legolas18 said:

Now THOSE are some cards I can get excited about. Hama's great but I have a hard time fitting him into multi-sphere decks with some of the other great tactics heroes we've been given.

Could definitly have some interesting uses paired w/ Stand and Fight, Horn of Gondor, Imrahil, and any cheap ally. Snowborn Scout comes to mind as an amazing defender to recycle.

legolas18 said:

Yes, I wasn't sure what exactly they say but I think you're right. And it looks like a very exciting design. Good catch for piecing them together.

What do you think about Visionary Leader? What bonus does it grant, willpower?

And Legolas, aren't you turning a bit Beorning?

JonofPDX said:

I'm with you here. The 12 cost is way too much for his ability (especially as I lost two games because of 1 point threat too much). I don't think it has anything to do with readying him (why mentioning Steed of the Mark if that's the case?), but I hope for some card related to him that improves the tactics sphere. Perhaps some resource generating attachment?

lleimmoen said:

Lol—yeah the software on this forum is truly, unbelievably bad. I figured out what you meant. As for Steed of the Mark—I think we may have to agree to disagree on that one but I will lay out my reasoning and some of the factors behind it.

First of all, and maybe most importantly, I only have one Core set (and all the adventure packs/deluxe expansions, plus 2 single SoGs that I was able to find on ebay). That means that while UC is an auto-include in every Spirit deck I make, I only have ONE of them. So I may have a somewhat healthier appreciation for ANY readying effect than most.

Secondly, I almost always include some kind of resource acceleration in my decks. This card gives those cards (like Horn of Gondor, Steward of Gondor, Wealth of Gondor) more flexibility. I can decide based on what’s on the table and in my hand if I would rather have a free quester that turn or the resource. To be clear, I don’t see this as Light of Valinor—I’m not using it every turn. But it’s a RELIABLE readying engine on the table that I can make use of when I don’t have a Cram or a Miruvor in hand. Hell—worst case scenario I use it a couple times and then it can become a shield for “discard attachment” treacheries.

And remember—it doesn’t have to go on my heroes. In a multiplayer game if another player is doing well on resources or has SoG out then I might throw it over to his side to power through the Quest deck. You’re probably looking at 6-12 progress for 3 resources over 3 rounds—not that much w/ Steward (which is the natural pairing here as it also grants the Gondor trait). Not that I would want to do that in EVERY quest (a lot of times there are better uses for the resources), but again—flexibility.

So yeah—reasoning. I can totally see where you’re coming from and it’s true that compared to UC this card is crap—but you aren’t running it INSTEAD of UC. I will say though that as much as I do still like the card a lot I will have to downgrade my “GREAT” to a “great” as I forgot about Miruvor (which if I had to choose, I like more for its different flavor of flexibility). Still, we WILL get a fetch card for the “mount” keyword (either in this cycle or in a future Rohan Deluxe Expansion) so I may bump it back up to “GREAT” yet.

leptokurt said:

I think we'll see some Spirit resource acceleration before we see another tactics generator.

I am hoping that if he does get some kind of specific attachment it revolves around Rohan (either extending his buff to them, providing a different buff, or fetching). He needs something thematically to tie him with other Rohan characters. I honestly don't really understand why he only buffs tactics heroes, thematically.

lleimmoen said:

Well, I had to find a way to include both cards… Though now that I think about it, my name and my picture could be a bit confusing.

But about Visionary Leader… I'm not sure. I think it will definitely be an attachment to put on Leadership Boromir, as you can make out that it says "While attached hero has at least one resource in it's resource pool." A good guess would be Willpower, but I don't know. It could just as easily be attack or defense, since this cycle is sure to have Battles and Sieges.

