I think the friendly fire rule is a bit cruel...

It's a cruel, cruel cosmos

The new mulligan rule caught my attention the most.

This caught my eye too, but I wasn't sure if this was normal (I don't play many card games). Drawing a hand, choosing which to keep, replacing every card discarded and replacing weaknesses drawn in either step does look very nice.

Mulligans are often all-or-nothing, and typically you shuffle the whole hand back BEFORE you re-draw, meaning there's a (small) chance of pulling the same hand again. This is a really nice way of giving the Investigators a little more control in the early game.

The new mulligan rule caught my attention the most.

This caught my eye too, but I wasn't sure if this was normal (I don't play many card games). Drawing a hand, choosing which to keep, replacing every card discarded and replacing weaknesses drawn in either step does look very nice.

Mulligans are often all-or-nothing, and typically you shuffle the whole hand back BEFORE you re-draw, meaning there's a (small) chance of pulling the same hand again. This is a really nice way of giving the Investigators a little more control in the early game.

Well Vanguard lets you choose which cards to send back.

The new mulligan rule caught my attention the most.

This caught my eye too, but I wasn't sure if this was normal (I don't play many card games). Drawing a hand, choosing which to keep, replacing every card discarded and replacing weaknesses drawn in either step does look very nice.

Mulligans are often all-or-nothing, and typically you shuffle the whole hand back BEFORE you re-draw, meaning there's a (small) chance of pulling the same hand again. This is a really nice way of giving the Investigators a little more control in the early game.

Well Vanguard lets you choose which cards to send back.

Some games do; most don't. This is (to my knowledge) the first LCG that has a partial-mulligan rule.

Some games do; most don't. This is (to my knowledge) the first LCG that has a partial-mulligan rule.

One of the newer heroes for LCG grants you the ability to partial mulligan, but generally this is right - it's all or nothing.

It's not quite Babylon 5's "Choose your starting hand", but I like that it's smoothing games away from really nasty starts.

Making Surge not trigger during setup is another difference from LOTR that I like a lot, and should reduce the number of "Well, we finished setup and basically lost. Go again?"

The new mulligan rule caught my attention the most.

This caught my eye too, but I wasn't sure if this was normal (I don't play many card games). Drawing a hand, choosing which to keep, replacing every card discarded and replacing weaknesses drawn in either step does look very nice.

Mulligans are often all-or-nothing, and typically you shuffle the whole hand back BEFORE you re-draw, meaning there's a (small) chance of pulling the same hand again. This is a really nice way of giving the Investigators a little more control in the early game.

I so agree. Some really fantastic rules here.

Like I wrote in another topic I expected an improved LOTR LCG rules wise and after having read the rules Im loving this game. Have a couple of questions (and im sure some more will show up when playing) but I just ordered the core set from my supplier.

Like I wrote in another topic I expected an improved LOTR LCG rules wise and after having read the rules Im loving this game. Have a couple of questions (and im sure some more will show up when playing) but I just ordered the core set from my supplier.

Team Covenant subscription here, but I'm going to direct-order a second Core set.

I'm still not 100% on some of the rulings. For instance, the combo of Deduction "If this skill test is successful while investigating a location, discover 1 additional clue at that location." plus some hypothetical "After you discover a clue,....". Why should that second card trigger twice? The "additional" is modifying clue, which implies to me that you have completed only ONE discovery, but of TWO clues. But the ruling indicates that you've completed TWO discoveries of ONE clue each.

Clues and additional clues are both types of clues. I think this is going to save them a lot of adjective hassle later.

If they don't want you to trigger a reaction to discovering a clue twice, they can have the text say, "gain an additional clue," as a distinct effect from "discover an additional clue."

I think a lot of this kind of templating decision depends on their plans are for templating some effects we may not have seen yet, or that they may not even have conceived yet.

I'm still not 100% on some of the rulings. For instance, the combo of Deduction "If this skill test is successful while investigating a location, discover 1 additional clue at that location." plus some hypothetical "After you discover a clue,....". Why should that second card trigger twice? The "additional" is modifying clue, which implies to me that you have completed only ONE discovery, but of TWO clues. But the ruling indicates that you've completed TWO discoveries of ONE clue each.

I think this is actually consistent with the wording. "Discover a clue" is a game effect which can come from numerous sources. The number of clues you discover is not a modifiable numeric value - you always discover one clue, you just discover multiple times.

I think if something were going to modify the number of clues you get from a discovery, it would say something like "When you investigate successfully, gain X clue tokens instead of one." That would give multiple tokens but only trigger the effect once.

Plus, the encounters are designed with a fixed number of clues available. If you can gain clues without discovering them, that could throw off some of the calculations.

For instance, a scenario about banishing some otherworldly being might have locations with the text "After you discover a clue here, deal 1 damage to the Avatar of Nyarlathotep." If every clue you get is "discovered" (and therefore triggers all relevant effects), then the designers can design the boss monster to be ludicrously hard to fight (as fits the Crawling Chaos), expecting most players to win by doing enough research to banish it instead of attacking it directly. If, however, cards like Deduction give you additional clues without triggering the "discover" effects, then an unspoiled player could potentially end up in an unwinnable state.

Plus, the encounters are designed with a fixed number of clues available. If you can gain clues without discovering them, that could throw off some of the calculations.

For instance, a scenario about banishing some otherworldly being might have locations with the text "After you discover a clue here, deal 1 damage to the Avatar of Nyarlathotep." If every clue you get is "discovered" (and therefore triggers all relevant effects), then the designers can design the boss monster to be ludicrously hard to fight (as fits the Crawling Chaos), expecting most players to win by doing enough research to banish it instead of attacking it directly. If, however, cards like Deduction give you additional clues without triggering the "discover" effects, then an unspoiled player could potentially end up in an unwinnable state.

Very logical. Thanks for pointing that out, I'd never have seen it that way.

The "standalone" adventure rule is a little awkward.

But it kind of makes sense. If you want to play scenario 2 stand-alone, you have to at least go through the resolution of scenario 1 to see if you burned your house down or if it can still be a valid location.

Well, it makes complete sense thematically, but it looks very impractical. Might be quick for second or third scenario in campaing, but what if you want to play 7th or 8th?

I was expecting something like extra page or box in campaing guide with simplified rules for playing a scenario as standalone.

I thing that the best idea for ffg to make all types of players happy, would be to offer more stand alone scenarios like Course of Rougaru. Or maybe even a Deluxe expansion with just "side stories". It would be like LotR model but reversed.

Yeah it's a bit cumbersome tbh. I get it, it's designed that way because the scenarios are linked, but set-up just increases with each scenario after the first. I wonder if someone will make a "Resolution Randomizer"? Tell it you want to run scenario 7 on cycle 2 and it generates results to quickly start playing, or at least save you the time to sift through so many inserts.

They should fix the typos?

I reckon that would be difficult to do once the rulebook is already printed...