Impressions - The Battle of Carn Dûm Player Cards

I feel like I've blinked and the Angmar Awakened cycle is almost complete.  The second to last adventure pack has come out and we are seeing the promises made in the preview articles really flesh out.
Heroes
We've seen him as an objective ally in three of the quests of this cycle, and now Amarthiúl is getting the hero treatment.  Sporting the same stats as his objective version, we see him as a Leadership hero, but with a very strong Tactics feel.  This becomes even clearer in his abilities.  As with other Dúnedain, he benefits from engaging enemies.  In this case, he gains the Tactics sphere when engaged with one enemy, and gains extra resources.  Armarthiúl combines Song of Battle and Resourceful into his hero ability.  Leadership is rich, forgive the pun, with resource acceleration, and being able to smooth resources between both Leadership and Tactics is beneficial.  Unfortunately, there aren't any Dúnedain cards in the Tactics sphere which truly need the resources.  Dúnedain Hunter is a zero cost card which, while you need the resource match, you don't need any of the additional resources.  Gondorian Fire, on the other hand, benefits strongly from Armarthiúl being able to gain extra resources.  If you access to Spirit, then Blood of Numenor is another benefit to Armarthiúl's resources.  Many times, I find putting these attachments on Boromir, since he can use his readying effect to take advantage of the combat boosts multiple times, but with readying effects such as Athelas or Unexpected Courage you can get similar utility.
Allies
Beechbone joins the Ent army as another Tactics ally.  His ability allows you to declare him as a defender, and immediately take damage to then deal damage to the attacking enemy.  Just like core set classic, Gondorian Spearman, direct damage becomes more and more important as we see the game evolve.  To counter the larger player card pool, we have seen nastier enemies come out with higher hit points, and higher defense.  Being able to throw some direct damage on enemies, especially if Beechbone is going to die from the attack, is an excellent form of action advantage.  If he survives, Boomed and Trumpeted gives him the chance to ready and attack strongly.  Damage effects boost Booming Ent's attack, and at the end of the round, Wellinghall Preserver can heal him up.
Guardian of Arnor is yet another card to add to the strong Dúnedain archetype.  In this case, this sentinel defender gains additional defense for every enemy engaged with the player.  A solid ally for sure, especially at three cost.  My immediate comparison is to Warden of Annuminas, which gives additional willpower for every enemy engaged, but at a cheaper cost.  With the higher cost, you do get slightly better stats, but considering that the Guardian is in Leadership vs Warden's Spirit sphere, the cost difference is even rougher.  If you're using Dúnedain with access to Leadership, this is definitely an inclusion.  Be careful, however, when using his sentinel ability, since the defense boost only works based on how many enemies you have engaged.
In the books, Lindir role is as the smug Elf Lord who listened to Bilbo's poetry.  That smugness is definitely clear in the art for this card.  For three cost, you get an ally with decent stats, as well as the possibility to draw cards, up to a hand size of three.  This plays right into the Noldor trait that has been in development this cycle.  Obviously, if you're using Erestor, card draw is not typically an issue.  With other builds, however, especially in Lindir's Spirit sphere, some form of card draw is needed.  This could be a more reliable form of Ancient Mathom, with card draw in the planning phase rather than questing.  Paired with Leadership, I could see Lindir as a good candidate for Sneak Attack, with him popping in for cheap, drawing some cards, and then returning to hand.  Alternatively, he could be a target for Children of the Sea, where he quests for four, then gets shuffled back into the deck, to be used later.
Attachments
Favor of the Valar is the first attachment to attach to a player's threat dial.  Tying right into the valour trait, this card, in a fairly clumsily written fashion, triggers when a player would otherwise be eliminated by threat.  Instead, the player's threat is dropped by five, and player sticks around.  When running valour, it behooves you to stay at 40 threat for as much of the game as possible.  Typically, threat management has been seen in Spirit, but this is not what you would expect to see in a valour deck.  Tactics did get some threat management with Secret Vigil, but it is not as reliable as other forms of threat reduction.  This allows you to get some threat reduction, but only at the last moment.  It could be very difficult if RNG keeps you from drawing this card, but such is the ever present concern in this game of ours.  In addition to valour, playing doomed cards introduced in the previous cycle could also take advantage of this card.
