Ok, so I got the game. I've played it a lot and after many sessions, discusions with my friends I must say I'm disapointed with it a little.

I thought it will be great becouse it's set in the universe created by Tolkien with famous characters and adventures.

First of all I thought it will be more challenging to beat all scenarios - I beat all tree in a row after the first play. I just needed to make a two sphere deck.

Second I don't know whats the point of playing with more players when everyone is hidding there cards. This is cooperative game and after all You could just good play with Youre hand revealed.

Third I hope to get more from the core set. There's so few of enemies that after just a couple of plays You know them to well.

Fourth many good characters are Ally and that means that we won't see them as Heroes in the future.

Don't get me wrong. I love the art in this game and the atmosphere by the core set is just to small and I'm disapointed with it.

The game can be amazing but only after a few Adventure pack when we will have more of everything.

.

ffgfan said:

This is a common theme with most coop games. It makes you rely on verbal skills over visual. Intentions and action can be missunderstood when explained, especially when you are in the heat of a critical moment and everyone is discussing options. If we all took the time to read everyones cards, not only would the game drag on, but it would lose flavor (IMO).

ffgfan said:

This is just my opinion, but I don't see why FFG couldn't release a hero that was already released as an ally (or vise-versa). You just wouldn't be able to play both versions of the cards at the same time.

Take Faramir for example, he would make a great hero. I'm sure if FFG made him one, his abilities would be different, and while he's in play, you couldn't play the Faramir ally card.

I could even envision FFG making different versions of both heroes and allies, with different abilities as the game progresses. Aragorn, King of Gondor vs. Aragorn, Ranger of the North vs. Aragorn, of the Three Hunters.

Thanks,

Don

ffgfan said:

If that is true (and if you're playing correctly) then it's fairly impressive: no one that I've seen on the forums has yet to beat scenario 3 with a dual-sphere deck due to losing one of your three heroes randomly. Beating it on the first try is even more impressive. What build are you using? Saying that you beat it easily leads me to believe you may have missed a rule or two, but I could be wrong!

As for the rest of the post, naturally there will be some people who don't care for the game, but from the reaction I've seen here and on BGG you are the minority.

I see the core set as an introduction to the game.I am waiting adventure packs to come and then i can say if this game is hard/easy bad or good.This is a coop game and and as all coop games sooner or later you will find a way to beat all scenarios with ease except if ffg finds a way and we can customize the encounter deck.

For now i just enjoy tha game and i see it as a casual ME game were you can use Tolkiens's characters places creuters to spend your time.

ps:ffgfan i also want to see many characters as heros in this game, i want to have Gandalf more time .

ffgfan said:

I think you forgot some rules.

Ahzrab said:

No, I play with all normal rules. And beating scenarios was easy. The second - Journey along the Anduin was a little bit hard I must say but the other two were not. Especialy I thought that the last one - Escape from Dol Guldur will be very hard but it was not. Sometimes one of my heroes deid but still a beat the scenario so it still counts.

And about my deck - according to the rulebook You can have a max of 50 card deck, so I made such one. Among the 50 card were 3 copies of Gandalf. And my heroes were Eowin, Gimli and Legolas. The most simple strategy was to exhaust Eowin every time to the Quest, Gimli was perfect for defence and Legolas was the attacking one (so after killing enemies I always got some more progress tokens on the quest). It really is not that hard to beat all scenarios.

PS. the trick to beat Escape from Dol Guldur is simple - always first make the maxiumum progress on a Quest and after it take the objective card in the last moment to go to the next stage. And destrong the Dol Guldur Nazgul is easy when You have some good event cards in Your hand. Oh, nad the captured hero was Gimli.

So really the game is a little disapointment for me and at this point nothing can change that.

Try the nightmare mode mate .

1. I think claiming that the last scenario was easy solo almost definitely means you forgot some rules.

ffgfan said:

ffgfan said:

Seeing as you seem to be doing infinitely better than me or anyone I've heard of it would be nice to see a deck list and a play by play breakdown. E.g. for quest 2.

deck list, Starting heroes, initial draws, encounter deck draws and so on. I still haven't beaten quest 2 yet though I've yet to try a Eowyn, Legolas and Gimli build.

Quest 2 is very beatable solo, but it is certainly tricky and requires the right build.

First, Legolas/Gimli/Eowyn will have a really tough time with Scenario 2, unless you are the type to just claim you beat it no problem . But if you actually want to beat it the issue is your threat is going to be far too high, and come turn 2 you'll have to face the Troll, who will rocket up your threat. Now, if you get really lucky Gimli can take the hit first turn and then you can turn around and get rid of him turn 2, but if his shadow card gives him even 1 more axe Gimli's dead and your game is shot.

I've found the easiest way to deal with this scenario (without resorting to blind luck) is to play a mostly spirit deck with very low threat. My current Spirit/Leadership deck starts out at 25, buying me plenty of time before I have to face the Troll, and half the time I'll play a Galadrim's Greeting to buy myself even more time. This can allow me to set up a Sneak/Gandalf combo or something similar and take him out with no problem.

Knowledge can also do it, as they have access to Forest Snares, but you'd have to splash something else (probably Leadership!) to give you some attacking power. Denethor/Berevor/Theodred will give you 26 threat, which buys you a few turns...but you also lack access to Spirit's powerful threat reduction.

Also if you have 2 core sets play with your friends competitive.Play the same scenario solo and then compare your score.Wen you play your turn your friend watches you for a fair play and then you do tha same in his turn.

