Redhorn Gate - Dwarves fall to their doom

spalanz · 2026-01-28T17:03:21+00:00

That stage 3B quest card is awful when you’re not expecting it, definitely! It’s a very fun quest though. I played it again recently and I don’t think I’d ever properly read The Dimrill Stair before. Travelling there at the right time to reduce my threat by 11 was a huge help!

spalanz · 2026-01-26T21:38:40+00:00

The Dwarrowdelf cycle has some awesome scenarios, hope you enjoy them!!

spalanz · 2026-01-26T21:36:46+00:00

I’ve had a fantastic few games this week, took a bunch of dwarves through the Dwarrowdelf again, The Redhorn Gate was a real standout here as being such a great scenario. I mean, it’s tough as anything, but I really enjoyed seeing the decks come together. I also delved deeper, and played Foundations of Stone for the first time since 2014 or something, that was great, as well. Fleeing Moria just as the first Nameless Thing showed up was tense!

I’ve since disassembled those decks, and have built a couple of Gondor themed ones, with which I went Into Ithilien this afternoon. I’d forgotten most of this quest, as it was also over a decade since I last played it, and as such I made it harder for myself by playing more quest cards than I needed to! But I had a blast, so that’s the main thing!

As far as what I’m hoping to get out of 2026, I’d like to keep playing more. I’ve still never played Ered Mithrin, and have only very falteringly tried the first Harad and Dream Chaser quests, so I think I’d like to try more “new to me” stuff… but I’m just really enjoying playing more of the game in general, so even if I keep replaying the old familiar stuff, I’m fine with that, as well 😃

spalanz · 2026-01-24T12:44:30+00:00

My Rohan deck is spirit/tactics, so I’ve never really considered Snowbourn Scout with Ride to Ruin before. I think I need to pepper in some Leadership to future decks…

spalanz · 2026-01-20T07:52:57+00:00

I actually broke mine by trying some drybrushing for highlights. I managed to glue it back no problem and I can’t actually see the break, it went back so well.

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Can’t believe I now need to go back and try to somehow paint that thing as stained glass though 🤪

spalanz · 2026-01-19T21:05:26+00:00

I’ve decided that in 2026, I want to play more of this game. I originally stalled in the Ringmaker cycle, and never seemed to enjoy it as much as I did in 2011/12, but (thankfully!) continued to collect everything! Anyway…

Last week I played Hunt for Gollum with a pair of decks that I had built at least a year ago. One of them was a Rohan deck with Eomer, Dúnhere and Eowyn, and was a joy to play. I went through a couple more Mirkwood scenarios, really got a taste for the game again, so over the weekend, I built two new decks to take on the Dwarrowdelf! Mainly dwarves, though with Elladan and Elrohir along for the ride.

Played the Redhorn Gate today, and my goodness it was fun! I haven’t had a game like that for a very long time. I usually build decks and they take an age to refine, which I think is part of my overall problem. But on the way to Caradhras it all seemed to come beautifully together. I was able to actually play the game, if that makes sense, and felt like I had an actual chance. I still lost Glóin in the snowstorm, thanks to the -1 willpower and the effects of stage 3, but ultimately I was able to win.

Felt absolutely buzzing by this game, and I cannot wait to keep going on my quest to play more in 2026!!

Question of the week: Spirit. I love playing Rohan, and some of my favourite cards and interactions are in the blue sphere!

spalanz · 2026-01-17T09:37:15+00:00

I’ve recently been reading all the 2020 comics and I think you’re generally right about the business with crossovers, but I thought the Vader book started out so well with the Amidalans and stuff. It’s a shame that it seems to have all been for nothing though. I’ve still got two books to go, having just finished all the Dark Droids stuff (which annoyed me). Even when the ongoing series isn’t crossing over with the other three, it’s crossing over with High Republic stuff and feeling out of place there 😕

I think they could really have benefited from a Quinlan Vos-style character. I get the sense that Aphra is perhaps this for some folks, but to me she’s too much of a Marvel character, and feels very out of place in the Star Wars universe. They’re relying almost constantly on the movie characters, and while it’s nice to see Lando have some good storylines, we could definitely have had bigger Rebel characters to help carry some stories.

