Will expansion packs enhance existing encounter decks?

By guciomir, in The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

I understand that the game can be divided basically into:

- player decks

- encounter decks (quite a lot of them)

My question is, what will expansion packs bring? Will they enhance existing encounter decks or will they just provide new encounter decks?

I would assume a bit of both, we will know more once the packs start coming out next month.

I don't know this for sure but I'm expecting them not to expand existing ones but to add new encounter sets and then through quest cards use the Core Set encounter sets with the new ones. If they expanded existing encounter sets it would change the difficulty they specify for the encounters of the rule books.

Yes, it will change a difficulty, but it will also greatly enhance replayability of old quests

Since we are getting new encounters every pack it doesn't seem like they are too concerned with replayability for old encounters.

Hmmmmm, I"ve wondered that myself. I don't see why the difficulty of the older encounter decks could not be increased so as to keep up with the increasing options that player decks will have on a monthly basis. I think, otherwise, the old encounter decks may become outdated fairly quickly. However, from reading the descriptions, it seems that the packs are adding new quests and it would then seem logical that they have new encounter decks.

Darksbane said:

I don't know this for sure but I'm expecting them not to expand existing ones but to add new encounter sets and then through quest cards use the Core Set encounter sets with the new ones. If they expanded existing encounter sets it would change the difficulty they specify for the encounters of the rule books.

This is exactly what I'm picturing as well. It will be interesting to see the exact make-up of the adventure packs considering we're not going to get 3x of each card included like all the other LCG's. THere's no reason to have 3 of any hero or quest card for one adventure pack. I expect 3x of each player deck card, one of th ehero, the three quest cards, and then odd numbers of each encounter card to balance the difficulty of the encounter deck.

I think that the packs are adding mew encounter decks. Read the news in 02/16.

"These fixed 60 card decks include a new Hero, three copies of nine unique player cards, and the Encounter and Quest devoted to the included scenario ."

The expansion pack contains a whole new Encounter deck exclusive for that quest. Some will reuse the ones contained in the core box, of course. But they won´t be adding new cards to those.

Confirmed by the spanish publisher with access to the first whole cycle (first 6 chapter packs).

Yes, that is also the way I understood it.

I think we can expect new quests from the adventure packs to draw on encounter cards from the core set. But probably the encounter cards of the first adventure pack will form a new encounter deck with a new symbol.

I'd expect that new quests in the monthly adventure packs will also use other previously released encounter sets - possibly only core set/big box expansions as some players may not pick up all the adventure packs and would be a way to ensure that it is not unfair to the casual gamer.

I seem to remember reading something about being able to combine the whole of the first 6 scenarios into one quest- do people think this will likely be a quest drawn from six encounter sets? or another nightmare quest using the six different quests included in the packs?

either way, I expect each pack to have a new set and symbol for the encounters, but to mix with core set symbols to form new encounter deck combinations.

Mighty Jim said:

either way, I expect each pack to have a new set and symbol for the encounters, but to mix with core set symbols to form new encounter deck combinations.

That´s exactly the way is going to be.

As for the campaign game, reading that the six quests follow a narrative (hunting for Gollum and finnally taking him prisoner and escorting him) I expect something similar to the nightmare version of the core set to be able to play all six quests in a row with same group. Not sure if they will add any special rule for this, but would be very nice if they do. Since we will have more heroes of each sphere to choose from, maybe the possibility of bringing replacements for your defeated heroes from the same sphere for next quests?