New Player - What Expansion should I get?

By Igthorn, in The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

Hi All

I am a recent convert to LoTR and am interested in buying one of the expansions. My supplier has given me potentially good prices on the following and I'd like to know what order I should buy the expansions.

I only own the core set at the moment and I play the game both solo and with my ten year old son.

Please tell me why you recommend a particular expansion over another as that helps me with the choice.

Thanks

your choice can depend on several things-

1.difficulty- how hard do you want it to be? hunt for gollum is a decent 'average' level, while dead marshes and emyn muil are much easier, return to mirkwood and rhosgobel are harder

2.player cards in the pack- check out cardgamdb.com to see what player cards are in each pack and which ones you like the look of

3.theme and order- do you want to get the storyline in order? if so again its hunt for gollum. do you like fighting or questing? if fighting get conflict at the carrok if questing emyn muil/dead marshes- again HFG is a nice mixture

so my final pack would be HFG

rich

richsabre said:

your choice can depend on several things-

1.difficulty- how hard do you want it to be? hunt for gollum is a decent 'average' level, while dead marshes and emyn muil are much easier, return to mirkwood and rhosgobel are harder

2.player cards in the pack- check out cardgamdb.com to see what player cards are in each pack and which ones you like the look of

3.theme and order- do you want to get the storyline in order? if so again its hunt for gollum. do you like fighting or questing? if fighting get conflict at the carrok if questing emyn muil/dead marshes- again HFG is a nice mixture

so my final pack would be HFG

rich

Probably HFG. Or go for what's behind door# 2. If you play heavy solo, I'd avoid Emyn Muil for the hero alone.

If you plan on getting them all eventually, I would start with Hunt for Gollum. It's not terribly difficult and is fairly balanced between questing and fighting.

I was having a terrible time with just 1 core set, but in looking at the Adventure Packs, I didn't feel like any single AP would give me enough cards to really expand my deck-building capabilities, so for me it was all or nothing. I ended up buying the entire Shadows of Mirkwood cycle in one week. It has really made me feel like my possibilities have opened up.

I'd have to cast a vote for "All of them! NOW!"

Or failing that, Hunt for Gollum is a good one, as has been said already. Hills of Emyn Muil as a quest is actually pretty decent for further introductions to the game though, I think. There aren't all that many enemies being thrown out of the encounter deck for you to feel overwhelmed (leading to multiple losses, leading to embitterment and so on) though I really don't remember now where all the player cards came from to say whether it's a good pack for them.

How about Conflict at the Carrock? That was ranked as the best scenario by many players. The adventure might seem hard, but if done correctly is quite easy and very satisfying to complete.

Just take the plunge and buy the whole cycle, as others have said it really opens things up!

I'm a staunch lover of buying everything in order though, so i always have to get everything as it comes out!

I'm getting ready to sell mine. 2 core sets, all of the Mirkwood cycle, KD, and the first two from the current cycle.