www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp

Arwen seems a bit weak, at least stats wise. I'm happy to see another card helping to gather resources though, we were just discussing this. Also, she's not a player card... Looks like we're escorting her. Very interesting....

With Caradhras hurting questing, I'm really hoping we see some more good questing heroes that can rival Eowyn.

Also, this:
"The Redhorn Gate introduces a new hero and the new Secrecy keyword, which provides players with added incentive to keep their threat very low and is certain to spur new deck-building archetypes. "

I'm not sure how this spurs new deck-building archetypes when most decks now are already about keeping your threat very low. I don't think this really needs more, does it?

Strength = 0 ? Can't she even fight? In Fellowship of the Ring,  she used some fighting magic (vs ringwraiths).  I think she should have at least 1 strength.

Correct me if I am wrong, but she only fights off the ring wraiths in the movie, yes?  In the books it is elrond and glorfidnel that rescue the hobbits and send the flood.

For Tolkien's Arwen, those stats seem just fine.

ppsantos said:

That was the movie... this isn't based on the movies. ;) They made up a lot of stuff surrounding Arwen there. She was barely in Fellowship of the Ring.

 correct! arwen is mentioned in 1 chapter in about 1-3 sentences... and then only in the appendices... so... in the movie, OF COURSE GLORFINDEL and the sons of elrond save frodo... but the movies... alas...

anyway - ha, they got us! everybody thought, arwen would be a hero... but she's an objective :D awesome... ffg is doing a great job... I would like to have all the packs already... I just can't wait... it's as they put out - hey, there's heaven, but you have to wait 6 months... AAAAARGH! :D

Even in the movie, she didn't really fight them. She just ran away from them and then sprung her trap. I still remember watching one time, when she says "come and claim him" and they all draw their swords in unison, and someone else, who was watching with me said "that can't be good". Indeed not if she had fought them instead of outsmarting them. 

I'm a bit disappointed that they continue to give us objective allies as opposed to them being player cards. It feels like I'm missing something when I can't use some of these characters in any game I want.

Did anyone else notice that both cards now have two numbers.  Arwen is 1/29 of The Redhorn Gate, and she is card 14 in the Dwarrowdelf cycle.  Likewise, Caradhras is 2/29 and 15.  It's a cosmetic change, and it's kind of nice.

I like the idea of having some characters as part of a quest, but for a character like Arwen I feel like we should be able to have her as a regular character. Perhaps at some point we'll get player versions of some of these cards. Since she's unique, you couldn't use the player card version in the quest...

Kiwina said:

Besides, if Carrock already had those numbers, it would be clear that there is no 3rd quest guard...

I"m pretty sure that multiple copies of a card have the same card number. I know that's how it was with the player cards in the core set. I am not 100% sure about the encounter cards.

 That would calculate correctly.  The hero is 1, 2-10 are the player cards, 11-13 are the three quest cards, and the rest are encounter cards, although if there are multiples of encounter cards I'm not sure what they'll do.  May they will have numbers like 3/29 and 16, 4/29 and 16, etc.

Svenn said:

With resource generation being difficult for spheres besides Leadership this will be a welcome addition during the scenario. I will have to wait and see if there are a lot of treachery cards that damage exhausted heroes though. With only two HP it may be better to hold her back until after the questing phase as she cannot take direct hits from the likes of Necromancer's Reach from the core set.

Kiwina said:

Yes, I think that's the way FFG will do it. If the new number wouldn't be increased with every copy of a card, it would just be the old number, only shifted by an offset (here 13), and not very much useful... And 29 is also roughly the numbers of the encounter cards in previous AP (29 in HfG, 30 in CatC, 29 in AJtR, if I didn't make a mistake).

 I just wanna say - returning back to the thread's eponym - Arwen is beautiful... :D also in the movies... I would have fallen for her... :D

I like that they make some of the characters objectives that can only be used for that particular scenario.  It gives the quest a unique feel and gives it more personality.

As far as Arwen goes, her stats seem appropriate for her character.  The way it looks, you'll probably be using her to quest anyway, which will generate a bonus resource for you each turn.  Probably wouldn't use that 1 attack much anway even if she had it.

Speaking of Redhorn Gate, I LOVE how they continue to release these unique locations that add to  the complexity of each quest.  I hope they continue this trend in future AP's.