So, I have two friends who are not hobby gamers but love playing this game. One of them, a fellow named Dan, want's to buy some, but aonly has enough in his budget for one core and two expansions. He doesn't have the funds to buy all expansions/adventure packs (even online) but loves the game enough to give it a whirl. If it were your pal, what two would you reccomend. I own all of them to date, and two cores. He also wants to be able to play independent of me, so please factor in his desire to whip it out at an obscure family event without needing me there to provide a well rounded experience.

THANK YOU ALL!!!!

Two from the first cycle, obviously. Not Hills for sure.

yes- only being able to afford core makes his choices any of mirkwood. i would say just do the obvious- HFG and Conflict

these two are two of the best, hfg being nicely rounded and conflict giving plenty of fighting action for a change. they are in order if he likes storyline and he's playing the game as it came out so wont be missing any cards needed in future combos

rich

I agree. Go in order. I am brand new to the game - I picked up the core set and will pick up the 1st expansion sometime next week. From there, I'll just buy them in the order they were released.

I'm going to go in the exact opposite direction the other replies have gone in this thread. Not to say they're wrong or anything, just a different way of playing, and a different value of what cards I would try and get. Instead of the first two, I would get the last two. Since Dan is just shooting for two AP's on a budget, I have to assume he is trying to look for the best bang for his buck in the player card department. While Frodo and Bilbo (first two Mirkwood heros) are decent, I just really don't use them all that often (Bilbo NEVER in multiplayer), and the "good" cards from those two sets (obviously an objective term) that I would consider worthwhile are: Winged Guardian (for defense), Longbeard Mapmaker, and Burning Brand. The last two sets give you Boromir and Dain as heros. Boromir of course is an excellent Tactics staple, and Dain is still very useful even without all the dwarven goodies that followed in KD/DD. He can be used with Gimli, Thalin, and Gloin from the core set to give his boost… And the "good" cards from the last two sets that I would consider puttin gin a deck would be Mirkwood Runner (rare Lore attacking ability), West Road Traveller (solid questing plus active location manipulation), Vassal of the Windlord, Fast Hitch (but only if he plans on getting Hobbits at some point… lol), and the Dunedain Watcher is a solid ally for Leadership.

I think I would tend to agree with the other comments if it were only a single AP (passing up Burning Brand would be hard… probably the best non-hero card in the cycle, other than Gildor), but since you said two specifically, I think the combination of Eagle cards in the last two sets fit better than the first two. And with the other non-hero cards between those 4 sets being relatively equal, it's the interplay of the Eagle cards that does it for me. He's obviously not going to be able to build an entire Eagle deck without getting pretty much the entire Mirkwood cycle, but the combination of the Vassal of the Windlord (cheap big attack), Eagles of the Misty Mountain (discard the Vassal after attack to buff), with the Support of the Eagles attachment to drop on Boromir or Gimli makes for a better mini-theme combo to me than what the first two decks have to offer.

Again, just my opinion. And the downside is getting Return to Mirkwood as an encounter, which would be pretty much unplayable as a solo quest with any limited card pool.

I have an extra unopened copy of "Return to Mirkwood". Give me your friend's address and he can have it.