[v] Long Grevious Siege/Grond

[Thorsten the Traveller]

I'm a bit hesitant to add more burning MP cards. Like Marcos says, do we need another? Other than theme it doesn't add much.
And I think playtesting will show that Fell Rider Khamul and Co. can walse into this place. In fact, since this card doesn't tap the site, it can be played in addition to an item and Smoke, yielding 11 mp's in one turn, that's a bit over the top. Say no maia are played on you when moving from Morgul to Tirith (because you have them all on the table yourself, except Alatar of course), then a fell rider comp. with 3@12 goes through the auto unscratched, plays item, has no problem with Smoke, and your third untapped ringwraith faces 3 strikes at 11, 12 and 14 prowess against which he needs to remain untapped. So basically, al you need is one card to deal with it all this! (yeah yeah, I know, Rivers do flow in Anorien...)
So at least some Smoke clause should be included, or is it really intended to give 5 extra mp's on top of the usual combo? Because I don't think the faction/grond requirement is that hard.

btw., in first firsion, it could be played on Minas Tirith, if you Repair Henneth Anun and play some Snaga's there. Now there's a mission for yeh

[marcos]

how do you plan to rebuild a border hold? (hennet anun)

[Jambo]

I'm a bit hesitant to add more burning MP cards. Like Marcos says, do we need another? Other than theme it doesn't add much.

Although similar, it's not really a burning card, it's more of a capturing card. The changing of Anorien in a Shadow-land and MT into a shadow-hold is to simulate what originally happened to Minas Ithil as it became Minas Morgul.

The reason for a MT specific card is to try to make minion decks based in and around Gondor, Khand and Harondor, more appealing. For active RWs in particular there's no all that much to be gained round these areas.

And I think playtesting will show that Fell Rider Khamul and Co. can walse into this place. In fact, since this card doesn't tap the site, it can be played in addition to an item and Smoke, yielding 11 mp's in one turn, that's a bit over the top. Say no maia are played on you when moving from Morgul to Tirith (because you have them all on the table yourself, except Alatar of course), then a fell rider comp. with 3@12 goes through the auto unscratched, plays item, has no problem with Smoke, and your third untapped ringwraith faces 3 strikes at 11, 12 and 14 prowess against which he needs to remain untapped. So basically, al you need is one card to deal with it all this! (yeah yeah, I know, Rivers do flow in Anorien...).

Just to correct one inconsistency - Khamul's company in Fell Rider mode wouldn't ever be 3@12. Only Khamul can reach those dizzy heights since the Fell Rider card only imparts the bonus to prowess and penalty to DI to your RW. Any other RWs would only receive bonuses or minuses as stated on their character cards. If I recall correctly, at most this can get them to a prowess of 10. After all these attacks, and the requirement for your RW to tap, is it really that likely that you'll have tons of other characters available to tap to play items, Smoke on the Wind, etc? There's also the automatic attacks to consider and any other Maia your opponent may throw at you.

I envisage this card will be like other major mission card, in that to get the conditions right for the MPs to be attained will take you some time. Two Man factions and an Orc faction with Grond is nothing to sniff at and Man factions in general aren't very lucrative!

So at least some Smoke clause should be included, or is it really intended to give 5 extra mp's on top of the usual combo? Because I don't think the faction/grond requirement is that hard.

Some clause for Smoke on the Wind may be in order.

[Thorsten the Traveller]

You can discard a Vile Fumes to make it a Ruins. Or, bit trickier, you can send your opponent to Henneth Anun with Chance of Being Lost (or whatever), and then Gloom the place, or invoke Nature's Revenge, then move in and Repair it for Sauron

[marcos]

can you play nature's revenge on your own site? anyway, grond is only playable on unique factions, so no gronding snaga hai at henneth annun after all

[Jambo]

One could also add something to encourage interaction with an opposing hero player. For instance by making the card be discarded if Minas Tirith subsequent leaves play (done by attaching it to Minas Tirith).

And/or expand on the Maia theme by forcing the minion company to face an attack from each Maia in play?

For example:

Long Grevious Siege V:
MP (5)
Permanent-event
+1 to your influence attempts against Man and Dunadan factions. If your Ringwraith or a leader is at Minas Tirith and you have at least one Orc and two Man/Dunadan factions in play, and Grond is in play, you may tap this card during the site phase. When tapped, the company faces 3 attacks (Men - 5 strikes with 9 prowess, Dunadan - 4 strikes with 10 prowess, Dunadan - 1 strike with 13 prowess, and attacks from all Maia permanent-events). Following the attacks, tap your Ringwraith or leader to place this card with Minas Tirith and receive its MP. All versions of Minas Tirith become a Shadow-hold, lose their normal automatic attacks, and receive an automatic attack (Orcs - 4 strikes with 7 prowess - detainment against your companies). Anorien becomes a Shadow-land. Cannot be duplicated.

[Thorsten the Traveller]

Good thing you cleared that up Jambo (well at least cleared it for me ), I was under impression Fell Rider was played on company, which is true but of course it's a one person company originally, and it says on the card '+2 to your rw'. It is important, but still, unless Chilled (which can be voiced), entering MT and playing item/smoke/siege will be no problem really if you have the maia on the table and arrive with 3 RW untapped (of course you can have up to 5 of them in a comp with Khamul Unleashed, or a bunch of trolls/orcs with I'll report you). You face the attacks in order from weakest to strongest, so if you have 3 guys base 10, you just have to avoid the snake eyes and 3's. When moving from Morgul, I'd be worried more about Uruk-lieutenants actually (or perhaps the Ents start getting very popular, but anyway, once you're in MT nothing much can hit you, so it'd still be 11 mp's in 2 turns, at least.)

I like the theme obviously, but changing MT/Anorien won't do much since it's probably late in the game. The White Tree effect is nice, but obviously is only important if opponent plays it. I'm not sure you enhance active RW Gondor decks with this card. I can and will easily go for other man-factions worth more MP's than Southrons with my starting company, whilst building up Khamul's companyin Morgul, playing the Orcs and Grond, to score 11 mp in the final turn. You'd have to specify the faction requirement then (would also fit the theme better).

Also, Long Grevious Siege is a Balrog rare, that's a bummer, ok you only need 1 probably, a good reason to keep it Minas Tirith only btw., but still. Cool card to virtualize though, I admit. But if there's ever going to be faction battling, wouldn't it be better used in that context than for another burning mission?

[Thorsten the Traveller]

@Marcos: true, in the new version you have to have Grond in play, doesn't say it has to be played on the Snaga, but on the first it does (when you reply you can't read back until beginning of message, that's a bummer).
If you provide a site for your opponent, I think you can still play Nature's Revenge on it, why not? Of course, if opponent is of same alignment, you then can't use the site yourself, so you'd need the (almost accepted) UEP for this to play it on opposing alignment.

facing attacks from the Maiar in play would definitely make it more difficult The 1@13 Dunadan is Aragorn?

It would be difficult to fit on the card, but can a faction requirement be incorporated, like any faction at sites in regions of Mordor or adjacent?

[Jambo]

If you have the Maia on the table, they will still attack your company. On top of that you wouldn't even receive any of the MPs should you per-chance manage to kill one.

Plus, if Alatar's one of them, they'll all be attacking with an extra strike!

Another interesting option would be if you could add something like:
"A hero company at Minas Tirith may initiate CvCC after the Maia attacks."

Getting long on the text though.

[Jambo]

The 1@13 is Boromir

[Nerdmeetsyou]

Maybe delay this card...
for our faction battle set????

I think some kind of this card would be a perfect fit for it!!!
and then making depend on the factions in this region