[MECCG] CRF 5, General pt.2
Ichabod
II. Rulings By Term
Actions/Active and Passive Conditions
An active condition must be in play or established when the action
requiring it is declared. Typical active conditions are tapping a card and
discarding a card. For example, Magic Ring of Stealth can cancel a strike
against its bearer if two particular active conditions are met: The bearer
must be a scout and Magic Ring of Stealth must tap. These are called active
conditions because a player actively decides to invoke the action they
satisfy. Active conditions serve as the price of an action. They are
restrictions to the player invoking the action. In the case of Magic Ring
of Stealth, the player cancelling the strike must have provided a scout and
he must tap the ring, which renders the ring unable to be used again until
his next turn.
Annotation 5: If an action requires an entitiy to tap as a condition for
the action's main effect, that entity must be untapped when the action is
declared; else, the action may not be declared. Tap the entity at this
point; this is considered synonymous with the action's declarartion, i.e.,
it is not a seperate action. When it comes time to resolve the action in
its chain of effects, that entity must still be in play and tapped or the
action is cancelled.
Annotation 6: If an action requires an entity to be discarded as a
condition for the action's main effect, that entity must be discarded when
the action is declared; this is considered synonymous with the action's
declaration, i.e., it is not a seperate action.
Annotation 7: If any other active condition for an action does not exist
when the action is resolved, the action has no effect; if the action were
playing a card from your hand, it is discarded.
Annotation 8: An action that requires a target is considered to have the
active condition that the target be in play when the action is declared and
when it is resolved. An action may not be declared if its target is not in
play. However, dice-rolling actions may always be targeted by other actions
declared later in the same chain of effects.
A passive condition causes an action to happen as stated on a card already
in play. Typical passive conditions involve forcing corruption checks and
forcing the effects of environmental long-events. These are called passive
conditions because the actions they satisfy come into play only indirectly
as the result of a decision made by a player.
Annotation 9: If a card specifies that an action is to occur as a result of
some specific passive condition, this action becomes automatically the
first action declared in the chain of effects to immediately follow the
chain of effects producing the passive condition. The passive condition
must exist when this resulting action is resolved in its own chain of
effects, or the action is cancelled. Note that actions in the strike
sequence follow a different set of rules.
Annotation 10: If more than one action is required to be the first action
declared in a chain of effects, the player whose turn it is chooses the
order in which they are declared. No other actions may be declared in this
follow-up chain until the multiple required actions have been declared.
A long or permanent-event (or other card) causing an action as a result of
a passive condition must be in play when the action resolves, or else the
action is cancelled. For example, you can play Twilight to discard Long
Winter before the effect of Long Winter causes your new site to tap. This
cancels this effect of Long Winter.
-=-When a card mentions an alternate use, the active conditions given in
the begining of the card text need only be met if they are also mentioned
by the alternate use.
-=-Your opponent's resources may be the active conditions for your
resources, but may not be the targets for your resources.
Agent
errata - A tapped agent may take an action to untap (i.e., move from tapped
status to utapped status). This agent action does not appear in the rules
insert. This rule is correct and should be considered as though it were
printed in the rules insert.
errata - An agent may tap to play creatures at a site if the company is
moving to the site.
Agents cannot attack or influence each other.
Agent attacks are not keyed to a site, and thusly, cannot be cancelled with
Not at Home, etc.
A tapped agent can move. Tapping is not condition of agent movement, it is
an effect of agent movement.
An influence attempt by an agent does not count against the hazard limit in
and of itself. Nor does it count as an agent action. Playing a hazard event
that allows an agent to make an influence attempt does count against the
hazard limit.
Playing a card that makes an agent attack is considered the attack's
declaration. Thus, if an agent is face down when Cunning Foes is played on
him, he receives all the face down bonuses.
Agents are *not* creatures.
Agents do not face attacks when moving.
Rolls made by agents during combat are done simultaneously with rolls made
by characters during combat (after step 4 of the strike sequence).
-=-Agents revealed at under-deeps are discarded without effect.
-=-Agents may not be attacked by companies.
-=-Only face-up agents are considered for uniqueness.
Ahunt Manifestations
If one Ahunt is out and you move through four of the regions listed on it,
then you face the attack once.
