I noticed Sam's response adds +1 willpower as well. Any thoughts on when that +1 willpower will come in handy?

son of arnor could work well...play in planning phase to engage an enemy for +1 willpower

the more i think about these hobbits the more excited i get about them! lots of good deck choices with them

obviously they all work great together (excited to see the spirit hobbit too who i would think is either bilbo or fatty) but even alone Sam and Pippin make great additions to decks. Sam's ability doesnt have any other "hobbit" factors to it so throwing him in a deck with a reasonable starting threat you can have a great quester who can also attack or defend with 2! it helps even more that he's leadership which is a sphere that is very much lacking in characters with high starting will power and low starting threat, two things Sam excels in. Pippin also is quite good in decks using lore, thinking about my current lore/spirit deck of Denethor, Mirlonde, and Glorfindel (spirit) i could replace Mirlonde with Pippin, have the same starting threat, quest for the same amount of points (both have 2) AND draw cards when i optionally engage with enemies

with all their low starting threats, a hobbit deck also makes ideal use out of ithilien pit as well... lots of options

I noticed Sam's response adds +1 willpower as well. Any thoughts on when that +1 willpower will come in handy?

i the druadan forest on stage 3b he could "attack" the woses for 4 which is really good just leaves them open for other future card abilities too

I love the cards, the art, and and the thoughtfulness behind all the choices.

I feel really annoyed when I hear people complain about something that others put a lot of work and time into.

I noticed Sam's response adds +1 willpower as well. Any thoughts on when that +1 willpower will come in handy?

son of arnor could work well...play in planning phase to engage an enemy for +1 willpower

Nice point, Rich. Thanks.

I noticed Sam's response adds +1 willpower as well. Any thoughts on when that +1 willpower will come in handy?

i the druadan forest on stage 3b he could "attack" the woses for 4 which is really good just leaves them open for other future card abilities too

Another good point, thanks.

I love the cards, the art, and and the thoughtfulness behind all the choices.

I feel really annoyed when I hear people complain about something that others put a lot of work and time into.

why? we pay for these cards. im sorry but when you pay for a product you immediatly get a valid opinion...which includes you, so i respect your opinion not to complain...all sorts i suppose...but as far as im concerned what makes us human is our ability to form opinions, and that includes complaining...and thats coming from an englishman - and we never compain, just try serving a fly in our soup

just for the record i wasnt complaining about the cards design...i like to talk about the designs of cards, its interesting to consider how close they represent the real thing.

as for the art, thats a whole other story i wont derail the thread with, but it has to do with the books being books not films

I too wonder what the game designers will do about the breaking of the fellowship and the situations after that. These hobbits were clearly meant to be played with other hobbits, but ex Sam and Frodo was only two for a long time (maybe gollum will be a objective Hero or something that allows him to be counted as a Hobbit to for the count hobbit bonus). Also how will Merry be able to damage the Wtich king? He and Eowyn and maybe king Theodred, he will have 1 in attack!

I too wonder what the game designers will do about the breaking of the fellowship and the situations after that. These hobbits were clearly meant to be played with other hobbits, but ex Sam and Frodo was only two for a long time (maybe gollum will be a objective Hero or something that allows him to be counted as a Hobbit to for the count hobbit bonus). Also how will Merry be able to damage the Wtich king? He and Eowyn and maybe king Theodred, he will have 1 in attack!

Merry's response would still be really useful in reading an attacker, Théoden for example.

I too wonder what the game designers will do about the breaking of the fellowship and the situations after that. These hobbits were clearly meant to be played with other hobbits, but ex Sam and Frodo was only two for a long time (maybe gollum will be a objective Hero or something that allows him to be counted as a Hobbit to for the count hobbit bonus). Also how will Merry be able to damage the Wtich king? He and Eowyn and maybe king Theodred, he will have 1 in attack!

i trust in the game designers to make relevant scenarios after the breaking off the fellowship, they've been superb so far. its literally their job to do this (even tho we talk about it like its our job ) so i trust their judgement

All three new hobbits are great! I love the synergy of Merry and Pippin with other hobbits (best to use them in a mono-hobbit deck). Sam on the other hand, I really am looking forward to because not only it provides much needed leadership to the hobbit deck, but his ability works in any low-threat deck or even mono-leadership deck. I will definitely be trying him out in all sorts of decks, even if it's just to splash leadership to get steward of Gondor and Sneak attack. His questing power for 3 and low threat are perfect for any deck.

