I'm DYING to get our darn Halbarad preview, but I will admit these new boons and burdens look pretty cool, especially how they work with the ones in the Black Riders.

How about a preview of the unrevealed Treason of Saruman heroes? But well, agreed, the boons and burdens look fantastic!

Poison council is really nasry and cool idea card. Love it!

Really happy they are making us have to earn the Boons more. I was a little disappointed when we got the old ones so easily. I like the conditional additions of the Boon and Burden cards, not when they just get added after you finish the scenario, no matter what.

Also, this article didn't say anything about how much is left for the expansion to be released. Instead, it just said: "The Treason of Saruman is coming!" Anybody can guess how to interpret this?

Meh, I was hoping for some real player cards.

I'm still wondering who the other hero will be. At this point, a Gandalf (the White) doesn't seem too far-fetched, though I'm pretty sure we'll get this title through a boon. But does anybody have any guesses? Quickbeam would be awesome.

Man I love flipping Gildor. I has sad. (Though they really should have taken him away at Rivendell.)

I hope some cool Rohan characters will pop up, like Gamling or an ally version of Hama. I'm excited!

These new Boons are cool, but I freaking love the way the spoiled Burden works! You can skip stage 1 and face the forces of Saruman right of the bat and not getting a strong Burden (if it turns up), but it is also really thematic! Lingering at Edoras and mustering your army (getting a free ally whuut! I hope it will be choose from your deck and not the top X cards or something like that) will give you a great headstart against the enemy, but Grima poisens the thoughts.

In terms of scenarios/quests I definitly give Treason the upper hand. The Lost Realm will have cooler player cards though imo.

I'm glad to see that they're thinking about trimming out boons sometimes as they go. It was starting to get a little funky with Mr Underhill running around. I also liked the thinking of linking the new boons to previous ones (in a sense, that the earlier boons grant certain titles). They look mighty enticing. Now I just need to get around to actually playing a campaign...

Woah... these new boons are really really powerful... granted you must achieve certain goals in "the uruk hai" and not merely beat the quest to earn them but considering players will clearly just replay the scenario until they earn them this doesn't really change TOO much. Well so long as you earn all four with the same criteria, if each boon must be earned a different way and so you must really achieve four certain goals/as many as there are boons you want (say if you dont want one of the 4) this may be a fair bit harder but I doubt this will be the case and it seems to me like perhaps how high your pursuit value is towards the end or something similar may determine whether or not you earn the burdens.

So the boons themselves. All permanents like the ones in black riders so cannot be destroyed or removed via encounter effects and last a whole a game start to finish. One allows you to discard a shadow card every turn so long as the attached hero is defending (from a non unique enemy), one gives an enemy -2 def for one attack by attached hero (and no other participants in the attack, also requires the enemy to be non unique), one gives a resource every time attached hero quests successfully (so more or less every turn) and one allows you to exhaust attached hero to heal up to 3 damage on a hero.

Now the healer one can only be attached if the hero was given the skilled healer boon from black riders as no hero currently boasts the trait Healer. The others are all fairly **** easy to attach to a wide range of heroes.

I personally will get an incredibly strong buff to my team when I earn these boons!!!
Intimidation will fit PERFECTLY on Haldir who was given Valiant Warrior (gives him the warrior trait) as his ability is him attacking alone and the -2 armour can therefore be applied during his special ability as well as any normal attacks he makes on his own. Now Haldir is often also given a rivendell blade and dunedain mark/bow of the galadhrim as well. This would allow him with his ability to have an attack power of 5 or higher and he would also be removing a whopping FOUR armour from the enemy with this attack. Pretty much he becomes an utter powerhouse attacker who can snipe and kill almost anything other than a boss while its in staging or engaged with the other player before they can even attack.

Forewarned fits perfectly on Elrohir (who already has the ranger trait) and will allow him to remove a single shadow card from play almost every round of combat considering he is my uber defender that tanks 90% of attacks made against either of my two decks/players. By discarding a shadow card attached to the enemy with the most potential attack power/damage each turn you GREATLY mitigate the risk of a shadow card overcoming Elrohir's fantastic defensive ability and damaging/killing him. There may even be enemies that are especially nasty for each shadow card they are dealt that you may want to discard a shadow card from so that they do not have the ability to chain shadow cards and turn from nothing into a serious threat.

