To take a break of the ‘favoutire scenario of cycle X’ trend, I made a poll for the short month of February where players could vote for their top 3 weapon attachments. And with the month coming to an end, it is time to share with you the results on what weapons should remain according to the community. This poll had a lot of options, but nearly all of them received some votes. That goes to show that there are people out there that enjoy different styles of weapons.
In total, the poll received over 240 votes, which is probably a new record. The fact that each voter got 3 votes will have helped with this, but at least we got enough votes to decide on a clear winner. All Weapons also received at least 1 vote, meaning that there are fans of all Weapons out there, and they all have a place in at least 1 deck. But some Weapons were more popular than others, so let’s see the results!
In first place, receiving nearly 17% of all votes, is the Dagger of Westernesse that came out in the Black Riders expansion. Since then, the Dagger has been a staple in many decks as it is a generic weapon that can go onto any hero. If you manage to keep a low enough threat, then the Weapon will be one of the cheapest ways to get a +2 attack on the table against most enemies. Since many boss-level enemies have an engagement cost of 50, the Dagger will always help out against those, even in the late game. Over the years, the Dagger has become slightly less relevant as some other weapons might work better with the synergy of your deck, but it still remains one of the easiest weapons to splash into a deck. The fact that you don’t have to exhaust it also helps to trigger weapon-based events like Foe-hammer and Swift and Strong.
While raising your attack can be useful, it also helps to lower the defence value of the enemy that you are attacking. That is the philosophy of the Rivendell Blade that came in second place. Since the Blade has a constant -2 to the enemy’s defence, it is usually better than most other weapons that have a +1 attack or +2 if a condition is met. The only time that the Blade won’t be at it’s peak performance is if you are attacking a 0 or 1 defence enemy. This Weapon is also useless against enemies that are immune to player card effects. However, its combo with Straight Shot is very effective against other enemies, which has likely resulted in the second place of this weapon.
The Raiment of War enters in at third place, being both a Weapon and Armor attachment. It is more costly than other weapons, and will take up both Restricted slots of the character. However, it does boost any combat-capable character with buffs in attack, defence, and hitpoints. The 2 extra hitpoints that this attachment gives is very nice for the weaker allies that would otherwise die to direct damage effects. The Raiment has received some new life when Dale rolled around, as the cost of this attachment got reduced on some allies, who gained additional buffs on top of the ones from the actual attachment. I can imagine this attachment ranking quite high on an Armor poll as well.
When it comes to unique attachments, Herugrim takes the highest place, with 9 votes taking 8th place. The attachment works fantastic with many Rohan heroes, and now that Golden Belt allows you to get more Restricted attachments on heroes, I can see players adding willpower boosts to the hero with Herugrim to get even more value out of this weapon. It is one of the more expensive attachments on this list though, costing 3 Spirit resources (2 if played on Theoden). But without a restriction on how much attack strength this weapon can add to your hero, it is worth it, even on other heroes than Theoden. I have also seen Herugrim on Eowyn and Cirdan, since they start with high willpower, making them deadly attackers with just one attachment (2 for Cirdan, since he needs Nor am I a Stranger).
The highest Guarded (X) weapon on this list is Glamdring. This is different than the results we got for the best Guarded (X) attachment poll I did a while back, where Sting got more votes. Glamdring is a great weapon to use, as it allows players to draw a lot more cards, just before they start a new round where they can start to play those cards. The added +2 attack in Lore also helps, as there aren’t a lot of weapons in that sphere that boost attack strength without having to clear a few side-quests first.
Near the bottom of the list, we got a few weapons that only received 1 vote each. This includes Durin’s Axe, which is brand new and might not yet have gotten its chance to shine yet. I am looking forward to playing it on Azain Silverbeard (MotK) and dish out a lot of direct damage in the future. As for the other weapons, the Sword of Numenor is pretty underwhelming unless you know you are going up against a quest with a lot of 5+ hitpoint enemies. In other cases, a simple Dunedain Mark might serve you better. Elven Spear is also here, but it does nothing for you unless you have cards to burn for it. It is a great way for Erestor decks to get rid of a few extra cards, though those decks tend to have more than enough outlets for discarding cards. Haradrim Spear also only received one vote, most likely because Harad decks are pretty rare. Yazan is also played a lot less than Firyal or Jubayr in non-Harad decks, meaning that you won’t be packing this attachment often. The ability on it is very thematic though, where toss away the spear for extra damage.
I do intend to make an armour style poll like this in the future, maybe for April, as it was a fun topic to discuss. But for March, I want to continue to ask what scenarios you enjoy best of each cycle. Next on the list is the Dwarrowdelf cycle, which had some fantastic quests, but also a couple that people haven’t looked back at for a long time. Some you will only encounter during progression style games, but others have ranked high in the Favourite Scenario Poll of 2018. So I am very curious to see the results of this poll at the end of next month.
Vision Of The Palantir 
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