Month in Review: December 2019

This will be the final article of this decade, and I wish everyone a happy new year within a few hours (or it is already 2020 if you live in Australia by the time this goes up). Unlike last year, I did not take a hiatus during December, and managed to keep pumping out the content together with my fellow co-authors. In this article, I will go over everything from this month. For a yearly recap, please check the Year in Number 2019 article that has been released by now.

December

Despite me really hoping that we would get more news, it has been silent on FFG’s part. Perhaps to cover up the fact that Wrath and Ruin still hasn’t released in Europe, which has delayed my First Impressions article. Still, we have near-complete spoilers on the next 2 expansions, which I really am looking forward to. Having had to delay the First Impressions article, I instead covered a wider range of topics this month, so let’s go over each of them per category.

Scenario analyses

I wrapped up the Black Serpent article this month, which brings the Haradrim cycle to near completion. The other two articles that have yet to release will be done by RedSpiderr who is taking his time to dive deep into these scenarios. Read his previous articles to learn how great a job he will do on these. In the meantime, I did not make any progress yet with the next cycle, since I wanted to wait to dive into the Ered Mithrin cycle until the new year. I have already created templates for the Deluxe quests, but no work on actual writing has yet been done. I will hopefully complete 1, maybe 2, of those articles in January, so you have that to look forward to.

Saga & Nightmare analyses

There were no Saga or Nightmare scenarios analyzed this month, since I wanted to focus on some other articles. I do intend to complete the Mirkwood cycle in Nightmare format in the coming 6 months, though I might need some help with beating some of the tougher scenarios. Not even going to try and do Escape from Dol Guldur NM, as that is nearly impossible. But you will see some others in the near future.

Traits & Staples

I went ahead and completed the Creature archetype overview which was a small article on the trait that got some recent development. I am saving the reworked archetype analyses until after the full cardpool of the Vengeance of Mordor cycle has been completed so that I have minimal work with it. Some articles like Istari and Gondor will have some big changes planned up ahead. The Staples series is taking a break for now in order for me to complete other, larger articles. Should I ever run into not having enough content to fill a month, I will look into doing some of those articles. Again, it will be best to wait until the final player cards for the cycle have been released, as I will be able to keep the articles as up to date as possible.

Deckbuilding

The deckbuilding series has concluded the Ringmaker cycle with a summarizing article on the cycle. The article covered basic mechanics of the cycle and how to cover up for those with your player cards. It is nice having at least some deckbuilding strategy on the blog with some actual decks designed to beat the scenarios. From here, Roka will continue with the Angmar Awakened cycle, without much else of the formula changing. I hope you enjoy his shorter articles covering quests and providing you with a reliable decklist.

Player card review

The player card review series has started to delve into the Dwarrowdelf cycle with the first AP, Redhorn Gate, now covered. This series will likely maintain a monthly frequency, so you will see the development of this cycle over the next half-year. The APs might start weak, but some of the later ones in the cycle are amazing and must-buys for the game!

Monthly Poll

This month’s poll was another tournament style poll where many community members voted for their favourite heroes. As of the release of this article, the poll is entering its final rounds, and a winner will be announced in the first article of the new year. As for the poll in January, we are going back to our roots with putting all Shadows of Mirkwood quests up against each other. This will build to an eventual poll later in 2020 where all winners of their respective cycles take it up against each other. More on this will be spoiled in the poll article you will see next month!

Additional articles

We had several articles that could not be categorized in any of the other groups. The first one was the Patreon supported article on the Scoring System of this game. I am glad to see many people responded to that article with their own systems and why they would work better than the one that is in place now. I also published an article on the collectable items in this game. This was an article I felt confident with writing since I have sold and bought plenty of alt art cards and mats during these past 3 months. Hopefully, that article will help many people with finding out what items they are still missing and what they want to put their money in after they have collected the expansions of the game and want more. I also just published the Year in Numbers article where I lay out the statistics of my games and the blog over the past year. I am very glad about the growth that the blog has experienced and hope to see this trend continue in 2020.

The Future

2019 has been a hectic year for me since I had to finish my studies that year on top of getting used to living on my own. But I am very happy to know that it has been a successful year. 2020 will be a new chapter for me where I transition from being a student to being an engineer. I hope to get a job by the end of January, which means that the start of the year will see plenty of articles, but from there, I might have to reduce the frequency of my own articles because I will no longer have the time during the day to work on the blog. This will all depend on the job I will get, but more info on this will unfold over the course of the year.

I am happy to see that my goals for this year have been met and even surpassed. Patreon support helped me to pay for the hosting costs with ease and I am almost breaking even now with the losses of last year’s loot. This should mean that if support remains at a constant level for the rest of 2020, I will be able to make enough loot for all supporters. I have a couple of ideas already that I hope to test out in January. If it works, it will be a very awesome piece of unique swag for all supporters, but it will take a few months to complete.

I hope that everyone has a fantastic New Year, and I will see you all in the new decade!

~Aa’menealla nauva calen ar-malta~