Has anyone here gone to Boardgamegeek recently? If so, maybe you'd have noticed the advertisement banner for The Black Riders, and if you look at one of the slides, there's the box, and on top of it the Black Rider card we already know, and also an unknown hobbit hero card… 5 threat, 2 willpower, 1 strength, and what looks like 3 defense. Magali Villeneuve art, my guess is that it's Sam.

i did see that! art looks really good…cant tell the sphere although you'd have to think spirit or lore. interestingly high defense…..maybe Sam??

is there a particular page it comes up on?

rich

It just shows up on the right side of the screen when I'm on the site.

On the bottom left of the card image you get a small bit of color giving away the sphere, though it is hard to tell whether it is blue or green. Theme wise I think spirit the better choice for Sam (if that is who it is).

The home page for me at least, its a vertical banner on the right.

nothing for me…even signed in. though i never post on the forums there, so perhaps the banner only shows up for regular lotr posters on that site

i have literally one post on bgg and it shows for me everytime. just keep trying. id think you'd love the art

I don't even have an account there and I saw it. Its on the Home page of the BBG site. Not the Lord of the rings card game home page. (You prob alrady know this)

wow am i stupid….i hadnt scrolled across enough

great! is it me or does it appear neutral???!!!

does anyone think he looks a bit like sean astin? perhaps…..i hope a closer look proves me wrong…..i think i am just a bit worried about how the artist portrays sam. i think out of all the characters, an artisit would find sam the hardest to break away from the film version as he seems to stick in most viewer's heads….perhaps that is a compliment to astin

still it may not be sam anyways, but if it is id really like to see art for him that breaks the 'norm' for what sam seems to be usuall portrayed as

richsabre said:

i think its too hard to tell to say for sure if hes neutral or which ever sphere but that certainly would be interesting and unprecidented to have a colorless hero! it would even make sense slightly since all the heroes in that box are hobbits they could forsake the tactics sphere and make a colorless instead

it could be fatty….im not sure if that supports my neutral sphere idea or not. i do not think sam should be neutral. ive always said he certainly should be spirit.

as for fatty, well he was a bit of an elusive character in the books, predenting to be frodo and escaping the black riders. so perhaps he can change sphere!!!

rich

i'm still holding tight to my prediction that the 4 hobbits will be sam, merry, pippen, and bilbo…wont be surprised at all when i'm wrong tho haha

Pharmboys2013 said:

i think that is likely, though i would love to see my prediction of fatty being one come true….mainly becuase i like being right haha, but for some reason i really like the character, probably because he is the hobbit that doesnt transition into a warrior later on, and stays a 'true' hobbit (mainly becuase it doesnt feature beyond the old forest chapter)

rich

As for the pic, it does seem like Sam and the numbers really seem to be 5, 2, 1, 3, 2; it is not Glorfindel-great but it is certainly a great bargain; do not expect the ability to be powerful; if it is positive at all, it should certainly be minimal.

Woudn't it be weird to get two versions of Pippin within a few months? I hope the heroes are Bilbo (it's true there are already three versions of him but since two are saga only, I think it should be a safe bet), Merry, Sam and Fatty.

Yes, I think it'd be a bit strange to have two Pippins right off the bat. As for the picture, it looks like it Lore. It's definitely not Leadership or Tactics obviously, but it doesn't look like spirit either… At least not on my screen. It's either Lore or Neutral, though I highly doubt them introducing a Neutral hero anytime soon. I can't really tell if the defense is 3 or 1… Oh well. Guess we'll wait and see when it comes out. Or wait for a possible spoiler of one of the heroes.

richsabre said:

It's hard to tell, but the card's text background appears to have a blue-ish tint to me (at least from my monitor's settings)

Quite intriguing actually. If it is Samwise, it is bound to be Spirit. And it does indeed look like him (in a very film-like; and it is hard to completely run away from those for many artists; and the art for the film was so good that to me, usually, the art that is resembling the films looks better - not that I would want the game's art resemble the movies). Now, if there's Bilbo though, what would he be? I cannot imagine him being anything but Lore. Can we have another Lore Bilbo? Sure. Leadership and Tactics do feel rather awkward for Hobbits but there's already Hobbit Cloak (Leadership, previewed) and Ring Mail (Tactics - for a Hobbit). I can imagine Merry being Leadership, he sorts of leads the group (acting like a guide) at least until they reach Bombadil; and Fatty could be nicely fit for Tactics, no willpower and perhaps a trick to prevent damage or the likes. That's what I first thought about Tactics when the game was announced, not just fighting, but dealing with several types of obstacles (and the core set rule-book supports that idea in the Tactics description).

For what I can see (not particularly well) it should be 3, 1, 1, 2 (threat seems 5) and I think he's spirit. As for who he is I would guess Sam…but it's really tough to tell :/

To me it seems to be Spirit … and propably Sam

Yeah well this "Hobbit" deck sure needed some questing. Pippin is 2, Frodo is 2, Bilbo is 1. Now we get a 3 questing. Still though the Hobbits are going to need lots of allies to kill anything to keep threat low in staging area and also to quest more.