Let me introduce you to the Dark corners of the Middle-earth, my custom expansion for LotR LCG. It's, so-to-say, a collection of my lifetime work and experience I drawn from it. Accent is mostly on Esgaroth and Craftsman traits, but there is a little bit of love for other stuff too, like Rohan, Song and Scout traits... and something new.

This is extremely big player cards expansion, in which I try to develop stuff in LotR LCG that is not well-explored yet, and by that I mean not just traits. Because of it's size, I will not even try to upload every card to display here, if you're curious - you can download and check it out here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fo6nrrphobozzdq/Dark%20Corners%20of%20the%20Middle-earth.rar?dl=0

It's in an OCTGN format (so you could even play it if you want to, you can add me to play together, lol), so images are lying in the deepest folder with extremely cryptic names - sorry for that.

Here is a couple examples of what's inside:

I really like that tactics event. Like, really really.

I like the cards, especially trample (nice thought) but I believe that the two event cards above are way too strong for their cost.

And what events exactly are you talking about? There are 9 events in the "box".

he said the two event cards "above", I think he just means the ones you posted in this thread

Yeah, but those are not "events"...

Ah yeah my bad don't know why I thought there was two, there is only one, not sure what he means. sorry

Really like these, there are some gems among them.

I like that you gave the Esgaroth an identaty, not to say that the designers will take this route, but it's cool!

I'm shure that i have seen her before...does anyone know where? Also i really like those cards even the Hero isn't really for my taste, but those other three, wow just amazing. Rohan strider is little bit too good in my opinion, because Asfaloth does almost the same thing and it's an unique card, so i think that only one progress would be decent for Rohan strider. It would be kinda overpowered if all your heroes would have it and you could clear even three locations per quest phase by just using them.

I posted her a while ago in the Creative Artwork thread, I think. I like her too much to not include into this "expansion".

You seem to not understand how Strider works. Asfaloth is an aciton that you trigger any time you want. Strider is triggered only after players have quested successfully, IF attached hero was questing. And progress goes strictly onto the quest card (or active location, if present).

Have you looked at any other cards?

Very neat, I enjoy the craftsman trait.

I have thought that not everybody might know what's Spectral keyword is, so I changed a wording on this one:

What do you think about readability of it?

I posted her a while ago in the Creative Artwork thread, I think. I like her too much to not include into this "expansion".

You seem to not understand how Strider works. Asfaloth is an aciton that you trigger any time you want. Strider is triggered only after players have quested successfully, IF attached hero was questing. And progress goes strictly onto the quest card (or active location, if present).

Have you looked at any other cards?

My advice to you is to take input with gratitude instead of defensiveness. As he explained, Asfaloth is unique and gives 2 progress for 2 resources. If you compare to Celebrian stone you have 2 willpower for 2 resources in contrast to Favor of the Lady. Since Rohan Strider is a mount and therefore benefits from other mount bonuses (like trample) I think that 1 progress is also appropriate for the cost, especially since it is not restricted either, but merely limited to one per player. If it were printed as is it would be an auto-include in every spirit deck with the right heroes. In my opinion that is overpowered.

Maybe just raise the cost to 3 and say "attached hero can only have 1 mount" instead of "limit 1 per hero".

Bottom line is that listening to people is how you get their respect and it may even make you a better designer. There is no reason to start arguing and putting them down.

How did Trololo put BronzeBeard down again? Don't get me wrong, Trololo can be rude or a little too assertive most of the times, but I didn't sense any mean-spiritness in that particular post. He just disagreed with him.

Trololo didn't really put anybody down. I was just making a point about being open to input.

So, I took the time to look over your cards. There are way too many for me say that I looked at them closely and so forth. I would have to play them to give high quality feedback, but I have a few immediate observations.

-For the most part, I like what I see. I think you have a lot of talent compared with the vast majority of fan made stuff which is mostly wordy confusing overpowered junk. You have a knack for elegance and subtlety as well as being creative. Anybody can make power cards and crazy bizarre cards, but it takes talent to make simple and solid cards.

-So, I don't like card names that are titles instead of names, like "Master of such in such" instead of "Harold the Great". Even if you are just making up names that would be better than titles, especially on hero cards or unique cards. The one exception might be the "Unassuming Old Man" which just seemed cool.

-I think you are a little too enamored with effects that ready characters. You just have a ton of them. Try applying your design skill to producing other effects. For instance, I like your red Eowyn because she fit perfectly with the other Rohan cards and there was no ready effect. That being said, I think my favorite card in the entire set was the hired hand. He has absolutely perfect flavor. I think I would add on the end of his ability "...Then discard him if you have no resources." or something like that, but I loved the card.

