im putting my bet on Elrond, i seem to remember an article mentioning a ring of power, now while it would make sense to use gandalfs i cant see that happening.

and we have seen arwen, her brothers, glorfindel, so i think it will be elrond now, and we shall gain his ring of power as perhaps an objective? or a very restricted attatchment?

thoughts?

rich

If Elrond is coming is suppose to be lore or Leadership. Spirit already have a lot of good cards among any types so we need to boost lore or leadership.

About ring…… Looks like Frodo ability means a ring work but there i s no ring as a card(like ring is include in Frodo card himsellf) maybe Elrond ability will be the same. But maybe not cose they mean the ring in article. Anyway Elrond more then welcome as a hero or as a ally.

Yes, they mentioned the ring specifically. And it would only make sense to get a Ring-bearer (of the Elven Ring that is) as well. It all screams Elrond now. And as we got the rest of the family plus Glorfindel it would only make sense.

Do I still think Elrond should rather be an ally? Yes. Will I be happy to see Elrond even as a hero? Totally.

ps: Even Aragorn within the packs makes sense, but then Háma only seems totally out of place

pps: There was really not much connection between the Hobbits, Imrahil, Brand, Boromir and Dáin in the Shadows of Mirkwood but maybe they had thought there better be this time around

yeah hama's out of place alright, but the rest are in place, i would like to see elrond as a hero, at first i always said keep the powerful guys as allies.

but now we have a glorfindel, why the hell not right?

Hoping they end the Moria cycle on the right foot… with a dwarf. Another spirit or lore option, preferably.

My guess would also be Elrond. Just feels like a natural fit in this coming pack.

Can't believe we're already going to be starting the third cycle here soon!

Captain Poe said:

I have to say I'd be pretty pissed if we get another Dwarf. I know it would make sense but not if we already have SIX Dwarven heroes and a ton of other cards. Plus, out of the living characters at the time there are no iconic Dwarves left.

Mattr0polis said:

I hope we'd be starting the third cycle, I fear they might just release the two Hobbit sagas and then take a long vacation.

I do hope for an elf hero of some sort but I have to say, I think the ring will be Gandalf's. Just like word of command it would make sense to have a ring that you have to attach to an istari character and when you do it makes them powerful enough to defeat the balrog.I like the idea that for this last quest you have the challenge be to get both Gandalf and the ring out at the same time to win the quest. That might be too difficult but it makes sense thematically.

Narsil0420 said:

This idea did occur to me but I think it would be stretching the compatibility of the game's storyline with that of the book to breaking point - Gandalf fights the Balrog, completely forgets about it, goes back to Moria (in the book) and fights it again.

jjeagle said:

i agree- some boundaries shouldnt be crossed……and before i get the reply of 'its already broken' - no it isnt……..not compared to what it could be

Don't we already kill the watcher? How is the balrog any different?

We're basically assuming that when the watcher is killed, he's probably just "fleeing"… so, couldn't the same assumption be make about the balrog? Tough it does kinda make gandalf look like a chump for dying against the balrog of moria if any of the player cards (besides glorfindel) could beat him…

Hm, fair point about the Watcher. This highlights a slight problem with what FFG are doing in this cycle, namely quests that quite closely simulate episodes from the book. Shadows of Mirkwood, by contrast, was quite nicely slotted into a known storyline that is alluded to in the book but sits outside the main plot (the capture of Gollum by Aragorn).

Shadow and Flame may not involve actually killing the Balrog, just driving him off (or maybe defending against him whilst escaping, though that has kind of already been done in Flight from Moria).

Finally - Galadriel is of course the third candidate for "wielder of an Elven Ring" - though personally I agree that FFG are building up to Elrond, with all the Rivendell-related heroes and allies we have seen recently, and also the text of the FOS announcement which writes of Elrond's plans for dealing with the problem of Moria - what better solution than to come forth himself?

Captain Poe said:

Yeah, though oddly, even after you kill him, Tentacles will still come after you.

Dam said:

If I remember rightly, the book leaves it open as to whether "the Watcher" is even a single creature, or a large number of separate snake-like creatures. Certainly no more of "it" is seen than the tentacles.

Captain Poe said:

Captain Poe said:

Captain Poe said:

This actually puzzles me. And more and more I wonder why ffg from all the places had chosen Moria as the next cycle. I know many players were calling for it (if that made any difference) but it is not a very clever choice at all. Because what is happening now is that we get the Hobbit saga, which leads me to believe one day we will get the LotR saga as well, we're bound to, right? And then we will have to go through Moria again. Whilst the Shadow of Mirkwood made perfect sense as it could (and some of it did) all happen prior to the main story. And then they could really pick pretty much any place in Middle-earth to make a nice story that would not interfere with the main story either. But for whatever crazy reason they picked Khazad-dum. And now when we get the LotR saga, something will look pretty strange, I fear.

