DECIPHER.com > The Lord of the Rings > Expansions > Shadows

More Shadowy Set Statistics, and An Anagram

by Kathy McCracken
Web Writer

Last week I gave you a bunch of numbers for the Free Peoples cards in Shadows. Today I'll fill that out with the Shadow numbers.

• Gollum: 8 (That's in addition to the 4 Free Peoples cards)
• Men: 39
• Orc: 38
• Uruk-hai: 30
• Wraith: 20

Lotsa bad guys! That's to be expected, of course, with three new cultures to outfit with events and conditions and possessions.

And with terrains taking on a lot more importance in this set, you're probably also wanting to know how many of each type you're going to get (besides the marshes and underground that I told you last time). So here's the site breakdown:

• Battleground: 5
• Dwelling: 5
• Forest: 6
• Marsh: 4
• Mountain: 4
• Plains: 6
• River: 3
• Underground: 6

A lot of things seemed to come in threes in Shadows. Besides the three rivers, there are also three dwarves, three axes (but not all Dwarven axes), and three each of Bows, Archery events, and Archer minions!

If you checked the card list on Sunday, you found that the three new cards were Blade of Lindon (Elven culture), Aragorn, Guide and Protector (Gondor culture), and Prowling Orc (um, Orc culture). Those are the three cultures you'll be seeing this week; in general, the 3 or 4 cards each day will all be of one culture – today's are Orc cards. (The same "predictive" card selection on Sundays will continue for the next three weeks.)

Tomorrow, we'll have three Elven cards on display, including one whose title/subtitle anagrams to:

FEW CAN STAND HEREUNDER

OK, so that's not exactly set statistics... but have fun figuring it out anyway.

October 4, 2004