argh……so excited….argh….cannot compute….

…ok, now i got that out of my system..this look amazing

theres so much to discuss here- but im loving boons and burden so far…

and it looks like we are getting more rangers….

so- well done to those who predicted this!

Agreed, so much good stuff, the designers are on fire.

Can I just say….Barliman Butterbur's in the house!!!

Raven1015 said:

and may i say….bombadil? surely

rich

So f.cking excited!!! But may I add we will see some new characters from the books, such as Tom Bombandil, Barliman, etc. But who do you guys think are the 4 hobbit heroes (Frodo is counted as neutral hero)?

fatty for sure will be one

rich

Most likely Sam, Merry, and another version of Pippin.

Can't figure out the fourth hero though? Fatty Bolger? Farmer Maggot? Maybe another version of Bilbo?

Not Bilbo… Merry, Sam, Fatty and some other… Hamfast?

Frodo will function as Bilbo did for the Hobbit saga…

It is another sphere…

Edit: Strange…

Black Rider is put under Deluxe expansion (khazad-dum and HoN) and not under Saga expansion (Hobbit) on the Lord of the Rings Products page…

Lots of things to be excited in this article for sure.

Will be interesting to see how the Hobbit race would be developed to compensate for pre-existing low threat enemies (enemies below 10 threat engagement threshold), and sounds like Ranger traits will be developed along side as well.

Start of this Saga expansion somewhat gurantees atleast 5 more Saga expansions to come, and epic battles of Helm's Deep, Pelenor Fields and such.

But I'm not sure if Tom Bombadil and Old Forest will be included in the expansion.
Article says they will stay as true as possible to the book, and does mention something about Frodo slipping from Shire,
but after reading the article I'd guess the 3 scenarios are Bag End to Cracklehollow (include encounter with Gildor and escape in Bukleburry ferry), Bree and Weathertop (include Southerner spies and battle at Weathertop), Weathertop to Rivendell (include encounter with Glorfindel and battle at the Ford of Bruinen).
Of course they could be just teasing us by not mentioning the Old Forest, but it looks like Bombadil and Burrow-wights are being left out. If my guess is correct and they do leave out Old Forest it will be disappointing.

Another thing that is bugging me is the artwork.
Individually, all the artwork on card are very excellent.
But looking at the spoiled cards, the artwork is just everywhere and styles don't match each other.
Some cards look 'pretty', some look 'D&D fantasy', some look 'fairytale-ish', some look 'comicbook-ish', and overall they look like combination of arts from different games. A little of consistency in style of art used would be nice.

But yeah, the game seems to be getting better and better with new Easy, Standard, Nightmare Modes, Reward/Punishment for Campaign Mode, and promise of more Saga expansions to come.

Assuming we will be finished with Against the Shadow Cycle by the time Black Rider Saga comes out (they said 3rd quarter, which I would assume means september), I'm betting next Cycle will be located around Sarn Ford and focused on Dunedain Ranger / Hobbits to synergize with Saga expasions to develope those keywords further.

Raven1015 said:

i thought the consensus on these forums was that this game was dead and the designers don't care about the game?

Dain Ironfoot said:

Hehe, not so much a consensus as an opinion held by a few vocal people.

Raven1015 said:

oh, i know. but i couldn't help but rub it in a bit. haha.

Oh my so much amazing things to buy. Now this looks very intresting with the boons and those burdens look nasty. I wonder if there are going to be the 9 nazgul on the box? By the way how many saga expansions do you think the Fellowship will have?

Alex6222 said:

well theres 3 here …so thats 3 in the first book of the fellowship. so another 3 for the 2nd book of the fellowship making.. 2 packs per book, 6 per trilogy?

I'm calling it right now: the Hobbit/Pipe deck will be the next big thing.

Maybe (but probably not) we will get Khamul This is probably his only chance to be in the game. But it would make sense for him to be in here as this is were he plays his big part in the books. We'll have to see.

Khamul

Khamul The Easterling said:

I would like to think that Nazgul of Dol Guldur from Escape from Dol Guldur scenario was Khamul, but admitably it could've been other 2 sidekick Nazgul that was with him.

Khamul as the unique Nazgul enemy for the first quest would be cool indeed, as he was the one chasing the Hobbits throughout the Shire and he is the only Nazgul named by Tolkien.

