New article is up.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=5062

Note at the bottom - "new Boromir ally". Leaves two (by my count) player cards left to be spoiled.

The Road Darkens confirmed for being delayed. This really rustles my jimmies.

Indeed it leaves only two. I liked the preview, the burdens look like they're forced on you, which I actually like. I still can't understand why they didn't make a specific burden of the Morgul wound. Frodo was forced to have it in the last BR scenario, and it fits perfectly their definition of a Burden, a really bad decision that had grave consecuences. It's strange they just forgot about it after making a whole scenario after it.

Edit: never mind.

Read the thing half and too fast in my hurry.

This might be a pretty stupid first post but why are there only two and not three cards still missing? The description page mentions 9 player cards, one of them being the Fellowship of the Ring, and the Gandalf preview article mentions two cards, Gandalf's staff and Flame of Anor. This leaves 6 cards. Now we do know from the about page that there are four unique allies but only three of them have been named so far: Steven Seagal Elrond, Bilbo Baggins and Boromir. Aren't we missing three cards now, i.e. one more unique ally and two more other player cards?

By the way, given Bilbo's ability, I would not be surprised to see another Pipe attachment in this set. Anyone thinking the same? Or is one Hobbit Pipe enough for everyone else?

Edit: never mind.

Read the thing half and too fast in my hurry.

Read the last paragraph, it won't come out this week.

Yea I noticed. You're right.

Excited to see Boromir ally tomorrow.

This might be a pretty stupid first post but why are there only two and not three cards still missing? The description page mentions 9 player cards, one of them being the Fellowship of the Ring, and the Gandalf preview article mentions two cards, Gandalf's staff and Flame of Anor. This leaves 6 cards. Now we do know from the about page that there are four unique allies but only three of them have been named so far: Steven Seagal Elrond, Bilbo Baggins and Boromir. Aren't we missing three cards now, i.e. one more unique ally and two more other player cards?

By the way, given Bilbo's ability, I would not be surprised to see another Pipe attachment in this set. Anyone thinking the same? Or is one Hobbit Pipe enough for everyone else?

The spoiled cards so far:

1 - Frodo Baggins (Hero)

2 - Gandalf (Hero)

3 -

4 -

5 - Elrond (Ally)

6 - Bilbo Baggins (Ally)

7 - Flame of Anor (Event)

8 - Gandalf's Staff (Attachment)

9 -

10 - Fellowship of the Ring (Attachment)

The Boons start at 11 with Sting. Given the standard system of numbering the cards by heroes, allies, events then attachments, I'm guessing Boromir will be 3 or 4 which leaves one more ally and one more attachment. As you suggest, a Pipe is probably likely.

The final 2 cards is a pipe attachment and ally version Galandriel.

My thought is the other ally will be Gimli or Legolas. My thought is the designers are going to make it possible to play 2 decks with core set heroes, TBR, and TRD. I don't think we will see Aragorn. We have 4 hobbit heroes including Frodo ring-bearer, and Gandalf hero along with Aragorn hero. Legolas hero is already solid, so my thought is that they will make Gimli the other ally along with Boromir, and viola we can have 2 decks with the entire fellowship represented.

Galadriel and another Gandalf attachment

In regards to the actual article and burdens themselves, god shadow of fear is nasty... that could easily be a game ender if it pops up at the wrong time during pretty much any quest (especially for my decks, not being able to ready and defend multiple attacks with Elrohir will utterly shut down my decks defense). The illustration with the Balrog looming in the background through the archway and heroes running across a bridge away from it is pretty awesome! Pursued by the enemy can be pretty nasty as well especially if you are engaged with more than just one or two enemies. Grievous Wound can be easily ignored so long as you have a healer out and Overcome by Grief doesn't seem too bad especially if you pop it on a hero that always quests (and is not readied with other effects to use again) as it will essentially do nothing if the hero is already exhausted and you aren't planning on readying them for extra use anyway.

