Lord of the Rings LCG 4 Player Game Actions

B

boogiepop

Guest
Oh boy. Sorry, but since you've got the highest threat Rokapoke, you'll need to attach it to one of your heroes.
As I said, I can fix the situation next turn.
 
B

boogiepop

Guest
Our next card is...
East Bight Patrol
Type: Enemy
Encounter Set: Passage Through Mirkwood
Threshold: 5
Threat: 3 Attack: 3 Defense: 1 Hit Points: 2
Goblin. Orc.

Mountains of Mirkwood
Type: Location
Encounter Set: Spiders of Mirkwood
Threat: 2 Quest Points: 3
Forest. Mountain.
Travel: Reveal the top card of the encounter deck and add it to the staging area to travel here.
Response: After Mountains of Mirkwood leaves play as an explored location, each player may search the top 5 cards of his deck for 1 card and add it to his hand. Shuffle the rest of the searched cards back into their owners' decks.

Necromancer's Pass
Type: Location
Encounter Set: Dol Guldur Orcs
Threat: 3 Quest Points: 2
Stronghold. Dol Guldur.
Travel: The first player must discard 2 cards from his hand at random to travel here.

The East Bight Patrol takes one damage from Thalin's ability.

Before we move on, we now have an opportunity to take character actions and play event cards. I believe we have a total of 11 willpower among our questing characters and a total og 11 threat in the staging area. This would mean that we would neither place progress tokens on the quest (because our combined willpower is not the greater of the two,) nor raise our threat levels (because the combined threat of the cards in the staging area is not greater than our willpower either.)

Is everybody standing pat or does someone have some action they wish to perform?
As for myself, I'm good to go.

The next step would be to proceed to the Travel Phase. We have an opportunity to remove one location card from the staging area and make it our active location (thus removing its threat contribution from the staging area.) A location serves as a buffer for our current quest. Once enough progress tokens are placed on it, it is considered Explored. You can only have one active location at a time. The first player has final decision on where the group travels.

I'd normally recommend travelling to the Necromancer's Pass since it contributes the most threat, but I fear discarding the card that will help Rokapoke. I therefore suggest we travel to the Mountains of Mirkwood. We have plenty of characters available to deal with another Enemy if one of htem are drawn. (Admittedly, it would be rather annoying if we get yet another Location card though.)

So... actions, suggestions, thoughts?
 
S

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
My event cards seem to deal with battle (Thicket of Spears, Feint, Rain of Arrows, and Stand Together), so I don't think I have anything to do. I'll agree with going to the Mountains as my inexperienced eye agrees with boogiepop's assessment.
 
R

rokapoke

Guest
Why don't I use Denethor's ability to peek at the next Encounter card before we do that? That way if it's nasty (or just an annoying Location) we can shift it to the bottom of the deck.
 
B

boogiepop

Guest
Sounds like a good idea.
You see...

Forest Gate
Type: Location
Encounter Set: Passage Through Mirkwood
Threat: 2 Quest Points: 4
Forest.
Response: After you travel to Forest Gate, the first player may draw 2 cards.

What say ye? To the bottom it goes?
 
R

rokapoke

Guest
So what's the verdict? Is it worth keeping -- drawing cards is a good thing, and it's no more threat than the location we'd be traveling to. I really have no idea what to do with this, so I am ready to put it to a vote (or lean on boogiepop as the experienced player).
 
B

boogiepop

Guest
Well, I'd rather things be done by group consensus than me making executive decisions. So I'll assume rokapoke is leaving it on top and will begin explaining the next step. (Let me know if you want to put it on bottom after all.)

Encounter Phase
Step 1: Player Engagement
Each player has the ability to willingly engage one Enemy in the staging area.

Step 2: Engagement Checks
The first player compares his Threat Level with the Threshold (top left of the Enemy cards) of each Enemy in the Staging Area. The highest one that is equal or lower than that players Threat Level will engage him. This process then repeats for the second player and so on until no more Enemies can be taken off the Staging Area.

So as it stands, if we don't make our optional engagements, The Forest Spider will engage me (it's threshold of 25 is less than my threat of 29) and the East Bight Patrol will engage turgy (5 threshold vs. turgy's 24 threat.)

I'm more than happy to deal with the big arachnid. What say you all to this? And what is to be done about the East Bight Patrol?
 
B

boogiepop

Guest
Basically, you choose one Enemy (but no more) from the Staging Area and place it in your play area. You are then considered to be engaged with it. It's that simple. After that, regular Engagement Checks are made.

