Hey there guys

I bought this game (Core Set only) recently and ive managed to play 5 games already with another friend. im amazed on how much we love to play this game! it was really a surprise!!! Anyway, the first two were easy wins against the first scenario, each of us playing with only one symbol at a time just to feel each deck.

Then, we moved to Journey through the Anduin (?), mixed our decks but, after 3 games, i must say we havent been successful at all. We've tried 3 different decks with different combinations, each time improving our score (our last sets were Eowyn / Theodred / Eleanor and Gimli / Legolas / Denethor). I also tried Dunhere but it takes a lot of time to kill something i believe and i prefer to have other heroes...

The thing is, while i really believe we can win with these heroes, i feel like both decks (50 cards each) are lacking allies, specially if we consider that this scenario has a lot of enemies, with several surge cards and the fact that during stage 2 we draw 3 cards instead of 2.

Considering this, i was wondering if you could give me some advice on how to build decks with only 1 core set and also which combinations of heroes are better, again with only the core set

thanks!

hello, welcome to the game

first off, building decks with core set is tougher than when you get a few adventure packs, but certainly possible. certainly the first thing to say is, one of you really needs to run spirit to get some key cards:

test of will

hasty stroke

unexpected courage

without treachery cancellation things will go bad quickly, so test of will is almost a must include, and interestingly the designers, 2 and a half years in are only starting to tackle this problem now.

so with that said, things become more complicated. when people ask these questions, its often useful to ask how experienced you are at card games. i have played this game since its release but at the start i used to throw decks together with what looked like the best heroes, but actually did work as a deck at all

the most important part of a deck is its heroes as you have realised. poor heroes will make a deck bad no matter how good the cards. however the heroes should really compliment each other. if you are playing 2 player, then i personally would stay away from 3 sphere decks, and have 2 spheres each. the best combinations are lore/spirit and leadership/tactics. that way you have a deck naturally good at questing, healing and card draw, and a deck that is good at resource generation and fight and defending (and the allies that you want with it)

so for the lore/spirit. well denethor is less useful in 2 player than solo, so i would probably go for beravor who is a strong hero. then you can either go for another lore hero, or 2 spirit heroes. eowyn is the best quester but thats all she is good for. if you have a fighting deck then that isnt really a problem. dunhere really becomes better with some attatchments, which you can put in the tactics deck and play them on him over the table ...such as dwarven axe or blade of gondolin

you may want to keep the weapons for the tactics heroes however, it depends on how useful you want dunhere to be.

as for the tactics/leadership deck, well you really need to consider keeping threat low, which is tricky here. legolas is a great hero. put the blades on him and you can put 4 progress for every enemy he kills! then you can have 2 leadership or another tactics hero. aragorn is a good hero as he can quest and ready for 1 cost. get steward of gondor on him to help this out (another must have card). then i would perhaps go for thalin, another great hero to have questing as he kills the surge crows (annoying arent they?) before they surge. get the axes on him to give him +4 attack for a 6 attacker. if he is questing you will want to play unexpected courage across the table on him so he can ready to attack.

so there you have perhaps aragorn defending, then, if the enemy is an orc, legolas with the blades and thalin with the axes gives you 11 attack!

as for the anduin quest. well the 11 attack is certainly useful. the troll will engage the tactics deck 1st turn which means you need a good set up hand- remember to mulligan for feint which is one of the best tactics card there is. feint the troll and then hit it hard. i cant remember its stats but i doubt you will kill it 1 turn so prepare to need a back up plan. this could be either;

1. take an ally and have it killed, and take the threat. use this if you have a galadrims greeting to lower the threat again

2. use forest snare and trap it

you can of course use an ally first turn if you dont have feint, or even both turns, but your threat will go up.

this is sort of how i approach deck building. hope its helpful- any questions just shout!

rich

thanks!! what a great reply! ill try that ASAP and see how it goes:)

thanks again!

happy to help! let me know how it goes

Howdy Kopos.

Rich has provided some really good advice above. I just wanted to let you know that have also covered this very topic on my blog in a series called Beorn's Path. I built two decks (Leadership/Lore and Tactics/Spirit) that I used to play the core set scenarios. After that, I am playing through the adventure packs in the Shadows of Mirkwood cycle, adding only cards from each pack to my deck as I play it. I provide in-depth analysis of the deck building decisions as well as strategy specific to each scenario. Hopefully you find this helpful. The articles can be found here:

http://hallofbeorn.wordpress.com/beorns-path/

with the specific articles for Journey Along the Anduin:

deck building - http://hallofbeorn.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/beorns-path-part-3-deck-tuning/

session report - http://hallofbeorn.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/beorns-path-part-4-journey-along-the-anduin/

great site! can i use the Leadership / Lore (Journey) and Tactics / Spirit (Escape from Dol Goldur) to play "Journey..." scenario? im going to play again tonight and i would like to try these decks and also richsabre's.

Thanks!

Hi Kopos,

As another player new to the game, I thought I would share my recent experiences with you.

Having struggled to get through Journey Down the Anduin on my own with a mixed Tactics/Spirit deck, my son and I managed to blitz through it over the weekend in no time at all and had a great game.

To be fair, we do only have the Core Set (at the moment!) and played the basic 30-card decks (I took Spirit and he had Tactics) so I appreciate that they aren't techincally legal 50 card decks but it was a lot of fun.

I focused on questing with Eowyn and any Northern Trackers or Lorien Guides that came through while my son focused on engaging and defeating enemies with Gimli, Legolas and some Gondorian Spearmen and Veteran Axehands. I used Dunhere's ability to attack enemies in the staging area here and there and he used Thalin to quest each turn to make the most of his ability.

(By the way Rich, it's good to know that Thalin's ability kicks in BEFORE the crows surge! - we were applying the surge first )

We have started to appreciate some more of the strategy that comes into the games (such as weighing up whether to cancel treachery cards with Eleanor or whether to travel to a location or not) and it has added to our enjoyment of the game. We had some good discussions about our strategy during the game.

Again, I do appreciate that the starter decks are limited and that we did have a healthy slice of luck in this game (he drew Feint, Stand Together and Thicket of Spears in his first hand and we didn't need Gandalf at all) but we really enjoyed the teamwork aspect with each of us having our own job to do (questing or fighting).

We're going to have a crack at Escape from Dol Guldur in our next play session and see how we get on but I can see us having to rethink our decks and strategy a little to take that one on but we're looking forward to the challenge!

Are there any rules on deck building? I am new to LOTR LCG and i only have the core set at this time. What is the minimum amount of cards? Could I literally pick the best cards only? Thanks!

Are there any rules on deck building? I am new to LOTR LCG and i only have the core set at this time. What is the minimum amount of cards? Could I literally pick the best cards only? Thanks!

For decks used in official events, the deck must have at least 50 cards, with no more than 3 copies of any one card of the same title (except for a few "limit one per deck" cards specified on the card text). And you have to pick 1 to 3 heroes, too.

Thanks for the response. One last thing if you would be so kind to answer. Since I'm playing solo, if I were to pick two heroes from the tactics sphere, and one here from the spirit sphere, is it up to me what cards I could include in my deck and how many? For instance, could I select 10 cards from spirit and all tactic, or 20 cards spirit and 20 cards tactic, etc? Could I also pick only ally cards? I appreciate your help in this.

Yeah, no restrictions regarding sphere and card type (ally/attachment/event). You could make a deck with 3 Lore heroes and nothing but Leadership cards if you so wished!

Awesome. Thanks so much!