I can see Fatty being a strong endgame hero, or at any time you really need to finish off a quest stage or even explore a nasty location. But definitely not very versatile, which is ok I guess. I agree we don't always need strong heroes, just as long as they are new and at least somehow intriguing.

Well my vote now goes straight to Caldera...I mean...I agree that we don't need overpowered heroes, but I'd really like at least a normally powered hero. These last three spirit heroes (two of which have just been revealed) are really underwhelming. Yes, you could build a thematic deck around them, and I like thematic decks, but with these heroes the theme would be "scenario losing"...you'd need cards only to make them work decently, than you'd need to add cards that are actually in-game useful..and then you'd find yourself over 50 cards...It's like using Bard in a solo game, he just isn't worth it...you need to add a lot of cards to make him playable and if you don't get those soon you're dead. P.s. I really like Caldera's art though XD

p.s. this is not a complaint. I love every other card that's been revealed from the black riders and blood of gondor (except for the dwarven event and emery).

What a waste of a card slot that Dwarven event is, I am not saying it is useless, just that it is the last thing we need now. When they mentioned (before this cycle) that every trait will have some support, of course I thought they mean every but Dwarf. I would much rather see a random Beorning, Dale or Esgaroth card; I think probably just about everybody would.

But overall, I really, really like the new cards.

i love fatty. he is my favourite hero now by far (and no, ffg message board software....favourite does have an u in it, so stop saying i cannot spell)

edited becuase it turns out i actually cannot spell haha

You mean "u" Rich, right? I also hate when I am being told how to spell when I spell as it should be spelled (but it might not be the problem of the ffg software, it may be a setting on your computer; because when I write "favour" on mine here, it says it's okay).

oh yeah, thanks....i couldnt remember whether the other way didnt have an 'o' or a 'u'

i shall have a look to see if its in my settings

rich

ps...strange, now i type armour or favour etc. it doenst do it....it says english USA modified down the bottom of the page, perhaps that's why

Pippen by far. The majority of games I play are with 3 plus players so there is a lot of hero juggling going on. Quite often I will take a hero like imrahil because aragorn and boromir are taken. Bombur becomes quite useful in a 4 player hobbit playthrough when everyone is playing dwarves for thematic reasons.

I like dunhere because I am partial to rohan and his 4 hp are awesome with that threat next to Imrahil who has the same hp for three more cost.

Brand is fun in a trained for war deck while trying to survive normal quest while you wait for TFW. Also you can attach song of wisdom and burning brand.... to make burning brand brand. Frivolous fun

So far I can see uses for pippen but he is always overshadowed by frodo... it is like comparing glorfindels but pippin doesn't have the useful ability

Bard the Bowman?! You must be joking. He is one of my favorite heroes to use. Slap a Great Yew Bow and Black Arrow on him (or use Hands Upon the Bow) and he can take out just about any existing enemy in the game before they even hurt you.

I try to stick to theme decks most of the time (all dwarves, all Gondor, Rohan, etc.) but I do have to include Bard a lot of the time because of how awesome he is. I just pretend like he's an old man, but still a beast!

Slap a Great Yew Bow and Black Arrow on ANY ranged and they do the same. The -2DEF can be simulated by the elven sword (Rivendell Blade)

No, I'm not joking. Arguing he is good based on a card limited by ONE per deck is bad.

Bard, the ******* terrible Bowman. There is also Pippin, for the time being.

And maybe MAAAAYBE Bombur. He is a wonderful defender and his ability does ease the requirements on other dwarves with all that 5 buddies stuff, but, I find we have already another Lore Hero that can defend more often than him and still have a proactive ability.

i love bard. he is great in an archer deck with brand and legolas and once you give him black arrow and yew bow he is amazing

rich

Oh, sure, as are both Brand and Legolas with Black Arrow and Yew Bow, yet, one of those advance your victory condition and the other helps very much in multiplayer.

Reading some comments here I come to the conclusion that I don't know how to play this game.

Fatty and Faramir are bad?

While Faramir has a blatant "I'm stronger than I need to be" stickied on his head, Fatty's strength is more subtle, yet very apparent. Faramir is a Lore Hero, that alone is great, but he also has a decent threat to hide in secrecy decks (and spike everyone that comes his way + Great Yew Bow if in conjunction with a Tactics hero, like... Legolas? Thalin? dunno) and we have a good amount of threat reduction for Lore already; sure, if coupled with Mirlonde he also gains a couple of turns but... yeah, no. His whoop 5HP is also very ridiculous(ly great).

