I'm really not so sure that im liking the cards in this new pack. Don't get me wrong, they are very good but that's the thing that I dont like about them. It's changing the game so much. People are saying that they are getting amazing scores and stuff with the outlands decks. I'm not so fond of having a deck thats just all high stat characters. I hope they dont make this type of deck any better than it is as it seems it is one of the most powerfull decks so far. Of course if I dont like the outlands deck so much than I dont have to play it but I just hope In this cycle that all the other decks dont start to turn usless and forgoten. It seems now that we are getting more and more powerfull cards and the quests are also getting more and more harder. This leaves all the other quests so easy that they just arnt even worth playing.

Umm what are your thoughts??

Khamul

I don't really care about the Outlands deck being so powerful as much as I care about the other decks being so much weaker… Kinda like what happened with the Dwarves.

im still waiting here in uk for the pack to arrive, but looking at the cards without playing them i can see they have a very unique style of play that wont be suited with all players. i am very much looking forward to them….though will they make favourite decks uselss? well i dont think so. my tactics/flight team will still be better overall i think…well it will be in my hands, i do not personally think the outlands will suit my play style, even though i am looking forward to trying them

rich

Well I'm just hoping that decks won get so powerful that only the latest quests will be a challenge. It seems like maybe this latest kind of deck might be leading that way. But is that why they are making nightmere packs for the previous quests? I don't really know anything about those.

Khamul The Easterling said:

yes nightmare is really difficult. Dol-Guldor is crazy dificult nightmare. We win only 1 time and it was very very cool! I cannot wait for second nightmare pack. And third cycle will be amazing im sure!

I wouldn't worry too much. I agree that making the player decks so much more powerful and, in response, making the quests more difficult. But I don't think the old quests will always be too easy due to this. I'd like to see how well an Outlanders deck would do in Escape from Dol Guldor when Hirluin is the prisoner, especially when you doing a secrecy deck with him. Or how about him getting Sacked! in Conflict at the Carrock? The Outlanders decks have a couple weaknesses:

1. Central Hero: Hirluin. If something bad happens to him early in a game, things can go downhill pretty fast

2. Pretty weak without the allies in play. If you draw poorly and don't get your allies quickly enough, you're stuck with one of the weakest heroes in the game without a helpful ability. If you don't have any of the Lore allies out, a simple Necromancer's Reach can wipe out a large number of allies.

3. Every time you lose an ally, you lose 1 stat from all of your Outlands characters. A simple chump block can mean losing much more than just an ally card.

Obviously, once you start piling the allies on, those weaknesses dissipate quite quickly, but that doesn't mean the deck isn't susceptible. From what I've been reading, the Outlanders deck isn't flawless and still fails quests some times. I think that once people have played the Outlanders decks enough, they'll soon be tired of "easy mode" and try something new and different. I feel that the other new cards coming in this cycle will offer enough possible new deck options that people won't be sticking with Outlands too long.

At the very least, I think that the fact that they're releasing Nightmare packs will definitely make the older quests more replayable as the card pool gets stronger.

I've played a bunch of games with Outlands decks. I'd be as bold to say that they may be better than Dain Dwarf decks. I've beat the most difficult quests with them, Including Dol Gulder. In fact the time I won was when Hurluin was captured. I just crushed the Battle of Laketown in 5 round with a score of 69 , and was also able to get all the treasures from the Lonely Mountain scenario. How about Shadow and Flame, Score 57. HoN Quests, yes them too. I beat all the Hobbit scenarions with a Secrecy deck of Glorfindel Spirit and Hurluin and never modifed the deck throughout the whole thing. I've even beat JDtA, CatC and the 7th Level with Hurluin as my only hero, and on the seventh level I got my best score ever of 57.

I'm not bragging here, yes I have beaten these quests before, but never with such ease, Before I struggled with some of the difficult quests, and some like Laketown were never easy victories. Sure, I've lost with Oulands deck too, and horrobly so sometimes, there not Invincible, but do they make the game, as it stands now, easier. HELL YES! I mean beating a quest with one hero was unheard of, at least for me, even two seemed almost impossible.

I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on the nightmare packs. I'm sure they will put the oulanders in their place. I hope so at least.

I played a few games two handed with Glaurung's Dain deck and my Outland deck. I made a few adjustmants for Stward of Gondor and such. I kept it in the Hurluin deck and gave Thorin the Gaining Strength card. But, wow the outlands deck was putting allies into play just as quick as the dwarves, if not quicker. If outlands gets any other synergy cards, watch out.

All this is not to say that they are boring to play, instead I find them really interesting, and it has pushed me to really work on figuring out a good deck that will play well. There is also a lot of strategy to make sure you can keep your outland army in play in the early game, but once they are set up you could ealy quest for over 20 and attack for over 20 in the same round with out having to ready any of your characters to do so.

As for the Encounter set it's a lot of fun and unpredictable. I have not even tried another deck on it, I've only used the Outland deck so far. And some time it's very easy, and sometimes the Zealous tratior does my allies in, and it can be quite hard. The scenario keeps you in suspense with the underworld deck, you never know what your going to have to deal with when a location is explored, and sometimes there will be 1-3 baddies revealed all at once. Some plots will down right finish you off. The only thing that I have found anti-climatic is the boss fight at the end. By that time in the game when the villian shows up, I'm so prepared to attack, it's a one hit finish. But, maybe ithe boss fight would be more challenging with a non-outland deck. It's a clever scenario.

Tracker1 said:

Sounds very interesting! Listen my friend maybe you cana make some videos as i do? Will be cool to see your way of playing this game!

I create 2 new decks for 2 players game with my friend. We play now monno leadership Thorin/Balin/Dain and Ori/Bombur/Nori. Amazing powerful even better then Thorin Company deck. We able to win Dol-Guldor solo Nightmare. This is most difficult quest in the game now.

