Hi all,

When setting up 3 heroes I seem to arrange the art on the cards in a way that's pleasing to the eye , although sometimes other things like heroes of the same sphere being next to each other, or even a thematic position based on who quests, defends and attacks comes into play.

Just wondering if others place any thought into the arrangement of heroes based on aesthetics, function etc. or is it randomly arranged?

As a side quiz, i pulled 3 random heroes.

In no particular order here they are:

Boromir tactics

Pippin Lore

Gimli tactics

Take a look at the card art.

How would you arrange them on the table?

Any reason for your arrangement?

Thanks for playing along. Just wondering.

I place them in order; questing, attacking, defending and/or special ability.

I usually place my heroes in order of importance, but that is mainly to the first spot wich for example would go to Elrond or Glorfindel spirit. After that match by sphere or artwork. ( I haven't play ever tactic boromir or tactic brand as I can't stand their artwork.... , in this game as much as practical use I take in consideration estetic value of cards, especially hero. Luckily both of those got rewarded in better second version ( witch I don't own yet ), but the first hero is usually the one who is leading... When I was playing just core set, that was usually legolas.

Gimli, Boromir, Pippin. It feels that way for me.

So that they look inward, of course. Giving the sense of unity.

Pippin, Gimli, Boromir. Boromir must never be penned in. He runs on pure adrenaline and needs room to run. The Captain needs to be free.

More often than not, I follow the above stated pattern: main quester, main defender, main attacker (Leadership Aragorn, Elrohir, Elladan).

Yeah, I line up my heroes in a particular order too, but not on specific rhings. I just feel like they should be lined up that way, without any real reason.

Boromir, Gimli, Pippin.

Nice topic! From left to right, I would go: Boromir, Gimli, Pippin. (Same sphere and higher threat to the left.)

I keep heroes with the same sphere next to each other for clarity. As far as aesthetics go and in trisphere decks it's a bit arbitrary. I think the heroes with higher threat tend to go further to the left. I have thought about these preferences before, and I think at least I follow no rules but it has to be decided for each individual lineup. If I switch out just one hero from a lineup I often use, the other two pretty much always keep their old space. But not always.

So, some examples would be:

Elrond, Loragorn, Spirfindel.

Elrond, Gandalf, Spirfindel.

Loragorn, Idraen, Spirfindel. (Here I want the two Spirit heroes next to each other, and I'd rather move top-threat hero to the left than move Spirfindel from the rightward position.)

Gloin/Thorin, Dain, Gimli.

Elrohir, Elladan, Gimli/Mablung. (Possible logic here could be that defending happens first, and so Elrohir is left of Elladan.)

The dwarf lineup is what my fiancée uses quite often, and I even put the heroes in my own preferred order in her deckbox. But she still rearranges them when they hit the table. Quite rightly, of course. She thought an alternative order "just looked/felt better". It's interesting.

I may have mild ocd, if that's a thing. Especially considering I've edited this post for spelling mistakes about 4 times. Not something fit to joke about, though.

I am quite practical with my Hero arrangement. I am right handed, and so always put the Hero that does the most questing on the right. Then, the hero who usually attacks in the middle, and then the utility hero who usually doesn't quest, rarely attacks, and sometimes defends, on the left.

@Olorin

You've given this a good amount of thought. Sounds like your set up has much to do with the efficiency of swapping heroes in and out.

For the heroes I posted. Not sure it would be a great deck, but if I were to use it. I'd line the heroes up like this:

Gimli, Boromir, Pippin

For function. I keep the 2 tactics resources pools next to each other. My main defender and attacker would be Boromir in the middle, and questers would be to the outside.

Then the choice becomes why does Boromir look better to me in the middle, and why have Gimli on the far left. There is something to having heroes face inwards, i have noticed that, but in this case Both Gimli and Boromir if placed on far left would do that.

