Council of Elrond

Jambo wrote:Please can you rule on:

1. RW followers and WHCtK to finally clear that one up.
2. RW followers and 1 char per turn (e.g. Khamul and The Witch-king). I can see you're already deliberating this anyway.

When there's discrepancy or uncertainty opening doors is sometimes better than closing them.

This thread is for 2.

Discussion already exists in these two threads: 1, 2.

I'm inclined right now to say that Khamul and WK should allow their rw-followers in addition to the normal 1-char-per-turn rule.

Black horse... I just don't understand that card. What on earth does it do?

We should probably also keep in mind Open to the Summons and Thrall of the Voice in making these rulings....

Ok, cards like Khamul, WK, They Ride Together, Strider, ACM and WHCtK all say "bring character into play". I'm inclined to agree that this wording will let you play the character for free, not counting against the 1-per-turn rule.

Open to the Summons and Black Horse say "play character". I'm think they only let you play a character that would not normally be playable, so the character should still count towards the 1-per-turn limit. Other playability restrictions probably should apply as well.

Thrall's wording is clear, the character will count against the limit.

The question was about 1-per-turn limit, but I suppose we should go over the other questions as well: when and where.

WK, Khamul and They Ride Together all state they are effective in organization phase. So that's when.

They Ride Together will take place only at a Darkhaven, but the WK and Khamul do not mention where. In comparison with Strider, should they be able to get followers at any site?

Then of course there's still one Rw we didn't include here. Uvatha says "He may join another Ringwraith's company during your organization phase and requires no influence to control". Wow. Does he use 1-char-per-turn limit or not? Can he join at any site?

To add to the fun, I'm copying Dave's rulesquote from the other thread (emphasis is mine):

RINGWRAITH FOLLOWERS
If the following conditions are met, you may bring another (different) Ringwraith character into play at your Ringwraith's site - such a character is called a "Ringwraith follower."
· Your Ringwraith is already in play.
· Your Ringwraith is at a Darkhaven or he is at the Ringwraith follower's home site.
· You have the card of the additional Ringwraith in your hand.
· Your opponent does not have the Ringwraith already in play and the Ringwraith has not been eliminated.
· You have the card or ability allowing a Ringwraith follower to be played (e.g., They Ride Together, The Witch-king's ability).

Notice how the quote talks about bringing characters into play and playing characters as if it's the same damn thing...

My point from the other thread is that the rules for bringing RW followers into play is very specific. The requirements are listed (you need to be at a Darkhaven or homesite, etc.) and in addition you must have the card or ability to bring a follower into play. Since this is in addition I don't believe the card can change these other requirements.

Also the rules about bringing characters into play (in regard to 1 character per turn) don't apply to RW followers. So all of these should not count to your 1 character per turn.

Wacho wrote:Also the rules about bringing characters into play (in regard to 1 character per turn) don't apply to RW followers. So all of these should not count to your 1 character per turn.

What's this now?

Why don't the rules apply?

The rules for bringing characters into play say you may either play one normal character or play a RW as your avatar if you don't have one in play. RW followers fall into neither of these two categories. You may not play a RW follower using the standard playing character rules and they are not mentioned by those rules (aside from a small comment saying RW followers follow other rules). Therefore those rules don't apply.

Proposed Ruling wrote:The play of Ringwraith followers is governed by the rules on page 58 of the Lidless Eye rulebook. The rule on page 20 of the LE rulebook which limit character play to one per turn does not apply to the play of RW followers. This overturns the ruling made in COE 105

Since this thread has been active for nearly a year I've proposed a ruling with regard to the one char/turn idea. As far as when the RW followers are allowed to be played all of the cards except Black Horse specifically say org. phase. Since Black Horse doesn't say this and the RW follower rules don't limit which phase you can play RW followers I don't see any problem with allowing RW followers to be played in other phases using Black Horse. However, digest ICE 585 specifically states RW followers can only be played in the org phase, so it might be better to stick with that.

I suggest we settle this in the comprehensive thread I just began here.