Hero: Hama

Traits: Rohan. Warrior.

Threat: 9

wp-1 att-3 def-1 life-4

Response: After Hama is declared as an attacker, return a (tactics symbol) event from your discard pile to your hand. Then, choose and discard 1 card from your hand.

am i the only one who thinks hama er…sucks?

Yeah, this guy's more interesting:

[unique] Erestor

Type: Ally Sphere: Leadership

Cost: 4

Willpower: 2 Attack: 0 Defense: 1 Hit Points: 3

Noldor.

Action: Choose and discard 1 card from your hand to draw 1 card. (Limit once per round.)

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Some interesting event cards too:

Word of Command

Type: Event Sphere: Lore

Cost: 1

Action: Exhaust an Istari character to search your deck for 1 card and add it to your hand. Shuffle your deck.

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Love of Tales

Type: Attachment Sphere: Lore

Condition.

Attach to a [Lore] hero. Limit 1 per hero.

Response: After a Song card is played, add 1 resource to attached hero's resource pool.

richsabre said:

I totally agree. What we need is a DEFENSE tactics hero not another attacking themed one. We already have 4 of those! (Gimli, Legolas, Elladan, and Brand) not even counting Boromir (because I think he can make a pretty good defender also).

I'm not too thrilled. However, it is cool having a Tactics rohan hero although, again, it would have been even better to have him be a defender so you could run Eowyn, Hama, and Dunhere. Oh well. He acts as a replacement for Dunhere I guess, if you want to do some more direct combat instead of Dunhere style combat.

Brian on Cardboard of the Rings should be happy at least!

While I can't claim that Hama is great, I think he is roughly in line with other Tactics heroes. I expect to continue to see a theme of Tactics heroes and characters benefiting from attacking. I was hoping that we would get one that actually resulted in a net card draw (even if it meant you had to kill an enemy). So to that end, I am rather disappointed.

Hama is great!

As long as you keep getting enemies to fight, you can have Feint or Unseen Strike or something every turn once you find one.

Or in an Eagle deck, you could do The Eagles Are Coming every turn to get a hecka eagle army out fast and to quickly power up the Eagles of Misty Mountains.

And he's Rohan for all those tricks.

A bunch of cards from this pack look great though.

Hama is fantastic. The ability to recur cards like Feint or Hail of Stones is pretty insane. If you're playing mono-Tactics or using Song of Battle, you can stall enemy attacks indefinitely with Thicket of Spears. Under the right circumstances, he's actually one of the best defensive heroes in the game, as he turns any card in your hand into an event that negates an enemy attack.

Basically, you no longer have to be judicious with your Tactics events. Do I use Feint on this Mountain Warg or save it for The Watcher? With Hama, I don't have to choose. That's a terrific advantage.

Interesting hero, especially for solo players. Yes, playing Feint or Quick Strike every single round looks very promising (but costy). This is especially true for the Dwarrowdwelf expansions in which shadow effects are getting really nasty. I consider it a big help to be able to prevent them from happening.

Hama is also strong in attack, so all you need is a Veteran Axehand to kill most of the feinted enemies in a single turn.

Hm doesn´t cost you anything if you end up with no cards in hand. Happens quite often for me when playing with tactics.

muemakan said:

If you start with 0 cards in hand, after using Hama, won't you have to discard the card you just picked up? First you pick a card and put it into your hand, then have to pick and choose a card to discard and since you only have 1 card in hand…

right, seems like they thought of that…

Narsil0420 said:

I agree, too. I get where they're coming from with this ability, since Hama retrieves the sword for Theodin, they gave him a card-retrieving ability. But I think giving him a 1 for attack and 3 for defense would have been great. After all, he was standing guard to Theodin's hall, so a defensive build would have been perfect for him. Then the response could have triggered when he was declared as a defender instead of as an attacker.

leptokurt said:

Why costly? It's a cycle, you choose two cards to swap places. There is virtually no cost involved.
His ability turns any card in your hand in any card in your discard pile, even Unique events (when they exist). He also can only become stronger with the passing of APs bringing more Tactics events to the table.

I find him amusing. Way more interesting than the Reponse Twins.

