Team - Core Set Tactics Heroes

We will now look at another team of three Heroes from a single sphere in the Core Set. This time it will be the Tactics Heroes Thalin, Legolas and Gimli. Do their values indicate that they work well together?

First of all, as with all Heroes in the Core Set their Threat Values are all exactly 100%. You get exactly the stats you pay for.

Next we can look at the Stat Values, and this is a much more interesting story. Unlike the three Leadership Heroes, not a single one of these three has a Stat Value of 100%. Legolas has a Stat Value of 133% thanks to his three Attack for the Threat Cost of nine. Thalin has a Stat Value of 89% due to his Attack and Defence values of two not being very high, even for a Hero that only has a Threat Cost of nine. Finally, Gimli has a Stat Value of 73%, as all three of his stats being only strength two is disappointing for a Hero with a Threat Cost of eleven.

So two Heroes below average Stat Value and one above. They nearly average out to 100%. But let us have a look at the roles we would actually use each Hero for and see if this moves our opinion higher or lower.

Legolas is a Hero with an obvious use. His highest stat by far is his Attack, and his Power is triggered when he uses it to destroy enemies. Clearly he should be an attacker.

Gimli is less simple. With good all-round stats, he could be assigned to any role we need. His power indicates that if we let him do a bit of defence work he will get angry enough to become a powerful attacker. Before dying he could get up to four bonus points added to his attack strength. However, we already have Legolas in the team, so we weren't in desperate need of a good attacker anyway. Add to that the fact that Gimli has the highest Willpower of these three Heroes and you may consider using him for questing instead, even though it makes no use of his Power.

Last of all, Thalin is another character that I consider suffers from Annoying Power Syndrome. His attack and defence values of two are average at best, but then his Power encourages you to use him for his weakest stat, Willpower, which has a pathetic value of one! So you must choose whether to send him questing almost solely for the damage dealt to enemies by his power or save him for defence or attack duty. The former is more useful in games with many players because other players can worry about providing real Willpower strength, but the latter could be relevant in a solo game. But that brings me to a point which must be mentioned about this particular team.

The three tactics Heroes provided in the Core Set as reguarded as the worst of the four sphere teams available to play a solo game with. This is largely due to their weak questing ability. It seems to me that in a solo game you would use Gimli for questing, Thalin for defence and Legolas for attack. That might be enough to get you through the first turn or two, but you are likely to see your threat rise to fifty rather quickly in most quests.

Is this a good support team in a multiplayer game, then? Maybe. Thalin can damage every enemy that comes out (increasingly relevant as more cards are drawn during staging) and Legolas can make some ranged attacks. But even considering that, the team is neither strong at one job or balanced at all of them.