Finally Leader of Men (god dang it, way too unthematic for my purely Elven Decks...) can be attached to Elrond OR Glorfindel providing them with an extra resource every time I quest successfully and they were used to quest. This can set up a resource engine for Elrond to allow playing of allies much much faster (Elrond can play allies from any sphere) or to be able to play spirit cards much more easily even with just the one spirit hero. Either way very beneficial.

The healer boon is great and gives a hero a very powerful additional ability and on Elrond or even just with him in play this would heal 4 not 3. Like I mentioned though without that earlier boon Skilled Healer from Black Riders you will not be able to attach this new boon to anyone. Also so long as you run cards like Lembas, Warden of Healing etc you may very well not particularly need any additional healing.

I imagine much like Black Riders once you earn these boons you may only choose one per player. Considering I can't use the healer one and how powerful the two combat based ones are I will most likely be choosing Intimidation and Forewarned but may just instead choose one of them and Leader of ELVES!

That burden is hella nasty.... I will not only be playing the first scenario until I earn these uber powerful boons but will also be playing the second scenario till I can beat it WITHOUT picking up Poisoned Council!!!

Even more excited for this saga box now as these boons are really really great. I have a feeling the saga is going to be MUCH harder for the second half as some boons are pretty **** powerful. Having valiant warrior AND intimidation attached to Haldir and Tireless Ranger AND Forewarned attached to Elrohir from the start of a scenario GREATLY increases my combat power.

The only sad thing is Gildor/Mr Underhill being removed from the campaign pool =( I like that they are essentially the same Boon considering you choose one or the other so no one will lose more than a single boon but I grew to really really like Gildor and always be immensely immensely happy when he would appear. I hope that some other future boon is an ally that can appear from the encounter deck....

Tl;dr

I'm still wondering who the other hero will be. At this point, a Gandalf (the White) doesn't seem too far-fetched, though I'm pretty sure we'll get this title through a boon. But does anybody have any guesses? Quickbeam would be awesome.

Other? I thought we still didn't know either of them...

Tl;dr

get lost loser, no one asked you to.

also just for the record not only is tolkien the absolute greatest but no one could care less that you don't like him and want to go on and on about how he sucks just because you clearly don't have the attention span or imagination to enjoy his works.

You have the same problem he does, using 8 billion words when only 5 are needed.

lol, that's either sad or a COTR podcast reference

If you exchange Poisoned Counsels with a card from your hand(by Wizard Pipe),do you need to discard your hand?

I think so, because that's probably the designers intent too, otherwise you could also use that neutral side quest that lets you search your deck, or Gildor, or Word of Command to avoid the card.

Perhaps, although the use of the word 'draw', which is otherwise used quite technically (think of Dunland style draw-hate that doesn't include adding cards, necessarily), may indicate that you can avoid the forced effect provided you don't draw the card, but discard and add, or just add.

I could be wrong on this - it also seems possible that the intent is for you always to lose your hand with this card, but that the wording unintentionally allows you to avoid it. It would not be the first card to slightly miss its intentions via the precise wording.

I have a hunch that the Wizard Pipe trick would not work because the card is still going into your hand. But you could discard it with Hidden Cache.

But it doesn't say it triggers when it enters your hand, it says it triggers when you draw it. Wizard Pipe doesn't draw a card so by the rules it doesn't trigger. Whether or not this is an oversight remains to be seen.

I'm aware of the wording difference. I'm just saying how I think it will be ruled in the end.

Maybe you can avoid it by using cards like word of command, but it still hurts you-you have to waste a powerful effect for a card that may never turn up.

Caleb said:

,,Hi,
Poisoned Counsels only triggered when you draw it into your hand. If you take it into your hand, or exchange it with another card in your hand, through card effect such as Wizard Pipe, then you do not trigger its effect.
Cheers,
Caleb"