The Long Defeat thematically captures the feeling of the Elves, as they slowly are losing the battle against darkness over their immortal lives.  As we saw the first time an attachment attached to a threat dial, this is the first time we see a player attachment that attaches to the quest.  For one lore resource, after the attached quest is defeated, each player gets to either heal 5 damage among the characters he controls, or draw two cards.  Obviously, card draw is great, but with Elrond, the healing could be bonkers.  Elrond's text reads that whenever a character is healed by card effects, heal one additional hit point.  Based on card text, as written, if you heal one hit point, Elrond heals another.  Therefore, if you heal five separate characters, this could heal a total of 10 hit points!  Spread across four players, and this could be incredible value for the cost.  In most cases, this card would be wasted on the final quest card, but in a quest like A Journey to Rhosgobel, attaching this card to quest 2B could give you the boost to make sure Wilyador is fully healed.
Events
Typically, cards that interact with quest are meant to improve your willpower, Doom Hangs Still is there to protect you in case you quest unsuccessfully.  Similar to Ever Onward, this card protects players from raising your threat after questing unsuccessfully.  A reactionary card, to be sure, I prefer to be more proactive.  I have never included Ever Onward in a deck, as I rather be in control at the start than wait for something bad to happen.  Furthermore, this card is played as a Planning Action, so it can't even be used in response to questing successfully.  It could be argued that these cards could be used to save characters for combat, but since staging still occurs, you will still have to deal with any when revealed effects on cards.  This is where Doom Hangs Still's valour action comes into the play.  For effectively Doomed 2, you skip the quest phase entirely.  This is the best part of the card, as it allows you to not worry about questing, but at a significant cost.  This seems like a last ditch effort in most quests, where you already have quested sufficiently, but you still need to finish some other condition, such as defeating a boss enemy.  That said, it still seems like a last ditch effort, where the game is on the line and that doesn't feel like the way I want to play, except in very specific scenarios, such as Helm's Deep.
Hold Your Ground! adds a new dynamic to sentinel characters.  Previous to this card, sentinel had no utility outside of multiplayer and The Day's Rising.  While a small step, this card begins to give value to the trait in a single player game.  For one resource, a sentinel character can ready, or in the case of valour mode, all sentinel characters can ready.  This one is fairly cut and dry, but being able to ready a bunch of characters, or even just one, can be clutch when fighting some rough enemies.  In a recent game with COTR, I played a deck with a heavy sentinel focus.  Had this card been in the deck, the utility of the deck would be even great, including utility that could of been had from other players' sentinel characters.
Over the course of the cycle, we have seen many ways to put cards into our discard pile in exchange for various abilities.  Lord of the Eldar takes full advantage of this.  Only playable from the discard pile, this relatively expensive spirit event boosts the stats of all Noldor on the board, for the entire round.  When paired with a Noldor-focused deck, or Noldors across multiple decks, this card could give so much utility.  Any Noldor, equipped with Light of Valinor will see a nice boost to two different actions that round, and Galadriel acts like a double boost as see gets the boost to her willpower which she can give to a fellow Noldor that had already been boosted.  Throw in Arwen, and she'll be questing for three, and giving someone else yet another defense boost.
Quick Ears gives Dúnedain and Rangers access to encounter cancellation similar to Eleanor.  Exhaust a character from one of these archetypes, and shuffle the card back in, revealing a new card.  As the deck gets smaller, the chance of getting the same character gets greater, but it does give a chance to remove a card which would really be deadly.  Since it's a response that occurs when the card is revealed, surge and doomed keywords are also cancelled.  It's an OK card.  I see the utility, but its effect isn't that exciting, especially when you consider you could get the same card back, possibly.  If you have cheap rangers, such as Ithilien Tracker or Mablung, and it could be decent.
