The core set has been kicking my but. Do you guys find it easier to play co-op or solo? Seams like I have a harder time playing solo then I do playing co-op.

And what to buy next? Do I need to start with the Mirkwood cycle and wait for it to arrive on the boat?

The Saga sets look cool. Can you start with those? Or should I wait in tell I own stronger cards from other expansions?

I think with just the Core Set multiplayer may be easier than solo. Once you have enough of a card pool to build a good solo deck solo is generally easier (possibly still harder to deckbuild for, but once you've put together a good deck actually winning the game is a lot easier), but with just the Core Set it's a lot harder to make one deck do everything by itself.

The Saga quests vary in difficulty, some of them you might struggle with a card pool of just Core + Saga. On the other hand, the Saga boxes do offer a fantastic influx of good player cards, so it may well still be doable, and those cards will certainly help you win other quests. I'd say Saga is a pretty good way to go, because even if some of the quests do prove a bit too difficult, they're still very good quests (also Easy mode can potentially even things out in that case).

When I try to play the core set solo that is exactly the problem i run into. I am successful in the quest phase but can't handle the combat phase. Or I am successful in the combat phase but I loose in the quest phase. When I have had the most success is when I played co-op and we mix the 4 spheres in to 2 50 card decks. Then I focused on the questing and my wife was focusing on combat.

I had the same issue at core days playing solo.

What I went for was a trisphere deck.

Eowyn/Spirit for questing and threat reduction

Gimli/Tactics for pure combat

Theodred/Leadership for resource generation (his ability) as well as Steward of Gondor, Celebrians stone, sneak attacks etc (or Gloin with his resource ability if healing available)

I missed out on Lore so did lose main healing and card-draw but that seemed less needed and you can include the healer Daughter Of Nimrodel which Eowyns discard ability dumps into your discard pile then Spirits "stand and fight" cards lets you put into play, so really I only lost out on card draw. Though occassionally I needed to swap in Lore in order to use Minor of the HIlls or Forest Snare for special occassions.

It needs careful resource management but with the above noted resource generators it isnt as bad as you would think. Also, with usually less cards per sphere in-hand less resources is still ok.

That for me gave me an almost 4-sphere experience with a single solo player deck and only used core cards. I found it fun and worked.

So something along those lines may help in your initial solo games until you get your card pool up

Happy gaming, its an awesome game!!