Hmm, not really sure about Theoden. He's interesting, yes, but I think that the measure they're taking to help Tactics may be a bit of a mistake. You see, as we may all know, one of this game's most important characteristics/problems (at least in solo) is that of the three "winning conditions" it has (questing, defending, attacking) you need the three of them to win actually a game (unlike magic in which you can win by pure aggro, pure control, etc). So you can't really give Tactics what really should be mostly exclusive to Spirit. I they want to help Tactics put Progress tokens on the quest/locations why not basing this measure on Legolas? It's just so obvious. He's been there since the beggining, and he is in my opinion the best way to do this. Why not make a hero with, say, an ability like "Whenever this hero defends and recieves no damage, put one progress token on target location/quest"? Or an event that is Legolas' ability, like "Choose a hero. If that hero attacked and detroyed an enemy this turn, place two progress token on the current quest". That would help Tactics a LOT in becoming a viable sphere for mono-sphere decks, and it would still make Tactics stay Tactics.

Gizlivadi said:

Gizlivadi said:

The more I think about it, the more I think that the way they created Theoden is smart. His ability is a major help at the start of the game where tactics suffers the most questwise. Later you can add enough allies to pimp your WP to 10 points and more. Which is more than enough for most of the scenarios.

Example:

Theoden - 3 WP

Thalin - 2 WP

Bofur - 2WP

Eagles of the MM - 2 WP

Envoy of Pelargir - 1 WP

You could play these allies in 3-4 rounds. There's also Radagast, Landroval and Gandalf to help you boost your WP.

I think balancing tactics is going to be brutal. This sphere has the potential to become too powerful. Right now it mainly lacks threat managment and healing. If you can handle these two, you can take your time to build yourself an unbeatable army of allies, weapons and fighting events. Right now that's not the case which sets a tight countdown for each tactics deck. That is good IMO, but tactics is still lacking some strength. FFG has to walk a fine line between strenghtening the tactics sphere just a bit more without making it overpowered.

Jonof, I get your point. I hope I did not sound too harsh the last time around. Though my little playing group owns multiple core sets I am mostly inclined to use one copy of UC anyways. And it is also that I mostly use heroes that do not need it as much - Glorfindel gets Light of Valinor, Frodo gets Fast Hitch, Boromir has his own readying effect, Beravor no longer applies that much, Beregond can take Behind Strong Walls, Dain and Thorin could use Cram (their sphere) and recycle it with the Hammersmith; guys like Théodred don't really need it or are of different spheres… It is mostly Denethor or Elrond who are made for Courages, it seems, and will hardly do without. But Théoden now is certainly another candidate.

leptokurt said:

I guess you're right. I immediately thought of the possibility of there being few enemies in the quest after I posted my comment, but I would still support a Tactics sub-strategy of placing tokens during/after the combat phase. That may not be the whole solution, but that and also having more willpower allies and heroes and lower threat heroes would be the way to go in my opinion. I also believe Trained for War will become a very important card in future Tactics decks.

Gizlivadi said:

Yes.

Look, even I am getting sick of me talking about Theoden at this point but I will say that his design kind of worries me for the direction the cycle will go.

It’s like they had a list of characters that they wanted to use for heroes, thematically, and designed some really cool abilities for them. And then they had this great idea that this cycle should address one of the legitimate shortcomings of the game (the difficulty of playing mono-sphere). And then they just slammed the two together.

I don’t know, I could be completely wrong but when I look at Theoden it feels like he was supposed to be the Rohan Dain Ironfoot, but was ruined by committee. Like his ability was originally conceived as “Rohan characters get +1 willpower while Theoden is in play (or maybe commited to the quest)”. Still not as powerful as Dain without the attack boost (and more expensive in threat cost) but more personally versatile as he didn’t have to be ready and a thematic home run. And then someone decided that they wanted to support mono-sphere, so it became “tactics characters get +1 willpower”. And then somebody (rightly) pointed out that that was insanely OP so it was changed to “heroes with a printed tactics icon”.

And you know, Theoden is one card so it’s not a huge deal but I really hope that isn’t indicative of how the mono-sphere theme will be applies to other cards in the cycle.

lleimmoen said:

Lol--no worries. Not harsh. It really does all come down to play style. I play a lot of high threat/high stat heroes so any time I can stand one up after questing is a good thing.

