My guess is that we won't get a fourth Hobbit hero in BR. Every saga expansion so far had three themed heroes and one other. I hope they're doing this with BR too. Why not adding Tom Bombadil, Goldberry or Gildor?

it was confirmed that all 4 heroes will be hobbits (would have loved a gildor hero over boon tho) in the first black riders article:

In addition to the new Frodo Baggins, The Black Riders delivers four other Hobbit heroes

I don't think that Bpmbadil has to be that strong. He is very passive/uninterested, so he could be designed in a way that he has some low stats but a great passive ability. or an ability that is triggered when you play a song on Bombadil. Same goes for Goldberry (who could have some healing ability) who I don't think is a stretch. She is more powerful than most of the characters in LotR and she gets more page time than Hirluin. Let's not forget there is a certain lack of female heroes.

I see the only sensible way in having Bombadil and/or Goldberry in game as a one-time use ally (think Escort from Edoras) or through an attachment or event. They weren't travelling through the Middle-Earth, so I see little sense in having them as a heroes in, say, Siege of Cair Andros, or in Moria. I know that the game stretches the believability sometimes too thin, but why stretch it even more?

So, the Spirit hero will also be Hobbit? ****, I hoped for Spirit Aragorn.

Why? Because one of the spoiled cards reads something like "Attach to a Hobbit or Ranger".

I guess Aragorn will be the Gandalf of the Black Riders, a 5 cost neutral ally for one turn or something.

My guess is that we won't get a fourth Hobbit hero in BR. Every saga expansion so far had three themed heroes and one other. I hope they're doing this with BR too. Why not adding Tom Bombadil, Goldberry or Gildor?

it was confirmed that all 4 heroes will be hobbits (would have loved a gildor hero over boon tho) in the first black riders article:

In addition to the new Frodo Baggins, The Black Riders delivers four other Hobbit heroes

HOBBITSE!

it will be fatty for sure ....please let it be fatty!

Fatty or Farmer Maggot for sure! Personally, I think I'd rather have Farmer Maggot... And have all his dogs as allies.

Fatty or Maggot would be funny. Fatty #1 because of his name (would be a shame if they put Fredegar) and hes that character that is yea part of the group but not really that important. Not sure if anyone is into anime but he reminds me of Yadjirobe from DBZ. Farmer Maggot would be sweet if they made an ally which was his dog, we need more creature cards! ha

They use Pippin and Merry instead of Meriadoc and Peregrin, so I definitely think he will be called Fatty. Fatty is also a good choice because it would have been so easy for him to go on the quest with Frodo, but he didn't. This time you can implement some revisionist Tolkien.

now that they have been announced it seems kind of obvious that it was always going to be these heroes. presumably FFG wants these boxes to be able to be played standalone, just with the core-set. and you cant play the story in the first book without these guys -- so it had to be these.

i suppose that means each subsequent box will only include heroes that appear in that book too.

the second book introduces the rest of the fellowship, but most of them already appear as heroes in the core set. so maybe they wont feel the need to give us duplicates of those. what other heroes appear in the second book that aren't already in the core set? the only big names i can think of are gandalf (as a hero, not an ally), elrond, celeborn and galadriel

[edit: i've just noticed that hannibal_pjv said pretty much these exact same things a few pages back... the thread is six pages long, i didnt read it all!]

i dont know if this has been said, but given that

celebrians stone gives aragorn spirit icon

sword that was broken gives leadership

ring of barahir gives lore

so i think that anduril will be an artifact that gives aragorn a tactic icon. i know that it usually the artifacts are items, but ring of barahir has 3 traits, so i dont see why anduril wouldnt have 'weapon, artifact'

i dont know if this has been said, but given that

celebrians stone gives aragorn spirit icon

sword that was broken gives leadership

ring of barahir gives lore

so i think that anduril will be an artifact that gives aragorn a tactic icon. i know that it usually the artifacts are items, but ring of barahir has 3 traits, so i dont see why anduril wouldnt have 'weapon, artifact'

I really like this idea. Hoping it comes to fruition. I had thought that our next Aragorn would be tactics for this reason but I think I like the anduril idea even more

Well, sometime in the far-off future, I think we'll see a version of Aragorn in every sphere. He's one of the few people who actually fit in all the spheres. Then you'd have an Aragorn for all occasions!

I had two immediate responses when I saw these heroes (both echoed here in this thread)

1) After hoping for the longest time that more Hobbit cards would be released, we can not only play a viable hobbit deck, but actually spread things wide enough to have two semi hobbit decks play in tandem.

2) Wow, now secrecy becomes that much more of an option.

I'm all for expanding the ways my group can play through early adventures. Very excited for this expansion.