There are several active threads on the importance of deck building and on finding the best deck build to win a specific scenario (e.g. JtR). There hasn't been any real discussion on what the best gameplay strategy is for winning these scenarios (e.g. how much/when to quest, who to quest with, how to deal with specific enemies/threats, etc.), all the talk is around what the deck build needs to be and which cards are key. This got me to wondering how strategic and complex the gameplay really is - is all the strategy and complexity in finding the right deck build and then all you need to do is follow some basic principles on the gameplay, or is there some actual complexity/strategy in the gameplay? When I first started playing I thought that was the case, but now I am not so sure? I am hoping future scenarios add some more complexity into the gameplay decisions.

Interested to hear what others think?

Great question RGun!

For me, "presence of mind" seems to be a big factor when it comes to gameplay. What I mean by "presence of mind" is that I believe I have become a better player over time due to experience - knowing what to do with the cards I have in my hand at a given time, when to use my resources in one way verses another, when to make a calculated risk and take an undefended attack to save my strength for attacking or something else. Some of those lessons (and I'm still learning them all the time) have been learned the hard way - getting two or three turns past a certain decision and thinking, "Oh geez! Why did I do that!?!?" Those moments help me become a better player for the next time I encounter a similar situation.

Also, related to "presence of mind," I notice I don't play as well if I'm too sleepy, in a hurry, or less than sober. I miss things more in those states. So, I think gameplay does matter. It's the strategic execution of the carefully constructed plan. Otherwise, it would just be an exercise in deck building. And while planning is a type of play in and of itself, it's not the full expression. You can practice all you want for the big dance/game/show/etc... but eventually, it's go time!

I think one of the reasons we don't see much discussion about gameplay (as opposed to deckbuilding) relates to the lack of a competitive scene. The way the encounter deck is "playing" also plays a role here.

I do believe gameplay is a more important factor than the actual decklist. A better player will achieve the best results even with the suboptimal decklist because he'll make the right decisions at the right moment.

If the game ever develops a competitive scene, I'm sure we'll see strategy discussions evolve more around the gameplay itself than just the decklist. It could also lead to some "primer" discussion (presenting a deck along with the way to play it, rather than just listing the cards). But for now, we don't gave much of an incentive to get into these discussions. Everyone makes up his own strategies and learns at its own pace. Personaly, I'd love to see discussions of play-by-play decisions and "what if" scenarios. But from various posts I did (most of my first posts a while back included play-by-play description), people rarely comment on the play itself, but mostly on the result. Also, the lack of "expert/pro players" reduces the authority of anyone trying to discuss strategy. If someone was crowned annual LotR Champion, that person would then have authority to discuss strategy. (I'm making a number of parallel here with the way the MtG scene developed itself).

Another reason why we may not be seeing so many strategy discussions is the fact that we don't play against a thinking opponent. Anyone can analyze in retrospect how his game went and come up with adjustments. Ex: I just played a game against Passage through Mirkwood. I add Zigil Miner out, ready, during combat phase. I had no intention to use the miner for combat (not to defend or attack), but I did want to use its ability before the refresh phase. I chose to defend against an enemy with Frodo without first activating my Miner. Shadow card was revealed as Hummerhorns. Doh! Miner is dead, no time to use it. I could also have been hit by King Spider, forcing me to exhaust the Miner without using it. The next few games I played, I timed my Miner's activations to account for these shadow cards. Lesson learned.

In other games where the opponent also has options, it opens up the door to a lot more "discussions" in terms of what if he does that and what if I do X. It exists to a degree in LotR (my example of the shadow card is a good one), but the strategy won't change once "arrested". The whole "bluffing" aspect is also totally absent from LotR, which reduces the possible gameplay discussions.

Some good points. I agree playing against an encounter deck versus another human player(s) changes the type of strategy discussion, and perhaps will never require the same level of strategy but I think there is still some strategy to be had, and should generate some very specific strategies for specific scenarios.

It might be interesting to have a tournament sometime where the player deck is fixed (i.e. tournament organizer sets the heroes and deck and everyone has to use it). If each player played 3-5 games and used the scoring approach we have been using would be interesting to see how much the scores varied and if over several tournaments of this nature the same player(s) rose to the top. Of course, luck of the encounter/player deck draw would still have some influence on results. Could also try giving everyone a fixed deck they need to play each scenario in a cycle with once (e.g. play each of the SoM scenarios once with this deck).

Overall, I don't think this type of tournament would be as fun since building your deck is a key part of the game, but would be interesting to try once in awhile (similar concept to duplicate bridge in some ways).

Following on from your idea about playing with a "fixed encounter deck order", I think it would be fairly easy to create a simple program or website that managed the encounter deck for you.

Given a seed to the random number generator, it could shuffle the deck for you and still allow another player to play with the same random order. There are obviously times when the encounter deck gets reshuffled and the point this happens and which cards are still in the deck could be different for different players, however the overall order of the shuffle could be pre-determined and any cards no longer in the encounter deck simply skipped over. This would mean 2 or more people could play the same encounter and we would know that the order of cards in the encounter deck would be consistent for all players.

