As a prospective player I have a couple of questions:

1. The Hunt for Gollum quest cards, do you need all of them from each of the packs or is each useable alone.

2. Do the packs contain enough multiples of each card (i don't know if LotR has a 3x each card limit or whatever).

Thanks

I believe each chapter pack will contain 1 full quest.

The chapter packs will probably contain 3 copies of most cards, except heroes, quest cards and maybe some other uniques.

signoftheserpent said:

1. You need a core set to play in the first place. When the first adventure pack arrives you can play it without having have to wait for others.

2. The limit is 3 cards of the same name in a deck. I am not sure whether the following has been officially confirmed but I have read there are going to be 3 copies of each new player card in the expansions.

Does the core set give enough of each of the cards?

If by enough, you mean 3 of every card... no. The Core Set includes 1-4 cards of each type... So (in theory) a player could need three copies of the core set if they really wanted to build a deck with the max of the cards of which only one is included...

But realistically, the one core set is pretty good at providing enough for making Tournament legal MIXED decks. (Almost all cards in the game (the only exception right now is the Gandalf Ally) are of one of four "flavors" there are 29 cards of each flavor included... so if you want to make a single flavor (ie very focused) deck you do need TWO core sets.

But very good decks can be made by using the core set alone... albeit they will be decks of two or three flavors. (Four flavors is possible, but rather silly at this point.)

Gabryl said:

People will say that it's playable from a single core, but really how playable? I'm not interested in tournaments, but I am interested in playing the game well. Not just random draw based on a single copy of vital cards.

1 Core set gives you 4 decks each of about 30 cards, one for each sphere. With these decks you can play the first quest (the easy one) solo, and the other two with 2 or more players. You can also build enough in the way of multi-sphere decks to stand a decent chance agains tthe harder scenarios by yourself.

There are significant gaps though. Key attachments or event cards are only 1x or 2x, and there are only 4 Gandalfs, despite the fact that you can put 3 in each deck.

If you want to really experiment with deck-building/have better odds of getting the right cards out once you've got a 50-card deck, a 2nd core set is probably a good idea. about 12-13 usable cards per sphere, plus extra Gandalfs.

a Third core set is probably only for completists/tournament players- you'll get about a dozen cards tops that you can actually use unless you're building multiple decks using the same sphere to run simultaneously.

There are lists outt here of exactly which cards are 1x, 2x, 3x, as well as details of what they do, but I don't have one.

Hope that helps a bit.

signoftheserpent said:

Only gandalf is given in 4x format!

Mighty Jim said:

Why would the other two quests (making one that's really easy may sound great for tutorial purposes, but it sounds like a waste of money to me - if it's that easy there's no replay value). Im really only interested in this as a solo game, if the other two quests can't be done solo then there's no point in buying this unfortunately. Are the different sphere's incompatible?

Why can you have 4 Gandalfs and 3 of everything else? That seems inconsistent; or have I missed the point?

Thanks for the replies.

signoftheserpent said:

There's one Gandalf for each of the four mono-sphere decks. They're not supposed to all go in the same deck if you're playing with the decks straight out of the box without customization.

As far as the quests go, you can build a deck that'll beat it out of one base set, I think. You just won't be able to do it sticking to one of the spheres - you have to customize a bit.

The third quest is a bear - it's extremely difficult to beat solo in any event because of the way it's set up, as the opening quest card is fairly crippling for a solo player. It's possible, but you have to have a tuned deck (probably from multiple sets), get a lucky deal, and make few to no mistakes.

Is there any truth in this, which claims Leadership to be overpowered?

signoftheserpent said:

I don't know if it is overpowered but it is sure the best sphere so far.Aragorn is the best hero.You can quest very well with Faramir,you can have as resources as you want with Steward of Gondor and is the only sphere which you can use cards from an other sphere even if you use only leadership heroes(Celebrian's stone).

Actually, if we use the Quest tracker, you can see that Spirit is slightly edging out Leadership as the most played sphere (31.14% to 30.84%). And Aragorn has lost his status as most played hero. He is seeing play in 39% of all decks. Eowyn has the top spot, and takes the field in a whopping 46.92% of all decks. So, the community doesn't see leadership as "broken"

signoftheserpent said:

Just to clarify, you are only allowed 3 copies of a given card in each deck. The reason Gandalf is included 4 times is because the game brings 4 different starter decks and the idea is that you put one Gandalf in each. This is really directed more at people who want to play cooperative. For solo, it doesn't really matter, as you will more likely play one deck and put 3 Gandalfs in it.

The second quest can be done solo, many players, myself included, have passed it multiple times. It is tough, but far from impossible. The third quest, is almost impossible to pass solo with the current card pool, and was probably designed primarily as a coop scenario. As for the first, you are right, the replay value of it is limited. You can pass it with the starter decks, something that is almost impossible to do with the other scenarios.

Bohemond said:

Leadership isn't broken, but it sure has a lot of good cards. I think Aragorn, good card though it may be, gets really hurt by his high threat. If you want to use leadership, Theodred and his resource acceleration is probably a better choice with a much smaller threat. Even Gloin, can be used very effectively, and also has a significantly lower threat.

Bohemond said:

I think this is happening cause most people create their decks to have better scores and easier wins at he 2 scenario.Scenario 2 i think is the most enjoyable for solo play.It is not so easy as the first and not so hard as the third.Because of the hill troll most people try heroes with lower starting threat to avoid the troll as long as they can until the build their army of allys thats why Aragorn lost his status as the most played hero.Also Eowyn and spirit is the best combination for 2 scenario and especialy for 2b card.

I can't speak for all but i think this is the major reason.Others can tell if i am right or it is just my idea.