https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/4/10/to-mordor-we-will-take-you/

As always, great art and theme. I hoped we would get Khamul and thought this would be the perfect time. I wish these had been in the original expansion.

The Black Riders might have been the best expansion box we have ever received. I hope the nightmare pack does it justice.

Yes!!! Finally Khamul The Easterling enters the fray! Haha

Wow! Cool cards! Now Frodo saga become cool!

I just got Lost Realms and all 6 NM packs for third cycle. Cannot wait to play!

Wow! Cool cards! Now Frodo saga become cool!

I just got Lost Realms and all 6 NM packs for third cycle. Cannot wait to play!

Sounds like you have some exciting hours ahead of you!

Oh man they are doing nightmare for the main saga.... was hoping this was not going to be a thing but might be slowly changing my mind now that its been announced... after all I love pretty much everything about this game to date and the new cards do look both thematic and have cool mechanics and art...

I still have a few concerns such as with all the extra burdens you will accrue thanks to new nightmare cards like this one:

How much harder is the campaign going to get? If you have too many extra burdens (most of which have surge...) you're going to have a very hard time. Then again I guess you can replay quests like Flight to the Ford until you do not have to clear any copies of Ettendales and don't take additional burdens......

Also what is Nightmare Journey in the Dark going to be like? I'm making a call right now that you will not be able to beat the stage without facing the Balrog like you are able to currently do. I assume not only will you have to fight it but it will be nastier than ever and will arrive far earlier..... this kind of decimates my strategy for this quest (replay till you get away with no Balrog!) and you will either have to sacrifice a hero (and remove it from the campaign pool) or take all four burdens.

Also will they provide nightmare versions of quests like the old forest and fog on the barrow down so that we can play the entire campaign start to finish in nightmare mode or are these already considered harder than the other saga quests because they are POD because I definitely don't find them THAT much harder, especially not more so than Knife in the Dark or Journey in the Dark.

Will we occasionally get extra boons that allow the nightmare saga quests to be mega hard by providing a slight boost of powers to players while it gives the encounter deck a massive boost?

As much as I did not really want Nightmare Saga I just recently replayed all saga quests to date because I changed a hero in my two handed lineup and I was able to beat every quest except for Journey in the Dark (8 losses before victory) and Breaking of the Fellowship (1 loss before victory) on the first attempt. Having a nightmare version of the saga will at least mean this will be a thing of the past (providing you are playing nightmare obviously) and I guess will also allow us to play the entire saga from the start again after beating it normally in nightmare mode which will be a whole new experience with new enemies, strategies and epic moments. Perhaps far more epic moments because of the greater challenge being faced...

Also thus far nightmare saga does not look TOO overly hard except for perhaps the 5 Nazgul minimum you must face at weathertop rather than 3 then again I'm sure I have faced more than the minimum 3 several times and still won on some of these occasions. Also the hardest part of Shadow of the Past I find is actually travelling to Buckleberry Ferry on stage 3 and I don't think throwing in a boss at this stage (Khamul) will make this impossible you will just have to focus on getting to the Ferry and exploring it AND escaping/killing Khamul as fast as possible to avoid the constant hide tests at the same time. It looks like he can be engaged by a combat deck and taken care of without too much trouble if you have high offensive power as he thankfully doesn't do anything like engage the first player each turn. The extra burdens you can earn in Flight to the Ford are also worrying but I'm sure you can just pick up one additional burden and win which is not too bad. Considering we may be given new ways to remove burdens from the campaign pool (like Seat of Seeing in Breaking of the Fellowship) we may even be able to somewhat counter or undo this effect later in the campaign.

I guess this is pretty dang cool after all I'm just very wary of nightmare saga and how it will affect campaign play

Just want to add Menacing Wraith, The Twilight World and Khamul have epic art.

Unfinished Tales stuff! As far as I remember Khamul doesn´t get named in the Appendices or the LOTR themselves.

This could mean: Blue Wizardsss!

The only problem though is that Games Workshop has already adapted Khamul but not the Blue Wizards. It's certainly strange, since I remember Decipher's LOTR TCG actually having characters named Alatar and Pallando, and other games instead give them other names but they're obviously the Ithryn Luin. I think there's a possibility of FFG getting the full rights given these precedents.

Nightmare cards for saga is really good! Now can use boons cards. When I play saga I never ever use a boons cards since is make easy game more easy!

Now there is a point to use a boons cards now story of Frodo is really story not like :

Aaa ok I have 22 cards in mahand , 12 allies on the table and who cared what encounter deck doing!?

Yeah, encounter deck doing the "2 damage to all allies" thingy and suddenly there are 2 allies on the table, down from 12... but who cares!

Unfinished Tales stuff! As far as I remember Khamul doesn´t get named in the Appendices or the LOTR themselves.

Good catch, I think you are right.

This seems strange. If I recall correctly Caleb confirmed in an interview on one of the podcasts few weeks ago that only Hobbit + Trilogy + Appendices is fair game.

Perhaps FFG is good to use Khamul because in fact Khamul is in LotR. He is not called by his name, he is just one of the ringwraiths. But he is there, talking to the Gaffer, chasing Frodo, etc.

It looks like Games Workshop used him too. Very interesting...

http://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Kham%C3%BBl-The-Easterling-Ringwraith

We can only hope!

" Where there's life there's hope, and need of vittles".