Never played before but am excited to get into it. Also picked up two expansions. The road darkens and morgal vale. What's everyone's opinion of the game. Or things I should know.

Well, the first thing you should know is that to play the Morgul Vale Adventure Pack, you also need the Heirs of Numenor Deluxe Expansion (to play the quest, that is. You can of course include its player cards in your decks). This is the standard product distribution for this game; a deluxe followed by a cycle of six adventure packs. The core set acts as a deluxe for the Shadows of Mirkwood cycle. There are also saga expansions. Basically deluxes, but instead of starting a cycle, you can also play them in campaign mode, following the events in the book. Then you have standalone quests. These do not include player cards and do not require a deluxe expansion to play.

Make sure you check out all of these fantastic resources, blogs, podcasts, and deckbuilders created by players: https://hallofbeorn.wordpress.com/community/ I think it's missing the Mouth of Sauron podcast, but other than that, it should be up to date. And always ask here if you need help with deckbuilding, rules, or anything else. That's one of the great things about this game. It has one of the best and friendliest communities in the world.

And as for my opinion? Well I'm somewhat biased, as this is my favorite game, but I love it! That's naturally what you'll hear from people about their favorite game. It is kind of punishing, though. As in, soul-crushingly difficult for new players. But don't give up! There's a steep learning curve, but all of us veteran players once struggled, too. You'll get the hang of it soon enough.

Have fun!

Thanks. Tried my first game tonight and I think it's gonna take sometime to learn the phases until I don't have to keep looking at the steps. But I did enjoy it.

How did it go? What deck did you use?

I played with the rule book handy for months. I also play only solo. One handed sometimes 2 handed.

There are a lot of resources out there to help.

The game is amazing! With just the expansions you have bought, you could be looking at a difficult time of it for a little bit. You also don't have everything you need to play the Morgul Vale quest (you need the Heirs of Numenor deluxe box as well), but the player cards are still fine.

Here are some good starting resources:

Beorn's Path - a very good introduction to deckbuilding and going through the core set quests (along with the first cycle and the first deluxe expansion)

Progression Series - Includes one of the very best Learn-to-Play videos ever put together

The CoTR discord is also an excellent resource to get questions answered, show off your triumphs, and commiserate when the encounter deck smashes your teeth in.

Thanks everyone. I just grabbed the expansions they had instock. Much harder than i thought trying to remember all the decks. I used the leadership deck. I watched a few YouTube follow along play throughs to try and get an idea. Seems it will take the most time remembering the steps and learning the card actions.

If you end up picking up that Heirs of Numenor set, I also recommend the Steward’s Fear adventure pack. It’s one of my favorites in the whole pool. My suggestion does come with a disclaimer, however, that it’s tough as nails.