No new dwarf heroes in any of the chapter releases. For a dwarf cycle, it just seems odd that 4 Noldor heroes are released but not a single new dwarf hero in the chapter packs. Dwalin and Bifur are great, but since then they could have renamed this the Rivendell cycle. Our 4p group is synergized around dwarves and it just would have been nice to have a few more choices.

If it's any consolation, I believe that we have been told there will be five heroes in the first Hobbit box, and the likelihood is that most of them will be dwarves.

personally i think we have done very well for great dwarf cards. no heros as you say but remember that a cycle would get very stale if we a) knew what was coming before the cycle started and b) got only 1 race….and if we got one race all at once it would mean we wouldnt see other races getting any decent cards until their turn came in later cycles, we did after all get purely dwarves in khazad dum

and i agree with jjeagle- we shall see many more dwarves in the hobbit packs, and we have several more of thorins company to come (now that we dont need them to be alive anymore allows for fili and kili) and i think those two will have a elladan and elrohir thing going on

ive loved this cycle- many great cards and i personally like the semi-random distribution of races in the cycles. just look at what we got in mirkwood- two bagginsses, two gondorians, a dale king and a dwarf king….now thats random…but i guess its not for everyone

also the cycle is centered around khazad dum, but not the entire story line - 1/3 of the cycle was indeed around rivendell and the noldor

rich

Grimbob said:

First of all, it 's not "a dwarf cycle." You may notice that the first two packs in the cards are about traveling to Rivendell and the plot of the cycle is about an Elven expedition into the Darrowdelf. Elrond is the one sending the heroes on this journey. You might be going into the realm that was once occupied by dwarves, but from the point of view of the heroes this cycle is more elven than dwarven.

Second, we didn't get any dwarf heroes because we were flooded with #@$)#$#ing dwarves when the cycle began. The idea of complaining because we only have 6 dwarven heroes seems ludicrous.

I enjoyed this cycle as well. I thought FoS had some of the most interesting quest mechanics in the game and I look forward to the Hobbit expansion as well. I like how the assumption is I want all dwarf heroes in this cycle. No sir, I would have just liked at least one new one in the last 6 months. But I guess that's ludicrous in a cycle named Dwarrowdelf that starts with an expansion named Khazad-Dum. Elrond leaving Rivendell and Glorfindel riding Asfaloth into Moria, yeah that makes more sense..

Grimbob said:

i dont believe thats what this game is about- neither of the cycles have made any sense- the mirkwood cycle should have released thranduil and silvan elves if they were meant to follow the theme closely. what we got were eagles and rohan. what i think the cycles are about instead is a mould for a potential storyline, however it is up to the player to form that storyline as they wish. if you wish to be true to theme then gather together 3 dwarf heros and a dwarf deck and do it that way, however you can alternatively take in some noldor, hobbits, eagles, and so on, so if what i say is true then there would be no need to expect dwarves in a cycle based around a dwarven city, its just the mission we're set, just as there'd be no need to expect boromir in a gondor cycle

could be wrong though……….but i dont think anyone should expect this trend to change in future cycles, perhaps with the exception of the deluxe and saga packs

rich

Grimbob said:

Let's take a look at where we were when the cycle began.

Dwarf x6
Gondor x4
Rohan x3
Dunedain x2
Hobbit x2
Silvan x1
Noldor x1
Dale x1

You shouldn't look at that list and say, "you know what we really need more of? Dwarves!" Add to the fact that the next box will have a heavy dose of dwarf heroes and FFG needed to stay away from giving you more dwarves last cycle. Dwarves are already one of the best mechanically supported 'races' (only rohan comes close), and it seems strange to me that you would complain about a lack of dwarves in this cycle. Keep in mind that we saw no hobbit heroes, no gondor heroes, and no silvan heroes, all of which could use the support far more than dwarves. Despite "yet another elf" we still don't have more elves than dwarves, and dwarves will move back ahead on that count when the hobbit is released.

Or, another way to count would be that we have 35 player cards at the moment that either are dwarves or can only be played in conjunction with dwarves. If you combine Noldor and Silvan we have 24 player cards (though we will get a couple more next set). Honestly, dwarves are well supported and they need to be developing some of the other races.

Bohemond said:

Of course, Dwarves is by far the most "developed" faction we have. Besides, most of the known characters have already appeared, and rest is probably being released with the Hobbit saga. The last thing I would want to see in the Shadow and Flame would be another Dwarf hero actually.

I agree with Bohemond and others. Not sure how you can look at the cards we got this cycle and complain that we need more dwarves. Yeah we didn't get new dwarf heroes per say, but dwarves already have the most heroes and the dwarf cards that we did get, of which there were many, are crazy good and solidify dwarves as the most complete faction right now.

And THEN they are getting what looks to be a bunch more cards in the Hobbit box…

Dwarf proliferation was inevitable in this game as soon as the core set was out.

The core set told us that Elves were splint into at least 2 (Nolder and SIlvan) probably not the grey elves though (otherwise Legolas would be grey)

Humans are split into at least, Dale, Rohan, Gondor and Beorning - as well as the Dunidane. (And there's no reason to assume we won't see other groups in the future).

Dwarfs the 3rd core race - they're split into… Dwarfs.

Fantasy Flight set themselves up to fail with this distribution. Dwarfs should have been split between at least two of the core areas they come from (or else why don't we just have Elves?). Because they're not, Dwarfs will almost certainly always be the strongest faction in the game.

Rapier said:

thats a decent point -there are several types of dwarves, and many people forget this- but even evil dwarves……

Rapier said:

Good point. Probably should have been split between Erebor and Iron Hill. Hobbits can stay Hobbit. Also, I really don't care about some "quota" of racial heroes. If this were a Gondor Cycle, I wouldn't be asking- "You know what this cycle needs? More Woses! You know, so we represent all the races in equal measure. I demand harmony in this racist distribution!" The region and quests take place predominately Misty Mountains & Moria. It boggles my mind that people find it that unreasonable to ask for just one dwarf hero out of the chapter packs.

could be erebor, iron hills and blue mountains, though if we're getting technical then different bands of dwarves were forced from different areas only to resettle ie. thorin and thrain in exile in the blue mountains….however looking at it that way the dwarves are rather harder to put into a niche than say elves or men, who are more clear cut (with some exceptions)

The cardinal rule of gaming, "Don't add the element unless it enhances the game".

I could care less if Dwarves were split apart unless there was a game reason for doing so. Dwarves, by themselves, are fun to play and thematically separating the dwarves would not lead to much as there was rarely a focus on the dwarves as a whole other than a few random characters. Nowhere in LOTR, other than Moria (where they were all dead) was there even a dwarven location visited. It would be a reach and a struggle to find a way to produce game elements for different factions of dwarves.

schmoo34 said:

this is true for the trilogy but not so for the entire works of tolkien, where dwarves feature heavily. take veteran of nanduhirion….an example of a character that has a very specific dwarven background not featured in the trilogy as such, more in the appendices and unfinished tales

not that i want one right now, but theres easily enough lore to make another entire cycle on dwarves

schmoo34 said:

That's my new favorite line. First of all, we're not borrowing from some 12 year-olds D&D homebrew of "New Dwarfistan", this is Tolkien: there's plenty of material. Second of all, I'm confident that the developers at FFG can rise to the scholastic challenge of googling a little background and creating plausible content. The whole point of seperating them into factions is that it creates a new targetable and it prevents the potentially unbalancing effect of each new Dwarf card.