Moreso, it has already gone wrong with the Khazad and Dwarrodelf. In the final part of the Khazad the heroes are feeling from something terrible. They report to Elrond and what happens? The guy must be pretty smart, right? So from the reports he is all but sure there's a Balrog down there. But he's probably thinking "you suckers escaped, eh?" and he's not happy because one of them is sort of getting entangled with his daughter, so he goes "why don't you go back down there to investigate some more?" and he's laughing to himself thinking "this time the lazy sucker Balrog has got to get them."

jjeagle said:

yeah i sort of hope they dont have us kill the balrog…obviously, and yet i dont want another reply of flight from moria

from the designers point of view it is obvious that a balrog should be used in the climax- though i certainly wouldnt have used it already in khazad dum, which i think to be a mistake

Agree with your first point - though perhaps the likely TLOTR "saga" will be far enough in the future for the Dwarrowdelf cycle to be a distant memory.

Regarding your second point - yes - although it is normal for characters in TLOTR to be very reticent about sharing key bits of information with each other, this would be pushing it beyond reason.

lleimmoen said:

I assumed the story of the Khazad dum box set is not linked to the story of the darrow delf expansions, much in the way that the core set's story is not the same story as the hunt for gollum. I could be mistaken here though.

Personally, I don't mind moria being payable. The dwarves are my favorite part of tolkiens work, and the reason I picked up this game in the first place is because I heard rumor that the mines of moria would be released. While it does cross paths with cannon a bit, the mines are generally unexplored by tolkien, and think it could work fairly well, as it ties players to a location that they know enough about to get excited over it, but potentially that it doesn't completely break cannon.

I do see a few problems that they crossed, one being the watcher's defeat. I'd prefer his card to explicitly say that you scare it off, rather than kill it. While it is true, only peter jackson straight up said the watcher in the water was a giant octopus, i do think that it treads a bit close to breaking tolkien's story by allowing a defeat of it.

Second, unless we win the game by getting murdered in 4B of the final cycle mission, I see a huge problem here too. If players win this story by defeating the balrog, then that makes no sense, and I don't buy that there are two balrogs down there for gandalf to find another one with the fellowship. So, maybe we don't ever truly fight the balrog, and just have to flee from it and escape again? if thats the case, then the story ends with the players going to Elrond… and telling him about durins bane… wouldn't he have mentioned it during the council of elrond? You know, something like "oh yeah, about 50 years ago as a prank I send these 3 idiots down to moria and they found a level 99 demon in there, you probably want to avoid that".

The game does tread all over the place… I mean, you have characters of all ages working together, doing things they couldn't possibly have (Bilbo just didn't have time to go down to moria, for example)… so, with a game like this, i'm fine with minor fudges of the story, because it comes down to being fun (I like playing an adventure with bilbo in moria), but there are key elements I'd prefer not to be crossed.

if they keep doing cycles so near the trilogy storyline this cannot be helped- more freedom will be gained if/when they do areas such as evendim, forochel, the grey havens, rhun and so on as these dont feature- and in the case of places such as rhun we only ever hear of aragorn going there, and he never really speaks about it- even gandalf didnt go that far (perhaps a time for the blue wizards?) so the designers can do much more without crossing boundaries

infact these are areas i really hope they do- a quick look in the appendices gives a wealth of info- i mean imagine the snowmen of forochel? and searching for the long drowned palantir there? perhaps it got washed up and the witch king has sent servants to find it and we have to race to get it before them, only for the climax for it to be lost forever (staying in line with proper lore)…..nice storyline hint hint cough cough haha

I just have to say I really enjoyed the discussion here. I had a good time laughing through the "three idiots." Anywas, good points all over.

I think in future they can find things like the Hunt for Gollum. Guarding the Shire, skirmishes in Rohan or Gondor, preventing Easterling Scouts to get near to Dale, lots of stuff I feel.

Back to the main question: as Glaurung said, I think a hero Elrond would make most sense as Lore or Leadership - both in terms of theme and because those spheres are "due" the next hero.

I'm not completely comfortable from the story point of view with Elrond as an active quester or fighter - that really isn't the role he plays in the book [but of course you could say the same for Denethor…]. How about an Elrond hero who couldn't quest, attack or defend, but had a very powerful support ability and perhaps some sort of global boost to Noldor characters (like Dain for dwarves)? That might give an interesting deckbuilding choice - a hero who doesn't actually directly do anything, but supports others strongly.

Anyway, just wild speculation.

jjeagle said:

It better be a VERY powerful ability if I can't use him for any of the main phases. I'd rather they just give him high willpower to show how he aids the quest or the fellowship, even if it was from afar. Kind of like Denethor's defense. Not that Denethor is the greatest defender in all of Middle Earth, but that because of his position he probably has soldiers constantly defending him. A bit abstract, but it works for me.

Plus, since the game is just a game after all, he *could* leave Rivendell for this. Just like we can make the hobbits go places they never were, etc.

jjeagle said:

jjeagle said:

I wonder if we'll ever get bi-sphere characters… like an elrond who is both Leadership and Lore.

Captain Poe said:

Funny, I just had exactly the same thought.