Final Thoughts
This impressions took a bit of time to write.  I don't know if it's as we get later in the year, and  we get busier, or if it is an expression of my excitement for the adventure pack.  There are good cards in this pack, but definitely a lot of cards which didn't excite me.  I'm thankful to have it, though I found some cards boring or outside of playstyle, we continue to see development in Dúnedain and Noldor which are very fun ways to play the game.  No side quest included in the pack makes me wonder if we've seen the last of player side quests, which I hope is not the case.

Treachery of Rhudaur (4p); Lord of the Rings LCG, CotR Twitch 10/27/2015

This week, I got to play a game with the COTR crew on Twitch.  

Impressions - The Treachery of Rhudaur Player Cards

The Treachery of Rhudaur has been released, and with that, a new set of player cards.  Now that we are past the halfway mark of the Angmar Awakened cycle, we are starting to see FFG make good on the promises of new Noldor synergy,
Heroes
Erestor's debut as a hero comes with standard lore flavor, but with a twist.  As is no surprise, card draw is the main bullet point in his skill set.  Similar to Bilbo, Erestor gives additional card draw, but this time, it is only for his controller and it's three extra cards!  The draw back, however, is that all cards have to be discarded at the end of the round.  To put that into perspective, that's 10 cards, one fifth of a standard deck, in your opening hand, and four cards every round there after.  Obviously, quests such as Deadman's Dike, where you're punished for running through your deck, will not see much Erestor action.  In solo games, Erestor could be included, replacing all other forms of card draw.  That's pretty huge, as it could free up a significant amount of space in a deck.  In multiplayer, I could see including Beravor, as a support hero, to give other players card draw.  Erestor's extra card draw really shines with abilities which require card discard.  Old staples such as Eowyn or Protector of Lorien going to see a lot of use, as the discard requirement is less rough when the card are going away anyway.  All the benefits I see, however, are weighed against the potential downfalls.  Certain cards, such as A Test of Will or Feint, are typically held in hand until they're needed.  With Erestor, you have to think differently.  The player board is where you have to put your reliance in, not your hand.  Cards such as Scroll of Isildur will be very useful in recycling cards.  Another auto-include might seem to be Will of the West, but this is one you definitely will want to mulligan out of your starting hand.
Allies
Silvan is one of my favorite archetypes, and Galadhrim Weaver continues the trait.  For one cost, which is not reducible by O Lórien, it only provides one will power.  However, its enters play ability allows you to shuffle the top card of your discard back into your deck.  One of the keys to the Silvan trait is being able to return cards to hand, which are typically done through a number of event cards.  By playing the Weaver, you can return these valuable cards back into the deck to be used again.  Obviously, there are opportunities to use this card in any deck where you want to continuously recycle cards.
Galdor of the Havens is an appropriate pairing with hero Erestor.  As soon as you discard a card, draw a card.  Since it allows you to essentially replace the card you discard, it seems like an easy decision.  I especially like him with Galadriel and her mirror.  I don't typically like to run the mirror, since I don't like the chance of losing the card I just pulled, but with this ally, you can replace whatever card you lose.
Attachments
Elven Spear gives Silvan and Noldor a new weapon to run.  For the cost of three cards, the hero wielding the spear can boost his attack by three.  Since this is done in three separate occasions, Galdor would be triggered each time.
Silver Harp also helps the Noldor trait's new discard ability.  After discarding a card, exhaust the Silver Harp to return it to the hand.  This seems like a great card in general.  Obviously, it requires Spirit, both to pay for, and to attach to.  Oddly, it is a restricted attachment, which isn't usually an issue for Spirit heroes, with the exception of, perhaps, Glorfindel.
