I have played roughly 14 scenarios - half by myself, and half with a friend. Out of 14, I have won two of them. Two. I just rage quit on a scenario where I'm looking for a Troll because I was at my fear limit on both characters ON THE FIRST TILE. I hadn't turned anything over yet, just killed a couple of Goblin Scouts. I wish I knew what I was doing wrong....
I played another quest now (Aragorn and Bilbo, changed Aragorn to pathfinder) and for some reason things went much better this time, but I feel I was lucky.
And, after all, that is the feeling with the game, that I think it's poorly balanced. And I don't mean on paper, I mean that if you are lucky and also make good decisions all the time, then the game will go your way but when something goes wrong, the game will pile on you, and it's terribly hard to recover from that.
One bad Fear card that remains face up, and your inspiration economy goes downhill, one threat token too many that you failed to remove, you reach the threshold and two more enemies show up, fail to kill an enemy and the inspiration you saved will be needed in the counterattack or you are out, etc.
I almost never prepare cards with successes because you need them so badly, but it still means you have 4 successes in 14 cards. Inspiration goes out as easily as it comes, and preparing skills has so much luck involved that it pains me, as I very rarely scout cards I want or can truly benefit from (and some are useful in only particular cases, for a specific type of test for example). I added a new card with my Experience in the last quest, and never had the chance to scout it as it never came up.
All in all, I like the idea of the game, I may house rule something for my first campaign while I get used to the mechanics, but having played a lot of games from FFG (MoM, Descent, IA, Doom, Fallout...) this is by far the most unfair and punishing of them all.
Thanks everyone for the help and advice, I appreciate you all chipped in your thoughts and experiences, hopefully they will help in next adventures!
Edited by Juan4aigleI really wanted to like Bilbo but I had a bad experience with him in the 1st chapter whereby the first threat event resulted in him making a last stand (second turn I believe!) and he failed it. Being the only character with a 3 damage limit is pretty rough.
Compared to using Bilbo, Legolas is a breeze, but maybe I'm just not used to playing Bilbo. In my two games right now I've got a team of Elena (burglar/ hunter) and Aragorn (pathfinder/ Guardian) who beat the first 8 chapters. And a team of Legolas (hunter / pathfinder) and Aragorn (musician) who beat the first 4 and barely lost chapter 5 due to Aragorn dying.
Our reflection from the loss is multifaceted:
1) should've saved the inspiration for the last stand test rather than trying to avoid one at all costs. The damage last stand was ironically triggered by a fear card from the darkness step (we had survived the combat just barely )
2) we could've waited with some of our actions before charging ahead. Our threat meter was close to 50 by the time we found the well leading to the cave with the lake. But our inspiration was nigh depleted, and we needed better prepped cards too. Our rationale was to try to minimize darkness checks but I think we should've waited.
3) Our musician had no healing songs and we had no way of healing damage (or guarding) from earlier encounters. The harp heals facedown fear. Legolas could heal with Immortal, but not Aragorn
4) the weakness of the Aragorn / Legolas team is spirit. We both risk taking lots of fear in darkness steps, and although the forlindon harp helps heal the fear, some fear cards spill over into damage. The result is we need more damage prevention or healing overall, because of our team composition.
So although we lost, I'm not too upset. Losses teach you more about the game than wins do. If you're not learning from your losses, than something's wrong.
There's no way you should have that much damage or feat on the first turn, and especially not just from some goblin scouts (and the darkness from the cave).
You do know that you begin each adventure / scenario with:
It sounds like maybe you are carrying over the Fear/Damage from the previous adventure? I don't think it would be possible to suffer that much Fear just from 3 goblin scouts and the Darkness step, even if you provoked the goblin scouts twice AND were attacked by them in the Shadow phase.
well, enemies can do 4 damage and force you to take 1 damage on top of it so it is possible if you don't manage to negate. Some cards even say to take another fear for you or a nearby ally. All rotten luck really.
With my Bilbo and Aragorn company its getting better. Still learning.. It became clear that the biggest problem for Aragorn is that he took to much damage and fear cards that resulted in a Last Stand. The real problem for him is that he can not get rid of these cards easily. (See also CodyMax's screenshot above..) The skill cards that can remove or prevent damage and fear are cards with in bold "Guard xx" and "Rest xx". I looked to all the skill cads of him being a captain and there were only a few. ("Rest" is in general very rare) I selected these kind of ability cards as the extra skill cards earned by skill points during the adventures as a captain. (Instead of the strike ability cards) Then I realized that I also changed Aragorn's role twice as a Guardian and could choose cards like "Desperate Defense" (with Guard 1 or Rest 2 ) I always concentrated on the card text on the skill cards but now the skill deck is more based on the bold ability at the bottom. During the next journey it went immediately better just by concentrating to prevent (Guard) and discard (Rest) damage and fear. Aragorn has also the "Banner" card and he will get inspiration when Resting or Guarding. Also I changed the way how I handle the prepared cards. First I hold cards for these special moments but now I use them as much as possible each turn. By frequent scouting the prepared cards gets back quickly anyway. I have still to see how this strategy works but after two journeys its getting better.
