To master War of the Ring you must know the cards available to you as well as to your opponent. Using the right card at the right time can make a real difference in the game. Many of the cards are very useful at the right moment but all cards can be put to good use since they not only function as events but also as combat effects. In this article I will take a look at the Free Peoples player's event cards.

The Character cards
The character deck contains seven categories of cards, let us take a closer look at each category, starting with the Hunt Pool cards:
Phial of Galadriel, Sméagol Helps Nice Master, Elven Cloaks and Elven Rope are all, in descending order, your best defense against the dangers of Mordor. Once Frodo and his Companions enter Mordor they will need all the help they can get in order to reach Mount Doom unscathed. If Frodo already is in Mordor remember to put these tiles into the Hunt pool before you move.

The Corruption Reducers:
This category contains all the cards that can reduce the Corruption suffered by the Ringbearers. Bilbo's Song and There is Another Way should be kept for play late in the game since they are especially good if Gollum is guiding the Fellowship. The first will grant additional healing while the latter will give you a move/hide action in addition to the Corruption point healed.

Athelas is also better with a particular guide in charge of the Fellowship's well-being. If played with Strider at the helm you should stand a good chance of healing three Corruption points. This makes the card more useful to heal any early Corruption damage since Strider probably has left for Gondor later in the game. If you get this card early don't be afraid to assign Corruption damage to Frodo since this card combined with Strider's Guidance should make up for it.

I Will Go Alone is a card that lets you heal one Corruption point, but for a price. You have to separate at least one Companion. If you hold this card early in the game that should be no problem since you will undoubtedly separate someone from the Fellowship at least once. If you get it later in the game it can be used in Mordor when you only have Merry or Pippin as the last Companion: it is better to heal one before the next move than suffer the damage and then use the last Companion as a Corruption shield since this will render the card useless.

Finally we have Mirror of Galadriel, which will allow you to heal a Corruption point if the Fellowship is in Lorien. Not a card that very often is played to its fullest potential. Luckily the card has another use: it can turn a Character die into a Will of the West die. This use is often the one to go for no matter where the Fellowship is. The healing in Lorien is just a bonus.

The Corruption Protectors:
In this category we find Axe and Bow and Horn of Gondor, which both allow you to reduce the Corruption of a drawn Hunt tile. Just make sure to use them before the Companions they are tied to are separated or killed. We also find Wizard's Staff, which is a bit more powerful than the two cards mentioned above since it will prevent the Shadow player from drawing a Hunt tile when he should. As with the two earlier cards, remember to use it before the guy carrying the staff is separated or killed (something that is highly probable).

Finally we have the famous Mithril Coat and Sting. This card can in the best of circumstance win you the game and in the worst put you in a much worse situation than you believed yourself to be. Fortunately, it tends to help a lot more than it hurts. Giving you the chance to replace a drawn Hunt tile with a new one is one that shouldn't be overlooked.

The Movement Enhancers:
Gwahir the Windlord, We Prove the Swifter and There and Back Again all allow you to move your Companions a bit faster than they tend to move. This can often prove extremely powerful since your Companions can be very helpful at the right places and having them show up where the Shadow didn't expect is always nice. There and Back Again can also give the Elves, the North and the Dwarfs a boost down the political track - often a wise move if the Shadow is heading for the DEW-line.

The Muster cards:
In the Character deck there are two cards that allows you to muster units and they are House of the Stewards and The Grey Company. The first one is associated with Boromir and if you can get him to Gondor before the Shadow strikes it will help immensely since you get both Boromir's Leadership and Captain of the West ability as well as one Gondor unit (preferably an Elite) and two Strategy cards. The latter one Allows you to replace a Regular unit with an Elite unit in Strider's/Aragorn's army. This can be more powerful than you first think since it can be used to reinforce a siege or reinforce in a Region that doesn't contain a settlement and it also gives you two strategy cards.

The Attack cards:
This category is made up of The Eagles are Coming, Dead Men of Dunharrow and the three Ent cards. The first card is extremely useful if played just before the Shadow launches an attack on one of your besieged Strongholds. Robbing the army of its Nazgûl Leadership can save, if not the Stronghold, the turns it takes for the Shadow to regroup his Ringwraiths.

