New to the game but i have spent about 20 hours total playing. I like the concept of having a LOTR LCG and the concepts are good and do not disappoint. I have a serious issue however with the over-powered scenarios, at least in the core set as I do not own any others and probably will not bother to purchase them. It does not take long for someone to realize that it takes at least 2-3 players to have a 10-20% average chance of success against the 2 later scenarios in this core set. The first one took a few attempts to complete but i just recently noticed the rules about questing. I found out that the quest phase always resolves, even if you do not committ any characters, oops, i did'nt realize that so technicly, I was not successful with the first scenario. The hero and character cards have good abilities and seem ok, but really do not measure up on a consistant basis. I have played a lot of solo focused games and the replay value of this game is not very attractive as 9 out of 10 times you get destroyed sooner or later by the encounter deck. In closing, it seems that the main idea of a LCG was to be able to play and enjoy it with a solo deck but is very impractical if you want to actually win the scenarios, unless you have 2-3 players in it and even then you will most likely get smoked. In the end, if changes are not made to this game it will end up in the toilet. After all, who would want to spend countless hours getting owned by a deck of cards when you could play many great RPG's online like Star Wars, WOW or Skyrim. Not a very enjoyable game when consistantly get smashed by the scenarios and encounter deck. Are there any variations of this game that are better?

You would not be the first to make such claims but let me assure you they will be proven false in time if you continue to play.

Out of the box if you are just playing the starter decks with practice you should be able to take down Passage Through Mirkwood 70 to 80% of the time. Each deck has a unique playstyle and takes some getting use to. I'd say stick with one till you get really good with it and start to see its various combos. One you graduate onto custom decks you'll trounce this quest repeatedly with prejudice.

The Journey Down the Anduin scenario with the starters is about 50/50. Tactics I think has the hardest time keeping up with the questing in this scenario while leadership and spirit tend to do better. But once you start creating custom decks you start to have an easier time of it.

The last scenario (name escapes me) is rightly criticized as nigh impossible solo. Its not.. I did it once but it took a great deck and a lot of luck. However in multiplayer mode its a great thematic scenario.

Once you get good with the starters on the Passage Through Mirkwood scenario try some custom decks. Early ones I enjoyed were:

Lore/Leadership (Beravor, Denethor, Gloin): Idea's here. Steward of Gondor for resources. Beravor for card draw. Gloin and Self Preservation or Lore of Imladris for resources. If solo Henemarth Riversong to see what's coming. Denethor to get bad cards off the top of the encounter deck or defend as necessary. Gloin and Celebrian Stone for questing Faramir for more questing power. Radaghasts Cunning and Secret Paths to control what comes out of the encounter deck, Protector of Lorien for more questing power.

Tactics/Spirit (Eowyn, Dunhere, Thalin): Galadhrim's greeting to keep threat low and engage enemies in the staging area with Dunhere. Thalin quests to damage enemies and make Dunhere's job easier. Allies to take hits as necessary. A Test of Will to deal with most treachery. Dwarven Tomb to bring back Gladhrim's Greeting or Test of Will when needed. Dwarven Axes and Blades of Gondolin on Dunhere to make him hit harder. Norther Tracker and Lorien Guide to deal with locations.

There are some ideas... give it some more goes... it gets easier.

Wraith428

Many veterans of the game would argue that multi-player, in general, is too easy. Additionally, player decks will increase in power while existing scenarios' difficulty will remain static (barring expansions to add cards to increase their difficulty - a cool idea if you ask me). With my play group, we'd be pretty shocked to lose one of the core scenarios.

which xpac is decent to get if your looking to beef up your deck?

The game gets easier as more cards get into your card pool... the core set has some of the best cards in the game but by itself is limited,.. and there is nothing wrong with this. This IS NOT a board game. This is a LCG witch is based on the way CCGs work. The game is designed for more cards... people expecting that the core set will play perfectly are asking that the core principle of the game be changed. It won't. If you are expecting this, then you have bought the wrong product.. it isn't a red pens fault that the ink is not blue.