The real question is do we sacrifice a hero or play the rest of the campaign with these burdens? Not sure if there is still the capability in the quest of escaping without encountering the Balrog thereby avoiding a nasty sacrifice AS WELL as avoiding these nasty burdens but it kind of seems like there is not and you must decide between the two options. If that option does exist I will be playing this scenario MANY times until I am able to escape without the sacrifice or picking up 4 burdens. If this does not exist I will more than likely choose the burdens.... as nasty as they are, having to raise your starting threat for the rest of the campaign by +1 to replace the fallen hero is pretty nasty too and if plan on swapping one of your much needed heroes out for some Balrog fodder so that the sacrificed hero in this quest is not that big a deal it will cost you +2 to your starting threat for the rest of the campaign.. +1 to swap to Gandalf/whomever your using as Balrog Fodder for this quest and +1 to swap your original hero back in after this quest. This would result in many unwanted engagements and would also increase the likelihood of threating out in every quest. At the same time however having both Grievous Wound AND Overcome by Grief start in the staging area for the rest of the campaign is nothing to laugh about.... every single quest you will have one hero that is bleeding out and requires constant healing/cannot be used (putting it on Glorfindel with LoV equipped would nullify it however unless you use him to attack as well in which case he would take damage on these occasions) and one that is lamenting the friends you have lost thus far and will not be able to attack or defend during rounds that a character is killed (you declare questing characters before staging so any encounter effects that kill a character during staging would not have any effect on the attached character if it has already been declared as a questing character and is already exhausted).

One last thing to consider is those sweet 50 victory points you get if you do defeat the Balrog, it would definitely give you an awesome awesome score for that scenario.

Wow - delayed again. Could care less about rest of article.

The spoiled cards so far:

1 - Frodo Baggins (Hero)

2 - Gandalf (Hero)

3 -

4 -

5 - Elrond (Ally)

6 - Bilbo Baggins (Ally)

7 - Flame of Anor (Event)

8 - Gandalf's Staff (Attachment)

9 -

10 - Fellowship of the Ring (Attachment)

That's sad. Once you remove the Fellowship sphere, there's only 8 "reusable" player cards. That's fewer than an Adventure Pack. At least I know we have some interesting picks.

The reason for there being so few player cards is the amount of boons they had to incorporate. The Fellowship visited both Rivendell and Lothlorien and receive a wealth of items from both. This won't be a problem in future saga expansions.

I'd also like to see a new pipe. Either Aragorn's or Gandalf's.

I'd like to see another Pipe that attaches to a trait, not a name. And it would be nice if that pipe's trait gonna be not hobbits.

PsychoRocka-Overcome by grief prevents hero from readying during refresh phase as well, so a questing hero would lose a turn anyway

That's why I hate Ungoliant's Btood in solo. If it comes out early and I have to engage it - I'm done.

PsychoRocka-Overcome by grief prevents hero from readying during refresh phase as well, so a questing hero would lose a turn anyway

Ah yeah true... that's a little more nasty

Just re read the news and this part stuck out:

"I talked about how in Journey in the Dark, you’re racing through Moria to escape without confronting The Balrog (The Road Darkens, 44) – or, at the very least, not until you’ve made your way to the last quest stage. I also revealed that, if you do encounter The Balrog, the only way to destroy it is to sacrifice a hero at The Great Bridge (The Road Darkens, 50)."

"if you do encounter The Balrog"

It seems you CAN escape without sacrificing a hero or earning all four burdens! Regardless of how hard this is I will be playing this scenario until I achieve it.

One interesting thing in the article is that it will be possible to escape from Moria with the Balrog in play. The Ring-bearer's Trials article seemed to suggest the opposite, when it said: "If you cannot escape from Moria before it enters play, then your one hope is to reach stage three and race across The Great Bridge." Sacrificing a hero to make The Balrog destructible "may prove the only way that the rest of the heroes can escape from Moria." Journey in the Dark's campaign card resolution specifies "If the Balrog is still in play, the first player must choose all 4 burden cards instead." So it should be possible to complete the quest after the Balrog has entered play without killing it. It should also be possible, but probably quite difficult, to complete Journey in the Dark before Doom, Doom, Doom run out of damage and the Balrog enters play. That fits with what Caleb said about the importance of going quickly in this quest (at 21:00 in the Team Covenant GenCon interview). Racing through the quest or using Fortune or Fate seem to be the only ways to avoid two burdens or permanently losing a hero.

