I can't help but feel that the scoring might be too random to actually give you a reliable number on the strength of your deck. At least if you have only one core set for construction (it's not enough to build reliable two-sphere decks, there just aren't enough cards).

Actually in general I feel that the encounter deck mechanism doesn't provide a very stable game experience. It's just too dependent on which cards you draw during staging, especially in the early game. I played the Journey down the Anduin scenario three times so far and two times I had really broken starts.

Once, I turned up a Marsh Adder in the set-up phase, added the Hill Troll and got me a Wolf Rider followed Chieftain Uthak in the first staging phase. Sure these enemies remain in the staging area for a while, but facing three of these bad boys in the first round makes questing and battle really difficult.

In general I feel the difficulty varies rather strongly according to what you draw of the encounter deck. Sometimes you don't even get victory points. Sometimes you get a really easy run and sometimes you're just overwhelmed no matter ow strong your decks.

I do love the game and think it's very fun, but I didn't expect the game experience to change so drastically from game to game.

yeah when you are playing solo the game experience can change quite a bit from game to game. journey down the anduin is the biggest culprit in this aspect. it does scale really well to 3 or 4 players however. feels very "epic."

faith_star83 said:

jhaelen said:

Agree completely. Yes the score on one game is not a good "objective" measure of how good your deck is or how well you play the game. But on the other hand, a scenario can still give you some surprises even after you play it several times.

I'd rather have the unpredictability, myself.