If four Ahunts are out an you move through one region listed on all four,
then you face each of the four attacks once.
Ahunt manifestations of unique Dragons are not considered creatures for
cards that affect the playing of a creature hazards, since Ahunt
manifestations are not played as creatures. An attack caused by an Ahunt
manifestation is considered from a hazard creature for cards that affect
hazard creatures already in play.
Attacks from Ahunt manifestations are not keyed to anything.
Ally
An ally can play any non-item resource that requires a specific skill.
Allies cannot bear items.
Allies cannot tap to support corruption checks.
Allies may tap to cancel attacks from Slayers and Assassins.
Allies never make corruption checks.
Ent allies can be attack by rescue attacks.
Allies cannot be targetted to be taken prisoner, and otherwise cannot be
taken prisoner.
See also Playing an Ally (Section I.E.)
-=-Allies that may not be attacked by certain attacks may still tap to give
+1 prowess to characters facing that attack. (move this from Goldberry).
-=-Allies can be controlled by followers.
Attack
Cancelling an attack will not defeat it. The company will not have to face
the attack, but neither will they get marshalling points for it.
In order to cancel an attack or to directly affect an attack, the character
doing so must be in the company facing the attack. Note that the
region/site type a hazard creature is keyed to (when declared) can be
affected otherwise.
Annotation 12: An attack is considered to be resolved and concluded when
the final strike, all special actions resulting from the final strike, and
the associated body check are resolved.
Annotation 13: An attack may not be cancelled once its strikes have been
assigned. A strike may not be cancelled once the dice-roll for the strike
has been made.
Annotation 14: A cancelled attack has no effect on its target company,
except that the company is considered in its history to have faced the
attack.
Annotation 15: An attack must be the first declared action in a chain of
effects, i.e., a creatue card may not be played in response to another card
in the same chain of effects. Revealing an on-guard creature is an
exception.
Annotation 16: When a wounded character becomes unwounded, he is considered
in his history to have been wounded and must face any special actions the
wounding strike presented him.
-=-Cards only modify attacks if they say they do. So Sun will not modify
an Assassin.
Burglary Attempts
-=-May not be used to pick up Ally or Information cards.
Cannot be Duplicated
Short-events that cannot be duplicated cannot be played if a card of the
same name is currently having an effect on play.
A long- or permanent-events that cannot be duplicated can be played when a
copy is already in play only if the copy in play is currently being
targetted by an effect that will discard it.
Annotation 11 (modified from its original version):Some cards cannot be
duplicated in limited cases--generally on a specific target. Multiple
copies of these cards or their effects may be in play normally, so long as
each applies to a different target. A card that cannot be duplicated can be
played when a copy is already in play only if the copy in play is currently
being targetted by an effect that will discard it.
Character
You may continue to play after you have lost all of your characters.
A character enacting an effect counts as a character in his/her company.
A character in play must always be in one of three independent states:
untapped, tapped, or wounded.
Company
If a company splits up, their player chooses which characters are the
original company and which characters are a new company (unless otherwise
directed by a card). All resource permanent-events played on the original
company stay with the original company. This rule will mostly come into
play with the release of Middle-earth: Dark Minions.
If all characters in a company are removed from the company (i.e., all
characters have been explictly removed from the original company), all
resource permanent-events played on the company as a whole are discarded.
This rule will mostly come into play with the release of Middle-earth: Dark
Minions.
Annotation 25: A company is considered to be at the site given by its site
card at all times except from the moment their new site card is revealed
during their movement/hazard phase until their old site card is discarded
during the same movement/hazard phase. During this period a company is
considered to be en route between sites and not at any site.
If two companies join at a site, cards affecting one of the companies now
affect them both (Stealth, Great Road, River).
-=-Company composition changes (including bringing a character into play)
must all be done at the same time during the organization phase. During
this time no other actions may be taken.
Corruption
Characters with 0 corruption points must still make corruption checks.
A character may attempt to remove a corruption card without tapping
(ignoring the tapping requirement). The roll is at -3. A corruption card
may only be attemtped to be removed once per turn if the tapping
requirement is ignored.
