You guys are monsters at this game.

Quick question. What happens if you have all the quest points needed to move onto the next quest but also have a active location, does the location just remain in place for the next quest?

Side note. I was doing so well until a shadow card told me to ignore all my heroes defence. At that point Denethor was defeated... and it's been hard going since, but now a second Hill Troll has turned up so it's probably game over.

Yes, the active location remains where it is.

The active location rest. It may occur when you to put progress to the quest by avoiding the current location (very few cards allow to do that though) or when you meet others criteria later (like killing the troll after placing enough progress counters on the quests, you go instantly to the next quest).

1) In the rules it says that a deck must contain a minimum of 50 cards, does that mean going over the 50 cards is legal?

The Goblin Sniper is starting to annoy me (and I can attack the Hill Troll there while I'm at it) so I want to include Great Yew Bow (On the Doorstep) to attack enemies in the staging area with Legolas. So essentially I will have 53 cards, is that legal?

2) Also, what happens if you run out of cards (not that I have). Do you just reshuffle your deck and use it again like you do with the encounter deck or do you lose the game?

3) With A Test Of Will , is it only the "when revealed" - so basically only treacheries - that can be cancelled, so not a "forced" effect for example?

4) What "Condition" are they referring to when the response on Miner of the iron Hills card states:

Quote

Response: After Miner of the Iron Hills enters play, choose and discard 1 Condition attachment from play.

Can you cancel a treachery with this effect?

57 minutes ago, Stewart777 said:

1) In the rules it says that a deck must contain a minimum of 50 cards, does that mean going over the 50 cards is legal?

The Goblin Sniper is starting to annoy me (and I can attack the Hill Troll there while I'm at it) so I want to include Great Yew Bow (On the Doorstep) to attack enemies in the staging area with Legolas. So essentially I will have 53 cards, is that legal?

2) Also, what happens if you run out of cards (not that I have). Do you just reshuffle your deck and use it again like you do with the encounter deck or do you lose the game?

3) With A Test Of Will , is it only the "when revealed" - so basically only treacheries - that can be cancelled, so not a "forced" effect for example?

4) What "Condition" are they referring to when the response on Miner of the iron Hills card states:

Can you cancel a treachery with this effect?

1) Minimum of 50 cards is only for official tournaments or Fellowship events, and yes, going over 50 cards is "legal." There is no minimum deck size rule for casual play. That said, most players follow the minimum 50 card rule as a convention. Keep in mind that the more cards in your deck, the more diluted it is, the more difficult it will be to draw those cards you really want in your hand.

2) If you run out of cards, that's it, your deck is empty and you can't draw cards any longer. The core set does contain a spirit card called "Will of the West," which allows you to reshuffle your discarded cards back into your deck. It comes in really handy in certain quests. Note that post errata, whenever you play a copy of Will of the West, it is removed from the game, and not discarded.

3) A Test of Will cancels any "when revealed" effect on a card, whether on a treachery, location, or enemy. It does not, however, cancel "Forced" effects, passive effects, or other traits found on encounter cards (e.g., Surge, Doomed, etc.).

4) Some treacheries (e.g., "Caught in a Web" from the core set) are conditions that are attached to heroes or characters (read the text on "Caught in a Web," it specifies that it is a "condition" attachment). If "Caught in a Web" is attached to one of your heroes, when you play Minor of the Iron Hills from your hand, he will discard one copy of "Caught in a Web" to the discard pile. Can't remember if there are other treacheries with condition attachments in the core set. Aside from that, the Minor of the Iron Hills does not cancel treacheries (only "A Test of Will" does that in the core set, or Eleanor).

4 minutes ago, TwiceBornh said:

1) Minimum of 50 cards is only for official tournaments or Fellowship events, and yes, going over 50 cards is "lega." There is no minimum deck size rule for casual play. That said, most players follow the minimum 50 card rule as a convention. Keep in mind that the more cards in your deck, the more diluted it is, the more difficult it will be to draw those cards you really want in your hand.

2) If you run out of cards, that's it, your deck is empty and you can't draw cards any longer. The core set does contain a spirit card called "Will of the West," which allows you to reshuffle your discarded cards back into your deck. It comes in really handy in certain quests. Note that post errata, whenever you play a copy of Will of the West, it is removed from the game, and not discarded.

3) A Test of Will cancels any "when revealed" effect on a card, whether on a treachery, location, or enemy. It does not, however, cancel "Forced" effects, passive effects, or other traits found on encounter cards (e.g., Surge, Doomed, etc.).

4) Some treacheries (e.g., "Caught in a Web" from the core set) are conditions that are attached to heroes or characters (read the text on "Caught in a Web," it specifies that it is a "condition" attachment). If "Caught in a Web" is attached to one of your heroes, when you play Minor of the Iron Hills from your hand, he will discard one copy of "Caught in a Web" to the discard pile. Can't remember if there are other treacheries with condition attachments in the core set. Aside from that, the Minor of the Iron Hills does not cancel treacheries (only "A Test of Will" does that, or Eleanor).

3) Ok great thanks. So it's got to have the actual wording "when revealed" on the card"?

Yep.

When you have the required amount of progress tokens on a quest and you then quest successfully, do you put excess tokens on the quest?

Say for example the quest requires 8 tokens and you could increase that to 10. I have this situation because I'm waiting to kill the Hill Troll in Journey Along the Anduin. It would be useful if a treachery came along and stole 4 of my tokens for example...

Yes, you may place progress tokens on a quest beyond what is necessary -- and sometimes this is handy.

Great! For once the game let's up

How do you guys deal with Hummerhorns ? Their stats are just fine to deal with, but the text reads:

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Forced: After Hummerhorns engages you, deal 5 damage to a single hero you control.

5 damage will outright kill some heroes in one go. Do you buff up with armour or the like?

