Hello,

I am thinking of getting into the game because I really enjoy the idea of being able to play it solo (ie after wife and kids go to bed) and cooperatively with my wife. I picked up AH and while I enjoy it, I love the LotR material as I associate with the base material and never been that high on Lovecraft.

A couple questions, as since the game has been out for a while, the apparent investment is considerable:

1. How many core sets do you need?

2. How viable is the game from a game play experience to play solo-single handed (or are you needing double handed to actually progress)?

Thoughts appreciated

1) One core set should be fine. I have two now, but one is sufficient to build interesting decks for one-handed play, especially if you don't worry about getting to 50 cards while your card pool is still small.

2) Playing solo single-handed is completely viable and many players do so. There is one quest in the core set (Escape from Dol Goldur) and one quest in the first cycle (Return to Mirkwood) that are near-impossible for the one-handed player, but very few quests after that scale so badly.

When starting, I suggest you check out the excellent Beorn's Path:

https://hallofbeorn.wordpress.com/beorns-path/

I'll echo the above. My partner and I played for a long time with just one Core set. But, I wanted more copies of the power cards that are 1-of, or 2-of in a single Core set (Unexpected Courage, for example). We bought a second core set about 6 months after we started playing consistently.

Thank you kindly