Elf-friend is a card I never expected to see.  By attaching this card to a character, they become both Silvan and Noldor.  This falls into the situational section of cards.  I like strong combos that don't rely on drawing the right cards at the right time.  In the case of this card, you have to pull it in, and then draw whatever card.  This could cause some cool combos, such as equipping Tactics Aragorn with Rivendell Blade to reduce enemies' defense by three, but I would probably include it in a deck that has a target that wouldn't require Elf-friend as well, such as Legolas.
Events
Horn's Cry adds to the Valour trait in a way I can get behind.  One less attack for each enemy until the end of the phase, or minus three attack for a single player's enemies.  Beorn is a strong defender, but his one defense can sometimes be a burden, with no way of directly boosting it.  By using this card, along with the bear's unexhausting sentinel defense, he can take a lot more slings and arrows.  Similarly, Boromir could also benefit from being able to lessen the attack of his enemies, and with his readying action, his player will probably be consistently using this card's Valour ability.
Reinforcements is a card I hadn't made up my mind about when I started analyzing it, but by the end, started to really like it.  For three leadership resources, coming from three different heroes, the group can put two allies into play from their hand, but only for that phase.  This is essentially a different version of Sneak Attack, but something that the whole group can utilize, rather than just the player playing the event.  The old combo was to use Sneak Attack plus Gandalf, but it required that both cards be in one player's hand to pull off.  Not only that, but you had to have access to Leadership.  Though more expensive, and requiring either mono-Leadership, or the inclusion of songs, this event allows any player in the game to utilize this same combo.  Not only that, but the allies may enter play under anyone's control.  Perhaps one player has Gandalf in hand and needs some card draw, while another player needs a defender for the round.  Simply play this card and both players get what they need.  Taking the example further, perhaps that same player needs some help killing the engaged enemy, you still have another ally that can be put into play.  Just like Sneak Attack, the allies return to their owners' hands at the end of the phase, which will trigger Horn of Gondor, leaving only a net usage of one resource and one card.  As mentioned above, I wasn't sure how I felt about this card initially.  Obviously, this won't see as much action in solo, and the three resources from three different resource pools can be rough.  In both cases, the downsides aren't that bad.  Even in solo play, getting two allies out could still be very strong, and mono-Leadership is one of the strongest mono-spheres in the game.  I'm very excited to play around with this card.
The Door is Closed is a very interesting play on A Test of Will.  For one Lore resource, you may discard any revealed encounter card.  The stipulation is, however, that a card with the same title has to be in the victory display.  Immediately, I think of this in a Rossiel deck.  Whether the card already has victory points on it already, or you use cards such as Out of the Wild to put them in there, this card takes a little bit to setup.  It seems like it could be OK, but at the same time, just like Rossiel, could whiff.
Side Quest
Send for Aid finishes the set of side quests for each sphere.  When this is played, each player gets to search the top 10 cards for an ally and put it into play under their control.  This ability is similar to other events such as The Eagles are Coming!, Mustering the Rohirrim, or Entmoot, where you get to search your deck for a certain trait, but in this case, you get to put them into play, albeit only one.  I could see this working well in a Rohan deck.  Mustering the Rohirrim is similar, but for only one player and they still have to pay to put it into play.  When playing multiplayer, this also benefits all players around.  You could also use hero Gandalf and Wizard Pipe to toss the ally you want on top of your deck to ensure you get a strong play out of playing this side quest.  Strangely, this is the only side quest, thus far, that costs a resource, but Leadership is typically not stretched for resources.  That said, more than likely you will get more than one resource's worth of allies out of this card, which makes it more than worth it.
Final Thoughts
With the release of this adventure pack, I finally feel that the promise of the new Noldor trait has been fleshed out. With Erestor's extra card draw, and the new benefits from discarding, I'm very excited to fully explore our new cards.