Hello fellow wanderers of Middle Earth!

I'm feeling that we'll be seeing news about the next deluxe sooner rather than later, and since there have been several topics talking about what the people would love to see, I thought a little game to ease the wait:

First, guess what'll be the name of the new expansion (that is, the next deluxe expansion after The Sands of Harad).

Second, guess the theme (if you want, also the name) of the quests.

My guess:

Deluxe expansion: The Realms of Northmen.

Quests: one centered in the forests of Northern Rhovanion (Mirkwood), with spiders and other beasts of the wild, another near Dale/Laketown (orcs and goblins attacking that zone) and the last one in Gundabad.

What are your guesses?

I would feel disappointed if next cycle we went north and didn't go to the Withered Heath to fight drakes and dragons. So I'm gona say The Withered Heath, even though it's unlikely.

47 minutes ago, Gizlivadi said:

I would feel disappointed if next cycle we went north and didn't go to the Withered Heath to fight drakes and dragons. So I'm gona say The Withered Heath, even though it's unlikely.

I feel like The Withered Heath would be more likely to crop up as the name of an adventure pack than a deluxe.

I think the title of the Deluxe will depend on the focus of the quests. If it's centered on Thranduil, it might be called something like The Elvenking or King of the Woodland Realm. If it's centered on the Men of Dale and Erebor, it might be called something like The Free Peoples to celebrate the cooperation among different peoples to rebuild the North lands following the events of The Hobbit. Or, if it takes place farther north/east in less populated areas I could see it called The Northern Wilds, The Wild Wastes, or The Wilds of Rhun -- something like that. I don't think we'll see The Iron Hills as the focus, but it might appear in some form as a quest. Individual quests might focus on The Withered Heath, Scatha's legacy, defending The Woodland Realm, attacks by drakes or other creatures on Erebor/Dale, maybe a plot by Sauron's agents to turn or sabotage the Iron Hills dwarves or the men of the plains of Rhun.

4 hours ago, PocketWraith said:

I feel like The Withered Heath would be more likely to crop up as the name of an adventure pack than a deluxe.

I'm aware of this. I just suggested the title more as a statement due to the OP's glossing over a pretty interesting place like the Withered Heath.

Kings (or Kingdoms) of Wilderland?

Or Kings/Kingdoms of the Northern Reaches?

Let's see:
Mirkwood -> Khazad Dum - fit location-wise as mirkwood ended, well, in mirkwood, what isn't to far of the east gate, but didn't really have a connection otherwise
Khazad Dum -> Blood of Numenor - nothing to do with each other
Blood of Numenor - Voice of Isengart - don't think you could have gussed that either
Voice of Isengart -> The Lost Realm - With the ending text of the last AP you could have assumed something like this iirc, but not from the locations itself
The Lost Realm -> The Grey Havens -> Same thing here
THe Grey Havens -> The Sands of Harad -> And again.

So for me it looks like FFG jumps around middle-earth more or less as they see fit (what's not bad), but makes guessing difficult. On the other hand we already visited a lot of middle-earth. And we already know the name of the last AP - "The crossing of Poros". If the wiki speaks the truth (http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_the_Crossings_of_Poros) there is/was a canonical battle at the river where Gondor and Rohan fought off an Haradrim attack. FFG in the past has often used unexplained or otherwise blank chapters of middle-earth history and made up the explanation (best example would be the ringmaker cycle).
So I think it could be fitting, that FFG explains the attack in a way, that out flight from Harad with our new found allies enrages the Haradrim under Saurons command so much that they muster an army to chase us into Ithilien, but we get saved by the men of the west. If you look at the VoI-Box and Ringmaker cycle you never really had the feeling of being in Rohan (or at least I didn't) so I think we could make a visit there. The Rohirim who save us during our crossing of Poros have a task for us and as the heroes we are, we follow and aid them.
Of course the task gets much more complex than it first looks like and we end up travelling to the north (mirkwood, dale, rhûn...), but I think this would mainly be the story of the cycle while the Box focuses on the different lands and cities of Rohan (East/Westfold, Edoras, Aldburg...), where we might have to deal with first hints of Saruman's treason, so the box would be called:

"The Land of the Horse-lords"

I am not that much of an expert on middle-earth history and this game's storytelling, so i don't know if my theory makes sense time wise (If anyone knows better: the battle of Poros was 2885 TA and it is said that Túrin II was steward at this time; at least during the Blood of Numenor cycle Denethor was already steward, but I know not all cycles are chronological)

I'm convinced by Calvadur. Could be "The Horse-lords kingdom" (land is already used in lands of shadow)

Land of the Horse-Lords certainly is a possibility.

But I still think something along the lines of Kings or Kingdoms of Wilderland/the Northern Reaches has an even better chance. I would imagine a cycle where the kingdoms of men, elves and dwarves must unite after drifting apart again, in order to fend off the threat posed by Gundabad orcs, dragons of the Withered Heath, and easterlings around the time of the War of the Ring.

That could see a fair bit of travelling across Wilderland, through Mirkwood, Dale/Erebor, the Grey Mountains, the Withered Heath and maybe even Rhun. Would make for a pretty epic cycle and a worthy follow-up to the by then complete LotR saga... and possibly a fitting full circle conclusion if that's where the game line ends?