-=-You can not attempt to remove a corruption card without tapping if you
have attempted to remove that card already this turn.
Corruption Checks
Annotation 23: When a character fails a corruption check, the standard
effects of this (i.e., the character being discarded or eliminated and his
items being discarded) are implemented immediately and are considered
synonymous with the failed check. A card causing the corruption check may
modify the standard effects of a failed check (e.g. The Precious), but this
timing would not be changed. Certain cards, e.g., Traitor, which do not
cause a corruption check, but specify an action that results from the
passive condition of a failed check, take effect as the first declared
action in a chain of effects immediately following the chain of effects
that contains the corruption check.
The resolution of a character tapping to give +1 to a corruption check
happens when the corruption check itself resolves, not in the normal "last
in, first out" order.
If an effect is in play that prevents a character from being discarded
(e.g., Magical Harp, Tookish Blood), the character is not considered to
fail his corruption check if a result is achieved that would discard him. A
Wizard would not be eliminated and his player would not lose the game.
Discard
A discarded character may be brought into play again by any player.
-=-When a card is discarded, so are all permanent-events on that card.
-=-Cards discarded from a player's hand must be discarded one at a time as
seperate actions.
Dunadan
Dunadan do not count as Men.
Eliminated
An eliminated character may not be played by any player for the rest of the
game.
-=-When a card is eliminated, all permanent-events on that card are discarded.
Environment Cards
Once the effects of an environment card have been applied during a given
movement/hazard phase, that effect is not applied again during the current
turn. If several environment cards are in effect at the beginning of a
movement/hazard phase, the non-phasing player chooses the order in which
the effects of those cards are applied. This choice is made after the
moving player has revealed the first movement declaration where the order
of application would be a consideration.
Exhausted
-=-Permanent-events discarded when the play deck is exhausted are shuffled
into the new play deck along with the rest of the discard pile.
-=-The play deck is exhausted when the last card is drawn.
Gold Ring Item
When a gold ring item is tested, the ring is discarded and the marshalling
points are lost whether or not you are able to play a special item.
Hand Size
Effects which increase your hand size mean you draw up to your new hand
size or discard down to it at the appropriate points during the game. This
supercedes the normal requirement of drawing up to or discarding down to 8
cards. Note that Favor of the Valar requires you to draw 8 cards, not to
your hand size.
Haven
Havens can tap, but Havens are always returned to the location deck and not
the discard pile.
Hobbits
Hobbit characters may only be brought into play at havens if it is the
start of the game and they are your starting characters. If a Hobbit is a
starting character and leaves play, then it may only be normally brought
back into play at Bag End.
Influence
A successful influence attempt on an opponent's item does not tap the site.
May not Untap
-=-Permanent-events discarded when the play deck is exhausted are shuffled
into the new play deck along with the rest of the discard pile.
-=-The play deck is exhausted when the last card is drawn.
Nazgûl
If a Nazgûl is tapped to become a short-event as printed on its card, it
turns into a short-event upon declaration. At this point, the Nazgul is a
short-event just as if had been played as such from your hand.
Sage Only
-=-Any card requiring a sage to play is a sage only card.
Short-event
Short-events are discarded when resolved in a chain of effects, not when
declared. Thus, they can be targetted by certain special effects in the
chain of effects (like Searching Eye).
Sideboard
The sideboard is increased to 20 cards with the release of Middle-earth:
The Dragons (in Spring 1996).
You can access hazards from your sideboard when your opponent's Wizard is
in play. You must declare this at the end of your opponent's untap phase
and then access hazards as if you had tapped a Nazgul permament-event to do
so. The hazard limit against all of your opponent's companies that turn is
halved, rounded up.
Tapping a Nazgul to bring cards in from the sideboard does not turn the
Nazgul into a short-event. The Nazgul permanent-event is discarded upon
declaration of this effect as per Annotation 6.
Site
To untap a site the character doing so must be at that site.
Site Path
The site path depends on what sort of movement was used. If using starter
movement between Havens the site path is given on the Haven card in the
text box. If using starter movement to or from a non-Haven site the site
path is given on the non-Haven site, along the left side of the card. If
using region movement the site path is determined by the region cards
played on the company. In all of the above cases the site path includes the
site you are moving to.
