Month in Review: June 2022

It’s hard to believe that the year is already halfway done! So much has happened this year already that I really hope the second half will be more relaxed, but we’ll see. June has been an interesting month for the game, as we received our first set of repackaged cycle content. The Angmar Awakened cycle will now soon be played a lot more by newer players, who I wish a lot of luck to. For us veterans, I hope that the campaign cards will soon be released so that we can see if it makes Carn Dum any bit more approachable than it is. The blog has also not been idle, with several large articles released this month.

June

Aside from the Hero expansion for the Angmar Awakened cycle, there was no real news out of FFG. We know already that Hunt for the Dreadnaught will be the featured quest during GenCon, so I do not expect any other stand-alone scenario to be released this year. We can hope on an article spoiling the next repackaged cycle, but that might not be for a while since I expect that release will be around the holidays. We did get a nice article featuring some decks made by community members. This shows newer players how more experienced players make decks. AleP also released their newest expansion, which has me excited to play a new kind of Woodmen deck.

Scenario analyses

We had a brand new article on the Siege of Annuminas POD scenario. That was quite a big one to cover, and we even skipped out of the Epic Multiplayer variant for this one. Still, it is a quest I have not played a ton, so it was nice to see those cards go by. This was also one of the last POD scenario articles we still had to do; we are nearing completion on that front. For next month, I expect my rewritten article for Conflict at the Carrock to release. There won’t be much else in terms of scenario analyses, just because there aren’t that many left over. Again, if there is anyone looking to do quest reviews on AleP quests or other fan-made scenarios, please let me know.

Nightmare analyses

I released the NM Druadan Forest article this month, which was a surprisingly fun take on that quest. I have been critical of the regular quest in the past, but the novelty of the Nightmare version made it an enjoyable article to write. For next month, I hope to release the NM Encounter at Amon Din article, though that might be towards the end of the month.

Additional articles

The highlight of this month was an updated new player buying guide that was released on the blog. This was done after a comment on the previous monthly overview article. The article was received well, and I even updated it with a flowchart for people to follow if they don’t want to read the entire thing. I will continue to update the article as new expansions release, which likely won’t be a very demanding job to do, thanks to the slow release format by FFG.

The Future

There’s not too much to mention for the future; it will just be a continuous stream of content like you have been receiving the last few months. I am pushing some of my fellow authors to publish their stuff if they can find the time, so hopefully, that will be happening in the coming months. I have found a decent balance between work and the rest of my life, but unfortunately, that does include a lack of time during the evenings to work on the blog. But I’ll be happy to release around 2-3 articles a month myself since there isn’t a lot left to cover. This allows us to at least continue regular content till the end of the year.

Con update

As many of you will know, the first newsletter on Con of the Rings 2022 was sent out this month, and tickets will be available very soon. Because of this, I have already been busy making plans to fly over to Gamezenter in late September in order to join you all for the event. I missed out on last year’s event due to closed borders, but I intend to make it this year for sure! Hopefully, I can meet you all there, and I can hand over some of the loot I have as well. Not only does that save me money, but it also allows me to thank you in person. I will also be bringing all of the US packages for people who are unable to attend the event and will deliver them to the mail services during my stay. That should reduce shipping time and costs.

Loot update

There have been some updates on the loot this month worth sharing. The most important thing was that I worked together with Emily Dillhunt for the cover of the book and worked towards a finished product by the end of this month. You might recognize her name as she has done artwork for the digital card game in the past and is responsible for the Red Book artwork on the sleeves made by Cardboard of the Rings last year. The finished artwork will be featured on the book and will also be used in other places, like banner images on the Youtube channel. The upgraded swag (for supporters $10 and up) will also link into the artwork, though I won’t explain the details just yet. I also won’t share the finished artwork just yet, in case people want it to be a surprise. If you really want to know what it looks like and how the process went, go to the Discord server, where some of the images are included with spoiler tags.

Aside from the cover art, I will be taking steps next month to reach out to everyone to get your shipping information. You can expect an email or message via Patreon or Discord about it. As I mentioned, I will be going to Con of the Rings, so if you are also attending, I can hand it over to you in person. Options like that will all be made available in a Google Form, which has worked well in the past for me.

~Aa’menealla nauva calen ar-malta~