So just picked up the game today and getting ready to do some solo games this week!

What are your favourite characters or duo team?

I just got the game and played the first mission -- and won!

I played with Beravor (pathfinder) and Gimli (Hunter).

Both characters worked out really well. Gimli I equipped the sword, harp, and ring mail, Beravor the great bow and cloak.

Gimli can't pass agility checks but otherwise he passed almost every test. The harp helps supplement inspiration so there's never a completely dry period, and he still fights well with the sword, and the occasional extra hits from prepared cards.

Beravor sometimes failed tests due to drawing blanks, but she always had inspiration due to Trailblazer (I never discarded it in my game), and passing tests often got her the inspiration back. Sprinting helped her search a lot, and I even won a title. Plus with the Great Bow she was able to pick off enemies from the safety of range. None of my characters took damage from enemies, it was only from threat events and search tokens that I took some hits.

I went with Hunter first for Gimli in order to get some strike cards, and later I'll probably swap to Guardian for the card that gives inspiration when you strike, plus all the other good guardian cards.

We played the first 6 chapters and won all of them with Beravor and Gimli

They are a great team. In my team Beravor is using her staff and it's a great weapon. Especially the "stun" modification helps you dealing with some enemies/lets you exaust them without needing help from Gimli if you are split up. Like Elfik said, the Trailblazer card is especially important - don't discard it and also try to ready up each sprint card (when you are not on a battle map).

Gimli received the boot trinket so he was also able to easily pass agility checks from that point on. He's quite a strong fighter (we chose the battle axe and I like it more than the sword) but you shouldn't ignore his guardian cards. Especially in later chapters he can help to keep the group alive with the guard cards. And after you had around 2 last stands as a character you also want him to ready some cards that help with passing last stands.
One side note.. in one chapter, Gimli had the Coordinated Strike card (hunter) prepared and by choosing the "deadly" modification he was able to kill a 27 health monster in one attack :D. That was crazy.

We changed roles quite often, depending on the upcoming chapter and my guess what the focus of that chapter would be. The first time we received some damage (and beravor had to take 2 last stands but passed both of them) was in chapter 6, because we received unavoidable damage from skill checks.

Interesting! Beravor / Gimli seems to be becoming a trend!

I like to play non-standard so that's why I didn't pick Legolas/Gimli, and also why I changed up the items a bit. I think the axe is probably worth taking but I took sword and harp for an equal-ish alternative.

I completed the second mission, but without guardian cards I did have to take a last stand with Gimli (passed easily). I haven't switched roles because I want to stack my deck with more powerful cards first. I'm thinking Gimli will switch to Guardian and Beravor will switch to Captain. Lead the Charge, Wind among the Grass, and Master Tactician all look really good for Beravor, though I'll want to keep trailblazer for the large map missions as much as possible. Trailblazer is so good.

Gimli is fantastic if you make him a pathfinder w/ his axe.

I noticed i had trouble completing objectives with him due to being so combat focused, sucky at agility, and good at everything else.

Quick and deadly.

Legolas with twin daggers and burglar is a good combo too.

his wit is 3, gains an automatic success due to hidden, and can use both daggers to deal up to 10 damage and 2 pierce- when you are lucky.

When you aren't so lucky you are about as strong as Legolas's bow. (Plus they level up quicker gaining extra buffs)

24 minutes ago, King_Balrog said:

Gimli is fantastic if you make him a pathfinder w/ his axe.

I noticed i had trouble completing objectives with him due to being so combat focused, sucky at agility, and good at everything else.

Quick and deadly.

Legolas with twin daggers and burglar is a good combo too.

his wit is 3, gains an automatic success due to hidden, and can use both daggers to deal up to 10 damage and 2 pierce- when you are lucky.

When you aren't so lucky you are as strong as gimli's axe.

Hummm, just wondered, are you using both daggers to attack at the same time? Is that allowed? If not, how is like you are getting so much hits with just 3 Wit?

Most likely run out of succes... 3 succes is max. So 5 hits is max without a card that fixes you 4 success and then you van get 6 hits... you need 6 success to get 10 hits... so you have to have 3 succes from flipped cards, one from hidden, one from clever wit and one from? A lot of card is needed and a lot of Luck!

sound like a rule error.

1 hour ago, ApocK2 said:

Hummm, just wondered, are you using both daggers to attack at the same time? Is that allowed? If not, how is like you are getting so much hits with just 3 Wit?

Yes. They must both share a trait to be used together.

Before starting a campaign, each hero selects their starting items and equips them. These items—or upgraded versions of these items—will remain equipped for the duration of the campaign. At the start of an adventure, a hero can have one armor card, a number of item cards that have a total of two or fewer hand icons (two single hand items or one 2-handed item)

You select your starting equipment when you choose your characters. --> Click the weapon icon(s) and armor icon to modify your options.

Dual–Wielding: A hero can attack with more than one item if those items all share the stat that is being tested. When attacking with more than one item, the hero can spend successes to resolve abilities on any of the chosen items. If the hero is attacking an adjacent enemy group, all of the chosen items must have the ranged icon

Staff, bow, and axe = two handed

Harp, banner dagger, sword is considered dual wielding (Bilbo is the only character who cant hold a 2 handed weapon or dualwield)

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Daggers require high wit (legolas has 3) so he may use both daggers to deal damage. (Aragorn and Elena can pull this off too)

(1) success = 2 Damage

(1) success = 2 Damage

(2) successes = 3 damage and pierce

(2) successes = 3 damage and pierce

You draw (3) due to wit.

you gain 1 auto success via hidden

Insipration is required for the highest potential damage.

