I also think Hold Your Ground combos nicely with Hail of Stones. Put Spearman, Guardian, perhaps even the Watcher (all from the Tactics sphere) and you can shoot something in the staging area and have them ready again for combat. Hmm...

Thoughts:

- Rangers, yay

- Doom Hangs Still puts to shame Ever Onward as long as there are two players in the game

- Werewolves, finally we're getting some Twilight cross-over. #teamJacob

- they are hanging on tightly to those Spirit cards

- they are even hanging on tightly on ally cards

Werewolves! Although there are no references that I can think of, Sauron used to rule the Isle of Werewolves. I guess he could've continued, alike his master, the breeding of werewolves.

Cool new cards, real Angmar after all (seemed like we were travelling the wrong way) and some exciting news.

Very exciting new cards, all looking like they're building something pretty different for this cycle. I'm looking forward to using some truly hyper-aggressive decks that throw in Valour effects to really reap the benefits of this!

I will also point out the typo in the quote on Doom Hangs Still: "Dooms hangs still..."

Werewolves! Although there are no references that I can think of, Sauron used to rule the Isle of Werewolves. I guess he could've continued, alike his master, the breeding of werewolves.

Found it! From Many Meetings in Book II:

`Because these horses are born and bred to the service of the Dark Lord in Mordor. Not all his servants and chattels are wraiths! There are orcs and trolls, there are wargs and werewolves; and there have been and still are many Men, warriors and kings, that walk alive under the Sun, and yet are under his sway. And their number is growing daily.'

(Gandalf talking to Frodo.)

Nice!

On a sidenote, I love how Tolkien always gives everything an entity. 'bred to the service', 'not all his servants', every creature also chooses (more or less) between good and bad. Birds can be good, like for instance trushes or crows, but there are wargs who serve the Dark Lord freeingly; they chose Evil. I find tthat cool.

Another note, just some info on Werewolves.

Werewolves in Middle-Earth are not human beings who transform into wolves at midnight full moon.

Werewolves are Maiar (Spirits) ensnared in wolflike bodies. These Maiar are trapped inside the body and they can only be released from their bondage whne their body dies. Sauron, in his former sorcerer-role, used to create Werewolves. He tried to take form of a Werewolf to try and beat Huan, but that's a different story.

Yes, much like Vampires, which are not aristocrats that turn into bats but rather monstrous bat-like winged fiends.

Wow! Some crazy stuff in this AP. Attach to your threat dial is awesome and Favour of the Valar will go a long way to help valour decks really work. I really really like The Long Defeat as you can combo it with player side quests. If you use it with Gather Information for a turn of no progress on the main quest you can draw 2 cards per player (or heal 5 damage per player) and each player searches for any one card and adds it to hand. Pretty **** powerful for 1 resource!

Playing two player/two handed you could potentially draw 4 cards or heal 10 damage for 1 lore resource.

Yes it is circumstantial but potentially game changing as well. I will be running proxies of this very quickly (hopefully tonight to try it out!) as it looks really powerful.

The two actual valour cards seem a little bit lack luster to me (especially hold your ground) but I'm sure will be very useful to valour based decks. Hold Your Ground seems amazing in a 3 or 4 player game where Erkenbrand, Beregond and potentially a third hero with Sentinel (maybe granted from Arwen) are all in play and a few allies with Sentinel are also in play. So many readies for 1 resource!!! Ridiculous action advantage. Any less players and less heroes/characters with sentinel make this far less worthwhile and I can't really see it being of much use in solo or even two player/handed unless you specifically run plenty of allies with Sentinel and at least a hero each with Sentinel. Very situational and deck/player dependant as many cards should be! Doom Hangs Still is very different... the non valour action (which is completely different from the valour action which I find is a very interesting design as its almost like two entirely different cards and effects in one) is still a very good one but at 5 resources (even in leadership) seems VERY expensive. The valour effect however of being able to skip the entire quest phase for a round is bananas! Need to stop that flowing tide of foes and clear the ones already in play? Bam! Hang that doom still!

Either way both effects allow you to attempt to slow the encounter deck down and deal with what is already in play. The first effect allows you to keep characters back from questing to clear foes and second effect does so with even more gusto stopping new enemies joining the fray for that round as well (no quest phase). At least any that would be revealed from the encounter deck, the quest itself may have an effect that brings enemies into play each round.

