This review will be discussing the player cards released in the Dream-Chaser Hero Expansion alongside the Revised Core. In a later review, for the Campaign Expansion, we will be using these cards to go up against the quests of this cycle and see how effective the “minimum cost” decks are.
Overview of contents
The Dream-Chaser Hero Expansion brings out more support for the Noldor archetype and Scout/Ranger archetypes, and more healing options.
Changes
2 new ships are added to the game with this expansion that were not previously released, the Duskbringer and the Glorinaith.
Also added are upgraded versions of the ships which can be unlocked as part of the campaign that will be released later this year.
Interesting Cards
There are cards, such as, The Evening Star and Veteran Sword-Elf, that gain additional/bolstered effects for how many copies are in the discard pile, extra progress, attack/defense.
Sailor of Lune, Warden of the Havens and Mithlond Sea-Watcher are cards that are bolstered depending on what the top card is in the discard pile.
Ioreth is the best healer in the game, considering solely the re-released content, no cost to play but costs 1 lore resource to heal 3 points of damage on any character is too good to pass up in the majority of decks that have access to Lore.
Heroes:
Elfhelm gets better the more Mount options available and the more players in the game that can make use of his stat boosting effects.
Denethor is good for a somewhat explosive start with gaining 2 extra resources on set up and also passing resources out to other heroes with the limitation of them having the Gondor trait, and there are only 3 Gondor heroes in the revised release so far (excluding Lore Denethor obviously).
Cirdan The Shipwright greatly benefits having Narya attached to him to gain both the leadership resource icon and be able to ready up to 2 allies.
Lanwyn is a solid attacker with the Ranged keyword and is readied and gains 2 willpower upon revealing a card from the encounter deck with the Surge keyword.
Prince Imrahil works well in heavy ally decks where you can make use of his ability every combat phase.
Na’asiyah can’t use her generated resources to pay for allies but they can be used to add 2 attack/defense on attacks or defenses. Also there are many quests in this cycle where she appears as part of the quest and cant be used.
Galdor of the Havens is a decent quester and attacker, with effects that take place at the start of the game with altering the mulligan part and the once per game ability to draw 6 cards when you have no cards in hand.
Argalad is decent at attacking and questing, and has the Ranged keyword. His effect can be useful with supplementary attack boost and readying effects, exhausting him to reduce an enemies threat by his attack and if the threat is reduced to 0 then the enemy is dealt 1 damage.
Thoughts
Dream-Chaser adds less “new” effects/card types than Angmar Awakened, no side quests, no player encounter cards. Thankfully there are no cards that are Sailing specific, so all cards can be used outside of this cycle.
Due to the limited scope of the re-releases, certain cards, such as the Prince of Dol Amroth, are made less effective to worthless.
Though there are many cards that don’t seem as valuable in this set but as more cards are released and previous re-released expansions bought they become more powerful in combination with other cards, such as, Galadhrim Healer, who has a solid effect of healing when entering play that becomes even more powerful once she is paired with Host of Galadhrim (from the Elven Starter Deck), being able to be put into play again to get the effect a second time.
Overall this is a solid player card expansion that gives more options to certain archetypes alongside cards that are more broad in their use. More cards available means more options to deckbuild with potentially allowing easier times with earlier quests…. Looking at you Carn Dum.