I'm a solo player of core only, but recently picked up The Lost Realm and Heirs of Numenor. I'm planning on a gaming day with a few buddies, and was thinking of busting this out. I was curious in mono- decks would be best with 4 players and this cardpool?

Thanks!

Jason

first off. With Just the Core set and nothing in between, i highly recommend you skip doing any Heirs quests, as you will more than likely get destroyed and it will leave a bad taste in your friend's mouths about the game.

seeing as how you have 3 big boxes but nothing in between, i'd just stick with the Core set. Add in some cards from the expansions, but no Heroes, just some cool cards from each faction to help them out.. Remove some of the more useless overpriced core set cards. The problem with buying just the big box sets is that you're leaving any deck you make rather incomplete. a better investment would've been to buy the first 6 adventure packs and Kazad Dum. if that wasn't an option, than the core set have a ton of fun in it. when i introduce new players to the game, i just run the core set with the 1st mission typically. no one wants to get trounced in their first outing when they really just learned the game, and that core mission has it all, goblins, orcses, spiders, giants spiders, treacheries that punish. it's really the perfect teaching mission, if, a little dated. Kazad'Dum does inherently ramp up the excitement.

You can definitely go monosphere, best to give your teammates a heads up on what your going to do, mono-spirit is great, you could bring the cancellation effects, solid questing, and have your teammates fill your weakspot, i.e combat, by optionally engaging enemies for you. Spirit is great for support, and there's no shame in a support-deck. Other ways you could go are lore for healing effects, tactics for combat, etc. Just let lol know what your role will be. Don't worry about what you have purchased so far, we've all been there. As said above, avoid the heirs of numenor quests as they can be crazy tough, best suited for a larger card pool to build from.

Happy questing

Disclaimer, I'm no expert but my limited experience has been that Heirs of Numenor outside of nightmare quests widely known to be one of the toughest expansions in the entire game to this point. Odds of you doing anything but getting horrifically crushed are quite high, even with the cardpool from every expansion ever created this expansion is very tough and requires not only optimal deck building but excellent team play. I think it was designed with veteran players in mind.

I second the notion that if you are going to introduce new players you do so by using the core sets first quest, its really designed just for that purpose. I would avoid the second and third missions, these are very difficult with just the core set. Your better off as mentioned working your way through the first adventure cycle which is both far more reasonable, beatable and thematic.

If you want to do something fun that works fine with the core set, Murder at the Prancing Pony is a fantastic multiplayer set that not only shows off the versatility of the game, but offers a great but beatable challenge. Its my personal favorite but it does add a couple of special rules so this is a good 2nd or 3rd game of Lord of the Rings.