Hey Guys,

I'm very excited about the game...so far. I hope this will be a blast of a game.

But I'm concerned about "sneak attack". A Combo with "sneak attack" and "Gandalf" would be too good.

First you play "Gandalf" for minimal cost with "sneak attack" and after that you get Gandalf back into your hand.

That would be way too good!

Maybe someone can tell me that i'm wrong...hopefully!

Best, Sly

Sly said:

1. We haven't even seen the friggin' rules and only a handful of cards, so how do you suppose to be able to judge if something is 'overpowered'?

2. Who, do you think will complain about an 'overpowered' hero card? The encounter deck?

This is a cooperative game. A party of heroes tries to defeat a deck. If the heroes are 'too' strong, the deck is too weak, or vice versa. The solution is simple: Create a tougher encounter deck.

Sly said:

I agree with jhaelen, maybe wait for the rules/game to come out before you start calling cards overpowered ?

Thanks for your answers...time will tell

At the very least, the sneak Attack / Gandalf combo will cost you 6 resource tokens. Given Gandalf is probably awesome and costs 4, this will be a pretty stiff price that few decks could afford every turn. Not to mention Gandalf will be in your hand all the time, slowing down your deck cycling.

I'm assuming we're not overlooking that Gandalf gets discarded after one turn? So at most you could use him once with sneak attack and then play him one more time at full cost. One thing I was noticing that Gandalf does not have a sphere of influence, I'm assuming that he's basically a neutral card that can be played with any factions resources.

Potentially you could have multiple Sneak Attacks and there might also be a way of getting cards back from your discard pile. So it might just be possible to play Gandalf more than once with multiple Sneak Attacks only and keep him in hand for most of the game. Early days, early days though...

ClydeCloggie said:

Why 6?
I saw this combo played in Essen and if I remember right, they played him for 1 resource for sneak attack in battle phase, drew 3 cards for him entering play, exhausted him to attack, let him soak up damage, return him two hand.
So you need 2 cards in hand, 1 resource and you will get 2 (3-1) extra cards, deal 4 damage, block some damage. That is real strong from if I compare to other LCGs.

6 because I assumed that when you play an ally with Sneak Attack you would still have to pay the ally's cost. And Sneak Attack costs 2, I believe?

I like to do this crazy thing before I start judging various aspects of a game I've seen about 1/40th of. I call it ...

... Waiting For The Game To Actually Appear.

Nutty, I know.

What, so you don't actually want to kill time by mindless conjecture wiating for it to be released? Far out , man, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard.

ClydeCloggie said:

Nope, you just have to pay the cost for sneak attack then he goes into play and you can trigger abilities. In fact Sneak Attack costs 1.

I have a feeling that the LotR game is going to have a explanation difference between "put into play" and "playing a card". Just like AGoT. But right now there is no such explanation in the rules, so I say have fun

There is a similar discussion in this thread:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efpag=2&efid=201&efcid=4&efidt=456938

I think the combo is powerful, but it is also kind of obvious so maybe when we actually play the game it won't be overpowered. Sure we have to have Sneak Attack AND Gandalf on the hand. Further, as mentioned several times Gandalf's text reads "After you play Gandalf from your hand" and Sneak Attack reads "Put 1 ally card into play from your hand. " So there might be a distinction rulewise as in other games. Probably we have to wait and see once the game is out!

As I said in the other thread, FFG's demo's made this an obvious, and strong, combo. They have toned down Gandalf though I have heard.

The main issue with the combo is that, barring any easy way to get cards out of the discard pile, it is a combo. It might not go off ever, with you have three Gandalf's but no Sneaks in hand and not really wanting to 'hard play' him onto the board.

Pretty strong though. The last part of the combo is Valiant Sacrifice which then nets you MORE card advantage.

I like Leadership a lot right now. Aragorn looks really good, I like him with Theodred. Steward of Gondor seems like pretty amazing resource generation. I assume from the preview of them they will have some good Allies. With only the cards spoiled, I will probably run them with Eowyn. But, who knows!

And, yes, making posts complaining about internet posts ('it's too early!') is kind of silly. No would would post anything if we couldn't speculate and get excited about things using the early previews.

rings said:

And why we complain about a combo wich is the best for us?This is not a competitive game and things like this are on our side .

Yes yes i know if combos like this make things so easy the game lose interest but i dont think that they are so stupid to do somethink like this.Wen the game comes live combos and abilities will be more balanced.

There's always some guy out there willing to stick up for the forces of darkness...

I'm going to play it as written, any discrepancies can be ironed out and agreed upon by my teammates and I before we start the game. I like Gandalf and think a Gandalf Sneak Attack might be exciting. Better than a Wandering Took Sneak attack, I think.

I guess the only thing with overpowered combos is making the game 'boring' to play. Somehow I doubt this though. We haven't yet really seen what is in the encounter decks which could balance it all out.

it'll be a wait and see 'til the game is released I guess.

Casamyr said:

I would argue that the question isn't whether or not the combination is balanced against the encounter deck, but whether or not the card is balanced against the rest of the player cards. You don't want any single combination to be significantly above the power curve of other available options.

But, if we can wait two weeks, our questions about this combination, and the game itself, should be answered.

I personally CAN'T WAIT two weeks, but I shall do my best.

Deep breaths.