Gizlivadi said:

Great point!

I like the progress token bonus path for tactics.

Yeah, I too hugely value the great differences between the spheres. It is one aspect that makes this game special for me. I hope (and believe) ffg is on the right track still. It is very difficult. And Tactics have had the shaft from the start, as well as Spirit had the vanilla. I am intrigued by the idea of mono-sphere. I do not think Théoden will make Tactics a willpower sphere, it is just a slight boost, heroes are few. And he strengthens the fact Tactics get better the more players are in the game.

As for ideas, I really like the progress bonus for defending. It'd be great to have such attachment - a weapon - for Beregond.

As for the shortcomings, threat reductions seems to me to be by far the biggest trouble of the mono-Tactics deck (moreso solo, of course). It is strange that Dwalin (Spirit hero) got the ability he did, for if ever Tactics could get threat reduction, it would probably be most fit to be connected (though again) with destroying enemies, right?

The more I think about it, the more I begin to believe Visionary Leader will boost willpower. I know it might be strange in a cycle concentrating on battle and siege mechanic, but if one is to make a Leadership mono-sphere, willpower is going to be needed too. It has not been discussed much but Leadership heroes so far do not run high willpower either (aside from Dwarves). Of course, there is Faramir ally, and Gandalf can be accessed well in mono-Leadership but the heroes will need their boost, I feel, and so will Gondorians. I also expect Faramir hero to be Leadership (staying in the sphere as Bifur, Dwalin, Gloin, or Beorn did) so that may cancel out having him as an ally willpower booster.

Gizlivadi said:

Or hey, how about an Event that reads "Response: After a <tactics> hero attacks and destroys an enemy, place progress tokens on the current quest equal to the <willpower> of that hero."

Why not have your cake and eat it too? Synergizes with Theoden.

lleimmoen said:

Yes. I think the willpower is definitely a possible one. But possibly hit points??? After all, "Hardy Leadership" with the dwarves gives them +1 Hit Point. But Gondor is most likely a different boost, and I don't think "Visionary" would be a hint to getting more hit points. Oh well. Guess we'll see whenever it comes out!

legolas18 said:

"Visionary", if ti is an hint, i would say willpower. Because, as far as i know, only Faramir and Imrahil have 2 willpower (which are the higher in Gondor characters(

We dont have much news now to talk about. 1 news in 2 weeks is not really good. Now forum is quite…….

Glaurung said:

agreed, we already blew through what like 5 pages of discussion on Theodan and the mount card already. Not much else to discuss; on the plus side, one would think that the first AP pack should be released within the next 2 weeks or so…maybe

Pharmboys2013 said:

on the "Upcoming" page, it says May.

Pharmboys2013 said:

Agreed—the forums are kind of dead.

For the record, I don’t think we need more spoilers. We get plenty enough of those and FFG has an unfortunate habit of spoiling the best cards in there Adventure Packs before release (which, I guess, makes sense from a marketing standpoint but I like being surprised when I open my packs).

What I think we need more of is articles IN GENERAL. Way back in the day we used to get a lot of deck building articles, flavor articles, even just “feature” articles (like the “what kind of player are you” from way back in Mirkwood). Just something to get discussion moving. I would love more of that. Or even just community interaction stuff—“Hey guys, we’re having a Core set weekend. Revisit the first few quests and test yourself against the Nazgul one more time! Here’s a Youtube video of us running the first three quests in “campaign mode” and a list of the deck we used. Come join us, comment, or post your own games as video responses.”

I mean, I know the guys at FFG are busy but the longevity of their games could really be helped by a little more effort on the forums/website (after all, most of us don’t live close enough to go to one of their events).

Just my 2 cents, anyway.

JonofPDX said:

And 2 cents well spent. Agreee 100% with you.

They need to give us more attention but not on articles giving inside of the packs;