So now that we have the first AP from the new Angmar Awakened Cycle what do you think we will get in the next few packs?

As for the heroes we are getting a lore hero in Mount Gram and a defensive tactics hero in Across the Ettenmoors. Who do you think our other Lore hero will be in this cycle? (other than Erestor in Treachery of Rhuadar). Perhaps Cirdan? Or do you think he will be spirit and not lore?

Perhaps even an Arwen hero, she doesn't have to be spirit like her ally version.

As for the defensive tactics hero people have guessed perhaps Dori based on this leaked artwork:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/182133-yet-another-leaked-piece-of-art/page-1

This art might very well just be for an upcoming ally rather than a hero or it could even be the art for a new attachment that goes on dwarves. If so who else could this Defensive hero be? Gamling? A new version of an existing hero? What are your thoughts?

On to the rest of the player cards. In Mount Gram we are getting Distant Stars which has been discussed on the forums and is expected to trivialise certain quests that rely on certain locations being in play such as Journey to Rhosgobel. It looks to be a pretty powerful card and nice addition to location control allowing you to bail on a non unique active location (avoiding its when explored effects) and discard it without exploring it. You also get to search for any other non unique location in the encounter deck and make it the new active location. Keep in mind there are many quests where there are at least one or two locations that either give positive effects instead of negative effects or are very harmless and simple. I think a big question is whether you need to exhaust a ranger or scout hero or ally to use this card. It is worth noting it is an action not a response so can be used at any time (that actions can be played obviously) and can be used to specifically remove an active location that is going to boost enemies during the combat phase for example. It is also 0 cost aside from requiring you to exhaust a character.

Descendants of Kings is a one cost leadership event. Perhaps it will boost Dunedain decks or have an effect that ties in with engaging enemies. Maybe it allows you to declare an immediate attack against an enemy that just engaged you? Maybe it does direct damage to an enemy that just engaged you (unlikely and would be very strange in leadership). Maybe it allows you to stop an enemy just engaged from making an attack for a turn? (like feint but you have to have just engaged it). Based on the name and art alone I am finding it extremely hard to imagine what it might do and am basing my guesses purely on the fact it is a dunedain related card.

It is also mentioned we will be getting tactics cards (two apparently) that are ent focused, leadership cards that encourage direct action against the enemy (descendants of kings is probably one of these and this is another indicator that it will do something based on engaging enemies) and two cards that support a new mechanic based around manipulating the encounter deck and the victory display (Keen as Lances and Leave no Trace). I think we will get another tactics ent ally and perhaps an event that boosts all ents for a turn or another ent based attachment. I think an ally and event are more likely though.

As for Keen as Lances and Leave no Trace what are your thoughts thus far?

I am strongly considering including and running x3 copies of each and the one copy of Scout Ahead in my decks and seeing how this runs. I want to see on average how discounted the first copy of Keen as Lances played each round is. I want to see on average how much is payed for each copy. Depending on this it may replace Galadrims Greeting in many decks (and mine!) as it reduces threat by just one point less but can cost FAR LESS and in neutral resources and can also draw you cards or put resources on a specific hero instead. The only downside is it cannot reduce any players threat and can only benefit the user. The upside to this though is that any player can run copies of Keen as Lances even if only one player is running Leave no Trace and only a few players have a copy of Scout Ahead in their deck. In this situation after playing a single copy of leave no trace and a single copy of Keen as Lances (for 3 instead of 5 so long as you played leave no trace first) all other copies will cost 2. If you manage to play another copy of Leave no Trace they go down to 0 cost!! This particular AP may be one that people actually buy multiple copies of as you may want 6 copies of Keen as Lances or potentially even more as each player can run it in multiplayer (or two handed) to great effect furthering the potential discount and chance to discount future copies.

