Yep, the players in turn order place cards in front of themselves until there is total of 4 card placed.

Just played RGS and lost on first try after a treachery combo with a location caused me to lose 4 allies. Was using a silvan deck and got pretty unlucky with AVGT and The Mistrel that searches for events. AVGT basically always discarded events and the Minstrell only found allies haha. Anyway seems fun, hope to play more.

Anyone care to post some decent solo decks that can use the new player cards?

Just wondering, if I sacrifice hero Gandalf to make the Balrog lose all of his keywords, can I then sneak attack with ally Gandalf to place damage on the Balrog and kill him that way? Would be a really cool and thematic option.

Just finished second play through of Journey in the Dark, sacrificed Gandalf to deal 14 damage to Balrog then combined all my Hobbits and a Knight of Minis Tirith to finish off the Balrog. I had a blast, really enjoyed this quest over Shadow & Flame.

We always play as thematic as we can through the saga quests, we've been using these two decks for the Road Darkens quests, i'll have more info soon on how well they play the three quests. As you can see we try to keep it super thematic but it's hard.

HOBBIT DECK

Heroes:

Sam

Merry

Pippin (Lo)

+Frodo (tRd)

Allies (17)

Bill the Pony 3x

Galadríel 2x

Rivendell Scout 2x

Gandalf 2x (CORE)

Barliman Butterbur 3x

Daughter of the Nimrodel 2x

Farmer Maggot 3x

Attachments (19)

Fast Hitch 3x

Ring Mail 3x

Dagger of Westernesse 2x

Hobbit Cloak 3x

Celebrian's Stone 2x

Narvi's Belt 2x

Fellowship of the Ring 2x

Boots from Erebor 2x

Events (18)

Halfling Determination 2x

Feint 2x

Hail of Stones 3x

Unseen Strike 2x

Take no Notice 2x

Daeron's Runes 2x

Frodo's Intuition 3x

Hobbit Sense 2x

FELLOWSHIP DECK

Heroes:

Aragorn (Lo)

Legolas

Gimli

+Frodo (tRd)

Allies (16)

Boromir 3x

Gandalf 3x (HOBBIT)

Trollshaw Scout 2x

Watcher of the Bruinen 2x

Rúmil 2x

Elrond 2x

Silvan Refugee 2x

Attachments (22)

Dwarrodelf Axe 2x

Rivendell Blade 2x

Citadel Plate 2x

Black Arrow 1x

Lembas 3x

A Burning Brand 2x

Protector of Lorien 2x

Wingfoot 2x

Unexpected Courage 2x

Fellowship of the Ring 1x

Song of Travel 3x

Events (16)

Feint 2x

Close Call 2x

Gildors Counsel 2x

Secret Paths 3x

Word of Command 2x

A test of Will 2x

Desperate Alliance 2x

Fortune or Fate 1x

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.

The two decks you could make wouldn't be that bad, though. The hobbit trio and then the three hunters w/ boromir ally (not the best at questing I suppose). The worst part about it is that you can't make use of the new Gandalf hero if you went that route, which is a bummer.

I think I'll try Djenni's strategy with hobbits in one hand and hunters in the other after I try to beat it with my solo deck.

I only played RGS twice with a friend. He only played the game once before and I haven't had a chance to play it much myself. Though I constantly find myself making decks, my lack of actual playtime keeps me from making good decks that work together and so forth.

That being said! We still had a fun time playing it and even though we got our asses handed to us we were able to at least get to the Watcher on our second try. We had a good time, I rebuilt and sleeved up some new decks, and we will see what happens.

Haven't done the latter 2 quests but I'm really excited to do Moria. Thought he player cards look cool for TBOTF I'm not sure how I feel about it yet until I play it.

For this Saga expansion I decided to create three decks to represent the Nine Walkers (not the usual suspects though).

Finished TRGS yesterday after a couple defeats (thanks to a certain treachery card).

I like this quest, it isn't too hard but it does keep you on your toes.

If the designers were aiming for "lots of decision making", I think they succeeded.

The decisions we make...

For this Saga expansion I decided to create three decks to represent the Nine Walkers (not the usual suspects though).

Finished TRGS yesterday after a couple defeats (thanks to a certain treachery card).

I like this quest, it isn't too hard but it does keep you on your toes.

If the designers were aiming for "lots of decision making", I think they succeeded.

Hey Caerdowyn, would that card happen to be "bitter cold"?

Bitter Cold is a nasty one for ally heavy decks. Once, you can deal with. Twice is pushing it. But it came up 3 times in our playthrough and was the "bitter end" for us all. For that quest it would be good to throw in "Free to Choose" to counteract the threat gain.