I may be overestimating a bit, but I think Sam might be the new "spirit Glorfindel" but of the leadership sphere. He's only 3 threat more, but has a positive effect rather than the negative threat gain, and the ability I foresee as going off quite a bit, so essentially he comes with a "Light of Valinor" pre-attached to him but boosts his attack and defense to a reasonable amount. I don't want to say he will be more powerful than Glorfindel, but maybe with all the hobbit attachments (like the cloak) he might just prove to be better (though I might be biased given that the leadership sphere is my personal favorite giving access to sneak attack and steward).

Does anyone else think Sam might prove to play on par or even higher than Glorfindel?

Does anyone else think Sam might prove to play on par or even higher than Glorfindel?

thats tough to say- i think, as you point out in your post, it depends on the cards we get specifically for him. one of the main reasons glorfindel is so powerful is the light and asfaloth

rich

Did anyone else think that Merry looked just a tad bit like Pippin in the films?

My post just got destroyed (after I wrote it for an hour) so this is more of a summary:

I'm concerned that getting Pippin will mean we'll get new versions of other fellowship members (particularly Aragorn and Boromir). I don't feel that we "need" a new gimli or legolas either.

I'm concerned about the overall power of these three heroes (although I do really like them at the same time), all three hobbits feel like they get two special abilities (that they don't pay for)

Merlonde gives +3 stats (effectively) as her only ability. Bifur has +1. The elf brothers each get +1 (but only together, separately they actually pay 1). Sam is basically the second best at this role (With only spirit glorfindal being better at +7 - but everyone seems to agree that he's overpowered, and probably the best single hero in the game).

Sam gets +3 stats if you engage something more threatening than you. He also gets a free ready. This means that Sam can quest for the same as Aragorn but doesn't have to spend a resource to ready, he can ready for free if he engages something above the threat cost. He gets to attack or defend at +2 as well as questing for 3. I think Sam is clearly the most powerful hero here (and much more powerful than other "8" cost heroes, except for Spirit Glorfindel)

Merry gets up to +3 stats (in a Saga expansion with a hobbit bonus hero) or more likely +2. He also gets the amazing ability to ready another combat hero. I feel that these two abilities together may be too good - although I do like that one of them is better with hobbits and the other is better without (since letting another hobbit attacker ready to attack again isn't that great). He has good potential as the combat star in a tri-hobbit deck, and as a support in mono-tactics to get for instance, double legolas questing, or Gimli with high damage twice. (Although I think merry might be a bit too good, I really like the design here).

Pippin has obvious synergy with hobbits. (Letting the hobbit theme of engaging high threat enemies work for longer, and on smaller enemies). I think his secondary card draw ability will rarely see play outside of the hobbit theme. Overall I find him quite underwhelming if not taken in the hobbit theme. It's especially a shame because spirit Pippin also only works with all hobbits - which means we now have two hobbit cards that absolutely need other hobbits, and they don't work together. (Merry I think will work even without other hobbits).

Overall I'm excited by the direction of the hobbit theme, but I fear that it's trying to ramp up too quickly to compete with the strong Dwarf theme - and that this could lead to power creep and inbalance with other themes. (See outlands). The smaller themes like hobbit and outlands will already have an advantage in being very focused because of their narrower card pool. Making them too good will sideline other bigger themes (even dwarfs if Hobbits continue to get power like what's shown here).

(Dwarfs are too strong as a theme mainly because they should have been broken up the way elves and men were - but since they weren't initially we're now stuck with that poor design choice - I hope it won't prove to be a problem for power creep and balance in general).

Sorry if it isn't clear - but I don't have time to write it all again.

Not much to add that hasn't been mentioned yet. Artwork is decent. Synergies are very nice for the Hobbits!

I did notice that Sam is really the only one that really doesn't have any built in hobbit-dependant abilities... making him a bit more versatile than the other two. That combines with his better stats probably justifies the higher threat cost.

I honestly think the lack of a Spirit sphere amongst them is due to the previous Pippin having that sphere, regardless of who the 4th hero in the set will be. This way, you can run with Sam, Merry, and either version of Pippin based on whether you prefer to run green cards or blue.

Personally, while the Pippin cards are OKAY if you want to create a theme deck, I am looking forward to a Sam, Merry, and Glorfindel (spirit) deck that starts below the Secrecy threshold. That gives me the blue cards I need to cancel treachery/shadow, to stay under the secrecy level, and the allies for questing. Sam can bring his secrecy cards to the party. And Merry pulls in those potent Tactics cards to give them all some bite (Gondorian Shield on Sam to give him 3 defense after questing, potentially 5 with the cloak- for 2 resources total... Rivendell Blade on Glorfindel- combined with Merry's readying ability? Potent..). About the only thing lacking would be the encounter deck manipulation and healing from Lore... card draw can be managed with Foe-hammer, Gandalf, etc...

