Mount: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 12:59, 2 January 2022

Mount is an Item Class, and thus a Loaded Keyword. Mounts are possession cards that represent large animals that characters can ride, such as horses, wargs, and fouler things. A character who is mounted is a character who is currently bearing a mount possession.

The horsemen of Rohan culture have the bulk of the Free Peoples mounts and cards that interact with mounts, although a handful of mostly unique mounts appear in other cultures, including Asfaloth (1U31) , Bill the Pony (3U106) , Shadowfax (4R100) , and Brego, Loyal Steed (13R63) . On the Shadow side, Isengard has a whole Warg-rider orc subculture with its own exclusive wargs, but they also appear in other cultures. Wraith culture has a handful of black horses and Fell Beast (6U83) s, Raider Southrons have their Mûmak (5C73) il, Orc culture has its own wargs like Relentless Warg (17R89) that play on any relatively low-strength orc, and Gothmog's Warg (10R89) is an odd wolf out.

Mounts have had a number of shared gimmicks over the years. Fellowship Block mounts are largely strength boosters, but are discarded at Underground sites. In that block, most site 4s and the only site 5 (The Bridge of Khazad-dûm (1C349) ) are underground, making these cards somewhat unreliable, limiting their popularity.

Mounts were a larger part of Towers Block, with the addition of Rohan culture. Most of the Free Peoples mounts in that Block were Rohan culture, such as Rider's Mount (4C287) , but some of them, like Brego (4U263) and Horse of Rohan (4C283) , could be played on characters of any culture, as long as they were a race that is tall enough to ride. Almost every Free Peoples mount in this block exerts enemy minions at the start of a skirmish. In this block, this includes mounts of other cultures, such as Shadowfax (4R100) . (In later sets, exerting at the start of a skirmish becomes an exclusive quality of Rohan mounts in particular.) Rohan cards often interact directly with mounts, either by granting bonuses to mounted characters (Rider's Spear (4C288) ) or taking advantage of those exertions (Éowyn, Lady of Ithilien (10R72) and Éomer, Third Marshal of Riddermark (4R267) ).

Warg-riders were also introduced in Towers Block, as a Isengard orc subculture. Warg-riders are mostly unremarkable minions, and each of them is relatively cheap, relatively weak, and Fierce while not exhausted. Most of them are fairly low-quality, but Warg (5C65) , War-warg (5U64) , or Sharku's Warg (5R59) are powerful Warg possessions that can only be played on warg-riders. Those three mounts give large strength and vitality increases, making the warg-riders strong and difficult to kill. Warg-riders were not an especially successful experiment; except for Sharku, Vile Marauder (6R74) , the only set with warg-riders or cards which directly support warg-riders was Battle of Helm's Deep. In later sets, wargs can be played on any minion of the appropriate culture. This starts with starting with Gothmog's Warg (10R89) in Mount Doom, and continues with the Orc-culture wargs like Relentless Warg (17R89) .

Battle of Helm's Deep introduced another enduring design for Shadow mounts, with Mûmak (5C73) and War Mûmak (5R78) , cards for the Raider Southron subculture. Mumakil grant large strength bonuses and the Fierce keyword, turning the relatively middling-strength minions of that subculture into dangerous skirmishers. Southrons were not as focused on Mumakil as warg-riders were, but the fact that Southron minions appear in all of the sets of Tower Block and King Block made those mounts generally more useful. This design persisted when Raider culture was converted to Men culture, with cards like Beast of War (17U40) . Plus, later Wraith mounts, generally (but did not always) followed the Mumakil model, giving strength bonuses and Fierce to Nazgul.

After Towers Block, most Free Peoples mounts granted a potpourri of different abilities, often but not always including a strength bonus. Most of these mounts are Rohan culture or different versions of Shadowfax. The main exception is Bloodlines, which added a a cycle of Free Peoples mounts in each culture that interact with Culture Tokens.

Mount cards

Free Peoples

Dwarven

Arod, Rohirrim Steed (13R1)

Elven

Gandalf

Gondor

Rohan

Shire

Shadow

Isengard

Men

Orc

Raider

Sauron

Gothmog's Warg (10R89)

Wraith