Off the top of my head, the interface to this webpage would need

• a way to choose the cards in the encounter deck
• somewhere to enter the random number seed for the tournament and shuffle the deck
• a button to reveal the next card
• a button to deal a shadow card
• a button to reshuffle the encounter deck (minus the cards in play or in the victory display)

I've not used the online deck manages like LACKEY so I don't know if they already do this.

Back on topic .....

I've noticed that once I have played a quest a few times, my play style for the quest really starts to improve. I believe this is independent of improvements in my general play style.

Knowing a quest informs me when to take risks, when to be cautious, when to travel to locations and when to complete quest phases. It also informs me on the overall strategy and hence the sort of deck I need to build.

The improvement cycle is something like this.

1. Play the quest with my current favourite deck
2. Play it again, this time knowing what to expect at each quest phase
3. Decide on a strategy for defeating the quest
4. Build a deck to suit that strategy
5. Goto 2

When I started playing, I was pretty gun-ho about completing stages of a quest, always rushing on to the next stage. I soon realised that triggering a new quest phase often brought new enemies into play, so I switched my play style to be more cautious. I only completed quest phases when I had good board control. Now I know the quests fairly well, I "know" what is coming up next and adjust my play accordingly. When playing a new quest, I err on the side of caution as I'd rather get a hard fought win than a lucky quick one (or a quick death!).

So, I think it would be interesting to see what approaches players have to the different quests. There will be some cross-over with deck building skills, and that is one thing I like about the game. The better quests allow more than one strategy to produce good results. For example, when playing a journey down the Andiun, there are 2 distinct approaches to deal with the troll.

1. Start with a low threat to give yourself time to create a defence for the troll
2. Start with a high threat and cards in the deck to help survive and quickly overcome a troll attacking you on the first turn

You need to get lucky with option 2 but you will probably give yourself a good chance to get a low score if you do get the right cards in your opening hand.

I haven't done any analysis of the quests, so please take the above "strategy" as an example and not any sort of good advice!

there will never be a compeditive scene

Hey there.. I tried to do what you asked and made a post in another thread so the strats I was talking about are forever linked to that quest...

Is this the kind of thing you asked for? I know i do deck buildign as well.. but strat and deck building are linked..

juicebox said:

I totally agree here. I'm not too great of a player yet, so I rarely win any of the scenarios, but I pretty much never win when I am in a hurry, which unfortunately is most of the time I play. I think I tend to take huge risks just to finish the game in my allotted play time. When I finally beat Journey Along the Anduin solo, I had a whole evening to try some stuff, build a deck, and then play it. It took me three games with my deck (lower threat version) to finally win.

I also find it hard to slow down when the scoring really puts a premium on finishing fast. I guess I just need to realize that finishing at all is better than moving too quickly.

i think this is good point and probably why many newcomers taking pre made decks from people on here still cant win- they are executed correctly, even a deck with a 90% win rate on a certain quest needs to be used right

thats why when looking at a deck with resource draw and map maker for instance it may not be clear for some how to best use that deck- ie getting the cards you want out, wacking on steward of gondor, putting song of wisdom on non lore characters- yes zigil of course, horn of gondor- all the ways of getting resources, and to some they may think - well if i dont draw it in my hand then how can i use it?

also the same with other combos- protector of lorien and card draw, gleowine, bilbo, beravor, unexpected courage, some less experieced players wont get the combos right for a while, so yes, play strategy is important as decks i believe

in every deck as well, say you drew 2 gandalfs in starting hand, some may see how good he is and play them straight off turn after turn, as soon as they had the resources, when it would be better to save them for when they are needed

same with card cancelling- i mean- do you really need to cancel that +1 shadow effect when you know there are shadow cards that add enemies to the staging area? its all about planning it out, knowing you deck, and having an okish idea of what youre up against

Conflict at the Carrock is a good example that deckbuilding is only one (but important) part of the game, but that you need to develop a strategy to win. Quest- and threat management are key to win here. That's also true for other scenarios, but it's especially for CatC.

A lot of good points from everyone and I agree that there is a lot of gameplay strategy, but I was starting to wonder how much compared to the deck building given all the recent focus on that.

7th Level Spoiler Below

Another example of a quest specific strategy is one on the 7th Level, which is only rated difficulty 3 but can destroy you if you don't employ the right strategy regardless how good your deck is. It took me a few plays to realize that this encounter deck is overloaded with enemies, and that most of them have the shadow effect that spawns a new enemy in the staging area. In order to avoid the staging area getting overrun with orcs (which will cause you to lose) you really need to finish off each enemy right away. You also need to assume the encounter deck will flip over a new enemy and be ready to deal with it, so you need to hold back enough heroes/allies to deal with it - at the beginning this often means questing with just 1 hero even if there are no enemies in the staging area. Since I learned this strategy I haven't lost the quest once.