Looking back over the notes I made of all the games I have played, and reading everyone else's reports, it is extremely clear that games are won and lost by the number of uses of Gandalf. If he is not there at those inevitable tough moments, all is usually lost. Therefore, packing in as many copies of him as possible, plus, all the cards that gain extra uses of him, seems a must for success.

It would be interesting to see how players would fare without the inclusion of Gandalf. That would put even more value in deckbuilding to find those lovely card combos. How would you change the difficulty rating of the scenarios if Gandalf was banned? Cheers!

Ok let me think a little what would huppend to the fellowship in the mines of Moria if Gandalf wasn't there....Yeap all dead.Now let me think what would huppend at Gondor.....Yeap all dead.Helms Deep.....?All dead again.Don't start a battle or go in a mission if Gandalf isn't with you.Tolkien made that clear in his books.With no Gandalf there is no life.

Ok seriously now i tried one deck and i left Gandalf out.If i remember well it was a Lore/spirit deck with Glorfindel,Eowyn and Denethor.I won this game but i think that was because i was lucky (Denethor and 3 riversong allys helped me a lot) with the encounter deck.Maybe i will make this deck again do some more tests and then i can tell you if it was just luck or this deck can make it without Gandalf.

yes gandalf throughout the hobbit and TLOTR is the main hero who brings down sauron, his plans are centuries in the making. after all he is maiar, sent to middle earth for that task, so i see it oonly just that he is the most powerful card in the card.

to answer your question though i dont think the first scenerio would change much, ive completed it a good few times without him. but i think the others would become alot more difficult

I also wander if Gandalf the grey has those stats and abilities right now what stats Gandalf the white will have if FFG desides to make an expantion with the war of the ring?

Gandalf is a must play now because there are not a lot of cards available.

In my opinion, the solo play is too much luck reliant and so it's not very interesting yet. You can do 2 games with the same deck, 1 you can win and the other one you can be trashed. If the encounter deck is against you, there's almost nothing you can do. Only the nightmare mode can prevent this, but it's long

But with the extensions, some cards will help the resources & draw management, which are crucial. And so the decks would be more consistent and you will probably be able to win the 2nd scenario with a good ratio without Gandalf .

Rashley said:

I have won one of my 12 games against the third scenario using two starter decks without Gandalf showing up: It was with the Lore/Spirit combination with Glorfindel being the prisoner and ended with a score of 93. However, two heroes died in this game (one of them killed by the Hummerhorns).

I have also lost two of those twelve games despite Gandalf showing up once - both games used the Lore/Tactics combination, though, which I've identified as the most problematic.

All of my other wins in scenario 2 and 3 had Gandalf showing up from one to three times.

If you don't use cards from the Spirit deck, the only means to reduce threat is Gandalf, that's what makes him crucial for the other spheres. For every sphere but Tactics Gandalf is also often decisive to quickly defeat a foe by dealing four points of auto-damage. I think I only used him once in over 100 games to draw more cards and that was when playing the Lore deck to boost my Defender of Lorien.

Adding three copies of Gandalf to a deck definitely makes the game easier. Having ways to recycle Gandalf or bring him into play additional times even more so.

@servant of the secret fire: I'm not sure if you know it, but the riversong ally is unique, so only one at a time can be in play

Primus_Magicus said:

Yes i know mate.I have three in my deck not in play but this guy has only one hit point and he dies immidiatly by the wen revealed effects so i have three in my deck to replace the dead one.

The first deck I build was Green/Blue (sorry I forget which sphere is which) and I left the Gandalf's out due to their high cost. (I'm a CoC:LCG player and most high cost cards are generally not used). Anyway, I got through all three of the quests with this deck. (It did take two attempts at quest three though).

Then I sorted everything out, and made two decks, out of the starter box, and played a "two player" game by myself. I put two Gandalf's in each deck since he seemed so good now that I understand the game better. I've gone through the first two scenarios and haven't manage to draw him yet. Soooo I think he's definitely good, but not entirely necessary. We'll see what happens with quest three though.