I think this will keep your interest for some time and it will force you to make better decks for better score .

ffgfan said:

I mean no offense, but I find this hard to believe unless you are the luckiest or the greatest card player in creation. I too, would like to see a breakdown of how these games went.

Claiming to have won the three scenarios in a row with the same deck the first time you try the game sounds like an impressive strike of luck to me or some inportant rule being overlooked, according to my own experience with the game and the reports I am reading from everyonw trying out this game solo. Noffense on my side here, really. Just a bit skeptical.

It would be great if you could post a little bit more detail After Action Report of how you beat the third quest. Which event cards you used to beat the Nazgul so fast for example? How to quest so fast at the begining with just two heroes and a limited resource pool? Maybe we would all learn some tricks we have been overlooking, who knows...

Personally, I think the lack of detail reinforces some of the comments here. But who knows, maybe he just got extremely lucky.

I know it's probably not productive, but I have to put myself in the non-believer column as well here. I have yet to make it past Escape From Dol Goldur 1A in twenty-some odd tries with the exact deck he's referring to (Eowyn, Legolas, Gimli). And this was after fine-tuning both the build and the strategy in order to beat Journey Down the Anduin in twenty-some odd tries. There is just no way, unless I'm an idiot. (Which is still on the table)

If you have time, I would love to see a game session breakdown from you ffgfan.

I share two core sets with a friend and have spirit/tactics as my own factions and I experienced that they have a horrible synergy.

To try to turn this thread into something slightly productive, here's a few 'common mistakes' for ffgfan to make sure he's doing everything correctly.

* Are you adding 1 threat at the end of every turn?

* Are you exhausting characters to defend, then exhausting different characters to attack?

* Are you questing every turn, and if not questing adding the full threat in the staging area to your threat?

* Are you checking monsters threat level to see if they attack you themselves?

Anyone else know of any common mistakes they can add? I personally like the game and if you dislike it because it's too easy, I'd like to help you find the mistake you're making.

Are you adding shadow cards to each attack? would be another common one I'd imagine.

Here are another possible three:

1) Are you using Resource Match (i.e. Eowyn cannot pay for tactics cards, Gimli cannot pay for Spirit cards?)

2) Are you subtracting the Creatures' defenses when you attack them?

3) Are you putting undefended damage on only one or you heroes (not allies)?

Sorry for the double post. Just also wanted to add props to CAlexander for taking the thread in a more productive direction.

I would love to write a game session breakdown but I got the game more then a week ago from now and don't remeber it that good.

After a lot of playing I can say one more thing - comparing it to Invasion. When I got the core set for W:I I had a lot more fun with it. And about LOTR LCG core set - I got bored after a couple of plays. The only thing why I still tried it was wthe fact that my firend wanted to try it.

Oh, there's no more thing I don't like - the massive part of the game is luck. When You are lucky enought for the first two rounds You could draw in the encounter only treachery or location cards and that gives You a lot of advantage.

The way I see it - The game is good but I like a lot better Invasion from this one. Becouse here the luck play a large part of the game.

But that's only my opinion after more then a week of playtesting it.

I will say it like this - I will put this game on my shelf and the game will wait for better times I hope. And by better time I mean after the first cycle of Adventure pack I will think if I want to play it more.

@Calexander - anwsers: yes, yes, yes, yes. And it's not that I don't like it only becouse I beat it in first play but the main reason is the part that luck play in it. I think that one of the reasons why i beat the game in first play was the fact that I got very lucky. For example - in the second scenarion on Anduin in two first rounds I got in the encounter one treachery and after it one location. So I got time to kill the hill troll. Or in the third when I escaped from Dol Guldur the shadow cards on objective cards were treachery, location and only one enemy. So the main reason why I'm disapointed with this game is the large part of luck in play.

@Mestrahd - that's one of the main rules of the game, You can not miss that. Don't You think?

@Conykchameleon - 1) I know that and that one of the main rule, can't miss that. I use Eowin to play cards like Gandalf or from Spirit sphere. 2) and yes.

So sorry but I'm leaveng the community of this game.

Maybe such a cooperative game like this is not the kind I want to play. This kind of cooperative game is not for me becouse I don't have to much fun playing it. I will stay with such tiltes like W:I in card games, that gives me more pleasure playing it.

So goodbye to all! And have fun with this game,

Best regards

Conyk,

I just noticed that I've been committing one of the mistakes you mentioned. When I leave an attack undefended, I've been assigning all damage to one CHARACTER. But if you say it's supposed to be a hero, that makes things much more difficult.

Mestrahd: Yeah it is supposed to be a hero. And while I had the rule down from the beginning it took me a while to figure out how straegically poor leaving an attack undefended is. And yeah, it does make it A LOT harder. lol

Everyone else: It looks like we lost the greatest LOTR LCG player there will ever be.

conykchameleon said:

Apparently we did lol

Anyways, I will say one thing before this thread dies a deserved death: I do agree that, right now, there is a lot of luck in the game. That being said the game is brand spanking new, and companies always have a few growing pains before a game hits its stride. Hell, ffgfan mentioned Warhammer: Invasion, which just has barely hit it's stride after a couple of years of major imbalance problems. I think once we see the first cycle of adventure packs they will start to balance quests better and there will be much more strategy in terms of deckbuilding.

Warhammer, MTG etc involve more.luck than LOTR LCG. Both in WH and MTG we do not know what opponent will we face, while in LOTR LCG enemy is fixed, so we are free to prepare