Just saw all the cards on HallofBeorn and am dying to see how the quests are, Journey in the Dark looks brutal. Anybody who has played these quests tell me your initial opinions just to tide me over till I get the expansion haha thanks.

Yes me too really wonna, hear about it….

I just played through it solo today with a Secrecy deck. Breaking of the Fellowship can be very challenging, but is lot of fun. Journey in the Dark is probably my favorite - if you don't sacrifice a hero, you can't kill the Balrog and you take 4 burdens. The Ring Goes South is not as difficult, as long as you bring high willpower/location control. Combat is also essential in each of the quests, particular the third where Toughness eliminates most forms of direct damage or trickery. All told, very enjoyable, and I would imagine that they will be even more difficult in multi-player.

Secrecy deck... so I'm guessing you didn't sacrifice Gandalf then?

Would a card like "Straight Shot" +Blades/Bard be worthwhile versus the Uruk-hai?

I took 4 burdens no Balrog Killing for me. To deal with toughness, I just held back an extra attacker. They all have defense in addition to toughness so Straight Shot would take too much work, in my opinion.

I've played the Ring Goes South and Journey in the Dark, both with my Hobbit deck from Black Riders. RGS is not a cakewalk, but I didn't find it too incredibly difficult. I don't read the quest cards ahead of time and was really surprised when Frodo got place face down under the Watcher .

The Balrog ended up eating my hobbits for breakfast. It's very hard to get 25 damage on him, esp. b/c you have to get around 9 defense to do it. And sacrificing a hero just destroys a three-sphere deck, obviously. I'm going to have to rethink how I'm building for that one and allow more beefy Fellowship heroes to come to the fore.

Haven't really used many of the Boons yet, obviously, but Sting continues to be a great card, esp. on Samwise. If you took Tireless Ranger on him in BR, it's easy to get him up to 5-6 defense (with Hobbit cloak). He's become a wall.

if you don't sacrifice a hero, you can't kill the Balrog and you take 4 burdens.

You can always finish the quest before Barlog arrives, you know...

Just finish look at the cards on HOB site. Look amazing! They really follow the book! I need to wait another week or 2 to get it.....

how does it compare to the black riders quests?

Are they harder?

Which do you prefer more?

Yes, it is possible to complete Journey in the Dark before the Balrog comes, it is just very difficult. It takes a super-fast deck, and a bit of luck.

how does it compare to the black riders quests?

Are they harder?

Which do you prefer more?

Again, having only played 1 and 2, I think that The Ring Goes South is easier (solo) than most of the Black Riders quests, but A Journey in the Dark still has me scratching my head a bit. Definitely difficult, and "Doom Doom" counters really do give you a sense of increasing dread.

One of my fav. things about this quest is the Drums in the Deep quest stage, wherein you must kill a certain # of enemies before progressing.

Yes, it is possible to complete Journey in the Dark before the Balrog comes, it is just very difficult. It takes a super-fast deck, and a bit of luck.

I will be attempting to do this MANY times until successful. No dead hero/threat gain for the campaign and only 2 burdens rather than 4? Count me in regardless of how hard it is to achieve!

One think us confused me about new Gandalf hero:

When you start to play even before setup you draw your starting hand and decide for muligan or not, you already keep your top player deck card revealed? Or you cannot do that at this moment?

That can be very helpful when you decide for muligan. ..

One think us confused me about new Gandalf hero:

When you start to play even before setup you draw your starting hand and decide for muligan or not, you already keep your top player deck card revealed? Or you cannot do that at this moment?

That can be very helpful when you decide for muligan. ..

I would say that the top card is face up.

Our 3-player-group played yesterday first one. I liked it a lot.

The day before i played 2 player Quest 2 and we lost. That one is really hard. But i cant wait to build a deck to beat it.

One think us confused me about new Gandalf hero:

When you start to play even before setup you draw your starting hand and decide for muligan or not, you already keep your top player deck card revealed? Or you cannot do that at this moment?

That can be very helpful when you decide for muligan. ..

Gandalf is already in play, so his ability is active, therefore the top card should be visible at that point.

I've played first 2 scenarios a bit now, and only played last scenario once. I'm using Aragorn lore, Sam and Boromir tactics. i have very few allies in the deck Master of forge, bill the pony, Galadriel, Elrond and Gandalf (hobbit version).

TRGS is not hard at all. The one with Balrog is a little difficult, but still quite doable. Boromir with dunedain Warnings, And Gondorian shield, and Blood of Numenor with access through Celebrian's stone will be able to defend Balrog when it shows up. One time I defeat Balrog and sacrificed Boromir to do so. The other time I could not get enough damage on it.

I played Breaking once, and it's one of those enemies pile up in the staging area scenarios, but I also realized i was also playing something wrong , so quite a little ways into it.

Overall, scenarios seem to fit the story line well, but i am not as thrilled as TBR. Maybe thats because the hobbit synergy was new and a lot of fun to play, but the scenarios were also lot's of fun to play. My hero selection, and supporting allies don't feel like they synergize well with the story being told. I really hoped to make a deck similar to the Hobbit deck. I put Galadriel and Elrond in the deck, but why are they showing up in the mines of moria? My feeling is that the allies for this saga should have been 3 other members of the fellowship. Maybe this will come at a later dat, but I'm considering shelving the campaign rules until i get the complete story, and for now just play the scenarios as they are.