The problem with Rohan is (as the LotR MMO found) it's rather homogeneous and therefore really boring. The Land of the Horse Lords contains nothing we haven't already encountered in great detail.

As a region to explore or use as a jumping off point it's been there done that.

My guess is that the theme would involve the northmen, the dwarves of the iron hills and maybe even dragons from the cold reaches of withered heath and the grey mountain narrows! Maybe bring back the 8 other dragons (we already have Smaug) such as Scatha or Daelomin.

Otherwise, maybe dabble in the ancient realms from the first Age such as the fall of Gondolin, the schemes of Ungoliant (mistress of her own lust) and battle armies of Balrogs?

One can only hope.

45 minutes ago, Shirys said:

My guess is that the theme would involve the northmen, the dwarves of the iron hills and maybe even dragons from the cold reaches of withered heath and the grey mountain narrows! Maybe bring back the 8 other dragons (we already have Smaug) such as Scatha or Daelomin.

Otherwise, maybe dabble in the ancient realms from the first Age such as the fall of Gondolin, the schemes of Ungoliant (mistress of her own lust) and battle armies of Balrogs?

One can only hope.

Sadly, the MECCG dragons like Daelomin, Scorba, Eärcaraxë, Agburanar, etc. were created by Iron Crown Enterprises for the MERP and are thus part of that license, which has nothing to do with this one. Fortunately, as we've seen with Naurlhug, FFG seems to have no problem with filling the space with some FFG-created dragons, so there's a good possibility we see more. With that considered, it would baffle me if we didn't get to explore that design space in a Northern based cycle.

Just now, Gizlivadi said:

Sadly, the MECCG dragons like Daelomin, Scorba, Eärcaraxë, Agburanar, etc. were created by Iron Crown Enterprises for the MERP and are thus part of that license, which has nothing to do with this one. Fortunately, as we've seen with Naurlhug, FFG seems to have no problem with filling the space with some FFG-created dragons, so there's a good possibility we see more. With that considered, it would baffle me if we didn't get to explore that design space in a Northern based cycle.

I remember now, you are right - those dragon names were also part of the old MECCG which is long gone now (played it like crazy back then). I am confident that FFG will come up with very nice ideas while staying true to the Middle-Earth lore. The Northern reaches still remain unexplored within the game, though the last Hobbit saga scenarios weren't too far from there.

Speaking of dragons and the Withered Heath, I did put together a custom three-adventure cycle based loosely around Fram Framson slaying Scatha. That said, I would love it if FFG decided to go their with an official cycle, as I would be very excited to see what their excellent design team can do with the tantalizing source material for the region.

I'll guess that the deluxe expansion will include the word "Wilderland". Like many of you, I suspect that the box (and/or the cycle) will focus on these key north-eastern locations:

• Mount Gundabad
• Withered Heath

It would cool if the next cycle ran concurrent with the Saga, because almost anything else might feel anticlimactic after we've destroyed the Ring. If the cycle includes events from the War of the Ring, then I could imagine some of the packs being named:

• Battle Under the Trees (or whatever they want to call the attack on Thranduil's realm)
• Assault on Dol Guldur (it would be nice to take part in the destruction of the dark fortress)
• The River Carnen/The Redwater
• The Battle of Dale
• The Siege of Erebor

Possible heroes:

• Thorin Stonehelm
• Bard II,
• Thranduil,
• new Brand (Le or S?)
• new Dain (T?)
• Grimbeorn

Assault on Dol Guldur would be surprising because this is already the theme of the next gencon scenario. And already the second time we go yo Dol Guldur (the first one was the famous escape).

3 hours ago, Rouxxor said:

Assault on Dol Guldur would be surprising because this is already the theme of the next gencon scenario. And already the second time we go yo Dol Guldur (the first one was the famous escape).

Good point. I completely forgot about that.

"Rhûn The Jewels"

The cycle will follow an elaborate Ocean's 11 style heist to take back a lost Silmaril from a heavily guarded Rhûn stronghold. Heroes will have the help of 2 powerful blue wizards

I know that for MTG there are some fanatics who (somehow) find the new trademarks from Wizards and so figure out what the new sets are going to be called. Anyone adventurous enough?

1 hour ago, donkler said:

"Rhûn The Jewels"

The cycle will follow an elaborate Ocean's 11 style heist to take back a lost Silmaril from a heavily guarded Rhûn stronghold. Heroes will have the help of 2 powerful blue wizards

Killer Mike!

Using USPTO site to search for Asmodee trademarks reveals only 35 hits, and I recognize none of them as past deluxe expansions--so I doubt the future deluxe is listed there.

1 hour ago, dalestephenson said:

Using USPTO site to search for Asmodee trademarks reveals only 35 hits, and I recognize none of them as past deluxe expansions--so I doubt the future deluxe is listed there.

Good try!

I'm not sure they deposit the name of the Deluxe. Each MTG extension must produce like 100.000 more money than a LOTR deluxe ^^.

5 hours ago, Rouxxor said:

I'm not sure they deposit the name of the Deluxe. Each MTG extension must produce like 100.000 more money than a LOTR deluxe ^^.

Certainly MtG makes a bazillion times more, but the titles of the expansions ARE trademarked. Just look on the box.

According to the occasionally correct wikipedia, tm is used for an unregistered trademark, while the R-in-circle is used for a registered trademark.