Dead Men of Dunharrow is very powerful since it allows you to attack a Shadow army as well as recruiting three new units in the attacked Region. Just make sure that the Shadow army isn't strong enough to wipe out your three freshly recruited units since if they do they will also kill Strider/Aragorn.

The Ent cards (Huorns, Entmoot and Treebeard) can be extremely useful if they manage to wipe out the Shadow units in Orthanc, and with them Saruman. This is most often not the result since the Shadow can protect himself against it; therefore I suggest that you don't forget the combat effects of the cards, they are also immensely powerful.

Challenge of the King:
The final category I have named after the sole card it incorporates. This card should be played if possible since the chance to remove Eye tiles permanently from the game is too great to pass up. Once in while you will draw three eyes and lose Strider/Aragorn but it shouldn't happen that often. Naturally the prudent player keeps track of how many Eye tiles have been drawn and plays the card when only two remain in the pool, but that removes some of the fun doesn't it?

The Strategy Cards
The strategy deck contains six categories, let us begin with the Muster cards: The majority of the cards in this deck (Celeborn's Galadhrim, Cirdan's Ships, Dain Ironfoot's Guard, Éomer, son of Éomund, Grimbeorn the Old, son of Beorn, Guards of the Citadel, Imrahil of Dol Amroth, Kindred of Glorfindel, King Brand's Men, Riders of Théoden, Swords in Eriador and Thranduil's Archers) belong to this category and they all will allow you to muster units, some will also give you new Strategy cards, and remember that they can all be used to reinforce a Stronghold under siege.

The Protection cards:
Both The Power of Tom Bombadil and A Power Too Great will protect the Shire and the High Elven Strongholds (not the Woodland Realm) from the Shadow and, when used at the right moment (usually just before the Shadow launches his attack), they can halt the Shadow's plans. The important part here is that the Shadow needs one Army card (of which there are only eleven in the game) and one Character card to discard your protection card - something not always so easy to come up with and certainly not so easy to part with.

The Attack cards:
With Help Unlooked For you can recreate the Rohirrim's arrival at Pelennor Fields or try to save any other of your besieged Strongholds. Very useful if you score enough hits in the first round of combat since the Shadow normally retreats as soon as possible when faced with this card.

The Spirit of Mordor allows you to pit Shadow unit against Shadow unit and hope that the outcome justified the die you spent on playing it. The card is most often used in the south where the armies of the Haradrim and those of Mordor sometimes unite to assault the White City of Minas Tirith.

If Osgiliath is about to be attacked Faramir's Rangers is a very good card to have handy. It gives you a free shot at the enemy army as well as some much-needed reinforcements in Osgiliath. The card can also be used simply to reinforce Osgiliath if no Shadow army is within reach.

The Political cards:
If the Shadow attacks Gondor early The Red Arrow can aid your allies in Rohan. This can both be used to reinforce Rohan or, if Rohan is Active and can get to war, help defend the regions of Gondor.

With Wisdom of Elrond you can send a Nation you think is soon to become a target of the Shadow one step closer to war.

Fear! Fire! Foes! and Book of Mazarbul can get the either the Dwarves or the North to war immediately; it does however force you to send a Companion to the appropriate location. If either or both cards are used (in time) the defenses of the DEW-line quite often benefits greatly from it.

The Movement cards:
Through a Night and a Day can be used either to quickly defend somewhere the Shadow though you unable to reach in time or to launch a surprise attack on that Stronghold the Shadow left with to few defenders.

Path of the Woses will send the Rohan relieve force to Minas Tirith in one move, especially fun to play right after The Red Arrow moved Rohan to War.

The Last Battle:
The Last Battle is a card that very seldom is used since its prerequisites are quite difficult to fulfill. Getting Aragorn or Gandalf to Mordor, Ithilien, or Dagorlad isn't difficult but getting an army there that will last any length of time can be a bit trickier. However, if you manage to pull it off when the Fellowship is in Mordor the Shadow will throw everything he has against you to remove the card. If he doesn't Frodo will probably get rid of the Ring faster than you can move the figure on the board.

Written by Kristofer Bengtsson