Thanks Crabble. Any chance of seeing some images of the player cards please? I really just want to see the art.

Defender of the West should work nicely with hobbit Gandalf, assuming everyone's on board with the extra threat. Also good for those scenarios featuring an enemy that engages the first player. With Follow me, you can pass the ally at event speed.

Tighten the belt I don't like too much since it depends on something that isn't easily tracked. Thematically and game play wise quite cool though, also good for when you keep a resource for cancellation.

I think Tighten the Belt will work very nicely in a tri-sphere secrecy deck with Sam, Splorfindel and Pippin. It could be really helpful for those crucial first rounds where you're getting set up, so lots of 1 cost allies and attachments are basically for free with this event.

Defender of the West on Hobbit Gandalf is an amazing idea. It can be tough to eat the threat that he's constantly putting out, so spreading it around a bit can be very helpful.

I was also thinking it would work well with Haldir or Rumil with Elven Mail and then they can be healed each round with Silvan Trackers. Sadly Defender of the Naith and Silvan Tracker can't use this since they are not unique.

I think Tighten the belt will be an awsome card espeicaly in my Elrond deck because with this u will be able to pile up a bunch of ressources for one planing phase.

Thanks Crabble. Any chance of seeing some images of the player cards please? I really just want to see the art.

I will make a post tomorrow with new card images but I can't and woun't spoile all cards in just one post because I don't want to get copyright problems with FFG or the Heidelberger Spieleverlag and would like to give a personal first thought about these cards. Still don't know yet if these will be player cards or the main enemy of this quest.

Please tell us about a quest too. What is idea? How many quest cards and so on….

That bow is the elf weapon I've been waiting for. Now the elves have a nice weapon of their own that works against immune enemies.

And I agree with ossderossmane. My first thought on reading Tighten the Belt was how difficult it will be to remember who spent a resource when you're at the end of a tricky round that just took you 10 minutes to complete.

Bow rules. Haldir + Rivendell Blade + the bow = one hard dude who can swing before the enemy do anything.

Right now it sucks that there are only 5 targets for the Galadhrim Bow (assuming it can attach to allies) and only 2 are heroes. They are 2 AWESOME heroes, though, and this just makes them so much more useful. With Haldir and these weapons, we now have 2 decent ways of attacking the staging area (Dunhere being the other option). The only issues with decks attacking the staging area is that they require weapons from Tactics and the main attacking heroes have 9 threat. Tactics is generally high threat (with the exception of Merry), and with a hero of 9 threat, it gets difficult to keep threat low enough. The nice thing with Haldir and this new bow, though, is that they aren't limited to the staging area.

Wow, lots of really good cards!

• Mablung will be great with the new Aragorn, although his abilities would have been better suited for a Dunedain ranger instead of a Gondor ranger (no synergy with any Ithilien cards). I could easily see getting an extra 2 or 3 resources per turn, which is huge for tactics.
• Tighten the Belt looks to be really OP. Compared to cards like Gaining Strength and Wealth of Gondor that give one resource, this is much stronger even if you can't get the full 3 resources out of it. I actually think it will be stronger in one or two color decks because you can spend from all 3 heroes on a single card. Tri-sphere means you need to be playing cards of 3 different colors on the same turn (not counting neutral). And you can even use it on other players that aren't running leadership?
• Bow of the Galadhrim is great for Legolas and Haldir, although they already have a lot of weapons available and I'd rather see a card that could be used by more than 2 heroes. I feel bad for the heroes that can only use Dagger of Westernesse (or Spear of the Mark, which is pretty mediocre for anyone besides Dunhere).
• I like the Traveler, depending on abilities. I hope he's 2 WP. Interesting pair with Ithilien Lookout.

• I like the Traveler, depending on abilities. I hope he's 2 WP. Interesting pair with Ithilien Lookout.

Makes me wonder if there will be a version for treacheries. Leadership or tactics? Either way, that would be the most popular of the three.

The great thing about the bow really is that it doesn't necesarily have to be attached to a Silvan Hero. Rumil for one or Haldir ally could also make use of it. As I am a fan of allies being built out to herolike stats, I like this card!

