sWhiteboy said:

What he said.

Dam@

Yes those attachments works better on other characters like Celebrian's stone on Aragorn and citadel plate on Gimli but you can sacrifice one of those attachments on Bilbo cause one free extra card every turn is a big plus especialy in decks which they don't use Beravor or lore sphere.

Before i got my box i thought that Bilbo is a bad hero but now after many games i can see that with the cards we have now and minimum 50 cards decks an extra free card every new round can save your game.Beravor with unexpected courage is ofcourse better but if you don't use spirit you will exhauste Beravor for her abilitie very few times especialy at the second scenario where you need as much wp as you can from your characters to pass the 2b quest card.

I can agree with you that Bilbo's stats force you to keep an eye on him and be careful all the time but i don't think that they will let Bilbo with out a card which can protect him or give him a boost.Somethink like sting or a hobbit sword or maybe a ring..? can do the job.

PS :sorry for my poor expanations but my English sucks.

Dam already mentioned that the same attachments necessary to make Bilbo into a solid defender could instead be otherwise used to make certain other characters virtually indestructible, but I think it's important to remember too that since Bilbo's HP is so low, the likelihood of you having to rely on something like Protector of Lorien to save him from dying to an unexpected shadow effect or whatever is much greater than for heroes with more HP. A more narrow margin of survivable damage (1, as opposed to 2-4 on other heroes), means that you are much more likely to find yourself in more "oh crap" moments where you have to discard more cards than you want to (or can!) just to keep the guy alive. And, if you do use him as a defender, doesn't his greater likelihood of necessitating discarding cards to fuel Protector of Lorien largely negate the usefulness of his ability to draw extra cards? I think it would be inifinitely preferable to simply invest a few resources in a different hero to pay for something like Self Preservation than to continually fuel your discard pile and deplete your hand for an entire game whenever an enemy just happens to draw "+1 attack strength" on a shadow card (or has a base attack strength of 3 or greater). Still, I think that my biggest problem with Bilbo (or any Hobbit, thus far), as a defender is that with the exception of Glorfindel, every single healing card or ability in the entire game is less efficient when used on him; why waste a heal of 2 or "all" on someone that only has 1 point of damage?

Edit: To sum up the above, I think that unfortunately it's looking like Bilbo's only use at the moment may be as an attacker, with his unfortunate 1 attack strength. A hobbit version of Dwarven Axe would do wonders for his attack capability, though.

I have to admit, I am a little puzzled by having him be Threat 9, but just like the rest of you I am dying to see what cards may be released that might make him more convincing to use. I really think it's going to be up to card synergy to either make or break this hero.

Card draw is that strong in card games, under costed card draw broke more games and cause more errata's in CCG's then any other game mechanic. 9 Might be on the high side, but I can understand FFG not wanting to under cost a free card draw engine out of the chute. If he was cost at 6, this game would now be a Bilbo Lore + 2 heroes of your choice deck building game for mono and 2 player games. It's simple, as long as he is alive, he DOUBLES your access to cards that help you win games.

With only the core set cards, without having seen the card, I would have guessed the threat cost to be 8, but in my opinion, 9 is better then 6 for this card.

We already have "Exhaust a Spirit character to do X" cards.

I can see more cards in this vein and when an "Exhaust a Lore character to do X" cards start appearing, in addition to the card draw, Bilbo will come into his own. We are judging him on current card pool and about 3-4 spoiled cards, hardly fair on the little chap!

Lightdarker said:

A bit off topic but I think I might be playing Dol Guldur Orcs differently to you so wanted to clarify the above point.

When Dol Guldur Orcs is revealed, do you make the first player choose one of their characters committed to the quest to take the damage?

I read the card to mean the first player must simply choose a character committed to the quest to take the damage, so he could choose another players character if he wanted.

Therefore the chance of Bilbo being "the one" is relatively unlikel (in our games anyway).

Am I playing Dol Guldur Orcs wrongly?

Ya know, I had always just assumed the first player had to choose a character they control, but you're right, reading the card it does specifically say "The first player chooses 1 character currently committed to a quest. Deal 2 damage to that character." So it looks like you've been playing it right, and Dol Guldur Orcs have a less painful "When Revealed" effect than I thought. For example, Eowyn had died in a couple of my games because she was the first player's sole quester and I was interpreting the Orcs card incorrectly. Amazing how many things one can just assume without giving it a second thought until someone else points out the obvious. Thanks!

I've been thinking about Bilbo's cost a bit more:

Berevor exhausts to draw 2. One 2-cost attachment (Unexpected Courage), and she picks any player to draw 2 cards extra per turn, pretty much for "free."

Granted, Unexpected Courage is a second sphere required in the deck, but the cost is still pretty cheap.

Bilbo: costs 3 threat to draw 1 card per turn, and it must be the 1st player.

Berevor: costs 2 resource tokens to have an attachment that allows a draw 2 to the player of your choice.

If 2 resource tokens can get you 2 extra cards per turn to ANY player, then 1 resource token should be able to get you 1 card per turn to any player. Bilbo gets you 1 card per turn to only the 1st player, but we'll let that slide for now.

3 recource tokens equates to about 6 threat, based on The Galadrim's Greeting. That is a ratio of 1 resource token for 2 threat.

1 card to a player of your choice = 1 token = 2 threat

Bilbo could have cost 8 and let any player draw 1, not just the 1st player. So, at cost 9 that forces the draw to the 1st player still seems a bit over-costed, but not as much as I first thought.

I still think it is too risky to use Bilbo due to his shortage of HP, but hopefully Hobbits will get something to make Bilbo less risky to use.

personally I'll just want to wait and see what else the adventure pack has to offer... in my experience the game is pretty balanced so far... I win often enough, but I'll lose just as much... I can take it, I'm a big boy

ok, it becomes proportionally easier with the amount of players, I agree, but would it be a good selling strategy to build a killer encounter deck nobody ever beats, especially for new players with no prior CCG/LCG experience? I think not... the learning curve has to be low at first...

Bryon said:

There's more to it than just. Start with Berevor, pay 2 resources, and draw 2 cards every turn.

First, you have to splash the Spirit Sphere into your deck. This limits your options, because you can no longer reliably splash Tactics or Leadership. Next, you have to draw Unexpected Courage. If you're running 3 copies, then your chances are decent. Now you pay the 2 resources. These resources might have been better spent on something else that turn (but I doubt it). What happens if Unexpected Courage is destroyed? You have to draw another Unexpected Courage and pay 2 more resources.

In the long run, it is worth it to play Berevor+Unexpected Courage, but it is much more restricting to play this combo then it is to just play Bilbo.