Welcome to the community!

Iron Shackles / Tower Gate -- usually the most "correct" interpretation is the most "literal" interpretation. This typically ends up being the harder scenario, but not in all cases. You should take Iron Shackles and put it face down in front of you, and it will become an Orc Guard, simply because that is the most literal way to follow the card instructions.

People often recommend buying expansions in the order of their release, and I concur. Tales from the Cards has a new player buying guide that may be of great interest to you, if you have not seen it already.

Best of luck in your questing!

Welcome to the wonderful world of the LOTR LCG! I'll echo GrandSpleen and recommend the Tales from the Cards buying guide to plan your purchasing. If you are pretty sure you're going to end up buying all the expansions (which seems likely based on your fan boyism), I'd recommend buying them in the order they were released. It would also be fun to follow along with the Cardboard of the Rings podcasts that aired at the same time as the expansion you are on. That way you can grow with the game and appreciate some of the earlier cards that have since been overshadowed.

Regarding Escape from Dol Goldur with just a core set, I'd recommend these decks: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1294079/back-basics-two-pair-tandem-decks-using-one-core-s

Don't let that quest hold you back. Even with a full card pool it is very tough solo and fairly challenging with 2 decks. Give it a few tries with those two decks, but if you haven't won after 10 or 20 tries I would move on and come back later.

Welcome to the community, Myrk! You will find that people here are friendly and happy to help. The decks by Xanalor that Teamjimby linked above are both excellent. If you are looking for some thoughts on strategy, you might also enjoy my series designed for new players called Beorn's Path. It starts with the Core Set and works its way through the Shadows of Mirkwood cycle. Good luck, and happy travels through Middle-earth.

https://hallofbeorn.wordpress.com/beorns-path/

Welcome Myrk!

Nice game, isn't it!

Your questions have been answered, but I wanted to give some tips. As noted above, I as a new player found great comfprt in Hall of Beorns 'Beorns Path'. I would also recommendes Tales from the Cards (blog), Second Hand took (blog) and Master of Lore (blog. These four blogs are definitly worth following and there may be others that I'm forgetting.

Have fun and any further questions are happily answered!

Welcome to the game and forum, Myrk.

I'm a newish player too, and a few months ago I started a thread documenting my efforts to beat Escape from Dol Guldur using Core set cards (straight solo and 2-handed)… don't know if you'll find it useful? http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/124429-escape-from-dol-guldur-using-core-set-cards-only-straight-solo-and-2-handed/?hl=%2Bescape+%2Bguldur

Following this game's Golden Rule of "worst interpretation of the rules is usually correct"

To split hairs just a little bit.

The golden rule is in the rule book and states that if card text contradicts the rule book, then the card text takes precedence.

The rule about following the worst interpretation, when in doubt, is more an unofficial rule, which has crept into the community, because, as a co-op game, there is little to prevent all kinds of imaginative interpretations of the rules; a rule that many of us, including myself, prefer to follow, rather than risk cheating. I am not aware that it should have a (semi)official name though.

Thanks for all the replies!

I'm familiar with some of the linked resources - the TftC New Player Buying Guide convinced me I'd prefer to pick up expansions in release order and I'd been following Beorn's Path for the first 2 core scenarios (more on that later). I'll check out the other blogs I hadn't stumbled on yet and will make my way through TwiceBornh's EfDG write-up. That looks interesting!

As I mentioned, I had used Beorn's Path for the earlier scenarios. I probably wouldn't have been able to complete Journey Down the Anduin without using his "path" deck (with a couple of minor modifications) and strategies for dealing with the Hill Troll.

Through the first 2 quests I had only played single-handed. After my first epic EfDG failure with a single deck of my own design, I decided I wanted to try playing two-handed solo. I mistakenly assumed Beorn's Path continued to use a single deck (don't know how I missed the article's title) and set off looking for 2-deck recommendations.

Prior to my original post, I had found and used Xanalor's decks that Teamjimby linked. I made it to the second stage of EfDG a few times but was never able to push through. I'm sure those decks are well-constructed, and I'll likely return to them at some point, but I don't think I was fully utilizing Beravor (rarely triggered her ability and mostly dedicated her to questing) and I had some bad luck during setup, with Eowyn being made prisoner 2 out of my 3 games.

