Hey all,

I do my usual update check of reddit, here, news, hall of beorn for any new player card leaks. Hall of beorn has two more player cards for the Fire in the Night pack that I didn't see anywhere else. I apologize if others have posted this and I missed it. It's roughly translated from german:

Giant Bear

Creature. Beorning.
Cannot have attachments.

Action: Ready Giant Bear. At the end of the phase, if you have used this ability, shuffle Giant Bear into your deck. (Limit once per phase.)

Ranger boots:

Attach to a LORE or Ranger character. Limit 1 per character.

Response: After a Location is revealed from the encounter deck, exhaust Leather Boots to ready attached character.

Courtesy hallofbeorn.com

While the Giant Bear is a nice hefty target for the skin changer, his self-readying is a large sacrifice for the benefit.

For the boots, readying when a location is revealed is way less useful than readying when an enemy is revealed. Who would need to be ready to deal with a location? Mirkwood explorer is the obvious target, he needs to exhaust to move his progress to a location in play; this lets him quest *and* nuke a newly revealed location. Bombur and Ravenhill Scout both can affect locations by exhausting, but they both have 0 willpower and aren't likely to be questing. So unless they're affecting two locations, it's not so useful.

Of course, a non-location exhaust ability might be worth readying for, even if you don't need it for the location specifically. Let Warden of Healing heal again, let Gleowine draw another card, let Master of the Forge look for attachments again -- there's a lot of Lore characters with useful exhaust/ready abilities, even if it triggers irregularly. It can also be used to let Faramir use his ability twice.

That's just the allies. What about heroes? There's any number of well-rounded heroes where a random ready might be handy in combat, and with 3-4 players this should go off fairly regularly. But I don't think there's any lore/rangers with exhausting abilities who are likely to be routinely questing.

Am I reading this correctly in that you can use the bear all you want, but readying him an extra time and you shuffle him in? There is no text to make him not be ready like normal? I'm interested to see the beorning trait be developed...

Those boots are awesome. It's like wingfoot in a way. They will be finding their way into a LOT of decks I'm sure. And they aren't restricted......bonkers...

Thanks so much for adding these!

Boots are great for multiplayer especially. Close to guaranteed ready every round in 4 player.

Bear suggests they will be developing the idea of shuffling Beornings into your deck. Ally Beorn from the core set does the same thing. Our developer loves to revisit old ideas and make them relevant when building up an archetype out of an old trait.

So... maybe we will see a card which lets you search the top X cards of your deck for a Beorning ally and play it at some cost? We are going to get that effect with the upcoming skin changer ally, except it interacts with your discard pile. Perhaps we could see a similar card interacting with your deck.

The bear is really good if considered in combo with the skinchanger or any other form of ally cheating like the offsphere elf-stone or a very good tale or red arrow. Paying it directly seems to much and it does not seem to be released with this option in mind.

However think to bring it in with skinchanger and THEN use it along with a cheap ally to fuel a very good tale... not bad at all. You can have 3 allies worth 11 resource plus your cheap chump blocker on the table in turn 1 with just 3 paid resources . Sure this is an ideal case but it helps understanding how good it can be in the right circumstances. I agree that as of today it's actions sounds more like an emergency button than ability you aim to use. But again if it can save 1 of your heroes from dying for an undefeated attack it an ok ability.

As dalesrephenson pointed out Boots seems great on lore allies with useful abilities and will trigger almost every turn in 3 or 4 players game and still quite often in 2 players game.

Giant Bear isn't a bad combat phase Sneak Attack target, you can use him twice for defense/attack before returning to hand.

1 hour ago, dalestephenson said:

Giant Bear isn't a bad combat phase Sneak Attack target, you can use him twice for defense/attack before returning to hand.

This too.

And we should not forget it has the creature trait. As if Radegast needed more support to be overpowered...

The Giant Bear is the only non-unique ally with at least 4 attack, it enters play ready in contrast to Ents and it stays in play as long as you do not use its action in contrast to Istari. And he does not raise your threat. For defence though, there are better options.

2 hours ago, Amicus Draconis said:

For defence though, there are better options.

Are there, though? Three defense and four health is pretty hefty. Unless you mean compared to the cost.

Just as a PSA: I think that with these spoiled cards we know every card coming in this pack. The only ability yet completely unrevealed is that of the Tactics attachment Overmatched. As for Quicker than Sight, looking at both the english card fan and the spanish card fan, it's easy to deduce that the ability is going to be: "Response: Return a Silvan ally you control to your hand to cancel a shadow effect just triggered during combat", or something to tha effect.

