Middle-earth: The Northern Waste

Moderators: Thorsten the Traveller, Vastor Peredhil

Should Middle-earth: The Northern Waste (MENW) be made fully compatible with standard DC gaming?

1) All MENW cards should be allowed in a DCGO format.
29
60%
2a) MENW sites should not be allowed in a DCGO format (but characters, resources and hazards should).
0
No votes
2b) MENW characters and sites should not be allowed in a DCGO format (but resources and hazards should).
1
2%
2c) MENW characters, sites and hazards should not be allowed in a DCGO format (but resources should).
0
No votes
3) Some MENW cards should be allowed in a DCGO format, others should not (the designers decide case by case).
14
29%
4) MENW cards should be reserved for scenario use only.
4
8%
 
Total votes: 48
gollum51
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I am not too worried about balance / mega combo (not more nor less than with any other extension) nor unfamiliarity with new rules concepts (there cannot be that many in NW). For me, the main criterion for marking cards as “NW environment cards” should primarily be geography, i.e. new regions, sites in new regions, characters with home sites only in new regions and any resource or hazard somehow only playable in the new regions (either because specifically required by card text or require sites / regions / characters from NW) and in general any card that is completely NW-related by lore.

And again, marking these cards with a NW icon gives us the flexibility to experiment with NW :
Maybe we want to start with option 1 with the potential to move to option 3 later if it creates issues for beginners and/or reduces interaction. Maybe we want to start with option 3 but test option 1 in some specific tourneys before fully allowing NW-specific cards in DC tourneys.

I am not too worried. In Either case, we will have fun discovering new cards.
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Thorsten the Traveller
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this is just like American politics it seems, always split 50/50 (which in itself is mind boggling).

on another note, does anybody know how to transform the non-editable pdf from MERP: The Northern Waste into a workable (plain) textfile? Or can anyone get me such a file? would be very useful!
yes the bibliography for the NW Player Guide will be very short :D
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Thorsten the Traveller
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got it covered now guys, thanks for the help!
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Vastor Peredhil
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Hello all - unless anything major happens in any of our families - the Northern Waste (220+ cards) & Morgoth's Legacy (50+ cards) will get their stage 1 release to cardnum this week - this means it is ready to playtest in preparation for being our planned "newest release" sometime next year - so get check back and sharper your wits to be able to build with these new amazing cards soon
Vastor Peredhil
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so the stage 1 or beta test cards for the Northern Waste and Morgoth's Legacy are up - be aware that a new set - Bay of Utum - was created to incoporate the cards which were moved out of ML set

yours Nico, Eric and Thomas
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Darksatin
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So, the goal is to print the 220 Northern Waste cards + these 50 Morgoth's Legacy cards ?
Vastor Peredhil
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Salut Dom,

that are our numbers right now, but creating good sets is the prime goal - the actually numbers might vary - taking into account all double sides quest cards etc.

your DC Team
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Thorsten the Traveller
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As Nicolai already revealed, we have decided that there will be a joint release of Middle-earth: the Northern Waste (MENW), and Middle-earth: Morgoth's Legacy (MEML).
In good DC tradition (see First Folk), we shall call this project The Northern Legacy ;-)

As the poll shows, there is an almost 50-50 divide between those who favour a normal DC release for MENW, and those who prefer it to be scenario only. Since most of the latter group are ok with a partial GO release (option 3), we have decided to focus on balancing the set as a whole for GO purpose.

Nevertheless, to aid those who are not in favour of seeing more Balrog and/or Under-deeps content, we have also decided to remove Durlach from MENW, to add him to MEML, and include a fully remodeled MEML to the project. Both sets will have an icon on them denoting geographical expansion, so players can always decide to include cards from these sets based on their preference.

The new Morgoth's Legacy set will not include more regions and sites located to the east, but focus on the Under-deeps and the new Balrog avatar.
nb. the Barl Syrnac centered content is removed for now to a new set labeled Bay of Utum.

At the moment MENW contains 244 cards, and MEML 50. For the playset this is 480 cards, so still not larger than MENE (though 2 Player Guides means more work for me ;-)).

