Just wondering, does anyone know if the Khazad-Dum expansion will be enough to have more than two players?

I generally have 3-6 players round when I'm gaming and as much as I love co-op games, the fact that the core game's for 1-2 players (and pricy for that) is an off-putting factor.

If the Khazad-Dum fancy box thing doesn't help, what's the swiftest, cheapest way of allowing 3+ players to join in?

The game has always been for 1 to 4 players. The core set was recommended for 1 to 2 players because "they" felt there weren't enough cards in the core set for 4 players- that way you would buy more core sets -sneaky huh?

If you play with the 4 starter decks included you can play 4 players with just the core set. If you're looking to do 50 card decks for each player... then no, Khazad Dum will not be enough. The core set includes enough for 4 30 card decks. You'd need another 80 player cards to have full 50 card decks. The current estimates are somewhere around 9 per sphere (3 each of about 3 new cards per sphere) for the expansion which would only put you up to 39 cards per player, plus a few extra neutrals to toss in.

If you pick up the Mirkwood APs in the meantime, each one includes 3 copies each of 2 new cards per sphere plus 3 copies of a neutral card, so 4 APs will give you enough player cards for 4 decks of 50+ cards each (though without much room for deck building). You could alternately pick up Khazad Dum and a couple APs.

I've done 4 player games with just the core set. Using both the "starter" decks and what basically amounted to the starter decks with some of the new cards tossed in as well (also switching in some of the new heroes).

The only real problem that I had was that the game was too darn easy. Escape from Dol Goldur just eats me alive with two 50 card decks, but was a cake walk with four 35ish card decks.

Core scenario's scale extremely poorly. The expansions do a better job of dealing with that problem.