I want that Thorongil art on a playmat!

I am really looking forward to making Bond of Friendship work with hobbits. If you want to start with Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry (the big 4), the only way to play it is: Sp Frodo, Le Sam, Lo Pippin, and Ta Merry for 27 threat. But I think I came up with an idea to end with the big 4. Start with Le Frodo, Sp Merry, Lo Folco, and Ta Tom for 24 threat. Discard Folco to reduce threat, Helm of Secrecy Tom into Sam, Thorongil Sp Merry with Ta Merry, and Sword-Thain Pippin. And it is extremely thematic. Folco was there to move Frodo. Tom and Sam were best friends. Adding Ta Merry shows his growth at Pelennor Fields. Pippin was Denethor’s sword-thain.

Woof. That's 11 resources in 3 cards, one of which is a 1 per deck...

It’s fun to dream, right?

Do you think they'll announce the pack in 2020?

Im starting to wonder if they will just skip the announcement and release it normally. Its been ridiculously long already

Sparagorn is definitely more powerfull than he is given credit for right now. If you compare him to Argalad you're on the wrong track. I would argue he is a superior Coragorn.

Argalad is a lore hero that can quest using his attack power, but only under the condition that an enemy was revealed/is in the staging area. And he then deals 1 damage to that enemy. But if no enemy shows up Argalad is just sitting there and if an enemy does show up, you might need his attack power more. Therefore he really needs direct damage support to truly shine.

Coragorn is a leadership hero that you can spend 1 resource on, to send him on the quest without exhausting. His main role is attacker/defender but by spending 1 resource you can get 2 more willpower this turn. That is an ok ability. However if you do not reveal an enemy then your resource was jsut spend for ensurance. Coragorns weakness is that you have to decide before the reveal.

Sparagorn has this last part as innate ability. You can simply reveal the encounter card and then decide if you want to use him for willpower or combat. If you reveal a location you use his ability, if you reveal an enemy you keep him ready. That is very powerful in the first 2 turns of the game. Coragorn can of course do both if you pay a resource, but the Sparagorn player can pay for unexpected courage with the same resource cost as 2 activations and blow Coragorn out of the water. Sparagorn with UC can double quest (send him to the quest, ready him, reduce threat of location) or quest and combat or double combat. This makes him increadibly flexible with only 1 in-sphere card. Better yet, every Willpower enhancer on him is twice as effective because you can use his willpower twice a turn, making cards like silver circlet 4 WP for 2 resources. And that's ignoring the 1 progress token bonus.

His flexibility makes him a great target for crazy combo's too. Sparagorn + Unexpected Courage + Silver Circlet + Idraen + Spare hood and cloak + Northern trackers/Rhovanion outriders. Quest with everybody, ready Sparagorn, have him clear a location in the staging area, trigger Idraen to ready, have her give the cloak to ready Sparagorn, clear the active location, ready Idraen again and you end up with two competent fighters for the combat phase.

I gotta say your pitch for sparagorn is probably the best I've seen, but I am not convinced he is so great out the gate. He is definitely better in multiplayer, and I would argue he would be a solid hero if the limit to his ability was once per phase. In solo, though, Coragorn is top notch.

As you laid out, a lot of Sparagorns strength comes conditionally on 1) the card you draw and 2) the cards that come from staging. The strength of coragorn is that he does not need any help -- he has two actions each round (commit to the quest + attack/defend) for the cost of one resource. Everything you add to him just further strengthens his out the gate ability (celebrian stone makes questing stronger, courage removes the cost to ready, theodred essentially pays for aragorn, etc). You will always have questing and almost always have combat. The question becomes whether or not you want to spend the money to have him ready for combat. No enemies? Perhaps it's risky. One or more? Spend it.

Now with sparagorn, the option becomes: commit to the quest for guaranteed questing, or hope that a location pops so that you can possibly lay one progress down (if WP >= threat). Of course, if there is a location already in staging, sure, for the cost of exhausting a hero, "quest" and MAYBE get a progress. Again. That depends on whether or not you have 1) a 2 or less threat location 2) you have some juice to his will power. And for one progress... ever since Asfaloth has emerged, the number of <= 2 QP locations have become next to nil, which means you are either 3 or more turns away from clearing a location in staging or you essentially get 1 progress extra on locations you travel to.