I like getting a new type of burden, which can affect play choices from the beginning of the game and doesn't overload the encounter deck with surges. (PsychoRocka, Overcome by Grief is worse than you thought, since it means the hero won't ready during the Refresh phase.) Including the cards spoiled in the display case at GenCon (visible on The Grey Company Podcast's facebook page) we've now seen 6 out of the 7 burdens: Lust for the Ring, Pursued by the Enemy, Shadow of Fear, Grievous Wound, Overcome by Grief, and Followed by Night. Out of the four that are part of the encounter deck, only Pursued by the Enemy and Shadow of Fear have shadow effects, and they're both nasty. From The Black Riders, The Ring Draws Them and Weight of the Ring don't have shadow effects, but the other four burdens from Flight to the Ford do. (Gizlivadi, I think they tried to represent the long term effects of the Morgul wound through the burden deck, since travelling to The Last Bridge earns a burden. It provides variety, but it's not quite thematically satisfying.) I'm curious about what will happen to the burdens that reference The One Ring or the Ring-bearer11 for The Treason of Saruman. There may be a division of burdens and boons into two groups after Breaking of the Fellowship. What, I wonder, is the minimum number of "surge" burdens that we'll be adding to the encounter deck by the end of the campaign?

We've also seen 5 out of the 8 boons from The Road Darkens: Sting, Mithril Shirt, Glamdring, Anduril, and Phial of Galadriel. Boons that are not free and are added to the player deck (above the 50 card minimum) can be more powerful than Setup boons without being unbalanced. I hope that at some point we get a way to tutor for boons, like the On the Doorstep version of Bilbo Baggins could do for treasures.

For player cards, there's something strange about the numbering. The description page for The Road Darkens says that it contains "two heroes, twenty-seven player cards (three copies each of nine different player cards), eight boons, and seven burdens." Perhaps Sting was mislabeled as number 11, perhaps there's a player card numbered after the boons, or perhaps we'll only get 8 different player cards. (Good eye, tricil. Welcome to the forums!)

I think Tracker1 is right, and that the rulebook will list two decks (including the complete Fellowship) that can be constructed using only one core set, The Black Riders, and The Road Darkens. Because of Campaign Mode, my guess is that one of the decks will have the same heroes as the deck listed in The Black Riders rulebook: Sam, Merry and Pippin. The other deck would probably have Gandalf, Aragorn and Legolas as its heroes. It would almost certainly include some Spirit, since it doesn't make sense to exclude a whole sphere with such a limited card pool. Gandalf could pay for some Spirit cards, and so could Aragorn if he got Celebrían's stone. Combining Gimli with Aragorn and Gandalf would give a starting threat of 37, so Legolas with a starting threat of 35 seems more likely, together with a Gimli ally.

I'm almost certain we'll get Narya in The Road Darkens. Vilya came with Elrond and Nenya is coming with Galadriel. Both Vilya and Nenya give an additional sphere to their bearers. I expect that Narya will do the same, or perhaps function a bit like Narvi's Belt and give different spheres, perhaps with some condition or limitation. I wonder what its other ability will be. When giving him Narya, Cirdan said to Gandalf, "it will support you in the weariness that you have taken upon yourself. For this is the Ring of Fire, and with it you may rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill." If we get a ninth player card, it could be anything. I think it's likely to be neutral, since there will be one ally from each regular sphere and one Fellowship attachment. It might be a pipe that can attach to Gandalf.

"While we had anticipated that The Road Darkens would be at retailers this week..."

Possible translation: Do not try to ship product when the new iPhone is coming out.

It seems there are 3 unknown cards left. We have the 4 unique allies (one of which remains unknown to most), the Fellowship attachment, Flame of Anor, the Staff, another card which is again unknown to most, and finally a completely unknown card. Crossing my fingers that it will be Narya. It has to be. That, or some "Wizard's fire" event related to when they were attacked by wargs.

The final 2 cards is a pipe attachment and ally version Galandriel.

Galadriel and another Gandalf attachment

Lol, and I thought I had been imprudent by teasing somehow the rest of the cards. And these guys get a free pass?