So I just started playing last night, played once with each deck on the first adventure and got thrashed. OK, back to the rules. Realized creatures attacking me don't add their threat. OK back again. Then.... it seems to me in the rules that defenders are just meat shields - they don't hit back because by the time its the attack phase they're already exhausted because the exhausted to defend - am I right? This seems to be making the precreated decks tough to play. I know deckbuilding is where its at but I'd like to play with the core decks for a bit to get the hang of the game. I am playing solo with just one deck.

SWCrusader said:

My wife and I played last night and ran into the same problems. We were getting pounded and not making any progress. It seems that we were drawing a lot of location cards which required us to spend so much time going to locations which means we're not making progress on the quest. Also, like you, if the scenario starts with a monster in plan and if you draw more, the players will end up taking care of that monster first. We were exhausting our characters just to meet the threat and possible threat each turn that by the end of the defense phase we're unable to do actual damage to characters.

How did you handle if you had 4 attackers with the same level of threat during the check? There is an Orc with a threat level of 25, we had 4 in play at one point which means we engaged all 4 against the first player because she had a threat of 32, so all went against her.

How did you end up with four enemies in the staging area at once? Not sure if you missed the rule, but enemies stay engaged after a combat round, they do not return. In any case, if you have multiple foes engaging, you follow the standard rules for engagement checks. The first monsters goes to player 1, the second (assuming a threat total of 25+) goes to player 2, the third to player 1, the fourth to player 2.

Bohemond said:

Don't they return to the staging area after the combat round? So, in the next turn during the questing phase their threat would then be counted towards the threat/spirit check?

Ulairi said:

No, engaged enemies stay engaged.

that makes things easier, I think. So after the combat round, they stay engaged with the same player, so in teh following combat round I'd need to fight another creaters than egnage and the creatures already engaged?

Ulairi said:

Yeap, enemies stay engaged with the same player and the next round if you haven't killed any of those you were engaged you must fight them again.Also if other creatures comes out from the encounter deck during quest phase you do the engagement checks and if they have equal or lower threat than yours you must fight them too.

Yes I did figure out that enemies stay engaged but the question I was posing was - Does a defender hit back during the defenders step? Or does it just stand there taking whatever the monster hands out and is tapped so it can't attack back in the attacking step? That seems counterintuitive to me but it seems to be what the rules say.

As a general rule, you can either defend or attack, but you can not do both. If you get a chance, you may want to watch some of the tutorial videos that FFG put together. They are a great introduction to how the game should play.

Bah that seems really counterintuitive. Even when you're defending you should be able to get a few licks of your own in. I can see now why people are fielding 3 heroes despite the higher threat because two heroes just doesn't seem to cut the mustard.

Fielding less than three heroes is not viable, save for some of the house rules people have developed for very large games.

SWCrusader said:

I thought it worked the way you did as well with both the attacker and the defender doing damage.

The split defence/attack thing can be a pain, but you can use it to your advantage- defend with Denethor, but attack with Glorfindel- the other way round for either would probably end badly.

Aragorn and Theodred combine well - use both to quest, but use their powers to ready Aragorn for free. That means you've committed two characters to the quest, and still have one to defend and one to attack.

On top of all that, ALLIES. Lots of them, they can soak damage from the horrendously strong monsters, leaving your heroes free to attack, or they can add to your attack, finishing a creature off- don't forget you can attack with multiple chracters, and teh enemy's defense is only counted once against your combined attack.

If you're using Spirit solo from the core set, you'll struggle a bit with the monsters, but the Ranger allies can deal with lots of locations, and you can counter shadow/treachery cards and reduce your threat to delay the point when enemies engage you- sometimes even kill them altogether with Dunhere before they attack.

Personally, I found the first three or four games really tough, then suddenly things began to click and it got A LOT easier. Stick with it.