I am new to The Lord Of The Rings LCG, and like a lot of you I have been frustrated with loosing most of the time, so I implemented the easy rules, but that was no good either because it took out most of the challenge of the game, by mostly traveling and questing. Now this might not be a new concept because I am new to the game and this might have been hashed out already, but my solution to my game play quandary was to put back a couple of cards that I took out for easy mode, then play the scenario if it was to hard, I removed cards, to easy, I added more cards, until the game ran smooth for me, and I won the majority of the time. There have been a few post were players are frustrated as I was, and I thought I would offer a solution, I hope it helps.

Wait, you lose a lot even with easy mode?

"so I implemented the easy rules, but that was no good either because it took out most of the challenge of the game"

I've used easy mode a few times after my wife and I lost several times in a row. Almost every time the subsequent easy mode attempt has been boringly easy. Now I will either take an extra resource or remove the nasty cards, but not both. And I often won't remove all of the nasty cards, just the 1 or 2 that can really screw you over.

I found the core set scenarios to be well balanced - especially for 2 players. They ramp up in difficulty from fairly easy to fairly hard. And that is playing with only core set cards.

My advice is learn to enjoy being on the receiving end of a good beatdown. I find the game just as fun when I lose because it's not just a game, its also a social activity and it gives us a chance to experiment with new card options on subsequent plays.

My advice if the game is too easy? Play a theme or challenge deck. Try a tactics-only deck or use a hero you normally don't like. Play with no allies or no attachments. Make a hobbit deck. Mix things up a bit and have fun with it.

I'd recommend doing these things before changing the rules.

I didn't loose in easy mode, I meant to say that I was able to beat the game to easy. My point being that as a new player, some people get a bad taste about a game if they loose to much, all I was doing was offering a way for new players to play the game long enough to learn the mechanics of the game and at the same time win, after you have played a few times in this alternative way to play until your comfortable the reinstate all the cards and play the game the way FFG planned for you to.

I found the core set scenarios to be well balanced - especially for 2 players. They ramp up in difficulty from fairly easy to fairly hard. And that is playing with only core set cards.

My advice is learn to enjoy being on the receiving end of a good beatdown. I find the game just as fun when I lose because it's not just a game, its also a social activity and it gives us a chance to experiment with new card options on subsequent plays.

My advice if the game is too easy? Play a theme or challenge deck. Try a tactics-only deck or use a hero you normally don't like. Play with no allies or no attachments. Make a hobbit deck. Mix things up a bit and have fun with it.

I'd recommend doing these things before changing the rules.

I would like to try that deck restriction thing to play without allies or attachments sometime, thanks for great idea Distractionbeast

I am new to The Lord Of The Rings LCG, and like a lot of you I have been frustrated with loosing most of the time, so I implemented the easy rules, but that was no good either because it took out most of the challenge of the game, by mostly traveling and questing. Now this might not be a new concept because I am new to the game and this might have been hashed out already, but my solution to my game play quandary was to put back a couple of cards that I took out for easy mode, then play the scenario if it was to hard, I removed cards, to easy, I added more cards, until the game ran smooth for me, and I won the majority of the time. There have been a few post were players are frustrated as I was, and I thought I would offer a solution, I hope it helps.

It depends on the scenario but if the quest is too hard I will generally just start with an extra resource but I generally leave in all the cards because some of the ones you can remove are too thematic for me to take out (i.e. the Mumak). Other than that I don't really take cards out unless they are extremely cheap imo (i.e. Sleeping Sentry). The extra resource makes it more doable and allows you to get stuff out earlier. I would give that a try if you are having trouble before taking out too many of the encounter cards.

I acknowledged that many people aren't that much into deckbuilding and just put a lot of cards which they like together. Offcourse I think you should like what you play, but apart from that a lot of losses are just because you play a deck which isn't capable of doing the Job.

For example, you shouldn' t try "Shadow and Flames" when you play a deck with only 10 allies. Or play "Escape from Dol Guldur" with a deck that has very low willpower.

I think every quest is the easiest when you make a good deck for that perticular quest, but because It isn't that fun to make all those different decks that aren't usable in any other quest, I wouldn't recommend to do this for all quests.

But nonetheless I would advise you to try build 1 special deck on a quest, especially for solo player, this makes a lot of difference. If you're able to build those decks, and you have done it a few times. You will understand the player mechanics a lot better, which results into the capability of creating very decent general decks which are usable in many quests.

I used this approach a lot when I began with playing which resulted into a set of decks which are very often themed or specified on a certain focus and who are able to win very many quests in over 70 % of tries. Including nightmares.

Ps: the only quest I just can't beat in this ratio is Escape from Dol Guldur Nightmare, but this is because that quest is very very very very hard when you play it solo.