-I loved, and I mean loved, the Minstrel tribe and their interactions with songs. I thought your cards in general were a bit too busy (and again too many ready effects) but simplified and more elegant Minstrels would be a ton of fun. I liked the "play this only if you control a minstrel" limitation on a lot of the songs. All of that was great and made your leadership hero above a lot of fun.

-The craftsman tribe, however, did not feel as strong. I felt like there wasn't a strong discernible theme. They sometimes returned to hand, sometimes ready stuff (too much of that again), sometimes interacted with artifacts or items, sometimes added resources. They were all over the place. I feel like you need one thing that unites them all together, like if they all collected resources on them (like some of them did) and then used those resources to perform various actions. I like tribes with solid memorable theme.

-I'm sorry I can't find all the cards easily, but I loved the spirit hero that let you start with 8 cards. I think the flavor was great, the setup ability was creative, etc.

-Radagast is too high threat IMHO and his ability is clunky. You could simply rework it as "Planning Action: Discard a card to choose a creature or ent card in a player's discard. Until the end of the phase you may play that card as though it were in your hand." That might be cool.

-The 7 threat hero that gets willpower and attack from resources is WAY overpowered, like beyond stupid overpowered. If he were put out as is I would make him 10 threat and get rid of thing where you discard him from play (is that ever going to happen, really?) but then his resource ability would still be broken (limit 1 per round maybe) Also, give him a name already.

-You get props for having an undead hero. Nice.

-You keep putting "limit 1 per hero" on the mounts, but then heroes can have like 3 different mounts, which is lame. Again, I would prefer "Limit 1 mount per hero" or something like that instead.

I could say a lot more, but that is all I have energy for right now. Hope it was helpful. Later.

-I'm sorry I can't find all the cards easily, but I loved the spirit hero that let you start with 8 cards. I think the flavor was great, the setup ability was creative, etc.

Andromeda from Netrunner anyone?

It's a really cool hero IMO.

My advice to you is to take input with gratitude instead of defensiveness. As he explained, Asfaloth is unique and gives 2 progress for 2 resources. If you compare to Celebrian stone you have 2 willpower for 2 resources in contrast to Favor of the Lady. Since Rohan Strider is a mount and therefore benefits from other mount bonuses (like trample) I think that 1 progress is also appropriate for the cost, especially since it is not restricted either, but merely limited to one per player. If it were printed as is it would be an auto-include in every spirit deck with the right heroes. In my opinion that is overpowered.

Asfaloth can explore a location before resolving a quest by putting progress on locations in the staging area (alo avoiding any nasty travel or active location effects, if any). Celebrian Stone is 2 immediate willpower. Rohan Strider just puts progress on the quest if players happen to quest successfully, it can't help them if they fail, because it does not adds any instant benefits like willpower or progress on the staging area before questing resolves. It also exhausts to trigger it's own effect, so if you use it for quest, you can't use it later to trample.

I posted her a while ago in the Creative Artwork thread, I think. I like her too much to not include into this "expansion".

You seem to not understand how Strider works. Asfaloth is an aciton that you trigger any time you want. Strider is triggered only after players have quested successfully, IF attached hero was questing. And progress goes strictly onto the quest card (or active location, if present).

Have you looked at any other cards?

I'm sorry, i just don't understand how did i misread it. I read it like it could place progress on the locations in the staging area instead of quest card or an active location.

And i haven't looked other cards because i don't have Dropbox account and i'm too lazy to make one right now. I may make one tomorrow if i remember.

Ok, I send this message on behalf of MyNeighbourTrololo.

MyNeighbourTrololo got recently banned and therefor he is not able to reply anymore. If someone wants get in touch with him to talk about this Custom set, you can contact him at his BoardGameGeek account.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1352629/octgn-expansion-dark-corners-middle-earth

So far,

the Messenger

?!?!?!?!

Why was Trololo banned?

I think he is an excellent member of this community!

Banned? What for?

This is something I don't have the answer to, nor will provide the answer for. If you want to know anything of this matter I suggest you to approach him via some other channel, for example the link I sent before.

That's it.

The Messenger

I will walk the Path of the Dead and see what lies at the end.

I certainly saw nothing worthy of a ban. At worst he was mildly annoying. If anyone is wondering I had nothing to do with it and I would be far more upset by the person who got him banned. No need to be jerks.

Besides, John convinced me I was wrong about Rohan strider anyway.

Also the mysterious package and aspiring alchemist cards are fantastic. At first I thought the package was undercosted, but it is just 2 cards for 2, like daeron's runes, so it's fine. I love the flavor etc.