Unknown said:

Funny, I would heartly welcome if they would replace Beravor's ability with "Draw ten cards from your deck. Use this ability once per game."

Seriously, i think Strider's ability is that strong and cool that it makes up for being used only once.

I like it. I've been solo playing with straight Lore, using Glorfindel, Beravor, and Bilbo and hoping for more Lore heroes to add, since Bifur is useless in solo play. Bilbo and Beravor, on the other hand, are downright stupid-awesome in this deck, since all that card-spamming makes Guardian of Lorien insanely powerful. Add songs of travel and you can combine Gildor Inglorion with Zigil Miner, and have all the resources you want. Add fast hitch, good meals, burning brand, song of travel and boots of erabor and Bilbo becomes invincible, can play events for cheap AND he can refresh himself 1/turn. Being it's solo, Bilbo also gives you 2 cards every round. Its a great combo, so long as you add will of the west. I've been able to beat every adventure so far without too much trouble, though return to Mirkwood is tough because your threat goes up so fast.

Therefore, I may replace Glorfindel with the Loragorn (aka Strider), which will mean resetting my threat once per game in addition to everything else. I might even add a few broken swords and leadership cards to the deck, which makes it a straight lore deck with spirit and leadership capabilities and super-fast card draw, and potential for endless resources. I don't miss tactics because I can add so many mirkwood runners and Haldir.

Thoughts?

leptokurt said:

No need to be derisive, friend. I clearly recognize the power of this ability...I just meant to say I prefer a hero with an ability I can use more than once...just feels more dynamic.

@Morithain : Well, if you play multi-sphere Bifur can be useful even in solo, because he can insure that you do not get ressource-screwed lore-wise. At least IMO. That, and with Dain he quests at 3 Will for a threat value of 7...not too shabby :-)

That's a good point about Bifur! I never thought of that, for some reason I thought it had to be another player. Good advice, I'll have to think about that. But it would have to be pretty good considering the ability of this deck to create the ultimate hobbit juggernaut in Bilbo + fast hitch + erebor boots + good meal + burning brand + guardian of Lorien. Considering the first three of those stat buffs cost 0-1 resources, it builds pretty fast.

Morithain said:

I am currently playing with Bifur in a solo secrecy deck. As TFA already mentioned, he is good at collecting resources. He also has a low starting threat, he makes a good combo with Dáin and he's a dwarf, so you can use Erebor Record Keeper to ready him and all these other nice dwarven cards.

I still like Bilbo more, as his card draw ability is awesome (and not overpowered) and Fast Hitch can ready him without the need to pay for it

Beravor is only used by loosers, it is known!

TFA...I kinda like the ring of that ! ;-)

That's funny about Berevor used by 'loosers' hahaha...but seriously, she's awesome with Bilbo because it means four cards every round! That generates so many cards, you can quest with one character as much as you need with discards (so long as you have will of the west!) when combined with guardian of lorien. But I like the erebor recordkeeper idea. I use him to ready the Zigil miner twice; in combination with Gildor's ability, you can blast out 9 resources in one turn if you draw right.

leptokurt said:

Agree, only losers play Beravur!!! She is broken and too powerful!

yeah but she's (cue zoolander accent) really really good lookin'

What? Beravor too powerful? Sez who? If you use her card draw power she can't do much else. I don't think she's too powerful, though she's pretty good in conjunction with Bilbo in solitaire play IF you don't get bogged down with monsters and you need her for other things.

But I may try Glorfindel, Bilbo and Strider instead of Beravor, just to see what you're talking about.

I just wanted to add that I played a whole mess of quests solo with an all Dwarf Deck and Bifur was an absolutely essential element. Especially with the Erebor Record Keeper AND the Long Beard Map Maker.

However, I can see why he wouldn't be much good in a mono-sphere deck.

I think the comment about Aragorn and Dunedain characters readying themselves was in reference to the earlier Aragorn and the elf twins.

I play Bifur in my mono sphere deck just because he is a second lore character that costs so little Starting Threat. He is an above average quester and defender, plus, only 7 Starting Threat! Oh yeah, and he's a dwarf and can wear Boots From Erebor.

Morithain said:

Beravor herself isn't overpowered, but:

Play Unexpetced Courage on her and you get five cards each round. Play UC twice or more on her and you get seven/nine cards each round etc. Add Will of the West to your deck, wait until you have all the cards (5-7 rounds) in your hand, play Sneak/Gandalf as often as you can, get the Sneak Attacks back with Will of the West and play them again. Play another Will of the West and play them again. That either kills every enemy around or lowers your threat by at least 30 points. Not to mention all the other nice things Gandalf can do.

That's why she is broken (and it's rather dull to play with her that way, believe me). If you house rule her, like not playing UC on her, she is fine.

leptokurt said:

Anyway, I'll have to chime in and say that I, too, find it's too early to have duplicate heroes. I'd have hoped we'd see at least six different heroes for each sphere before there was any duplication. Then you could have two players playing the same mono-sphere decks, which might be an interesting exercise.

