Shockeffect said:

I kinda think Faramir as a hero will belong in a different sphere, simply because Faramir as an ally is Leadership. We'll see, though, I guess!

spalanzani said:

Hard to tell really. Aragorn and Glorfindel both switched spheres. Beorn on the other hand, coming from ally to hero (so just as what we expect from Faramir), remained Tactics.

For me, I feel Faramir does belong to Leadership. And since Beregond is going to be Tactics… those two sphere fall well together somehow.

Finally, I wonder whether we should see another Boromir. Given we will likely see 8 new heroes (2 for deluxe and 6 per the cycles) I think we might. And then again, I feel there might be a switch from Tactics to Leadership. It is hard for me to imagine a better fitting ability though, Tactics Boromir seems perfect to me.

lleimmoen said:

Good points! And 6 cycle heroes. Anyone feel like engaging in pointless speculation about the HoN Cycle heroes? Perhaps we should wait and keep the suspense lower until we see previews for Hobbit II

John85 said:

staying with my hobbit prediction- Pippin, merry, sam (which is equivalent to getting the elrond family in dwarrowdelf) thus completeing our 4 main hobbits. the other 3 will be gondor related, possibly from the different fiefdoms……there is a page in the minas tirith chapter of Return of the King that name all the lords that come to the city's aid- im going with them

rich

richsabre said:

Are Hobbits really thematic for Gondor though? I suppose the same could be said for the Noldor in Dwarrowdelf, or miscellaneous hobbits/men in Mirkwood, but at least several quests were connected to Rivendell and the surrounding area in the case of the former (I can't explain the latter). Maybe the heroes in the APs need not be thematic to the cycle since the game is about building your own fellowship (from all of the cards) to go on quests.

John85 said:

thats the thing though….theyre not….but they do tie in with the hobbit packs we shall just have bought, and the films so will be…..i hate to use this phrase….'in fashion'….

im not basing it on anything other than that of course! just a hunch! and besides its time we had the most central race in middle earth developed on….

PS…i also think that Pippin is a sure thing in a gondor cycle, so to me it fits…sort of haha

lleimmoen said:

Leadership Faramir definitely makes the most sense, but if they really wanted to they could also do a Lore style Faramir hero. They could go off of all the references in the book to him being a "wizard's apprentice" (not a direct quote, can't remember how it was worded) with how fond he was of Gandalf whenever he would show up to the White City. And given that they made Aragorn Leadership/Lore, it seems likely to do the same with him, given their similarities in character.

Khaden said:

I'm thinking of Spirit for Faramir, his huge willpower in resisting the Ring seems to rest more with that sphere. The idea of Beorn staying as Tactics though is a good point!

Just to answer the Hobbit prediction, I feel there will be Lord of the Rings saga - though I am not sure how it shall be named within the Lord of the Rings card game, haha. And for that saga we shall see Samwise, Meriadoc and Peregrin, and Fredegar also, I hope.

lleimmoen said:

id be dissapointed if ffg concentrated too much on this saga thing…..not the fact that were getting the books as a saga- that is basically a must so it doesnt mess up the current system…no, my problem would be them holding off on 3 of the main characters just to release as a saga edition. id much rather see them sooner rather than later….unless of course im wrong in assuming ffg will (assuming it does at all) wait a considerable time before releasing another sage pack…..after all the trilogy would be a much bigger taking than the hobbit. to do it justice theyd have to make at least 6 saga packs….2 for each book.

yes, it would have to be massive… so they might just wait with it for quite some time, perhaps until the interest drops considerably…

richsabre said:

rich, I think we might be more like 2 for each book (as in 12 packs; for six books, two in each volume). This might be excessive to some but I think that it would make for a fairly comprehensive experience. Even if FFG just did a spare pack for each of the big battles (Helm's Deep, Pelennor Fields, etc.) that would still make for 8-9 packs.

