Some basic Fallen Wizard deck questions

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DuncanNeeds2Shave
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I'm confused about some Fallen Wizard rules.

1. Say for instance I play with the character Calendal (with Thrall of the Voice), and I keep him at The White Towers with the minion Palantir of Elostirion. According to the rules, all non-orc minion characters are considered to be Hero characters. If Calendal is then considered a hero character possessing minion Palantir of Elostirion, may he still use its abilities and get full marshaling points value for it?

2. May Bilbo Baggins (provided some other card or circumstance allows him to) for example use the abilities of a minion version of a Palantir and receive full marshaling points for it?

3. Palantir of Elostirion and Palantir of Orthanc (both minion and hero versions) are playable at The White Towers and Isengard, respectively. Those sites being wizard havens in a Fallen Wizard game, those items are then playable at wizard havens?? Does that mean you can start the game at The White Towers and play the Palantir of Elostirion the first turn if you have it in hand?

4. What up wit da half-orc dudes? They can be in a company with men, but can they be in a company with elves or dwarves? Can they be in a company with a Fallen Wizard?

5. Minion agents can be used as both characters and hazards. This seems to complicate and make loopholes in deck design. Assuming my resource/hazard ratio is 30/30 and my non-starting character max is 10, how does that shake out for the number of minion hazards I may use? Say for instance I keep Wormtongue in my deck, intending to use him as a hazard, but as circumstances change, I decide I want him as a character: may I play him so if I wish? Or in a reverse scenario, I may want Elwen as a character, but decide I want to use her instead as a hazard: how does that work?
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Konrad Klar
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1) He may use any version of the Palantir. CRF states that FW player does not receive MPs for Palantir of Elostirion and Palantir of Orthanc.

2) As above.

3) The items may be played even in first turn. Why not?

4) CRF states that Half-Orcs may do not make their company overt. Besides they are treated for all other purposes as Orcs. So outside of haven (also wizardhaven) they may not be in the same company as Elf, Dunadan, Hobbit, Dwarf. they may be in company with Wizard, also outside of haven (also wizardhaven).

5) In deck of FW player agent cards count as character cards. Limit of total 36 mind still applies.
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Konrad Klar
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More precisely:

5) For purposes of deck construction FW player's agent cards count as character cards. Limit of total 36 mind still applies.
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DuncanNeeds2Shave
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They may not receive marshaling points for the palantirs. That's kind of a bummer to the point that I don't think I want to play anymore.
Vastor Peredhil
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that's why you play DC where you get 1 MP for it at least ;)
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Konrad Klar
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DuncanNeeds2Shave wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 2:52 pm They may not receive marshaling points for the palantirs. That's kind of a bummer to the point that I don't think I want to play anymore.
Vastor Peredhil wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 3:03 pm that's why you play DC where you get 1 MP for it at least ;)
I am trying to stick to mainline of MECCG.

Questions regarding of a balance, e.g. how many of MPs some cards give to some players, seem secondary to me.
Questions that seem primary to me (not araised in this thread) are how some cards in play deck/discard pile/sideboard are treated.
Whether a card that may be played as a hazard or as character may be retrieved or moved between the places by effects that refer either to characters/characters card or hazards/hazard cards.

EDIT: " how may of MPs some cards give to some players," to " how many of MPs some cards give to some players,"
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DuncanNeeds2Shave
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Konrad Klar, I believe what you are asking is: If a minion agent who is used as a character is discarded, may the player retrieve that minion agent from the discard pile using An Unexpected Outpost?
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CDavis7M
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There is a clarification: "Fallen-wizards use Ringwraith rules for agents."

Under the Dark Minion and Lidless Eye rules, agents in the deck are hazards because agents are hazards.

But there is another ICE clarification reversing that rule:
"Agents count as both characters and hazards during the game in a Ringwraith deck."

"Ringwraith Deck" being the Ringwraith player's deck regardless of which pile it is split into, not just the "play deck." This ruling was made shortly before White Hand was released. I believe I have seen other ICE rulings to this effect but I would need to dig for them -- despite this being a clarification to the rules and not a "rule" itself, and despite the Ringwraith rulings clearly only apply to Ringwraiths (this ruling is not a ruling under Ringwraiths though).

So a Ringwraith player may use either Outpost or Weigh All Things to recycle an agent in their discard pile.
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Konrad Klar
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DuncanNeeds2Shave wrote: Sun Jan 10, 2021 3:43 am Konrad Klar, I believe what you are asking is: If a minion agent who is used as a character is discarded, may the player retrieve that minion agent from the discard pile using An Unexpected Outpost?
Not quite.
I agree with conclusion made by CDavis7M.

I was thinking about something general.

E.g.

"If some card belongs to multiple categories, the card may be accessed in play deck, discard pile, hand, or sideboard by effects that refer to any of the categories to which the card belongs.
Above does not apply to a card that may be played as a card of some category, but does not belong to the category"

Examples in separation from regulation.

Agent character card in RW/FW discard pile belongs both to the hazard category and to the character category.
So it may be accessed both by An Unexpected Outpos and by Back to the Fray.

Twilight belongs to the hazard category; it may be played also as a resource card but it does not belong to the resource category.
So it may not be accessed by Smoke Rings.
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DuncanNeeds2Shave
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Wait, so I am confused now.

