I would like to begin by declaring that I am seriously in love with this game.

Bought the game on Monday, played a few games the same evening with the core decks. Won the first mission with leadership on my first try, and lost a few with lore, spirit and tactics. The next day I started building a leadership/spirit deck and won and lost some more. So time for the second quest. Beat the quest again on my first try, beginner's luck?

Felt so confident I immediately played the quest again, and got brutally defeated and ended without even a single progression on the first part of the quest. But I loved it.. I don't think I have ever loved losing before.

Wednesday evening I played co-op with some friends I regularly play games with. One of them loved it as well and the other had some difficulty understanding the complete game at once, but I can't blame her for that.

So on Thursday I decided it was time for more cards, since I discovered there are quite a few expansions. And I really liked the idea of creating a better deck to play with, so I bought the following;

Adventure - A Journey to Rhosgobel

Adventure - The Dead Marshes

Deluxe- Khazad-Dum

Adventure - The Redhorn Gate

Adventure - Road to Rivendell

Adventure - The Watcher in the Water

Adventure - The Long Dark

Adventure - Shadow and Flame

Deluxe - Heirs of Numenor

Adventure - The Blood of Gondor

Adventure - The Dunland Trap

Adventure - The Antlered Crown

Saga - The Black Riders

After doing some reading on this forum, I discovered there is a natural order in which these were released and are preferred to be played. So I ordered the remaining expansions from the Shadows of Mirkwood cycle;

Adventure - The Hunt for Gollum

Adventure - Conflict at the Carrock

Adventure - The Hills of Emyn Muil

Adventure - Return to Mirkwood

So my collection has grown pretty fast since only discovering this game last Monday, but I'm not rushing through it by playing everything at once. Like to take my time for exploring different card combinations and understanding the different cards by slowly adding them to what I have available.

Even though I love constructing a great deck, I decided to limit myself to the players cards available per cycle.

So I opened the two Adventure packs from the first cycle and thought of ways to include them in my deck. But now I can't decide, do I start playing the first adventure expansion I have available, A Journey to Rhosgobel, or do I wait until The Hunt for Gollum is being delivered in a couple of days and continue playing Passage through Mirkwood and Journey down the Anduin? According to what I have read I am better of leaving Escape from Dol Guldur alone for a while?

Thanks for taking your time reading this and hopefully someone can tell me what I should do.

Since it took a while before my first post got approved, I already decided to be patient and just wait for the other expansion packs to arrive at the end of the week.

However, after reading these forums and while playing I found out about the core set and the 1x and 2x cards.

I have read different opinions about buying multiple core sets, but my real question is; in all the different decks you use, how many times do you use extra copies of the cards from the core set?

Welcome to the game! That's awesome how you are just diving head first into the game. I do suggest playing through the quests in the order they were released and limiting your available card pool as you go. I also suggest ignoring escape from Dol Guldur until you get into the Dwarrowdelf cycle.

Regarding multiple core sets, there are a few powerful 1x and 2x cards that you'll usually include in every deck that matches the sphere. Steward of Gondor, Unexpected Courage, Sneak Attack (with Gandalf), Test of Will, and Feint are the main ones. There are a few others that get used a lot like Northern Tracker, Horn of Gondor, and Celebrian's Stone. If you are just making one deck, buying a 2nd core set won't make a huge difference. You might have 1 extra copy of 3 or 4 cards as a result of the 2nd core. But if you are planning to make 2 or more decks, having a second core can be handy to let you put 3 Gandalfs in multiple decks, or Test of Will/Feint in multiple decks, or whatever.

But unlike other LCGs, this is a co-op. So it doesn't really matter if your deck is slightly weaker than it could possibly be. If you are planning to mostly play solo, stick with one core set for now. If you are planning to occasionally play 3 or 4 player, definitely get a second core.

Thanks! I think i'll mostly be playing solo, definitely at first.

My friends did seem to like the game and have already declared wanting to play again. However, I don't see them constructing a deck before playing some games. And even after a few games I don't know how effective it will be for them to be building a deck with the cards I have left, since they will probably not be reading as much into this game as I have already done.

Hey, welcome to the game. Glad you enjoy it.

