and then last until the regroup phase? Even if the new Gondor Men aren't Rangers it's okay, since we already have 3. Making minions roaming would be such money for Gondor. Eregion's Trails, What Are They? and Swordsman of the Northern Kingdom already key off of Rangers vs Roamers, all we really need is a way to make minions roam longer and the Men of Gondor will really clean house. Having more companions will also make all those Citadels of Minas Tirith we got in RotEL actually worth something, since you can make an all-Gondor deck that actually wins all its skirmishes. I also hope to see a generic Gondor hand weapon. Aragorn did okay with an uncommon sword, but poor Boromir had to depend on pumps too often, since I only had 1 Blade of Gondor.

I can't wait to build a Gondor/Dunland deck once I get the new cards. And lucky me, I hear there's going to be a starter deck with exactly that makeup (although it's Aragorn, so its Gondor side may be more focused on the Three Hunters than the Rangers of Ithilien).

 

Perhaps they will haver a non-unique Gondor companion. St:4 V:2 To play, spot a Gondor man.

 

Going to need to put some real dollars aside for this expansion. Can't wait for Decipher to start spoiling some of the cards with actual "images" of them on their site. Finally got my Faromir card in the mail from Decipher today. Hope the other one we sent in for arrives in the near future as well.

R'Bolt

 

Kyle has some great info today...

First, I want to make sure that everyone has gone and pre-registered for
DecipherCon! Remember that your first opportunity to purchase and play with
the new The Two Towers cards will be at DecipherCon since we are doing
pre-releases there. You can find the links to pre-register at
www.decipher.com

See you there!

As promised, today we are talking about what Ambush means and how the
Raiders (or more specifically, the Southrons) will take full advantage of
this new loaded keyword. To better explain how this new loaded keyword
works, I have again copied the exact text from the rulebook for your reading
pleasure:

----------------------------------------------------
Ambush

When the Free Peoples player assigns one of his characters to skirmish a
minion with the keyword ambush (X), the Shadow player who owns that minion
may add (X).

If your Southron with ambush (2) is assigned by the Free Peoples player,
you
may add two tokens to the twilight pool.
----------------------------------------------------

One of the major advantages of adding all this twilight into the pool would
be to keep the Free Peoples player from moving again in the same turn. It
also hampers twilight choke decks and allows the Raider culture to pull off
cool maneuver, archery, and skirmish actions that cost twilight.

Here is an example of a character with Ambush:


Southron Wanderer
3 Twilight Cost
Raider Culture
Minion, Man
8 Strength
2 Vitality
4 Site Number
4 C 258

Southron. Ambush (1)
Assignment: Exert this minion and spot 5 companions to assign this minion
to
the Ring-bearer. The Free Peoples player may add (4) to prevent this.

Some desert warriors have no allegiance and work for any factions that will
pay them.


One of the cool things about the Raider culture is the way they cross over
abilities with some of the other cultures. They have the ability to generate
pool like the Moria culture, they have some site control like the Dunland
culture, the ability to add burdens like the Sauron culture, and they can
punish you for big Fellowships like the Isengard culture. They also stand
out by themselves as well with the Ambush ability and quite a bit of
Archery.

How can the Raiders take full advantage of all this twilight they generate?
Here is an example:


Desert Spearman
3 Twilight Cost
Raider Culture
Minion, Man
8 Strength
2 Vitality
4 Site Number
4 C 221

Southron
At the start of each skirmish involving this minion, you may remove (3) to
wound a companion or ally he is skirmishing.

Long spears are used by Southrons to attack while riding desert beasts.


Not a bad ability, especially for a common card. This is just a glimpse
of
all the things the Raider culture will be able to explore. You will be able
to use this twilight for a myriad of purposes, what that is and how you use
it will be up to your imagination.

Some vital statistics of the Raider culture:
Average Strength of Minions - 8.37
Average Vitality of Minions - 2.33
Number of Minions - 27
Average Twilight Cost - 4.96
Number of Cards in Raider Culture - 46

I know this doesn't mean that much since you probably haven't done this for
other cultures. But I thought you might like to see it.

