Maybe I just got lucky with BoFA. But I'll take it.

9 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

Later cycles are better in making it so you don't want to see anything that comes out of the encounter deck.

That's what I'm afraid of, that the game just keeps getting harder and harder to the point that it's annoying. There's a thin line between challenging and annoying. Lately I've been tempted to take a LCG break and go back to Journeys in Middle Earth for a spell.

Difficulty doesn't monotonically increase between cycles, and varies significantly from quest-to-quest inside every cycle. There are certainly future quests that might cross your personal challenging/annoying line, but given that you thought Battles of Five Armies wasn't so tough, I think most won't.

With that said, if your next stop of Heirs of Numenor, that has some of the toughest quests in that cycle, and certainly has some really annoying cards (IMO).

4 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

if your next stop of Heirs of Numenor, that has some of the toughest quests in that cycle, and certainly has some really annoying cards (IMO).

I know this isn't strictly in chronological order, but I finished Heirs of Numenor/Against the Shadow before doing The Hobbit On the Doorstep. I didn't see much sense in interrupting the cycle to work on a Saga.

4 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

Difficulty doesn't monotonically increase between cycles, and varies significantly from quest-to-quest inside every cycle.

When you said "Later cycles are better in making it so you don't want to see anything that comes out of the encounter deck", I took that to mean every encounter card in the later cycles is a pain in the ****. This may be stupid, but one of my favorite parts of the game is when I catch a "break" - when an encounter card comes up that doesn't affect me in my current situation, or doesn't hurt me too badly. Leaves me feeling that I lucked out there, and gives me more time to build up whatever it is I'm trying to build.

Yes, it's rare that an encounter card will whiff completely in later cycles, practically every treachery will surge if it does nothing terrible. But I can't think of a recent card I hate as much as Power of Mordor (for example). Since you've played through Heirs/AtS you've already played through the cycle I personally found most annoying.

While there's a shortage of encounter cards that do nothing, there will still be cards that won't hurt you too badly -- treacheries that you can manage, enemies you can defend and kill this turn, locations you can travel to. But there are no 1-hp surging enemies for Thalin to kill off and give you a free turn, sadly. Eventually in solo you can make your own free turns with Wait No Longer and The Hidden Way.

2 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

Yes, it's rare that an encounter card will whiff completely in later cycles, practically every treachery will surge if it does nothing terrible.

I've actually noticed that trend already. In fact, "Surge" is probably my least favorite word in the English language.

Yeah, Power of Mordor stinks.