Warrior

The final trait that is to be discussed during this month of traits is the Warrior trait. This is probably the most conventional trait out there and can be found on a multitude of characters. But being a very common trait is understandable in a world where you better have some skill with a blade. In this article, we will take a closer look at the Warrior trait, and how it interacts with the game.

Who are the Warriors?

In Middle Earth, you must be able to defend yourself against the various creatures and Orcs that roam the land. As such, a lot of characters in the game have received military training or are proficient with a weapon. This can range from being able to fight foes on horseback, to being able to snipe them with a bow and arrow. Warriors can be found in all factions, as they each must fight to preserve their nation. As such, it is a very common trait to be found in the game on both heroes and allies. Should a character not have the trait, you can always grant them the title of Mighty Warrior in order to grant them the trait.

Expansion Packs

Because the Warrior trait is so common, I will not be including all heroes and allies to this list, as it would likely include the majority of expansions in the game. This list will include cards that interact with the Warrior trait. For a list of characters with the trait, check this link.

• The Antlered Crown
• Flight of the Stormcaller
• The Thing in the Depths
• A Storm on Cobas Haven
• The Mumakil
• Race Across Harad
• Beneath the Sands
• The Wilds of Rhovanion
• The Ghost of Framsburg

Spheres

The Warrior trait symbolises the pure essence of the Tactics sphere, in that it features some of the best characters when it comes to combat. This is all that Tactics does, making it a very good match between the trait and the sphere. When it comes to the characters with the Warrior trait, you will find that a lot of them come from the Tactics sphere, though there are also characters in the other spheres with the Warrior trait. But in order to get the most out of the trait, you will want to go mono-Tactics in order to handle all of the combat for your party, as long as they deal with questing.

There is also an argument to be made for including a second sphere, as Leadership has a couple of card that can be useful for Warrior characters. Hauberk of Mail is one such card that can go on any Warrior character to help them boost their defence. Including a bit of Leadership in your Warrior deck will help the deck with a bit more willpower and more defensive style attachments than if you would have gone mono-Tactics.

Synergy

The Warrior trait is all about dealing with enemies. And Warrior characters try to be better at this than others by having more of their stats contributed to attack and defence strength. You will not be finding a lot of willpower on these characters unless they start costing more resources or initial threat.

To further improve on handling the enemies in this game, the Warrior trait gets exclusive access to a couple of attachments that help with defending or attacking enemies more efficiently. The two attachments from the Wilds of Rhovanion box, Hauberk of Mail and Bow of Yew are good examples of this. Outside of a Dale deck, these attachments can only be put to use if the attached character has the Warrior trait. This, in turn, allows them to raise their defence at a lower cost than other characters would, or allows them to deal more damage than usual. Other exclusive attachments like Warrior Sword and Raiment of War do the same, where they outfit Warrior characters to be even fiercer in battle.

Synergy with other traits

Since this is one of the occupational traits, the characters with the Warrior trait will have another trait on their card. The synergy of this second trait (which is usually the faction to which they belong) will be much stronger than that of the Warrior trait. So when building a Warrior style deck, it will be wise to focus on a second trait as well, much like with the Noble trait.

As one of the 4 biggest occupational traits, the Warriors also interact with the other occupations in the form of the event cards released during the Haradrim cycle. Together with a Ranger character, the Warriors can prevent an enemy from attacking through Coney in a Trap. With the Noble trait, the Warriors can straight up discard an enemy in the staging area through Hunting Party.

Staples

Other than the various heroes and allies that have the Warrior trait, there are some staples when it comes to the supporting cards of the archetype. The first is an attachment that greatly improves any Warrior character so that they can attack and defend better at the low cost of 2 resources. This is the Raiment of War, which grants stat boosts of +1 to attack and defence, and also boosts the character’s hitpoints by 2.

This single attachment has a catch though, it fills up both restricted slots on a character. This means that while you are able to put this on your Gondorian Spearman to make him survive longer, you are no longer able to make him equip a Spear of the Citadel as well. However, there aren’t that many Warrior allies that need attachments, making this one a perfect piece of equipment for your defender. The fact that this can even go on allies is great, making allies like Defender of Rammas or Knight of the White Tower a lot better. With the Raiment being both a Weapon and a piece of Armor, there are numerous events that can interact with it, such as Sterner than Steel, Foe-Hammer, and Swift and Strong. Most of the time, you’d need to find multiple cards in your deck in order to get these stat boosts, but now you can save the deck space and only have to find one attachment for your character.

“Bad” Warrior cards

With so many Warrior characters, there are bound to be some less than stellar ones, but in terms of other Warrior related cards, there can be some duds as well. For instance, I don’t believe I have ever seen Last Stand being used seriously in a deck before. The event is free but requires a Warrior character to have been destroyed while defending against an enemy. This already makes the card incredibly niche, as you generally want to keep your Warrior characters around and try to chump with other allies. The event can also not be triggered on returning an ally to hand, or when a character dies from taking direct damage or archery damage. If you do happen to meet the requirement, you get to do damage to the attacking enemy equal to the printed attack value on the just destroyed Warrior character. It is rare that an ally with who you defend also has a high enough attack value to favour this event over a card like Goblin-Cleaver or Swift Strike. You can design it so that you defend with a high attack character that stands no chance to live, but why would you? You’ll be better off defending the attack with another character and leaving that character ready to attack during the next step in the combat phase. The fact that it only deals damage equal to the printed attack value also doesn’t benefit you if the destroyed ally had any attachments on it that could have boosted attack a little. All in all, I have never used this event, and I doubt anyone has had a great moment with it at some point.

Decks

Much like the Noble trait, there aren’t really decks out there that centr purely on the Warrior trait. There are a lot of decks that do use them, but mostly for their second trait or their stats. Try out any Tactics deck and you will have gotten a taste of the Warrior trait. If you happen to find a deck that does focus on the trait, feel free to bring it to my attention, and I will add it to the list.

That concludes all developed traits in the game at this point. While I do have a couple of mechanics left on the list, those will have to take a backseat for a while as I get back to doing regular articles. I will also note that there are several traits being developed at this very moment like the Creature trait. The analysis of this trait will be done once the trait has gotten some more development. I will also redo some of the articles that are outdated once all the player cards of the Ered Mithrin cycle are known.