So yeah, considering the current announcement/release pace of the game, it's gonna be a while before we see new cards

53 minutes ago, Gizlivadi said:

Just as a PSA: I think that with these spoiled cards we know every card coming in this pack. The only ability yet completely unrevealed is that of the Tactics attachment Overmatched. As for Quicker than Sight, looking at both the english card fan and the spanish card fan, it's easy to deduce that the ability is going to be: "Response: Return a Silvan ally you control to your hand to cancel a shadow effect just triggered during combat", or something to tha effect.

So yeah, considering the current announcement/release pace of the game, it's gonna be a while before we see new cards

That's a bummer. I guess I missed the other two. I would assume that overmatched is guarded, continuing the theme of this cycle?

I was hoping for at least one side quest since Thalion is included. I only have the angmar awakened side quests, not the haradrim, and these scenarios so far have really depended on them.

So the list would be:

Thranduil (Leadership hero)

The Elvenking (Leadership attachment)

Orcrist (Leadership attachment)

Galion (Spirit ally)

Quicker than Sight (Spirit event)

Ranger Boots (Lore attachment)

Forest Road Traveller (Lore ally)

Overmatched (Tactics attachment)

Giant Bear (Tactics ally)

Thalion (Neutral ally)

So that's it. @player3351457, we can see in the card fan that Overmatched is a trap that plays into your play area unattached, and attaches to the next elegible enemy that enters it. So considering Guarded is normally the very first ability you can see in the text, it's almost certain Overmatched is not Guarded. As for side quests, I wouldn't mind seeing another one myself, especially considering that if a player purchases the core+Wilds of Rhovanion+Ered Mithrin cycle as the first purchase, he or she won't have a player side quest to use with Thalion.

I'd like to see another player side quest, too. But I won't call this pack completely spoiled until we know what the trap actually does. I like traps.

3 hours ago, Wandalf the Gizzard said:

Are there, though? Three defense and four health is pretty hefty. Unless you mean compared to the cost.

Especially compared to the cost, yes. But e.g. Defender of Rammas and Winged Guardian have more defense, Déorwine and Jubayr can cancel Shadows and are Sentinel and Boromir can ready without shuffling into the deck.

Instead of spending 5 tactics resources to survive a single attack of 6, I could just as well chump it.

2 hours ago, player3351457 said:

That's a bummer. I guess I missed the other two. I would assume that overmatched is guarded, continuing the theme of this cycle?

I was hoping for at least one side quest since Thalion is included. I only have the angmar awakened side quests, not the haradrim, and these scenarios so far have really depended on them.

Orcrist is the guarded card in this pack.

33 minutes ago, Amicus Draconis said:

Especially compared to the cost, yes. But e.g. Defender of Rammas and Winged Guardian have more defense, Déorwine and Jubayr can cancel Shadows and are Sentinel and Boromir can ready without shuffling into the deck.

Instead of spending 5 tactics resources to survive a single attack of 6, I could just as well chump it.

True but I think the bear ability is meant to serve as panic button when you want to avoid undefeated attack or when you desperately need it's 4 attack to kill 2 enemies. But I agree that as a stand alone ally in a vacuum there are better options in tactic for less than 5 resources.

Considering the developing beorning trait and ally cheating sineriges however the bear has an edge compare to many competitors.

For 2 tactics resources (Beorning Skin-Changer) it's a pretty good deal.

14 minutes ago, dalestephenson said:

For 2 tactics resources (Beorning Skin-Changer) it's a pretty good deal.

True.

Lets be honest. If the bear costed directly 2 resources it would be by far the best ally in the game. 11 worth stats for a cost of 2 and not unique? Nonesense. Even without any ability at all it would definetely be better than Treebeard, quikbeam, gildor, any of the haradrim, hobbit Gandalf or arwen which are typically regarded among the best allies on the game.

And devoting deckspace for the skinchanger to bring the bear (or beorn ally) in is just a way to limit its power and the kind of deck that can run it.

It seem a sort of limited form of resource generation which is an offsphere ability for tactic. Pretty neat and balanced.

And the skinchanger is a non unique 2 cost ally with 1wp. Probably the best questing ally in tactic...

2 hours ago, Amicus Draconis said:

Orcrist is the guarded card in this pack.

?

oops

I'm very curious about Outmatched. It's the only trap I can think of that attaches to the first enemy that engages you, not through staging like other traps. You can easily control who gets trapped/outmatched by optionally engaging.

9 minutes ago, soullos said:

I'm very curious about Outmatched. It's the only trap I can think of that attaches to the first enemy that engages you, not through staging like other traps. You can easily control who gets trapped/outmatched by optionally engaging.

Also Followed is a tactic trap card that is played in your play area and attach to the first enemy that engages you.

I'm thinking Outmatched is going to be Feint in trap form. Basically a one time Forest Snare that discards at the end of the phase. That's my prediction at least.

It's nice that the skin changer can be discard for its effect while exhausted, with 1 def + 3 hp you might even risk a mild defense before trading it in.

To me it looks like Outmatched has a Response, which no other traps have.