Oh... one more thing... The Raider culture has the smallest minion in the
game right now. Even Bill Ferny could whoop him!

EDIT: This is what Kyle said on the Decipher BBS

This is not in any order, when I get to work each morning I will see which of these I feel like talking about. Here are this weeks topics:

Sites

What is not in The Two Towers

Formats of play when The Two Towers is released (there will be spoilers in this one that relate to the formats of play)

Shire
---------------------------------------------

BTW
here is where to get the list.

Friday (Thursday for those in the States) will be my last report from tyhe list for a while as I am off on

 

What's everyone's LOTR rating, just out of curiosity?

I'm 1743, #4 in the state of Oregon.

 

Kyle's mail said...

Sorry about this coming so late today, I had some other priorities today
that I needed to take care of (and get back to, so this might be a short
one
today).

Everyone's favorite ever-lovable Hobbits are today's topic. Or more to the
point, the unbound Hobbits (Merry and Pippin) are in focus today. As many
of
you may have already seen in one of my previous emails, I posted the spoiler
for Pippin, Just a Nuisance (if you didn't see that email, I'm sure that
someone will re-post it on our messageboards for everyone to see), please
check that spoiler out to get an idea of what some of the unbound Hobbits
can do.

Unbound Hobbits will create their own new deck theme once The Two Towers
comes out. Right now, we have Hobbit decks that are denial, there is the
'solo frodo' deck, and the uber-Sam and uber-Frodo deck with A Promise
(maybe I'm missing some here, go easy on me). These new unbound Hobbit decks
will revolve around discarding Merry and Pippin and then bringing them back
in to play in a strategic manner.

Warmed Up a Bit
0 Twilight Cost
Shire Culture
Event
4 C 322

Stealth.
Skirmish: Discard an unbound Hobbit.

"'...we shall be able to stand again, and walk.'"


Imagine if you will the Balrog about to beat down on your Fellowship. If
you
have this card in your hand you can send one of your unbound Hobbits up
against him and just discard him (thus, being able to play him again in the
future. He doesn't go to the dead pile!). Suddenly the skirmish is over and
the Balrog is sitting there wondering what happened. Those sneaky little
rascals!

So you are saying to yourself "I just don't get it, why would I want to do
this, and why is this a viable deck strategy?" Good questions! There are
a
bit of other cards that go into making this a real cool strategy, just
enough that I can't show them all to you today (I will, however, show you
more about this tomorrow as it also links to my "What's not in TTT" email
I'm doing tomorrow).

Other supporting cards for this theme include:

Knocked on the Head
0 Twilight Cost
Shire Culture
Event
4 C 308

Regroup: Play an unbound Hobbit from your discard pile.

"'I wonder if poor Merry is much hurt.'"


What??? Did I read that right? Play a companion in the Regroup phase! Did
Merry or Pippin just get Knocked on the Head? Play them again and keep
going! Or stop moving and you won't have to worry about that extra twilight
you just added into the pool.

Like I said, I will go more into this particular theme tomorrow. Today is
just a taste (and I need to get back to work on other things). Thanks and
talk to you tomorrow!

Very interesting.

EDIT: Hey Bib, where have you been?

 

I like that card that discards Hobbits. It is such a fun way to deftly avoid Savagery and other evil stuff.

 

I just read it again...

Solo Frodo? Man, I gotta see how that works!

I like these new Shire cards. Best of all, the discard are common. 4 stealth, 4 intuition, 4 Discard. Hmmmmmmm

If you want a spoiler of the Trailer, check here

It is a scene by scene description of the trailer.

 

Very interesting e-mail today from Kyle:

"As promised, here is a very good look inside some of the beginings of The
Two Towers expansion set, and what we have to deal with in making a set of
cards for a new movie.

Let's all jump in the 'Way-back Machine' to the spring of 2002 (you can
remember back that far can't you?). The design work on The Two Towers had
been going on for a couple of months and all the cultures that were going
tobe incorporated into the set were mostly designed (we had been designing
from the script). Warren Holland (CEO) and Dan Burns (VP Art) were going
to New Zealand to select images directly from the film to use for the cards.
The Design team gave them a shopping list of things that they needed/wanted for The Two Towers set, this was based on things from the book and the script we had.