Fatty, on the other hand, needs to exhaust to use his ability (always ALWAYS something bad), but he is just 7 threat, and you chose the freaking enemy to be 'nullified'. He is Spirit... Threat reduction is your schtick. So, why the hell would that be bad? In multiplayer games he is golden, in solo, he can be as good as long as you have good questers OR ways to deal with locations. His 3HP is expected to a Hobbit, but again, Bill the pony was spoiled at the same place. Also, remember he is Spirit? HE IS FREAKING SPIRIT. I don't believe I need to say why that is a good thing, but still: Threat reduction, ridiculously powerful allies, excellent questers (most quests have that as its main objective: RUN LIKE HELL), ready-abilities, canceling effects... Well, you probably get the picture.

And to add insult to injury: I don't think Caldara is ALL that bad. She is bad compared to other Spirit heroes (but most people are), but I can see she being useful in a couple of decks. I'll try her a lot, IIRC, she is the first suicidal Hero.

Boromir (The Redhorn Gate) is the first suicidal hero and his ability is potentially far more powerful than Caldara, especially now that Hammer-Stroke exists. In any case, his suicidal attack is his secondary ability, and his primary ability remains one of the best in the game. Just to satisfy my curiosity, I am going to try building a mono-Spirit deck around Caldara, Eowyn and Fortune or Fate. I'm not holding my breathe it will be any good; mono-Spirit is relatively weak in both card drawing and resource generation, both essential ingredients to make this insane combo have even the faintest glimmer of potential. Who knows, maybe a future release will provide us with a Spirit ally that makes her ability worth the insanely high cost? At this point, I am scratching my head as to why this hero exists.

Here are my top three for worst hero:

1. Objectively the winner is propably Pippin, weak stats and crap ability, however...

2. Eleanor is the hero I hate the most. Useless stats, can't quest, can't attack, not good enought to risk blocking. An ability that seems usefull, but actually rarely worked for me. Often she does... nothing. Waiting for a nasty "when revealed" effect to show up, that does not show up, or if it does, she makes matters worse with the replacement card. Actually I'll make her my number one choice since Pippin has received quite a bashing already (rightfully so).

3. Brand son of Pain, honorable mention just because he has by far the worst art of all heroes. He'd really have to be very good to compensate for his looks... but unfortunately he's not.

And to add insult to injury: I don't think Caldara is ALL that bad. She is bad compared to other Spirit heroes (but most people are), but I can see she being useful in a couple of decks. I'll try her a lot, IIRC, she is the first suicidal Hero.

I think that's a good explanation why she is made up - there are not a lot of suicidal character we know of.

Well suicidal characters that actual die.

Note that they decided to make a hero that sacrifices himself (herself?) for the team female instead of the other, stereotypical, gender.

Boromir (The Redhorn Gate) is the first suicidal hero and his ability is potentially far more powerful than Caldara, especially now that Hammer-Stroke exists. In any case, his suicidal attack is his secondary ability, and his primary ability remains one of the best in the game. Just to satisfy my curiosity, I am going to try building a mono-Spirit deck around Caldara, Eowyn and Fortune or Fate. I'm not holding my breathe it will be any good; mono-Spirit is relatively weak in both card drawing and resource generation, both essential ingredients to make this insane combo have even the faintest glimmer of potential. Who knows, maybe a future release will provide us with a Spirit ally that makes her ability worth the insanely high cost? At this point, I am scratching my head as to why this hero exists.

Ugh. I feel so dumb right now. Boromir (the character) is my favorite male character in Tolkien's work, and I forgot his first Hero? Shame. SHAME! Not to mention that I EVER consider him in any deck during pre-building.

Yeah, there is only a few 'good enough' allies to justify snatching her for them and it doesn't seem like we will get these any time soon considering the GenCon spoilers. Too bad, but, this is a LCG, time usually makes heroes better (I'm looking at you, green Glorfindel)

By the way, to the OP: Eleanor appears twice in the list. You must really hate her. haha

I have to change my vote from Brand son of Bain to Caldara.

I think, I will recall this poll again after we get used to Caldara and have some more experiences. Same goes to Fatty.

There are no bad heroes. Just go and find to utilize these cards and you will see that every heroe has its permission to exist.

So many options with many new unique abilitys, thats pretty awesome.

