Lately I haven't had a chance to play LotR:LCG with another player and I have found the difficulty of the one player game to often be formidable to the point of almost impossible for some of the quests. Namely Escape from Dul Guldur and Conflict at the Carrock. I only have one copy of the core set, and since I don't have a lot of money to burn up on extra cores for complete sets of 3 for every card, my deck strategies seem to be very varied. (rather be buying expacs)

I was wondering how out of the spirit of the game it would be to play with one extra hero in play and taking the top three threat of the four heroes to generate starting threat. I figure the influx of an extra hero would relieve some the pressure on the player in some of these more difficult quests. I know I could play with 2 decks like a two player game, but I really don't want to have to manage 2 decks at once when I play solo.

Any thoughts on how over powered this might make the player against the game mechanics?

Well, for one thing you would have a TON of resources... which would greatly tip the game balance in your favor.

I think it would trivialize a lot of the content. Without allies, you have enough heroes to send one each for Questing, Defense, and Attack. Part of the management of the game is determining when you can, for example, forego an attack in exchange for doubling up on questing. With a 4th hero, you can double up on whatever you want, in addition to receiving one third more resources.

Dropping the threat of the lowest hero is just icing on the cake.

That having been said, it's your game, you should play it in the way that gives you the most enjoyment (unless it's a tournament).

Radiskull beat me on this answer As I don't have so much experience with the game yet to determine whether or not it trivialize the game I totally agree that trying to modify the game is fun. Not cheating just fun, "if it's not a turnament" as radiskull said.

Sounds interesting with the way you wanna do it. tell us how it turns out.

Or have a look at this link

http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/69038/expanded-solo-variant-v0-8

Citation: "The objective of this expanded solo variant is to provide a solo play experience that allows the exploration of true multi-sphere combinations and synergies with a single deck.

A short summary: You will create a single deck with 5 heroes (no more than 3 of a single sphere). For most game purposes this single deck will count as two players."

It might make it too easy, don't know, haven't tried it myself yet. Good luck

I always play solo, have one core set and the 1st 3 APs.

Dol Guldur is close to impossible solo, it's just a fact of life. Elite players with a bit of luck can manage occasional wins, but for us mere mortals just forget it.

Carrock, however, is far from impossible. With my available card pool, I have beaten it regularly with 3 different decks. Two of those relied on threat reduction to pick off the Trolls one by one, the other a Tactis-heavy deck which can handle all Trolls in 2-3 turns with a bit of luck. It does need a Gandalf or two to make sure threat doesn't kill you while all four Trolls are engaged. The key to Carrock is to build up really slowly, don't go to stage 2 until you have an army of allies out and a storng hand of cards to play with. For me, Anduin is more difficult than Carrock.

A Paperback Hero said:

I have tried the same thing, but on the harder quests I found it didn't make that much of a difference. Escape from Dol Guldor and CotC need multiple players to really make them work.

Well based on the feedback, I think I will continue to strive to build a properly strong enough deck to defeat the quests and put aside quests like Dol Guldur until I can play with friends. It would probably bother me like a thorn in a my side if I decided to house rule my way to victory anyway.

A Paperback Hero: I also play mostly solo, though I do have 3 expansions as well (getting Emyn Muil today actually, my game store called!) As far as game difficulty, I have certainly had my share of problems...but ironically as my card pool has grown, so has the difficulty with Anduin. I played a deck originally with Beravor, Gloin, and Eowyn and all core set cards and consistently spanked Anduin in the past. Now that I have begun adding in cards from the first three expansions, I haven't beaten Anduin yet. I think the reason for this is because, when the core set was developed, the designers specifically made the card pool capable of beating the first two quests with some customization...of course Dul Goldor is another story (mainly a two player and up quest).

I have beaten Hunt for Gollum with a 50 card solo deck (legal in all respects), I haven't yet beat Conflict at the Carrock, sole reason is that every time I engage the trolls my threat is too high and Louis always causes me to die by threat before the trolls even swing at me (you can't win this scenario in solo if your threat is too high). As far as Journey to R, I haven't even attempted it yet, though I own it.

So, what I am trying to say is this: have fun. Don't worry too much about being "behind" on the expansions. Customize the core set until you get bored with it and buy some more expansions. I do believe the game is definitely harder solo. Good idea to put aside Dul Goldor. Happy Gaming!

A Paperback Hero said:

I know that feeling. For a while I've been toying with the idea of playing solo play without separate spheres. Instead any resource can buy for any card. I'd like to try it but part of me doesn't like the idea of going against the set rules.

DurinIII said:

I think this is the ultimate goal of any game. Two quick comments though. First, solo play is all about deck building; don't get too caught up on your favorite heroes or combos. They may work for one scenario and then be horrible at another. Second, I always describe this game as designed for co-op play with the option for solo play. The game mechanics encourage more than one player and the scenarios are easier when you add a second person. This does not mean you shouldn't play solo (I only play solo), but then you have to accept a higher losing percentage.

