New player. We're grinding our way through the first block, and I'm putting together a board game order and I see Sagas. I read Sagas and they seem to exist as a seperate product almost? So I'm a little confused. You guys seem to be all in the know.

Two questions.

1. Do Sagas link together like the normal LOTR blocks 'can'?

2. Do Sagas ever mix in with the normal blocks or do they really just stand alone as their own story telling product?

Thanks!

Each product comes with a series of player cards and encounter cards.

Any player card in any product can be used in any other product, with the exception of a few very Saga-only cards (this is something like 4 cards per pack).

The scenarios in the Saga expansions do not require anything other than the Core Set to play them. The LotR Sagas also have a 'campaign mode,' and for that you have to start with the very first LotR Saga box (The Black Riders) and work your way through progressively. The Hobbit Saga expansions have something similar but less elaborate with their Treasure cards, and you would need to start with Over Hill and Under Hill (there are only 2 Hobbit boxes).

The Deluxe expansions come with 3 scenarios, each of which is composed of a number of smaller encounter card sets. You only need the Core set in order to play any Deluxe expansion, but those encounter sets in the Deluxe are necessary to play the scenarios in the subsequent Adventure Packs in that 'cycle.' You won't need any of those encounter card sets to play any of the Saga scenarios, or any of the scenarios from a different cycle.

There are also some Print on Demand scenarios which were released at Gencon or for the annual Fellowship Events. Those require only a Core set to play. But two of them do fit into the LotR Saga campaign mode if interested.

Each product comes with a series of player cards and encounter cards.

Any player card in any product can be used in any other product, with the exception of a few very Saga-only cards (this is something like 4 cards per pack).

The scenarios in the Saga expansions do not require anything other than the Core Set to play them. The LotR Sagas also have a 'campaign mode,' and for that you have to start with the very first LotR Saga box (The Black Riders) and work your way through progressively. The Hobbit Saga expansions have something similar but less elaborate with their Treasure cards, and you would need to start with Over Hill and Under Hill (there are only 2 Hobbit boxes).

The Deluxe expansions come with 3 scenarios, each of which is composed of a number of smaller encounter card sets. You only need the Core set in order to play any Deluxe expansion, but those encounter sets in the Deluxe are necessary to play the scenarios in the subsequent Adventure Packs in that 'cycle.' You won't need any of those encounter card sets to play any of the Saga scenarios, or any of the scenarios from a different cycle.

There are also some Print on Demand scenarios which were released at Gencon or for the annual Fellowship Events. Those require only a Core set to play. But two of them do fit into the LotR Saga campaign mode if interested.

Just to make sure I follow.. (Thanks Btw!).. the Normal blocks and Deluxe are one set of campaign, and then the sagas are a second set of campaigns? My wife really digs playing campaign mode, so that's cool. And if that's the case, awesome! That's what I was hoping how the sagas played, but it wasn't super clear on the product page.

Sort of yes -- the Sagas are a cohesive campaign with campaign rules and everything.

The adventure packs + deluxe expansions (We call these 'cycles') form a continuous storyline but there is no formal campaign ruleset. You can skip an AP if you want, you'll miss some story, but there is no rule preventing you from doing it.

The cycles started getting real story by the time of the 3rd cycle (Heirs of Numenor + Against the Shadow adventure packs). The first two cycles (Core set + Mirkwood and Khazad-dum + Dwarrowdelf) did not have much in the way of story, just a few lines on the quest cards and maybe a paragraph? in the rules insert.

Since that 3rd cycle however, they have written the story as if one group of heroes has continuously completed all of the scenarios.

The Saga scenarios all fall in the moderate to hard range of the difficulty scale, while the scenarios in the cycles vary a lot more.