Healing mechanisms can be important, but there are several other ways to deal with high attack enemies:

Chump block

High defense defenders. You can get to 5 defense.

Kill them before they kill you -- direct damage and some tactics events

Prevent them from attacking you -- Feint, Forest Snare, low threat and a host of later cards can help with this.

As the card pool expands you'll find damage prevention and even some healing done outside Lore, as well. I'm not saying Lore isn't a useful spear and healing is sometimes the easiest way to deal with a problem -- but it's not *necessary* to win.

51 minutes ago, dalestephenson said:

Healing mechanisms can be important, but there are several other ways to deal with high attack enemies:

Chump block

High defense defenders. You can get to 5 defense.

Kill them before they kill you -- direct damage and some tactics events

Prevent them from attacking you -- Feint, Forest Snare, low threat and a host of later cards can help with this.

As the card pool expands you'll find damage prevention and even some healing done outside Lore, as well. I'm not saying Lore isn't a useful spear and healing is sometimes the easiest way to deal with a problem -- but it's not *necessary* to win.

Yeah forest snare and feint are the ones I'm more familiar with this early in the game. And love me a chump block but there are occasions were you don't use it of course.

- Could you expand a little more on how you would go about getting your defence up to 5.

- Another question. Do the designers want you to use the heroes that they include with expansions? I mean are the games, like The Hobbit: On the Doorstep, designed to play "better" with the heroes included. I know you can use any hero from any set, but do they design it with that in mind.

- Also, in On the Doorstep, there are only 3 allies but there are 3 copies of each. But they have the Unique trait... Was that just lazy designing by the developers, because they could've included a few more different dwarf characters in there rather than copies.

When you get a new player card, it'll always be 3 copies, except for heroes. This is true for unique cards, and even for cards which says "limit 1 per deck." 3 copies of a unique card is not necessarily a bad thing, as having them in your deck increases the likelihood of drawing it. 3 copies of a 'limit 1 per deck' is a bit stranger, as you will never use the extra copies unless you plan on including the same card in 2-handed play or if you're building a deck for someone else to play with in multiplayer.

As for other questions--

-Defense: there are player cards that increase your defense stat. Dunedain Warning, Arwen ally, Gondorian Shield... there are many. In the core set, there is Protector of Lorien.

-Scenarios are generally not designed for use with the hero that is included in the expansion. There are some exceptions. The Deluxe expansions and Saga expansions include heroes which fit thematically in those quests, for the most part. However, I don't think there has ever been a compelling 'game mechanics' reason to build a deck with a character that was included with a particular scenario. As for the smaller adventure packs, the lead designer of the game has stated that the entire cycle's cards are designed at the same time, and then distributed up for release by the marketing department. I remember thinking in some cases that they included a hero who you really DON'T want to use in that particular scenario, although I can't think of any examples at the moment.

Mmm, I wouldn't say so. Those enemies are more likely to be blocked by wimpy allies ("chump blockers"). In some four player games, healing is essential. But solo, with just a core set, you could be quite successful without Lore at all.

Quick question. Legolas' text reads:

Quote

Response: After Legolas participates in an attack that destroys an enemy, place 2 progress tokens on the current quest.

Now I have a location that is active. So once Legolas destroys an enemy do I put the tokens on the quest or the location.

Been an interesting game, and am learning just how lethal starting off with a high threat level can be. I engaged Ungoliant's Spawn really early way before I was prepared but luckily I had a Forest Snare to save me.

Active location always buffers current quest, so Legolas's tokens from destroying an enemy would go on the active location first. Unless a card both directs you to place progress on the quest card *and* bypass the active location (some encounter cards do this), you can't bypass the active location.

Ah bummer been putting them on the quest... Thought I was in the clear.

I suppose the same applies for Blade of Gondolin as well?

Correct, it applies to Blade of Gondolin as well. In fact, I believe it applies to every single player card that places progress on the "current quest".

- Another one. When committed to the quest and you have excess tokens after questing (eg. location = 3 cost, willpower = 4) does that extra token then get carried over to the quest, or is it lost?

- When you don't kill a enemy outright and it engages you in the next round does it get a second shadow card?

Hope you guys don't mind all the questions.

When you quest sucessfully you generate progress (willpower minus threat in staging). This progress is placed on the active location until explored, then placed on the current quest. The active location is "buffering" progress that would otherwise be placed on the current quest, so progress is not lost -- if you placed four progress from questing and the active location required three, the active location would be explored and one progress would be placed on the current quest.

However, if you play a player card that places progress on a *location* rather than the quest, it doesn't overflow on to the quest if you place more on the active location than it could hold. The "extra" progress is just lost.

All shadow cards from not-dead enemies are discarded at the end of the combat phase. If you fail to kill an enemy engaged with you, it remains engaged with you and on the next combat phase will receive a *new* shadow card. This won't be a second card, because the old shadow card has been discarded.

Great thanks. Another one. When you have quested successfully, the final quest says that you must choose a spider enemy and put it in the staging area. Fine. But then the text in a new sentence says:

Quote

The players must find and defeat Ungoliant's Spawn to win this game.

Now does that mean that you have to keep on playing until you come across US in the encounter deck, or does it mean that you have to go through the deck and also add it to the staging area along with the Spider enemy?

On 10/17/2018 at 9:40 AM, Stewart777 said:

- Could you expand a little more on how you would go about getting your defence up to 5.

