I'm really eager to see some of the encounter cards for these quests, and to hear people's opinions on them. Especially Shealob's Lair I really hope they got that one right....

Yeah would really love and appreciate encounter spoilers for land of shadow and the gen con quest.

My LoS is inbound in the mail, so if you're all still in the dark when it arrives I'll certainly post first impressions and such, though I'm sure someone will spill the beans before then. Also, Ian did a bit of an overview of the Gencon quest along with the second quest in LoS on his blog, ( https://talesfromthecards.wordpress.com) so check that out if you're curious!

Yeah I read that article last night. The second quest sounds pretty **** interesting, really curious as to what exactly the Harad warriors that escape you will mean mechanically later in the Saga. I imagine it means Mordor got more reinforcements (the more enemies you let slip through) and a certain future quest (perhaps Minas Tirith or Black Gate) will probably scale in difficulty based on the amount you let through.

I played the second quest at GenCon, haven't gotten to the other two yet. I love the Ithilien quest.
The basic gist of it is that the Harad enemies are moving through the Black Gate and you have to stop them. The enemies all have pretty high Engagement costs so you could leave them in the staging area and at the end of the turn they go under the Black Gate. But if the Black Gate gets X enemies (I think 6 in a 3 player game), you lose. So there's a really unique balance of wanting to let some (like the tough as hell Oliphaunts) go through so you don't have to fight them, but if you let them all go through you're toast. There's a lot of archery but it's a good quest to use Rangers and Hobbits on (as is appropriate). Me, my buddy Justin, and Ian (Grey Company) were trying some low threat decks using the new Ranger heroes and Hobbits and we almost beat it. It's a well balanced quest in that you feel like you're getting your ass kicked and are on the brink of losing but we actually made it to a final questing stage that would have given us the victory but then we drew a bad treachery that destroyed us. Ian talks more about it in his GenCon report: https://talesfromthecards.wordpress.com/2015/08/03/tales-from-gen-con-2015/

So far, I love this box, even though this section of the book is not my favorite.

Now that we have full spoilers for The Land of Shadow I noticed some interesting things about the campaign cards.

The three resolutions of each quest in campaign mode are pretty **** detrimental.

For the first one each player must take a +2 permanent starting threat penalty (are you kidding me? no thank you....) or they earn a copy of the burden The Searching Eye which is pretty gnarly as it is a horrible burden that either exhausts all your heroes or reveals an encounter card (potentially at the worst possible time too) when you draw it and ALSO effectively cancels you drawing a player card on the round you draw it which could also be very damaging (delaying a card you desperately need). No boons.

Then for the second one we are instructed not only to record the quantity of enemies under The Black Gate but also the name of each one...... this is very very interesting as what purpose could the actual name of each enemy serve? My guess is that maybe.. just maybe we will be seeing any Harad enemies we let through the gate (as in those actual encounter cards) in a later quest such as the Pelennor Field/Minis Tirith representing the Haradrim forces that successfully got to Mordor and then helped in the assaunt against Minis Tirith. I hope this is the case as that is insanely cool.
Also you can only earn the boon Brace of Coneys if you do not take the extra resources at the start of the quest. Each player however can earn a copy of this boon which is pretty neat and similar to The Searching Eye which all players can either earn or avoid. Brace of Coneys is a pretty awesome boon and quite powerful but that resource boost at the start might be integral to beating the quest with as few enemies under The Black Gate as possible... quite a decision!

Lastly the third resolution after beating Shelob's Lair is simply that you have earned the burden card A Heavy Burden.

Now this burden card is also pretty horrible as not only does it have a nasty effect (Each players threat?! no thanks, sorry Frodo!) but because it has the permanent keyword you will start every quest with it attached to the ring bearer during setup...

we do only have 6 last quests to go and most probably only 3 will include the ring bearer and the other 3 will include fellowship Aragorn so at least that is only 3 quests we will have to suffer this burden through but still it is quite potent and very thematically represents just how hard the last leg of the quest to Mount Doom was for Frodo. The weight of the ring at this point is tremendous and if not for Sam he likely would not have made it.

Only one boon for the box and one auto earned burden and one optional one. Very thematic and powerful ones however!

I haven't gotten a ton of plays in, but overall I like the box. Some quick thoughts

Passage of the Marshes: Interaction with Gollum/Smeagol is fun and probably the highlight of the quest. Mire mechanic is basically a modified time rule. This is a fairly straightforward quest. Could be a good or bad thing depending on your perspective.

Journey to the Crossroads: I really like this one. Lots of pressure from archery and Harad enemies. The main mechanic involves stopping enemies before they get to the Black Gate. Leads to some interesting decisions, and even more interesting in campaign mode. Locations actually have beneficial effects.

Shelob's Lair: They nailed it, in my opinion. Lots of hand hate. Shelob is tough without having crazy stats or "immune to player card effects". It's a unique and fun boss fight.

Thanks Raven. Is there any point at which you can change or add heroes?

Not on the cards themselves, but once the box is officially released, I'm sure there will be an official correction that you should be able to change heroes at the beginning of Passage of the Marshes.

Yeah would really love and appreciate encounter spoilers for land of shadow and the gen con quest.

The Land of Shadow

http://hallofbeorn.com/Cards/Search?CardSet=The+Land+of+Shadow&Sort=Set_Number

The Ruins of Belegost

http://hallofbeorn.com/Cards/Search?CardSet=The%20Ruins%20of%20Belegost&Sort=Set_Number

Any idea when this will be released?

Seems to me the boxes were already printed and shipped, weren't they?