The actual quest itself sound awesome as well and I am loving the art on the encounter cards. Carn Dum Garrison looks epic and getting some more elite orc warriors with heavy armour is actually something I've wanted for a while.

Another Dunedain Hero and in leadership as well! Any guesses or suggestions as to who it may be?? If memory serves me right I don't believe we actually have any other names from The Grey Company other than Halbarad so I think this new hero will have to be an FFG created character. The Noldor card that can only be played from your discard is interesting and I kind of hope it is an ally (although I doubt this will be the case) and the new card that allows Dunedain and Rangers to "avoid a scenarios deadliest enemies" also sounds very intriguing. So many exciting new player cards!!!! So long before we will actually get them!

I think the hero will be an FFG-created character.

Favor of the Valar & Doom Hangs Still (while in Valour) seem pretty good against Nightmare Knife in the Dark solo. With them, you really won't have to quest once stage 3 is revealed and the 20 threat hits the staging area.

Everybody seems to be hating on hold your ground, but it only costs 1. What if lure of mora cost 1? Just saying.

Just a few latter observations. I almost forgot Théoden is a sentinel. It is probably because I never use him for defense. Then a few more combos with Hold Your Ground: Henneth Annun Guard is an interesting option (he may also get you to 40), Shadowfax makes more sense, and even Dúnedain signal. Of course, some of it may be too much work for too little an effect but...

As for the Doom, there seems to be quite a few instances when you just don't need to quest any more, usually in the end-game, and you only need to clear the enemies. Then this should surely be a trump card, and not only in the Valour state, for even if you have to reveal one or two extra cards, it helps to have six or eight more characters ready.

The Doom Hangs Still is part of the increased emphasis on multiplayer, which is great IMO, because the card is nearly unplayable in solo (too expensive) but in multiplayer it can be a complete bomb in certain situations, better than path of need. I can't see a four player team not running it.

This being the 5th and *penultimate* adventure pack, did I miss some news on cycle design with 5 instead of 6 APs per cycle?

Doom Hangs Still even in solo has a strong role to play in some quests though, especially some of the new ones that actually ramp up the difficulty later in the quest (Deadman's Dike is a good example). I think that card is definitely well-costed, and the design is superb for the split effects. Makes me wonder what the last pack could possibly hold!

This being the 5th and *penultimate* adventure pack, did I miss some news on cycle design with 5 instead of 6 APs per cycle?

Penultimate means second to last.

Can someone test a Doom Hang Still combo deck to play at least one on the first turn (while being in the valor zone of course)?

Deck list should have

3 Doom Hang Still

3 Tome of Atanator for recursion

3 Erebor Hammersmith for recursion of the recursion

3 Born Aloft for the Erebor Hammersmith for recursion of the recursion of the recursion

3 Will of the West for... well you got that...

+ cards that raise your threat to get to the valour point

+ cards that lower your threat to continue to play Doom Hang Still (wish their was a card that could prevent you from being eliminated and lower your threat... wait a minute...)

+ cards that make you draw to ensure you have 1 Doom Hang Still and enough resource and raise threat to play it turn 1.

Typicaly, a doom dwarf deck or something like that.

The aim is to ensure you can launch one turn 1, and can snowball to reach turn 46 without having done one single Quest Phase...

You can also combine this with quest progress (Legolas and Dunedain Hunter for example) to finish the quest without questing... but well... one step at a time.

If your starting threat is 36 or higher and you control a Leadership hero (i.e. Gandalf + Leadergorn + Boromir) a turn-one Legacy of Numenor would easily do the trick.

Another Dunedain Hero and in leadership as well! Any guesses or suggestions as to who it may be?? If memory serves me right I don't believe we actually have any other names from The Grey Company other than Halbarad so I think this new hero will have to be an FFG created character......

Well, maybe, just maybe, Gilraen or Arathorn?

I know, they are long dead....

But only names that come in my mind that would be even remotelly possible.

But FFG-created character is of course more likely.

I expect it will be Iarion.

That would actually be really cool if it was Iarion, now I'm gonna be disappointed if it isn't.

That could be possible. Is Iarion a cool character? I STILL don't have my copy of TLR yet...

This being the 5th and *penultimate* adventure pack, did I miss some news on cycle design with 5 instead of 6 APs per cycle?

Penultimate means second to last.

Thank you, what a way to out oneself as non-native speaker, stupid me

I think Iarion's gonna get killed early on.