Tighten the Belt looks great too! (as they all do!) with Gandalf you don't even have to include Leadership.

Love to see a new Dale ally too! Hope remains...

As for Mablung, he looks pretty neat. But I have to agree, no I second Pharmboy on this one. Faramir I can see working with the Ranger, but Mablung not at all.. His response/ability should have been saved for a future Halbarad hero, so thematicly Halbarad and Aragorn would fit nicely together too. Faramir and Mablung should have had synergy.

Traveler is going directly into my Haldir secrecy deck. It's a lot like Beorn's deck that he posted in his blog but mine uses a bunch of outlanders and ithilien lookout. Will be interesting to try.

I like Mablung. He's not flashy but he's really well rounded. We need heroes like that as well, it allows flexibility in our strategies instead of only being able to use a hero for 1 purpose.

He could work in a ti-sphere Gondor deck, he will work with the new Dundedain cards, he could work in a mono-sphere tactics deck, he could be a way to get tactics resources into a deck where you want weapons (for Haldir or Dunhere), etc.

Bow's just awesome. I always want MORE WEAPONS!!!

And Legolas finally gets his bow, we've been waiting a long time for this!

Mablung's going to enjoy being teamed up with Tactics Aragorn.

Mablung's would have enjoyed being teamed up with Tactics Aragorn if not for his "once per phase" limitation.

Mablung's would have enjoyed being teamed up with Tactics Aragorn if not for his "once per phase" limitation.

You can still engage an enemy during encounter phase, then engage another during combat by using Aragorn. Might also be able to trigger during planning with Dunedain cards or Knight of Minas Tirith. Not to mention enemies that engage during questing and quest resolution. It's possible to get 4 extra resources per round, although 1-2 is probably more realistic.

Although unlikely, you could also potentially trigger Aragorn with Quick Strike during any phase.

It's all about shenanigans, Trololo. They make the game worth playing.

+1 resource during encounter phase for regular engagement, +1 resource during combat after you steal an enemy away from another play via tactics Aragorn.

=pretty reliable tactics Steward of Gondor.

Yep, but too many "ifs". Still better than nothing, though.

Next 3 spoiler cards went live on my blog (http://menofgondor.wordpress.com/). Have a look at them if you're interested.

Too bad 2 of these were already spoiled long ago. And even if they wasn't - can't read German.

I love Mablung ... Ressource generator, Gondor, Ranger, a lot a thing to do with this heros.

He can defend with a shield of gondor, he could receive wingfoot ...

He could be boost by Theoden and/or visionary leadership.

With his ressource generation capacity Gondorian fire could be interesting.

His capacity work fine with knight of minas tirith, Westfold outrider, son of Arnor ...

Horn of Gondor + Westfold outrider + Mablung works fine.

A capacity which will generate one ressource by turn without exhaust action is great.

With the future Aragorn tactic, it will be two ressources by turn ... same as steward of Gondor but in tactic, it' great.

Mablung is versatile.

I like the fact that Mablung rewards the tactics player for playing as a tactics player should: using all sorts of tactics cards to engage enemies at odd stages nets a reward. Since he doesn't exhaust to do this, it's pretty good. And any quest where an enemy follows the first player, or enemies jump out of the staging area during questing now gives a wee boost.

I'm a little sad the threat rating is so high (another 10+ for tactics...), but given no enemy in The Road Darkens has an engagement cost below 28 (I think), higher starting threat is less of a no-no these days.

Too bad 2 of these were already spoiled long ago. And even if they wasn't - can't read German.

Would suggest you could use the Google translator but I would argue that this will give you understantable sentences in english...

Anyone interested in trying Tighten the Belt? I think it could work in Beorn's keep it secret deck basically, but I'd update it with other new cards. You'd say it's unnecessary with Resourceful but I actually think it's quite useful with it, as well as all those 1-cost cards you play early on such as Resourceful, LoV, Timely Aid, etc. If you get it in your opening hand or get it early on with card draw, it could really speed up your game, making many important cards basically free, having more resources for the early game.