The suggested decks in the back are really unthematic. I recognize that the developers are constrained to only 3 products, but it's just silly to have Guards of the citadel and Beorn showing up in these scenarios. My hope, when the saga boxes are all said and done, is that i'll be able to create the types of deck(s) that match the story more closely.

Back to the scenarios. When comparing these to their predecessors with a similar theme; Journey Along the Anduin, The Watcher in the Water, and Shadow and flame. I'll have to say the older scenarios will continue to get more play than these. They seemed more challenging at the time and i liked the mechanics more.

But maybe I have more expectations since the scenarios are trying to portray a story I am familiar with, which is going to be very difficult to do, and I will say they the scenarios are capturing those moments of the books. Right now I think I actually prefer the FFG made up scenarios and story line the. The Saga's including the Hobbit, which also gets almost no play.

Sorry, if this seems overly critical, but maybe i am just overcome with grief after having lost Boromir for the next scenario. The scenario, in which he is supposed to be lost.

You have spoken my fears. This morning I finally got the chance to set up a game. I'll be playing this evening I think. My playing area has been dominated by The Battle of Five Armies, but I moved that out of the way for the time being. I simply grabbed my Glory, Aragorn & Boromir deck for the first sally. I know Glorfindel is not thematic, but I've always felt he should have gone. I think I might replace him with Gandalf later. Starting threat will be ridiculous, but what the heck.

To people saying the suggested decks are unthematic, my question is, why should they BE thematic at all? I mean, they are just decks, and that's enough. I don't think the intent was to make them thematic, as I don't think they need to be. Plus, while I certainly think the cards that come in the box itself should be as thematic and in-depth as possible (that's why I'm dissapointed with the number of player cards, not that they're unthematic, but they are so few there's little room for theme exploration), I don't think the decks themselves shouldn't necessarily follow the story in the book. And it really depends on what you consider thematic. I'm of the opinion that Fatty or Glorfindel in the fellowship is fairly plausible, or any hero pretty much, I think it's cool and thematic to see different heroes unite to destroy the ring. That's the point of the books.

I played through two-fisted, which is my preferred style of play, with a Hobbit deck and a low-threat elf deck (Glorfindel, Legolas and Haldir). I beat RGS and JiD on my first tries, have yet to defeat BoF.

Ring Goes South: fairly easy with interesting mechanics. Feels kind of standard, has lots of surge to keep things interesting, and the ending is fun. It is much easier in campaign mode because you get to start with a boon in hand.

Journey in the Dark: really fun and tense. I was fairly lucky to finish as fast as I did, and I only had to defend against the Balrog twice (but Sam was buffed up to 7def, so he was ok). I was totally in control, cruising along and then everything almost fell apart at the end. I love the timer as it adds a lot of suspense to everything. And I took the 4 burdens, because I did not want to stick around to fight the Balrog.

Breaking of the Fellowship: I've had my butt kicked three times. A lot of the scenario's mechanics work against the Hobbits (not really damage sponges), and unless I'm playing 2b wrong (I'm sure I'm not), there's a moment of reckoning that I'm struggling to get ready for (I could cruise through that with the phial, but I'm loathe to spend a one-time boon so early). I can only imagine how many enemies will pile up in a 4 player game, because in 2 handed it is significant.

Overall, I've enjoyed the quests MUCH more than Black Riders. These capture the moments from the book very well, and they cover areas explored in previous scenarios in a way that feels fresh. The burdens really start to add up and make things more interesting. I'm surprised at how divisive this box has been, but I've personally enjoyed it.

I just played The Ring Goes South and possibly won it...

How is a solo player supposed to play 1A?

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/lotr-lcg/the-road-darkens/the-council-of-elrond.png

Fairly generic quest, but that part of the book was fairly generic as well.

It looks to me like the solo player ends up putting the top four cards of his (or her) deck face up for the council decision.

I just played The Ring Goes South and possibly won it...

How is a solo player supposed to play 1A?

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/lotr-lcg/the-road-darkens/the-council-of-elrond.png

Fairly generic quest, but that part of the book was fairly generic as well.

To people saying the suggested decks are unthematic, my question is, why should they BE thematic at all? I mean, they are just decks, and that's enough. I don't think the intent was to make them thematic, as I don't think they need to be. Plus, while I certainly think the cards that come in the box itself should be as thematic and in-depth as possible (that's why I'm dissapointed with the number of player cards, not that they're unthematic, but they are so few there's little room for theme exploration), I don't think the decks themselves shouldn't necessarily follow the story in the book. And it really depends on what you consider thematic. I'm of the opinion that Fatty or Glorfindel in the fellowship is fairly plausible, or any hero pretty much, I think it's cool and thematic to see different heroes unite to destroy the ring. That's the point of the books.

The suggested decks are unthematic because there are not enough player cards in the sets they used to create such a deck, so they have to use a number of player cards that don't fit the story. Even with all the material released I'm not able to make such a deck that contains all the members of the fellowship. I could probably make 2 mediocre decks that has all members though.

Personally, I would love have the opportunity to creat a deck that contained all the members of the fellowship. I see no reason why this should not be a goal of the developers. I'm not suggesting that they make all the these hypothetical player cards function in a way that creates a perfect deck. All i ask is that I have the possibility to do it, since this is how I would like to play through the saga set. My hope is that we will see more ally version of fellowship heroes in the future, but i am the worst at guessing what the developers think. It's almost always the exact opposite.

The biggest problem is the slow growth of our player card pool. Playing these scenarios a year or 2 from now will probably be a completely different story.