Bitter Cold is a nasty one for ally heavy decks. Once, you can deal with. Twice is pushing it. But it came up 3 times in our playthrough and was the "bitter end" for us all. For that quest it would be good to throw in "Free to Choose" to counteract the threat gain.

Yea I was rebuilding the decks to combat that quest and saw that card and thought it would be perfect! I don't have the card text in front of me but if the threat gained would cause you to threat out would you still lose, "Free to Choose" or not?

UPDATE: What stinks in a multiplayer game is that the card only helps yourself....

In my games it was Snowdrifts that popped out at the most inopportune times and attached itself to Doors of Durin.

Bitter cold is probably nastier, especially late game, but it didn't bother me as much as Snowdrifts.

I just lost my first game of Journey in the Dark. This quest is definitely a lot harder.

After playing these scenarios over the past few days i'd have to say they are really good, and fit the story nicely. The first scenario as stated is not to difficult, but I like the transitions between quest cards, which can change some well laid plans.

Journey in the dark, may be my favorite of the bunch. It can definitely be problematic at times. I love the challenge of having to race out of the mines before the Balrog shows up, or I can choose to face him and try to destroy him, i also have the choice of sacrificing a hero to help get the job done. There are some great decisions to be made there, and all feel like the right thing to do to survive the encounter. I nearly made it out once before he showed up, I was one turn away. It's a real challenge, and also a real challenge to defeat him. Really nice work on this scenario.

The Breaking can also be pretty trickery. At first I thought it was more challenging than Journey into the Dark, and sometimes it can be, but overall it's a little more predictable, but still very good. I can imagine it would be even cooler in multiplayer.

So far I've now moved to playing an allly free deck on these and turning Aragorn Lore into an super defender and attacker. Gandalf, Sam and Frodo from TBR are the other heroes in the deck. Sam turns into a questing powerhouse and Gandalf does whatever is needed most at the time. With lots of action advantage, all 4 heroes will quest most of the time, and with all the Wp boosting attachments and events they can quest for almost 30 wp when needed!

So, overall i'm quite happy with how my solo games have turned out with these scenarios, although I'd still like to add other members of the fellowship as allies at some point. Whoops just forgot I could have added Boromir ally. I'll have to add a copy. Should not be a problem to get him in with Gandalf around.

I mentioned this in another thread but nobody replied, so I repeat: can somebody explain to me why the Doors of Durin look so different from how they were represented originally. The ithildin inscription is very strange.

I mentioned this in another thread but nobody replied, so I repeat: can somebody explain to me why the Doors of Durin look so different from how they were represented originally. The ithildin inscription is very strange.

Maybe it was to keep it from being too identical to the Doors of Durin that was used in the Watcher in the Water quest way back when? Though I do admit they are strange looking, I do enjoy an alternative look every now and then.

But that doesn't make any sense. Why NOT make them similar? The Doors of Durin were designed by Tolkien himself. His design is as much part of the description of Middle earth as the fact that Galadriel's hair is golden or that the Gondorian banner is a white tree on black. I wouldn't mind the change if there was a reason for it, but as it is it seems disrespectful to the sorce material. It's as if they decided to change the tengwar inscription on the One Ring.

But that doesn't make any sense. Why NOT make them similar? The Doors of Durin were designed by Tolkien himself. His design is as much part of the description of Middle earth as the fact that Galadriel's hair is golden or that the Gondorian banner is a white tree on black. I wouldn't mind the change if there was a reason for it, but as it is it seems disrespectful to the sorce material. It's as if they decided to change the tengwar inscription on the One Ring.

The only thing I can think of, and I'll be the first to admit this is a stretch, is that given how much farther away the doors of durin is in the new version, maybe they decided to go with a design that was easier to see.

I don't know, it seems like a bad reason too. We should ask! lol

Just wondering, if I sacrifice hero Gandalf to make the Balrog lose all of his keywords, can I then sneak attack with ally Gandalf to place damage on the Balrog and kill him that way? Would be a really cool and thematic option.

Yes you can! The hero is not added to the "Fallen Heroes" list until the scenario is won, so once hero Gandalf is out of play there is nothing stopping you from putting the ally version in.

You HAVE to sacrifice a hero if you want to get the job done -- otherwise the Balrog has the 'indestructible' keyword.

We have finished The Ring Goes South and Journey in the Dark so far, 2-player. We used thematic decks as far as including all members of the Fellowship: Aragorn-Pippin-Sam and Legolas-Gimli-Merry, with Boromir and Gandalf in the decks as allies. That's where theme ended though, and we included plenty of Eagles and things that you don't typically see inside the walls of Moria..