- Another question. Do the designers want you to use the heroes that they include with expansions? I mean are the games, like The Hobbit: On the Doorstep, designed to play "better" with the heroes included. I kno  w you can use any hero from any set, but do they design it with that in mind. 

- Also, in On the Doorstep, there are only 3 allies but there are 3 copies of each. But they have the Unique trait... Was that just lazy designing by the developers, because they could've included a few more different dwarf characters in there rather than copies. 

I think he means with several other expansions. I don't think it's possible with just the core.

No, not really.

You can still include three copies of unique cards in your deck, just not in play. This helps to find those cards with more consistency, even though you can only have one copy in play.

7 minutes ago, Stewart777 said:

Now does that mean that you have to keep on playing until you come across US in the encounter deck, or does it mean that you have to go through the deck and also add it to the staging area along with the Spider enemy?

Back in the Core set, the phrasing department was still in the works. It essentially means that you must defeat it to win. You can either wait for Ungoliant's Spawn to be revealed from the encounter deck or search for it as one of the spider enemies the quest instructs you to fetch.

Ah thanks, I went and got US and a spider enemy and still managed to win My threat was up to 44 though so wouldn't have been able to wait until he appeared.

When all the questing has been finished does the questing phase just get ignored?

Unless the quest card directs you to skip the questing phase it happens every turn, and if you quest unsuccessfully your threat will rise. You may place progress beyond what a quest card requires if it has additional completion requirements -- in certain quests and with certain cards, the extra progress will come in handy.

Regards quest cards. If a quest requires 8 tokens to complete, but you quest for 9 does that extra token carry over onto the next quest card or is it lost. We dealt with the locations regarding this, but not quests.

The progress from completing a quest card won't carry over (source: there's a statement about it in the core set manual)

Thanks, must have missed that.

On ‎10‎/‎17‎/‎2018 at 8:05 AM, Stewart777 said:

Is a Lore hero essential in some of the harder quests? I mean some of the enemies hit for 5! So I just assume so sort of healing mechanism could be important.

Chump blocking is often an effective way to deal with that, so healing isn't always needed. Use a 1 or 2 cost ally to defend a big hit, then kill the enemy ASAP. Mix in a few cards like Feint or Quick Strike and you can mitigate risk from big enemies.

Healing definitely helps in many quests, but there are multiple strategies to deck building so don't lock yourself into thinking something is absolutely necessary to your deck.

Here's a tricky one - let's say I've committed 2 characters to questing. One of the characters has 2 damage tokens on him already (he has a total of 3 hit points), and then a Treachery is revealed which indicates that I have to deal 1 damage to each exhausted character, which would effectively kill the character.

My question is - does he still contribute his willpower to the quest, because he committed to the quest before the Treachery was revealed, or is he discarded without contributing his willpower.

Edit: Just had a look at the back of the rule book and it says:

A: Commit Characters, B: Staging, C : Quest Resolution, so Quest Resolution comes after Staging, so that would mean my Hammersmith would be discarded and not contribute his willpower?

23 hours ago, Stewart777 said:

Now does that mean that you have to keep on playing until you come across US in the encounter deck, or does it mean that you have to go through the deck and also add it to the staging area along with the Spider enemy?

The way you phrase this makes me think you've gotten it slightly confused. Ungoliant's Spawn is a Spider enemy. You don't pull out US 'along with' the Spider enemy, you pull it out as the Spider enemy the quest card tells you to get (In multiplayer *each* player has to pull out a Spider so you will get additional Spiders, but if you're playing solo you just grab US so you can win and leave it at that).

Got another one. On the Journey Along the Anduin quest (2B) the text reads:

Quote

Reveal 1 additional card from the encounter deck each quest phase. Do not make engagement checks during the encounter phase. (Each player may still optionally engage 1 enemy each encounter phase.)

So you reveal 1 extra card during the Quest phase, got that.

- Won't that raise your threat by unmanageable amounts if you don't commit a lot of characters to the quest leaving none to defend or attack.

- What do they mean by "Do not make engagement checks during the encounter phase."

- Do they mean we don't have to engage enemies even if their threat level is equal or less to the players?

- Does it mean that we can engage enemies only if we choose to?

This game is tough, they throw a Hill Troll at you straight away!

1) Yes, revealing extra cards makes it more likely you will quest unsuccessfully if you don't send enough willpower. Send a lot of willpower. You don't want to linger at stage two.

2) The lack of engagement checks during the encounter phase means no enemies will automatically engage you regardless of your threat. However, if you *want* to engage an enemy, you are still allowed one (only one) optional engagement during the engagement phase.

12 minutes ago, dalestephenson said:

2) The lack of engagement checks during the encounter phase means no enemies will automatically engage you regardless of your threat. However, if you *want* to engage an enemy, you are still allowed one (only one) optional engagement during the engagement phase.

There are ways to otherwise engage more than one enemy through other cards. Though most of the time you get one and only one engagement.

There's that leadership ally that allows you to pull an enemy to you in the core set, the name escapes me at the moment. There's also a hero in a later set that allows for two optional engagements.

Most of the time you only get one though. It's better to not linger at that stage if you can help it rather than retool your deck around that stage.

You only recall the golden rule: a card can always overwrite a rule ;).

I think there's only one player card that alters the number of *optional* engagements, and that's Halbarad. But there are a number of other ways to engage enemies in the staging area. Even better are the cards that let you *kill* enemies in the staging area -- a souped up Dunhere made this quest pretty easy for me in the September solo league.