My favorite sphere is lore so I´m really excited for this. And while it is true that Leave No Trace shines brighter, the more players are in the game, it cannot be expected that every card will cater equally well for solo and 4-player games.

Keen As Lances is still quite playable if it costs 3 resources (I will grant that playing it for 5 resources is more an act of desperation, but I digress) seeing as, even though there are more powerful effects to be found for the of 3 resources, it is a neutral card and can thus be included into any deck and gives versatility; resource-manipulation belonging usually to leadership, card-draw to lore and threat-reduction to spirit.

And paying 3 resources to gain 2 resources is a bad trade-off only if you pay them from the same sphere as you give them back to on your own side of the table. In a three-sphere deck with one of your heroes blasting ahead resource-wise on account of a Steward of Gondor or helping out a resource-poor co-player, who might have just the thing to change the game it can suddenly be a very good play, even if you do loose 1 net resource.

These cards do have alot more potential than some of you are granting them.

EDIT: also really like the Distant Stars artwork

The End Comes might find a new usefull way to play

Another great use of all of these victory manipulation cards is to grab that horrible treachery card (just about every quest has one) and guarantee you won't have to deal with it. Might be viable in solo play if we get some affordable and repeatable options. It might mean you can skip out on A Test of Will and build more decks without Spirit.

I've done this. Round 1 Out of the Wild (in Secrecy) to instantly pull out a Sleeping Sentry. Glorious.

I also think that Distant Stars could potentially be a very strong location control card.

Cost of 0 and you must exhaust a Ranger or Scout (hoping character, if Hero my entire opinion of the card will change) and you can discard (not shuffle back into the encounter deck so its gone for good until/unless you reshuffle the encounter deck) the current location and choose any other location from the encounter deck (both must be non unique).

Some of the shennanigans I am picturing are pretty powerful.... In Morgul Vale for example you could remove something awful like Morgul Vale and replace it with Morgul Road in order to get that last point of damage on the Nazgul.

In The Ring Goes South lets say the active location is one with a nasty effect when explored based on the damage counters on it and it has racked up many damage counters, simply discard it and choose a new active location.

Say you are in Khazad-Dum and a Dreadful Gap pops up and has progress points of 10+ because your party is so large, discard it and put something with far less progress points in its place.

Also gets around Rauros Falls as you can travel there but then on the following turn before questing discard it and place another location as the active one avoiding all characters being forced to commit to questing.

It could also be super handy for The Stewards Fear as you can remove a nasty location with a high underworld value and replace it with a much tamer location and still explore it during questing to put a resource token on the quest stage (while at stage 1 or 2).

The only issue is whether you must exhaust a hero or any scout or ranger character. If it's only heroes absolutely no interest whatsoever as I use high stat and threat cost heroes and a hero action is utterly invaluable and not to be wasted on something like this. If it can be any ranger or scout I think this card will be an auto include in my sideboard for more location heavy/nasty quests.

For Into Ithilien you could get rid of the Ithilien Road so you don't have to instantly engage everything if you fail to explore it.

Oooh, that art card! Keen as Lances and Distant Stars! What a treat.

Mechanisms of the spoiled player cards seem weird. I am afraid a bit that the victory display shenanigans might turn out clunky and add an unnecessary layer of fiddliness. Still, it would be unfair to dismiss it already, let us see how it is with more cards.

As for the encounter deck, I am loving the dark climate. Mountain prison, goblin torturers... So much closer to "my" feel of LotR universe than the overflow of Dunlendings

I think in a multiplayer game with 3-4 player game the a dunedain/ranger deck likely tri-sphere lore/tactics/leadership would be quite fun. Do note that playing a single copy of Leave No Trace reduces the cost of Keen as Lances by 2. So if you manage to play 2 and maybe a Out of the Wild or a 1-3 cost Keen as Lances. That's 5 cards, 0 cost Keen as Lances. Imagine if all 3-4 decks had 3 Keen as Lances, that's amazing free power.

Not to mention the Dunedain rangers seem to be manipulating the encounter deck to their favour, the Dunedain hunter puts things engaged with you getting them out of the encounter deck and making sure their threat doesn't hit the table. Sarn Ford sentry with sneak attack for a bunch of card draw and then ranger summons to add some good cards to the encounter deck. Have a hero set up of something like Aragorn(T)/Sam/Denethor. I can see that kind of deck being a wonderful support structure for the other decks playing.

Also if I am not reading the rules wrong, since the enemy you draw from the deck using a Dunedain ranger is 'put into play' and not revealed thus you forgo any bad when revealed effects from a nasty creature you just don't like.

Of course saying that in a single player game since the deck doesn't roll over that quick it's not as great. Though just playing in a solo game you can still do something like:

Dunedain ranger > enemy into play > Distant stars > Get a location you don't like as the active > Quick strike > Kill enemy > Expert tracker + Engage something else from staging area (Aragorn) > Leave no tracks > remove location from game (2 cards in display).

That costs something like 2 resources to do. 1 lore and 1 tactics. You could also add some nifty combo like sneak attacking in a Sarn Ford Sentry just before you use expert tracker to draw a card from the engaged enemy and exhaust her to use expert tracker. Then set your self up for your next turn travelling to a new location, exploring it using another Leave no tracks getting 4 cards in the display. Then your first Keen as Lances is cost 1 the next two are 0. All that is just speculative strategies as there will know doubt be another Dunedain hero that helps these tactics to work, I'm guessing Halbarad will be a leadership or lore hero.

