Hey all. Long time gamer, but I've only played two solo games of LOTR at this point. Both were the core set's first scenario. Once with two of the starter decks and once with a solo Dwarf deck I found on RingsDB.

I do have a couple of questions...

1. If I have a Location in play with a value of 3 and get 5 explore tokens during the Quest Phase, do I clear the Location and put 2 on the Quest? ...or do I lose the 2?

2. If I have a Quest in play with a value of 3 and get 5 explore tokens during the Quest Phase, do I clear that Quest and put 2 on the next Quest? ...or do I lose the 2?

3. If I flip a Shadow Card during an enemy attack and it's a Treachery, do I ignore it? ...or do I resolve the Treachery effect?

1. The additional progress is placed on the Quest. Note that you say that a Location is "in play" so it's worth clarifying: a location absorbs progress and is cleared only if it is the Active Location, i.e. you Traveled to it in the Travel phase in a previous turn. If the location is just sitting in the Staging Area, it doesn't absorb any progress but also doesn't get cleared.

2. The additional progress is lost.

3. You only pay attention to the shadow effect of the shadow card. If there is no shadow effect, the card does nothing. This is the case whether the card is a location, enemy, treachery or whatever.

18 hours ago, NathanH said:

1. The additional progress is placed on the Quest. Note that you say that a Location is "in play" so it's worth clarifying: a location absorbs progress and is cleared only if it is the Active Location, i.e. you Traveled to it in the Travel phase in a previous turn. If the location is just sitting in the Staging Area, it doesn't absorb any progress but also doesn't get cleared.

2. The additional progress is lost.

3. You only pay attention to the shadow effect of the shadow card. If there is no shadow effect, the card does nothing. This is the case whether the card is a location, enemy, treachery or whatever.

Thanks!

And yes, when I said in play I meant that I had actively traveled to that location.

As I understand things now...

• Progress will 'overflow' from the active location to the active quest.

• Progress will not 'overflow' from the active quest to the next quest.

• Travelling to a location makes your questing easier, but makes the current quest effectively require more progress to complete.

• It's probably best not to commit too many characters to a quest as you'll lose surplus progress and will have fewer characters ready for combat.

Yes on all. On the last point I will even say that generally, especially on the first cycle of the game, the best is to commit to the quest only to be sure to explore the active location (so you can travel) and try to kill all the enemies who show up during the first turns. Then you can quest with almost all your character because you will only have to deal with the future cards, and never suffer any interaction between encounter cards.

On a more short way: First clean the staging area then think about pass the quest.

1 hour ago, Rouxxor said:

Yes on all. On the last point I will even say that generally, especially on the first cycle of the game, the best is to commit to the quest only to be sure to explore the active location (so you can travel) and try to kill all the enemies who show up during the first turns. Then you can quest with almost all your character because you will only have to deal with the future cards, and never suffer any interaction between encounter cards.

On a more short way: First clean the staging area then think about pass the quest.

Good advice. I was not doing that. I was trying to blast through the quests and then let the monsters kill my weaker dudes.

It could be good if you are close to the end (like only two turns to quest, so only one attack left) but not on the first turns ;).

Is it normal stratagy when playing solo in the encounte phase to straight away engage an enemy, rather than follw the the ememies to make checks? Ths gives you chance to plan who will attach who.

Simon

I think that , in solo, it's the same, unless you want to engage enemies with an engagement cost higher than your threat level.

But if you dont engage them first at your choosing then you have no say what monster engages you?

All the enemies with an engagement cost lower than or equal to your threat level engage you in the encounter phase, if i've read the Core Set Rulebook in the right way.