What is required now is testing, testing, play testing! This is merely stage 1 of the project.
So we invite you all to view the cards on cardnum, explore, and play a game or two using the many new quests that were recently designed (12 in total). As always, any feedback is appreciated.

yours
the DC team
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Thorsten the Traveller
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Hmm, did expect some (enthusiastic) response to this announcement.
Well anyway, to help out recognizing the flippable missions and deck building on cardnum, here's a list of which A side goes with which B side.

hero missions:
1A Cembereth - 1B The Greening of the North
2A Friends of Winter - 2B Friends of the Snowmen
3A Land Reborn - 3B Great Song of Awakening
4A Lay of Enchantments - 4B Songs of Power

minion missions:
5A Chill the Hopes of Men - 5B Prison of Ice
6A Long Cold Arm of Angmar - 6B Kuoleman Tarmo
7A Pursuit through Barren Lands - 7B Siege of Evermist
8A Sons of Skorg - 8B True-blood of Skorg
9A The Mornarturi - 9B Darken the Hearts of Men
10A The Prison's Spell Is Fading - 10B Released from Bondage

dual mission:
11A Evermarking Scar - 11B Dare Seek Revenge
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rezwits
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RIght now if you goto cardnum.net

And do a search and in the Race (key2) put:

Quest-Side-A, you will get the Side A

if you select right below

Quest-Side-B, you will get the Side B,

right in the same spot as the Side A, just toggle back and forth.

Hope that helps some!
As of 4/3/21 4:03:21
my current rulings foundation is based on:
All of the rules and rulings found in these PDFs at:
https://cardnum.net/rules
If you have other collected rulings that are not
listed please feel free to email them or PM me...
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Darksatin
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I have found another minion mission :
12A Search the Spires 12 B Crypt of Skorg
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TomBombadil
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nico21000 wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2020 12:26 pm I already know you are making a very good job. Thanks again, and please go on.

I also know there's no deadline on this project, and that when the time will come you will properly ask people to subscribe to some kind of agreement and payment in order to launch the final print. If by any mean I miss it, then I want to say it here and now: I'm definitely interested in getting a physical copy of this set.
I also want to thank everyone for working on the project and playtesting. First Folk was phenomenal, and I very much look forward to getting a physical copy of The Northern Legacy as well. Sign me up! :D
gollum51
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Great evening yesterday playtesting MENW face to face with Eric: my friends of winter deck vs his cold arm of Angmar deck. Good fun. And playtesting was useful. A few cards played probably deserve modifications. This also raised a number of questions regarding Umli characters and factions (when should they be considered dwarves, men, non-dwarf, non-man?). This will requir a tight wording.

