Immediately after land of shadow is announced people say loudly "we want a Gollum hero!"

I thought I was the only one ;-) I still have hope because they can still release a Gollum hero in this expansion (why not?) or during the return of the king.

Anyway, I want to see ideas. If you were designing a Gollum hero what would he be? As for me I would like a low threat tactics hero focused on questing (like Thalin). So, here is my idea:

Gollum, tactics, 8

1 willpower

2 attack

0 defense

4 hit points

Toughness 1. Immune to player card effects.

As long as Gollum is committed to the quest enemies in the staging area have -1 threat.

(why not?)

Because there is a Gollum objective in this Saga that will render Gollum hero useless for the very box he comes out in. I know that was done before with Faramir hero, but a little AP and entire Saga box is not a same thing.

When Caleb did his interview on CotR awhile ago, he said that they chose heroes for saga boxes based on who should be in that part of the story... basically, who you need to have available (without buying all intervening APs) to make a thematic deck. Hence, new Theoden and a Treebeard hero for Treason of Saruman.

So... new Sam and Faramir allies, I suppose. As mentioned above, I think there's really no chance of seeing Gollum as a hero in this box because he is already included as encounter cards in these scenarios. If we see a Gollum hero someday (and I really hope we do), I think he will show up in some random AP.

When Caleb did his interview on CotR awhile ago, he said that they chose heroes for saga boxes based on who should be in that part of the story... basically, who you need to have available (without buying all intervening APs) to make a thematic deck. Hence, new Theoden and a Treebeard hero for Treason of Saruman.

So... new Sam and Faramir allies, I suppose. As mentioned above, I think there's really no chance of seeing Gollum as a hero in this box because he is already included as encounter cards in these scenarios. If we see a Gollum hero someday (and I really hope we do), I think he will show up in some random AP.

+1!

Gollums biggest possitive contribution to the book is biting off Frodos finger with the ring and then falling into the fire thus destroying the ring (ok he didnt mean to fall).... so from a "heroic" point of view... maybe the Gollum hero would appear in the last Saga Expansion??

"Exhaust Gollum to commit scuicide and win the game" (joking)

Frodo will be an enemy in the last quest with ring attached.

Gollum

Response: After Gollums attacks and deals any amount of damage to an enemy with Ring card attached, attach that Ring to Gollum.

Action: Exhaust Gollum and discard attached Ring to win the game!

I would not rule out a Gollum hero for the last Saga Expansion (although it is not very likely) as they will run out of candidates for Heroes in Frodo's part of the story. I doubt that we will see another version of Sam (as the boxes are also desgned with players in mind who only have the Core + sagas).

The toughness keyword can't be on player cards due to the existence of the archery keyword. Archery damage is placed point-by-point, so you can put all of the damage on the Gollum hero and each point would be reduced to 0.

I think if we do receive a Gollum hero, it'd be Smeagol.

Archery damage is placed point-by-point,

This was a question awhile back. Looks like archery damage is intended to be applied all at once, not resolved 1 point at a time:

"Q: Can a character have more damage than hit point? Can we deal more Archery damage on a character that it has hit points? If there is two Silvan Refugees, can we assign 1 archery damage to both?

A: Damage from Archery keyword cannot be over-assigned to characters you control. It must be divided among characters you control until either there is no damage left to assign or no characters left to assign it to. The damage is applied simultaneously, so you can assign damage to more than 1 Silvan Refugee because their Forced effect will not trigger until after all the damage has been assigned."

That's coming from the thread here.

I don't know what the official ruling would be, but I added toughness to Gollum with the assumption that archery is all applied at once. Thanks, grands peen for making the case.

How I would picture Smeagol:

(6) 2 2 0 3hp

Forced: At the beginning of the quest face you have to exhaust a character or Promise on the precious. If you do not do that exhaust Smeagol and reduce his stats to 0 and discard all attachment attached to him.

(picturing that you have to tame him every round)

Promise on the precious:

Attachment cost 2 neutral unique

Attach to Smeagol. Reduce the cost of Promise on the precious by 1 if you control Frodo Baggings. You cannot use Smeagols resources to pay for this card.

Smeagol gets Travel action: exhaust Smeagol to make location from staging area an active location, returning previous location back to the staging area.