For example, suppose during step one you chose to engage the Forest Spider. During step 2, I would be the first player and therefore would take the highest threat Enemy (with a threshold equal to or lower than my own threat level) and place it in my play area. In this case, that would be the East Bight Patrol.

Example #2 I choose to engage the East Bight Patrol but nobody else willingly engages the Forest Spider. When step 2 comes around, I am forced to engage the spider. Therefore, I am considered engaged with both creatures.

Example #3 Two players willingly engage each of the two enemies. No enemies will remain in the Staging Area for step 2.

Remember that the Enemies attack first. I therefore plan to feed my Guard to the spider and kill it with Aragorn and Gloin. If anything is still unclear, please let me know and I'll try to explain things better.
 
S

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Well, I guess the question is how does combat actually work? After the choosing of the Enemy and placing it in our Play Area, the Enemies attack first, but how does that actually play out?
 
turgy22

turgy22

Nothing Special
If I engage the East Bight Patrol with Dunhere, how would that play out? How does the EBP's shadow ability work? How does Dunhere's ability work?
 
B

boogiepop

Guest
Yeah, I guess I should have explained the combat phase. Here's how things go...

Before combat begins, each enemy is dealt one face down card from the encounter deck. This goes from the first player on, from the highest threshold enemy to the lowest. Next, player one declares blockers one at a time. To block, a character exhausts. Then the shadow card is flipped over. If there's a black skull with an axe towards the bottom of the card, it's a shadow card and its effects are applied to the attack. Otherwise, the card does nothing and is discarded.

Let's use this as an example:

Random Enemy
Attack: 3

Random Character
Defense: 1
Hit Points: 4

The defender's defense is subtracted from the enemy's attack. The enemy's attack is therefore reduced by one to 2. 2 points of damage are then applied to the defender.

This process is continued until player one has defended all his attacks, then player 2, etc.

NOTE: A player may choose to not defend an attack. The attack is considered undefended when the shadow card is flipped (they often have nasty effects if the attack was undefended.) The player then applies the full damage, completely disregarding defense, to one hero (not ally.)

Next, the players get to attack from player 1 on. Attacking works exactly the same way except that characters need to exhaust to perform an attack. Also, characters can attack together, adding their attack bonuses. (The enemy's defense is only applied once.)

For example
Character 1
Attack : 2

Character 2
Attack: 3

Enemy
Defense: 2
Hit points: 3

Character 1 is unable to do any damage on his own. If character 2 attacks with him, though, the enemy will be killed outright. (2+3= 5 attack - 2 defense = 3 damage to 3 HP)

Characters cannot attack or defend against enemies in other players' play areas. Exception!: Characters with the Sentinal keyword (like Aragorn) can defend for anyone, and characters with the Ranged keyword (like Legolas) can attack anyone, even participating in other players' attacks.

Dunhere's a little weird. He can't use his special ability unless there's an Enemy remaining in the Staging Area after Engagement Checks are made. So, for example, if we draw an Enemy card with a threshold of 35, we won't need to fight it for a few turns. Dunhere will be able to take potshots at this creature during that player's regular attack phase.

Whew! I hope I was clear on everything. Let me know if I was otherwise. :)

EDIT 1: Oh, I should add that all the enemies only attack once each turn. If they aren't killed, they remain engaged with that player into the next turn (but do not contribute threat since they are no longer in the Staging Area.)

EDIT 2: The East Bight Patrol's shadow effect only occurs when it is itself a shadow card. Since it is currently not a shadow card, it is completely ignored. In other words, non shadow effects are meaningless when a card is acting as a shadow card, and shadow effects are meaningless when a card is not acting as a shadow card.
 
S

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
So if I engage the Blight Patrol with Gimli and the Gondolin Spearmen, with a total attack of 3 and defense of 3, they'll take 0 because their defense will nullify the Patrol's attack and when striking back, they'll deal 2 points of dmg, killing it?

if that's so, I'll be happy to take it on :)
 
B

boogiepop

Guest
Alas, no.
Three things: Characters can attack together, but they defend alone. Characters must exhaust (tap) to defend (and they must exhaust to attack as well.) Finally, Engaging an Enemy, Defending and Attacking are all completely separate things.

What you could do is first defend against the attack with the Gondolin Spearman by tapping him. He has a defense of one, which means he'll take 2 damage, killing him. Since all your enemies will have attacked, you're then free to attack back. Tap Gimli and deal 1 damage to the Patrol (2 attack minus its 1 defense,)
thereby killing it. (Remember, it already took 1 damage from Thalin's special ability.)
 
turgy22

turgy22

Nothing Special
If the East Bight Patrol falls to me and I defend with Dunhere, can another player attack the patrol in order to kill it?
 
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