Two weeks later Dan and Warren return from New Zealand with some bad news...

Due to the fact that we needed to get images so early from the film, there were certain things that we weren't able to make cards for. Either the special effects were not completed, or simply, they didn't want us to show certain things before the film released (after all, we will be showing 365 cards from The Two Towers movie about six weeks early!).

Casualties of the special effects not being done include:

Sauron orcs
The Nazgul
Wargs
Mumaks
Isengard Orcs

However, these cards will be included in the Towers Block in Battle of Helm's Deep and/or Ents of Fangorn! That's right, you will get new cards for the Sauron culture and Nazgul culture in the not to distant future! However, this does mean that you won't get any in The Two Towers...


Casualties of not being able to show images before the movie include:

Gollum
Other assorted things we can't talk about... and please don't ask because Ican't tell you.

Again, you should see these things in either Battle of Helm's Deep or Ents of Fangorn.


This cast our design team into a panic as they needed to go back to the drawing board since 1/3 of the set was rendered non usable. However, many of these cards will be used in one of the next sets (they like the fact that some of the design work is already done for Helm's Deep). Also, some of the
mechanics for the cards were re-worked and fit into the set via other cultures.


Another casualty of the new movie is the fact that there are no Moria orcs. They never return to Moria in the book, so we won't be able to return to new cards for the Moria culture until sometime after The Return of the King series of expansions are done.

There has long been the belief that there would be an Ent culture as well. I'm going to have to be the bearer of bad news and tell you that there won't be a new culture for the Ents. The Ents will mainly fall into the Gandalf
culture and utilize the keyword 'Ent'. This will greatly increase the card pool for the Gandalf culture as we go along.

To better illustrate the Ents, I give you this spoiler:

? Treebeard, Earthborn
4 Twilight Cost
Gandalf Culture
Ally, Home 2(t) & 8(t), Ent
Strength = 12
Vitality = 4
4 R 103

Unhasty.
Response: If an unbound Hobbit is about to be disarded, stack him here
instead.
Fellowship: Exert Treebeard and add (1) to play an unbound Hobbit stacked
here.
"'Do not be hasty, that is my motto.'"


I know that I haven't yet explained what Unhasty means, and I'm not going
to do it today. Rest assured that it means you won't be able to call Treebeard up to fight with the Horn of Boromir...

As you can see, this guy is going to work well with the unbound Hobbits that we talked about yesterday. In addition to those cards I wanted to show you a card that works with the unbound Hobbit theme AND gives you a glimpse into the fact that there will be Sauron cards in The Two Towers Block. Here you go:

? Merry, Unquenchable Hobbit
1 Twilight Cost
Shire Culture
Companion, Hobbit
Strength = 3
Vitality = 4
Gandalf Signet
4 R 311

Skirmish: If Merry is not assigned to a skirmish, discard him to remove a
(Sauron) Orc from a skirmish in

 

One of the biggest questions I have heard from all of you players is "Will
my Fellowship block cards still be usable when The Two Towers comes out?"
Let me start this email off by giving a resounding YES!

All these rumors have been floating around because we have said there will
be a new Adventure Path, and that you can only use Towers block sites in
the
open format, etc... Today I will try and answer some of these burning
questions and put all your minds at ease

I have copied this segment from the new rule book to illustrate how things
will work when The Two Towers is released:

---------------------------------------------


Formats:
Each game now has one of the following formats:
? Tower block (only cards from sets 4, 5, and 6),
? Fellowship block (only cards from sets 1, 2, and 3), or
? open (all cards allowed, except for Fellowship block sites).

Adventure Deck:
The sites provided in The Two Towers base set have site numbers identified
with the tower symbol (which I can't get into this email but will use (t)
to
identify it). The Two Towers site deck is numbered from 1(t) to 9(t), just
like The Fellowship of the Ring site deck is numbered from 1 to 9.

