Hey guys,

I bought 2 core sets at the release of the game and played the scenarios quite a lot wih a friend.

Since a lot of expansions are out now, we decided to come back and experience the whole stuff from the start.

So as some overall ground rules for our future gaming sessions and first playthrough, I thought about splitting the factions (and you obviously have to stick with those until the end of the first playthrough) and going in chronological release order, means that you can only play with the cards, you got until and in the current AP. Additional recommendations for house rules are always welcome.

What bugs me though is, that The Hobbit Saga comes pretty late and regarding the timescale, I actually would want to start those two deluxe expansions as a prelude to the Core/AP's. What do you guys think about that? Regarding the difficulty (we don't like easy mode), does it weaken the core set and 1st AP set quests a lot if we start out the playthrough with The Hobbit cardpool?

Cheers

As i see it, if you have the Hobbit Sagas and whole 1st Ap set, you can have a pretty good option to build decks with Dwarfs (although missing some key cards from 2nd expansion/2nd Ap set).

If it weakens? As dwarf trait was the first great developed trait and with a great synergy it might be that it may weaken the 1st set of AP. I can't answer to that as i've never tried decks consisting only of those cardpool...

Although 3rd quest from CoreSet, and 3 quests from 1st AP set might become a chalenge (Conflict at Carrock, Journey to Rhosgobel and Return to Mirkwood) as they often need specific deck building...

Hope that can put some light (although not much)

Cheers

So what you're suggesting is often called a 'progression' style deck: attemting to restrict your cardpool to what was actually available when the CP was first released. I've been doing the same, and it's not an uncommon way to play. You'll find variants; Mitch 'TheTenthNazgul' has a youtube series doing exactly that, while another youtuber does something similar but uses cards from the entire first cycle rather than unlocking them 1 CP at a time. Fudging the lines a bit and including the Hobbit Saga won't drastically damage your experience - although it'll probably make you more likely to play a lot of dwarves . Personally, I played through Journey Through Mirkwood and Anduin with the core, played through the hobbit saga with only the cards from those (1 box at a time), and by then I'd purchased the mirkwood cycle and started my progression series in earnest - I haven't been using the Hobbit cards.

The only shame is that in doing this, you'll find some of the Mirkwood quests a little lacklustre. For instance, the second quest (Conflict at the Carrock) would probably have been quite the learning experience for me, but having played the Hobbit box, it was basically just an earlier iteration of one of those quests. My personal recommendation, having done all of this recently, would be to do run the first 2 core quests until you beat them, try the third a couple times but not get too flustered if you get beaten, and then jump into Hunt for Gollum, Conflict at the Carrock. After that, you could give the Hobbit box a shot as an intermission.

Thanks for the feedback guys,

I'll actually found this: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1214867/tale-years-mega-campaign-mode-lotr-lcg

which seems like a pretty good way to start an immersive first playhrough. Altought we'll probably mix in the progression style deckbuilding somehow.

I'm playing the whole thing as a campaign at the moment and I started with with the Hobbit sets and have moved on to the starter / Mirkwood cycle. I only swap things around when either a hero is killed on a successful run through or due to the scenario I need to make changes.