Certain cards refer to the site's site path. The site's site path is always
the site path given on the site card, regardless of how the company got to
that site.
Events can alter both the site's site path and a company's site path.
Skill Cards
Two skill cards may be played at one time on the same character outside of
combat.
Strike
A strike is only defeated if the body of the strike is defeated.
Tap
Tapping a character does not tap that character's items.
A spell only taps a Wizard if the spell card says it does.
Targets
An action that is played out thrugh one or more specific entities as stated
on a card or in the rules is considered to "target" the entities. A
targeted entity is said to be a "target" of the action. Possible targets
include characters, sites, companies, regions, items, factions, corruption
checks, and combat dice rolls. A card that acts on a class of entities,
however, does not target them (e.g., Foul Fumes).
Annotation 1: A card is not in play until it is resolved in its chain of
effects. When the play of a card is declared, no elements of the card may
be the target of actions declared in the same chain of effects. An
exception to this is a dice-rolling action, e.g. a corruption check.
Annotation 2: A corruption check or any dice-rolling action can be targeted
in the chain of effects during which it was declared.
Annotation 3: Long-events and certain other cards do not have targets
because they are not played out through one specific entity, i.e., they
generally affect an entire class of things.
Annotation 4: An action may not target a face-down card nor any element of
a face down card. Face down cards include unrevealed new site cards and
on-guard cards.
You cannot target an opponent's character, resouces, etc with your own
resources. However, regarding the mere existence of a card in play as being
the active condition for you playing another card (with all targets being
otherwise legal), your opponent's cards work just as well as yours.
Events that target sites can only target sites in play used to show a
company's location or movement.
Under-deeps
Marshalling points with companies at an Under-deeps site only do not count
for the purposes of actually calling the Free Council. They do count at the
actual Council itself.
When a company's site of origin is an Under-deeps site and the company
reveals a new site at the start of its movement/hazard phase, the company
is declaring it will make a roll to determine if the movement was
successful. No cards can be played between the site being revealed and the
roll except for Reach of Ulmo.
If you move to an Under-deeps site from a tapped surface site, the tapped
surface site is dicarded at the end of the company's movement/hazard phase.
The discarded surface site is not available until it is returned to your
location deck.
Goldberry cannot prevent a company from returning to its site of origin
that failed its roll to move to an adjacent Under-deeps site.
At an Under-deeps site, after a successul rescue attempt, a character can
tap for a minor item only. This is despite the fact that with the play of
resources that tap an Under-deeps site, a character could tap for any
playable item.
Wizard
You may put two of the same Wizard in your deck, or you may put one copy
each of two different Wizards in your deck. Please see Tournament Rulings
below for the Council of Lórien modifications to this rule for sanctioned
tournament play.
III. Timing Rulings
The validity of an effect is checked upon declaration and upon resolution.
The effects of a card happen in the order listed on the card.
If a card has an alternate use the player playing the card chooses the use
at declaration.
Annotation 24: If a card specifices that more than one action occur when
the card itself is resolved in a chain of effects, all of these actions are
to be resolved in the card's chain of effects uninterrupted and in the
order listed on the card. No actions may be declared to occur between these
multiple actions. The actions listed on the card are considered to have
been declared in the reverse order as they are printed.
(amendment to original version of Annotation 24): As an exception, if one
of the effects of a card is an attack, cards may be played that cancel the
attack, cancel one of its strikes, or that otherwise are playable during
the strike sequence--see Annotation 18.
IV. Miscellaneous Rulings
General Play
Annotation 26: If at the start of a movement/hazard phase there are
multiple effects in play such that their net effect depends on the order
they are applied, the player who is currently not taking his turn decides
the order in which they are to be applied. Once this interpretation is
established, all further actions are applied in the order they are resolved
for the rest of the turn.
Once the effects of an environment card have been applied again during a
given movement/hazard phase, that effect is not applied again during the
current turn. If several environment cards are in effect at the beginning
of a movement/hazard phase, the non-phasing player chooses the order in
which the effects of those cards are applied. This choice is made after the
moving player has revealed the first movement declaration where the order
of application would be a consideration.