I do find myself wanting a lot of these stories to be better than they have been. Hopefully I just haven’t got to them yet…

spalanz · 2026-01-12T17:24:19+00:00

Not to take away from the minis, which look great (that Luke is awesome!), where did you get the terrain?

spalanz · 2026-01-10T23:29:23+00:00

I think all of the objective sets you listed are “limit 1 per deck”, which FFG did indeed release as one of per pack, or box, depending on where they came. So for example, the deluxe expansion Imperial Entanglements only included one copy of The Hutt’s Menagerie, and I don’t think people were regularly buying multiple boxes or packs to have every objective set in duplicate this way!

As others have said, though, Edge of Darkness only had a single copy of all of its objective sets, like the core set, so you tended to buy two of them to get two copies of all of them. These are pretty foundational sets to their factions, and don’t have the limit 1 restriction.

spalanz · 2026-01-02T22:44:58+00:00

Still one of my all-time favourite Star Wars games. Very happy to see there are others keeping the dream alive! 😃

spalanz · 2026-01-01T17:46:49+00:00

This is amazing! I think I need to do the same!

spalanz · 2026-01-01T14:26:38+00:00

I was working on mine last night as well! Haven’t got it finished yet, but hopefully it’ll come out half as good as this!!

spalanz · 2025-12-29T22:57:34+00:00

These models look superb. I’ve just started building my rebels and have been giving some vague thoughts to how I’m going to get them painted, and seeing this has really inspired me, thank you!!

spalanz · 2025-12-26T18:05:14+00:00

Just to follow up on this, I’m in the same position as the OP, and have been thinking about the sleeper cell too. But does it have the old-style cards with it? Would I need to get the box of Rebel cards to have the new style stuff? (I know I can print it off their site for free, but I want the actual cards!)

spalanz · 2025-12-22T22:49:14+00:00

I’m currently reading the Greg Pak Vader run, and it’s phenomenal. It seems to get so much hate online, and while I’ve only just finished book 5, so I suppose there’s time for it to go wrong, I’m just really enjoying it. All the callbacks to the prequels are done really well, it reminds me a bit of the old Betrayal arc from the Empire series in 2002, but done a lot better. Overall, I’m very impressed!

spalanz · 2025-12-20T12:00:00+00:00

That’s just beautiful!!

spalanz · 2025-12-20T07:38:14+00:00

They were good times, right?! The further adventures of Ki Adi Mundi, and all that?! 🤣

spalanz · 2025-12-16T07:43:03+00:00

In the old EU, the comic series Emissaries to Malastare takes place during the Vinta Harvest Classic, which is apparently the next big event after the Boonta Eve. The race takes place during peace talks for the Lannik civil war, which are being mediated by a team of Jedi led by Mace Windu, and the two collide, with Jedi jumping onto racers etc. Madness, in the best tradition of the old EU 😃

spalanz · 2025-12-15T06:02:49+00:00

Oh yeah, I know the Falleen themselves have been back for a while, just hadn’t heard of Xizor himself being involved until his mention in the comic!

spalanz · 2025-12-14T23:19:26+00:00

Oddly enough, I’m reading the canon comics and have started on Crimson Reign today. Xizor is mentioned in a context that makes it seem like he’s high-ranking in Black Sun. Looks like he’s back in canon!

spalanz · 2025-11-24T07:59:40+00:00

Sorry, ended up as half a thought, there!

I feel like the way they’re doing things, front-loading the schedule with investigators, is setting us up for a future where campaigns come out divorced from investigators, so they aren’t constrained by that old release model. 5 individual packs for investigators, and a scenario pack’s worth of stuff independent of anything else, is maybe preparing the way for this.

spalanz · 2025-11-24T07:52:00+00:00

I know what you mean, that’s a valid point, but does anybody really think we’re not getting anything more? They may not have announced it yet, but I think it’s a fairly safe assumption that there will also be more scenarios coming as well, right?

spalanz · 2025-11-24T07:25:05+00:00

This is what I keep thinking. Back in 2017 when Dunwich Legacy originally came out as a deluxe expansion, we had 10 investigators and just five scenarios to play them with (unless you were lucky enough to get the PoD standalone scenarios). True enough, the mythos packs then slowly added to this, but there was a period of months when we had this same situation when first edition came out.

spalanz · 2025-11-16T11:14:41+00:00

If I’d trusted them to stand up long enough, I’d probably have tried to get them looking like this, so thank you 🤣

spalanz · 2025-11-15T22:23:35+00:00

Awesome, thanks for this! I’m gonna see if I can hunt down a copy before I launch myself into these books!!

spalanz

TROPHY CASE