Now my main concern for these three cards and this combo/strategy is that it is fairly unreliable. If you don't get any copies of leave no trace but end up with more than one copy of keen as lances as much as the second copy will cost 4 they will both be massively overpriced. Scout Ahead is a x1 only card (as all the player side quests appear they will be) so is also unreliable in reducing the cost of keen as lances. Pretty much you need to have at least one copy of Leave no Trace played to make Keen as Lances worth playing. At 3 cost it is not bad and will also reduce the next copy to 2 cost. This is problematic because Leave no Trace is really not that great. Yes it puts a nasty location in the victory display stopping it from coming out again but this is a very tame effect and one that could very well do nothing in many games or any games of two players or less where the encounter deck does not get shuffled nearly as often. It also costs a resource and is not free. This means you have to have/draw and then play a very mediocre card to be able to use a very good card. Now in the article for Mount Gram they have specified that:
"Of course, we've already seen that other cards from the cycle can manipulate the victory display, such as Scout Ahead (The Wastes of Eriador, 9), and we can expect that other cards in the cycle will allow us to transfer our control over the victory display into a greater measure of control over the encounter deck." which does indicate that we will get other similar cards in this cycle. Will there actually be other cards that allow you to put cards worth no victory points in the victory display that will directly improve Keen as Lances or are they just referring to The Door is Closed? What would be REALLY nice is a one cost tactics or leadership event that is identical to Leave no Trace but allows you to add an enemy just destroyed (that is non unique and worth no victory points) to the victory display instead of a location. If we do get even just one more card that directly boosts/discounts Keen as Lances and is just a tiny bit more playable than Leave no Trace I think it will be a very viable strategy and will almost definitely be one I employ in my decks.

Now for the few player cards we know about in Across the Ettenmoors. Hope rekindled is a nice discount/fetch card for valour decks that won't really see any play till we get the majority of the valour event cards. Dunedain Message will be great in decks that have multiple side quests and because it is a signal it can be fetched itself by weather hills watchman. Any decks that have strategies that specifically interact with their side quests will want to use this card as it allows you to get out that one of side quest that you normally would only see every x amount of games in the majority of games so long as you draw one of your copies of Dunedain Message. Only decks that feature 2/3 or more side quests or have strategies that directly interact with the featured side quests will have any use for this card though I think. The one card we saw but have no idea what it does is None Return. It has very strange art and seems to be a forest clearing with a group of dead orcs? I very much so doubt it will do anything so awesome but it would be amazing if it did the following: "Discard each enemy that has taken at least one damage from a Silvan or Noldor hero this round".

More Tactics Ent cards have been confirmed? Man, we've seen Wellinghall Custodian spoiled for lore and Ent decks are already quite powerful. My girlfriend loves playing hobbits + ents in multiplayer, so this is going to be fun.

edit: I was hoping for Tale of Tinúviel in the first or second pack, but it looks like we'll be waiting until Dread Realm. Quite excited about the new Lore hero, though!

I hope the Lore hero in Mount Gram works with all this victory display thing and somehow makes it into a viable archetype, or else I fear we'll have yet another half-a**ed mechanic like secrecy that needed another cycle to be somewhat complete.

Nice post. I will try my best from different angles.

Ents. I am surprised we did not see Wellinghall Custodian in Wastes. Because Mount Gram mentions two Tactics Ent-related cards. Ettenmoors promises more Ents though, without sphere specification, so he might show up there. I still think Ent decks are far from ready, we need many more of their cards, and not just allies.

Keen as Lances. I think it will be good. I hope Leave No Trace will be very effective for a number cards, however, since it does almost nothing off itself.

Tactics defender. I believe it will be Dori. I think he will for sure be a sentinel with all the focus on the keyword: Helm, Hold Your Ground! I am not too excited about him since I hardly ever play Dwarves and there are good defenders in the game already. Still, it will be nice to see a version of one of the Company of Thorin.

Lore hero. I am super excited about him. I hope it is Gildor Inglorion, one of my all-time favourite characters (it sounds weird from the couple of pages but it is true). And yes, encounter deck manipulation, please! I like it a lot. It would be great if it somehow works with hero Denethor as well.

Dúnedain/Signals. I am yet to build a good Dúnedain-theme deck. For some reason they are not so compelling for me, not nearly as much as Elves, or Gondor, or even Rohan. It is strange because I really like the faction in the source material.

I am excited about Valour cards. All the previews seem promising, though I am not sure about Hope Rekindled.

I am also so far very dubious about side-quests. Some of them, Scout Ahead especially, seem very powerful but they seem very quest dependent. Lately, there have been few quests in which I would say I have time to linger. Now that I think about it, won't there be very good against Helm's Deep?

ps: Psychorocka, I got the Atlas, it is wonderful

Why is no one including Out Of The Wild in their discussions of Leave No Trace and Keen As Lances this time around? Other than the cost when you are outside of secrecy, this is an amazing card. If you're playing multiplayer, then it shouldn't be too much difficulty to get one player to play a secrecy deck with Lore and pile these cards together along with Risk Some Light and really control the encounter deck.

