Hello and Welcome to Wardens of the Midwest!
We’re back again with spolers provided in the most community friendly way possible! No video, no podcast, no waiting period. Just pure, unadulterated images on which to feast your eyes!
I was considering doing a video, but then Dan Kaye decided to move to Vancouver or something like that and was therefore “too busy” for silly stuff like spolers, so here we are :P.
Haunted Forest Scout
The Night’s Watch haven’t really gotten an interesting new character in a while, unless you count Mag the Mighty ;). Other than that, we’ve gotten mostly generic characters with relevant traits and mildly interesting text boxes, such as the Defender of the Wall, Eastwatch Carpenter, Young Builder etc (we are getting Coldhands, which is going to be fun, but he’s not out yet, so I’m sticking with the current narrative :P). The Haunted Forest Scout is no different. A non-unique 2 for 2 bicon. The ranger trait (and ally trait, but that’s mostly irrelevant, except against Daario). The no attachments except weapons keyword. But being boring or simple does not mean it’s weak. I do like that this character is further bolstering the ranger deck built around Ser Jaremy Rykker. With Rykker out, he’s a tricon and, if you have 1 more ranger (let’s say…Grenn), this character does not kneel to attack, which is pretty fantastic. For how much I hate going first, this guy could make going first potentially great! I can do all three of my attacks without kneeling too many characters (if any at all, as I could just attack with this guy three times in a row) and then, when my opponent attempts to attack back (if they have any characters left), I still have a standing ranger ready to Watcher on the Walls them (with help from another ranger, of course)! And, as a character that does not kneel to attack, he can take advantage of the aforementioned Grenn as well as Pyp to just manufacture efficiency out of your attacks, practically forcing your opponent to try and stop your attacks or else hemorrhage their power and/or give you a ton of cards. I could see this being the most Nightmares’d 2 cost character in the entire game in the right circumstances XD. It sucks that he can’t defend, so he’ll probably never be played in a Wall deck (unless you really like the idea of switching between offense and defense), but I personally am really enjoying the attack-y Night’s Watch more than the Defend-y Night’s Watch right now, so that doesn’t bother me so much. Of course, being 2 cost opens him up to several weaknesses, such as being killed/returned to hand by various “printed cost 3 of lower” cards(while also enabling Flea Bottom to bring him back from the discard pile if you’d like). But his low cost makes him really good if Valar Dohaeris is the meta reset of choice, since keeping him will not take up a lot of your 10 gold. He also carries attachments like Longclaw and Dragonglass Dagger very very well. The more I write and think about this character, the more I like him :).
Mole’s Town
Ugh, more bestow. And, on top of being a bestow card, it’s also another stall card. I can hear the boo birds emerging from their nests already. “Craven on a location, this is so NPE” etc etc. Granted, (non-builder) stall decks became a lot less efficient when location hate became more common, and this card will have to overcome that same problem. Due to the means by which it adds the gold to the character (unless there is some future way of removing gold from your opponent’s characters) you can only stop each character one time, so it doesn’t lock down 1 MVP for turns at a time like Craven does. And if your opponent runs characters with bestow already, you can’t stop that character as long as they put 1 gold on them. Considering Craven costs 1 gold and gets you the same thing for as long as the attachment lasts and this costs 1 cost + 1 gold for each time you use it (that you have to pre-pay, or add via other means like Favors From the Crown or Unbridled Generosity) and it only lasts 1 phase…I’m not convinced this card will see all that much play. Of course, doubling up with Craven and this card will be very frustrating for your opponent. That said, I do like the flavor of the card. You’re basically buying them a prostitute so that they don’t attack you, right? 😛 Oh, those rascally Night’s Watchmen…
If you have any additional thoughts on the cards, feel free to comment in the Facebook thread, or Reddit thread or wherever you see these or if have any other general comments about the game, the website or anything else, I’ll be glad to listen!
Until next time, folks! 😀