If I'm constructing a FW or Ringwraith deck, and my hazard/resource ratio is set in stone, when I then select which characters to use, I may or may not use additional Minion agents intending them to be characters in my deck? Say I have a 30/30 ratio of hazard/resource with no agents for hazard purposes, and I want Firiel and Elerina (off the top of my head) to use as characters in my deck, am I or am I not allowed to do that? What about in context of starting company?
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Konrad Klar
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After draft. The characters may come from pool or from your entire collection.
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DuncanNeeds2Shave
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Okay. Once those characters (minion agents) are chosen and shuffled into my deck to begin the game, what rule is there to prevent me from using one of them as a minion agent hazard instead of a character?
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Konrad Klar
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None.
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DuncanNeeds2Shave
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Thanks, Konrad.

With all the little details trying to blend the hero and minion resources together for a deck, it is astounding and very frustrating to me just how little there is written about it. The rules clarification supplement seems easy enough to understand, but so much seems left out when you start reading into the rules on various cards. For instance: based on what it says, I would be left to assume that my starting company can consist of a maximum of up to 5 characters with a total mind of maximum 20, just as in the standard wizard game, but the Fallen Wizards appear to each have modified general and direct influence stats that might seem to affect such arrangements. Fallen Saruman has a (I think?) general influence of 15. Should his starting company not exceed a total mind of 15? Actually, I don't even know if his general influence is really 15 because the rules don't say anything about those additional stats written on the card. Would seem like an important thing to clarify.

Can someone point me toward a more comprehensive explanation of the rules so I dont spend the next week making 85 million posts on this thread about the smallest details? Thanks.
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CDavis7M
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DuncanNeeds2Shave wrote: Mon Jan 11, 2021 8:56 pm but the Fallen Wizards appear to each have modified general and direct influence stats that might seem to affect such arrangements. Fallen Saruman has a (I think?) general influence of 15. Should his starting company not exceed a total mind of 15? Actually, I don't even know if his general influence is really 15 because the rules don't say anything about those additional stats written on the card. Would seem like an important thing to clarify.
CRF, Terms, Fallen-wizard: The white hand symbol on the Fallen-wizard card is that Fallen-wizard's general influence once he is revealed. Prior to that, his general influence is 20.
Ichabod wrote:The white hand is the Fallen-wizard's general influence once he comes into play. The people responsible for leaving this off of the rules have been sacked, and replaced with 10,000 dancing llamas. :)
A FW player has 20 mind to use for the starting company. There are non-tournament optional rules to start with your wizard, in which case, the new GI would apply.

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DuncanNeeds2Shave wrote: Mon Jan 11, 2021 8:56 pm Can someone point me toward a more comprehensive explanation of the rules so I dont spend the next week making 85 million posts on this thread about the smallest details? Thanks.
No. But I can explain why there is not a more comprehensive explanation of the rules.

The rules changed a lot, even in very beginning and all the way through to after the end. At first there was The Wizards Limited. Errata and clarifications were made to both the rules and the cards. After Limited came The Wizards Unlimited. The Unlimited rules incorporated many (but not all) of the clarifications and other new changes. Many of the Unlimited cards had different text from the Limited cards. Some of which was the same as the errata of the Limited cards, some of which was new. And some Unlimited cards have different text than the Limited cards with errata. Then came The Dragons and Dark Minions, which added more rules, resulting in more errata and more clarifications. But this was mostly followable. ICE created a FAQ to explain most questions, and it was very helpful. As more rulings came in this was expanded into the Collected Rulings File (CRF)

After that there was a new base set -- Lidless Eye. The new base set came with a new rulesbook which indicated that it had clarified certain aspects of The Wizards. That is only partly correct. Lidless Eye incorporated many of the changes and clarifications that had been made with Unlimited and after unlimited. But unfortunately the Lidless Eye rulesbook left out many of the clarifications made in the Unlimited rules (likely due to lack of space). These Unlimited clarifications were helpful, still correct, but absent from Lidless Eye. And Lidless Eye also failed to incorporate some of the existing (and correct) rulings that were made since Unlimited was released. Not only that, Lidless Eye left in outdated rules that had already been clarified.

Given the extent of clarifications needed for MELE, the CRF was completely reworked and reorganized. During this process, many of the older helpful rulings were removed -- clarifications of the On-Guard rules, region movement, clarifications on certain cards like Bombadil, Adunaphel, and more. Many ruling that were "well-known" were deliberately removed from the CRF, only for the ruling to become forgotten in time, and then argued against by forgetters and late-comers. And not every ruling was put in the CRF -- rulings deemed to be clear from the rulesbook or card text. So even the CRF is not complete. In fact, it contains many outdated rulings. The author of the CRF (Ichabod) seemed to delight in this, using this as part of a quiz that he used to name his successor rather than correcting the inconsistencies. On top of this, the rulings in the CRF leave out the question/context/example gameplay. So sometimes its not so clear how they apply.

Later, the Challenge Decks were released with updated card texts and a new "complete" (summary) of rules (by Ichabod, not the Designers). This summary is nice because it follows the phases of game play instead of being a treatise on game concepts. It also incorporates some of the clarifications and rule changes made after MELE was released. Still, the Challenge Decks were intended to be the next step up from the Starter Set (which had only 4 pages of rules). The challenge deck Rules Summary was never intended to be a complete rulesbook. So it is missing many rules.

A comprehensive set of rules was promised by the Council of Elrond back in 2001 or 2002 (I forget). But nothing ever came. Beyond the difficulties described above, the primary rules are divided into "Starter Rules" and "Standard Rules", which are somewhat difficult to combine. And there are a separate set of "Tournament Policy" rules that everyone follows but which don't merge with the original rules at all. In fact, there are unaddressed conflicts between the two. And while the expansion rules sometimes have matching headers, they often just give a new header that doesn't fit.

This is not just conjecture, I know because I have read and tried.
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