Visually, for me, placing Gimli on the left looks better. It might have to do with his portrait being larger and the darker background, makes him blend into the side. Pippin and Boromir have lighter backgrounds and portraits are scaled to a similar size, so they seem to mesh well. Although I can see that having Gimli in the middle would really make him stand out, and that may be a desirable look for the layout, but I tend to like it the other way. Not saying this is the right way to line up the heroes, it's just what looks good to me.

Now, here is another example of not randomly chosen heroes. I've been playing this deck for the past few days, and these heroes are visually locked into these slots. I don't like the look of it any other way.

Here is the hero line up left to right:

Elrond, Glorfindel sp, Beregond

How would you all line them up? Why?

Yes that kind of question I like…

Gimly Pipin Boromir. Pipin in a middle , 2 big warriors should protect him

Haha, I was just thinking about this topic last week actually. I always arrange my heroes by sphere first, and going left to right it is always Tactics, Leadership, Spirit, Lore. So Tactics is always on the left and Lore is always on the right. Within a given sphere it is more or less random the first time, but then each subsequent time I use the same deck the heroes need to be in the same order. In your case I would probably do Boromir first because he's going to exhaust a lot more often and it's harder to exhaust the hero in the middle.

I am quite practical with my Hero arrangement. I am right handed, and so always put the Hero that does the most questing on the right. Then, the hero who usually attacks in the middle, and then the utility hero who usually doesn't quest, rarely attacks, and sometimes defends, on the left.

Interesting, I've always gravitated towards having the questing hero on the left and defender on the right. Although, the placement is not set in stone if it does not look good to me. I'm right handed also, but I find most of my work manipulating cards is in the combat phase defending or attacking with the same hero multiple times. Quest phase is usually just tapping the character once.

Where do you lay out your allies? Mine always go to the left of my heroes.

Yes that kind of question I like…

Gimly Pipin Boromir. Pipin in a middle , 2 big warriors should protect him

Looks like you go for theme.

I place them left to right in game order: quest, defend, attack. So for your group Pippen, Gimli, Boromir.

Well, since Elrond and Glorfindel are pretty much stuck in their positions to me, I would place Beregond in the middle. He's also looking down, which you can only afford if you don't have a flank to defend(!) I guess I like that Elrond looks out to the left and Glorfindel is turning to the right. This order also keeps conforming to the high->low threat desire. And Elrond may quest or defend, Beregond defends and Glorfindel is hopefully ready to attack - maybe with allies standing by.

I usually arrange allies by theme/faction as well, if space allows. So healers and ally Arwen would be close to Elrond, or Aragorn if I run him. In a Celeborn/Galadriel deck, leadership allies like Orophin and Naith Guide keep close to Celeborn while questing-oriented allies are closer to his wife. And in that case, Celeborn is definitely to the left of Galadriel. I don't know why - Teamjimby talks about a natural sphere order, and the order in my head is Leadership-Lore-Spirit-Tactics. Or Leadership just sounds like it should be leading the charge. Whatever the reason, I'd want Leadership "first" to the left, in Western natural reading order.

I have the same ´problem´ as Teamjimby that after I play with a certain group of heroes and line them up in a certain way, they have to be in the same order after that play. First lineup is mostly random.

I would line Elrond, Beregond, Glorfindel sp.

How would you all line up Daín, Bifur and Gloín?

I would line them up Daín, Gloín and Bifur.

How would you all line up Daín, Bifur and Gloín?

I would line them up Daín, Gloín and Bifur.

I'd go the same. Dain, Gloin , Bifur.

Gloin to the left of Dain does not visually look good to me. Functionally, I'd like to have the 2 leadership heroes together, but if it looked better another way I'd switch it, but I tried Bifur out in some other slots and it didn't, so he was either going to be at the left or right slot. Either, looked okay, but to the right looked better for him in the end.

I also factored in resources being passed to him would be easier for me to move them from left to right, and considered the theme of Dain standing to the left looking at the other 2 dwarves seemed to fit. Although, all his dwarven allies will be at his back to the left, which I guess also fits for me.