Setup and scouting is required for the big 10 , but i've seen it happen using one attack action.

So you have a high damage potential with the right setup as suggested above^

I've found that Bilbo is excellent at interacting with tests. His inspiration from stacking the deck is really fun to play to.

So many options. Mine arrives tomorrow. I have Friday off. Rather excited.

1 hour ago, King_Balrog said:

Dual  –  Wielding: A hero can attack with more than  one item if those items all share the  stat that is being tested. When attacking with more than one item, the hero can spend  successes to resolve abilities on any of the chosen items. If the hero is attacking an adjacent enemy group, all of the chosen items must have the ranged icon

From my point of view you can have equipped 2 weapons/items but you have to assign successes individually to 1 ability on 1 card.

I think the dual wielding option is more like to give you more options at the time to spend successes like having stun and pierce for instance in the same attack. At the moment I don't see anything on the rules pointing that you can spend successes simultaneously on 2 weapons.

1 hour ago, King_Balrog said:

Dual  –  Wielding: A hero can attack with more than  one item if those items all share the  stat that is being tested. When attacking with more than one item, the hero can spend  successes to resolve abilities on any of the chosen items. If the hero is attacking an adjacent enemy group, all of the chosen items must have the ranged icon

Read the highlighted bits^

(they share the same icon at the top left and successes can be resolved on any ability of the chosen items)

@ApocK2

Great to hear thoughts on what people are playing, can't wait to try my first game tomorrow.

Excited to dig into this game and try out different combinations.

Not sure who I am going to play with yet but I am leaning towards Bilbo simply because I love Hobbits.

@King_Balrog

Alright, I did not realize that you were actually aiming to get 6 successes for the full power, thought you were doing that with just 3 of them and that would have been too easy, my misunderstanding, I totally get it now, cheers!

Wow, thanks guys. I didn't even realize that I could change starting items!

Has anyone considered taking ringmail off of Gimli?

I never thought about Legolas dual wielding but it actually makes thematic sense as he actually dual wields eleven daggers in the movies. I imagine you get extra successes with the unstoppable pathfinder card in addition to hidden in order to get up to 6 for 10 pierce damage.

as for Gimli's ringmail, I did consider a cloak instead. The thing is, I really like the blade bane (fully upgraded ringmail) ability to take all damage facedown. It's true that basic ringmail is more of a hindrance than a help though. Upgraded harp also helps with fear so travelgarb wouldn't have helped me as much (since I gave mine a sword and harp).

Just finished my first solo campaign with Gimli and Bilbo. Gimli was a beast, noticed a huge difference giving him path finder instead of guardian (as others have said). Bilbo is fun, can pass most tests and with hidden is good. Failed the game on the very last mission though.

Started a new one with Legolas (hunter) and Aragorn (captain). Biggest thing I noticed is Legolas is a monster. Super mobile and does crazy damage. Maybe I am just playing better but I was easily beating the missions much easier. With Legolas I found the cards I was prepping didn’t have successes, so I was more constantly hitting them in my tests.

Also having more scout cards through Aragorn is great for having more abilities, makes the game feel even better when you can activate more cards.

After completing six chapters with Beravor and Gimli I decided to restart. I only lost one of those chapters (chapter 5, due to Beravor being isolated and mobbed to death), but I felt like choosing new characters. After looking at the characters and cards again with more knowledge of the game, I realized several things:

1) Aragorn's cards have one less "blank" card than usual (only Thorongil is completely blank).

2) characters who are alone and far from help can easily die and make you fail an otherwise smoothly completed mission

3) hidden could be very helpful in not getting killed

4) inspiration is very helpful in not getting killed (and in general)

5) scouting is very nice (it's what I liked about Beravor)

6) Guardian would've been helpful to not get killed

7) killing enemies efficiently is very helpful (it's what I liked about Gimli)

Putting it all together, I swapped out for Aragorn and Elena. Elena has nice synergies with the burglar role, and she has the ability to boost inspiration a lot (even without being a musician). Aragorn has nice synergy with both the Guardian role (guarded strike + strider) and pathfinder role (thorongil).

Aragorn with a battle axe and cloak, as a pathfinder/Guardian

Elena with her default equipment as a burglar

I've won the first 3 chapters now easily, and had very little trouble with enemies. I made really good timely use of Elena's "Child of the Lhun" card, as well as Aragorn's axe, and having inspiration stocks to basically shrug off enemies up to this point. Gulgotar did some damage though, but luckily Elena has good healing cards too, and I found extra rations.

This is my new favourite duo!

My wife and I have been playing on normal and are almost finished the campaign. I’ve been running Legolas as a Hunter then Captain with his recommended Elven Cloak and Bow and my wife is playing Beravor as a Pathfinder with her staff and traveling cloak. Clearly we picked some of the strongest heroes because we regularly have pretty much everything wiped on the board each mission. Her movement action economy is amazing and she sprints everywhere she goes using her upgraded cloak to keep scouting for more sprints. Meanwhile Legolas can drop pretty much any enemy in one shot with his upgraded bow and the strike cards from the Hunter and captain decks. Pathfinder is so essential especially for the low player counts.