Yeah I forgot to mention Out of the Wild. I feel like that makes the whole keen as lances/leave no trace etc combo worthwhile but ONLY in secrecy as out of the wild really is not very good for its full cost... good point though.

Yeah I forgot to mention Out of the Wild. I feel like that makes the whole keen as lances/leave no trace etc combo worthwhile but ONLY in secrecy as out of the wild really is not very good for its full cost... good point though.

You could also play it with Pippin and Good Meal regardless of secrecy status, though Pippin is best in secrecy decks (or at least low threat decks) anyway.

Also, how about Scout Ahead, which we just got? Sadly it can only be 1 per deck, but it helps.

I mentioned scout ahead in my rant, it definitely does help but yeah limit of 1 means it is not very reliable unless you can fetch it. Yeah exactly you may as well be running a secrecy deck if you are using Pippin. You're right though there are ways to make it work without secrecy but they just seem a bit too finicky or unreliable. Really hope we get at least one more card that can add cards without victory points to the victory display. Even just a strong player card that has a hefty cost and does something powerful (unlike leave no trace which is good but definitely not great) and adds itself to the victory display so it can only be used once (but has no victory points) would make this mechanic way better.

I hope we get many more. And they pretty much said it. I expect at least five cards supporting the strategy, plus the hero.

Lore hero. I am super excited about him. I hope it is Gildor Inglorion, one of my all-time favourite characters (it sounds weird from the couple of pages but it is true). And yes, encounter deck manipulation, please! I like it a lot. It would be great if it somehow works with hero Denethor as well.

I don't want to derail the thread or anything, but I think it's funny how we get so attached to these characters that have basically no role in the books. For me, it's DEFINITELY Rumil and Orophin, but particularly Orophin. I was excited out of my mind when we got a player card of him!

Lore hero. I am super excited about him. I hope it is Gildor Inglorion, one of my all-time favourite characters (it sounds weird from the couple of pages but it is true). And yes, encounter deck manipulation, please! I like it a lot. It would be great if it somehow works with hero Denethor as well.

I don't want to derail the thread or anything, but I think it's funny how we get so attached to these characters that have basically no role in the books. For me, it's DEFINITELY Rumil and Orophin, but particularly Orophin. I was excited out of my mind when we got a player card of him!

For me it's Cirdan. I've never been able to figure out why, but he's one of my favourite characters.

Off the top of my head, if I should list favourite characters from LotR, there would be Gildor Inglorion, Glorfindel, Boromir, Sméagol, Treebeard and Gandalf. And of those, only Gandalf is there throughout (more or less), Boromir and Sméagol are both important characters (to the story as well) but their feature is rather episodic, and the other three totally episodic. Tolkien does this really very well, creating iconic characters without giving them many pages in his epic.

Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast (As an ornithologist, I have a thing with animals) and Gimli are among my favorite characters. I am ry interested also in the Fell Beasts and the creatures that carry Grond to Minas Tirith. Whence they came from and what are their ancestors? Cirdan is also fascinating. How did he know Gandalf had such a huge part ro play and could use the help of Narya? A lot of things that remain unknown are most interesting to me. That's why I think Dwarves are the coolest race of ME. They are so mysterious and have so many lore to them. Evem if you think about the races of Dwarves that live outside the known boundaries of North-west Middle-earth... I could go on and on.

To derail this even more, I will address Círdan's affection toward Gandalf. Well, there were only five Istari who were sent to deal with Sauron, so Círdan knew these should be among the most important players in the upcoming war. Throughout the works of Tolkien, you can see that the power of the characters is very often portrayed through their appearance -- I mean one sees them and acknowledges their power (either right away or eventually but often by their presence only). And of course, some can feel this power better than others, thus it is no wonder that Círdan, being one of the very eldest in the whole Middle-earth would have a very keen sight.

I like the fact that Varda realizes Olorin (Gandalf in Valinor) is afraid of Sauron and therefor sends him to raise others against him. And she gets proven right, of course. Where Curunín (Saruman) was proud and not afraid of Sauron, his failure was in a way predetermined. We see this throughout the works as well, especially in the Silmarillion: that pride leads to fall.

Yes, of course. It could also we be possible that Cirdan knew of the choosing of the Istari and in what order they would arrive; Gandalf lives up to the 'last but not least'.