I found that Eleanor became an explosively more useful character after getting the gondorian shield. Either cancel a horrible treachery or have a pretty solid defender, I've been happy. In multiplayer, I have always found her valuable to have, and Brand has been the difference between life and death several times. Solo, Brand is useless, though I sometimes make a deck specifically to solo journey to rasgobel and then I'll throw him in for ranged and some willpower for fun.

I hate Elrohir and Elladan. That is such a problem, needing both to be worth it.

There are no bad heroes. Just go and find to utilize these cards and you will see that every heroe has its permission to exist.

So many options with many new unique abilitys, thats pretty awesome.

I like this statement, very true...plus I will add the point that as the card pool grows some heroes that seemed obsolete before can suddenly gain a new sense of usefulness with combinations of new cards. Good example of this is Dunhere who was listed numerous times on this list, but after last week's reveal of the dagger of westernesse he suddenly becomes a very solid option again.

That being said, everyone is still allowed to have their own subjective feelings on the cards, thats also what makes this game awesome...who likes what and why. And at the very least this has managed to be a very active discussion ha

I love even the bad heroes but there are certain ones I simply... never... ever play with. They are the ones I have picked up and TRIED to make useful and maybe I had a bit of fun but I can always see doing whatever I was doing with them BETTER with someone else.

A couple of examples off the top of my head

Dunhere

Elrohir and Elladan

Pippen (Spirit)

Brand - Only one deck I ever enjoyed playing him in

Bilbo

Thorin

And It's not to say these heroes are bad, it's just my personal playing style has yet to lead me to actually enjoy a deck around any of these heroes. I build a new deck practically every time I play so I will often go way out of my way to make up some new combination of heroes even so far as to go out on a limb to use heroes I don't usually use JUST to use them. Still, with too many of these it just becomes painful. Again, it has as much to do with playing style as it has to do with actual utility

It's really interesting to see people mention Elladan and Elrohir as heroes that they do not use. I brought an Elladan, Elrohir, Legolas deck to GenCon and it did really well against the Black Riders scenarios. Getting Steward of Gondor and Gondorian Shield on Elrohir, and with some help from Arwen, I was consistently blocking 3 Nazgul each round, in multiple scenarios. I would be curious to see other decks that can hold back that kind of aggro on a consistent basis. I understand that it is annoying to have to include both brothers, but 20 threat for those abilities is totally worth it (particularly Elrohir - that ability is amazing when paired with resource generation). Heck, once you get enough combat-savvy allies into play, Elladan contributes 2 to the quest. Hero preference is obviously a very subjective and personal thing, it just surprises me that some of the heroes which I consider the strongest other people never even use.

It's really interesting to see people mention Elladan and Elrohir as heroes that they do not use. I brought an Elladan, Elrohir, Legolas deck to GenCon and it did really well against the Black Riders scenarios. Getting Steward of Gondor and Gondorian Shield on Elrohir, and with some help from Arwen, I was consistently blocking 3 Nazgul each round, in multiple scenarios. I would be curious to see other decks that can hold back that kind of aggro on a consistent basis. I understand that it is annoying to have to include both brothers, but 20 threat for those abilities is totally worth it (particularly Elrohir - that ability is amazing when paired with resource generation). Heck, once you get enough combat-savvy allies into play, Elladan contributes 2 to the quest. Hero preference is obviously a very subjective and personal thing, it just surprises me that some of the heroes which I consider the strongest other people never even use.

I agree. I made a deck using those 3 heroes and it's one of my best.

You know I think a lot of my hero choices are severly affected by the fact that I play all of my games in multi player. I might get to use steward of gondor in one of every fifty decks I play.

Eladan and Elrohir rock the socks off of the hobbit quests with lots of orcs in them (battle of five armies in particular). Give the combat one Orcrist and Thror's Hunting Bow and you can clear every enemy from the board every turn. Nuts.

Problem (I have) with Elladan and Elrohir are that they are only 'great' in selective quests.

I can imagine them being great in enemy heavy or battle/siege keyworded quests, but most quests require willpower rather than combat prowness.

I can also see them being great in multiplayer where a roll of questing deck and combat deck are defined, but in solo they are almost forced to be paired with Spirit hero with low threat count (i.e. Glorfindel.... which is thematic I guess).

Also they are great in attachment heavy / ally light kind of deck... but most meta decks are few attachments and lot of allies (although that is slowly changing, attachment decks are not quite there yet).

You could make arguement for every heroes that are mentioned in this list, and there are certainly some heroes that I think are absolutely fantastic that made to this list, but your treasures can be seen as garbage to other people depending on the style of play and number of players they are accostomed to.