Dear FFG (specifically Corey):

I bought this game about four months ago were a certain amount of fear that it would never make it to the table. I mean, just look at the size of it. It's huge.

Finally, at Gencon, I got a chance to play it. Not once, but twice. And my lord, this is a great game.

And now that we've played it twice, now that the wheels are oiled, it stands to become a semi-regular fixture.

So as I look to the future, I can hear the western winds whisper " expansion ."

Here's what I would like to see in an expansion:

New characters:

Three new characters would suffice to move the starting possible combinations in a four-player game from 60 to 336. And though I really appreciate that the base game contains some strong, interesting, distinct female characters (more than actually exist in Tolkien), I do want to play a mail-clad, shield-bearing warrior of Gondor. Maybe that's just me.

New minions:

I'd like to see some cardboard overlays that could replace the existing minion slots on the board. You did it for the Cylon actions in Battlestar Galactica, you case gosh darn do it for Middle-Earth quest. Perhaps a different version of the Witch-King (ala War of the Ring expansion), that has a great range of travel but poorer combat stats. Or maybe an Uruk-Hai Chief that could be played instead of Gothmog.

New starting/advanced missions:

Maybe 1 extra starting mission and 1 extra advanced mission for each character, and a commiserate number of missions for the new characters. Just enough to shake up the original characters a little bit.

New events/encounters/shadow cards/peril cards/corruption cards/characters/items/training cards:

Sure, sure, sure. No need to go crazy here, but a little extra spice could add some flavor to the stew. I'm not sure we need more plot cards, since those might dilute and unbalance the existing plot cards which are interdependent and rely on other specific plots being in play. But a little more variety in the encounter decks would only increase the replayability of the game.

Now I know you're busy. Death Angel, Blood Bowl. You've got your plate full. But I'm warning you: I've got five boxes full of Descent minis, and if I don't hear about an expansion in the works within six months, I'm just going to have to do it myself. After all, who's to say this giant spider mini can't be Shelob? Or that Lord Hawthorne can't be a knight of Gondor? Or that this Lava Beetle can't be... whatever. I'll think of something.

There it is. I've thrown down the gauntlet. Don't make me design an expansion for myself. Nobody wants that.

Yeah I second an expansion.

but I don't care for the female characters. they have nice stats and abilities but there was only one woman in the lotr series that I can remember that did any actual fighting so why out of 5 characters are 2 of them female?

I don't like it one bit when companies add females just so they don't have to hear complaints about the girls in my group don't want to play a male character.

Oh yes - we want an expansion to this excellent game!

TheKingOfBlades said:

Wow. Please go away forever.

I'd like an expansion too but all I need are new quests. The game is pretty unplayable as-is now because we all know what the quests are and can tell what each team is doing.

Magic Pink said:

That's pretty harsh. I'm not allowed to state my opinion?

It's the same thing that happened with the deathwatch rpg. People complaining that there girls didn't want to play male space marines. If there aren't any female marines then there aren't any female marines.

They shouldn't just add girls to a game to be "politically correct" if there weren't any female combat heroes in this setting then there weren't any.

Eldil said:

yes please, i'll be happy about more than 3 as well, as long as they are (in some way significantly) different from all other heroes.

Eldil said:

no, i don't need that, though it's hard to explain why. for one, we still have the "RPG-attitude". characters are important to the hero players. for sauron it's "just minions". the game itself supports this point of view with character development and quests, neither of these exists for minions. for two, it's easier to add hero characters because they are not printed on the board. i certainly don't want an overlay. i hate expansions that are actually just replacements.

Eldil said:

i'm not happy with this low numer of missions at all. and i don't see any relation to the characters. either include some story that connects the missions to the characters, or just let them draw from a common pool. this would greatly increase the number of available missions for each character.

Eldil said:

yes, but this is lower priority.

what i would love to see is (new) figures for heroes and minions in different colors, like white and grey. this shouldn't bee too expensive and make it much easier to evaluate the situation on the board, especially for new players. also nice would be a short story for each hero on the backside (like arkham horror - in this case it would be ok to get a replacement) - these are also ideas for a 2nd edition (if there ever is one).

Expansion should have...

1. New characters. Each with its own statcard, miniature, and play-deck

2. New minions. These will be optional in play and should have a small stat-board(not a tacky overlay) that you set to the side of the game-map. Same conditions, but you now have 2 choices for what you want to put in play for each level of the game.

3. New monsters. New monster tokens and cards.

4. New Sauron cards.

5. New missions for Sauron and all the Heroes

6. New Encounter cards for all the regions

And NO tacked on new rules. Just expand the game with new/good content!

My friends and I have also been hoping to see a new expansion for this! For me the main things would be:

1 - New Characters - 2 or 3 atleast, to add some more variety. Also, more starting and advanced quests for them would be nice.

2 - New Missions - Either additional ones or a new deck to completely replace the existing ones. Not a huge fan how easy/hard some of the missions are. Such as Sauron easily blocking the Heroes from having 2 or less Monster Tokens on the board. A New Missions system where you have multiple missions (Primary and Secondary) would be cool.

3 - Final Battle Fix - For us the final battle is a bit lacking. Only 1 player and the only thing Sauron can do is simply keep the Wraiths alive as you have no chance of killing a hero unless they sent in the hero with 5 corruptions.

4 - The Witch King Fix - Out of the many times we have played I think there has been 1 battle against the Witch King. He comes in too late and moves to slow to have a great impact.

I actually like it when expansions tack on new rules, better if they are "optional" so that people who don't want to use them don't have to.

Only other comment from my group is the movement system. I actually like it, but one of my friends finds it way to limiting and I can see where he is coming from. I had an idea of adding some 6-sided dice into the game. During a character's movement a player could discard a card and roll a die. There would be several different colored dice depending on the terrain type on the card discarded. These dice would have terrain symbols on them that a character could use that turn (at any point) instead of the card they discarded. Note though that it is a bit of a gamble as 1 or 2 sides of the die could be blank. There's alot you could do with this and its somewhat similiar to the runebound movement as far as the dice go.

Monkeyclops said:

If any of the people in your group own runebound you can do this all on your own. Runebound comes with five movement dice and they have various symbols on each side and Im pretty sure you could easily transfer the dice from Runebound to your MEQ games.