i wish that the cards could be used in most scenarios, sort of more generic. still what does everyone think?

Looks interesting ! Nightmare Dol Guldur promises some challenges !

I'm a bit worried about the cost of these expansions…

richsabre said:

I think if they were more generic you would be sacrificing thematic elements for saving money. I'm quite happy with them being upgrade cards that only work with one specific deck (for the same reason that I'm quite happy to have decks that are generic and decks which are scenario specific).

My only concern is that they intend to make them PoD expansions - which means they'll be obviously different from the other cards, however if they work as a seperate deck (the nightmare deck, draw 1 a turn - or something to that effect) that would be okay. Alternatively they could be replace the encounter deck with teh nightmare deck (which with only 20 or so cards, would be a highly themed and constructed deck in all probability).

I would like to know, more about the competitive play (is it comparing scores for different players/teams), and also if they card quality of the game night kits is better than PoD quality or the same.

Escape From Dol Guldur is already a nightmare!

I find the Core quests and Mirkwood adventures the right level for me using cards from these sets. Do the later Expansions and Quest packs have more powerful cards meaning the earlier quests are less challenging, hence the need for a Nightmare version?

Interested to see what prices these will be.

AjiTae said:

Yea cause thats what Dol Guldur needs, a freaking nightmare difficulty. :S

Sounds good but…… I though those new decks will work for all Mirkwood cycle but here is only core set quests…..

Also if this will be print of demant cards and you use transparent sleeves you can see different from the core set cards……

I don't care too much about the print quality. Being the new cards half of the deck, is pretty hard to know what's coming.

Migwald said:

Actually, the central card from the 5 on the advertisement is the 'Dol Guldur' nightmare set-up card. It increases the number of prisonners to 2 for 3 palyers and 3 for 4 players (had to do a little zooming ), but not for 1 or 2 players.

So the increase for solo-duo game will be marginal in comparison to 3 or 4 players. The quest was fairly easy for 2-3-4 competitive constructed decks already, with very few cards scaling with the number of players. So it looks fine to me for now.

I'd like to add that Nightmare mode (being used on old quests) is a great idea to increase the game's longlevity - it means they can address power creep by allowing the old decks to gain creep as well as the new ones.

That means more cards, and card variety for both the forces of Shadow, and the player.

I'm really excited about spreading the word about LOTR:LCG to my game store. I'm going to try my hardest to get them to get one of these kits!
I like the idea of the nightmare scenarios, should be fun. But for beginner players, they won't be as interested in this. I guess I have a month to try and go convert some Magic players…

Ahh… I'm not such a skilled player, to be perfectly honest. Averaging my win percentage across all scenarios, I'm at like 60%. I am will these things at arms' length!

Has anyone tried the nightmare mode mentioned in the rule book, where you attempt all 3 core set quests, one after the other, without resetting damage, threat, etc.?

Escape from Dol Goldur is insanely challenging already… for one or two players. In a four player game, it's ridiculously easy. Journey Down the Anduin is similar.

Remember these are designed for "game nights" when you're trying to get a bunch of players together. Presumably, most of the table will have three or four players.

I do think that some of the later quests do actually become more difficult when you have more players (Road to Rivendell springs to mind), but that's very much not the case with the core set quests.

divinityofnumber said:

I haven't heard anyone mention it recently, but I recall the consensus generally being that unless you reset the player decks (which it specifically says not to do), it was actually REALLY EASY, because you'd be going into the harder quests with a bunch of Allies and Attachments already in play.

divinityofnumber said:

Yes. It's impossible solo with the core cards. I only made it with a dwarf deck and Nori (ohauh) for threat control, Bilbo (hfg) for draw ability and Dain (rtm) for combat. Even then dang near impossible.

gatharion said:

I believe new FAQ says reset decks and turn in resources. Only carry damage and threat from quest to quest. You can make it harder too: after Mirkwood leave the undefeated enemies in the game after defeating "spawn" when starting JDTA. Tried that one for S and giggles, didn't make it.

Glaurung said:

This will be a problem for me.

richsabre said:

Still, this might be an even better approach, particularly since future game kits will probably offer nightmare mode for further scenarios. The POD quality might be an issue but it's not a dealbreaker for me.

I believe that this is what FFG was going to do for those who went to Minneapolis in November for the World Championship weekend. They cancelled the event but did not really discuss why or what was going to happen except for the promotional information that they supplied right before the weekend went off.

My guess is that the cards were either not ready or did not arrrive on time.

I am really interested in trying these out before I pass on judgement. That said, I do agree that DG was hard enough on its own.