one thing i'm liking about the most recent cycle is the way they are bringing in totally new mechanics, like secrecy, ambush, and when our characters get washed away by the water and end up in completely different staging areas -- stuff like that. and there are some new little bits and pieces in the hobbit box too, with the extra hero and treasures. i hope they keep that going into the next cycle, and bring in new rules. i think that is what keeps it fresh and interesting every time a new quest/box comes out. because the game is pretty simple otherwise, always following the same phases. there's not a lot to it -- its just draw cards, quest and fight, draw cards quest and fight, draw cards quest and fight. it could potentially get a bit same-old same-old.

but they seem to have a load of ideas at the moment. let's hope they keep them coming.

one other wish that i have… is if they could find a way to make the game play longer. some games only last a few rounds. i know there is a sentence in the old rule book which suggests that future quests might allow our threat to go above 50. maybe there is a way to use that to make them play longer.

Cunir said:

agreed- one quest i love is road to rivendell- that first 1B with 20 quest points is great!

what id like to see is more quests that let you really get through the decks, both player and encounter

rich

Not sure this is a good idea. 2 player games take around 40 mins already and a 4 player game can go as long s 2 hours. That is plenty long enough. You culd alwyas just double the quest points needed if you like I guess but I think they have the pacing of the quests pretty much bang on.

Maybe more "travel" quests like RtR then? I think a good one every cycle or two wouldn't be horrible…

John85 said:

yes possibly, as long as they dont over do it with locations like emyn muil….something like emyn with more enemies and a couple less locations would be great. i think thats probably what RtR was anyways

rich

richsabre said:

or make the locations interesting. something random if you travel there, or a reward for traveling there, etc. just to travel and clear only to travel again is boring.

For my two cents; I am loving the game so far, and I believe it is on a good track. I share the same concern as many of you do about "instant-kill" cards from the encounter deck being too strong. In multi-player games however, such "overpowered" cards seem to be necessary in order to properly balance the difficulty level…this inevitably means that solo mode becomes harder. The solution? I have no idea.

I am also an advocate for keeping the Adventure Packs on a monthly release cycle following their Big Box Set.

Happy Questing! (or not so happy…"When Revealed: All characters in play DIE!").

I also like longer quests. I use Aragorn a lot, and when you get the sword, stone and Faramir down games can end pretty quickly.

How long would the march across Gorgoroth be? Or the climb up Mount Doom? I wonder how they will portray the burden/corruption of the ring?

I would love a cycle to centre around Mordor, with a quest in Barard-dúr. We never really 'see' the Dark Tower in the book per se, but the allusions make it sound terrifying. Twice as hard as escape from Dol Guldur anyone? Also a quest in Angmar and Carn Dúm would be great. That would tie in perfectly with the as yet unused Dúnedain keyword.

Ben

Kcall07 said:

while i am really looking forward to mordor…and expect that we shall get in (or at least outside!) barad dur….i sure as hell wouldnt want a repeat of guldur. twice as hard as that and id be asking for my £10 back….that quest's scaling is aweful

id hope for a more secret type spy mission in mordor, afterall if we go in with swords blazing, we're going to end up fighting half a million orcs……now that may reach dol guldur level haha

There are so many references to the threat of being brought alive before the seat of the Dark Lord, it would be great to actually play through. It would make fighting a Balrog seem like nothing.

Some king of stealth quest would be great, like if your threat goes over a certain level you draw an extra encounter card.

Kcall07 said:

yeah, cirith ungol, shelob, mouth of sauron, nazgul, hordes of orcs, durthang, ash and smoke…so many great things to look forward to!!!! (sorry got a bit excited)

Geez booored

If you want random named f****g monsters go play magic!

This game has improved OUT OF SIGHT since the Khazad Deluxe expansion.

Troymk1 said:

That is exactly what I said..

If you want longer games, S&F is just what you want to play. I completed my fastest game in 10 turns, and on average I nedd 13-15 turns to complete the scenario (and managing around 20 characters and attachments is time consuming).

booored said:

I think you were clear to point out that you felt that game was improving. I think most of us do.

While I wouldn't have replied with the same intensity that Troy did, perhaps, I do think you might be overlooking some of what they HAVE done with the enemies. There is no way that every encounter can be full of completely unique baddies, and Tolkien in his own way was careful to show that corrupted creatures made up large races (orcs, goblins, uruks, etc) even as the free people did… So it shouldn't be surprising that we see plenty of those in variety in the game.

What I think you might be overlooking is the variety of "non-orc/uruk/goblin" that we HAVE gotten… I believed you mentioned the Watcher as an excellent example. Well, how about the trolls from the Mirkwood cycle? Granted not as "nasty" as TWITW, bu they definitely gave us a break from 2-health orcs to mow through. I thought the inclusion of giant spiders right out of the gate was a GREAT idea, since they weren't really a HUGE element of Tolkien's writings (outside of the scene in The Hobbit, and later Shelob). Then there's the Nameless Things… I thought they were well thought out, and definitely a change of pace (in fact, FoS with it's unique baddies and quest-line is probably my favorite encounter yet, just for its uniqueness…. caveat, haven't played FaS yet). The Nazgul in MaO (granted, not in the cycle, but still an easily accessible part of the game) definitely fits in this catagory. As will Durin's Bane. And Smaug. And….

I don't think that I need to continue much beyond that… my point is two-fold, I suppose: 1) There really isn't a need to "beak canon" to come up with interesting enemies in this game; 2) I think that FFG has actually done fairly well to date, and by the looks of it will just keep making them more interesting.

benhanses said:

and the ever-popular Hummerhorns! hahaha.

Dain Ironfoot said:

LMAO… I was actually going to mention the H-horns, but figured that referencing the "spider" subset might suffice… that is actually one of the enemies that I first truly hated when I started playing, didn't know what the hell I was doing with my deck-building (didn't really have much to build a deck with anyways at that time…), and would just get nailed by that sucker every time he was in an encounter deck. Bastard.

BUT, at least it wasn't a "boooooooring" orc.