Contrary to quest, attack, defend order, which sometimes dictates hero slots for me, Bifur at the right would be main quester, so visual effect trumped general pattern for me.

So, I'd say the relationships between how I perceive the different pieces of art has the strongest influence on how i arrange the heroes. Just, so you all know, I'm not an art buff at all, so I'm kind of surprised to discover how important a factor it is for me.

I definitely want Dain in the centre. He's a king, and everyone around should "hear" him and be reached by the buff. So the character and ability are also factors to some, aside from the art. It's really interesting. I'm going to ask my friends about their hero placement the next time we play. I'm guessing many people won't have a good answer to the aesthetic side of things.

I don't know why - Teamjimby talks about a natural sphere order, and the order in my head is Leadership-Lore-Spirit-Tactics. Or Leadership just sounds like it should be leading the charge. Whatever the reason, I'd want Leadership "first" to the left, in Western natural reading order.

Now you got me thinking about the natural order of spheres. For me it's based on the order I have my cards organized, which has always been Tactics, Leadership, Spirit, Lore. I thought I organized my cards based on the order that the cards are numbered in the packs, which is always Leadership, Tactics, Spirit, Lore, then Neutral. So for some reason I swapped Tactics and Leadership. Possibly because Tactics was my favorite sphere in the beginning and Leadership has always been my least favorite. Nonetheless, I think the official sphere order should be how they are numbered in the packs. I'm curious how you came up with your order.

I'm curious how you came up with your order.

I think it's because it's the order the spheres are introduced on page 4 of the core set rulebook. (I just had to re-check, cause I hadn't looked in it for a long time. But that's the order there, so I guess I've been following that.) The player card deck boxes follow the same order in my storage suitcase.

My wife always arranges them in order by role: quester, defender, attacker. Recently I've been messing with her by giving her decks without dedicated attackers or defenders. Somehow she pushes through.

I always have a sense for how a given group of heroes "should" be lined up (and even enter them in the "appropriate" order when I put them into the quest log). The reasoning is somewhat mysterious even to me, but I believe it has something to do with the prominence of a hero in the deck's function (e.g., this is a "Legolas" deck so I'm going to put him all the way on the left, in the place of honor), but also physical manipulation of the cards comes into play. A hero that will get tapped a lot, like Boromir, or get tappable attachments, like Glorfindel/Asfaloth, will more often go all the way on the right so I can use the cards without causing cataclysmic events such as "dice disturbances."

I generally place them with highest threat cost being highest up, closest to the enemies and the encounter deck. This may be because I think the best hero is best equipped to fight the enemies, and therefore put him closest. I also put some heroes in certain places for no real reason. like Boromir ALWAYS goes on the left. so does bard and eowyn. Beregond goes on the right. when playing outlands, herluin goes on left, Beravior in middle, and theodred on right.

When i played that outlands deck. I had Theodred on the left, Hurluin, and then Beravor on right.

I am quite practical with my Hero arrangement. I am right handed, and so always put the Hero that does the most questing on the right. Then, the hero who usually attacks in the middle, and then the utility hero who usually doesn't quest, rarely attacks, and sometimes defends, on the left.

Interesting, I've always gravitated towards having the questing hero on the left and defender on the right. Although, the placement is not set in stone if it does not look good to me. I'm right handed also, but I find most of my work manipulating cards is in the combat phase defending or attacking with the same hero multiple times. Quest phase is usually just tapping the character once.

Where do you lay out your allies? Mine always go to the left of my heroes.

I always place my allies to the right of my heroes. Since there are no lands (as in MTG) or locations (as in AGOT) in LOTR, I keep my heroes close to the bottom of my playmat; the only thing more left than my heroes are my discard pile and deck, which I place vertically on the far left side of the playmat, the discard pile being at the bottom left corner of the playmat and my deck right above it. My allies go to the right of my heroes and then sometimes end up as two rows (e.g., Dwarves, Outlands).