I like these hobbits versatility!

Great cards ! I couldn't think of a better way to develop hobbit heroes. They are very thematic also. Sam is one of my absolute favourite character and the part against shelob and the tower of Cirith Ungol is one of my fovourites, so I appreciate the art has that setting. I also like the spheres they're in. Sam literlly leads Frodo towards the completion of his task, merry is (with eowyn) the witch-king slayer and pippin is a Took ! The hard part will be choosing which hobbit to use and which one to let out ! And if Fatty is going to be the fourth that's going to be an even harder choice. I'm really looking forward to see what the tactics cards will be like. I also like that each one of these hobbits is perfectly playable in non-hobbit decks. Pippin will still increase enemy's threat cost by 1 and you'll still draw a card if you engage an enemy with a higher threat, plus with mirlonde he's great for monolore secrecy. Same for Merry, a tactics hero with 6 threat and 2 WP (3 with theoden)...pretty welcome...and he has a very cool and thematic ability. Sam is just awsome, he quests for 3 (for only 8 threat in the leadership sphere !) and stands in front of a tough enemy raising all of his stats by one (except for HP which by the way is just awsome and accurate since he's the sturdiest hobbit ever). Great heroes, can't wait to have TBR in my hands !

^{Well there is going to be a fourth hobbit hero in the expansion which was not spoiled yet. We can assume that hero will be Spirit (and Rich, he could be Fredegar).}

good- i forgot about that, i assume they didnt mean the 4th hero was the frodo card?

rich

I personally thought Farmer Maggot had a more interesting role with his dogs than Fredgar, but I think you are right and it will be Fatty.

I also think they did a good job. Not exactly what I was expecting, but still very good. I REALLY hope that the last hero is Fatty, Farmer Maggot, or Rosie, and not Bilbo. I don't want Bilbo coming along on these adventures. He already has two sets of his own!

All i can say is that I am really excited about finally building a real hobbit deck! I have been looking forward to this moment since I played my first LOTR quest.

Very excited about this. Okay now at first glance they might seem overpowered (merry with 4 attack) but it think it´s compensated with the distribution of the hobbits in the 4 spheres. Managing 3 or even 4 spheres with hobbits might result a bit tricky and i really like this beacuse it will make you think more on the deck building aspect. Also note that Merry and Pippin have only 2 hitpoints and Sam 3 so if you don´t play carefully the journey to Rivendell might be a short one, especially with the 9 Black-Riders (which i hope we can face all together in the Ford).

i am interested to see if in the flight to the ford whether both asfaloth and glorfindel will be objective allies, making both unplayable for the quest- that will be a heavy blow to me- not being able to use my flight to the ford deck, in the flight to the ford quest!!

i am interested to see if in the flight to the ford whether both asfaloth and glorfindel will be objective allies, making both unplayable for the quest- that will be a heavy blow to me- not being able to use my flight to the ford deck, in the flight to the ford quest!!

Well you already can't use the Spirit Frodo. Who would you swap out for him?

Most of you seems to forget that these Saga expansions are "meant" to be playable with core set, but without anything else. So it was guite obvious that we would get Pippin, Sam and Merry, because they are not in the Core set. (I forget Frodo of cource allso, but he is the "new" extra hero, so there has to be new version of him allso).

We have Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and Gandalf in the core set, so it is not nesessary to make new versions of them. It may be possible that we get them allso, but it is not nesessary. Boromir is must, because he is not in core set. Let see just when he will be released.

All in all I am guite happy what I have seen so far, and my Hobbit frency friend will be happy too! He will get his Hobbit deck at last!

i am interested to see if in the flight to the ford whether both asfaloth and glorfindel will be objective allies, making both unplayable for the quest- that will be a heavy blow to me- not being able to use my flight to the ford deck, in the flight to the ford quest!!

Well you already can't use the Spirit Frodo. Who would you swap out for him?

good question. the deck sort of looses its main aspect of threat manipulation without frodo. i shall have to think about that one!

i am interested to see if in the flight to the ford whether both asfaloth and glorfindel will be objective allies, making both unplayable for the quest- that will be a heavy blow to me- not being able to use my flight to the ford deck, in the flight to the ford quest!!

Well you already can't use the Spirit Frodo. Who would you swap out for him?

good question. the deck sort of looses its main aspect of threat manipulation without frodo. i shall have to think about that one!

If you come up with an answer, I'd love to hear it.

On another note, after some thought, I believe they will eventually release a spirit version of Sam and Merry at some point through the APs.