If you want a self contained card game there are tons of options from lots of companies... FFG in fact make a ton of awesome stand alone card games witch play perfectly out of the box ... Death Angel, Chaos Gate or Rune Age are all boss, and Infiltration is a new one coming form the designer of Dominion.. arguably the best card game made in recent years (and one that invented a entire new genre for card games)

My point is that this is a LCG, it is meant to be supplemented by regular packs, the core principles of the game will not even be explored in core.. I mean we are a major expansion out and into the 2nd cycle and we still haven't seen even 1/2 of the common card effects from other ccg/lcg games... this game has tons of growing to do.

Core set is to hard, and you do not want to buy new xpacs.. well guess what? you have bought the WRONG game.. next time do your research.

which xpac is decent to get if your looking to beef up your deck?

This is a very hard question... FFG is in the business of making money and to that end the "good" cards are spread all over the place.. buy a single pack is not going to change things to much.

There was a thread people put a lot of effort into b4 with all this information but I can not find it and can not be ****** retyping everything... but my general opinion is that buying the packs mostly in order is the best way...

Hunt of Gollum would be my recommendation. Has a the minstrels and a leadership song. Meaning that you can run tri or even 4 colour decks very very easily, and use a leadership as a splash for the resource engine. "Most" decks before khaz used card form this pack... it is a good pack to supplement your pool.. built like I said.. many many cards are only good cause of other cards... this is why often I think buying them in order is a good way to go.. at least to start, as FFG knows this in the design and the packs kind of add onto each other.

Another good option would be to get Khaz and Return to Mirkwood. This will enable you to play the darowdelf cycle, and give you access to Dain ... a key card in may decks. From there you can start collecting and power creep will mean tha you may not ever miss the early card from mirkwood.

wraith428 said:

My suggestion would be to play two player decks at the same time. My win percentage went up from 10%/3% (scenario2/3) to about 50% (slightly above for scenario 2 and slightly below for scenario 3) after making the switch.

The alternative would be getting additional core sets and the cards from the APs and Khazad Dum. With a larger card pool you can create a player deck that has a better chance of beating the scenarios.

However, if you generally enjoy playing video games more than board or card games, this won't help you either.

"Core set is to hard, and you do not want to buy new xpacs.. well guess what? you have bought the WRONG game.. next time do your research."

booored, I didn't mean to set you off into a nerd rage. Sounds like you lack social contact with other human beings, but here's a tip, you don't help new players by being a jack ass on a forum. So keep your mouth shut if you do not have anything productive to say. I did my research by trying one of these games by FFG and I am not impressed, thats all I was saying. I will get a few other x-pacs and give it some more time like Wraith428 suggested. booored, have fun playing with yourself, sounds like you got a lot of practice at that.

Start with Hunt for gollum. It includes the minstrel and the first of the songs which allow mixed decks to work with much better cohesion. Otherwise you can also try a mixed Leadership/ Spirit deck using Aragorn as your leadership Hero as there's a card in there that will allow him to play spirit cards.

Arathorn299 said:

no thats just boooored's way, he is correct though........anyways welcome from me.....this game is indeed incredibly hard after just purchasing the core set and it takes

1.practice and

2.admitedly a bit of money

to get where you want, but you only really need to buy 1 or 2 to start feeling those 'card pool' effects, where your options fly open and the game becomes so much better

i think the biggest point here is you have to give it time--- and i mean about 3/4 months to start getting good at it, i play just solo and there was a time llast year when i never won for ages, but now that win rate you mention is more like 70% (quest depending) for me, and thats lower than many player's.

also again bear in mind that this is, as booored points out, an expanding game, and if it was easy to begin with the motivation to buy new cards just wouldnt be there, though i admit at the start of the core set the scaling was terrible, but it gets evened out by hunt for gollum, which is probably one of the best solo quests out there

comparing this to an online game just cant happen-they are different experiences and if your looking for that try LOTRO-

unlike online games this requires patience.....BUT cards dont break!!!!!! and theres the collectable aspect, with online games you put money in and what are you left with at the end? nothing material, but here you can have a collection that will still be worth money years from now

the artwork is amazing and good enough reason for a lore nerd to stay at it, i dont know if you are or not, but from your username id say you have at least a passing interest in LOTR anyways.....if you are passionate about LOTR i can tell you now there are NO games out there better than this one (solo at least)..believe me i spent time looking