I have no words for this.

Except for HOLY M*THERF*CKING SH*T!!!!!!!

This game keeps getting better and better. So we finally venture into the LOTR novels proper, and this looks like one hell of a saga expansion!!

Too hyped

Yeah I really like Khamul and Haldir because they are kinda not very big and popular characters. I always like more mysterious things. I hope we will be able to see both Khamul and Haldir.

Ok so after all of this, we can assure that the first part is the shire, hobbits, bree, in summary the journey of Frodo to Rivendell. So do you guys think maybe aragorn could appear as an ally? Or what heroes could come in the 2nd saga? I would suggest maybe the redoing of Gimli, Legolas or a ****** GANDALF, or some elves like Haldir, Galadriel, or maybe celeborn. What do you guys think?

could not be more excited!!!! almost screamed out loud at work when i saw the update on my phone. it will be so great to make some versatile hobbit decks as well as extremely thematic as well. Just as a whole, the fact that there will be saga expansions for the entire lord of the rings is just fantastic…soo much to look forward to.

plus the second best part is all the RAMPANT INTERNET SPECULATION!!!!!

preseason predictions:

black rider heroes: bilbo, sam, pippin, & merry (it just makes too much sense otherwise (yes i know we are already getting pippin and possibly another hobbit in this cycle))

saga expansion 2 quests:

1: Passage over the misty mountains

2: Moria and the Balrog

3: Breaking of the fellowship near Rauros Falls

(considering the first 2 quests were kind of already covered in the darrowdelf cycle, maybe the 1st will be moria (they cant avoid it) and the 2nd will be a more original quest about making it to Lothlorien)

saga expansion 2 heroes:

remake of legolas and gimili along with celebron and Galadriel (although it would not surprise me one bit if ANOTHER new araogrn or a hero Haldir showed up…)

richsabre said:

thats what I believe too

amazing news

Dain Ironfoot said:

This announcement just proves that this game is dying. Look at the other older LCGs, CoC and W:I, both discontinued their monthly packs to switch to deluxe expansions only distribution mode, and it is viewed as due to those games are dying.

Now they just announce these "big boxes" without news about next cycle of monthly packs after Against the Shadow, so it is an indication that this game is walking down the same road as CoC and W:I.

[/sarcasm off]

I'm so excited about this news! Together with the Easy Mode, I think FFG and the LotR design team are doing great jobs!

Ellareth said:

I love the art variety, mostly because I HATE how movies' aesthetic is ruling most artwork related to LotR. We have ton of great art pieces with different styles, from Core Gandalf (I like it much more than Hobbit Gandalf) to Hand Upon the Bow or Many Roads.

StarWars LCG has more consistent art, but it's too plain, nothing really stands out.

I haven't read any of your posts yet (except for the very firsts) I just wanted to express my absolute happines !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so looking forward to it !!!!! P.s. We'll get Fatty !!!!!

I can't wait! As much as I love all the original stories that have come out of the quests so far, there is something ridiculously fun about playing the actual book of The Hobbit, so I'm really looking forward to more of that here! I've always liked the journey to Rivendell from this book, there's something innocent about it that really pleases me. And Weathertop, for a reason I can't quite explain, has long been my favourite location in pretty much the whole saga, so I'm looking forward to that!

Boons and Burdens sound excellent. Something that pleased me much about The Steward's Fear was the Plots mechanic, which seems to be indicative of more emphasis on story-telling than on just killing stuff. As fun as the treasures were, I didn't think all that much to them in actual gameplay terms. Collecting Boons sounds like a much better idea of showing how your adventure has changed you.

Pharmboys2013 said:

Considering The Hobbit boxes essentially re-made Conflict at the Carrock and Passage through Mirkwood, it wouldn't surprise me to see Moria yet again, issues of the fact it's in the book aside! The Hobbit re-made them better, though, so even though they're the same, essentially, they still feel different enough that I'd have no problem with going back into Moria. I just hope it's the one quest, though, and not given too much focus.

Ellareth said:

This bugged me about the Hobbit boxes as well. Encounter decks were largely okay, the player cards had some artwork that varied too crazily. It used to be consistently excellent too, so not sure what happened there.