A few thoughts:

firstly "Sword that was broken" - really? surely they mean "Blade that was broken." Also seems a bit weird that a sword gives a leadership rather than a tactics icon.

I don't think it's that big a deal releasing new copies of Heroes. This Strider is cool (although I prefer my own version) Disco Bilbo is hideous, and Glorfindel is pitiful compared with what Glorfindel should be.

At least whilst they're issuing additional versions of Aragorn or Bilbo, they aren't bringing out swarms of Hobbits who have no business in the game. The whole reason Bilbo was so significant was that what he did was so unhobbitish. Generic Took allies are reasonable, but I think it's already a bit dubious having Frodo pre-Fellowship, and I definitely don't want to see Sam, Merry or Pippin - none of them ever left the Shire or had any reason to!

New heroes should be folks like Halbarad, Faramir, Theodred, Angbor, Thranduil, not characters who would never have been getting involved in fights with Orcs.

Bit annoyed about the sample deck list that is so heavily reliant on 3x celebrian's stone to play all of those Spirit Cards. Otherwise it's pretty cool.

leptokurt said:

Yeah, I can see that. I've never considered playing her that way. The combination of Bilbo and Beravor is already 4 cards per round, plus you add Gleowine x2 and you can get 6 cards per round without unexpected courage. Using sneak/Gandalf is awesome, but I don't play any tactics with my deck, but it's not a bad way to go.

I'm usually too busy trying to get Gildor/Zigil miner going to have thought of that.

Gleowine is unique so you could not have more than one in play at the same time. I agree that Beravor by herself isn't broken because she forces you into a decision: exhaust to draw and not have her available for anything else or use her for something else but cannot draw. UC is what causes the issue since the ability to refresh a hero is huge.

Oh, derp, I knew that. Yea, only one Gleowine. Duh.

jhaelen said:

You caught me, jhaelen. And I am only one.

I heard a lot of nicknames for Germany, but "bizarro-world" beats them all!

I am fine with Beravor, really. I just think that Beravor + 3 UC is exploiting a loophole in the game mechanics. There is a difference between drawing one, two or seven cards each round. A huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, difference. As I am not using Beravor, I apparently build my decks differently. Perhaps I am just too lazy to hold 50 cards in my hand. I prefer them lying next to me.

leptokurt said:

I find it really bizarre to think that people who manage to buy and draw 3x unexpected courage (neither of these being a particularly easy task) have nothing better to do than put them all on Beravor for card draw- really? not on Legolas for 3+ attack (he invariably has at least one blade of Gondolin on him) and progress tokens? not on a sentinel defender? not on Dain so that he can use his 3 defence and still give all dwarves in play +1 attack, all on Beravor.

just seems incredibly dull

Very good point Mighty Jim. I also do not understand the strategy of drawing 8 cards with Beravor each round. In our play-group we have got 6 copies in total, so she could be drawing 14 in coop. But one needs money to pay for the cards too (unless he wants to feed them all to the Protector) and there is always Legolas, Dunhere or someone else needing Courage too. The new Aragorn seems like a good adept for it by the way.

The exception for me is when I play solo with Denethor (and the Hobbits usually), then there is no decision to be made: all Courage goes to the Steward with dull consistency.

Well, look at it this way. Once you are in a game, the two most important things your deck can do are draw your cards and collect the resources to play them. If you can do both these things in abundance, you will win a lot of games. It just opens up a lot of possibilities for you. Beravor and UC essentially use up one hero and one deck slot to take care of one half of this issue and that gives you plenty of room to work on the other half. Can it be dull and considered lazy? Certainly so. But it is also brutally efficient and that's why it gets a lot of use.

Feeding them all to Protector of Lorien is exactly what you want to do with the combo. Lets you finish quests in 1 round each (when there are no requirements other than putting progress on them).

Also, the other goal is to empty your deck, not so you can play the cards, but so you can then use Will of the West to set your deck with only the cards you want... like you are playing a 6 cards deck with 3 Sneak Attack and 3 Gandalf.

(Both these are mostly solo-play strategies, although they also work in coop; but in coop, it's harder to not share the wealth around, so UC often ends up on Ranged or Sentinel character)

May sound boring, but it works. To each is own.

No, of course it works. And of course it is efficient once you get the combo going. But not only it may be a bit boring but perhaps also too slow, so either if you count the score or if you try to fulfill the potential of your many characters this may not be the best way around it. I am saying "may" though, I think it is questionable. I would be more certain about the Will of the West, to draw all but a few cards which you then recycle must surely take unnecessary number of rounds which you could otherwise spend by having already won the game and probably enjoy the variety of the process much more.

Having said that, more than a few times I have caught myself accumulating all the willpower for the final round, trying to hit over 100 with multiple copies of Astonishing Speed, Faramir on the Vigilant crack and feeding the Protector. To each his own indeed.

I am excited by the for the new Aragorn. Gives me a chance to play around with 1 hero deck build...Anyone else notice the sword and the stone go to the would be king? You all 'av' been PUN-ished!