.....thats me sticking up for the game done........lastly.....if people seem to being a bit harsh with you i think its becuse many players pass by here and say similar things to you about not being impressed when they have just bought the game (and im not passing judgement here), but those of us who have been here from its release know how hard it is, and probably feel passionate about dispelling the 'impossible to play' rumours that spring up from time to time- which i can perfectly understand, if i wasnt so passionate about tolkien i dont know if id have stuck with this game while i was waiting for the first adventure packs to come out, seeing as i could only beat 1 quest!!

keep at it and dont give up!! feel free to ask questions if you have more problems- we're a friendly lot i promise

rich

I just can't win... I post what I considered a very informative and helpful post, I suggested alternatives games that do not have this problem witch all rock, and answered the "what pack next" question and still get yelled at... seriously wtf,

The problem of the Core Set is that the quests do scale badly. They were obviously designed primarily for 2 players where the difficulty is about right. With 3 or 4 players, even the hardest Core Set scenario is a walk in the park if players halfway know what they are doing. For solo play, all of them are significantly harder, and the last one (Dol Guldur) is nigh impossible to win solo.
Most of the quests in the adventure packs fare better in this regard (with the exception of Return to Mirkwood). If you stick with it and buy one or more adventure packs, your decks should be stronger, and you will have access to quests that are easier for solo players.
Still, the game plays a lot better with 2 players IMHO. The balance is better, and all the discussions of what to do when is half the fun for me.
Also, your gaming background does matter quite a bit. If you have a CCG background and concepts like card advantage, resource management and quickly seeing what you need to play around and how to do it are second nature to you, the game will be significantly easier than for someone who never played any such games before.
This forum also has quite a few threads with good strategies for beating the second Core Set scenario consistently, even with just a single Core Set and nothing else. Check them out, there is some good advice there.
Hope you will stay with the game!

Trantor said:

yes, i mean a year ago we were all in the same boat- with the exception of glaurung who has seemed to have won consistently without fail!

anyways my point is that there is a years worth of advice posts here, and some of them are absolute gems to help beginners, i advise the OP to check out the rules sub catagory, in which i made a couple of threads which compiled many of the pieces of advice that i refer to

failing that post a message saying your wants and needs, and youll get plenty of replies to help you

Thanks for the post and help ya'll. I just ordered Hunt for Gollum, Rhosgoble and Dead Marshes (Boromir fan). I played the variant where you play 2 decks (tactics/spirit worked out great) against the encounter deck and it seemed more manageable (less hopeless) and I was able to get through the 3rd core set quest in about 3.5 hours. The core Tactics and Spirit deck seemed to have the best synergy and to be the most well rounded against any of the 3 quests. I have been a MTG player since 1994 and it seems deck building will be an interesting challenge in this game. I may have to buy another core set for that extra Unexpected courage, Northern Tracker, etc.

Arathorn,

I should have prefaced my comments with a welcome and good luck!

With that CCG experience, you know the deckbuilding fundamentals - the importantace of resource acceleration, card draw, card synergies, cost vs value, etc. You'll get the LotR themes quickly enough. Some searches in the forum and even some of the FFG articles will give you plenty of ideas if you are interested in getting deckbuilding advice. You might also check out boardgamegeek.com or some of the LotR forums out there.

My general advice to you is to

1) get comfortable with the three primary roles your characters will play (questing, defending and attacking) and try to optimize them (specialists in one or support that allows them to fill multiple roles, etc). Obvious examples are Aragorn with his ability to quest decently, come back and play another role, Eowyn with her questing specialization, support cards like Unexpected Courage that let heroes play multiple roles and, of course, allies that step in and fill different roles. There's lots more obviously. You mentioned being a fan of Boromir - great example of a hero that can play mutliple roles. Get some support cards in that boost his different roles since he can do multiple and then threat management cards to mitigate his threat bumps.

2) Pay attention to the pacing of the different quests. By this, I mean how quickly you want to push to through the stages of a scenario. Sometimes you want to go slow to try to build assets, other times you want to go hard to get through as quickly as possible. I've also found that the pace really adds to the theme if you are into that...the flavor of cautiously scouting for trolls, frantically searching for athelas to stop an ally from dying or trudging through seemingly endless hills comes through in the scenarios well.

3) Also pay attention to threat management - not only can you lose, but there are some scenarios that become MUCH more dangerous as when you hit certain thresholds - obviously from creatures that engage at certain levels but also treachery cards that kick in at certain threat levels.