You could also attack them in the staging area I guess.

Try to keep your threat below 40, and you won't have to deal with it.

You can kill it while it is in the staging area with dunhere or some direct damage (gandalf). You can also put a citadel plate on a hero to prevent him from death (gimli is a good choice, it will give him +5 attack).

Note that this enemy grants victory points. When you defeat it, it doesn't go to the discard pile (you won't have to face it again if you shuffle the discard pile of the encounter set)

1 hour ago, Miceldars said:

Try to keep your threat below 40, and you won't have to deal with it.

You can kill it while it is in the staging area with dunhere or some direct damage (gandalf). You can also put a citadel plate on a hero to prevent him from death (gimli is a good choice, it will give him +5 attack).

Note that this enemy grants victory points. When you defeat it, it doesn't go to the discard pile (you won't have to face it again if you shuffle the discard pile of the encounter set)

Ah nice, I never new that. I haven't had to reshuffle the discard pile yet but that will prove useful in the future.

Let me just clarify, you don't mean that Gandalf can do damage in the staging area, rather just deal damage once engaged right?

When Gandalf (from the core set) enters in play, he can reduce your threat, make you draw or deal 4 damage to an enemy. That enemy can be anywhere, included the staging area. That's a way to kill enemies before they can engage you. You can can use sneak attack + gandalf to kill an enemy you just revealed from the encounter deck (assuming he has 4 or less hit points, like hummerhorns)

1 hour ago, Miceldars said:

You can can use sneak attack + gandalf to kill an enemy you just revealed from the encounter deck

Just to clarify, you must wait for an action window do do this (green spaces in the round sequence in the back of the rulebook). So any when revealed effects on the enemy will trigger before you have a chance to sneak Gandalf in for the kill.

The bad part about using Sneak attack plus Gandalf after staging is that it's too late to commit Gandalf to the quest and use his excellent stats. Of course, if your threat is 40+ and hummerhorns just got revealed, that may be better than losing a hero. On the other hand, if your threat is 40-44 and you know Hummerhorns is still in the deck, it might be a good idea to sneak attack gandalf before committing to the quest, and use him to reduce your threat by five.

19 hours ago, Stewart777 said:

5 damage will outright kill some heroes in one go. Do you buff up with armour or the like? 

Just as a clarification, defense (i guess that's what you ment with armor?) does not actually help against this (or other, similar) "direct damage" effects. (And yes without attachments this instakills all but 1 currently released heroes.)

4 hours ago, DrPeterEnis said:

Just as a clarification, defense (i guess that's what you ment with armor?) does not actually help against this (or other, similar) "direct damage" effects. (And yes without attachments this instakills all but 1 currently released heroes.)

Citadel Plate is armour that grants the hero it is attached to +4 hit points. So it certainly helps soak up the direct damage from Hummerhorns. It's a hit point buff, not a defence buff.

Got a question about the " Seize them! " Objective card from The Sands of Harad expansion. This is the first time I've come across an Objective card so a little unsure. The text reads:

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Forced: After an enemy attacks and destroys a character, remove X progress from the main quest, X is the attacking enemy's Threat. At the end of the round, if the main quest has been in play the entire round and there are no progress tokens on it, the players lose the game.

- Firstly, does this card remain in the staging area the whole of the 1A/1B part of the quest, or even the entire quest? So you basically have to have tokens on the main quest at all times otherwise you lose?

- Secondly, as the bold text reads, do you really have to be able to place progress tokens on the quest in the first round?! And if you don't you lose the game? I ask because the setup instructs you to also put a Location into play (I chose one with a low token requirement, " Narrow Alleyway ", which requires 2 progress tokens). That would mean you have to almost commit all your heroes to questing which would leave none to defend or attack with. And the setup forces you to engage with an Umbar Sentry straight away and his text reads:

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Forced: When Umbar Sentry attacks, either remove 1 progress token from the main quest, or it gets +2 Attack for this attack.

If I have got this right then it's truly a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire.

The objective remain as long nothing tell you to put it away. I think there is a point on the quest where you get out of town, but I'm not sure.

And yeah, you have to put progress on the quest every turn or you loose. That's the specificity of the quest.

If you don't have heroes with many willpower and you are not able to play allies you may be able to send everyone in quest. That may be a problem of your deck or your starting hand though.

I don't see what is important about the fact that narrow alleyway require 2 progress tokens on the turn one. If it lay in staging area you don't put progress here but in the quest anyway. Then you will probably travel to it so next turn you need to put win the quest by 3: 2 for clearing the location and 1 for not loosing. It still worth to travel because elsewhere there is 2 more threat in the staging area.

Ah sorry I thought the setup told you to put it as an active location but it says to put it in the staging area. Thanks for that!

Seems this could be touch and go playing solo.

1) Got a question on Archery, let's take the Umbar Sentry . The text reads:

Quote

Surge. Archery 1.

Forced: When Umbar Sentry attacks, either remove 1 progress token from the main quest, or it gets +2 Attack for this attack.

1)"Archery" is not an attack, it's just an amount of damage you must deal to your characters. You can't defend archery. And you take damage from archery even if the enemy is not engaged with you.

So the Umbar Sentry inflicts you 1 damage from archery, and then make an attack (if he is engaged with you).

2)You can chump block, cancel the attack (with Feint for example), kill the enemy before he attacks (with Quick strike), defend with a good defender then kill the enemy and heal damage, keep low threat to avoid engaging the enemy...

3)The treachery removes all the progress token, but you can still put some on the quest at the end of the quest phase (if you have enough willpower). So if you quest successfully, you can place tokens on the quest and you don't lose (you just lose one turn or two). You can also cancel the treachery with "A test you will" or something like this (edit : that's what you did, I missed that part)