It sounds like everyone is in pretty good agreement about the difficulty level of The Rings Goes South and Journey in the Dark. The first scenario is not a cakewalk but it's very doable (took us 4 tries to win with these decks), while Journey in the Dark is a lot more challenging (took us 8 tries). My mono-tactics deck tweaking ended up with a crazy deck for Journey in the Dark, having 35 allies, 12 events and only 4 attachments. Very different from my usual tactics setup, which tends to be attachment-heavy. As for the other deck, I'm happy that you can switch versions of a hero without penalty. We used Lore Aragorn/Pippin in The Ring Goes Dark, switched to Leadership Aragorn for Journey, switched to Spirit Pippin after a few tries in order to get faster access to the spirit sphere, then finally switched back to Lore Pippin for access to more card draw and healing effects.

Looking forward to trying Breaking of the Fellowship next, although we don't get much playtime on weekdays and my next weekend is pretty much booked. It might be 2 weeks before we get a chance to try it! Unless I can convince the wife to sacrifice a week night for the love of Hobbits...

Made a Gandalf deck and ran through the 3 quests. Ring goes south was fairly straight forward but definitely not easy. I power quested thru journey in the dark and with a few lucky encounter draws never even had the Balrog come out. Breaking of the fellowship wasnt bad either but i was playing solo and i think it could get pretty crazy the players that are added.

Took the gandalf deck, paired it with a hobbit deck and did campaign mode thru the quests and had a much tougher time. Journey in the dark gave me significantly more trouble, theres a lot of threat increase with those encounter cards and I ended up having to sacrifice Gandalf to slay the Balrog and then just wasting time for 3 turns until i was able to draw into my Fortune or Fate to get him back and finish the quest. The two burden objectives that start in play during campaign mode of that quest are super annoying as well and despite carrying two miner of the iron hills in the hobbit deck, did not run into either. Seems to be a decent amount of condition attachments in this box which may inspire me to run power of orthanic in future playthroughs. Still need to do breaking of the fellowship in campaign but i anticipate like the quests before it, I will have a much more difficult time with it.

Tried to finish up my campaign with the gandalf deck and hobbit deck tonight by completing breaking of the fellowship, but I failed in two long attempts. Definitely much more difficult multiplayer compared to solo and with all the archery damage in it, the hobbit deck has not been super helpful since with the hobbit's low hit points all the archery is relegated to the gandalf deck. Not upset with the struggle though, will make for a more memorable campaign to deal with some adversity and what a thematically ironic scenario to encounter it is as well

Finally played the first two quests (took a while for the box to arrive, then work prevented earlier play) with a Glorfindel, Merry, Haldir solo run. Low threat staging area sniping is very good in this box until Mr Balrog shows up. Haven't played quest three, but the first one was a cake-walk for the deck (maybe not representative, but I didn't engage even one enemy I think). Perhaps a higher threat deck that actually has to engage enemies could have more trouble, but Haldir was a beast, easily taking out 2 enemies a turn when needed. Wasn't playing the campaign mode, so I ran away from the Balrog. I liked the difficulty of them both, and can see that 2-handed/2-player would be much harder. That first quest card in The Ring Goes South is amazing for a solo player!

Now I need to find time to run a campaign through (using Gandalf), and to play the final quest. That quest looks very clever in terms of the mechanics.

Anyone else having trouble slaying the Balrog?

I'm playing highly thematic decks and that's the only way i want to play the Saga quests. Needless to say i will not fill my deck with endless amounts of allies to beat the Balrog. I want to play the quest like other quests i don't want to alter my deck to finish the Balrog off. I just can't get around his monstrous defense, it would be no problem at all if he weren't Immune to player card effects, there's just no way that i can get enough attacking power to kill him. He doesn't lose his immunity to card effects when i sacrifice a Hero on the bridge does he?

I'm using Sam, Merry & Pippin for one deck and Aragorn, Legolas & Glorfindel for the other one. Any advice/tips/success-stories would be much appreciated.

I managed it with thematic hero choices, but not thematic ally choices. Aragorn-Sam-Pippin and Legolas-Gimli-Merry. The monotactics deck had 35 ally cards in it, and I just overwhelmed him. You've got Glorfindel in your company, so you're not totally slaved to theme -- could you perhaps see some long-hidden Veteran Axehands emerging to help the company battle the Balrog?

He doesn't lose his immunity when you sacrifice a hero since it isn't granted via a keyword.