Annotation 27: If a card has optional effects, the player playing the card
must choose which will take place. He must do this at the time the card is
played, not when it is resolved in its chain of effects. When such a card
is resolved, if any active conditions for the choice of effects do not
exist, the card has no effect and is discarded. The player may not at this
point choose to implement an alternative effect of the card.
Mulitplayer Games
-=-Only the player to the left of the moving player may take advantage of
drawing cards, including cards drawn for events like The Nazgul are Abroad
and From the Pits of Angbad.
-=-Only the hazard player and the moving player may play Twilight unless a
third player¹s card is affected by an environment card.
-=-All players reset their hand size when any turn or movement/hazard phase
ends.
In multi-player games the following hazards count as 1/2 a creature:
hazards that can be played as events or creatures, Ahunt Dragon
manifestations, and At Home Dragon manifestations.
Optional Rules
You may not aid a Hobbit facing an automatic-attack alone because he failed
a burglary role.
After a succesful burglary attempt, another character may tap to play a
minor item.
If a character is facing two strikes, and the first strike kills the
character, the second strike is considered succesful.
A character tapping to face two strikes is at -3 prowess against both
strikes. The character taps when resolving the second strike.
-=-For recently visited sites, the automatic-attack gets +1 for each player
who has that site in their discard pile.
Support
The official netrep, rules archivist, and Crossing-guard of Mordor is Craig
"Ichabod" O'Brien <ich...@cstone.net>.
The official website's hurl is http://www.ironcrown.com. Middle-earth
rulings are also on Ichabod's website at //www.cstone.net/~ichabod.
The best way to get questions answered is to post them to the usenet
newsgroup rec.games.trading-cards.misc with "[METW]" in the subject. Second
best is email the netrep at the above adress.
Promotional cards can be obtained by sending a SASE to ICE with a letter
requesting them. If you can, please enclose two booster pack wrappers.
V. Tournament Rulings
Tournament rulings are modifications and additions to the rules presented
in the Unlimited Edition rulesbook that are required for sanctioned Council
of Lórien tournament play.
General
Dice must be used to obtain random numbers.
There is now a required 30 card minimum for both resources and hazards for
sanctioned tournament play.
Up to 3 copies of one Wizard is allowed in a play deck, or up to 2 copies
of one Wizard and 1 copy of another Wizard. One copy of three different
Wizards is not allowed.
Deck Construction
Cards that can be played as either hazards or resources (can we say
Twilight boys and girls?) may count as either for purposes of deck
construction.
There is a Council of Lórien creature minimum of 12 creatures. Each deck
must contain at least 12 creatures.
A hazard that can be played as a creature or an event counts as 1/2 a creature.
At Home and Ahunt Dragon manifestations count as 1/2 a creature for the
Council of Lórien creature minimum.
Agents count as 1/2 creatures for deck construction.
The Character Draft
The starting character pool consists of 10 characters.
Each player reveals one character at a time from their pool, simultaneously
with their opponent. Non-duplicated characters go into the starting
parties, duplicated charcters are put aside and not allowed in either
starting company. Each player continues until they want to stop, they have
20 points of mind in their starting company, or they have five characters
in their starting company.
If one player stops revealing characters, the other one may continue to
play charcters.
No player may reveal a character that would bring his starting company's
total mind over 20.
When players are finished, each may put up to 10 characters into their
deck, including character from his starting pool that did not end up in the
starting company.
Map Movement
Maps of the regions of METW may be used in place of region cards in Council
of Lorien tournaments. If two companies move on the same turn, then the
second company does not have to determine it's site path until the begining
of it's movement/hazard phase.
The Weakest Link Method
If there is a tie at the Free Council, add one corruption point to each
non-Wizard in play. Each character then makes a corruption check and
marshalling points are recounted.
Continue this until there is no longer a tie or until all non-Wizard
characters are corrupted away.
------- "The Crossing-guard of Mordor" -------
Craig "Ichabod" O'Brien http://www.cstone.net/~ichabod
ich...@cstone.net Me:CCG Official Netrep
"It is for discipline that the Lord scourges his worshippers."
-Judith 8:17 <<<0>>> Praise "Bob"