You're right Puzzle, though I wish it were more designed to solo play because of my own personal play options I understand the way the game is optimally set up though. I have played a few multiplayer games and it is a blast! I have a hard time not getting caught up on my favorite characters, and there are some heroes and allies I just "refuse" to play because a) I don't like the art, or b) I don't like the character. I know this is ultimately making my solo games harder, so I can't fault the company for that. I am a big "theme" guy when it comes to playing too.

So far I have found the art to this game to be very good and the artists who created the card art seem to blend very well together. (I almost thought it was the same artist at first) Though of course its sometimes hard to get past the fact that I have read these books so many times that I have a specific image in my head for all the characters and sometimes the art goes against that. Though the image for Frodo is perfect to me.

The difficulty for me is more or less a lack of experience with complex card games like this. I have a hard time completely understanding the utility of some cards and probably leave out very useful ones because of that. Time and learning will change that.

Well, being that I have solo'd all of the scenarios except for Dol Guldor and Osgiliath, I can say that it is definitely possible to complete them all solo, however some of them are very difficult (mainly CatC and Rhosgobel). To me, Rhosgobel relies too much on luck since the only way to really win is find 2 or 3 Athelas in the encounter deck and get a couple Lore of Imladris. Without the Athelas you really can't win, and if you dont find them soon enough you wont be able to keep up with Wilyador's damage counters.

I would say definitely continue trying to defeat the scenarios using the written rules, as you will find more satisfaction once you finally complete them. If you develop your own house rules to make the game easier, you are just cheating yourself out of that enjoyment of finally completing the scenario. At least, that's my opinion.

xBeakeRx said:

I was able to beat Rosgobel solo. I had to use Denethor to search the encounter deck for Athelas, and that turned out to work well. I still barely beat it, but I was pretty happy I completed it.

Stick with it playing by the rules is my suggestion. You'll do better over time.

I prefer to play solo with two decks - I always enjoy it a whole lot more, as the quests are still very difficult, but at least non of them are impossible. And you can take advantage of Ranged / Sentinel as well as other player interactions.

Very true. Ranged really doesn't have much use if your don't have 2 parties of heroes juggling the engagements.

scottindeed said:

I am able to defeat all of the difficulty levels 4 and below playing solo, but I still having beaten Dol Guldor or CATC. I am hoping that they will come out with some cards that will help me defeat both with the deck that I like to play. I plan on trying different deck options until I defeat both!!

Is it still pretty much the general consensus that Escape from Dol Guldur is next to impossible in SOLO play?

I just picked up the game (Core Set) this weekend, and I've been absolutely loving it. Played the first quest through multiple times with each 30 card mono sphere deck until I beat it at least once with each. That was a lot of fun and a nice way to just get a feel for each sphere and how the game phases flow.

Then I tried the second quest with one or two of the mono sphere decks and decided that wasn't going to work... time to start deck building. I tried a couple of two sphere 50 card decks with no great success. Then I built my first 3 sphere 50 card deck (Aragorn, Éowyn, Denethor). So much fun! I lost the first game in tragic fashion and then wound up with an epic victory the second time through. Tonight I went back to the first quest with the same deck I used in quest 2, and I found it was such a different playing experience (using multiple spheres). Good times. Anyway... I thought then I'd give the third quest a shot.

Um. Yeah. Not working. I'm thinking I'll need to wait and try this one again sometime with multiple players. Granted I'm still very new to the game, but it just doesn't seem possible in solo mode using one 50 card deck built from one Core Set. So, back to my original question - is that still the general consensus?

I'm going to teach a couple buddies the game this weekend, but seeing as it will be their first run through, I doubt we'll get to the third quest our first time playing together. Maybe something to look forward to some day much later... like somewhere around my 111th birthday?

juicebox said:

Pretty much. Some say they've beaten it solo but they admit to getting some really lucky draws from both the player deck and the encounter deck. Losing 1 of 3 Heroes as a prisoner is just too much of a handicap to recover from in solo. Even if you bend the rules and pick the Hero that is taken prisoner, instead of randomly selecting one, it is still the anti-solo scenario so far.

Even the "Game Too Easy" crowd don't recommend Dol Guldur solo.

I'm new to the game too. And I tried Dol Guldur for 3 times: 2 with 2 players and 1 as solo. And I haven't defeated it yet.

Marlow said:

jhaelen said:

About crowd: Yes you can says like this if Glaurung have 3 heads. But in Tolkien words all dragons have only 1 head.

In russian folk tales there is some 3 head dragons....... But im not this one(Joking).

Why i repead my self???? Cose i see is working. The designers watch the forums and see our discussions and make some changed after. FAQ 2 is good example of that.

About Do-Guldor: This not possible to win solo by the tounament rules.Yes you can make a special 30 cards deck against this quest(someone do that already) and win but for me is not interesting.

jhaelen said:

I see the same tendensy with small children in Toys R Us where I work. They often want something HERE and NOW but don't have any good arguments why. The moment they run out of arguments they just get repetitive until they get what they wants. This doesn't mean they where right, just that the parrents got tired of hearing the same over and over again. So in the end when "the crowd" gets what "they" want it'll be more of a "Well, you get it like you want cry baby and we (FFG) get peace"

Based on true storys