Looking forward to more playtesting. Please help the DC team by playtesting: the more playtesting, the sooner the release and the better the set.
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CDavis7M
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My questions/concerns on various cards in the NW set:
  • Tear of Yavanna requires an inverted Vision Path but Vision Path only becomes inverted when a character uses it to reveal cards and Tear is Revealed. So if Tear of Yavanna is drawn normally then it cannot be played because Vision Path cannot be inverted. Some other card and other effect would be required to get the Tear back into the deck in the hopes that you don't draw it. (Tear can also be played at Mirror Halls).
  • Vision Path: should say "if revealed, take one Tear of Yavanna to your hand." This way, someone doesn't have 2 Tears to hand with 1 inverted Vision Path.
  • Friends of Winter allows a rune minor item to be taken from the sideboard when a Man faction is influenced, but there is no time to play it as a "free" minor item since such minor items must be played immediately.
  • Prison of ICE is a resource that you can place at your own Linnarthurras site along with an Ally (Lindor). Prison acts similar to a hazard-host and references a roll by the "opponent." But I (not my opponent) want to roll for my own resource that I played , so that I can get the Ally. (And which side is the flip side of PoI?).
  • Friends of Winter states that "rune minor items" can be played at tapped border-holds. Unfortunately this is effect doesn't do anything since all of the existing rune minor items are "only playable at a Ruins & Lairs" or "with a wose..." The effect on Friends of Winter does not overcome these restrictions.
  • Friends of Snowmen: this gets discarded even even if Burning Rick, Cot, and Tree is not successful.
  • Cembereth gives free MP because the Saplings are worth MP.
  • Linnarthurras also gives free MP since Lindor gives MP.
  • Keeper can tap at any time, not at EoT like other similar effects. It's also just overpowered, too broad in its reach.
  • Radagast cannot come into play if Aiwendil is in play but Aiwendil suggests that it can.
  • Great Seagull: by the time that you would untap again, there is no way to know how Seagull was tapped. It could have tapped against a strike as normal. There needs to be some record-keeping mechanism for the effect. The effect is powerful, I think he should have to wound himself without a body check to get the hazard-revealing effect.
  • Fell-bear requires the players to remember things that happened 2 turns ago without any representation in play, which is beyond the record-keeping of the game. Instead, have the player be able to return it to their hand instead of discarding it.
  • "Information resource" is not specifically defined. If it is a resource that merely requires information then it likely includes unintended cards.
  • Lossoth Sentinels: what is "could tap" ? Does "if you could tap 2 such factions" mean "if you have at least 1 (other) untapped Man Faction in the NW" ?
  • Friend of the Kelvar: How do you handle the "cannot be duplicated" for factions playable in more than one territory?
  • Frozen states that opponent's character is taken prisoner at "the site," not "with the company" per DC rules . Presumably the sorcery user's current site? But in that case, there is no site to use as the rescue site for the prisoners since you can only have 1 copy of a site. Or if placement is forced, then the character is released if the company moves, removing the site from play? This same issue is also problematic because Frozen is "played on" the sorcery character (as if the character were a captive of the characters) but the prisoner is "at the site" like a hazard prisoner. It's not clear how the DC prisoner rules correspond to the existing "Prisoner" term in the game.
  • Jäänainen & The Hammer both state "male" but this is not a game term or a DC (1.0) term.
  • Long Cold Arm of Angmar: as above, the rune minor items are "only playable" so they don't work.
  • Losrandir: there is no mechanism for tracking whether this faction is duplicated at a given site.
  • Lossandamundar is a trophy and says that it gives 2MP if stored, but trophies cannot be stored and neither the DC rules nor Lossandamundar does not overcome this restriction.
  • Ring of the Protector causes an attack within within resolution of a strike of an attack. This goes against the rule that attacks are faced one at a time. Instead, you could take the -3 and have the prisoner-taking action be a "special action of a strike". But also, this runs into the same prisoner issue mentioned above since they are taken prisoner "at his new or current site" while that site is already being used by the company.
  • Senses More Keen: Non-revealed environments can be played if one environment is revealed.
  • Hibernating Troll cannot be played using Umi and Bumi since it "may only be played as an on-guard creature"
  • Snow-hammer: the hammer is too small.
  • Thaurung mentions the "race" of character playing Hollow by the Left Breast but HbtLB doesn't require a particular race.
  • True Spirits of the North Winds: "played as a resource'" short-event?
Last edited by CDavis7M on Tue Sep 29, 2020 9:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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CDavis7M
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Some comments on Wind-whisperer: The discard-prevention effect is nice for Major Spell-bead and Hunting Knife, and maybe Healing Knife is OK. But the other rune items don't have discard effects. It would be neat if there was more to Spirit-namers. Enough to really build part of your deck around it.

Beadmaker's Hunting Runeknife -- Increase the search to Animal, Wolf, Spider, Drake, or Dragon creature. Then discard after the attack.

Minor Spell-bead: Maybe the Minor Spell-bead should normally be discarded for the no-tap effect. Could also give +1 to the CC (if any) for the skill card.

The Crist-i-Sûlhoth - Retrieving True Spirits could be on-discard. Otherwise you can just retrieve it every turn? That sort of upsets the normal CvCC balance.

Spear of Ivory - Differentiate from the +4 prowess on Major Spell-bead. Maybe have this one give -2 or 3 body.
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