Could anyone list the top 10 artifacts for each game 1650 and 2950
1650, imho:
Mantle of Doriath (pop center hiding)
Vilya, Nenya, Narya (elven RoP, +50 mage)
Tinculin (+40 mage, curses)
Ring of Wind (+40 agent)
RIng of Binding (+30 agent)
Ring of Curufin (+30 agent)
Cloak of the Abyss (+40 stealth)
Dwarven Ring of Power (+40 command)(just cant leave a +40 off the list!)
I’d collectively squeeze Palantir onto the bottom of the list. The ability to take a 10 rank character and generate 2 Scout Areas per turn with unlimited range and roughly 50 rank is occasionally vital to strategy.
Here is a list of unowned artifacts in 1650 that I feel are top 10. A slightly different perspective.
Tinculin
Ring of Wind
Ring of Curufin
Collar of Might
Collohwesta
Staff of Earthmastery
Suimbalmynas
Anguirel
Staff of the Wanderer
Silmaruth
and what about 2950?
Hm. Is this your list of the best neutral unowned artifacts in 1650?
Give examples of allied toys that are more powerful that are unowned…
Sure, no problemo.
007 Nazguaga Mage +30 Evil
168 Ancaruin Combat +2250 Good
174 Belthronding Combat +2250 Good
144 Orcring Combat +2250 Good
83 Orcrist Combat +2250 Good
145 Orcruin Combat +2250 Good
169 Gurthang Combat +2250 Evil
180 Fuinrako Combat +2000 Evil
I think a more interesting question though is whether a +20 Mage artifact is better than a +15 Stealth or Agent artifact for our hypothetical Top 10 list. 
I’d say yes, but only barely. An agent with enough ranks can do his job without a stealth arty, but a mage without a casting artifact may be of little use to a curse squad since he can’t cast it reliably without one.
It’s funny. I mostly play 4th age these days, where all the artifact numbers are scrambled and I’ve yet to see a curses artifact turn up in play. Starting Special Nation Abilities include Weakness, but it’s no substitute for Curses. Consequently the artifact hunt mostly revolves around picking up whichever handful of agent artifacts one can discover numbers for, and drilling the enemy as hard and fast as possible.
A few Mage artifacts are nice, but don’t make a major difference to the game. In fact, it’s usually the nations that pursue a mage strategy that get run over the worst. A couple weapons and command artifacts are a bonus as well, but kinda the same story. And the Mantle has left the building, so no sneaky stuff.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure Curses has been removed from 4th Age artifacts entirely. I’ve only seen one character total with Curses, and that was a random character bonus of a lost list spell.
Lots of weapons there - certainly a Scenario slant on the list.
Once in a FA game we researched almost 200 artefacts, and I can safely say that there are no lost list spells on any artefact as secondary power.
Nevertheless, in a good Team, you can run a mage/weakness Nation quite effectively in FA, I have done this several times.
Interesting. I’ve come up against weakness squads in 3 or 4 separate games and we’ve always trashed them with agents. They get a few kills in, but in the end we pull their arms and legs off.
Pound for pound, I’m convinced that in FA, all those orders and character points are better spent on agents than weakness mages. I’m sure they can be a great complement to a strong agent game, but they won’t make up for lack of ‘air superiority’ in fire-power and scouting.
Anyway, that’s been my experience.
That’s true, you need strong agents in your Team as well, plus it is most powerful in a LKA Setup. Weakness mages are a lot easier to replace than cursers, I used to run the companies with at least one surplus mage in case of a loss. The big advantage of weakness is that the 330 order comes before anything agents can do AND that there is absolutely no defense against it.