I'm just excited to see what else the Dunedain can do. As much as it might be a finicky tactic, there are players that like that sort of thing. They'll be more than happy in multiplayer pulling off something like the above and getting rid of stuff other players don't want to deal with.

Hmmmmmm not so sure about the whole victory display manipulation thing just yet.

As it exists now there are four cards that go together, Out of the Wild, The Door is Closed, Leave no Trace and Keen as Lances.

x3 copies of both out of the wild and leave no trace seems crucial as you essentially want to play at least one copy of each early game removing a nasty location from play and putting it in the victory display along with leave no trace as well as putting a nasty treachery or enemy into the victory display with Out of the Wild so that you have at least 3 or more cards in your victory display to be able to play Keen as Lances as cheaply as possible and so that you have a few especially nasty encounter cards in your victory display and can cancel any additional copies of these cards that appear with The Door is Closed.

I'm curious you talk about The Door is Closed! here, have you worked out the wording of it? I can only gleam:

After an encounter card is revealed from the encounter deck, cant its effects and discard if there is a card with .....le in the victory display.

I'm assuming there is one or two words hidden under there. Do you think it says identical name or words to that effect?

Yes, we've "confirmed" through mock cards that it says "with the same title"

By the way, when I first saw the preview picture, I thought those were some kind of vampires or ghouls. Turned out it was just goblins

"Out of the Wild" suddenly became more interesting, though best in Secrecy. I really like how this new cycle is shaping up. "Keen as Lances" will most likely be game-changing as this synergy develops, though I'd probably run it just for the gorgeous artwork.

By the way, when I first saw the preview picture, I thought those were some kind of vampires or ghouls. Turned out it was just goblins

Maybe we'll get to see some Mewlip enemies this cycle.

Maybe we'll get to see some Mewlip enemies this cycle.

That would be so cool! In the One Ring RPG they have the intro adventure feature creatures that are obviously the designers take on the Mewlips. Very interesting.

But, man! This lore-sidestep is awesome! Let's play some Golf while escaping the goblins. I freaking, freaking love this! I never knew about this particular Mountain and I love to see an article from Derek or Master of Lore about it.

Mount Gram was a new one for me as well until I read Derek's article on the geography of Eriador. I did a little research though and here's my 'hasty stroke' on this former home of Golfimbul, the goblin king whose head was hit for an eagle on a par three rabbit hole by old Bullroarer Took:

"Mount Gram" by Master of Lore

Thank you, it is a cool read! This is want I'm looking for in this game; lorecraving!

Honestly I am getting so syked for this upcoming expansion + cycle. This part of middle earth always excited me and can't wait to get some old school escape attempts in this quest. Maybe it is homage to Escape from Dol Guldur. =P

Oh and is it the first time that we didn't get the AP box art previewed?

Yes its so cool to get back to Tolkien now after all all this Gameofthrones bearded dunlands dudes….

There are some shaved men in the Game of Thrones, you know

It's good to see quite innovative ways of manipulating the encounter deck. I'm hoping that this opens up some clever new ways of deck-building, since it's a very different dynamic - rather than trying to bludgeon the encounter deck with the player deck's power, you manipulate directly what the encounter deck can do. It could be a satisfying way to play.

Yes its so cool to get back to Tolkien now after all all this Gameofthrones bearded dunlands dudes….

haha, exactly right.

Them Dunland hipsters, with their beards and organics huts made of eco poo.

Eco poo!

Made my day! Hahahha

Honestly I am getting so syked for this upcoming expansion + cycle. This part of middle earth always excited me and can't wait to get some old school escape attempts in this quest. Maybe it is homage to Escape from Dol Guldur. =P

Oh and is it the first time that we didn't get the AP box art previewed?

It is not in the article for whatever reason, but you can see it in the products section.

Releasing on July 31 on Amazon. 2 packs in one month... although it isn't prime.

Not sure if this new victory pile thingie is going to work with me. Sounds a bit overly complicated and takes a lot of card spots for solo players.

Edit: the artwork on "Keen as Lances" is awesome though

I disagree on the artwork of "Keen as Lances". The artwork seems to be unrelated to what the card is/does. A picture of a lady? I don't see the connection with "Keen as Lances". Maybe it should have been titled "Keen as Glances".

I like the artwork on "Prison Cell", but don't like the artwork on "Captives of Gormakh". It does not convey the gloom, despair, rot of being in a dungeon. The picture is too bright.

I disagree on the artwork of "Keen as Lances". The artwork seems to be unrelated to what the card is/does. A picture of a lady? I don't see the connection with "Keen as Lances". Maybe it should have been titled "Keen as Glances".

I like the artwork on "Prison Cell", but don't like the artwork on "Captives of Gormakh". It does not convey the gloom, despair, rot of being in a dungeon. The picture is too bright.

Keen as Lances needs flavor text. They must have had to cut it to keep the game text in. The name of the card comes from a description of Celeborn's and Galadriel's eyes:

I'm kind of glad they aren't spoiling heroes yet. Celeborn and Galadriel were much less exciting after we knew they were coming for months.

I agree. I remember playing MTG; once things were spoiled, my friends and I immediately printed them out and began playing with them. It made opening packs less exciting. I didn't like seeing Celeborn and Galadriel so far in advance.