I don't see FFG releasing more than two saga packs a year (we've already got our two until next autumn (even though we still haven't officially heard about Hobbit II, probably later this week or next week). I'd bet that we get the LotR Saga over 3-4 years, here's my thoughts as to how the next year of releases looks:

Battle of Lake-Town; Hobbit II; HoN (Deluxe); HoN (cycle); FotR Saga I?; Gen-Con 2013 PoD?; FotR Saga II?, etc.

This seems reasonable. Also limiting the saga releases to two a year keeps the game going longer, which I think is a good thing.

As to your point about the other hobbits, I'm coming around to your view (bold quote above, give them to us sooner than later), after all who doesn't like Sam the best? (uh-oh thread derailing question!!!)

John85 said:

So in light of the announcement, I'm changing the prediction above to:

Battle of Lake-Town; HoN (Deluxe); Hobbit II; HoN (cycle); FotR Saga I?; Gen-Con 2013 PoD?; FotR Saga II?, etc.

The boys at Gen Con definitely said that Heirs of Numenor would come a month and a half or so after the Hobbit II expansion. They asked Christian Petersen about it.

Narsil0420 said:

yeah, the CEO mentioned "6 weeks after Hobbit II" and Hobbit II was to come out around the movie (i.e. December) -- but that doesn't seem to mesh with the announcement today, what the "Upcoming" page states, and what FFG put on their FB page today, which is HoN comes out in Q4.

so, perhaps things have changed?

Maybe the excitement about HoN was such that they decided to flip the releases?

Also something to keep in mind, in a lot of buisnesses, Q4 does not end until the end of march, and begins in January. This change from what the logical arrangement would be is due to the end of the fiscal year. In which case, HoN will probably come out the same time as Kazad-um did earlier this year.

Shockeffect said:

this seems highly unlikely to me, as it would cause too much confusion for FLGS and consumers. FFG is notoriously late with products (such as KD) but I think it's a safe wager that their version of Q4 means Oct-Nov-Dec.

I doubt we will see any LOTR books saga expansion since a lot of stuff was already edited (Khazad-dum, Elrond Family, Caradhras, Emyn Muil, …) Another trip to Khazad Dum ? To do what ? Balrog again and again, new dwarves again and again ? Not likely…

Understand me well, I'm a huge fan of the books and of this game, but it seems not possible to me that we get those boxes… Though I would love to find some Helm's Deep stuff or Pelennor Fields battle…

Shiv@n said:

Of course, it seems likely that if we are ever going to see LotR saga it will be in quite some time. My guess is that HoN and AtS cycle will take until the Q3 next year and we shall see a new cycle after that in Q4 again, perhaps around x-mas.

As for the Hobbit and HoN what's coming first, it seems to me they want to keep the saga sort of independent from the deluxe and adventure packs, that is why we saw the Overhill and Underhill only few days after Shadow and Flame. In a similar fashion, we may see the second part of the saga around the same time as HoN.

I was looking at the timing last year around announcements of Khazad and Dwarrodelf and noticed a couple things:

1. Khazad-dum was announed mid september, a month later than Heirs of Numenor so perhaps we will see it a bit sooner than KD.

2. Dwarrodelf and Redhorn Gate were announced around a month after KD so expect to see AtS's announcement mid-September.

Dain Ironfoot said:

The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game is a cooperative game where players assemble a fellowship and join together to resist the threat of the Dark Lard.

You said "Dark Lard"…heh heh…

John85 said:

Darn straight. I want a Thorongil card, darnit, though it should be Lore, and there's already a Loragorn. Perhaps Spirit?… Because that's what the game needs is more awesomesauce for Spirit ;-)

Hm. This makes me think, though: I don't know how it would work, but I'd love to see some sort of "commander" scenario that forces you to decide how to lead an army. If FFG managed to do that in this expansion, I'd be seriously impressed. There's not much a better place to do it than Gondor.