The PDF for Asmodee UK's releases next week has no sign of it.

Players have started getting their packs and Hall of Beorn has the spoiled cards up. Looks like we are getting a contract each pack and it is a pretty cool Hobbit book one this time!

12 hours ago, General_Grievous said:

Players have started getting their packs and Hall of Beorn has the spoiled cards up. Looks like we are getting a contract each pack and it is a pretty cool Hobbit book one this time!

Wow those are some good cards. And a lot of interplay with some of the newer cards (Haldan, Lotheriel, Bilbo, etc). What an excellent pack.

The contract seems great and fun to play. So far is the one looking more intriguing to me.

New decks coming. Essentially increased deck size and built in card draw.

2 hours ago, Halberto said:

The contract seems great and fun to play. So far is the one looking more intriguing to me.

New decks coming. Essentially increased deck size and built in card draw.

It's going to take some reflection and conversations to convince me. 14 *different* attachments and the only way to get them out is to travel. That means 14 rounds to get them all out. If you NEED any attachment to make your deck work, this is not the deck for you.

But I could see a swarm deck working -- and attachments are more boons and less necessary. I could see a dwarf deck working in this.

Haldan is great with this contract, but only on a deck that complements the contract. Because you cannot load up attachments or run more than one copy of an attachment in your loot deck, it doesn't make sense to run it that way. But if your buddy is running that contract, Haldan is a great hero to run on the other side.

Any other tricks you can see?

2 hours ago, player3351457 said:

It's going to take some reflection and conversations to convince me. 14 *different* attachments and the only way to get them out is to travel. That means 14 rounds to get them all out. If you NEED any attachment to make your deck work, this is not the deck for you.

But I could see a swarm deck working -- and attachments are more boons and less necessary. I could see a dwarf deck working in this.

Haldan is great with this contract, but only on a deck that complements the contract. Because you cannot load up attachments or run more than one copy of an attachment in your loot deck, it doesn't make sense to run it that way. But if your buddy is running that contract, Haldan is a great hero to run on the other side.

Any other tricks you can see?

I understand your points. I did not say it is the strongest contract, just the one more intriguing to me. I would probably build a boost side contract deck to increase stats on characters on the board. It's true that the items /artifacts must be different and that you cannot choose what to play but on the other side you do not pay for them and ignore the guarded keyword.

Not the contract for deck built on key attachment but a great contract for general use decks that do not relay on specific attachment but can profit for stats boost.

On top of that you can fit many more allies and events in your deck opening to different deck building approaches.

And yes, synergy with haldan in the other deck is a nice upside to location attachment archetype.

Also 1 card on 14 is a quite high drawing percentage.

Just a pity that tactics Bilbo has no synergy with this contract.

Re reading the contract I'm not totally sure anymore that guarded objectives will be "free" after the active location is explored. The text say to put the card into play, not 100% sure this would bypass the guarded keyword at this point. This would greatly reduce the contract appeal...

33 minutes ago, Halberto said:

Re reading the contract I'm not totally sure anymore that guarded objectives will be "free" after the active location is explored. The text say to put the card into play, not 100% sure this would bypass the guarded keyword at this point. This would greatly reduce the contract appeal...

I would assume the "ignore guarded keyword" is the work around.

1 hour ago, Halberto said:

Re reading the contract I'm not totally sure anymore that guarded objectives will be "free" after the active location is explored. The text say to put the card into play, not 100% sure this would bypass the guarded keyword at this point. This would greatly reduce the contract appeal...

It is a bit confusing, since I cannot recall another instance where we put a card into play that is already in play , as this contract seems to have us do. (Otherwise, you have to assume the card is out of play when attached by the contract to the active location, which I don't think is tenable.)

And player Guarded (X) only triggers when the attachment first enters play (as set out in the Wilds of Rhovanion rules ), and the contract specifically turns off the Guarded (X) keyword at that moment, so I think we're good.

Quote

When a card with Guarded (X) enters play , discard cards from the encounter deck until an encounter card with the matching type is…

…Once free of encounters, its owner gains control of it and attaches it to an eligible card.

If the contract works eliminating in full the guarded keyword, then the contract is quite good and open to several possibilities.

Otherwise, it would be most probably limited to a very niche decks.

18 hours ago, Amicus Draconis said:

Just a pity that tactics Bilbo has no synergy with this contract.

Agreed! Though maybe that would make it a bit OP if every time an enemy came out Bilbo could over quest it's threat, do 2 damage and then put a free attachment into play? I dunno...Of course, as is it synergizes with Haldan in a similar, but less thematic way. Oh well....still an interesting card!

I like everything in this pack, a lot of neat ideas.

I wonder what kind of probability that new contract has compared to a standard fifty card deck. Fourteen cards obviously increases the chance of seeing a card you want earlier, but card draw effects won't work like they do with the player deck.

2 minutes ago, Wandalf the Gizzard said:

I wonder what kind of probability that new contract has compared to a standard fifty card deck. Fourteen cards obviously increases the chance of seeing a card you want earlier, but card draw effects won't work like they do with the player deck.

And there's no search feature. Nothing that accelerates. And no repeats.

I'm not sold on it -- I'd like to see a deck that uses this well. I'm withholding judgement until I've had more time to reflect. Yes the free play is nice especially on expensive ones (ancestrial armor and citadel plate come to mind), there is no need for sphere matching either, but man that seems like a pretty steep cost to not have anything other than one of any item or artifact (skills, songs and titles are banned in this deck)

7 minutes ago, player3351457 said:

And there's no search feature. Nothing that accelerates. And no repeats.

Exactly! I'm still of the opinion that it's a great contract, if your deck focuses on having a lot of basic weapons on your heroes.

10 minutes ago, Wandalf the Gizzard said:

I wonder what kind of probability that new contract has compared to a standard fifty card deck. Fourteen cards obviously increases the chance of seeing a card you want earlier, but card draw effects won't work like they do with the player deck.

Not only that, but it actually requires traveling to locations, which many decks try to do as little of as possible (e.g. Asfaloth, Northern Trackers, etc.). Given that it requires traveling to locations, realistically it will probably only get out 3-6 cards from the deck. Still, 3-6 cards of guarded caliber isn't bad, and it's certainly fun, but it'll be hard-pressed to find a deck willing to give up on running cards like Steward of Gondor, Unexpected Courage, and the like.

I think it is a pretty nice contract for multiplayer. Your mates can play attachments for you and you have a location pretty much every round to travel to, garantueeing a free item or artifact nearly every round, bonus points if these are guarded (x).

I tried my 2-player Dwarf decks, 1 with this contract and it works like charm.

This seems like a handy contract for decks that are ally/event heavy -- you can fill up a stack of useful attachments to get for free along the way, while ignoring sphere, cost, and guarded considerations. It's kind of like having an attachment Vilya.

It looks like the UK Asmodee pdf thingee hasn't got this coming out next week either (it's getting a little ridiculous)

Any sign of a UK release? Come on FFG! We wantssss it

11 hours ago, David&Anna said:

Any sign of a UK release? Come on FFG! We wantssss it

We needs it.

It doesn't look like it's out next week.