Wow! So I'm only my 2nd scenario into the base deck and I'm stuck. I'm using the leadership deck with Prince Imrahil from one of thr expansions in place of the dwarf.

I can't for the life of me get past the troll i have to draw at the start with any significant amount of threat left. Basically, placing the troll, a random card into the staging area and another during the quest phase is a killer before even the first quest try is done.

And then if I beat the first objective (with like 5 threat left), drawing 2 cards into the staging area per quest per the next objective rules just kills me (very very quickly).

It seems as if I am unable to draw Steward of Gondor AND Celebrian's Stone very quickly, there's no way to win.

Any tips? The excessive damage from the troll going straight to threat wipes me out. And I've even removed the orange advanced cards! I feel like I'm missing something strategically.

Help!

I am not much of an pure Leadership player, not much experience here.

Your heroes do have a thread above 30. If you chose other heroes the troll won't engange you in the first round, which gives you time to build up your cards.

I recently did this one. You really need to start with low threat so you have time to build your forces and get strategy in place. If you don't have many expansions, a single sphere deck is probably NOT your best option.

Read this guide for some tips: https://talesfromthecards.wordpress.com/2014/01/14/how-to-kill-a-hill-troll

I am not much of an pure Leadership player, not much experience here.

So why is your avatar the Leadership icon? Sorry, had to ask

Btw, the experiance you are having is very very common. The second quest is very brutal on starting players and the difficulty rating is a joke, so don't feel like your dumb or bad at the game. You'll figure it out eventually if you stick to it, and it's totally worth it.

So why is your avatar the Leadership icon? Sorry, had to ask

Are there any other Resource Icons? My choice was like.. this forum is some sort of resource (knowledge) generation for LOTR LCG, so the icon fits perfectly for myself.

Thanks for all of your help and encouragement folks!

The article referenced above mentions Son of Arnor. With that card, it states that you can engage the Hill Troll in the staging area. So does that mean that you can attack him in the staging area without him attacking back? Or because it mentions "engage" does that mean that he still attacks first? And if yes to the last question, what good is it?

The card's ability says you engage the enemy, not attack it. Handy for getting those pesky snipers though.

Ghost Dancer beat me to it, but to elaborate slightly:

Engaging an enemy just means that it leaves the staging area and is considered "engaged" with you. Since the enemy is no longer in the staging area, this means that the engaged enemy no longer contributes its threat during the quest phase. This also means that you can play cards such as Forest Snare that require an engaged enemy. This does not change the order of combat, however. Since the enemy is engaged with you, you follow the normal steps for combat as in the rulebook.

To elaborate on entMoot's elaboration... An enemy needs to be engaged before you can snare it, which usually means you have to survive one round of combat before you can attach the snare. If you play Son of Arnor during the planning phase then you can engage an enemy (a troll, say) and slap a snare on it immediately, without it ever having a chance to attack you.

Without giving too many spoilers, my tip for this scenario is to keep your threat low, so you have time to gather your forces before you tackle the troll. Choose heroes with a low starting threat, and use Gandalf to lower your threat level further. If you're running Spirit then Gladhrim's Greeting is a must.