As I had expected, March has been a relatively slow month for the blog, with not a lot of new articles. This was in large part because I have started to work more and more at my actual job and because of various distractions. The biggest one was a 3-day build of the new LEGO Rivendell set that has found a new spot on my bookshelf. I have also been busy with other things, such as setting up a physical playgroup in my country, and taking some time to work on my mental health. But we have finally gotten some new from FFG and I have some plans laid out for the coming months in terms of content. So let’s dive into that.
March
We finally learned what the next official release will be from FFG for the game. And as expected, they will repackage the Dream-chaser cycle next. This repackaging seems to be a more fleshed out than the Angmar Awakened cycle, as the campaign mode will slowly upgrade your fleet. There are also new ships to select for your games, allowing for more customized decks and perhaps fewer players who want to own the Narelenya. We do have to wait a little on the repackaged cycle, but it’s nice to finally have something announced again. This also confirms the belief of the community that the repackaged cycles were hinted at in the Starter decks, and that the Ered Mithrin cycle is likely to be the next set repackaged. Though we might have to wait another year for this, since at this rate, we will only get Dream-chaser and the Two Towers bundle in 2023. Here’s hoping we get some more scenario packs during the summer.
Scenario Analysis
While I said last month that there were no other scenarios for me to cover, I actually lied. I was just afraid to cover the custom scenario kits because their layout is so different. But I bit the bullet and released the Woodland Realm scenario overview, including the different enemy synergies that you can go for. Now that I have sort of a template down for these articles, I will continue to write them for The Wizard’s Quest and the two Moria packs. This will take approximately 2-3 months for me to complete, since these articles are quite lengthy because so many cards have to be discussed. But I hope that this will continue to inspire players to create their own encounter decks and share them with their friends.
Nightmare Analysis
With the focus on the custom scenario packs, I will step away from Nightmare content for a while. Those articles are quite intense and brutal to play through. But we will have some more articles in this segment releasing during the year, so that those that are playing along don’t get stuck on the NM Ringmaker cycle.
Traits and Staples
Not a traits update this time, but a Staples one! That’s right, after a couple of years I have decided to come back to the series and start doing some more articles on the best cards in the card pool for a particular thing. I will do this first with the different ways you can boost the stats on your characters, and will look at other possible topics after that. The willpower boosting article has been released this month, and I will look into doing at least one of these per month as long as I have a good topic for them. I hope this shows both veterans and new players which cards they should consider if they want to boost their stats.
Additional Articles
There were no additional article this month, but I continue to work on the article describing last year’s loot. Since there were no updates on that front, I could not release it just yet. As soon as the loot is released, the article will go out as well. I really hope that happens in April, but we’ll have to see. Aside from that, there is nothing else in the pipeline for now, but I am open to suggestions.
The Future
The months ahead should really be similar to March I think. I will be working more and more, so I will have less time to spend on the blog. This will mean fewer articles, as some of the articles that I am working on, are quite lengthy. Nevertheless, I hope to continue to release some fun new articles every now and then, and will also inquire my co-authors on their plans for future articles down the line. For April, I will also be leaving on holiday to Jordan for a week, so there will be no content by me during that time. It’ll be nice to escape my regular life for a little while and visit a corner of the world that I haven’t been to yet. It will also be the 30th country I have ever visited! Check Twitter for constant updates.
Aside from writing, I do hope to spend some more time playing the actual game again. This will be helped by the new Dutch gaming group that plans to meet up regularly for physical games. It allows me to dust off my cards and use them beyond just bringing them to conventions. I am not sure if it will be worth to make content on, but it should be a good time nonetheless. I’m really happy that we’ve finally gathered a large enough group of people willing to host games at their place.
On a more sour note, the loot is still not done. I had really hoped to get it shipped in March, but an injury with my editor has prevented further progress. All the other parts have been in place for a while, but without the custom pages, the book has very little content. Not to worry though, I have everyone’s address still logged, so that I can ship everything right away once the books are ready. Will that be in April? I cannot say, but I really hope it will be. I thank everyone for their patience and hope to reward that in the near future.
~Aa’menealla nauva calen ar-malta~
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Vision Of The Palantir 
Hello! Very nice to read you and hear you get more time for yourself!
I do wonder why they start the repackaging with the Angmar Awakened cycle?
Thank you for your work on this blog which my friend and me find great and very very useful!
Thanks!
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Caleb explained that they went for Angmar because it was the first cycle where they felt all the pieces of the game were fully developed. The first 2 cycles were unbalanced and lacked a story to do a campaign with (hence why Dark of Mirkwood was used for the Core Set campaign, and not the cycle itself). Against the Shadow would have been a brutal difficulty spike for new players jumping in after the Core Set. Ringmaker is a more complex cycle with the timecounters and such. So the next possible cycle would have been Angmar Awakened. It also started the trend of the story following up the previous cycle, which we will likely see with the Dream-chaser campaign later this year. To make sure players didn’t miss out on the strongest cards of those skipped cycles, the starter decks were made, so that Gondor covers cycle 3, Silvan cycle 4, Dwarves the Hobbit Saga, and Rohan to plug in the gaps of cycle 1 and 4.
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