You are definitely in deep already. Have you got a grasp of the expansion/cycle format? Saga expansions like the Black Riders are independent, but deluxe expansions go with 6 adventure packs that should be played in order (first the quests in the big box, then pack 1-6). You can't play The Dunland Trap or The Antlered Crown without The Voice of Isengard, as you will need encounter cards from the expansion box.

Take your time to explore the packs one at a time. You've made quite an investment if you've bought all that for normal prices, so if I were you I would break open maybe one pack a week and try the new cards and scenarios (depending on how long you want that experiencec to last).

We like to link Beorn's Path to new players, too. Hall of Beorn is a great resource overall and has blog articles and a card search function.

I have been playing since day one and I can tell you that the reason I think you will last is because you said you loved losing. In my experience that is what you need to be able to play this game successfully and long term. This game is brutally difficult at times, but that is when it is the most fun. If you find yourself getting crushed by a quest, don't worry. It happens to everyone. A lot of people got crushed by Into Ithelien, but I beat it pretty easily, but then Morgan Vale kicked my butt. It took me dozens of decks before I finally felt I had mastered the quest. Don't even get me started on Nightmare Versions, some of which are insane.

I also recommend the website A Tale from the Cards, especially the buyer's guide, so you know what expansions to buy. Have fun!

Thanks for the recommendations!

I have visited both sites already and started reading some of their 101's, but I also like to learn about the cards by playing them, so I won't read in to the articles too much for now. Although I am glad I found out that tactics from core isn't really viable, because I just lost two games in a row with spirit/tactics.

About the cycles and saga's, yes I think I completely understand. So I will slowly expand by opening packs when I feel like I experienced the cards from the previous cycle/expansion. It's a bit hard to resist opening everything at once, but I feel like I will get to know the cards and game better by taking it slow.

And I know it will probably take a while before I reach the Dunland Trap or Antlered Crown, but they were pretty cheap compared to were I got the core set and they didn't have much stock, so I bought everything they had. The Adventure packs were €11 compared to €19 and the Deluxe packs were €24 compared to €37 or something. And since I really liked the game I took everything they had, since new stock will probably be a lot more expensive with the Euro/Dollar rate.

And I would have never imagined to like losing, but after every defeat I simply start to analyze how to enhance my deck. So hopefully newer cards will live up to my expectations and planned strategies.

Awesome thread.

Sounds very much like me. I fell totally for the game and have bought nearly everything over only 7 weeks.

But....

I am only opening one pack at a time and playing it many times with different decks and different spheres before finally deciding to move on to another pack.

I have just started conflict at carrock.

Doing it slow really is fun.

Awesome awesome game.

Just think, rather than just fighting against an opponents card deck, you will be.....exploring haunted castles, journeying through forests, defending cities under siege, delving into the caverns of mines, escorting dignitaries, fighting large monsters, stealthing through areas, hunting out clues on a tracking trail, journeying through snow covered mountains, misty marshes...searching for spies, defending villages, battling at helms deep, undertaking epic journeys etc etc.

Its just so much deeper and varied than a 1-deck vs 1-deck type of game

Sounds similar indeed! But I probably won't be buying anything else for a while, since I can get by for quite some time with what I have already.

Yes, I like the game because there is so much variation and unpredictability. And I simply love the art and the lore on the cards, plus I like to connect certain abilities or actions from player cards with the characters or characteristics from the books.

I haven't played much 1vs1 card games, only Pokemon TCG Online for a while. I liked the game and, must admit, like the Pokemon, but the 'collectible' aspect and the predictability of the game didn't appeal to me. Once you reach a certain collection and level of playing you already know 85% of the cards your opponent is playing after they play their first card..

I think a lot of this depends on personal preference. I didn't buy in the suggested order, and it certainly didn't turn me off to the game.

As far as how many core sets. I don't know. So far I have stubbornly stuck to 1 core. I can't say I'm unhappy with the decision, it helps to keep things challenging. I may buy another core because I'd like to have maybe 4 decks built at a time, so that I can change decks if I want easily. Probably I'll try to make sure that each individual deck can be built with only 1 core. To me that seems the "right" way to do it, and certainly keeps it more challenging than running 3x Unexpected Courage all the time.

But however you prefer and have fun, that's how you should play.

