Dwar Unleashed

Where the Virtual Boyz plan their latest capers
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Frodo
Ex Council Member
Posts: 506
Joined: Tue Apr 18, 2006 5:09 am
Location: NYC, NY

I have to admit, I don’t have any attachments to a “set” of new Unleashed cards. I do have attachments to creating new, viable strategies for each Ringwraith, but we don’t have to redo each Unleashed. In fact, personally, I liked the idea (a lot) of finally not redoing yet another Unleashed, but trying to find another way to bolster the Dwar deck.

I’m going to edit the Carcharoth idea, address arguments, then look at some of Thorsten’s ideas. This is still a discussion, of course, so I hope people voice critiques or adjustments.

Issue: Fragility of Carcharoth Ally
After I posted Carcharoth, I realized it was silly to give him any prowess/body stats at all, and he should instead be like Regiment of Crows and say “Cannot be attacked.” He’s a spirit, after all. This means you will only lose him if Dwar gets wounded and the body check is exactly equal to 7 or 8, as per LE Rules.

Issue: Playability of Carcharoth Ally (and subsequent movement)
As Ben pointed out, you can discard the wolf ally from ANY company. (The wolf is sacrificed to Carcharoth.) This means you can play Carcharoth first turn. The only wrinikle is that Dwar has to tap, which actually sucks, because he needs to tap to send 5 cards to the discard pile, and even one turn of tapping for something else means he’s not available for playing another wolf ally, faction, etc. But this is solves easily by making him like Radagast and his Black bird and writing, “Playable by an untapped or tapped Dwar.”

What about his movement without the ally? If we thought, in the absence of drawing up a first-turn Wolf ally, it was useful for him to move first turn with Black Rider (original) to some site, we could allow Carcharoth to also be played at a Ruins and Lairs… since Dwar does not have to tap for Carcharoth now, Dwar could conceivably tap for something else (like at Ettenmoors), even for a War-wolf, etc. to discard. What do we think?

If playing a Wolf ally only to discard it STILL feels like too much setup, we can say “if you discard a Wolf ally from hand or any company.” (It would funny, and very very twisted, to say “if you discard a Wolf ally and Man from hand or any company”—thus simulating the actual birth of werewolf Carcharoth… eww.)

Issue: Aesthetics of Mode, Playing Wolf Spells
We all love the idea of Dwar riding a wolf. Why not have him ride the meanest wolf in town, who was known as the “greatest wolf of all time” in Tolkien’s text? It also makes thematic sense that the sentient Carcharoth (who could speak, like the Wargs) can cast Wolf spells and draw his cousins from the deck.

Left Out Text: Modify Orc Mounts
I completely forgot about pulling Our Own Wolves and Hounds into hand. This text needs to go back on Orc-Mounts.

Issue: Text?
If we thought Carcharoth had too much text, we could scrap the Dark-domain ability (or the “spilled-over ink bottle effect”, as Thorsten so nicely put it) but it does make Carcharoth seem very evil, it enhances strategy, AND it gives you another reason to get those Wolf factions. Oh wait, there is no longer that much text on him… since we are adding text back to Orc-mounts, it simplifies Carcharoth a bit.

Issue: Thorsten’s Special Movement
Thorsten you’re right, I only half-understood your point about Dwar meeting up with wolfless characters. It seems you were actually trying to create an elegant movement solution whereby the non-Dwar company is forced to leave Dwar’s site but can still easily meet up with Dwar. Let me try to analyze it a bit here.

You wrote: “Non RW characters may join Dwar during site phase at a Ruins and may play wolf allies there (even if tapped). Each non RW character controlling a wolf ally may be in Dwar's company and gives +1 on a roll against a wolf faction.”

I wrote on Carcharoth, “Characters with Wolf allies may be in Dwar's company during the site phase,” which doesn’t work, of course, because it is far too limiting—they may not all have Wolf allies yet, for one thing.

I think the solution is to say: “Characters may be in Dwar’s company during the site phase.” Dwar can still amass a pile of Wolves if he really wants them during a movement phase; but does he really need to be moving with other characters? The dog swarm effect of Dwar can still be felt during the site phase when Dwar meets up with the others, possibly to do CVCC. Another possibility is: “Characters may be in Dwar’s company during the site phase; if site is a tapped or untapped Ruins and Lairs, they may play wolf allies.” I’m not sure whether this is still needed, but it is a smart solution to the problem with Dwar being at those unique Wolf faction sites where wolf allies are usually not playable, and thus his other companies have little incentive to meet up with him. But either way we decide it, Dwar will still remain the Dog Trouper. Thoughts of these clauses? (Btw, if we do this, we’ll have to adjust Orc Mounts so you can transfer dogs even if they are not moving).

Issue: Reward for Wolves
Now, what’s the reward for Dwar traveling with a pack of wolves, you all may be asking? I think the reward is implicit in the use of the card Our Own Wolves. The more wolves you have, the more huge allies you’ll possess for dealing with creature attacks, quest cards with attacks, etc. It also gives you lots of extra strikes to assign in CVCC. I hope this is enough.

Future Ideas
Ben’s point about bringing in a Wolf faction at Henneth Annun to support a Gondor raid really stuck in my head! Hmm. Maybe we can have some text in the future that says wherever there is a Wolf auto-attack, you can play a Unique Wolf faction (even if once per game), and then adjacent regions would get some awesome effect from the Wolf factions. This would create a very cool mechanic whereby you would need to throw down Fell Winter on the board, snow-in Henneth Annun, then play a Wolf faction there, so that your attacks on Gondor are now supported. Hmm, maybe this should be part of the “faction set” of support cards?

If we go with this ally idea, do we want to use War-Warg, or Hounds of Sauron? Marcos, are you out there?

Summary of Joe’s Suggested Cards at Present:

Orc-Mounts
Playable at any tapped or untapped site with a Wolf automatic-attack (if you have a Wolf faction in play) or an Orc automatic-attack if the influence check is >10. Standard modifications: +3 if Dwar is your Ringwraith or Saruman is your Fallen-wizard. Your unique Wolf factions gain “Standard modifications: +2 for each Wolf in company.”
Tap Orc-mounts to transfer a Wolf ally to another controller if the ally is moving. You may untap the new controller or heal the ally.
Once during your end-of-turn phase, you may take Our Own Wolves or Hounds of Sauron from your discard pile into hand. Our Own Wolves no longer creates an attack against your companies.

Or, for Thorsten’s movement: “If the ally is moving you may untap the new controller or heal the ally.”

War-Warg (V)
Ranger Ally.
Spirit of Carcharoth. Playable by Dwar (as your Ringwraith) during the site phase at a Darkhaven, if you discard a Wolf ally from any company. Cannot be attacked. Treat this card like a Black Horse for the purposes of Black Rider (V). Characters with Wolf allies may be in Dwar's company during the site phase. Tap to take Dwar Unleashed or any Wolf into hand from discard pile or play deck (reshuffle), or if not moving to turn its current region (and one adjacent region for each unique Wolf faction in play) into a [D] until your next organization phase. This ally may play Our Own Wolves and Hounds of Sauron. Spirit of Carcharoth cannot be duplicated.

Frodo
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