The stats are way, way too good for the threat cost.

Well, it's kinda his point, to be "stronger that people expect him to be". That's why he can't have Item attachments. What are problematic non-Item attachments for him? And trait he should have if not hobbit?

Well, it's kinda his point, to be "stronger that people expect him to be". That's why he can't have Item attachments. What are problematic non-Item attachments for him? And trait he should have if not hobbit?

Well there are some non-item attachments that would certainly be odd on Smeagol: Steward of Gondor, Support of the Eagles, Protector of Lorien, etc. But this is a game where Treebeard can wield a burning brand so I'm not sure it's too big of a deal.

As for his trait:

"Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum, a small slimy creature ."

- The Hobbit, Riddles in the Dark

I meant problematic gameplay-wise, not thematicly

Creature seems a bit odd for me, it is used to represent animals in this game

I meant problematic gameplay-wise, not thematicly

Creature seems a bit odd for me, it is used to represent animals in this game

Although it seems that for all his appearances since Return to Mirkwood they have started giving him his own unique trait.

Would Saruman succeed at convincing Men of Dunland to side with the Free Peoples, the Rangers of Gondor would have a much easier time dealing with their rangerous stuff.

Great! I would love to have Dunland player cards!

It would have been very thematic if they'd release a Chief Turch hero in the Antlered Crown pack, as he pledges his loyalty to the heroes at the end of that storyline, if my memories do not decieve me.

There's a lot of pretty cool cards in there. I love it. I could get nitpicky about most of them, but I'm gonna stay out of it this time.

That's shame

Would you get nitpicky just a little bit, please?

I'd like to see a tactics event that resulted in excess damage being turned into progress.

Heck, I'd like to have seen that be Tactigorn's ability.

We desperately need a Gollum/Smeagol hero. I like that he can cancel travel effects, great idea, and it fit's his role, but I agree that his stats are too high for threat cost. I also think he should have no attachments, period.

I like the witch of the raven a lot. Increasing enemy engagement is an underused green theme.

I think Raid is named incorrectly (like feint should be called "dodge", but whatever) and I think it is too powerful for the cost. I would think a card named raid would be like ranger provisions for an enemy. Unrelated note- one major problem with traps is that they all attach to the first enemy, so the deck style is weak in multiplayer or against quests with lots of enemies. It would be great if there was a way to have traps target the second or third enemy revealed.

I like the Dunedain theme of damaging themselves to go above and beyond. It is similar to the Rohan discard from play theme, but distinct. You could then have a hero that ties the tribe together with that theme (but the ents are supposed to kind of have that theme already with Quickbeam and hero treebeard).

I'm not sure those stats can be considered "too high", because 2 of everything is like "jack of all trades, master of none". He will not excel at either questing or attacking, and defending with him is extremely dangerous (many enemies will smash through the defense, most enemies will kill him with a shadow effect).

It was initially a Trap that generated resources indeed, however I scrapped that idea because of two reasons: Lore and availability of so many resource generating stuff already. Probably a bad call, who knows. I also tossed around methods to give a player some way to control the attachment of that card, but it turned the text box into a bloated or confusing mess, unfortunately. The easiest way to resolve this would be a simple "Limit 1 Trap per enemy.", but that would require the text revision of each previous trap.

I'd like to see a tactics event that resulted in excess damage being turned into progress.

Heck, I'd like to have seen that be Tactigorn's ability.

Sorry, probably not what you had in mind, but still:

While I agree that a jack of all trades hero is weak and a specialist hero is strong, there is still a design convention in place that mandates that a hero's threat cost is equal to the sum total of that character's stats. I can understand why you might not like that convention, but it is still the standard practice. Variations from that standard need compensation with other weaknesses or the hero is too strong in the "metagame". In my opinion the weaknesses in your design are not enough to compensate for a 3 threat discount.

I actually think a text like "limit 1 trap per enemy" would significantly improve traps, but alas, I fear it will never be.

No, there is no such convention. It's a guideline, but it was broken by the designers numerous times. Spirfindel, Bifur, Theoden, Grima, Bilbo. In case of Bifur, he's not even sporting a downside to compensate for his threat cost reduction.

I'd like to see a tactics event that resulted in excess damage being turned into progress.

Heck, I'd like to have seen that be Tactigorn's ability.

Sorry, probably not what you had in mind, but still:

That's pretty good.