When I woke up yesterday to see Dan himself had pointed me back to Beorn's Path I took another look and finally noticed his EfDG article focuses on "Building a Second Core Set Deck". So I built his decks and gave them a couple tries. My first attempt came up short again with Aragorn imprisoned and 2 early "Caught In A Web" cards draining my resource tokens. On my second try the prisoner was Thalin and I thought I was going to have trouble without his damage-dealing but, to my complete surprise, I won!

Ok, I won with an asterisk. I had some good luck with an early Gandalf appearance and a timely Forest Snare, easily pushing into the second stage with Gandalf's Map in Eowyn's hands after 5 rounds. She can't attack or defend while holding that map? Who cares? I have no plans to use her for that!

As I moved to the second stage I had a lot of cards on the table. I hadn't had to chump-block a single ally, I had 3 enemies engaged, and the staging area was 5-6 cards deep. So I completely forgot to put the Nazgul in play when I rescued Thalin. I noticed it a couple turns later but I was too far along to figure out how to backtrack. My threat was low enough that he didn't engage even by the time I finally did move him to staging. But Eowyn had been a buffed-up 8 willpower questing machine and I had made good progress without having to deal with the Nazgul's 5 threat. Thus...an asterisk.

I think I still would have won. I had some allies who could have quested during those turns, if necessary, and I wound up with 19 progress tokens out of 15 required when I advanced to the 3rd stage. A couple chump-blocks and whacks from a bleeding Gimli made quick work of the Nazgul in stage 2 and the low requirement of 7 progress tokens allowed me to complete the 3rd stage in 2 turns.

That's all I had time for yesterday but I'll add yet another "thanks" to Beorn for his "Path" series! I plan to try EfDG one or two more times using his decks, then move on to THfG. Maybe I'll come back to EfDG with a hand augmented with AP cards. Either way, I'll definitely continue to follow the big bear's lead!

As a reward for making it through this lengthy post, I'll ask one more question. During the 3rd stage I had the Shadow Key attached to Thalin since I was able to keep him healed with Daughter of the Nimrodel. In the first round of that stage Thalin was defending when the Cavern Guardian came up as the Shadow Card. Since I had to return an attachment to staging I chose to return the Shadow Key to avoid the ongoing damage hit, then later reclaimed it as my last act to win the scenario. Although this benefited me, I could find no reason I couldn't do it. Was that a legal play?

Well done - congrats! I must admit that I have never defeated Escaped from Dol Guldur using Xanalor's decks, either. And it was much more satisfying beating it with decks of my own design.

As a reward for making it through this lengthy post, I'll ask one more question. During the 3rd stage I had the Shadow Key attached to Thalin since I was able to keep him healed with Daughter of the Nimrodel. In the first round of that stage Thalin was defending when the Cavern Guardian came up as the Shadow Card. Since I had to return an attachment to staging I chose to return the Shadow Key to avoid the ongoing damage hit, then later reclaimed it as my last act to win the scenario. Although this benefited me, I could find no reason I couldn't do it. Was that a legal play?

Yes, that was a legal play… but FYI, the quest only requires that you have the three objective cards attached to heroes in order to pass from stage 2 to stage 3 of the quest. You don't have to have all objective cards in hand to win stage 3 -- you just need to make sure the Nazgul is no longer in play!

Well done - congrats! I must admit that I have never defeated Escaped from Dol Guldur using Xanalor's decks, either. And it was much more satisfying beating it with decks of my own design.

As a reward for making it through this lengthy post, I'll ask one more question. During the 3rd stage I had the Shadow Key attached to Thalin since I was able to keep him healed with Daughter of the Nimrodel. In the first round of that stage Thalin was defending when the Cavern Guardian came up as the Shadow Card. Since I had to return an attachment to staging I chose to return the Shadow Key to avoid the ongoing damage hit, then later reclaimed it as my last act to win the scenario. Although this benefited me, I could find no reason I couldn't do it. Was that a legal play?

Yes, that was a legal play… but FYI, the quest only requires that you have the three objective cards attached to heroes in order to pass from stage 2 to stage 3 of the quest. You don't have to have all objective cards in hand to win stage 3 -- you just need to make sure the Nazgul is no longer in play!

Ha! Another lesson that card text is to be taken very, very literally. I just assumed the stage 3 requirements carried over. Good catch, thanks!

I remember running this quest on the play by forum area of BGG when this game first came out

It was 4 players just using core set cards, yet they found it fairly trivial to defeat if I recall correctly

It evidently makes a difference if only 1/12 of the heroes are prisoner at the start of the scenario (4 player game), compared to 1/3 (solo) or 1/6 (2-player or 2-handed).