This is an alternative to the sites from the first three sets, not an
extension of those sites. The game will always have only 9 sites in the
adventure deck.

You may not mix sites from different blocks in the same adventure deck.

Adventure Path Sites from The Two Towers set have a site identifier: the
tower symbol (t). Fellowship block sites have no such symbol, and therefore
have a ³blank² identifier.

Great Hall has a site number of 6 and a site identifier of (t) (Tower
block). Dimrill Dale also has a site number of 6 and no site identifier
(which means it¹s from the Fellowship block).

Minions:
For playing minions, use only the site number, not the site identifier.
A Moria Orc is roaming at site 3 (Fellowship block) and at site 3(t) (Tower
block).

Allies:
For the home sites of allies, use the site identifier. An ally from the
Fellowship block has no home site in the Tower block. Elrond¹s home site is
3, not 3(t).

Game text:
When a site¹s number is specifically mentioned in game text, that number
uses the site identifier. Hobbit Stealth (Skirmish: At sites 1 to 5, cancel
a skirmish involving a Hobbit. At any other site, make a Hobbit strength
+2.) cannot cancel a skirmish in the Tower block. However, this card adds
its strength bonus at any Two Towers site.

---------------------------------------------

The most important of these items above is the open format of play. This
tells you that all the cards you have worked so hard at getting will still
be playable in your local tournaments, and large scale events as well. It
does mean, however, that you will never be able to take control of a
Fellowship site (at least for now)...

There will be an article posted on www.decipher.com tomorrow (9/27/02) that
explains in detail how these three formats of tournament play will be
incorporated into the DGMA and local tournament systems. The article
tomorrow also discusses the splitting of the Fellowship (basically what
Ring-bound and unbound mean), a more in-depth explanation on the gameplay
formats, how this will affect your ratings, and the impact on the
Championship Circuit.

I highly recommend that you read this article tomorrow.

Other notes of interest that are upcoming is the fact that starting next
Tuesday (10/1/02) we will start hosting a weekly chat on our Lord of the
Rings: Everything Else messageboard with the designers of The Two Towers.
One designer will drop by each Tuesday to discuss The Two Towers and answer
any questions you may have (and they can answer). They might even have a
spoiler or two!

Here is the link to the messageboard where all the action takes place:

http://calder.decipher.com/cgi-bin/msgbd?lotr-miscellany

We hope to see you there each week!

More programming notes:
? The Two Towers area of www.decipher.com launches tomorrow! (9/27/02

 

Gandalf's Staff, Walking Stick (2)
Artifact - Staff
Vitality +1
While you can spot 2 twilight tokens, Gandalf is damage +2

4 R 91
---------------------------------------

Maybe not the most exciting of topics, but since I went a little into the
sites for The Two Towers yesterday, I figure we should explore this a little
more today.

As you already know, the sites for The Two Towers range from site 1(t) to
9(t). Sanctuaries will again be at sites 3(t) and 6(t), so there is no real
change there. There are 41 sites total in The Two Towers (compared with a
total of 45 for Fellowship). Most notably, every site in The Two Towers is
Uncommon!

Here is a breakdown on the Shadow Number averages for each site in The Two
Towers:

Site 1: 0 (there are 7 versions)
Site 2: 2 (there are 7 versions)
Site 3: .5 (there are 6 versions)
Site 4: 2.75 (there are 4 versions)
Site 5: 7 (there are 5 versions)
Site 6: 3 (there are 3 versions)
Site 7: 6.33 (there are 3 versions)
Site 8: 6.5 (there are 2 versions)
Site 9: 8.75 (there are 4 versions)

One last cool thing about the new sites is that the site numbers have been
moved slightly on the card template. Look at one of your sites as they
currently are. Go ahead... See where the site numbers are? The new The Two
Towers site numbers have been moved just below where the old site numbers
were. Above each new The Two Towers site number is one of the Two Towers
from the movie/book. That is the symbol that signifies that it is a The Two
Towers site. It's also the symbol that you will see in all the game text of
other cards such as Treebeard, Earthborn or Forests of Ithilien.

