http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=5276

I feel we may have exhausted this topic a bit.

I like the Raven Chief Camp art a lot. I wish the Raven Chief was called Chief Somebody the way Turch is though. It would have been a nice touch.

I don’t really have a way to upload pictures of the rest of the cards easily, but I’ll talk about the quest here. You get Chief Turch as an Objective Ally upfront. 1WP 3AT 2DF 5HP. Does not exhaust to defend. (I just kept him back to attack though.) The quest is played with the “pitchfork” and “dagger” sets from the core box. You go through these sets and pull out all of the enemies and make a separate “Raven Deck” with these enemies and will pull these guys out when instructed to. Which will be quite often.

All of the locations have their own individual Time counters, usually Time 3. When these expire – and there are a lot of accelerants – you will do what it says on the location card which is usually draw a card from the Raven deck and put it into play engaged with you. What happens is that you end up with time counters everywhere that are continuously going off and enemies continuously engaging you. But usually that is happening at the end of the turn. As a solo player it took me a long time to “gain control” of the board.

The final boss attacks you relentlessly, but at 5 AT isn’t that bad. Hopefully by then you have a defender buffed up. There are no nasty encounter deck attachments that attach to you, but there are some that attach to the active location.

Well, people wanted encounter/art spoilers and stuff.

How are the enemies in this pack? I'd love to see the art on those.

flicker stuff

First time trying to post a pic...

...and it failed.

flicker stuff

First time trying to post a pic...

...and it failed.

Can't you use an image hosting site? Or don't you know how to use it?

flicker stuff

First time trying to post a pic...

...and it failed.

Can't you use an image hosting site? Or don't you know how to use it?

I have been able to use Flickr on many other boards, but not here for some reason. If you want to PM me your email address I will happily send you the pictures and you can upload them.

Here is encounter spoilahs from the Bullroarer Took:

http://i.imgur.com/E5vvNrX.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/4w9DK97.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ark9izc.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/2uiEzLh.jpg

Anyone notice that the article called The Day's Rising a Title? Are these proof read?

Now, when I've actually seen the encounter cards, especially flavor text of the quest cards, I am really, like REALLY, dissapointed and stunned that they did not include at least 1 dunland ally player card in this pack. That does not makes any sense. There is entire armies of different dunland tribes fighting, and all we get for siding with one of them is an objective chief?

Amazing art

I agree completely. I really want a Dunland player card. Also I was disappointed with no fort location, but oh well.

I noticed that too joezim! Why is The Day's Rising a title?

And it's also a shame that we didn't get a new art for Turch. An illustration of him with the Antlered Crown on his head, looking regal and fierce, would have been awesome.

Imgur is very easy to use, I suggest that

Imgur is very easy to use, I suggest that

Looking at the design notes in the picture posted by the GreyCo, it seems I was right on the inspiration for the Dunlendings and the overall plot of the cycle. Not that it wasn't obvious though. I still think their thinking process is interesting and accurate to what little we know. However, it's a shame that for all the lore behind this, we didn't get many cards reflecting the culture of the Dunlendings or the craft of ring-making. A "Raven war-druid" enemy or, as I've said twice already, a hillfort location or an Antlered Crown objective (or even player attachment- one can only dream!) would have been really great, as well as a Saruman's Ring attachment.

Art for the encounter cards as always is goddamn epic! I really like the theme, locations and quest stages even though I really dislike Dunlending enemies. As for easiest last stage of a cycle I don't know if I agree as it looks a bit harder than Return to Mirkwood (which so long as you have plenty of threat reduction and can take on a troll or attercop isn't really that hard) and Escape from Moria can also be very easy if you get the right quest stage early on. I doubt it will be harder than Morgul Vale however which I find one of the hardest quests in the gain both due to extreme threat gain and very tough enemies/bosses.

Asfaloth, Northern Tracker and other location control cards are going to be very important in this quest I think, getting rid of locations as often as possible before the time effect triggers seems crucial. Stage 2 actually hinders clearing locations whilst they are in staging giving them an additional 2 quest points which I think is really neat. Stage 3 is very cool and reminiscent of both Dunland Trap and Nin-in-Eilph, no progress has to be placed (except for clearing the war chiefs camp) but you just need to hold off enemies and beat the boss. Chief Turch as a three attack ally for the whole game is pretty epic and you can even use him to defend a few lesser attacks throughout as well, the fact he doesn't exhaust is great and means you both defend and attack in the same turn with him. Raven Warrior seems especially nasty as if you have 4 or more cards in your hand as it will remove most time counters in play and help many nasty time triggers effect you earlier. At least he has an engagement cost of 36 so early game you can snipe him with buffed Haldir/sneak attack Gandalf and Galadhon Archer. The Skirmisher doesn't seem so bad at all but has a very low engagement.

Overall it looks fairly difficult and really really fun. You have to clear locations before they raise your threat, spread damage, bring more enemies out etc etc whilst battling a dunlending horde and you must also kill the Raven Chief at the end after exploring his camp. Using Chief Turch (as one of the attackers) to land the last blow on the Raven Chief and kill him will be very satisfying! Pretty excited for this last pack!

Also just noticed that each location other than the Raven Chief's Camp does NOT replace the time counters after they run out.... thats fairly interesting and will make the quest a little less punishing considering locations time effects cannot trigger more than once. THEN I reread the treachery card Raising the Cry which can put time counters back on locations.

Really really like what they have done here mechanically.

Imgur is very easy to use, I suggest that

?

He means that you were late to suggest TinyPic since he already uploaded the images.

ah ok fair enough, yeah I had it typed up hours before I posted it and didn't see the updates and cards already spoiled =P
Funny though they were in the end spoiled through imgur anyway

Does this pack have the most unimaginative name on a last stage ever? It almost feels like they forgot to change the name on the concept version of the card.

Funny though they were in the end spoiled through imgur anyway

Three plays, three wins. Superhero attachments FTW. In this cycle only the hokey threat mechanic of Trouble in Tharbad caused my deck any trouble. (Which could be expected if you were using Boromir.). My elves deck demolished Morgul Vale, but couldn't handle the first quests in Isengard.

As much as I dislike it, it's pretty clear that I need to switch to double fisted for a consistent challenge. Otherwise it turns into a metagaming event.