I find the complaints about his defense amusing. As long as you draw one feint card he is one of, if not the, best defensive heroes in the game.

If you want to rely on Feint, go ahead. First, though, you have to draw Feint, and if you're playing with one core, you'll only have two copies in your deck. If you never draw Feint in the first place, your strategy is shot. If it works, you're right, it is a good defensive strategy because it opens up one more attack action because you have one less character to declare as a defender. But let's say you have two engaged enemies. You Feint against one, but still have to defend against the other. It would be nice to have a Tactics hero that excels at defense instead of offense.

See, at least with a defensive Tactis hero, the hero always has the option of defending, rather than relying on drawing the right card for the Hama strategy.

How would Hama interact with quick strike? Does exhausting and resolving your attack (as quick strike reads) function as "declaring as an attacker?"

I think he looks solid for his cost. I was hoping for a high quest (3) hero, as i still dont think solo tactics is at all playable, or another dwarf, but I think this works well for allowing me to dabble some tactics into my pure rohan deck.

Bohemond said:

+1 for this

And "The eagles are coming" in an egale deck to get all your eagles into your hand in few turns (paying for Hamas abilty with multiple Landrowals afterwards for example)

Awesome Hero

Just saw the Hama card as it is in the preview, the artwork is brilliant! Another excellent example!

I agree that Hama is a much stronger hero than many people are realizing. Like someone said, he has the ability to retrieve specific events to defeat enemies before any defenders are involved (Quick Strike) or negate an attack from an enemy, possibly multiples (Feint). Another thing that no one is mentioning is that this guy is a Rohan Warrior. He could be put into a Rohan deck and benefit from different Rohan synergies. However, I would have gladly traded a 10 threat hero for +1 on the defense but I can't wait to put this guy on the war path. I think he might work really well in a Rohan deck or Tactic/Leadership with the Twins. As long as resources don't become an issue The Twins and Hama have the ability to defend and attack with some ferocity.

Drengi said:

Agreed. Pretty stellar artwork. Love the sword and shield, pretty BA. Hama on the card is way better than the Hollywood movie version.

With one card, they put Tactics on track to be playable in solo play. Well done!

Upon first glance, I had the exact same thought others had about running a Tactics/Spirit combo using Dunhere, Eowyn, and this guy. I would just put in a bunch of cheap 1-cost tactics events and a handful of Tactics allies who are geared specifically toward blocking. With a Rohan centered theme, a lot of event cards I don't normally play would suddenly find themselves as the centerpiece of their very own deck concept.

I don't buy the complaints about not being able to block if you have more than one enemy and are repeatedly throwing Feint at one of them. No smart player who has the option would be blocking with a hero anyway, unless of course he/she is in control of the specific combat situation (ie a Lore character with a 2 defense with Burning Brand on it blocking a 2 attack enemy, or Hasty Stroke in his/her hand when he/she blocks with the hero). If you are having blocking issues, put more allies in your deck.

Curious to know what else is in this set, if anyone has time to post the cards. Player cards I mean, not encounter cards. I will see those when I get my copy.

Tactics is GREAT at defending.

If you're playing with Eagles, that is.

Otherwise Leadership and Lore both FAR outstrip Tactics when it comes to Defending.

I'm not excited by Hama, but I'm not saddened either. His ability has some great potential and I've been wanting a Tactics hero for Rohan. I think he's more generally useful than Dunhere's. Which is not to say that Dunhere's ability isn't cool, it definitely is, but it's also more niche. I've gone whole games without ever getting to use his ability.

I agree that Dunhere is not super fit in every quest. But I would argue his usefulness is on ascendency - with the exception of the Watcher, there he could do little but Unseenly Quick Strike some Mountain Wargs.

A hero that is designed to burn through events to optimally use puts a significant amount of pressure on the card advantage of a deck. Not to say that it can't be done or isn't effective, but the reality is that this optimizes event usage which have temporary effects on the board. I am glad to see events get a boost since a board permanent has an inherent advantage. But Hama is as card hungry as any card in the game outside of Protector of Lorien (if you play it right).

Speaking of Protector of Lorien, that card is insanely good. I win a lot of games due to this card alone!