Fun stuff, can't wait to start running down these sites!

Programming notes:
There is a new spoiler on Radio Free Decipher today. Make sure to check that
out! There is also some real cool info on DecipherCon and all the events
that will happen there as well as the new League Kit for The Two Towers,
called Race to Mount Doom!

Also, The Two Towers area of www.decipher.com opens today! Get ready for an
onslaught of info (next Tuesday in reality... lol)!

On to today's spoilers!

Westemnet Plains
Site 3(t)
Shadow Number = 1
Plains. Sanctuary. Each (Dunland) Man may not take wounds during the archery
plase.
4 U 342

Looking for a way to keep the Dunlendings safe from archery? Here is a
possible helper!

Oh yea, I kind of messed this up from place to place, but I had the TCG guys
set me straight: It's "Dunland" and "Dunlending"... I kept messing up the
'a' and 'e' in there...

Um... This one should make all you Isengard players happy...

Deeping Wall
Site 5(t)
Shadow Number = 7
Battleground. Shadow: Play Saruman from your draw deck.
4 U 348

This tells you some things. Now you know there will probably be a Saruman in
The Two Towers (as if you didn't know from reading the book). And that the
Uruk Vanguard should wreck shop at this site if they add 7 more pool on top
of this (that would be 14 pool, just enough for Saruman and the Uruk
Vanguard).

Have a great weekend everyone!

 

This is SO awesome!!! I have a question. I play a strict Elf deck. Is this expansion going to allow more achery?? I mean, like I can only have 4 Elven bows.......and I need something to add more archery. I was wondering if you could say or if thing were still hush hush. And is there any word on Shelob???

 

I don't know if more Elven Archery is going to crop up in The Two Towers or not. According to the design notes article on Decipher.com today, they wanted to try, but they weren't sure it would be possible. If they let the Elves get too much archery, a dedicated deck could get enough archery to wipe out nearly every minion force before skirmishing.

If you just want mass fellowship archery, your best bet would probably be to eschew the Elves-only theme and go for Gondor/Elves. Use Aragorn KiE, RotEL Boromir and Legolas, and Arwen DoE, along with Haldir and some Lorien Elves for your companions. Elven Bows and Aragorn's Bow plus Legolas gives you 6 archers, plus Legolas adds an extra 1 at forests and rivers, and Aragorn can do direct damage. Add in Spelndor of Their Banners so Legolas can exert to add 1 to the archery total (and heal him with KiE so you can do it every turn). Gondor Bowmen adds a one-time +2 for an exertion of Aragorn or Boromir (use the self-healing Boromir for it if you can). Horn of Boromir lets you call up site 6 archer allies. Double Shot provides a free one-time +1. If you focus on this, you can get 7-8 archery each site easily, especially in the late game once you've gotten set up.

 

Gríma is posted on www.dgma.com! He will be great in taking down those super fellowships that run tons of cards on Aragorn, Boromir and Arwen.

Plus, chances are real good he'll clog your opponent's hand with extra FP cards, so there's won't be as many Shadow cards played against you next turn.

 

New cards up on Decipher! New One Ring, Treebeard and Eowyn!

The One Ring rocks so much.

 

Really neat they're starting to post actual card images!

R'Bolt

 

New Frodo posted.

 

Where did you fina picture of Treebeard??? And onther thing, I hear that Treebeard will be power 12. In the books I am nearly certain that Treebeard said, in the books, that Ent were more powerfull than trolls. But Decipher has made the Cave Troll power 15. I mean, in the books Ents were demolishing solid stone wall with there fists. Am I mistaken here?

 

I was wondering the same thing. Perhaps, they feel it's too much of a spoiler image to post that far in advance?

R'Bolt

 

New Legolas posted. He's quite interesting, and the pic is fantastic.

 

New Haldir and common Legolas posted. Looks like New Line asked Decipher to take down the treebeard card. Not sure I understand the reasons for that, given the set will debut well before the movie release.

Two Towere Card List

R'Bolt

 

Gríma and Uglúk posted.