There are little adjustments that would make him on par with Coragorn in my opinion:

1) don't have him exhaust to trigger his ability -- pay a different cost. Resource, discard a card from your hand, deck... raise your threat by 1. Exhausting a hero is a very expensive trigger.

2) lower the threat cost. Stats are good, per usual aragorn status, but that 12, in the past, has paid for:

-defense drop and extra engagements

-ability to ready

-have the highest threat reduction possibility in the game.

One of the primary reasons individuals aren't mad about argalad is that his stat line is decent, but costs 3 less. Glorfindel allowed for us to change cost of heroes, and I could have seen them do it here too.

3) change the ability to once per phase -- with readying he could become the best location control hero in the game.

4) two progress instead of 1 allows a faster clearing process.

All of these are aragorn-esque, bringing with him up to speed with the rest of them. If I see "oh with 5 cards and a hero he's great" all I can think is "yeah 5 cards on lore bilbo and he could be a superstar too."

I was never in love with coragorn, but as mid or late game quester he can be impressive once play on him sword that was broken and calabrian stone, both I'm sphere. Than he can quest 5 for 1 token which is great payoff considering you might have spare purple token in late game

6 hours ago, player3351457 said:

I gotta say your pitch for sparagorn is probably the best I've seen, but I am not convinced he is so great out the gate. He is definitely better in multiplayer, and I would argue he would be a solid hero if the limit to his ability was once per phase. In solo, though, Coragorn is top notch.

As you laid out, a lot of Sparagorns strength comes conditionally on 1) the card you draw and 2) the cards that come from staging. The strength of coragorn is that he does not need any help -- he has two actions each round (commit to the quest + attack/defend) for the cost of one resource. Everything you add to him just further strengthens his out the gate ability (celebrian stone makes questing stronger, courage removes the cost to ready, theodred essentially pays for aragorn, etc). You will always have questing and almost always have combat. The question becomes whether or not you want to spend the money to have him ready for combat. No enemies? Perhaps it's risky. One or more? Spend it.

Now with sparagorn, the option becomes: commit to the quest for guaranteed questing, or hope that a location pops so that you can possibly lay one progress down (if WP >= threat). Of course, if there is a location already in staging, sure, for the cost of exhausting a hero, "quest" and MAYBE get a progress. Again. That depends on whether or not you have 1) a 2 or less threat location 2) you have some juice to his will power. And for one progress... ever since Asfaloth has emerged, the number of <= 2 QP locations have become next to nil, which means you are either 3 or more turns away from clearing a location in staging or you essentially get 1 progress extra on locations you travel to.

There are little adjustments that would make him on par with Coragorn in my opinion:

1) don't have him exhaust to trigger his ability -- pay a different cost. Resource, discard a card from your hand, deck... raise your threat by 1. Exhausting a hero is a very expensive trigger.

2) lower the threat cost. Stats are good, per usual aragorn status, but that 12, in the past, has paid for:

-defense drop and extra engagements

-ability to ready

-have the highest threat reduction possibility in the game.

One of the primary reasons individuals aren't mad about argalad is that his stat line is decent, but costs 3 less. Glorfindel allowed for us to change cost of heroes, and I could have seen them do it here too.

3) change the ability to once per phase -- with readying he could become the best location control hero in the game.

4) two progress instead of 1 allows a faster clearing process.

All of these are aragorn-esque, bringing with him up to speed with the rest of them. If I see "oh with 5 cards and a hero he's great" all I can think is "yeah 5 cards on lore bilbo and he could be a superstar too."

But Sp Arargorn doesn't need 5 cards to be good. Hes in sphere for courage and silver circlet, that is enough. Also I disagree with your comment on the exhaustion being too high a price. I would rather exhaust him than spend a resource. Spirit resources are harder to come by than leadership. His threat is high but hes not weak enough to warrant a discount.