Though I do not agree with the judgement that Radagastforesook his mission.

Me neither. I really like Radagast. I would wish to read more about him after the encounter with Gandalf and Saruman in May 3018 (if my dates are correct). And of course, I would like to know more about the Blue Wizzards, but we probably never shall, unless Christopher digs out more stuff from the drawers.

Yes, I have always wondered where Radagast went. Especially since Rhosgobel was empty when people searched for him.

No, I wouldn't think so either. That's even more depressing then the Children of Hurin.

Oh, I really liked Children of Húrin though. It is very, very depressing at times but uplifting at others. One needs the right mind-set for it but it is a very moving piece. And could make a great movie, too. (Though I keep no hopes for the rights to ever be sold. But maybe one day there will be no need for rights like that.)

The Istari's formation in Valinor is one of my favorite parts of the Unfinished Tales. I recently read an article on tor.com talking about Saruman and his motives as a character. Very fascinating. Also, the author brought up the point that Saruman probably got his affinity for machines and ring-making, as we see he uses in the Lord of the Rings, from originally being a "pupil" of Aule. And Gandalf probably got his likes/dislikes from his Valar mentors, which were Nienna and... Manwe? Not sure. But we also know that Alatar, one of the blue wizards, was a "pupil" of Orome. So, most likely, we know that Alatar (and probably Pallando too, since he is described simply as his "friend") had some traits and characteristics of his Valar mentor, Orome, Valar of the Hunt.

If we ever do get to go to the east and find the blue wizards, I think that modeling them after their respective Valar would be the most accurate we can get to how Tolkien originally imagined them.

Yeah, CoH is great!

Part of Unfinished Tales talks about Pallando and Alatar going to the East because of all the Valar Orome had the most knowledge of the East; he ventured there on his horse. Gandalf was indeed from Manwe. Man, this is a fun thread.

The essay on the Istari is my favorite part in UT. Quest for Erebor was also a really interesting part. I never knew that Thorin and Co (including Gimli btw) set up shop somewhere else. I should really buy the Atlas!

GandalfDK, you should read the part about the Druédain! Especially the story titled "The Faithful Stone". Definately a hidden gem among Tolkien's legendarium!

The Istari's formation in Valinor is one of my favorite parts of the Unfinished Tales. I recently read an article on tor.com talking about Saruman and his motives as a character. Very fascinating. Also, the author brought up the point that Saruman probably got his affinity for machines and ring-making, as we see he uses in the Lord of the Rings, from originally being a "pupil" of Aule. And Gandalf probably got his likes/dislikes from his Valar mentors, which were Nienna and... Manwe? Not sure. But we also know that Alatar, one of the blue wizards, was a "pupil" of Orome. So, most likely, we know that Alatar (and probably Pallando too, since he is described simply as his "friend") had some traits and characteristics of his Valar mentor, Orome, Valar of the Hunt.

If we ever do get to go to the east and find the blue wizards, I think that modeling them after their respective Valar would be the most accurate we can get to how Tolkien originally imagined them.

And it's interesting that Sauron himself was associated with Aule originally before "defecting" to Morgoth. In Tolkien, the power of crafting and creation is generally associated with temptation towards corruption, as we can also see with someone like Feanor.

That certainly seems to be the trend. But there are some exceptions. Celebrimbor, off the top of my head. Also, I guess we should give Aule himself credit, because he seemed to be... Not evil. Unless you count the creation of the Dwarves as evil...

The trend makes sense since Tolkien had rather conservative view towards technological progress. He witnessed the english countryside being destroyed by industrialization and war, and he had a deep love for nature, so it figures that he is more or less reluctant to progress and machines, and it really shows in his works. That's an aspect of his literature that, depite being called old-fashioned or too conservative, still makes it relevant in today's world.

Yeah, Aule and Melkor/Morgoth himself were said to be similar because they both dabbled in the creation/craft realm, but Aule was decidedly not evil. The main thing that seemed to save Aule was a level of humility. This is best exemplified in the whole Dwarf creation incident, as he created them not out of pride or the will to dominate, but mere impatience, which is a folly but not an evil one. And he was willing to destroy them when Illuvatar confronted him. So it seems like craft/creation does not inevitably lead to evil, but it easily can, because it leads one to believe that they can supplant the creative power of Illuvatar himself.

It seems like we have taken the thread off on a tangent, but it is a fun one.