Too bad that is has to be non-neutral. There goes my idea of using Ally Radagast and finally making him broken. Oh well, Messenger of the King is still a great card in other respects. I guess. grumbles

[Update] Having gone through all unique neutral allies in the game, I genuinly wonder why this restriction was put in place. Allies like Core Gandalf, Saruman and Wilyador would leave play at the end of the round, so that wouldn't be viable anyway. Thalion has build-in Heroic-ness. That leaves Treebeard and Radagast, who both have innate resource generation. However, they may only use those resources for specific ends and are not assigned to any of the usual spheres. Surely that must off-set the advantage of having them produce an extra resource if they were a hero. Am I missing something here?

Some notes on this contract: 1 -- The Ally you choose must be in your 50. 2 -- The "Setup:" occurs after you draw your hand. This means, that if you draw the Ally you wish to use for this, it will be ineligible (assuming you have only 1 copy) 3 -- You can choose any Ally in your deck. I believe this will make this a very versatile contract because you can choose the Ally that best works with your hand or the quest you're one. Or maybe not.

Just wanted to give a heads up to people who are using this because I see a lot of decklists that do not have the MotK Hero they've chosen in their decklists.

Not a true review. I do believe this is a great addition to the game and will create many exciting new options and I look forward to using it when it is finally released.

This is far and away my favourite contract in the game, and I would go so far as to say that it is also one of the most creatively stimulating cards in the game. Here's why.

What this card basically does is expands your choices for heroes by as many non-neutral unique allies you own. The possibilities are endless! Do you need another hobbit hero for your hobbit deck, but you don't have any hobbit heroes available? Ally Sam Gamgee can fill that slot. Are you making a deck reliant on getting a specific pipe? Ally Bilbo Baggins can make you start the game with a pipe. Do you want to make a Gandalfless-Vilya deck without totally relying on Imladris Stargazer? Choose ally Gildor Inglorion as your hero!

This card opens so many options! You can even use it on allies like Ioreth or Galion to have a hero worth 1 threat! This card opens up secrecy options, theming options, or combo options (like Gamling in Rohan decks).

Some of the best choices include: Birna, Legolas, Pippin, Arwen Undómiel, Súlien, Éothain, Forlong, Gimli, Halfast Gamgee, Rosie Cotton, Bob, Firyal, and Galdor of the Havens and the cards already specified above.

What if you already have a deck with the contract in it but you want to make a different deck usign a Messenger of the King hero? Who cares! Just pretend you have another copy of the card. Realistically, all the contract does is open hero choices. That's why it is so great. Any card that paves the way for creativity is something I give my full support to. Give it a try if you haven't already. Don't own the card? Pretend you do! It won't make a difference.

How many people actually own this card? People were using this in they're decks before it was released. Hmmmmmm... Suspicious... And isn't it really hard to buy?

And MotK allies shouldn't be a "Expansion" on this site.

With the introduction of Beyond the Original Bargain, ALeP also introduced alternative wording to Messenger of the King to make it work with other contracts, and to simplify it overall. Being in the Free-to-Choose-List, nobody is required to use the new wording, but when ALeP is making and balancing new cards, they use the errata listed there, as it can free up design space for cool cards that could otherwise not be made for balance reasons. I thought it would be useful to list the alternate wording here, so you need not hunt it down on their site. What follows is from their Free-to-Choose-List:

Messenger of the King [TVoM 134] [added 07 November 2024] Side A

Could read:

“You cannot choose more than 2 heroes during setup.

Setup: Choose a non-neutral unique ally from your deck and put it into play. Add the sum of that ally’s printed [willpower], [attack], [defense], and hit points to your starting threat. Then, flip this card over and attach it to that ally.

When choosing your starting heroes, choose a non-neutral unique ally from your collection to count as one of them, with a threat cost equal to the sum of its [willpower], [attack], [defense], and hit points.

Forced: When you put your starting heroes into play, flip this card over and attach it to the chosen character.”

Side B

Could read:

“Attached ally character loses the ally card type and gains the hero card type, with a threat cost equal to the sum of its printed [willpower], [attack], [defense], and hit points.

Attached character cannot be readied more than once per phase.

Messenger of the King is immune to card effects while attached character is in play. If attached character leaves play, remove Messenger of the King from the game.”

ALeP’s Note: When we were developing the Beyond the Original Bargain [THo 69] contract, we soon realized that Messenger of the King would be an issue since it was basically impossible to reconcile its official wording with how we wanted it to interact with other contracts. So we propose this alternate wording that will allow players to play interesting combinations like Messenger of the King and Grey Wanderer [TVoM 74] without going against the original intent of Grey Wanderer. Another intent of this wording we propose is to make the Messenger of the King hero work even more like an actual hero than before; by giving it a threat cost, a Messenger of the King hero can now work effectively with things like Mirlonde [AtS 32] and Inspiring Presence [TDC 143/TDCHE 51]