Read this if you haven't already. It's my personal favorite article from the best LOTR LCG blog (Tales from the Cards) and it's very helpful to new players:

https://talesfromthecards.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/5-things-i-wish-i-wouldve-known-when-i-started-playing-lotr-lcg/

I thought about buying an extra core set and lending the spare player and encounter cards to one of my friends, but somehow that doesn't seem very motivating..

I didn't buy a second core set until two years after the first one, and that was only because I found a used one for a good price. Some key cards may make it worth it, but if your friends want to start playing they could pay for their own core sets (or share one - two of my friends shared a single core for more than a year).

I'm still not convinced whether to buy a spare core set or not, but will play some games with my friends and see how it goes.

Received the other expansions from the Mirkwood Cycle today, a little earlier than I expected.

Opened them to look at the player cards.

OMG, so much potential!

I dont plan on getting a second core until I see one cheap on ebay.

I have only played with core + 2APs and its already difficult keeping the decks to 50 cards. Once your decks go duo or tri-sphere you can fill 50 easily and then the extra cards from APs flesh it out, so even with a second core Im not sure that it would make much difference to my deck other than say an extra unexpected courage and maybe the sneak attacks for leadership. Even then, Born Aloft seems a slightly different animal of sneak attack just for tactics, so you can still expand that way without more core.

Personally I would (and did) spend the money on more APs.

It is good having them in stock but only playing them slowly though. Much easier to get your head around card interactions when you arent burried under so many new cards.

I got the game couple of months and yes, it's lots of fun. I recently beaten shadow and flame, and that's basically all what I have at the moment. It's just great how certain scenarios require different approach at times, there's some easy tactics but I like the fact that willing to play a different hero set ups push you to brainstorm a interesting deck combinations. I take scenarios in the order that it's recommended and then try to to beat it couple of times with different teams till I know I got it right. It's nice to get a nice score but since I have one I don't pay much attention to that, as the game itself ( surviving the quest) it's the main thing

It's great, from my stand point that is so much more ahead.

Yes, playing the same quest different times can feel like a completely different experience. And with different heroes and player cards, the possibilities almost seem infinite. I currently own some expansions, but have only played the two first quests from the core set so far, and it still seems different every time.

I even tried playing two-handed yesterday. And with so much more room for cards and spheres, I completely overwhelmed the first mission twice. Now I understand the difficulty level of 1 given to it, so I will try the second quest today.

I don't know whether I will keep playing like this or solo, but this way I can build complementary decks so I can play with friends and use better decks, instead of the standard core decks for multiplayer. Which seems like a way better option to me.

Question; do you always have to activate a response, or is this optional?

Optional.

Thanks!

I waited two turns to play this card because I didn't want to discard again because of the effect of the location, but knowing this makes it more playable.

By the way, when switching locations, do you actually travel there? So when the location effects says, 'when you travel here', do you resolve that effect?

No in that case you're not actually travelling there, so you don't resolve the Travel effect.

Yeah, it's true, it's quite amazing. Me and my brother ( who got me in to the game, even tho we live in opposites sides of the globe) when we compare our ways how to deal with certain quests, it's so different. Some cards at times that you never use suddenly are a bullseye on some scenarios in certain combos. It's just fun to play with deck building.

Ha, that makes me feel even more stupid.

Do people have favorite hero's or cards to play with, or do you just adapt to the game or scenario?

Because I'm already noticing wanting to play cards that don't seem like the best options to play.

I think that really varies from player to player. I bashed through every scenario from the core set through Mirkwood, Khazad-Dûm and Dwarrowdelf with one single deck. I like trying the same heroes and playstyle against different scenarios. I'm also big on theme - I very rarely play recommended decks if I don't like the idea or hero combinations. Some players are always open to new builds and possibilities, others wait until cards they really like and fit with their preferred playstyle are released. I'm excited for this cycle because I like elves and dúnedain, and I'm hoping for more beefy elvish allies. I could, for instance, never put a Gondor ally in a Galadriel deck just because he has 4 Defense - I would stick with a thematic card, even if it put me at a disadvatange. There is no right and wrong here! Play the game just how you like.

Out of curiosity, which cards are your favourites so far?