4) Have fun! You're going to lose some games solo. Some due to bad player card pulls, some to tough encounter pulls and some because you made the wrong call on things! Try to enjoy the challenge. Some of my most memorable games came in losses...Boromir taking out six orcs with his sacrifice ability in the swarms of The Seventh Level of Khazad Dum vainly trying to buy time for his companions who died soooo close to wining was more fun than many wins I've had...

Boored, you really cannot win like this. I too, as the OP, have found your responses totally lacking on social interaction. These boards are supposed to be friendly, you are not, really. When someone disagrees with you, you blame them for it. And then you would call your post a constructive criticism (for whatever unknown reason). There is logic behind it but there are better ways to express oneself. The OP is obviously a novice to the game, and as others have shown, he needs a simple explanation, not some over-reacted rant.

what rubbish... unbelievable...

What booored said man. He has a pretty good grasp on this game. I also get frustrated with the solo version of this game, but I also realize that the point is that it will get easier to create the deck I want (for instance a really good solo dwarf deck, or a solo Gondor deck), as time goes on and more packs come out.

booored said:

That's probably because wirtten text doesn't deliver all of your intentions - joking, arcasm, cynism etc. For what it's worth I don't think your post did cross any line, and yes, it was helpful. I know you didn't want to offend Arathorn, but he felt offended. So why not saying "sorry if you felt offended, didn't mean to" instead of "OMG rubbish".

if he thought that was bad ive got some real gems of posts that booored's directed at me

richsabre said:

And I'm pretty sure you deserved them all.

Wold be cool if booored would pick this avatar here so I could put him in my deck as the angry dwarf:

ooooohhhh harsh....haha

I dont understand you players. You fight for : game is hard. I fight for : game easy. Now the game is more hard what i like but still is not as hard as MTG or Other pvp game. I still think the game can be more hard. I give you deck list of the deck with one you can win every quest(except Dol-Guldor) with scores less then 100:

Total Cards (50)

Hero (3)
Bilbo Baggins (THFG) x1
Frodo Baggins (CatC) x1
Glorfindel (Core) x1

Ally (15)
Gandalf (Core) x3
Gildor Inglorion (THoEM) x2
Gleowine (Core) x1
Haldir of Lorien (AJtR) x2
Henamarth Riversong (Core) x1
Rivendell Minstrel (THFG) x3
The Riddermark's Finest (THoEM) x3

Attachment (21)
A Burning Brand (CatC) x2
Ancient Mathom (AJtR) x2
Fast Hitch (TDM) x3
Forest Snare (Core) x3
Protector of Lorien (Core) x2
Song of Kings (THFG) x1
Song of Travel (THoEM) x1
Steward of Gondor (Core) x3
Unexpected Courage (Core) x2
Boots from Erebor (KD) x2

Event (14)
A Test of Will (Core) x3
Dwarven Tomb (Core) x2
Lore of Imladris (Core) x3
Sneak Attack (Core) x3
The Galadhrim's Greeting (Core) x3

Deck Strategy:

This deck create for beat almost all scenarios. With this deck i make my best scores for most of the quests! You can win all KD quests and all SOM quests. Dol-Guldor i dont think so and Anduin also quite difficult to win. RTM is depend on luck like any other solo decks against this quest.
Quite good deck and dont think please hobbits can do nothing! They very useful in this deck and with Fast hich they can do so many things!

yes but you have played since release Glaurung- a new player will be completely bewildered by the deck you posted. the fact remains that for beginners with a limited card pool this game is still very difficult.

personally right now the game is perfect difficult wise for me

richsabre said:

Eeeee probably you right. Cose anyway what a point to play with scores system of there is no tournaments anyway. But if you play really careful and dont care about 10 scores every round you have time to prepare for everything and win even more sure.

I think i try to play with my friend now mono decks. Cose this will be really challenge to build up 2 mono decks to win all quests.Should be lore/spirit or tactic/spirit or leadership/spirit.

I think people have different ideas of what is hard. A lot of people loose and do not ***** and moan, some people loose and find it a afront. I think a lot of the "difficulty" is how the player perceives loosing. I personally run a custom rule set to make the game much harder, in most cases.. though there are some I make easier. I find that fun...