I think I already know the answers to both of these but want to double check.

1) Is there a maximum number of Corruption Cards that a hero can have at any one time?
2) Are Corruption Cards removed when a hero dies?

Cheers.

Noodle2977 said:

No and no.

"Best" so far has been 6 Corruption on one hero (twice). Today Argalad was limited to 3 Favor, 3 Travel, couldn't trade with others or consult with characters, -1 Fortitude, -1 Strength and only drew 2 instead of 3 Encounter cards. So he was utterly unable to remove his Corruption. Oh yeah, Hero Mission was to finish with no more than 1 Corruption card (Eometh had 0) .

Thought so. I was Sauron the other day playing a game with one hero – Thalin. He entered one fight with 5 Corruption Cards on him & I played the Shadow Card which inflicts -1 Strength & -1 Agility (I think) per Corruption Card. Ouch. Was so nasty that I wondered if I was playing it incorrectly.

As an aside to this, playing with one hero worked really well. The main gripe so far has been too much downtime between turns which is worse with 3 heroes. We could speed things up but we actually like playing at a leisurely pace (I know this hardly makes sense). We’re playing with 2 heroes on Saturday I think so hopefully that will be optimal.

Noodle2977 said:

Yeah, Thalin is a Peril magnet, which often -> Corruption. I've seen Thalin face 3 Peril draws on the first turn, heading from Erebor to Northern Waste to meet up with Dain (if he gets that Starting Quest). Dropping 2 Influence is pretty easy, especially if you start with the Red token Starting Plot (which gives you 2 for each Stronghold and 9 in extension, you can just flood the north with influence).

Of course, Thalin's turn doesn't end if he fails to defeat an enemy in combat during the Travel Step, unless he is defeated, so he could just take the damage and keep moving. And you know no Shadow Cards in final combat, right?

Noodle2977 said:

Continuing your aside, I actually was a bit displeased with the 2P game as Sauron, only because it made the Hero too mobilegiven that she had 2 different Travel Steps to cross the board, drawing new cards in between, I was struggling to throw up enough road blocks to slow her down from darting across the board and disrupting my plots. Especially since it was the Gondorian noblewoman (meaning she kept gaining favor more easily) and Theodin was one of the first characters outso she quickly had a horse, as well.

Rough combo. Thalin is obviously much easier to slow down but he trained LOADS so I might have been in trouble if we'd got into the final combat.

I saw Eleanor actually defeated due to Corruption + Shadow Card in a recent game. She kept getting Corruption from Peril, then got hit with Morgul-blade (5 dmg for each Corruption or 1 Corruption and 3 dmg), she took 20 dmg at the start of battle!

After seeing one hero pretty much sidelined due to allowing buildup of corruption cards (five for several turns), our group is very careful to avoid corruption and eliminate the cards at the first possible opportunity.

It is simple and easy to remove corruption cards, as long as you only have to deal with one (or two) at a time. If you let them build up on your hero, you have essentially failed "hero 101", and the game will punish you for it.