OK, so IMO the main thing about the Dunlendings is that the only theme that kinda makes sense with quests like Helm's Deep is that only the Boar clan stood loyal to the Free Peoples. But on the other hand, it would be weird having Boar clan allies in quests like Dunland Trap. In any case, I decided to make a small Leadership glue pack for Dunland, focusing on the Boar Clan (great theme for quests like the Antlered Crown), noticing the lack of Leadership cards in John Constantine's post. I love the damage theme of the dunlending btw.

For those quests like Ettenmoors, The Weather Hills, and all types of damage hate:

LotR LCG can have a lot of dull thematic moments. You can have Treebeard, Grima and Bard the Bowman escorting Frodo from Shire.

Lack of Leadership cards in John Constantine's post.

I want to elaborate a bit on this.

I think, that a faction should only have two main spheres. That achieves two things: sets the faction's goals straight (presumably supported by the sphere's main theme) and helps to build that faction up (you'll have much easier time building a faction deck with 2 lore and 2 tactics allies rather than 1 ally from each of 4 different spheres). Decent example: Rohan (Spirit+Tactics).

As for why I chose Tactics and Lore for Dunland... Men of Dunland, due to the circumstances they live in, excel at both fierce direct combat (which is represented by self-damaging stuff, which seems to be best represented by Tactics) and guerilla warfare (which is covered by in-game Trap mechanics already, so they should just join Lore and add to this theme).

A little feedback regarding your cards:

Talurc: I find both his stats and his ability confusing Dunland-wise. His health is so low for a grizled savage warrior. And his ability has like 0 Dunland-related synergy. (And it's also once per phase, which means you can stack allies phase by phase.)

Boar Clan Champion: Overpowered at it's finest. 1/2/0/1 ally for the cost of 1 is a luxury even Tactics do not possess, not to speak of resource-rich Leadership. Plus, Envoy of Pelargir is jaelous.

Savage Leadership: Costs too much, has too much conditions, gives too little. +1 attack to damaged representatives of a specific trait only if a hero of that specific trait is damaged too is some spectacular setup.

Druid: For his cost, he won't be viable with that stat block. He simply won't pull the weight of the whole round worth of resources he costs, and the player probably won't survive those 3 rounds until the heal kicks in. And people of Dunland hate heal, they like being damaged!

Ha, you're totally right about the hero having no synergy. To be honest I thought that with the allies and attachent it was enough, so I just made the ability of the hero more of a bonus, a generally useful ability. You think once per phase it too good? Isn't they being shuffled into the deck enough of a drawback? As for his stats, what would you do? Maybe just remove 1 willpower for 1 hitpoint? The champion is overpowered, true. At cost 3 he would be balanced IMO, as he would be exacly 1 cost less than the, IMO, overcosted Silverlode Acher (who already can cost 2 with O Lorien) plus a smoothing ability assuming you can pay the 3 Leadership. The Druid is just there as a reset button. When you have cards like Cold from Angmar, the dunlendings won't get any bonuses, (or just in any other situation where archery or direct damage or hate of any sort are out of control), so having them healed every once in a while can be quite useful. Nevermind his stats, he can quest for 1 and be done with it. The most important is his ability. Finally as for Savage Leadership, I just thought it was pretty useful, and a good thematic variant of Visionary Leadership and Hardy Leadership but for Dunland, and the attack bonus a la Boromir fits with their violent tendencies.

Once per phase can lead to situations where you have one last push for the victory, and you just pay 3-4 resources to get out 10~ resources worth of allies for your turn to make that final push.

I'm not sure you should remove anything from him. He definitely needs +1-2 health, and probably +1 defense though.

My point with druid is that he costs entire turn worth of resources, arms 3 turns, and does nothing to pull his weight in the meantime. Look at two other 3-costed neutral allies. They got 6+ combinations of stat points, +abilities that impact the game immediately . If quest features a lot of damage, Druid might not even survive those 3 turns (along with everyone else who needs healing), rendering him a complete waste.

Yes, but one of conditions needs to go. It needs to be either damaged hero or damaged characters to take effect, not both at once.

It's not a convention; it's a guideline? That's not a point; it's a comment.

What I meant is that designers take liberty increasing and decreasing heroes starting threat based on their abilities, so threat cost equaling to stat points is more of a basic guideline than something mandatory.

The reason arent enough drawbacks for his threat to be 6. And there is no good reason to give him stats that inflated compared to the other hobbits. He's 1 HP away from being Mablung.