As somebody who a while back finally got a core set for Lord of the Ring, I attempted to solo with the first deck, the one with Aragon. It did not go well for me and I flamed out via threat. It took a while for me to find time to try again and I tried the tactics starter deck and again failed. Yesterday I tried the starter deck with Eowen and had a completely different experience. Well first, I did finally finish off an Ungoliant Spawn to finish the first quest with Arargorn's group. Still with Eowen, having never played with any of those deck cards before, things felt easy. Almost too easy. I am assuming I missed something substantial here.

First, using all 3 heroes of that starter deck, my threat was only a starting score of 24. The spider had a threat of 2 and the old forest road had a threat of 1. I used a card that lowered that threat at the location by one and attached equipment to Eowen that raised her Spirit by one. So what ended up resulting was a situation where I had a low enough threat that the spider wouldn't engage my group and I was committing all of my heroes to the quest. So that starting rider hero has the ability to attack enemies in the staging area if he is alone in attacking. I assumed this meant that I had to not have anybody engaged with the enemy and he could attack them from the staging area, doing 2 damage each attack.

Ultimately, I used a card to lower my threat by 6, assuming that a card that works on any player and doesn't specify any "other" player means I can choose myself. With this lower threat, I essentially just crushed the quest progress through to the end, getting the final 3B that required 10 to complete and win. So I guess I am wondering what I am missing?? If my threat is below the enemies on the board and I am not forced to engage them, can I then use my ability to attack the staged enemies, while committing everybody else to the quest? I feel like I have missed something significant here. Its only like my fourth time playing or trying to play.

Welcome to the game!

First of all, from what you've reported it sounds like you were playing correctly. It is a recognised issue that the various so-called "starter decks" perform very differently out of the box and there is plenty of debate as to whether players should be encouraged to use them at all. In particular I think most would agree that against the first quest, the spirit deck is the strongest and the tactics deck has basically no hope... Also, the core set experience can be pretty tough overall (the other two quests are even harder) so don't be too discouraged by losing.

As soon as you have time, I would recommend building your own deck combining 2 of the spheres - it will allow more flexibility to include for example willpower (as you got from spirit) and combat prowess. In some quests it won't be possible to always avoid engaging the enemies plus deck building is a big part of the fun. Depending on the quest, it can also be easier to use 2 decks, either in multiplayer or two-handed solo, but this can increase playing time accordingly.

Once you get into the game there's a lot of depth to explore. Enjoy.

You didn't miss anything. In fact you discovered something very important: Having lower threat than the engagement cost of an enemy does allow for a much more controlled game.

Later quests obviously force you to engage enemies or block progress until specific enemies are killed and Dunhere won't be able to kill them that easy so you will have to engage some. Try the second quest, even with this new knowledge it probably won't be that easy.
Also the starter decks are not that impressive. As soon as you feel confident try to at least mix two together (aim for exact 50 card decks).

Hey thanks so much! I must admit I have already discovered I had made a huge mistake regarding combat. I, somehow, missed the fact that in combat if I use two attackers against the same enemy, I can combine their attack value. I was so putting myself at an even greater disadvantage previously with my Leadership starter deck. I for some reason assumed that those characters without enough attack to get past an enemies defense alone, meant they were useless except as defense fodder. Wow the Ungoliant Spawn would have been a far more controlled battle had I known. I ended up only doing one damage a round with Aragorn while I threw low level people as defenders. Wow, I am going to do another read of the rules book. I still want to do a play through with the Lore deck so that I know what that one looks like and then I will feel better about starting to create my own decks. I have read just about everywhere, how challenging the 3rd quest is with only the core deck. Some folks describe it as "near impossible".

Near impossible is certainly an apt description for Escape from Dol Guldor with only the core set. At least in solo. With 2 players, it becomes much more possible, and with 3 or 4 it is quite manageable, even with only core set cards.

Just a note: Dunhere can attack into the staging area even if you are engaged with another enemy. You just have to be able to deal with that enemy's attacks.

9 minutes ago, Onidsen said:

Near impossible is certainly an apt description for Escape from Dol Guldor with only the core set. At least in solo. With 2 players, it becomes much more possible, and with 3 or 4 it is quite manageable, even with only core set cards.

Just a note: Dunhere can attack into the staging area even if you are engaged with another enemy. You just have to be able to deal with that enemy's attacks.

Great to know!!! I feel like the more I use the various cards and start to understand at least basic strategies the more it all makes sense. Certainly solo-play is challenging so far, although I certainly didn't need to make it tougher for myself

Once I try the lore starter and maybe the tactics one more time, I will start the process, again with the core set, of building my own deck. What do most people do? Like mix two different aspects together? Like Lore and Leadership or Tactics and Spirit? Is 50 cards the sweet spot for most decks?

The core set is an odd mix regarding the player cards. There are many cards you still play today, but many that aren't seen in "serious" (aka as good as possible) decks at all.

50 Cards is indeed the sweet spot as that is as few as the offical rules allow for "tournament play", meaning 99,99% of players follow this rule. You want to use as few cards as possible to keep the chance to draw a specific card as high as possible.

Because you want to fill your deck with good cards I went for a 3-coloured deck (lore, leadership, spirit) in solo play with the core set. First, because most high cost cards in the core set weren't worth the money and I found success with using low cost (0-2) ones and second, because I had problems finding cards I actually wanted to include, because the quality is such an up and down across all spheres.

I totally agree with Calvadur. I just want to add that everything is allowed among the sphere mix. To me spirit remains the most important since it is the best way to cancel effect from the encounter deck. In multiplayer mode I often play 2 sphere deck.

Great to know, thanks!!! I intend to start mucking about with my deck this weekend. I am only using the pre-made decks to make sure I understand as well as I can the mechanics and differences between the spheres. I was all excited about Tactics until I realized that Ranged is apparently useless in solo play.