I play a lot of solo games and I enjoy it, but i really want to play more than 3 heroes. I know i could just pretend that i'm 2 people and play that way, but that doesn't 'feel' right to me. so i've been searching for a way for 1 player to play 6 heroes all in one group. and i reckon i've sussed out a decent way of doing it. and it's pretty easy too.

i call it 'fellowship rules' because it means you can play with a fellowship-sized group of people (…give or take a couple)

basically, all you've got to do is use 2 threat trackers. you still play with one group of cards, all under 1 player's control, but when you add up your heroes' starting threat you divide it in half. and you put each half on one threat tracker.
so if your starting threat is 60, you'd put 30 on each tracker. and if its 61, you'd put 31 on one and 30 on the other.

when you have to add threat to your tracker due to a card effect, or at the end of round, you always add it to the lowest one (if they are both the same then obviously it doesn't matter which one you choose). you are not allowed to split the cost up and put half on each tracker -- you always have to add the whole lot to the lowest one.

and when you have to work out what your threat is during the game, you always take the highest one.

so if your threat trackers were showing 35 and 33, your threat is 35. enemies will engage the entire group at 35.

when it comes to drawing cards, you act as if you are 2 people. you draw 2 cards in the planning stage. and you deal 2 cards in the quest stage. and when it comes to any card effect that talks about the number of players, you always use 2. but you play the game as if you were 1 person. there is no 'first' player.

this doesnt change, even when the number of heroes you control drops below 3. so even if you are down to your very last hero, you still draw 2 cards in the planning and quest stages.

this means that you have a slight advantage at the beginning, because you have the resources of 6 heroes at your disposal, meaning you can get cards out quicker. so instead of dealing myself a starting hand of 6 cards, i just deal 2. this is then compensated by the fact that you will get an extra 2 cards dealt on every subsequent round.

all the other rules stay the same. the only exception is "sentinal". because you are playing as one group you can't use that. but "ranged" is still okay. you can still use ranged cards to help out your other cards.

and thats it! easy peasy

if anyone can give it a try and see what they think, and maybe come up with some improvements too, that would be great. i'm really interested in finding a good way for a solo player to play with more cards.

(also at www.boardgamegeek.com/article/9196626#9196626)

A tweak: instead of adding 1 threat at the end of each round, you add 2.

That way, you can be sure that it will keep pace with what it's supposed to be every 2 rounds.

so, if your threat tracker shows 32 and 31 (total threat 32), it will only go up 1 -- to 32 and 33 (total threat 33).

but if your threat tracker shows 32 and 30 (total threat 32), it will go up none the first round (32 and 32), but 2 the following round (34 and 32) -- so it averages out to 1 a round, which is what its supposed to be.

Cunir said:

It sounds like it may be worth giving a try, but I don't think it's fair to say there is no "first" player. Rather, as with all solo games, the solo player is both the first and the last player. otherwise you are making a bunch of encounter effects useless.

Also, if you are one player playing as two people then Ranged keywords wouldn't matter either. Let's say we're using Thalin, Legolas, Gimli, Aragorn, Dain, & Theodred, If an enemy engages you it doesn't matter if Aragorn defends and Legolas and Gimli Attack together, any monster engaged to you is engaged to you, not another player which is when Ranged would come into play. The exception to that I guess would be an enemy that Requires the Ranged keyword to attack or defend.

sure, that's what the old rules say. but these new rules say you can use ranged even though you're in one group.