Hello all!

So I LOVE Imperial Assault (yes i like hobbits and lightsabers, and combining both at the same time would be quite awesome FFG ?), but my wife isnt into it so its one of the few games I cant really play with her. My wife loves cooperative games (we are on the last month of pandemic legacy) and deck building games (Paperback, Baseball Highlights 2045, etc), and we both love LOTR (she was into the trading cards as a kid). So since we are almost through Pandemic I would love a new story progression type game to go through. I would say she enjoys medium weight games but games like Sentinels of the Multiverse can get a little too cumbersome to keep up with. Can you give me pros and cons to consider before getting this game? Is it too heavy or just right?

What expansions/packs/cycles would you recommend? Also i dont know the difference content and value wise between all that stuff so can someone explain it to a total noob?

It sounds like the game is gonna to be too heavy for you guys.

Lets just assume I do buy the game even for just me to play. How would you all answer my other questions?

Before the buying guide proper here, Tales from the Cards has a lucid explanation of how the boxes/cycles are related:

https://talesfromthecards.wordpress.com/2013/09/13/new-player-buying-guide/

For me the cons would be cost. There's a lot to buy!! Pro is, there's enough material out there for you to play this game for years! You can get one core box, build a deck for you and your wife and have 3 adventures (the 3rd one is nasty hard). There's lots of good female characters in this game and powerful as well. 2 cores gives you more of some reallly powerful cards.

if you like dwarves get the hobbit sagas, there's two of them. There are also 6 sagas boxes that follow the movies.

the other boxes and cycles all are good. Get a deluxe, then get the packs that go with it.

i still only have half the product and have been playing hardcore for 4 months and still have 8 deluxes to open yet from what I've already bought.

This game can have a lot of moving parts and pieces. I'd say it can get much more complicated than most games of Sentinels of the Multiverse, but a lot of that complexity can be mitigated in deckbuilding.

Later cycles get (much) more complex, but the quests in the core set and the first two cycles aren't too bad to keep track of. If you build decks that don't require a lot of complex interactions, then I'd say the first two cycles are about comparable to Sentinels in terms of complexity.

And if you fall in love with the game on the simple quests, the complex ones might be worth it.

If you want to be able to build specific kinds of themed decks, the buying guide already linked can help give you ideas about where to purchase.

It's a fantastic game, but don't be under false impressions: it is not a deck building game in the way that the games you mentioned are (Paperback, Baseball Highlights 2045). It is a deck building game in the way that a CCG like Magic the Gathering is, in that deck building happens outside of actual game play, and can potentially take up a large chunk of the time you invest in the game. It's an LCG and not a CCG, meaning there is no randomness when you buy packs, but still you have to purchase product in order to build new decks. If your wife doesn't enjoy Sentinels, this game will be similar or worse. Even if you build her decks for her, the gameplay is still a lot of keep track of, less streamlined than Sentinels, although admittedly less "mathy" than Sentinels can get (don't worry though -- there's still math).

It's what some people would describe as a "lifestyle" game.

With that warning out of the day, it's a game with a great amount of depth, you can build a very wide variety of decks and still be successful in the game (moreso in multiplayer than in true solo play, I would say). There's a large diversity in the different quests available, and what the designers have been able to accomplish using the bare bones of the game is impressive. The core experience of the game remains the same, but it comes in many different flavors in the form of different win conditions, mechanics unique to each quest, tech in the encounter deck that forces you to deck build outside of your own comfort zone, therefore forcing you into a new experience -- although I'll acknowledge some people hate that part of this game and want a 'one deck to win them all' experience.

The game has been around long enough now that there are lots of resources for new players, and you can easily 'netdeck,' downloading someone else's tried-and-true deck idea in order to cut down on your own deck building time.

If you love Lord of the Rings, there's a lot to love here and the theme is very well handled. You can play through the saga in order to play through the main storylines of The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, or you can purchase the standard cycles and play through unique stories. The story element of the game didn't really take route until the third cycle (Against the Shadow -- which would be a bad place to start), the first two cycles had story but it was pretty light.

I would echo what others have said so far and emphasize that the community around this game makes it accessible even though it can be difficult.

its complexity or weight is somewhat mitigated by the resources available for deckbuilding and net decking, and further by its cooperative nature.

because you’ll be able to learn together and can talk through as you’re playing it is much easier to enter into.

I think the number one selling point is the theme of it all. It is very strong and feels very appropriate to the source material. That alone may be enough to justify trying it out in my opinion!

It is also very playable solo, (with one or two exceptions) and so if you get it and try it but your wife doesn’t like it, you would still be able to play if you desired.

if you both love LOTR then I’d say try it for sure!

On 4/29/2018 at 10:29 AM, sappidus said:

Before the buying guide proper here, Tales from the Cards has a lucid explanation of how the boxes/cycles are related:

https://talesfromthecards.wordpress.com/2013/09/13/new-player-buying-guide/

I used this guide as well when I first started the game several months back. Extremely informative and interesting. The game can definitely break your bank if you're not careful, but it's extremely entertaining, addicting, and it follows a cooperative theme very well. I would not hesitate to recommend it, especially to fans of Lord of the Rings. Hope you get into it and enjoy it!

I would definitely recommend this game to you! I would start by buying just 1 Core set and then perhaps start playing the first scenario solo. Just so you get to know the rules and understand deckbuilding a bit. Then if you feel confident enough you might ask to have your wife play with you, where you build both decks. If she enjoys it you can move on. Beware that the second quest can already be quite hard, though there are some great tips on deckbuilding online (that's how I managed to beat it). The third quest can also be brutal, though hopefully by then you'll understand the game and deckbuilding better to come up with some good strategies.

Even if your wife doesn't enjoy the game, you can still play it solo. That's how I play most of my LotR LCG games. I enjoy playing solo dual-handed more than just with one deck. It's more to manage and takes longer, but also makes for a much more fun and diverse experience.

As for expansions, the quests in the first cycle (Mirkwood) are a bit bland, however there are some decent player cards and personally I really enjoyed playing everything in order of release, adding the new player cards to the card pool only when I actually get to a certain expansion. The first Deluxe expansion, Khazad-dûm I really enjoyed! It's really thematic and not overly complex yet. The corresponding Dwarrowdelf cycle is also good though the first few quests I didn't really enjoy. The second deluxe expansion Heirs of Numenor is fun, but impossibly hard without enough player cards. It has a really good cycle, Against the Shadow, as well. After that the Deluxe expansions and cycles start to differ more and more from the core formula. This is fun because by then you'll want to play in new and interesting ways, however I would save these expansions for later after you've played the earlier ones.

Because this is coop, if one player is very good and use alpha player syndrome as little as possible. This could be fine!

I have teached this game to many new players, but I have premaid the decks and helped when needed, but as little help as possible. And people has learned this game really well after one game and some even wanted to build their own deck when they did see how some card interacted with each others!

But one player really have to be quite good in the game and deckbuilding, so that all decks will be enjoyable to play!