You will like nightmare cards.

Played the quest twice now once with 4 people a second time solo

First was with 4 people…we used the 4 mono color decks i made for the challenge on this board. Was really challenging and a lot of fun but we won. Theres so many cool innovations in this quest and its awesome to see the creativeness at which FFG desgning this game with. I will agree the last "boss" was somewhat anticlimatic (ours was the daughter of whatever…was taken down by a sneak attacked gandalf (4 damage power) and spear of the citadel) but the Plots are just nuts. The "best" plot is the one that adds an extra card during staging which really shows how nasty they are

2nd attempt i used a newly made Hirluin deck and believe it or not I LOST!!!!!

had 3 copies of all the outlanders aside from the ether swordsman, was on stage 2 coasting along, then BOOM out came 2 zealous traitors from the "underground" of the location i had just cleared… everyone dead just like that. I actually held on for ahwile becasue using will of the west, stand and fight, and a very good tale, i was able to recoup a lot of the allies in little time, but the plot in this game was the burning town (whichever gradually makes u discard from your deck) and it made me just plow through my deck before i could finish even despite my 2 copies of will of the west (which were discarded from the plot's effect)

looking forward to taking this quest on a lot more times. I also really like how the questing mechanic works in this, in that its not mandatory to have a ton off willpower, you really only need enough to quest positively and clear locations, nothing extra is helpful. I'm guessing this is to help mono sphere decks whom may not have the willpower, atk, or defense to succesfully clear standard, battle, and siege quests respectively

Now my next project is to make a deck based soley around Aragorn because of his ring which was included in this AP. Have some really exciting ideas for it. I'll post a deck list after i make it and test it here

Glaurung said:

I have a friend who plays with Thorin/Balin/ Dain. He thinks it's one of the strongest decks in the game and from what I've seen it do I kind of agree. I could never quite settle on a good partner deck. I tried Ori, bomber and Bifur once, and it was pretty good, but something lacking. Maybe Nori. I woul be real interested to see what you came up at some point, maybe in the future you will share them. And some thoughts on how the two work together.

I'm real tempted to do some videos, I have in the past, but it was very poor filming. I need some better equipment, and then I'll start doing it.

Very interested to hear what others think of the outlands trait after they use them.

I have just used them, first solo, a usual drawing deck but I was more interested in coop. After a few day consideration, I made the following:

Boromir, Hirluin the Fair, Elrond for a quite thematic Gondor and Outlands deck. The Gondor part is of course little developed but they helped bringing many allies in. The deck had 34 (out of 50) ally cards, Steward, Vilya, Tale, Sneak, Stand and Fight and a piece of Grim Resolve (just for fun). I really liked this line-up despite starting at 32 threat. It wouldn't do well solo, probably, but coop - with the other being a defending deck - it was truly great.

The companion deck was Beregond, Beravor, Glorfindel. This deck was of course to make the beginning lighter on the Outlands, Beregond was defending throughout the game, slowly becoming more and more invicible. I played Osgiliath. In the end, round 7, he had Gondorian Shield, Spear of the Citadel, Unexpected Courage, Song of Wisdom and A Burning Brand; this is probably nothing new for some but it was the first time I upgraded him so well, and it was fun.

Altogether, I like playing Outlands better than playing Dwarves, but I didn't like playing Dwarves as much. This is new, of course, but it does seem more interesting to me. I like the choices of which boosters to bring in first. It shall really change from quest to quest. Usually the Herdsman is the key but sometimes not needed at all.

I'm not keen on the way the game has gone since the Hobbit quests and Numenor. I have stopped buying expansions and now only play the game occasionally (back in Dwarrowdelf, I played the game A LOT).

jrd said:

why is that?

rich

Tracker1 said:

Yes this mono leadirship Thorin/Dain/Balin is easy can be most powerful deck in the game for now.

I should to put here deck lists. This 2 decks really really good work together. I must to get SOF soon. Will try those outlanders as well.

My 2 pennies worth…

At the moment outlands look to be very strong, though I don't think they are as overpowered as some seem to think. I don't personally see a problem with a new strong deck type emerging, as this is not a player vs player game - its not like magic, where generally a couple of strong deck types rule a format.

I saw this as FFG trying to create a new "jumping on" point for new players - Core, Heirs and Stewards Fear now let you build a pretty strong deck without going back and getting mirkwood/dwarrodelf and the duluxe/saga expansions. This lets new players get into the game with a decent deck without too much initial outlay.

At the moment I quite like the outlanders deck, but i also see it as something I'm going to get bored with quickly and build something else.

As for the quest - nicely designed, good replayability. I've played it a half dozen times so far with several different decks, and only scored one win so far. But it doesn't feel too hard for a solo player, like some of the quests do, it seems just the right level of challenging.

CaffeineAddict said:

I think this hits the nail on the head. A lot of new players were turned off by the fact that they can't easily pick up the core set and HofN and be effective. Now with this first AP a new player gets a highly effective deck in just one box and should be able to play through the rest of the AP cycle without having to buy AP's that are two years old (and in many cases out of print!)

I think it's a smart move from FFG to address one of the big problems people have with this game. I suspect that in future AP's we won't see the kind of mono-theme like we saw from Steward's Fear. They've done that and can now return to fleshing out gondor and monosphere decks.

With regards to the quest itself, I'm really enjoying it. I like that it's highly replayable and the synthesis of mechanics, story and flavor is excellent. People are comparing this Emyn Muil but it's sooooo much better than that random wander through the mountains. I really love the direction that FFG is taking this game in terms of building a story, almost like a card based RPG. Keep up the good work Caleb and FFG!