Edited by Henilin5 hours ago, Faranim said:There's no way you should have that much damage or feat on the first turn, and especially not just from some goblin scouts (and the darkness from the cave).
You do know that you begin each adventure / scenario with:
- No Damage/Fear at all (fully healed)
- No Inspiration
- A single Weakeness card in your deck
It sounds like maybe you are carrying over the Fear/Damage from the previous adventure? I don't think it would be possible to suffer that much Fear just from 3 goblin scouts and the Darkness step, even if you provoked the goblin scouts twice AND were attacked by them in the Shadow phase.
Unfortunately, I know the rules. There was a search token on Legolas' space that was a 3 test of something that he had a skill of 3 in. He failed it repeatedly and my stubbornness wouldn't let it go. I didn't mean to say that we lost in the first turn (if I did), but I never got off that tile. I hadn't performed any last stands, yet, when the photo was taken, but I don't think I ever did before rage quitting.
The main rule that I found either here or on BGG that has helped me since starting a new party is that when you move onto a space with an exploration token, it doesn't take an action to explore. All of the games up to then, I'd (and with my campaign with a buddy) done that. So far after starting over with Bilbo and Gimli, and playing that card correctly, I have won the first five. One of them was on the very last turn, but I'm still undefeated. I'M BACK IN, BABY!
It is very hard to get 3 success without having prepared cards and some inspiration. So yeah... it is better to move on when you meet that kind of challenge! Fight only those battles you can win
If you have prepared success card for that skill and one or two inspiration... well then situation is very different. You only need one success From the deck and one Leaf token or other way of getting extra success. But that need time and preparation and it is often wiser to move on hunting your Main scenario goal.
Edited by Hannibal_pjv51 minutes ago, Hannibal_pjv said:It is very hard to get 3 success without having prepared cards and some inspiration. So yeah... it is better to move on when you meet that kind of challenge! Fight only those battles you can win
If you have prepared success card for that skill and one or teo inspiration... well them situation is very different. You only need one success From the deck and one Leaf token or other way of getting extra success. But that need time and preparation and it is often wiser to move on hunting your Main scenario goal.
Yeah that I'm complicit in this outcome is not lost on me. It was just after having such a high loss rate, I wasn't in the best of moods so I was like screw it, I'm opening this chest if it's the last thing I do! Then I clicked "abandon mission" from the menu and it ended it with me losing (I thought it would maybe just let me restart). Once that happened, I decided to just start over. Again, things are going much more smoothly now.
On 5/2/2019 at 3:26 PM, Hannibal_pjv said:you can try to start the game with one extra inspiration as an easy model like in Lotr Lcg.
When you say "one extra" do you mean start the game with two inspiration or just one? Is there a rule that lets you start with one inspiration?
21 hours ago, urloony said:When you say "one extra" do you mean start the game with two inspiration or just one? Is there a rule that lets you start with one inspiration?
No, but there's at least one starter ability and, I believe, items that do.
Yeah... you don``t normally have any inspiration in the start of the game Unles some special ability or card allows it.
A house rule where you give free inspiration is easy to do, but this game does not need that if you understand the economy of this game. But for Beginners it may be what is needed to get jump start.
Edited by Hannibal_pjvOn 7/6/2020 at 12:07 PM, Uninvited Guest said:No, but there's at least one starter ability and, I believe, items that do.
Right, "hunter 1" starts you with an inspiration as does any harp. Perhaps there are others. I was all excited about a rule I thought I had missed 😃
On 5/4/2019 at 11:45 AM, CodyMac said:I have played roughly 14 scenarios - half by myself, and half with a friend. Out of 14, I have won two of them.
I'm sorry you haven't done well, but I'm pleased to hear someone has done worse than I have. I played the first campaign, lost 7 out of 11 scenarios. I played Legolas the Hunter with Aragorn the Captain. Legolas was an absolute beast, but Aragorn was not as helpful as his book reputation would suggest.
From reading here, I've gathered pairing Legolas with Beravor the Pathfinder might work the best? I may try that next. Another thing I haven't tried is switching classifications to suit the scenario, not sure how important that might be.